Sessions 1 and 2 - Term 1 Week 6

Lesson 1

Today was the first rehearsal of the Common Ground show that I have been cast in; Table by Tanya Ronder. There was a buzz of excitement in the room and it was easy to sense the anticipation and readiness to begin the production which we will be working on until the shows in February 2016.

Introduction

Today was our first session altogether as a company and full cast of the play. The first thing we did was introduce ourselves and our roles within the production. As well as the cast we met the director, stage manager, assistant stage manager, deputy stage manager, set designer and costume designer. As we are going to be spending a lot of time together, it was paramount that everyone knew who was playing who and who was responsible for the different parts of the production. 

The read-through...

After the immediate introduction, we did a full read through of the play which I found extremely useful. Not only did it give me a sense of who will be in the same scenes as me, and who I will be working with the most, it also put everyone on the same level in terms of understanding the play. I had purchased the play over the summer and had read it myself multiple times but actually hearing the play read aloud in everyone's different voices brought the play to life in a way I had not experienced it before. It was also interesting to experience the play as closest as we ever will to how the audience will experience the play; listening to it for the first time before we begin working on it and really breaking down the text. 

Initial response to the text and the character...

The first impressions of the text are always important, and I thought that the language in the play seems very contemporary and naturalistic, so I should be working with realism and Stanislavsky's techniques to refine my naturalistic acting style to suit the feel of the play. Another impression I got was that the play needs to be fast paced, and much of the dialogue, particularly in scenes with two people is very snappy and this is what generates a lot of the tension within the piece. The final impression I got from the read-through was that this is a very ensemble based production rather than being orientated around one or two main characters - I don't think there are any main characters in this piece. 

Challenges? 

I think the main challenge for me as an actor that will arise from this production is portraying the different ages of my character. I am playing Sarah and from the beginning to the end of the play she is 8, 13, 30, 26, 30, 31, 37, 44, 49, 50, 8. There is such a range of ages here, and realistically I would only be able to play the 8 and 13 year old, so I will have to concentrate on physicality and vocal quality to portray all of the different ages. However, I am feeling positive about this challenge  and am excited to try something new. Another challenge that I will face is keeping consistency and congruency through the character as I am sharing the part with one of my peers, Hannah. We look nothing alike so we will have to work hard together on physicality and possibly idiosyncrasies of the character to ensure that the audience can tell that we are playing the same character, as we do not want them being confused. I have never had to play a role which has been split between two actors before, so this is also a new and exciting challenge for me. 

Our first rehearsal...

We began by learning a song as an ensemble that is featured in the piece which my character sings, called 'Lay Me Low' (see the video clip above). As it is typically sung by all male choirs and many people in the company are not accustomed to singing, this was something that took a lot of time to get right, but towards the end of the session it was sounding good. I can draw upon experience in choral singing from singing in our Shakespeare production of Henry V, so I felt quite comfortable doing this. I enjoyed this the most out of the rehearsal and it was good to be in syncopation with everyone else in the cast. It was also good to eliminate any reserves that people might have about singing, because singing is an important refrain throughout the play, and is where some people may feel most vulnerable because we do not do singing as part of the course, but by facing it head on in the first rehearsal any insecurities were swept away.

Also as part of our first rehearsal we got familiar with the staging arrangement of having a table centre stage and audience seated on three sides. We took a walk around the space and were asked to find a place on the stage that would be used to show power, or a place where almost every audience member can see our faces. I found this useful because we hadn't thought about this since Shakespeare in the last academic year, and it was helpful to remind myself of how significant where I stand on the stage is to portray status, emotions and relationships to other characters.

Lesson 2

Today we began a 'walking read-through' and rough block of the text. Personally, I found this more helpful than doing the seated read-through because we could explore the space; especially helpful after the session on relationship with the staging arrangement yesterday. I also found it useful as a rehearsal because I could interact with the other characters in the scene physically as opposed to just having to use my vocal technique to explore the relationships and thoughts and feelings towards one another.  Similarly, from beginning to stage the piece there were immediate issues that were flagged up from the complex stage directions which was something both the actors and the director were able to consider from the offset.