My character and interpretation for Electra

Clytemnestra 

"Electra tells us that Clytemnestra is a cruel, pitiless, woman and a killer of her own husband who deserves to be punished for her actions. According to Electra, Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon so that she could be with Aegisthus. Clytemnestra paints a different picture of the murder where she says that she was seeking revenge for Agamemnon's unnecessary sacrifice of their daughter. If this is the case, the problem of revenge takes on a new shape. The unsettling ambiguity of Clytemnestra's motivation in killing Agamemnon calls into question the very need for revenge."  (http://www.sparknotes.com/drama/electra/canalysis.html)


This quote has helped me look into the development of the character to portray her in a very cruel manor towards Electra and have no pity towards her. My character although she is the murderer of her husband has a very different view to her actions than Electra does. Electra believes that Clytemnestra should have revenge taken upon her because she killed her husband to be with another man, however Clytemnestra paints a different picture and in her view her actions of killing her husband was an act of revenge because he sacrificed their daughter onto the Gods and it was then her act of revenge to kill him.

When reading the script I get this sense of overpowering hierarchy over everyone and Electra and this high status queen presence about her. Clytemnestra blames a lot of her anger and hate and takes it out on Electra and although we do see at times she tries to show this side to her where she is scared that Orestes will come back and that she will be murdered in revenge for the killing of Electra's father. Cly portrays it differently that she killed her husband because he sacrificed her daughter, so she killed him in an act of fury over the husband killing the daughter. Electra believes that it is because she was having an affair with Aegisthus and that is why she kills the father so Electra has this burning hate for her mother. The best way to describe Clytemnestra is that she is a psycho as one minute she is shouting and screaming at Electra saying she is a disgrace and then the next minute she puts on a front to the old man showing some maternal instinct that she cares that Orestes has died but then later in that speach she goes on to be a bit too happy for the fact that he is dead meaning that she no longer needs to be worried that he is going to come along and seek revenge.

When it comes to my performance I need to make sure that I interpret all of these different feelings that she has and the anger that she bears and also the fear that she has. I need to make sure that I have this powerful presence about me that shows my high status compared to all of the other characters when I am on stage.

I feel when I am more confident with my lines and have a better understanding of what I am saying then I will be able to include these emotions correctly and perform the character with the correct emotion. 

Electra, blocking 21st October

Blocking of Electra

Today we started blocking the play and it was today that I was getting the direction from Rachel that I needed to help me get into the right mindset of the character. Whilst being directed where to stand and annotating my script it was becoming clear that I was quite nervous about letting go with this character as Clytemnestra is such a horrible character to play because of her personality and her high status. I was reading the script trying to be harsh but I kept slipping into being nice and speaking how I normally speak. Once I was given the direction from Rachel I was then starting to get to grips with the character and started to become more comfortable with what I was reading and becoming more confident and comfortable about the way that I should be saying particular lines to be able to truly understand what I was saying. 
The strengths of today was that I now know where I am standing and need to be for my scenes for each act, it is now really working on getting these lines knuckled down and learnt so I can get into the character better and not be reading from a script as this doesn't help you get into character properly if you are reading off a script. 
The way in which my character has developed is that I am now beginning to have a better understanding of her and how she should be portrayed which I can now include when I am learning my lines and start to develop my own spin on the character and add detail to the way i deliver and perform my lines. 
What I really need to focus on is getting the correct tone for this character and showing that I am a bit of a psycho and that I have a split personality that I am horrible and really intimidating to Electra but then I am trying to win over the audience and persuade them that actually I am a nice person and that it is Electra who is twisted and not right in the head and a horrible daughter.
I am starting to have a better understanding of the dialogue its now a case of going away and studying the text to understand what it is exactly that I am saying so that I deliver my lines correctly. I also feel that I have a good pronunciation when I speak it is now just making sure that my character is starting to develop and come to shape. 

Electra First Read Through 17th Oct

Electra First Read Through 17th Oct

In today's lesson after being allocated our roles for Electra we had our first read through for the play. In this session we were sat down in a circle and read through the whole script. In a way this was good for all of us as we were able to have more of a better understand when reading through. I gained a good understanding of the play when we went to go and see it at the Old Vic, however having this read through was really good to be more familiar with the story and the language and the script. 
I know from this read through that I will find it difficult to get into my head the old language used as it is very different from the way we would normal speak in modern day and i1t will be very challenging but it is definitely something i will need to focus and put my mind to.
After the read through today I know that I was only reading it and not putting alot of character into it. When it comes to properly getting up and moving I will then be able to become the character more which will hopefully help me get into the mindset of the character.
The role that I am playing is very challenging as it is a complete contrast to anything that I have ever played before and Clytemnestra is a very overpowering and strong character that I will need to work on the tone of my voice to make sure that I have a harsh sounding tone and not my normal voice as that will not suit the character and go with my personality of the character. 

I feel what I can take from this read through is that I have more of an understanding of what is going on in the play, however in order to give a true and convincing performance I will need to really study and look into the language of my lines to really understand what I am saying so that I give a performance which is believable and I as a performer know exactly what I am saying. I can now start to look at ways to develop my character and see how I can create her into a real evil and disliked character and be able to show my high over powering status over everyone.

Greek Chorus Workshop

Greek Chorus Workshop

In this workshop, we explored the techniques - shoal of fish and round-by-through. Shoal of fish is where a group travels collectively in a tight format. The sudden change of directions as a whole group is effective because the movement performed appears slicker and has more of a pace to it. Round-by-through is also group movement, in which you move the people you're working with, in order to get through the space yourself. The last technique was Blind-leadership where someone touches the back of your neck and guides you by putting pressure on the neck to go left or right and the person being leaded can either have their eyes closed or open

We applied the techniques above to a short fairy tale performance task. The task was to pick a fairytale and make it into a tragedy. My group chose Cinderella, we used the blind leadership to start with with Josh moving myself and Natalie into our places and I felt this worked quite well as it was almost narrating and setting the scene. The Shoal of fish technique was good to give our scene some pace. 
When doing our scene it created some comical moments as we changed the story of cinderella to be a tragic story and the ending was comical because we had Josh take off my shoe (slipper) and kill me with it, so by the use of props and the comical dragging the body off at the end created a comical scene. When looking at the techniques that we used the use of round-by-through worked quite well as we were narrating and positioning people at the same time so it was like narrating and putting people into position. A disadvantage of shoal of fish was that it was easy to lose the tight formation, I think it is a technique which needs to be practiced a lot to be  polished and perfected.

The way in which these techniques could work for Electra is to create and abstract look to the performance and create and interesting dynamic and would be interesting to work with when we have our performance space done in the round.


Here is the video link to the workshop:


Greek Chorus Workshop Video

Electra Mask Audition Workshop

Mask Audition Workshop

As part of our audition unit and an introduction to Greek Theatre as a class we took part in a mask audition unit. 
To start we were told about the rules of a mask when being used in the theatre.

Mask Rules

• Putting it on and off in private - provides the mystery element. As soon as the mask is on, you are immediately in character.
• Treat it like a real face.
• Face forwards as much as possible - do not show side of face to the audience.
•  Treat it with respect.
• Don't touch your mask face when it's on.

The workshop

At the start of the workshop we walked around the studio and then we were asked to slow right down and look at all of the masks and feel yourself being strangely drawn to one of them and to then look at them and not touch. Once we had all stood by a mask we were then asked to imagine and decide several things about this mask, so we were asked to give the character a name. We then were given 3 distinct personality traits about this character. We were also asked to think about the kind of things this person does in everyday life. We then thought about how the character would move and asked to leave our chosen character (Mask) and walk around as if you were portraying the emotion of the character. The mask I chose was a mask with a small open mouth and raised eyebrows and looked quite fearful. I walked around the room with my shoulders raised and my hands held together with tension to show that I was feeling fearful and afraid. We were then instructed to take a position with our masks on in the studio area in a status that showed and portrayed our character. I decided to stand with a slight lean as if looking cautious and fearful. Rachel then asked for some people to stand next to another person with a look to their mask which was a similar status. Cherkanah came and stood next to me and her expression to her character was fairly neutral with a straight lip. Cherkanah's position was on the floor when she portrayed her status and although I wasn't on the floor it was more our emotion and my use of hands which showed that  I was shy and sad which reflected that both of our characters were quite negative. Character's seemed to pair up well with the way in which their faces emotions seemed rather than the status they were stood in.

After the starter exercises with masks, we were given the scene between Electra and Orestes. The scene was Electra carrying her brother's ashes in an urn, and is on her way to distribute them. Along comes Orestes, who unaware to Electra is her brother, he insists that Electra knows him, however she is so distraught that she fails to think straight for a while. The scene ends on her realisation of Orestes is telling the truth, and is her long-lost brother, who she believed to be dead.

We then read the scene as a group first and then modernised the text and translated it as a soap scene, mime without and then with masks. 

Modernising the scene was quite challenging because i feel the language is difficult to get to grips with as a lot of the words aren't used today so finding substitutes for the words was a challenge. I enjoyed performing it as a soap scene because we were able to perform it quite intense, putting in dramatic pauses for effect. I also liked it because we got to speak in normal modern language which i felt was easier to portray what i was meaning to say. In the miming tasks, I found it hard to restrain myself from using my mouth at all. It's also hard to make miming look slick and professional, because as an actor it is funny to perform as everything is incredibly over exaggerated. For example in our scene, Cherkanah and I had a prolonged moment of shock and excitement facing each other before hugging. I found miming with and without masks was very different because once you under the mask you are so reliant on just your body to express your emotions. I felt that even though my face was hidden by the mask, I found myself using my face still acting behind the mask which really helped me to stay in character I feel as if i wasn't using my face it wouldn't have felt like I was performing properly as using your facial expressions is so key and important and is always used i felt i still needed to use facial expressions to get into character even though my face wasn't seen.

By the end of the workshop I definitely felt more confident using the mask and understood the correct way to use them because I had learnt the rules of handling masks and was able to have productive use of them. I felt the more extreme emotions on the character you were able to gage better their characteristics than the more neutral looking faces.  




Videos of my auditions are below:


Video 1


Video 2


Video 3

Script Writing: National Theatre, Session 1 : Story

05/12/14

Script Writing introduction

Political and social message - any social situation is all equally political

3 political issues that affect me:

• Education system : having to pay for Higher Education and the amount it costs especially if you are from a low income family and cannot afford it
• Credit crunch: Affected my family with a lack of money coming through the door
• Public Transport: The amount of money it costs to travel by train and bus when it then costs a lot of money to buy a card that gives you a discount in the first place 

Where do you see or read information about what is going on in the current climate?

• The news on TV
• Newspaper headlines and articles
• BBC news online 
• Radio
• Facebook - people sharing headlines and articles publicly

3 social issues I have directly come in contact with:

• I knew someone was a teen mum - abuse she got as she was branded names and had a bad name for herself to start with. 
• I have known of people getting into a bad drug habit and have seen their downward spiral
• Knowledge of STI's from people telling me their problems and it being a common topic in health for young people.

Who would you say has the most power?

• Government
• Public
• Queen
• Rich Bankers

We then looked at a given character of a police woman interrogating a criminal and had to then write a monologue/speech and propose how the rest of the scene and play could carry on as a way of getting inspiration for out scripts and how they can develop when we start writing.

Policewoman:
So, I know full well about your whereabouts on the night of the 21st October 2014 and know from an outside source that your evidence you gave is in fact untrue. Your friend Gavin, we have been informed that he was there too and that he was in fact the leader of this event and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We see your record is clean prior to this - smashing up a car is a criminal offence. If you can tell us the true manor and full details of Gavin's whereabouts currently, and recall the exact events that happened that I can make a deal. I can make a deal that you will come out with only a caution so that this event will not appear on a criminal record. So what do you say? You will be given only a caution if you tell me about your friend Gavin, or if you refuse, well you'll be straight to court and you will not be able to wangle your way out of this one and you will go straight down. So what will it be?

Response: Take me to court, I'm not saying anything. At least I will have a life when I come out instead if being known as a grass. There is notning more that I have to say...

If I was to have this scene in a full scale I would like a spot light on a desk centre stage with 2 chairs one side with officers and the other side with the offender and a recorder in the middle of the table. I would also like to have a greyish wash of light. 

My proposal of where this scene could go onto afterwards: end the interview and then have the criminal in an overnight cell and do a monologue. 

I would then have a court scene and then have a monologue for some of the people involved in the court case of their opinions of what is going on in the case. My proposal for a small scale performance would be in a studio theatre. 

Script Writing 4/12/14

Script Writing 04/12/14

Notes from discussion about the unit

New views is about young voices writing for 16-18 year olds

Ideas which could make a good story for a play would be about a person close to your heart, a journey about them through the play to give a more authentic feel. This way your writing will have something particular to you.

Should be a half an hour play

The plat needs to go on a journey and the main character needs to grow and learn throughout the play. Visually you need to think and image your scenes to be able to create it.

Look for oppositions in a character - so what a character wants, what they need and what is stoppping them to build a story.

We were given different pictures of faces and then had to make up a story and background to the face of the person on the pictures. Here are my character profiles for 2 pictures:

Image 1:

Gender: Male
Age: 56
Ethnicity: White
Name: Ralph
Where do they get money from?: Earns it from his job as a lawyer
Accommodation: House
Lack in life: A Personality
Need: Sleep
Secret: Is married to 2 women because he has 2 identities
Problem: Infertile
Memory: His brother was killed at war
Something they believe in: He believes men overpower women
Wish for: Love
Where are they in the picture?: Shocked looking at the woman he left

Image 2:

Gender: Female
Age: 45
Ethnicity: White
Name: Delilah
Where do they get money from?: Working in a post office
Accommodation: Small Annex
Lack in life: Food
Need: Money
Secret: The father of her children didn't die he left her
Problem: Depressed
Memory: Being happy with her husband, she wishes the husband will come back
Wish: Happiness
Where are they in the picture: Sitting on a stoop of a front door



The idea of this process was to be able to build a character profile quickly by imaginative decisions in the moment and by some simple questions of traits to come up with a character has been built with a small background story which can then build.