Final Performance Evaluation

The Cherry Orchard performance was extremely successful and I think that everyone pushed themselves to the best of their ability. As a form, we decided to take a more modern approach to the play which I was original and creative. In my opinion, it was the best run through that we as a form has ever done! One aspect I think we all developed was our transitions and pace of each scene. We focused on this just before our performance and I think that really helped us to keep a flowing solid performance.

I feel that one of the main strengths of my performance was the fact I knew all my lines, as this enabled me to become a lot more confident and in depth with my character as I feel that I was able to fully get into my role to portray her to the audience. I feel like knowing my lines confidently helped me to fully understand my character and what she was feeling at the time. I was also able to confidently add in pauses where I felt they were appropriate.

I also found that the warm ups Sarah did with us before our performance really helped me to develop my voice and helped me to pronounce my words exactly how they should be said in order to be understood. I find that when I'm nervous I become quieter so this helped me with my projection so that my lines could be fully heard across the room. I managed to get some feed back from my friends in a rehearsal, who told me that I needed to work on my voice. I feel like this constructive criticism really helped me to do the best I could in our final performance. 

I have learnt a lot about Naturalism over the course of this term which I have really enjoyed. However I find that if your not in full understanding of Naturalism then it can be quite difficult to understand. Stanislavsky's system really helped me in my understanding of Naturalism. It helped me to find my super objective in my character. At first before learning about the system I found Naturalism quite difficult to understand and portray, however once I understood it I felt it was much easier to explore with. In the future I would like to explore naturalism further and develop my skills furthur.

When exploring Anya, I tried to understand how she is feeling in my scene and what her character was like so that I was able to portray her naturally. This helped me develop a further understanding of her and how I would present her in my final performance. Throughout my performance, I kept in mind Anya's objective and why she was there. This definitely helped me to progress my character further and make myself understand why I was there. This also helped me to have more confidence in my stage presence as I understood where I was and exactly why I was there. I wanted to portray her worry and love towards her family, by analysing my hand gestures and facial expressions.

In my opinion, I feel that everyone did really well in their performance and got into the mindset of their character. I felt that one of the strongest performances was Bret's portrayal of Lopakhin. I really admired how he managed to portray the bitter and stubborn personality including projection of his voice. His performance stood out for me because he was one person that really engaged me to watch the scene he featured in. In his scene he is trying to persuade Ravenskaya to sell the orchard and I feel that he managed to portray how Lopakhin has a selfish and greedy personality through his facial expressions and hand gestures, as well as his variety of tones in his voice, as he would become high pitched when he started to get agitated. I analysed his hand gestures and facial expressions throughout his scene and I feel that he really got into his character as much as he could. I find people who really engage with their character really admiring!

Overall, I feel that my performance as Anya managed to be successful after all of the hard work and rehearsals that we have had over the term! and I am extremely happy in myself with how I did and with our final performance. I feel that I managed to stay truthful to my character throughout the scene. Over this term, I have already learnt so many skills such as Stanislavsky's system and all how truthful performances. I feel that my form did well in performing The Cherry Orchard and can not wait until our next performance!

Anya - Costume

Me and Tia came together during rehearsal time to discuss what we thought would be appropriate for Anya to wear. We took into consideration her age and the time period in Russia. We decided it would be appropriate for Anya to be casual.


COSTUME

Top - Black
Jeans - Black
Casual trainers
Flowery scarf
Hair back

I feel that the scarf really added to my performance it shows the femininity and innocence of Anya. However, the fact that shes in dark clothing could suggest that she is feeling a variety of emotions.

Anya - Character Profile work

I have managed to officially embody my character due to having rehearsed so much for The Cherry Orchard. I think in my scene, Anya is excited for the arrival of coming home, however worried about the welfare of her mother as she speaks to Varya about this.
Blocking out our scenes

•  Ravenskaya, Anya, Varya and Gayev enter the home to arrive to Dunyasha waiting for them
• Stands by the window with Varya to admire the views of home
• All leave execpt Anya who is greeted by an excited Dunyasha
• Sits down with Dunyasha to gossip and discuss events whilst Dunyasha does her hair
• Enters Varya who takes over Anya's hair 
• Discusses their mother and the situation in Paris

Performance Workshop 7/10/14

In this performance workshop, we ran through the play as many times as possible. We particularly focused on our transitions between each scene. As a class, this helped us to have a better understanding of timing and also allowed the play to flow. Myself and Imogen worked on our scene when i'm talking about our mother in Paris. We added much more emotion and laughter into the scene which made it to seem much more naturalistic and easier to deliver. It also made me feel like I could be more engaged in my charcter as I knew my lines and understood the context. I took into consideration my units and pace of my mini monologue. Being fluent in my lines and knowing exactly when our transitions are allowed me to feel much more confident on stage. Myself and Maria (Dunyasha) also worked on our scene. We both decided to add excitment and gossip into our conversation which made the scene humourous and much more engaging. When Dunyasha is talking about how she is in love, I say "Nothing else" adding laughter and pull her towards the table for her to do my hair whilst I listen to the gossip. This definetly helped to show the audience the close relationship that Anya and Dunyasha share together. We also worked on our voices and accents to make our scene as naturalistic as possible.
As a class i we all worked a lot harder than we have been as I feel everyone is dedicated to their character and getting our scenes to the best that we can. I have really enjoyed rehearsing for The Cherry Orchard as it has given me chances to understand my strengths and weaknesses. I have developed my character understanding in depth and feel prepared for the upcoming performance.

Character Profile

Who am I?My name is Anya, I am the daughter of Raynevskaya. I am a young,caring teenager who has a close relationship with both mother and sister. I am full of curiosity and enjoy reading and studying. I have had sheltered upbringing throughout my whole life. I come across to everyone as being hopefull and full of life, and towards the end of the play, see the sale of The Cherry Orchard as a new beginging. I desire to become a nun when i'm older, however struggle to see this becoming reality due to my familys financial status. I persive myself to be a loving and genourous person who has a friendly and addictive persoanlity. I am virtuous and strong and completley in love with Trofimov. 

Where am I?I have just arrived home from a trip to Paris with my mother. We enter into the nursery where my mother starts to become emotional. The furniture is just the same as it used to be before we left. "My room, my windows, just as if ive never been away". This is my home. This is where my childhood grew and still grows today. My home is the most personal place in the entire world. Its the closest and best thing my family have together.

When is it?Its may, spring. The blossoms are starting to grow. It is night time and the air is becoming bitter. The windows are cold but I can still feel the frost.

Where have I come from?I have just arrived home from a trip to Paris with my mother. I arrived by train, however our journey was major delayed and my mother could not afford to go first class. Varya is particularly pleased to see us. I am relived to finally be home with my family again and see my bedroom and Orchard.

What do I need?I want to educate myself, I want to learn how to become a nun with the right books and study material. I have many goals and want to be able to archive them.

Why do I need it?I want to be able to provide for myself, have an education to get a job and be able to help the financial situation that is currently occurring in my family.

Why do I need it now?If I don't start to earn myself money, then the Orchard may soon be sold. I want my mother to be happy and excited, and I don't want to loose out on what we have.

ACT 1 - The Cherry Orchard (Helped me to interpret Anya further) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI9x6b8Vdow

23/9/12 Performance Workshop

Blocking our scenes

We began the lesson by continuing the blocking of our scenes.  We began with the scene of the arrival of the family. Having being put on the spot to know our lines and understand where we were meant to be at the time really helped myself and the rest of the group understand where there are areas for improvement, as I feel that I improvised my lines slightly. However, rehearsing this scene gave me a clear understanding of each characters personality and how different characters have different relationships.

Myself and Imogen (Varya) worked on our scene, focusing on how to present our relationship on stage. I found that this really helped my understanding of my character. For example when Varya takes over Dunyasha from doing my hair, I feel that it shows how Anya is a very liked character, who is friendly to everyone and does not take social class into consideration, whereas Varya slightly jealous of the pairs relationship, therefore sends Dunyasha away. The scene between Aya and Varya is extremely important and emotional, as we find out about the familys issue with money. Myself and Imogen blocked this scene a few times to perfect it and became off book. Knowing my lines off by heart helped me to say them with confidence and add in pauses. I felt that rehersing my scence with Imogen enabled me to have a clear understanding of the sisters relationship. However, I think myself and the rest of the group need to work on actioning our lines in our own time. Naturalism is what the group is aiming for, therefore in order to create a natural play, the whole group need to be confident with lines which I feel we are with as much practice as possible. 


Self observation sheet

Performance Workshop 16/09/14

In todays lesson, we focused on all the skills we have learnt over the past few workshops to apply them to our performance of 'The Cherry Orchard'. To start off with our lesson, we began to explore Laban efforts. We started with a worksheet on the Laban Movement Analysis.
 

 

Each movement enabled whether it would be direct, indirect, heavy or light. This enabled me to understand the characteristics about the way a movement is done. We did this exercise to develop a clear understanding of characterisation.The attention to the strength of the movement, the control of the movement and the timing of the movement are very all very different.
Once we had picked an effort, we had to travel around the room deciding our walks and hand gestures in order to create a certain character. This helped me to understand how different movements can create such different characters. We then found a pair and created a mini scene were we both used a movement, For example; I chose to become float, therefore I would lightly pounce around the room using my arms beside me to make it look like I was floating. Lauren chose dab, and acted out as a teacher to create a character. Laban helped me to create a whole personality just out of one movement which I found really interesting because I had never thought that such tiny movements could effect a character and their mannerisms. In my opinion I think for me this was a really exciting part of the workshop, as it educated me a whole new method on how to develop my acting skills further. Creating a character just by using efforts, times and directions in space helped me to really explore different aspects of my character that I chose to be. I think the Laban exercises have truly inspired me for my character development.

Video of Laban efforts which I found useful.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ArKgQUPPas
  Once we had finished our exercises on Laban, we moved on to be casted for 'The Cherry Orchard' which we will be performing in week 8. I was casted into Group 2 and Group 6.

Group 2

Anya - Sophie

Ranyevskaya – Willa

Varya – Imogen

Gayev – Michael

Dunyasha  - Maria

Group 6

Yasha – Billy

Firs – Beau

Ranyevskaya – Robin

Anya – Sophie

Varya – Sachelle

Dunyasha – Andrea

Yepikhodov - Felix

 

Due to the fact I was casted into two groups, I had to use my initiative to even out my contribution to both. I play the part of Anya, a young, warm-hearted girl who has a very close relationship with her mother. The family arrive home with Ravenskaya. They first enter into the nursery where Ravenskaya meets Dunyasha after five years. The scene is extremely positive and emotional. When Ravenskaya, Varya and Gayev leave, Anya and Dunyasha share a close scene where they are gossiping and laughing whilst Dunyasha does Anya's hair. I particularly like this scene because you can see the close relationship between them both, and I am also able to really explore my character and her personality towards people she likes. Half way through the scene, Varya, Anya's sister enters and gives Dunyasha instructions, almost spitefully. She takes over Dunyasha and starts talking about Paris with her sister. In this section, you can see the contrast between the sisters relationship with Dunyasha. Anya is very close with Dunyasha and treats her like a friend, however, Varya treats Dunyasha to be nothing but a maid and could even be slightly jealous of her sisters relationship with her.

My part as Anya

Scene in bullet points

• Family arrive home
• Exploration of the nursery
• Dunyasha and Anya share a moment
• Varya enters, Dunyasha exits

I also feature as Anya in Group 6. In this scene, everybody is dancing. This scene is also very positive,until Anya breaks the news about the Orchard being sold. I find this scene very interesting because I think that it portrays the social change in Russia during the 20th century. The family are gutted and Ravenskaya breaks down into a state.

Scene in bullet points

• Everybody is dancing
• Anya breaks the news about the Orchard being sold
• Ravenskaya is devastated and the dancing stops

In both of my scenes, I feel that I have a major opportunity to develop my character further. Since acting out the part of Anya, I feel that I have a much deeper understanding of her personality and her objective in the play. We got into our character groups. My group consisted of myself and Tia in which we discussed our character, Anya's personality and objective. Firstly, we both did some research on her character on the Internet. We found out that Anya is a loved character in the play, who is wise and enjoys reading to pass her time. She also is very flirty towards Trovimov, who she may be having a romantic affair with. Myself and Tia decided to use the Laban effort in our character. Taking into consideration that Anya is young and flirty, we decided for her to walk with 'float' which represents her innocence. We discussed how we thought Anya's objective is to care for her mother and develop intelligence throughout the play.
Together we discussed the way we would portray Anya. I found this interesting as myself and Tia both had a different opinion and personal interpretation of how she would be played. Tia decided that she thought Anya was quite flirty and innocent, whereas I thought that Anya would be more calm and content. We both agreed that Anya had feelings for Trofimov and was an intelligent and confident character. Analysing this character helped me to progress as I was able to see how I can develop my characterisation skills and understand how others may perceive a character.

DEFINITION OF SUPER OBJECTIVE: The overall OBJECTIVE that carries the character through the whole play.
We then looked at three key questions on which we had to use to help us develop our character. I found this really interesting because I was able to develop my character from all different aspects and understand how others perceive her as well as myself.

What other people say Anya?

What does Anya say about others?

What does Anya say about herself?

 

We worked on creating a short opening, introducing each character to a piece of music. We begun with Firs entering alone at the beginning of the performance, then individually, each character would enter. We decided as a whole group on any improvements that needed to be made and how we could create the performance to be truthful. 

Once we had completed the beginning of our performance, Sarah helped us to block our groups scene. The first scene we blocked was the arrival of the family, in which I lead the family into the nursery. This helped me to understand how Anya would feel when she arrives. I learnt how she is a very happy character who is excited for the arrival home. In the scene between myself and Maria (who plays Dunyasha) I started to develop a relationship with her and how our characters are together on stage. In the scene they are very close which enabled me to develop my characterisation skills further and helped me as an actress for my understanding of onstage relationship. Blocking our scenes gave myself and the group a better understand of our characters, therefore without Sarah's help we wouldn't of understood how to interpret them properly. Taking on Sarah's advice really helped us as a group, and also helped to create a truthful performance. In our scene, I feel that Anya's objective is to welcome home her mother and to excite the family. In my opinion, I think due to the fact that Anya is very much family orientated, I feel that her motivation is her mother, she seems extremely excited for the homecoming. Blocking the scene and being the character made it a lot easier for me. I feel that this performance workshop has really benefitted me as an actress as my knowledge and development towards my character has really improved. I also really benefitted from learning the Laban efforts. I took them into consideration when rehearsing The Cherry Orchard scenes.

 

 

Performance Workshop - Melodrama 2/09/14

We began the lesson by understanding archetypes. We were given an archetype to be, analyse the key features of them then create them in a still image. We had to exaggerate each character which made the exercise fun to do. Understanding theatre people would've been experiencing during Stanislavsky's time was really interesting and enabled me to obtain a clear understanding of them. Melodramatic theatre's consisted of these characters; The Damsel in Distress, The Hero, The Mother, The Villain, The Henchman and The Prince. These characters are all overplayed to a dramatic extent. The reason Stanislavski wanted to introduce a change into the theatre is because it became quite repetitive and purely just for entertainment, where as theatre nowadays can be used for education. When performing melodrama we needed to portray loud voices, confidence, body language and characterisation at a level 10 standard. 

 

• The damsel in distress - A stereotypical princess or damsel. I portrayed her by using my hand to hold by my face portraying a sense of vulnerability. My facial expressions being shocked, representing that I may be in need of help.
• The villain - I found playing the villain really interesting as I enjoy being able to play somebody unlikeable. Bending over my back and making my hands crippled together portrayed how the character was planning something evil. I also scrunched up my face to make it look nasty and creepy.
• The henchman -  I found portraying this character was a little bit more difficult as he follows around the Villain. Some groups decided to create the henchmen to be a clueless follower who did as he was told, which added a comical edge when watching the performances.
• The hero - The hero was exciting to create. Standing tall and proud with my chest out and hands on my hips showing off and exaggerating my positivity.

 

 I found this exercise enjoyable and helped me to develop my understanding of melodramatic characters. Once we had done this exercise, we were put into small groups to create an act. I played the character of the 'hero'. I was excited to tackle this character because I find it exciting to be able to exaggerate somebody's personality. Once we had decided our storyline, acting as the hero was actually more difficult than I thought it would be. I had to be constantly proud and smiling which made it quite difficult to maintain focus, however I feel that I developed my acting skills because I was able to be bold and enthusiastic. In my opinion, my favourite group to perform was Haydn's group. I think him and Josh portrayed the villain and henchmen extremely well adding humour and creating the characters to the point, exaggerating their walk and voices. I think as a whole group we managed to prove a clear understanding of melodramatic characters.

 

To understand Naturalism, we got into small groups to create a totally natural scene from day to day life. My favourite scene was Chem's group, as they used a natural scenario (watching football with the lads) to show their understanding of Naturalism. The style used in The Cherry Orchard is Naturalism, therefore we developed our understanding of the play through learning about it. In our small groups, we made acts. In my group, we decided to have a scene where a brother and sister have an argument over who had the iPod last. We thought that this would be a comical and natural scene which a lot of people can relate too, especially if they have siblings.
Watching other groups scenes allowed me understand naturalistic scenes. This included analysing how the character your playing would sit, walk or stand.

After this we took our naturalistic scenes and used the idea of 'realism'. As a group we found this quite difficult because our act was already quite simple. Therefore, we cut out as much speech and made it faster and real as possible. One we had performed these scenes, we were put into different groups to create a short scene showing the main events in The Cherry Orchard. The main events are Ranevskaya returning home from Paris, the informing to the family that the Orchard has to be sold, thirdly the dance where the family are told about Lopakhin buying the Orchard and finally Fir's death. In my opinion, I felt that our group added in the essential key elements to display a clear understanding of each essential part. Many groups made Fir's death a comical scene however in the book it is an emotional and sad ending. Overall I developed a clear understanding of Melodrama, Naturalism and Realism in the lesson which I found extremely helpful. I particularly liked Naturalism because its a useful skill to have when performing for television. 

Performance Workshop 29/08/14

At the beginning of our performance workshop, we begun looking at 'The Cherry Orchard', analysing the themes such as; social change and memory.
We discussed how memory effects us and how certain things can trigger memories such as places or songs. Analysing memory was enjoyable for me because its something that I can relate too as we all have memories of somebody or somewhere, which is personal to us. We were given a line each to remember which related to the theme of memory. My line was 'Memory can take in vast amounts of information'. I particularly enjoyed this exercise because I learnt a lot more about how memory works. We got into groups and were given an act to analyse. We decided as a group that we would contrast ageing to symbolise the play. As a group, we wanted to make our act emotional and also symbolise the key themes of the play.

We focussed on the idea of a tree in the centre stage whilst each person in the group waters it at different times in life, showing how the characters grew up with "The Cherry Orchard". We used the idea of the Orchard's trees. We thought it would be effective if we were to show the tree showing growth through time. The next morning, we had slightly more time to rehearse before performing to a solid audience. After practice, our piece finally came together and we were able to run it smoothly. Our play consisted of no speech, only music, which I think was effective it was almost like the audience were able to watch memories and visualise them rather than hear about them. At the end of the performance, we involved the audience by picking someone out, asking them to close their eyes and draw what we would describe as the most beautiful place on earth. In my opinion, involving the audience at the end added something special to the performance and made it enjoyable for me to involve somebody else.

 

Watching other forms do their performances gave me a better understanding of other themes in the play such as Freedom. Without realising, Freedom is actually a huge theme in the play. Social change effected freedom very much so, as well as the freedom to express ourselves and our ability to learn.

Another form looked at the theme of social change. They portrayed social change through music and dancing which I and the rest of the audience enjoyed watching. The freedom in which they had was that they were able to enjoy themselves and dance together, however the social change occurred due to having a dictatorship who was played by Haydn who stood on a high level stage to represent his power and authority over Russia, therefore it was easy to interpret the change. At the end of their play, every actor started to work, which symbolised the falling economy in Russia.

 

Ending on a negative note helped me to understand and think about how people used to survive. I feel that my understanding of "The Cherry Orchard" developed massively because my knowledge of the play increased. I was able to understand characters, themes, history of Russia, and how the social change effected so many. Having this as my first performance workshop, it really inspired and motivated me into what was going to come in the following lessons. I felt good leaving the lesson knowing how much I had learnt about "The Cherry Orchard" and how I had a clear understanding of each theme.

Scripts from 9/9/2014

The first script we looked at was the first scene of The Cherry Orchard (Act 1) I paired up with Soloman to annotate the script and characters. We used given circumstances to work out the characters objectives. 'When, where and who'. We discovers how Lopakhin's objective is to boast about his wealth and prove his authority over others, where as Dunyasha's objective is to satisfy and do her jobs. E.g. To seek approval by preparing for the familys arrival. Doing these excersise enabled me to obtain a clear understanding of each character from a different perspective. The next script we annotated was when we got into new groups to figure out objectives of each line. E.g. 'Hello' would be.. (To greet). I feel that doing this excersises are crucial for an understanding towards acting. 

Quote

"Love art in yourself,and not yourself in art" - Konstantin Stanislavski

Given Circumstances

Performance Workshop 9/9/14

Today in our Performance workshop, we begun with a famous Stanislavski method used in the System; Relaxation. Stanislavski had a theory that relaxation enabled your body to become a relaxed actor who can move more effectively. It also enables you to access thoughts and feelings of that character. Learning about how relaxation can improve a performance helped me to understand how to prepare myself before a performance and I have decided that I will be using this method in the future. Once we had relaxed our bodies by carrying out actions such as; laying on the floor or rolling to align our spine, we moved onto a game. As a group, we created different situations and gave them to someone to act out to which we would respond whether we believed it to be truthful or not. Rhianne was the first person to act as a young Muslim girl who had just found out she is pregnant. I analysed her facial expressions and actions which I think she portrayed really well. We decided as a group that her performance was truthful. The next person that went up is Josh, who was acting out as if he was in the middle of a heat wave. At first Josh came in and went straight into his performance, which made it untruthful and unrealistic. We decided that it would be more effective if Josh actually made himself hot which in the end became a much more truthful performance. This game enabled us to see how the person performing felt a sense of vulnerability on stage when in the moment. I feel that they both received constructive criticism. However, we all had different opinions on what we felt was truthful as the audience had different perceptions. Once we had finished this exercise, we moved on to a new exercise. I had to pick somebody that I had seen today on my journey to school. I decided to choose an upper class business woman who seemed to be in a rush. This enabled me to improve my skills in characterisation. I tried to find the character physically and pick out elements of their attitude and make it become part of me as an actor. Sarah gave us situations e.g. Finding a ten pound note or stepping in dog mess, in which we had to respond in our character. This relates to the 'Magic if' which is another part from the System. Asking myself 'What if this person did this' helped me to understand the character I was playing clearly as I was putting myself in realistic situations. After we had finished this task, we got into pairs and created a scene where our two characters would meet. I paired up with Tia, who played a young teenage girl with an attitude. I think that this helped me develop an understanding of contrast and how different personality's can be portrayed. We had to use only four lines each in our conversation. We then looked Want,Do,Feel, a simple version of Stanislavski's system. Want was about the characters objective which means what the character wanted. For example, if somebody is at a train station, their objective would be to get the train or to get work. Do was an action they would follow out, and feel is what they would be feeling at this moment in time.  I took into WHAT with most consideration. I asked myself questions such as 'What kind of person am I?" and "What is my upbringing". This helped me to develop my character further. We watched each others groups and tried to explore each characters objective which I found very interesting to watch and helped me by watching others for inspiration.
I found actioning very interesting because I think it helps to build an understanding of how the character would be. We looked at a variety of scripts and created actioning verbs to ensure a better understanding of how they would be said. I had never heard of a subtext before we learnt about it today, which made me feel very positive about learning new things which would help me in the future. Subtexts have an impact on how you say a line. Lastly, we analysed the beginning of The Cherry Orchard and applied all the things that we had learnt, which in Stanislavski's system are called 'Bits'. In my opinion, this lesson really helped me to fully understand different aspects of Theatre.