Performance Evaluation

Yesterday, we performed our final assessment of The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, a naturalistic piece. I played the role of Petya Trofimov, a student who is known to dress quite poorly but he also symbolises death for Ranevsky because he tutored her son who drowned in a pond. Therefore, every time she sees Petya she is reminded by the death of her son.

Petya was a very interesting character to play because he is not like other characters in the play. He isn't driven by his own desires and greed like Lopakhin or Ranevsky and he has a certain interest in helping people out. Although this is very good of him, he seems to get in the way sometimes and can come across quite strong to others as a bit of a creep. For example, in the scene with Pishchik he wants to help him find his money but ends up just touching him in the most inappropriate places.

My scene as Trofimov consists of him trying to find his galoshes but Lopakhin is pestering him and he is trying to ignore him. Immediately I realised that I had two objectives in this scene and that was 'to search for' and 'to ignore'. This affected how I acted in the scene drastically because it gave me a better understanding on how to instinctually react to things with my objectives in mind.

In the performance I was very good at using the space of the stage. We were told that if we were too close to each other the scene's energy and atmosphere dies out. Therefore, as one of my objectives was 'to search for' it was easy to use the space for me because I would frantically move around the stage looking for his galoshes. Also, one of my main goals this term was to work on my projection and articulation, so when I went into my performance those things were in mind. I feel as if I achieved those goals.

On the other hand, there was a slight mishap at the start of my scene where I forgot to say the second half of my line. Luckily, it was not an important line and that my partner in the scene, Hayden was able to go on with ease. I feel this shows that me and Hayden formed a good working partnership that we were allowed to help each other out so easily and this was shown because it wasn't obvious for the audience I heard.

Ultimately, I believe I gave myself justice during this performance especially considering how hard I worked in rehearsals.

Rehearsal 7 - Prep for Performance and Evaluation of group

• We looked at attitude in our character's voice. This is all down to whether you understood the subtext of the current dialogue which is important. The attitude brings life to the scene and makes it more believable for the audience
• Stage set up - The stage was set up with a bed in centre stage; a table back stage; two chairs with a cloth over them to give image of a sofa on stage right and behind them is a bench.
•  It is important to use the stage to the maximum capacity because if the scene is too close together then it dies out and it is easy for the audience to lose interest in the scene
• Filling in the blanks - doing something while not speaking so it isn't just purely waiting for your cue
• Carry on your energy - don't lose energy after saying your lines
• Visualising the scene and setting as your character would because it is easier to act that scene as your character if you're playing them

Today in the rehearsal of The Cherry Orchard, the group worked well to an extent. In my opinion, many people were thinking too much about being natural and it became completely unnatural because of it. People were over thinking about what they were doing making it odd and not right. For most people this was clear and in my opinion, it ruined the scene.

'The Magic If'

The Magic If is a Stanislavskian method which involves the actor putting themselves into their character and giving them a random situation think about what their character would do in this circumstance. This could lead to improvisation and letting the actor indulge in the scene in their character.

Stanislavsky believed that no actor could truly believe in the truth of events however he believed that you can begin to believe in the possibility of those events. He believed that if you create difficult circumstances for yourself, your effort to solve them automatically leads you to natural internal and external reactions.

"All action in the theatre must have an inner justification, logical, coherent and real" - Stanislavski 

Rehearsal 5 - Speaking With Meaning and Passion

The most important method learned today was to speak with meaning and passion within your voice. We learned that if you have no meaning and passion within your voice then you might as well not be on the stage because you wouldn't be portraying your character. We learned that it is important to not fade away the end of your lines and that you must keep your lines strong even when your not speaking so the other actors can react to the effect of the words your character just said.

For example, Chloe's scene has been difficult for her because she struggles to show true passion behind her lines when she speaks and she often fades away her lines when she's speaking; because of this, the scene lacked honesty making the scene very unconvincing. She fixed these errors and did it again and the atmosphere changed in the scene drastically because her lines had more grit, power and honesty behind them.

Rehearsal 4 - Objective Work and Evaluation

Today we looked at extensively looking at how we could portray our objectives well enough that the audience can understand but not to the point where it is no longer naturalistic and more melodramatic. My objective for my scene was to search for and ignore, in my opinion these are two very easy objectives to fulfill. This is not me implying that my character was not a challenge but it is because I studied him well and it was easy for me to grasp his objectives and bring them down to a simpler form. I could see that many people had over complicated their objectives which made it difficult for them to portray it when we asked to mime it. For example, Skye's objective was 'to remember', because this is quite a difficult objective to act it took the whole lesson for him to grasp it. Will made the whole class try and portray to remember and it was important that it was instinctual. I asked if I could show my version of too remember, and it was 50/50 from the class. One half, including Will, believed I was playing 'to remember' but the other half just thought I was a madman. I could understand why but I still thought I played it well. Anyway, my objectives were clearly shown and I do believe that.

I believe that today, I played the role of Trofimov well because I had established my objectives early so it was easier for me to play the role. In my opinion, I felt as if I worked well and managed to stay focused. The play is difficult for me, I feel, so it was tricky trying to keep positive but I managed to.

Rehearsal 3 - Objectives and the Context of a scene

This lesson was one of our most important lessons yet and that was using the Stanislavskian methods of Objectives, Given Circumstances and Circles of Attention. These methods are important for us as actors because they help us develop our scene and characters because they help us understand the context.

Given Circumstances:

• Facts and opinions about your character
• Who are you? What are you doing? Why are you doing it?
• What time is it? What's the date? Where are you?
• What just happened to your character behind the scenes? It could have been just now or something from long ago that affects him up to now.
• Where do you live
• Who you are related to 

To accomplish all of these points is to look through the whole script and research the context of the play as well, and that is the only way. It is important to know everything about your character in your performance because anything that happens to your character should affect how you act as them. For example if the whole play your character is quiet and doesn't say much, but at the end he kills someone, you as an actor need to be able to show signs that aren't obvious throughout the play that your character is capable of murder.

Objectives:

• Super objective - the characters task that spans the whole play. What are they after or need? Are they running away from something? Are they persuading? etc

• Objective -  the character's task in the scene. What are they trying to achieve in that scene

 These two types of objectives cannot be obtained if you don't act towards your given circumstances. The objective of your character is probably the most important thing as an actor, especially in naturalistic plays. The character must have a reason to be there or it doesn't look natural. It is like in real life and you're in a room. You have an objective whilst you sit in that room. You may not want to be there so you might want to leave and that's your objective, just like in a performance, if you show no real reason to be there you might as well be off the stage.

Circles of attention:

=  Public

                                   Private   =                             

= Personal 

 

 

Circles of attention can not be achieved without the first two methods, in my opinion. You cannot know which circle to be in if you don't know the given circumstance or the character's objective. It is important that once you've established them you can.

 

Rehearsal 2 - How to breathe

In today's lesson we learned how to breathe. We learned that irregular breathing will cause irregular sentences which doesn't look or sound right, so it is important for an actor to look through their lines and find where it is correct to breathe. We looked through each sentence in our lines specifically and when we found the correct place to take a short breath we would note it on our script with a single forward slash like this (/). When it was acceptable for your character to have a longer breath we would put a double slash like this (//). As well as being able to breath, these marks also show that the character may have a different thought and this could lead to him saying the next line in a different tone of voice or the transition of your body's posture.

All though this was all very important, this whole excercise was good for us to be able to really understand our characters. It made us think like our characters and really get into their heads. I think this was good for us as actors because it made the role easier to play, especially due to the fact that none of these characters are that relatable  to our generation.

Rehearsal 1 - Melodrama vs Naturalism

In today's lesson we went through two types of theatre styles which we found were really important for us to acknowledge because we needed to establish the border between each one. The Cherry Orchard is suppose to be a naturalistic play so we needed to understand what the opposite of that was so we could see whether we were being naturalistic or not. This is called melodrama, this is where all sequences of the performances are over done and over acted and everything is very over the top.

We first looked at the archetypes of melodrama; a archetype is a universal view of a specific thing for example, a archetype of a little girl would have a doll or teddy bear, a skip to her step and a long smile. We looked at all the archetypes which are seen in melodrama. These are; the henchman, the prince, the hero, the villain, the damsel in distress and the protecting mother. To create these characters it was important that we started our bodies off in neutral so our bodies were free enough to transform when we were creating the character. We walked around the room in neutral and when the name of the archetype was called out we had to transition into them. It was important that this was done at a moderate speed so it was instinctual but we could make it clear.

After we had found our archetypes we got into small groups and devised our own piece of melodramatic theatre. My group discussed that it was very important for everyone to be over the top and flamboyant. The key to this was large movements and overly expressed faces when we act. For me, I was playing the role of the hero, when I arrived onto the scene I had to come on with a broadened chest and a deep, bellowing voice; this is because it was very important to show who was playing which archetypes.

Because we now understood what melodrama was, it was really clear for us to understand how to act in a naturalistic play. This is why for the second half of the lesson we started to look at naturalism. There are no clear archetypes in naturalistic pieces because in real life people's characters aren't read as easily in most cases. So we split up into new groups and we began to create naturalistic pieces. We highlighted that it was key for everyone to show real characters, real setting and a real scenario.

When watching the melodramatic pieces and naturalistic pieces after, you can see why Stanislavski started his new philosophy of theatre. In melodrama, the pieces are hilarious and fun but they are not realistic and or relate able. That is probably why Stanislavski started his techniques because he wanted theatre to be relate able and realistic.

My Reaction to The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

From this play by Anton Chekhov, I have realised that the writer has used comedy as a way to highlight tragedy, which is quite ironic. In my opinion, this was a very good way for the audience to understand the message without having to think to hard about the subtext. For example, a play like Animal Farm will take quite a lot of research to fully understand the message where as in this play it is very obvious.

The use of symbolism in the play is special too. For example, Chekhov uses nature as a symbol of connecting to the past, in this case, the Orchard. Furthermore, I believe that Chekhov uses symbolism in this play because he doesn't want to highlight just about a certain time and place in Russia, he also thinks about how he would like the audience will be able to relate to it universally and not just think about Russia individually.

Modernity vs the Old Russia is important in this play as well because it gives the play a political message. At this time, Russia was transitioning from a harsh form of capitalism which involved a type of slave ownership system called 'Serfdom' to an early form of communism/ Marxism. I believe that it was important for Chekhov to highlight the two sides in the play. It is shown with Gayev and Ranevsky and Lopakhin and Trofimov. I feel these two conflicts in the play were key for Chekhov to portray so the audience could truly understand the conflict as a whole.

Although it was set in a completely different time and place, I think Chekhov made the characters in the play very relate-able for the audience. At first glance, I didn't believe this because I've never been a slave or a slave owner but the characteristics of the people are what make them somewhat relate-able. For example, Ranevsky has very bad money problems which were most likely caused because of PTSD after her son died in a river. Most people have had either money issues or have gone through a really bad incident in their lives, because of this it is very easy for the audience to empathize with her.

Finally, I believe that this play by Anton Chekhov really failed to be naturalistic in my opinion. Although it's point and message have been shown well, I believe that Chekhov has failed to make the play Stanislavksian and I think it is the complete opposite because many scenes are very unnatural and perfect. For example, Ranevsky asks the other characters who's smoking a foul cigar, but after that she no longer continues to be bothered by it. If this scene was really natural she would have continued to go on about it because it really does bother her. This was a recurring issue in the play but as a whole, it was good if you wasn't told it was a naturalistic play. I personally believe it is more melo-dramatic.