Active Analysis

Last week, we all worked on Active Analysis and a little bit of the method of physical actions, which is in Stanislavski's system. Stanislavski thought that by teaching/improving actors to become professional actors you had to go through several steps which are all in his System, and last week we all tried out the active analysis one.

I thought it was really difficult, strange and pointless and I am going to be honest, I hated it and it was the first time when I wasn't motivated about doing a new exercise in Theatre Arts. Me and Richard had done the Role in the Wall for our characters and the Round table analysis (which was also in Stanislavki's system) so I already knew a lot about Nora, I knew how she would work, her personality, her relationship with her husband Torvald... and when I heard that we had to improvise a bit of our script I found it pointless, and so did Richard who worked with me.

 I sat there and didn't take the exercise seriously at all, however I tried to stay open-minded and think that challenging exercises would come along during these two years. I was also getting pretty worried about me not finding that theatre lesson interesting. When me and Richard looked over to the other group, we saw that they were getting on pretty well and I really didn't get why they found this exercise relatively easy whereas me and Richard found this pointless. Just like what Richard thinks, I think this might be because we both started to do the Round table analysis and because of our Theatre experience. We have been built up and we have learned to approach a script in a certain way, so that might be why we found this strange and unhelpful for us. We both approach and studied the script in our own way we've been taught, like the Round table analysis, sitting down and talking about your character and its objectives for ages, and then you get on with it WITH THE SCRIPT. When I admitted that to my self,the active analysis started to get more interesting and I stopped worrying that I wasn't going to succeed this exercise properly.

 Like Richard said as well,(don't worry Richard I'm not steeling all of your ideas if that's what you're thinking) if I would get another script with different characters and without doing the Round table analysis, I think the active analysis would be really helpful because now I understand clearly what this is about, not about showing off all of your Theatre experiences and how you've been "built up", but to understand the meaning behind each line.

However, I thought that the physical exercise was much more easier and better to get what your characters objectives and meaning of the line were. By doing it with other scenes that we didn't know, I though it was easier to approach an unknown scene and just go for it, instead when you already think you know a scene perfectly and you've gone through it several times at home and school. For example, me and Richard did Spencer's and Georgia's scene, and they did ours. We could pick up some important acting details and use it for our bit.