With
the play, Playhouse Creatures, written by April De Angelis, we tried
to demonstrate the
lives of the women during the restoration era, and the
challenges they had to go trough just to survive. This comes of as a
problem to all of the women in the play, since they were seen as objects to use
for pleasure and amusement rather than human beings, deserving
respect. Yet, De Angelis was able to write well constructed women with strong wills, without making their lives seem like fantasy in this naturalistic piece of feminist literature. During our performance, I believe we managed to interpret the text in a way that show'd respect towards these character's and their stories, by showing their strong emotions and determination to reach a better life.
Throughout
the play, using Stanislavski's technique of 'Through
line of action' was
extremely important for me, since I portrayed Nell in three different
scenes, showing three different times in her life. The process of
creating and researching Nell Gwyn, presented me an interesting
challenge, and I feel that I stretched myself and my acting abilities
with this particular character. Being aware of Nell's character
development, affected the way I played Nell in each of these scenes,
still trying to keep the whimsy nature of hers the same throughout. I
believe to have done this quite well, and being able to show all of
the different sides that Nell as a character had to offer to the
audience, without making her seem like a different person in each
scene.
Part of this
was because I kept in mind her tempo-rhythm. Even if Nell
changed between the scenes, starting out as a naive young girl with
big dreams, then becoming a confident and vital part of the
playhouse, ending with her being sick and near death, coming back to
the tiring room of the playhouse to reminisce on her former acting
days, her tempo stays the same, but the way she uses it changes. In
the first scene, I play her in, the dance scene, her energy is kind
all over the place because she is nervous and in a place with higher
status than her. I made her movements quite quick and unsure, to show
her youthfulness and naivety. This changes in the next scene, where
she has been an actress for a while already, still not one of the
biggest actresses, but already accepted as one of crew. Now, her fast
tempo has gone from nervous and all over place, to more sure and
confident. She is still quick with her movements, but now she uses it
to her advantage. This can be especially seen in the part where Nell
is demanding to have jokes for her part from Otway. She knows that
her womanhood ans sexuality makes the young writer uncomfortable, and
she is completely aware how to use it to get what she wants. Moving
on to the last scene with Nell, she is dying and her fast tempo'd
spirit is trapped inside this fragile and sick body. Also, this room
that used to be hers, is now someone else's, and so she cannot just
go around and reminisce as she'd like to, but rather she shows the
respect to Mrs. Barry by asking permission first. Nell isn't the same
youthful girl any longer, she has grown older and more experienced,
but I felt that something inside her, perhaps something in that room
makes her remember this lost part of her once again, which is why she
dances.
I
did struggle with Nell's character for some time during the
rehearsals, getting notes about my way of portrayal of the character
and how I presented her. I found it extremely difficult to relate
with Nell, as she was this confident optimistic person, who believed
in change and making change happen to herself. I, on the other hand,
am some what an opposite to this, founding difficulty in finding
confidence in myself and so battling with getting that inner
determination of Nell's to show on stage. As Stanislavski believed,
the only psychology we really know is our own, and so all the
emotions we mirror to our characters on the stage come from ourselves
and our experiences. Trying to use the 'magic
if'
to help me with some of the scenes, especially the part where Nell
comes on stage, not knowing her lines, ended up stabbing me in the
back, rather than helping me. All I could think of was the fact, that
I would never be brave enough to do something like that, to just make
up a dance, not knowing what exactly would come out of it. But it was
this that made me realize something; Nell was not me, and even if
naturalism and using Stanislavski's techniques to aid with our
performance was part of putting up this play, following guide lines
blindly wasn't worth risking my mental stability. Either way, isn't
the idea of learning and studying these different techniques to find
out what individually fits with our mentality and way of acting? Even
though I love Stanislavski's methods, they do not all fit with me,
and I'd rather just learn from them and adapt them into my way of
working, than let them change my acting into something I do not find
enjoyment from. So, I decided to look into another acting teachers,
Stella Adler's, methods to help me with getting the inner essence of
Nell. I have studied Adler couple of years ago, and I like her idea
that most of theatre comes from your imagination, and that having a
lively imagination is a vital part of acting.
I
found help from the 'magic if' in different parts of the play, for
example with the Abortion scene. Asking myself, what if I was in this
situation, really helped me to come in touch with the seriousness of
the scene and what Nell might have been feeling in that particular
moment. I felt, that seeing a dangerous abortion been performed right
in front of my own eyes would make me scared and out of place, since
I am still young and have no previous experience with these sort of
things, and neither does Nell. On stage, I tried my hardest to convey
this uncomfortable situation in making Nell lose her optimistic and
confident nature for that moment. When the other women start
discussing about the abortion, Nell doesn't do much to be a part of
the situation, but rather stays further away, not getting involved.
It is only when Mrs. Farley asks someone to hold her hand, that Nell
actually brings herself to middle of the action.
With
this scene, it really helped that we as a group discussed how we
would feel about being in this kind of situation, and I feel that we
gave an enormous amount of attention to this scene especially, since
we wanted it to stand out within the play. This was easily our most
rehearsed scene, since it's gruesome nature was some what a challenge
for each and every one of us. In this scene, Mrs. Farley has let
herself fall pregnant, threatening her's and everyone else's career
at the playhouse. In those days, this sort of situation would have
not been acceptable, and so Mrs. Farley is left with one option,
aborting the child. The meaning of this scene is to really show the
audience, how little choice the women had and how their stability
could be taken away with not too much effort. Men did not care what
happened to these women, but left them to deal with the problems they
created alone.
We
decided that it would be most powerful to have the abortion be done
Mrs.Farley faced away from the audience, to let her screams and
shouts of pain create the uncomfortable raw mood for the scene, and
leave the rest for the audiences imagination to create. It was
important, that we took our time with this part of the scene, to let
the tension rise and give a naturalistic representation of having an
abortion in those days, and I do think we did it well. This was one
of the most emotional scenes I have been in, and I have praise all of
our performance, especially Lucy's disturbing representation, during
the performance.
Before
the abortion scene, there was another part that worked particularly
well in showing the objectives within the entire play and this
particular scene. It is the part where the actresses are teasing
Otway to get better lines for themselves, often referred to as 'the
tit-part'. Nell's objectives trough out this scene is to get her
talents to show, her soul of a comedian especially, and when she
hears that her part doesn't have jokes, she takes the matters into to
her own hands to get some. By teasing young Otway with their
sexuality, the women of the playhouse are able to get what they want
from the play write. This is a good part that shows the dynamics
between the different actresses, first Nell waiting for higher status
Mrs. Betterton to leave the room, before turning towards Otway to
manipulate him to give her jokes. The women come together to help
Nell, showing, that even though they are each other rivals, they do
still share a bit of banter with one another. Running trough this
scene over and over again helped us to be in sync with each other,
making the elaborate tit-grabbing funnier and more effectual to the
audience.
Since
I worked hard on my first scene as Nell, I need to bring it up in
this evaluation. We struggled for a bit with my group t get the sense
of humour in the stage scene, with all the characters trying to do
their bit on saving the performance, before leaving Nell on stage
alone. I think everyone had good reactions to Nell in her awe on the
stage, Mrs. Farley knowing what was going to happen, Mrs. Betterton
improvising her way out of the stage to save her own skin, and Mrs.
Marshall in rage trying to get the words out of Nell's mouth. I am
also quite proud of myself for being able to find the flirty humour
in Nell's character and be able to show it in her dance. She knows
that the men in the audience are looking to see some nudity, and so
Nell shows her legs, but does in her own terms adding a dance to it.
Even if for a moment she was overwhelmed by the audience, she does
enjoy it and loves the attention which I feel I portrayed well in
this scene. I need to thank my group members for this, since many of
them helped me to create the right mood for the dance with their
comments and criticism. Without them, I would have probably never
been able to get the right balance of whimsical fun and
flirtatiousness in the dance that I did.
Throughout
the rehearsals my last scene has always been strong, and I don't
think this changed much during the performance. The scene is supposed
to be slower paced, reflecting on the change that has happened during
the years. Many of the actresses from previous scenes have already
passed, leaving Mrs. Barry on the top, really being the only one who
turned out successful on her own from all of the other women. This
power and determination of hers was very visible in the scene, as she
has now transformed from a young woman failing to be an actress, to
have made it on her own. As a contrast to Mrs. Barry success, now we
see Nell, once full of life and later on power, now weak and dying.
Unlike Mrs. Barry, who gained stability on her own, Nell has always
been dependent on the wealth and attention of Charles II, and now
that he has died, Nell is surviving because of a promise from the
King to keep her financial situation steady, but she is also dying
because of an infection given to her by the King. The object of this
scene was really to show the difference between the modern woman,
represented by Mrs. Barry, and the women during the Restoration era,
time before feminism. I think, what made this scene so strong right
from the beginning, was the fact that we discussed this objective
right at the start, when we first started working on these scenes.
This way, we could create the emotions for our characters with this
objective in mind and have be clear to the audience during the
performance.
Even
if all of my scenes were quite strong, all of them had parts that
still needed some work or things that went wrong during performance,
and now it is time to address them. Over all, all of our performances
were well done and I feel that our abilities in acting have evolved
so much since we first started. Still, I feel that some basic things,
that could have been avoided, happened during performance.
In
my first scene as Nell, when she comes off stage to share her
successful dance with the other in the tiring room, I felt that the
mood in the room could have been busier and perhaps more threatening
towards Nell. After all, this all happened during a performance, so
in reality the women would have probably been trying to get ready for
their next scenes, but instead I felt that how we planned the
blocking was just a lot of standing around. Making the scene busier,
with the other actresses trying to get on with their business, as
they scolded Nell, could have made the situation even more desperate
for Nell to tell them how she basically saved the day(which she
endangered in the first place). We actually talked about this during
rehearsals, but rather than dicussing the different things the
characters could be doing and the way the blocking could have been
planned, we tried to improvise the business. This ended up us either
upstaging each other, or simply not knowing what to do. This could
have been fixed by making a detailed plan on each characters actions
and movements, in a way choreographing the scene, to make it seem
more busier. But rather than doing that, I feel that we just sort of
forgot about it, trying to focus on other things, like the
characterization, in the scene, especially after several run troughs
not getting notes about the blocking. Also, I felt that even though
the frustration of each character was played well, it could have gone
even further, especially when comes to Mrs. Marshall and Mrs.
Betterton. Not only being angry towards Nell, Mrs. Marshall could
have shown disappointment in the other actresses as well, since they
were the once who left her on that stage with Nell.
Blocking
was bit of a problem in another scene of mine as well, but not such a
big of a problem as in first scene. In the scene with Otway talking
about his play with Mrs. Betterton, Chloe is supposed to be sweeping
as Doll around the stage. This is completely fine and has always
been, but for some reason during the performance, she started
sweeping right in front of me. Luckily I was able to improvise my way
out of it, just changing my position on the stage. I am not sure did
this look okay to the audience, since I myself felt a bit off about
this move, but hopefully it wasn't noticeable.
With
this scene we also had some small slip ups throughout the scene. For
example, it took a long time for us to start the scene, leaving the
audience to wait in the darkness, because Otway wasn't on stage to
start the scene. This is a clear sign of lack of focus from our group
members, which has been a problem even during rehearsals and classes.
Other mistakes that we made was skipping lines, which happened in
couple of occasions, like when Mrs. Betterton offers Otway biscuits
to eat. Before this Doll's character had quite a funny line for her
to say about taking away acts from Otway's play to make it shorter.
This could have been a nice moment for laughs, but also to show how
the actresses have some kind of sense of banter and community that
the actresses have with each other. This would have probably been
fixed with more running trough the scenes, so that we would remember
our lines correctly, but part of these mistakes might have also been
simply our nerves when performing in front of an audience.
These
little mistakes weren't so dominating or visible in my last scene,
but there is one big thing that could have been avoided, and had been
addressed to us multiple times. For most of the scene, I was
backstage, trying to listen for my cue to come on, and I have to
honest and say, that I did not hear most of the lines the other
people in my group were saying during the scene. I am afraid that the
huge emotions that were coming from each of the characters in that
scene might have not been heard by the audience. What could and
should have been a powerful end to the play, might have slipped away
from the audience, simply because we weren't loud and clear enough.
So
far, this performance has been the most fulfilling for me to do, and
after the performance I am now able to look back and honestly say,
that we have worked harder than we have before, but there is still so
much room to grow on. I still have a good feeling about our future
projects, as this one went better than I expected. As always,
something do go wrong during performance, but when I discussed these
mishaps with someone my friends who were in the audience, they said
most of the slip-ups weren't at all noticeable. Still, we could have
added a few more extra rehearsals under our belts.
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