Skills Audit

Over the past year I feel that I have developed a range of skills since studying at Westminster Kingsway. To be able to perform well and truthfully within your character, there are a set of skills one must have. For example ;We practice during rehearsal times, vocal exercises. This consists of  ; E, A, I, O, U pronunciations which refines clarity within your speech so you sound clear. It help with skills like , "diction", because you want the audience to hear you clearly. It's no use , being a decent actor , but your audience cant make out what you are saying, you want to sell the story to them and your talent. 

 I am quite a confident actor. I know I have certainly grown in confidence since starting the course this time last year. I like to take on a challenge, and it pushes me outside my comfort zone because yes you are on stage, but your taking form of a character, so if the character you are portraying is quite eccentric then you have to put a side a section of own self to the back of your mind, and become a different person that isn't you. I am quite a loud performer, which out of all the skills I have , would probably be the best one. It isn't about trying to be louder than the rest of the cast, or the one that gets heard over everyone else, because then you wouldn't be cooperating well with the other performers and would make the actor seem selfish and self centred. There is a fine line between cockiness and confidence , however. Being loud helps the audience with hearing the story. It also aids with showing that you're brave , which is quite an important trait when it comes to confidence. When I had started,  my nerves somewhat  caused my legs to stiffen, resulting in my walk look less natural. However since practising standing in neutral has helped my balance and helped my walk look more natural, because it had looked like I couldn't bend at the knees. It was just a nerve thing, but I have channelled that out , and I'm more used to performing in front of larger audiences now. I am good with dynamics and proxemics. I don't like standing in just one spot, I like to use the whole space. when performing on stage you bet loads of space to have your character being focused on. why waste all that space by standing in one spot, off stage its rare you get a lot of stage to perform in, especially in class. 

I am a very determined actor. when I get there, I know where I want to go with the characters I play. I experient playing the scenes differently during rehearsal, trying different ways of how the scene could go and if one is successful I stick to that because when reading about the characters initially I know immediately, roughly where this could go but the rehearsals help deciding the final destination. knowing that the set of skills we are required to have, is needed to progress onto drama school or university, I have a drive for expressing the skills I know I have. Sometimes, I used to get comfortable playing characters with the same qualities, but I feel that I have shown my development of characterisation, because not everybody is the same. If you have researched your character and given them a back story for the circumstances that they are now in the play, then it helps to form characteristics that they may have. Rehearsal techniques like hot-seating really does help because you find out more about the character through the type of questions that asked, and the answers you think of; the questions help you think more and delve down the path you want your character to go, and then it will help become them. 

Sharons lesson - 19th/09

The fundamental skills that we learnt today was knowing the importance of punctuation within a text or speech. It isn't the case of knowing what the punctuation is, but why it's there; the coma's are so that it allows you to perhaps change reaction adding naturalism to your performance. The full stop allows the actor to perhaps take a breather between lines and not rush them. one of the most important aspects to drama is that you must take your time while saying your speech. Its supposed to be an emotional and natural conversation essentially with the audience, they wont get any of that if you run a way with your words. 

Sharon was helping us prepare for our monologues and led a few helpful techniques for rehearsing monologues. As it is our final year at college, we are learning monologues so we can perform at auditions. The first exercise we did was saying only the first word of each sentence. Then we reached the end of the monologue we said the last word of each sentence. This helped to learn our monologues better; now you know when you begin your sentences and when to stop them. when you know when you start/stop you know where to place your breaks so you can take in the moment, feel like you're there at the scene and not on stage. It also shows you what words you must emphasise to add the realism of your speech. The next exercise we carried out was running up to someone when saying a sentence then saying the next sentence with a slower pace, then repeat till you finish the monologue. This conveys the energy you need to fill in that given sentence so you feel all the adrenalin rush when you are saying the line and it feels natural in that moment feeling the feelings in that moment, and then the ultimate switch and come down when they are more calmer taking in what they are saying. 

overall, they are good rehearsal techniques because even if tackling the true meaning of Shakespeare is hard, by reading and half interpreting the text and knowing what lines to emphasise, you will understand the text and character more clearly. It appears more natural and the audience will understand it better because they understand through emotion than the actual text itself. 

25/09/19

Today we played a warm-up exercise which experiments with physical theatre. One person from the class stands in the middle of the circle. Sharon/Shenagh would say become a washing machine, (you would have to do the action of a washing machine and do the sound). Then anyone can walk into the centre and act out a scene with multiple people playing different everyday objects. Next we all became the scenery of a park. I chose to be a swing and joined up with one person who was playing a tree so , with their hands in the air I was holding onto them looking like I was swinging. 

We then got back into the circle and studied the "quality of mercy is not strained " from the Merchant of Venice. What I believe is happening is that a woman is at trial begging that she be forgiven by what she has been prosecuted against. She believes that the prosecutor is getting a bit above his station and that his "temporal power" will soon wear off - yet should let mercy overcome him instead and set her free even though she knows deep down that wont happen. For what she has or hasn't done it is shown that he will "play god" when deciding whether she will be sent down or freed. They are Jewish whom are prosecuting against her , and for me this mirrors the biblical story where Jesus, who was starting Christianity, was prosecuted by the Jews because by calling himself (Jesus) the messiah they thought he was going up against god. She believes that god has mercy and that he should do too, but his simple request at his will and doing could send her down for something she may not have done. 

We then studied an extract the play " East " by Playwright Steven Berkoff . 

It set the scene where two parents were telling their children of times of better; as they were describing the children and parents both become the scene with tableaus and miniature scenes for example, "rollercoasters" or "ghost trains" to describe the funfair the parents enjoyed themselves at.

Berkoff's techniques are more pantomime-esque because when you play his characters you tend to understand the characters from the outside-in. You play them big and their inner emotions are shown from the inside by playing them from the outside. Its a useful technique because when someone's emotions are played melodramatically you can entertain the audience while they may also feel sorry for the characters. in contrast to previous practitioners that we have studied, like Stanislavsky, He teaches actors to explore the characters emotion from the inside-out. this is where naturalism comes into acting because you take the depth of the characters emotion and shine it to the audience through the outside. The characters appear like a lamp of motion essentially , the lightbulb (internal emotion) is inside the lamp and the lamp shade (your body and skin) protects it. But when it clicks within the actor that what they are feeling is true to the character's and in that given circumstances the light will shine through and show the audience the raw emotion , same way how no matter if the lampshade protects the bulb, the light will still flood through when its switched on.