"Theatre, that's so easy. HA!"
This week has been a very busy,annoying and tiring week for me; on Friday, we performed our
A Doll's House performance to the Spanish and English literature students. On the weekend, we had 3 Panto performances which were very intense. On Wednesday, we have another Panto performance.On Thursday, we have another performance of a Doll's house and I will be busy working with the children at TMA later on. On Friday and Saturday, we have the 3 last Panto performances. So if someone will come up to me and dares telling me theatre is easy or nothing, I will slap them. Literally.

I guess that I've never realised how much energy theatre takes away from you; of course I've experienced it and I know how much effort you have to put in it, but right now I honestly feel exhausted because of all of it. Which by the way terrifies me because if I can't cope with this how will I be able to cope with my future career if that's what I really want to be? I have been asking my self that question several times but I've never really admitted to my self that putting to much effort into a theatre practise or work scares me and might hold me back a little? That is one reflection I really find useful for me.

On Wednesday the 17th we had a full day of theatre. No,really. In the morning, we changed to our costumes and practised with full set and full costume. It was good because that way it affected our acting in a way that we knew exactly where the table was, we could carry the presents, we could sit down on the sofa...
In the afternoon, we did 3 different sorts of exercises, but in costumes, which I think helped us getting more into character rather than just doing it.The first exercise we had to do was to stand apart from each other and not facing each other and just read our lines out. We weren't allowed to look at each other, we just had to say our lines nice,loud and clearly. We had to pretend as if we were in a massive theatre and so we had to be really loud and articulate our lines which I think I was pretty successful in. That exercise was supposes to check if we really knew our lines correctly and if we could present them to an "audience". The second exercise we had to do was amazing. It is not part of Stanislavski's system but I find this exercise really amusing and helpful at the same time(Boal). You have to put this exaggerated mask on and act out what your character is really like, completely opposite to what Stanislavksi thought about people, everyone should hide their real emotions and feelings or showing it but more sutler. That exercise would relate to Artaud I think; showing of the character in a very grotesque and intimidating way. Anyway, that exercise helped me to understand more about Nora's character and I had a clearer image of her in my head. We performed each scene with the mask on and it was hilarious to watch,honestly. Me and Richard then had to do it but Nora had to have an Italian accent and her head was supposed to fall, randomly. Torvald had to have an itchy back and was supposed to be this funny little gay person. It was hilarious performing it, we had lots of fun doing it. Mr F said that directors often ask actors to perform such a task to see if they can act in different ways and is they can take all of the information and create this fabulous character. Anyway,Georgia and Spencer didn't get to do it which was a shame.
The third exercise we had to do was to recite our lines but backwards! That was a check, again, to see if we really knew our cues and lines. I actually thought it went all right for me, I didn't really struggle with it which pleased me. Finally, all of this work I've done gets rewarded. 


On Friday, we had our performance in front of the year 9 and the Spanish students and the English Lit students. It was quite a big audience and made our space more intimidating, and we were acting really closely to them. But it didn't really bother me, I was actually pleased that so many people wanted to come and watch our performance(even though the year 9's had to) I'm pretty sure that me and Richard's piece went very well actually and I really enjoyed it doing in front of and audience. I was really pleased with all of the audience's response to our piece, they really understood what I wanted to get across, I think I was successful showing what Nora objective was and that they could spot everything out.

SO THERE!