Today in class we started to properly work on our second scenes, or in my case, the third scene. The scene starts off with Nell's first time on the stage. Just before, she has convinced Mrs. Betterton that Mr. Betterton has given her some time on the stage, that Nell must have a line, but in reality she is lying. So, when Nell finally goes on stage, not knowing what she is supposed to do and is left by everyone else to deal with the shame on her own, she starts to dance, finally getting the audience on her side. While Nell is on stage, the actors of the playhouse come off stage enraged by Nell lying to them, and possibly risking their reputations as actors and as an playhouse. Once Nell comes from the stage triumphant, the others try to blame her for what she's done, but after telling everyone what she did on stage, Nell gains her place at the playhouse. This is followed by Mrs. Marshall going outside to tell some men to stop bothering the actresses, but instead she gets thrown feces on herself. It was one of Mrs. Marshall's former lovers that sent the men to do this to her, showing really how women and actresses were treated during those times.
The first thing we as a group focused on was the blocking. We first started by just going trough the scene and seeing, where would we go naturally. After this we could start working on things, like what works and what doesn't. Some things worked better than others, for example when Nell first comes on stage. We had Mrs.Marshall positioned stage left, and Doll, Mrs.Betterton and Mrs.Farley in a line on stage right, so that there is a space for Nell to come center stage.This works especially when the others leave the stage and Nell is left alone, since it centers the attention to Nell and makes it seem even more lonely and threatening for her to be in that situation. But once Nell tells everyone what she did on stage and basically saved hers and the playhouse's reputation(even thought it was her in the first who jeopardized it),she wins Mrs. Betterton to her side, getting her to be some sort of a mentor for Nell.
Since the scene is mostly located in the Tiring room, with only having a bit of it on the stage, one of the things we need to work out, is how to have the actresses seem busy in their space, without people upstaging or blocking each other during their important bits. This is one of the reasons why we really need to choreograph this scene and block it well, so that everyone know exactly their spots. We still need to work on it in future rehearsals, but at least now we have a base to work from.
One of the hardest things in this scene for me personally will be developing and executing the dance bit. I am not experienced in dance, so I will definitely be asking for help on this one, and I need to do plenty of research about the dance styles of that period, as well as look for inspiration from different kinds of jigs. I have turned my attention towards Irish and Scottish jigs especially, since they are more focused on the choreography of the feet and lower body rather than hands, since Nell probably has to be holding her dress up to be able to dance. Also, these dance styles have the kind of fun lightness that Nell's spirit has.
The problem with these particular dancing styles is, that they do not give out the 'sensuality' that the actresses would use to draw the attention of the men in the audience. So, rather than just copying the dance moves used in these videos, I have to take them and change them a bit to suite Nell's character and the situation she is in. I really want to be able to show Nell's fun and confident nature, but at the same time reveal how persuasive she can be in given situation.
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