Here is a record of some rehearsal tasks that we engaged in during the 8 week process that were particularly interesting and helpful in enabling us to get to grips with Shakespeare:
1) Romeo & Juliet Speech dissection
During our first rehearsal, we broke down the following speech from Romeo and Juliet:
Tis torture and not mercy. Heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honorable state, more courtship lives
In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips,
Who even in pure and vestal modesty,
Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
But Romeo may not. He is banishèd.
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly.
They are free men, but I am banishèd.
And sayst thou yet that exile is not death?
Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife,
No sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean,
But “banishèd” to kill me?—“Banishèd”!
O Friar, the damnèd use that word in hell.
Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,
Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
A sin-absolver, and my friend professed,
To mangle me with that word “banishèd”?
To summarise, as a whole cast we read the speech by lines for sense, and then began to contextualise the position of Romeo in the speech. Most predominantly however, we focused on the speech through multitasking saying it with movement. We associated various themes prevalent within the speech, such as death, heaven, animals, Juliet and the word 'banished' and created vivid actions for them which we had to deliver as we said the speech with projection. The amount of actions that we had to do throughout the speech increased steadily and exerted a lot of energy since they became more physically demanding. But in hindsight, this reflected to a great extent the amount of colour and detail and imagery in Shakespeare's texts, and the way in which Shakespeare with these images isn't an academic exercise but moreso something that should come physically from the whole body instinctually to emit those emotions. I also learnt from this exercise the fact that a lot of the emotions that Shakespeare represents in his plays are extreme emotions and this accentuates the amount of physical presence the body needs to tap into for the acting to be truthful and for the Shakesperian text to be resonant.
In this same session, we also did work on the same text and a scene from Hamlet to focus on iambic pentameter and paraphrasing.
3) Chemistry with Claudio
One of the first specific character based exercises that I engaged in as Hero was playing the objective with the relationship of Hero and Claudio during the scene following the ball. Because myself and Sean hadn't yet touched base with the relationship between the two characters, it was an interesting exercise that involved Ruby holding me back and Tahj and Luke holding Sean back as we tried to reach eachother. The physical restrictions of the exercise actually allowed to me to tap into the extreme emotions of lust and affection associated with Hero's objective in the scene, which from the forefront helped me connect with Hero more. The exercise also helped emphasise the sense that Shakespeare's emotions presented through the text come through the physical presence of the body and not just through the text, and really helped me embody this emotion since Hero was being held back from Claudio so much.
4) Playing It - Line Run
A few weeks in, when we all became very familiar with our lines, a distinct exercise I remember was playing it while doing a line run of the wedding scene. The wedding scene requires extremely quick cues, responses and reactions since the emotions of everyone are heightened and playing the game 'It' which had strict rules while also practicing lines and cues essentially helped us to initially tap into the essence and atmosphere of this fast paced, high stakes scene. This scene became one of the hardest scenes for getting lines and responses correct and on the ball so exercises like this essentially became really helpful.
5) Relationship Development
I had a rehearsal session with Ruby, Luke and Sean which really helped establish the relationships between us four as characters and was essential into feeding into the scenes. More of the results of working on this relationship development is in this blog post on Character Circumstances but what I learnt from this session is how integral the relationships in Much Ado about Nothing are to the whole scope of the story considering the whole play is about how relationships change. Having this session was really helpful for me and it made me consciously think further in the future about how I would exemplify those relationships in my scenes to bring them to life further.
6) Movement Workshop
Having the movement workshop with Kenrick allowed me to associate how closely linked movement is with dialogue and emotion. As we have a dance during the ball scene where we also speak, Kenrick told us to break down our text whilst doing a simple routine. It required concentration and focus, and he also taught us how important it is that movement exemplifies emotion and doesn't take away from the dialogue itself, which I took with me when we practiced the dance section.
Kenrick also reinforced the importance to me of remaining physically disciplined and fit through vigourous warm ups and I think this is something I not only have taken into rehearsals of Much Ado but also something I will take with me into any future with acting.
No comments:
Post a Comment