Week 23: A Woman Alone

Introduction to A Woman Alone

Before we actually began working on the script, we were asked to buy it and I decided that I would research into previous performances of it and see what my first impressions of the synopsis was. 

A short synopsis that I found about the play said:

"Locked up in a flat, a solitary woman makes her confession. Amid domestic chores, dodgy phone calls, a sex-mad brother-in-law and a forever screaming baby she tells us the story of how her love for a young student led to her imprisonment at the hands of her jealous husband. Through farce to tragedy, her story propels the audience to its shocking climax."

My first impressions of the text was that it would be initially very hard for one person on stage to express the journey of emotions that they go through whilst explaining the story in a way that the audience can understand. I felt that the woman is very head-strong and will stick to her roots and what she knows is right.

I look at this website:

http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/a-woman-alone-etcetera-theatr-14186

And I thought that the photos on this website were a good representation of the roller-coaster of emotions that she goes through. After seeing this pictures I tried to imagine what it would be like for a group of people to perform this instead of one and I thought that it could have it's advantages as you wouldn't have to rely on one person to show all the different emotions and it may be clearer for the audience of the story-line that it going on beneath it if there were more people to look at and identify with.

 I searched for videos on YouTube of clips from performances of A Woman Alone and I found this one:

https://youtu.be/bDs_eFkAWnQ

I found these clips very interesting as it shows how the comedy can be placed in it and because we are thinking about doing it in a Berkoff style, we could emphasise the comedic points. Also if we were adapting her performance into a Berkoff style, we could make her facial expressions more extreme and have her more staccato in her movements so that we emphasise the fact that she is the only person on stage.

Week 23: Berkoff

Monday

Today we were introduced to the new practitioner that we will be studying: Steven Berkoff. Berkoff originally studied drama and mime in London and Paris before creating the London Theatre Group in 1968. His plays have been performed in many different languages, in many different countries.
He has worked with a variety of practitioners like Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht and Jacques Lecoq who had similar interest to Berkoff: mime. Berkoff worked alongside Lecoq when he attended Lecoq's school in Paris in 1965, this meant that he was able to understand Lecoq's beliefs in theatre, including mime. Berkoff has clearly taken on board Lecoq's style of mime and made it something unique which was one of Lecoq's beliefs.

Berkoff is completely juxtaposing to the Stanislavski style that we have worked in previously in Antigone as its very eccentric and fast pace whereas we performed Antigone as real as possible because it was true emotion that was behind the lines and we were delivering a story that has actually happened.

We began to delve into Berkovian theatre with an exercise where we had to, initially, make the most over-exaggerated facial expression that you could and show it to the group. We then had to "peel" the face off as though it was a mask and throw it to someone else in the room. The person who "caught" the expression then had to cover their face and reveal the same expression that was past onto them. They then had to change their face into a juxtaposing expression and "throw " it to someone else. I feel like this represented the way that you can have an expression on your face but it's really just a mask that is hiding what you truly feel and Berkoff wanted the actors to extremely externalize their characteristics, for example, if we were doing that exercise with an audience present then they would be able to know what we were feeling and our intentions by our extreme expressions and body language.

We wanted to create a character that we could adopt and so we chose our favourite expression that we could sustain for a long period of time, so that the continuity made the character more believable, and we began to create our character by adjusting our body language first. Lecoq believed that a character's body language could be found by imaging that you have placed your nose on the edge of a wheel and you move your body in order for your nose to remain on the wheel. You then stop yourself at a point where you feel is most comfortable and suits your character, you then adopt this position as your characters body language. This part of process was called physicalisation.

As you walk around and begin to really immerse yourself in your character you feel your voice changing into an accent for your character. Once we had completed the process for getting our characters finished, we then began to put our characters in comical situations. Our first scenario was a blind date so one of the characters had come early and was already sat down. I found the actual act of sitting down very difficult as we had to maintain the character's posture the whole time and that included sitting down! My character was very lazy and grumpy so I had my arm crossed at all times unless I was reaching for something. My walk was on my tip toes with straight legs which meant that when I was sat down my legs were stretched out in front of me. My partner's character was constantly surprised and so when I wouldn't talk and only responded with grunts it became quite comical as the only word that she replied with was "OK."

We were then mixed up again so that we got to see in our characters in different situations and we became 3 aspects of someone's personality. Because I was so laid-back and lazy, I was the person's ambitions which this person obviously had none. Another character was the person's sex drive as she was very creepy and in your face and the last person in our group was the person's family aspect as all she talked about was her life on a farm.

We then put these 3 different aspects of one person in a job interview and decided what we houfht they might say if they were interviewing for a cleaning job in a school.
https://youtu.be/hqV3bgzxcVw

Wednesday

We got given a script of the Berkoff play, East to work on and get used to the Berkoff style.

Our group decided to watch a clip of the play West, which is also a Berkoff play, that was performed by some members of N2C theatre group to help us understand the style more.

https://youtu.be/nFBVRXvXxtQ

After watching the speed of the lines and the movements between the characters we decide to have a go at bringing the script to life.

https://youtu.be/iueZpy2Ybts

I think that we could have made our movements more staccato to accentuate the positions and body language of the appropriate characters more obvious. Also our group made the piece quite like Godber's style instead of Berkoff's as we have previously worked in a Godber style and I think that developing that into Berkoff's style with help us define the characters more and he audience will be able to determine who is playing what's character at which point. It was hard to figure out who was each character at certain points because there is three of us in our group and only two characters in the script so we had to work around that fact and separate the lines up but making sure that it made sense for the continuity for the style.

I also think that when we pause and/or freeze we needed to stick to one facial expression and stretch it to the extreme so that the audience can fully register what is happening and also having blood facial expressions will add to the comical element of the Berkovian style. 

Week 22: Review

Reviewing my performances

Tuesday: Antigone

On Tuesday, I played Antigone. I thought overall the performance went quite well and I was able to show the range of emotions and reactions that Antigone had. Some of the best points in the play was the sisterly bond between Ismene and Antigone and you could see the path that their relationship was taking throughout the multiple scenes.  I think that we used proxemics well to show the progression of the relationship as at the start they were downstage at the very front and were leaning on one another but by the end, when Antigone had convinced herself that pushing Ismene away would be the only way to stop her caring for her and find closure for Ismene, they were on opposite sides of the stage which shows the separation of the two beginning to happen.

I also though that the reactions to the Nurse were very well timed as the chorus could react to me as well as the Nurse. I had to make sure that my reactions weren't very repetitive so I had to find a balance between being annoyed with her and finding the accusations amusing.

A point that I thought could have been worked on was the Creon scene. The girl who played Creon had changed the order of the lines which meant that I had to change my order of my lines. This meant that the flow of the scene wasn't as fluid as before and the build up to Antigone's monologue wasn't as it was before, in rehearsal.

Wednesday: Eurydice

On Wednesday, I played Eurydice, the queen, who knits throughout the play and is quite an ironic character as she is oblivious to any of the action that is going on and "is of no use to Creon." Whilst knitting I had to pay attention to the lines that were being said as I had to concentrate on not missing my que to walk into the centre and lay amongst everybody else.

Thursday: Chorus Member

I felt that the chorus interactions at the start in the Nurse scene was very useful in setting the atmosphere of the scene as it gave a lighter tone to the scene which would help juxtapose the Creon scene were no chorus members were involved or reacted to either characters in the scene.

I also think that the guards sequence with Antigone went very well as the atmosphere of the scene was very high and the insults that were being said helped keep the atmosphere alive and so it made it interesting for the audience to watch especially as this wasn't what Antigone wasn't what Antigone was expecting.

One point that I thought could have been improved as a chorus was during the long Creon scene I could see some of the other chorus members beginning to drift off instead of paying attention to what was going on and I thought that this was missing a crucial factor.

Week 21: Classwork

Monday

During Monday's lesson we made the costumes that we were going to wear for the performance, which consisted of a white sheet that was taken in at the shoulders and a plaited belt. We wanted to contrast Ismene and Antigone even more so we made sure that Antigone's costume was very muddy and covered in dirt and soil whereas Ismenes would be white and pure to reflect her innocent. I also thought that the costumes could reflect how many secrets they have to hide so Antigone is nearly completely covered by the end of the play as she has to hide the truth of her brothers and the feelings she has for Haemon. On the other hand Ismene only has a minute amount of dirt on the bottom as she only has to keep the fact that Antigone wanted to bury her brother secret.

After school we did multiple run-through, 1 of which was a tech run. We got given some notes to work on. We said that in the first Nan scene, Antigone should get amused with Nan instead of completely angry/ frustrated because she would miss this when she fully committed  herself to death and burying her brother. 

We also said that in the line "When you cry" we should emphasize the you because it would emphasize the time that Antigone and the Nurse are spending together and Antigone is trying to show the Nurse that she will always love her and remember the time they had together. 

In the Ismene scene, we thought that Antigone should be plying with the earth after the line "it's a comfort to me this morning, your being pretty" so that the moments wouldn't be so staccato afterwards when Antigone reaches down to grab a handful of dirt to try and pour on Ismene.

In the tumbril sequence we said that the chorus needs to make their whispering more aggressive and make more emphasis on certain words that would give the impression of the angry mob to the audience and they would believe that the chorus genuinely want Ismene to be put to death.

The last point of change in the Ismene scene from Antigone which were "I don't feel like sleeping, but I promise that I'll stay her until you wake up" and "Go back to bed please or you won't be so pretty in the morning." We said that there should be a change in tone so that we could see the end of the argument between the two and the sisters slowly forgiving each other.

During the chorus' second speech, she directs most of the lines out to the chorus and so the chorus needed to react to what she was saying. In a previous run through we had just nodded when we agreed with what she was saying and that didn't work as well as when we vocalized the reactions so we decided that the chorus could say small lines either two each other or to the chorus.

At the start of the 40 minute scene with Creon, Antigone's first line is "yes" and we decided to turn her body outwards towards the audience so that when she said the line the audience would be able to see the defiance in her face and also the audience can understand that it was her who truely did it and shes finally admitting that.

In the guard scene at the end, we noticed that Antigone directs most of her lines straight to the guard who is standing to the right of her which means that the audience lose Antigone's facial expressions. So we said that she would say her lines out to the front which could also reflect the fear that is being to build inside of her and so she is numb with fear. The thing that terrifies Antigone is being alone and it truly scares her because she wants to have a public spectacle where everyone can see her and notices what she has done but being walled up alive means that she will be on her own and no one will know about it and this is completely the opposite of what she wants.

Also in the guard scene, we thought that they needed to trigger each other's reactions so that the audience would have the impression that this was a real conversation. So in order for this to be carried out we said that Antigone needs to reach for a pencil to start writing the letter so that would give the que for the guard to speak.

Throughout this last scene, Antigone gets increasingly emotional as the reality of what is to come really sets in so when she's writing this heartfelt letter to Harmon, having the guard but and constantly degrade what she is saying will be really hard for her to carry on so when she says the line "where have you got up to" we said that she should be both emotionally drained and frustrated with he guard as she has just interrupted the truest emotional letter that she was writing.

Week 20: Classwork

Monday

We used Monday's lesson as an hour to work on any aspect of the play that we thought needed work or needed going through again, 

We agreed that we should go through the machete fight sequence that we had previously created and we all decided that we need to change our body positions when Ismene says the line "..the streets of Thebes are full of them" because we needed to clearly distinguish the difference between us being our actor characters and our guard characters. I decided to switch from a cross-legged position to a position that had my body weight forwards so that I looked as though I was interested in the scene that was about to unfold in front of me.

We also used the last half an hour to independently work on a scene of our choice and I chose to do the Haemon scene as I knew that I needed to work on my reactions to him and also the growing agitation that Antigone feels during this scene, especially when she decides to admit to Haemon why she actually came to see him whilst wearing Ismene's dress, perfume and makeup. W ewanted to show the true feelings between the two so we put emphasis on the line "when you think how I'm going to be yours, do you feel a great void growing inside of you as if something is dying" because that is when Antigone verbally addresses the fact that everyone knows that Haemon is in love with Ismene not Antigone.

Wednesday 

The first thing that we addressed in Wednesday's lesson was the Ismene scene that starts will Ismene walking in on Creon strangling Antigone. We worked on the reactions between Ismene and Antigone as we see that their relationship is completely the opposite of what we saw at the start. At this point, we see Antigone on the floor and Ismene stood in the corner of the room. At one point Ismene tries to reason with Antigone but Antigone moves herself as far away from her as possible which is juxtaposing to what happened in the first scene as they showed how close they were. One of Antigone's lines is "you've chosen life, and I've chosen death" and we wanted to have emphasis on the endings of life and death because we thought that these could be two very personal hits towards Ismene as Antigone is showing her that they are now two separate people who are now only connected by blood relation.

As a group we discussed the option of doing the play like the original because it was a continuous play which means that the audience wouldn't get a chance to process what was going on and so we decided to put in a interval at the end of the chorus' second speech which ends with the line "Now it's beginning. Little Antigone has been caught - and handcuffed. She can be herself at last" and at this point, Antigone is burying her brother and we thought that it would be a sensible position for an interval because when the audience walks back in for Act 2 then it would seem that she has been constantly  burying while the interval has taken place.

We also had a discussion about meta theatre, which is theatre that address the fact that the actors know that they are performing. We wanted to add more elements of metatheatre to the performance like when the more comical characters are on stage, like the Nurse, the chorus around the sides of the stage would interact with her to show the audience that they are in their actor character and their not named.

During the end of the play,  there is a long speech that is made by the Messenger and because of its length, we wanted to add in 3 images; the sealing of the cave of Hades (Antigone's death bed), the uncovering of Antigone and finding out that she dead and, the reaction of Haemon to her death. So we used the chorus as individual bricks so we had two pin lofts at the sides and then the rest of the chorus made up the bricks at the front of the cave. We had Creon dragging them away to show him removing the bricks of the cave and then when Haemon has realized that Antigone was truly gone then he would stand up and push the pin lifts down as though he was destroying the cave and stand in front of Creon.

We then continued to do a full run through of the entire piece to fix some little changes that needed to be made. We decided that when Nan says "virtuous" the chorus around the edge should snigger and laugh which would allow Antigone to react off of them and also it would mean that the play would start off with quite a relaxed atmosphere which would help increase the juxtaposition between the start which is light-hearted and then the true ending which is when she dies.

We also added in set lines for the chorus to say when they are taunting Antigone in the machete sequence. I decided that I would say "Careful love, that's a big pointy thing you've got there, you need to make sure you don't cut yourself, not that anyone would care.." I thought that it was quite degrading to Antigone because she's being this powerful character and going against the law and having these lower status characters throwing insults and vulgar things towards her would be very frustrating.

Week 19:Classwork

Monday

After creating the Ismene tumbril sequence in the past couple of weeks, we noticed that there were some changes that need to be made. We found that Ismene had to pause at certain points so that her lines corresponded with the actions and movements that were being made by the chorus members such as the line that references the guards and the line that tries to explain the consequences of Antigone's actions if she continues to have the need to bury her brother. Having these pauses caused there to be dead spots which meant that the tension in the atmosphere was broken and so we came up with a solution.

We decided that throughout the speech, the chorus members involved in the mechanisms of the lift could whisper lines about the brother because we thought that this could reflect the angry mob that Ismene refers to in the speech. We tried the full sequence 2 times; one without whispers and one with.

Without whispers: https://youtu.be/G3heO5UAauE

With whispers: https://youtu.be/pS4zczmro3Y

I think that the whispers one works better as the atmosphere grows with the speech and also, a small improvement could be that when there is a dead spot certain words from the chorus could be pronunciated more so that there are certain words that stand out whilst Ismene isn't talking but when she is the words quieted down and become only slightly audible.

Wednesday

We used the start of Wednesday's lesson to go over the Haemon scene and one of the lines that we all found quite intriguing was "I'm dark and thin. Ismene is pink and gold like an apricot." We all thought that this was Antigone's way of telling Haemon to go and be with Ismene because Ismene is the one who is going to live and be alive once Antigone has gone. We thought that it was her way of selling Ismene to Haemon and trying to convince him that Ismene would have been a better choice than her and there is still a chance that they could be together.

Once we had run trough separate scenes, we did a full run through which brought up some changes that needed to be made. First of all, I need to be louder in the scene with Nan so that my voice is projecting out to the audience and also we fixed the staging when Nan sits down on the chair and Antigone is standing at the side of her. We said that it would make more sense for Antigone to stay at the front of the chair instead of moving slightly behind it because it would mean that the two could be closer together and it would make the relationship more believable.

We also found that all but 2 of the cast ended up on the same side and so we decided that after a short scene between Antigone and Ismene they would both go off stage right so that it balanced the amount of people on each side.

Also once Antigone has been captured after the machette physical sequence, we noticed that the energy levels drop drastically and so we said that Antigone would make more struggling noises and her breathing would still be increased which would keep the audience on edge and also would keep them focused on the scene.

When the cast has stopped being their characters in a scene , we a agreed that once they were offstage they became their actor character and joined the rest of the chorus members around the side watching what we going on. We also said that rather than having the chorus members around the edge being quite passive we said that they could be actively watching what was going on as though it was the first time that they had seen it and if something was funny, we agreed that they could laugh and also when the audience were drip-fed information the chorus could react to that because they know what is to come and they could start making connections between the action that was being shown and what the end consequence is.

Week 18: Classwork

Wednesday

On Wednesday, we split into small groups so that we could go through each section in more detail and it would also be easier as we would only have to focus on two or three people at a time and also it would make the pace of the work quicker.

I spent majority of the lesson going over the Ismene scene again as we had discussed some problems that needed to be fixed like the positioning of the chair, as it needed to be in a certain place on a certain line, and we also discussed the showing of the sisterly relationship that they have.

We discussed the fact that we thought they were very close and we wanted to make sure that the audience got a sense of the relaxed atmosphere and the genuine comfort that the two feel in each other's company.

We thought that combining the movement of the chairs with trying to created an easy atmosphere could be done after the Nurse has run out to get the two a drink. We thought that Antigone could see the unease that Ismene felt towards the dirt and so Antigone would grab the chair and wipe the dirt off of it as though she was a servant to Ismene, who would give her a look and play along by doing small bow, the two would then proceed to laugh at each other and sat down together with Ismene on the chair and Antigone on the floor leaning on her leg.

There is a section of this conversation where Antigone starts to talk about the two of them when they were little and how much more pretty Ismene was and how miserable it used to make her because even from a little age, Antigone knew that Ismene was prettier and always would be. This allows the tow to reminisce about their younger years and shows the pranks that Antigone would pull on Ismene. For example, Antigone says "...and once I tied you to a tree and cut off all your hair." To which Antigone finds fun but Ismene just responds with a small nod and a disappointed smile.

As the scene continues we tried to identify the point in which the two stop enjoying each other's company and the point when the conversation becomes less of a reminisce and more of an accusation/argument. For me this point is when Ismene clearly states that "we can't do it" which completely changes Antigone's view towards Ismene as she thought that this was the least they could both do to say goodbye to their brother but not Ismene has refused to do it and so the real pressure has now been placed on Antigone as she realizes that she is now isolated from everyone else.