Today we looked more detailed into naturalism and its creator, Konstantin Stanislavski. Stanislavski was a actor, director and a teacher born in the middle of the rise of the middle class in Russia. He was born into wealthy family, which is how he could finance his 'hobby' of being a amateur actor right up to his mid-twenties. The theatre at that time was one dimensional acting, with over the top gestures used to convey varying emotions. Actors were typecast and writers were only there to write plays for the starts to show their acting. Still, there was a new movement rising in theatre, naturalism. Nemirovich-Danchenko(theatre critic/teacher/director) and Anton Chekhov(writer), would be a big part of this new kind of theatre with Stanislavski. This movement in art literature and theatre was Naturalism, which came from realism, meaning something that seeks to represent human experience and society close to true life. It also adds to this the ideas of Darwin about heredity and environment influence determining human motivation and behaviour. In theatre, naturalism was used to create a perfect illusion of reality, using 3 dimensional sets, everyday speech and telling stories about today's middle and working class in a secular world. Naturalistic acting was a lot about bringing the artistic truth to the stage and being able to tidy up reality, but still remaining true. It was a lot about becoming the character, starting from the internal psychology and then moving to external expression. One of the most important things was that everything you do has a purpose.
The two exercises we did today, were both heavily to do with naturalism, and giving us the chance to have our first experience at it. The first exercise of the two actually started way before most of us knew about it. Lucy had lost her earrings, and so as she drew more and more attention to it, asking our tutor even to have a break in the class to search for them, people started to look for the jewellery, not knowing that this was actually planned out. After sometime of searching, we were told the true nature of this situation, and asked to repeat what did exactly the same way. So, we started searching again, but it wasn't exactly same as it was the first time. Before we were told about this exercise, I truly felt sorry for Lucy, but at the same time, I didn't really know what to do. Handful of people were looking from every corner, and I honestly just felt like I would be in the way if I would go and join them, and that is why I found myself either standing clueless or comforting Lucy on and off. I noticed other people the same thing, not really knowing what to do, but on the second time, most went searching right away and there a lot more actual searching going, Of course now, people knew that the earrings weren't actually lost, and so the atmosphere was a lot more relaxed and people were cracking jokes about it, but this wasn't really true to naturalism and to the exercise, which purpose was to mimic what we did first time, trying to be as close reality as possible. I noticed this in myself as well at first. I was far more involved with the search, until I realized, this wasn't exactly what I did. I think why more people searching was because now people were rather doing what they would have wanted themselves to do, be useful.
The second exercise was about given circumstances. Each of us were given a circumstance our character was in, and from that we had to decide ourselves what we were going to be doing with it, what emotions we wanted to portray and how we reacted to the space around us, and then present it to others. This exercise was a lot about knowing how to control your actions, not to show too much, but be as realistic as possible in the situation you were given. For example, I was given the circumstance of being at the doctors office, waiting for my pregnancy tests results. What I did to act this out, I showed a bit of nervousness, because doctor's office isn't the most relaxed space and waiting for a test result can be quite nerve-wrecking. But I still wanted there to be a hint of happiness in there, not to have my character be completely freaking out about the fact that she might be having a child.
The second exercise was about given circumstances. Each of us were given a circumstance our character was in, and from that we had to decide ourselves what we were going to be doing with it, what emotions we wanted to portray and how we reacted to the space around us, and then present it to others. This exercise was a lot about knowing how to control your actions, not to show too much, but be as realistic as possible in the situation you were given. For example, I was given the circumstance of being at the doctors office, waiting for my pregnancy tests results. What I did to act this out, I showed a bit of nervousness, because doctor's office isn't the most relaxed space and waiting for a test result can be quite nerve-wrecking. But I still wanted there to be a hint of happiness in there, not to have my character be completely freaking out about the fact that she might be having a child.
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