Lesson review - 6.4.15

Today we recorded the choral piece and some breathing. The words of the choral piece were recorded so it was when it is projected through the speaker, it'll be easier for the audience to hear then if we were speaking it. Also it allows us to concentrate on our movement whilst performing this section. The breathing will be projected behind the audience, this creates atmosphere and a sense of the chorus being everywhere and bigger then it actually is.

Our section of the play is where the people guarding Polynieces unburied body leave, giving Antigone the opportunity to bury him. This is relevant for audiences today because it explores relationships within the working world. One guard is higher up than the other, and the other feels like he has to agree and impress him. It is relevant because even today, people have to impress their bosses and do stuff they don't agree with just to get on the good side of them. It also shows the relationship between siblings, and how Antigone is willing to risk her life for her brother. For people with siblings in the audience, it'll make them think whether they are Antigone or Ismene; whether they are prepared to risk their life to make sure their brothers get equal treatment, or if the fear of death is too strong to take care of their dead sibling.

For the multi media, we have used an alarm and police tape. This will make it look like a modern crime scene, which is relevant for our piece because it makes out that polynicies is bad and it is a crime to try and bury him. Our group aren't incorporating film so I can't answer the next few questions.

NOTES FROM THE SCENES PERFORMED:

GROUP 1: good commitment to the characters

                  scene was brought into modern day by the language used

                  antigone and ismene's relationship was clearly presented

GROUP 3: movement was well choreographed and intimate with lloyd and logan's lines

                  movement was effective and reinforced the story line

GROUP 4: the status difference between Benji and Jake was clearly shows through their voice and 

                  reaction to each other

                  good use of multimedia by incorporating the news report

GROUP 5: eric and sherene conflicted effectively and their use of volume and tone presented their 

                  feelings towards each other well

GROUP 9: used multimedia by having phoebe and tara shining lights on the boys

                   the anger between thiago and rory developed throughout the piece and their father and 

                   son relationship fell apart effectively

GROUP 10: multimedia was used by music when the girls walked in

                    harmony and tasha acted as the conscience and their characterisation was very good

                    they also used doors, which were slammed when the girls left which surprised and 

                    engaged the audience

lesson review - 13.4.15

Today we worked on our chorus pieces as a class. It's important for us to remain focus because we are working in such a large group.

To warm up, we did an exercise where we had to create the physicality of the characters in our play. Usually when being given a character, I think about their voice rather than physicality so this exercise helped me think about how they would stand. Afterwards, we walked around and reacted to the others around us. This made me consider Antigone's feelings towards people like her, people of a higher status such as Creon and how this would affect her stance. This will go towards my development of Antigone as a character which will make my performance better. We also had to try and find people who were the same character as us, this encouraged us to exaggerate our body language so people knew who we were.

We then started the first choral piece where we stood in a semi circle and learnt actions that linked to the words being spoken. I think moving in unison emphasises the fact that the chorus is one and is working together. However, i also like when we separated into five groups and were given a line each to choreograph. We then performed these in canon, the build up of movement is really effective and projects the emotions the chorus is trying to present. This is important because the chorus is there to almost bring everything together and reinforce what has been set previously, whilst moving the piece forward in time.

For the second choral piece, we used multimedia by including the lights on out phones and a water sound effect. Personally, I think the skyline section is the most effective out of the whole choral piece. We use our bodies to form shapes similar to the buildings in a skyline, because this is performed in the dark, it'll make our shapes more effective and possibly more realistic. Also at this point, we use our phones. The lights pop up on certain words in the script which could come across quite mysterious as the room is dark. After this, we all sit cross legged as a group and start to sway as the water sound effect kicks in. Because before that we created buildings separately or in small groups, it's nice to end the piece with us all swaying in unison to bring the chorus back to one again. For this it is very important that we sway in time with each other and in the same directions because one person who does the opposite to everyone else will ruin the feel of that section.

homework - 26/3/15

Today we looked at two different scripts of Antigone, writers who had put the script into a more modern context. Rory and I worked on the scene where Creon finds out Antigone has buried her brother. I liked how the dialog was worded in a more understandable way for this day and age. It also brought in swearing, which made it more realistic and allowed us to empathise with the characters because we could understand how angry or upset they were. I don't think the language made the characters change but personally I was able to understand them more and I think that is what the writer intended. For example, I think their status was more obvious and you could see how although Creon had more power than Antigone but she wasn't intimidated by that. 

We then had to get into groups and recreate a part of Antigone in a more modern context. I was with Antonia, Michele, Daniel, Benji and Rory. We decided that the characters in the play would all be in a group chat where Creon was trying to get everyone against Antigone because she tried to help her brother. I was in the middle as Antigone, and everyone was around me but on their phones, as if they were in their own rooms. Antonia stood behind me, and spoke the notifications. For example, Michele would say what she's texting, and Antonia would say, "message sent". The characters personality was shown through their texts and also tone of voice when they were saying their texts aloud. Creon was presented as the leader of the group, who had the ability to make everyone agree with his opinions, resulting in everyone hating Antigone. Ismene tries to be the peace maker when telling Antigone what people are saying about her on the group chat, but she is steering towards Creon's views and doesn't agree with what her sister has done; however Antigone sticks by her decision but feels as if everyone is ganging up on her.

OTHER GROUPS:

GROUP 1: this group set theirs in a school where Creon was the headteacher and Ismene and Antigone were students. The chorus was made up of three girls gossiping, who would narrate what was going on.

GROUP 2: they made their seen more urban by changing the language

GROUP 3: theirs was set in big brother where Antigone was being thread of being kicked out of the house because of burying her brother

GROUP 4: this was set in america, where Creon was the owner of american diner and he has ordered all his staff not to bury Polynicies 

GROUP 5: posh and old fashioned language was used. Creon was very pompous and up himself so he refused to listen to what Antigone had to say. Antigone and Ismene were also posh and quite spoilt.

GROUP 6: Creon acts as if he's really strong and defensive but has a fear of dirt, so when Antigone spits on his hand he starts to panic. He relies heavily on his guards to protect him.

GROUP 7: Creon owns a pub and fires the two brothers but wants Antigone to still work in the pub. She says she's going to leave, and refuses to stay if her brothers are fired. 

For my set design, I decide to set the play in a rough estate. The audience would sit in front of the stage, and the actors would be placed either on the balcony of the houses, or on the steps. The colours would be quite grey, as it is just a brick building. The stage may even be dirty as it's a rough and not very well looked after estate. The idea of the steps, is that Creon would always stand at the top to show his status and also so he could look down on people. He is well known and powerful on the estate so everything is centred around his flat and that's where he feels most comfortable. Antigone lives next door, so she has to confront him and there is no way of her getting passed him.

lesson review - 7.4.15

At the begging of the rehearsal, we were in our groups a discussed our long term and short term goal for this topic. We had to then sketch some diagrams of what we wanted the stage to look like, create a modern version of our scene and begin to stage the piece. My group are set outside by a circle of wooden stumps, we had to decide where we wanted to be and also where we wanted the audience to be stood. Because we are outside, and it's hard to use multimedia such as film because there is nowhere for it to be projected, we decided to set the scene using props. We would have police tape wrapped around the wooded stumps, with Ellis as the dead body in the middle. Tim and Antonia would move around the area as guards, and also move the audience into position as if they're too close to the body, this will make it easier for them to know where to go when moving from the previous scene. I think we struggled to rehearse this scene because although it is significant in the play, it is a very small section and our aim was to elongate it and make sure everyone was involved. This lead us to creating new characters, the guards, and developing their characters so it fitted in with Antigone. I also think because we didn't have the props we planned to use, it was hard to imagine them. For example, when I'm about to bury Polynicies, an alarm is meant to go off, but we didn't have that which lead to me having to kind of trail off when speaking because their was nothing to interrupt me, which effected my development of Antigone.