Connecting

today was a meandering sort of a day. Spent the morning reading and researching in preparation for Ludus Danielis. Also discovered the greatness of Foyle's bookstore, which is my official favourite place in London, I think. Short of going to a theatre-only book store, this shop has the largest selection of theatre, criticism, and SO many plays.

From here I had various meetings with my groups for Ludus Danielis, and then for Scene Study presentations. I'm feeling a bit anxious about these presentations, if only because of the very loose parameters we are working under. I think I have done my part of the research sufficiently, and we're going to rehearse it over the weekend. Part of me is anxious because I like to be in control, and have things done early....but it is good for me to feel this anxiety. At least I tell myself that.

Finally got to Acting Space. Our course leader, Sue Dunderdale, was observing part of the class today. Today Brian had sent us some Shakespeare texts to review in advance; 1.1 from Twelfth Night, and Marcus' speech upon finding Lavinia in Titus. I was excited, as I really love the character of Viola, and absolutely love that specific speech from Titus, having used it as a starting point for my physical piece Lavinia I created a few years ago. We began with some basics; read the Twelfth Night scene, decode what it means, then get in partners and talk it through colloquially from memory, to get the thought process going. From here, we began to discuss verse and how to approach it. Brian is a believer in understanding the pulse and rhythm of the text first, fully feeling in your whole body how the text moves rhythmically; from here you back off the technical reading of it and feel the emotional content.

We tried this out with a short few lines between Romeo and Juliet. Something Brian really emphasized is the need to fight for each word, and to push through to the end of the line, particularly in scenes, so that you are passing the energy and rhythm to your fellow actor. This was a lightbulb moment for me, as I realized that so much of the Shakespeare I had done previously was on soliloquies and sonnets...and I hadn't really given a ton of consideration to how to share that energy when someone else is doing half (or more!) of the speaking. One thing he had me do, which really worked, was to push against him and try to move forward as I said the line. This made me need to give each word its own space, literally having to fight for each one, and stopped me from grazing over words.

We then worked on the Titus speech; similarly we began by saying the text colloquially. From here we talked about things like technique; Brian was very cautious that any "rules" are dangerous. Anyone saying "always say a line in x way" risks losing the life and vibrancy of the text. It is important to know each word, why it is there, think about its meaning, and always feel the pulse of the da-dum da-dum da-dum underneath...even in cases of trochees or feminine endings. Another important thing is to keep that rhythm going between lines...don't let the ball drop so to speak.

The next exercises were really moving; we did focus work with our partner, just sitting silently and observing whether we were emerging or withdrawing from them. From here, we took a single line of the Titus speech and spent several moments just imagining it with closed eyes, breathing, in intense detail. From here we opened our eyes and said the line. The imagery in the words came to life in a way I have never personally been able to achieve before; my line was beginning "Alas, a crimson river..." and i literally saw this happening before my eyes in my imagination. I want to do more work like this as a way to approach text that is extremely descriptive, something I have always felt just a little detached from.

A Lusty Widow

Began with rehearsals on Act 2 of Duchess of Malfi today. I am playing The Duchess, in her expectant but secretive state in scene 2 of the act. The rehearsal was bumpy, working with so large a group (and 3 directors!) but overall we managed to develop a good sense of what Webster is intending and what is going on, along with the blocking. I must admit, The Duchess is quite fun to play, particularly in this scene. As a young Duchess (for she is still quite young) she has a feeling of entitlement, and also of defiance against those who want to restrain her or fit her into a mould. More rehearsals Tuesday, then presentation.

Then our first dramaturgy class with Paul Sirett. Such fun! We began with looking at the function of dramaturgs as they relate to new plays. We read several new short plays as "readers" for a literary department of a company, then debated the merits of each as something potential for our fictional company to pursue and potentially produce. It was interesting to hear what people took from the various plays, and the debate over some got fairly intense. Mountain of homework for this class (we only have 4 total, so have to jam it in!) including writing an External Report to the Literary Department on one of the plays.

As well, I have taken on a project (along with two classmates) to direct a Medieval Latin play for King's College with their MA students. The production takes place in April 2012.

image: Helen Mirren as The Duchess of Malfi (1981)

Samuel Beckett - Play

I am a huge Beckett fan. Seeing this on the reading list (assigned for Theorizing the Contemporary) made me quite excited, as it was a piece of Beckett I hadn't encountered before.

Stark. Empty, but filled with 3 people, 3 objects, 3 faces, 3 voices. The sense of detachment, and an acidic take on human attempts at connection are what stood out for me. Hope is absent when we rely on other people.

Interestingly it is 2 women and 1 man. Not 100% decided on what to take from this. All 3 are equally bad, though W1 seems to have been wronged....her actions quickly eliminate her potential as protagonist.

There are no heroes.

image; Alan Rickman in a 2001 production of Play

Aeschylus - The Oresteia

Required reading for Scene Study at Birkbeck. This is split into 3 parts, developing the line of the same family, but each could stand on its own. My thoughts:

Aegamemnon
- pain and sacrifice are major themes. Also the "truth", and what this is.
- women are portrayed in very specific roles:
1. Innocence - Iphigenia, who is eventually killed as sacrifice
2. Whore - Helen (of Troy) who causes the war, out of which all events ensue
3. Manly - Clytemnestra, in this play is stoic, the word Manly is used to describe her as she acts in society without her husband.
4. Servant - Cassandra

- the imagery of lions stands out

Choephori
- vengeance
- family (what is family? What are the ties of family?)
- grief
- major images are to do with snakes, specifically Clytemnestra's dream

The Eumenedies
- builds on the previous, with a focus on duty & responsibility

Overall the women are what really stood out to me...The story itself is terrible, and a sad story of betrayal and the demise of a family.

image: Martha Graham as Clytemnestra (dancer) in 1958

Scene Study (2) and Theorizing the Contemporary

Scene study today was our presentation of the first act scenes of Duchess of Malfi. We went in order of the play. The first group up had some challenges with the language specifically, watching you could see some need for more clarity in purpose. That said, good things did come out of watching the group. Tom's comments were quite forceful about the specifics of what he had seen. The expectation for clear intention and clear speaking of the verse was also made clear. Although this isn't an "acting" exercise it is a good opportunity to make clear the impact an actor has on our ability to understand the text (practically) and the role of the director in teasing this out of the script.

Our group was up next; our scene went reasonably well, there were moments that felt rushed and some of the detailed physicality was lost, but overally we conveyed the scene clearly. Tom commented that he was a little confused at times as a result of how we had to deal with double casting and limited bodies, but this rectified itself quickly. I agreed, that I would like to try staging this scene on the same ideas but with the full "body count" so to speak. One other thing I found interesting was the response a couple students had to the scene after Tom asked them to only listen; they noted that they could hear the sense of status from the characters vocally (yes!!) and also that the sense of using the space was clear, even if they couldn't see the performers. This made me quite happy.

The next group presented the final scene of the act; the image that stood out to me was the way the Duchess turned about during her monologue (they did a long column stage with audience on two sides). She seemed almost to be in a whirlpool, a metaphor for the choices she was making and their eventual impact on her in the spiraling out of the play..

We continued from here to discuss the play and what is going on. One piece of advice that stuck with me was when Tom advised us to always look back to what the playwright is giving you; what do they want you to see? Why have they given us these people at this moment?

We were divided into larger groups and assigned sections of act 2. Becaused I directed this week I'm acting for the new week, and will be playing the Duchess of Malfi. Rehearsals on Thursday.

After a break for dinner we moved on to our first actual class Theorizing The Contemporary with Dr Aiofe Monks. This class is intended for us to see theatre from the audience's perspective; why do we go to theatre? What impacts the way we experience the theatre? and then how do we talk about this? There was a great discussion about the effervescence of theatre and its immediacy. We also did an exercise in iconography and our experience relating to symbols, imbuing meaning in simple images created by two still objects. We moved from simple description (EG black chair, made of cloth and metal, one foot from a toy doll, etc) to imbuing meaning on this image (what does this make us think? What is the narrative??).

I don't know that I agreed with all of the assertions about us needing to understand certain images to understand theatre. I feel very strongly that a good play or performance will bring something for people with no "social" or intellectual references to compare and also for those who have a background of higher education. I will continue playing out this tension and my thoughts on this as we continue the course.

Practically, we also spent some time discussing our assignments for this class, of which there are two. More on those later.

Introduction to Group Work

Today's class was a bit of a mystery to most of us when we first saw it on our outline, and we weren't sure what to expect. Would it be silly office-style team building exercises? Was the emphasis on group work because there had been some sort of issue last year with people not collaborating?

So to our pleasant surprise, this afternoon's class was focused on working as an ensemble, feeling the group energy, and being aware of one another in a physical and vocal way on stage. The class was led by Associate Director of RADA Nona Shepphard. Nona began the class with a nice long warmup, set to music. This warmup merged physical dance-style warmup with vocal warmup exercises. I really liked this merger of the two; so often we warmup our body and then our voice, or vice versa...but this really brought the two together. I suspect I will find myself doing some of these exercises moving forward.

From here, we moved into some living tableau work; creating various scenes only moving within specific limits, and feeling the group dynamic, not speaking to one another. This was challenging, particularly when it came to making really specific scenes (such as a plane crash in the desert...how do you communicate the desert bit??). We continued to do various physical exercises in the space as a group. We also moved into some familiar exercises; pattern in a circle (including a sound and gesture component) and selecting A/B to attract/repel. We ended with having to create an equilateral triangle of us, A and B, without speaking (or knowing whose A/B you might be). This was a really great metaphor for the creative process as we moved through our challenges and frustrations in trying to complete a task, while others did the same around us.

Sarah Kane - Psychosis 4.48

This play really grabbed my attention. I happened upon it after several tutors talking about Sarah Kane's work, and me realizing that I hadn't even heard of this woman. So I popped into the library, and this title stood out at me.

The language is beautiful; savagely beautiful and abrasive. Structurally I liked that it isn't completely clear who is speaking immediately, but that a clear character emerges quite quickly. Similarly the movement from individual, poetic language into 2-handed scenes really appealed to me. I couldn't help but consider options for how to bring this to the stage, how one might deal with the pages of heightened inner-monologue without being pitched too high for the full show. Or should it be?

One of the structural ideas of feminist theatre is that there can be multiple climaxes in a piece, rather than following the Aristotelian ideal. This play nearly felt like several continual climaxes, without anything more than a few lines comedown before the next fever pitch.

I don't know yet what I will do with this. But I suspect I will be drawn back to it.

Acting Space

Today began for me with a trip to the Library to grab The Oresteia. Because I don't have enough reading to do, i also grabbed a copy of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis, and a thick book on the "century of revolution" from 1604 onward. Well, that last is preliminary reading before my group meet to discuss our presentation on current affairs and influences on The Duchess of Malfi in three weeks' time.

Next on to Scene Study rehearsal, where we staged our section of Act 1 in The Duchess of Malfi. Went quite well; we had the idea that Ferdinand's court is busy, and everyone is drawn in to Ferdinand and then repelled...with many people constantly watching on, but not necessarily part of the immediate action. We have found a neat way to stage it with this in mind, allowing people to move in and away from Ferdinand, illustrating his power, while also giving light to the power alliances showing themselves early in the play. As well, we were able to come up with a solution for some double-casting necessities given the volume of characters in our section. We'll do another bit of rehearsal on Tuesday and then present to the class for discussion. We'll see how it goes!

Finally, on to our actual class; Acting Space with Brian Stirner. As a RADA grad himself, Brian began the class talking about how we were all feeling after our first week, how overwhelming it can all be. He offered some great advice on taking it all in....and then sort of forgetting about the "big deal" of RADA and remembering that anything is only what you make of it yourself and with those around you. It was quite nice for someone actually to talk about it out loud, from a position of authority, but also knowing just what we were feeling in the moment. We quickly dove into exercises; beginning with some walking around the room, changing focus from people's feet upward, all the way to making eye contact. From here, we had a bit of a chat about what acting is, and what our expectations are of performances, which felt like a great starting point to further work. This included sharing a Matisse sketch of a woman (like the one above...not quite the same one). I really liked how he likened acting to the sketch; the text is the firm lines, and the excitement, the life, is everything else bubbling around it. This is what we strive for. After this, he had a couple people up to do the "moment of silence" in front of the group, which I had done back at UofW. This was a more friendly version though....starting and ending with applause for the person. This made it feel warmer in a way, less abrasive than its method-acting counterpart I had endured in undergrad. Building on this, a physical activity was added, and then a second person...and lines. Building on what made things easier.

From here, we all had a single line, and had to walk about the room, sharing this with people we came into eye contact with, taking them in, or trying to assert ourselves against their emotions. This was interesting, as one could see quite clearly what we put on to words vs what the words give us on their own. Then...drumroll...time for script. We worked in groups of two on a section of After Liverpool focusing on the text and just what came out of reading it. For those unfamiliar, this script has "small talk" conversation, but is missing the "details" so to speak...so a line will simply be "my name is." without the noun, but the structure of the ensuing conversation is as though it were there. Clearly this allows for many interpretations. My partner was Holly and we had a fun time interpreting this short scene, into one where my character (A - impelling agent) was quite needy, nearly to the point of creepiness. I felt it imperative to have a quick pace to help us drive this pull between my character's need to befriend, and her character's desire to disengage. When we got up to share with the class this worked quite well, and Brian's comments echoed this instinct.

Overall this was a good day for me. Now, time to read. A lot.

First Impressions

Had our induction and first class at RADA yesterday. The first bit was administrative; selecting our play for Scene study groups, learning the building rules, meeting the administrator and our professors, and learning how not to get in trouble with The Academy.

Next up was a tour and workshop on the RADA library, to help us orient ourselves and know where to locate things. Upon completing my assignment (to locate visual images of clothing for the various classes in Measure for Measure) I had some time to look about. There was a small section of the Anthologies dedicated to Canadian plays, so I went to have a look. It contained the obligatory CanDram text Modern Canadian Plays, with Zastrozzi and a couple others. And I was excited to see the collection of essays Contemporary Issues in Canadian Theatre, edited by none other than Per Brask! It was very exciting to see a name from home in this prolific library.

From here, we dove right into classes. The full MA group was divided into two at RADA with half exploring Measure for Measure, and half exploring The Duchess of Malfi. I was assigned to Malfi, with Tom Hunsinger as our instructor. I was very excited for this; we began in a circle going around the room talking a little bit about how we came to RADA and what we were expecting from this course. It was amazing to see the varied experiences of everyone on the course. Following this, Tom allowed us to have a Q&A session, which varied on everything from questions about his course, what kind of work previous students had done, to Tom's writing process and his work as a director.

We then dove right in; divided Act 1 of Duchess into 3 sections, set up groups, and started working. Our assignment is to stage our section, which we'll share with the class next Tuesday, and then discuss the play, meaning, themes, and also our choices in staging. I volunteered as director for my group....so head-first!

The day ended with a brief tour of the RADA buildings, showing us where various rehearsal rooms were and the theatres...and also the bar. As we walked through the halls it was everything I could do not to squeal when I walked by photos or names of people I look up to. I fully intend to wander casually through on my own and take some photos like a little fan-girl.

Tonight is induction at Birkbeck where we'll learn the details of our responsibilities for that half of the course.

New Beginnings

In two short weeks I depart my comfortable bubble in Winnipeg and begin an amazing, terrifying, glorious adventure in London. This is exciting for many reasons, the most important of which is that I am returning to academia. Not just academia...but the pinnacle of academic work in my field (at least in my opinion). Receiving the course handbook, reading list and outline on Monday, my excitement was invigorated. The idea of having the chance to work with such amazing creators of theatre, on such brilliant works, theorizing on the contemporary performance of pieces is quite thrilling. Our initial term of Scene Study centres on Measure for Measure and The Duchess of Malfi, looking at the challenges of interpreting the play as a creator, workshopping techniques for doing so and how to actually get the thing to life on stage in a way that is insightful and new.

I am also extremely excited for the practical aspects of the course, including the study of LABAN and Alexander physical techniques, voice and the text, and others.

Basically i am just excited. More to come.