ual acting Greek Theater

This week my team and I realized that we were missing some important emotion in our  pieces. For instance when Jocasta and Oedipus are on good terms and happy they have the look of love and joy in there eyes. Me as Jokasta and JP as Oedipus had to put all jokes aside and act truly in love with each other and keep that same energy 

OEDIPUS blogs

In this lovely month of September, our teacher Rob keeps us more on the topic of Greek theater and how we stay truthful when acting .when looking closely on how the actor embody their characters and always shown a message behind the story.whether it was how women were treated ,how death was such a core subject and fate. This month we focused more on Greek theater tragedies,for example famous stories Oedipus,Antigone and Frogen Women.

Week 2 x Session 1

To help us to improve and expand our knowledge in Greek theater,our teacher Rob was going to bring us back in time to the 5th century with the famous plays Oedipus,Antigone and Frogen Women.How so? You may ask. Well we all individually get a script of either of the three plays.when that is done we will be give a role to play in then script.(Bare in mind that it was not the whole script but a very emotion filled sense in the tragedy. I landed the part of Jocasta Oedipus's mother and wife, in that award wining Oedipus the King. My role appears around the final scenes where its most of the suspense. Last but not least actually getting a husband for my character so we where split into groups of 2-4 pupils. my team consisted of a palace worker Chorus by Diamond, a messenger Corinthian by Troy and lastly His Majesty Oedipus by JP. 

     In the first session we just sat in our assigned group and read our line through for the first twenty minutes to familiarize our selves with the text make sure that we are in encouraging each other to not forget our important constants and vowels to reduce glottal in our performance. Rob then collected the class and chose at random a group to perform.for this first lesson rob wanted us to embrace our characters not break out of character. So a pair doing Antigone was picked firstly Rob instructed them to read out there lines in different settings and moods.
As normal

Cafe setting 

Rob thought us that switching up the mood can sometimes help to stay to true to  our characters.Rob set us a task to learn our lines for the final assessments in the up and coming sessions we will learn to work amongst our assigned groups critiquing each other that best we can and also learn from the other groups doing different tragedies taking pointers.   

Week 3 x Session 2

Our second session was more focused on teaching us about listening to each other. I had the impression that I had to really embody someone who is the ruler of an independent state, for example in the game chess the one who's the most powerful chess piece. there was a lot of things that she has done that I haven't so I feed of the energy of the person that went before me in the script.

How do we make the piece "true/real"when we are plainly not the person with their experiences?
Personally doing some background history can really help to ease up a bit seeing as you know how they would behave in that time period.but the thing is my character Jocasta was

your normal faithful Queen. 
Jokasta is a selfish character who tries to change her fate multiple times. Her motive is to make herself prosper and be successful. She does not want anything interfering with her reputation. This information helped me a lot of the way I will be moving and gesturing and finding the subtext behind her actions.She wants it all.
During my thought process finding my objective was the hardest but I was able to observe another group also doing my piece. I learned to underplay my part when it comes to the middle part where my behavior turns from excited to anger."Your still afraid of that ".

Rob always wants up to remember at the back of our mines that " Acting is behaving truthfully in imagined circumstances". 
This weeks feedback :
-Our main advise was to learn all the line and learn when our characters come in.
- In particular my group had to learn to us the space around us.


Week 4 x Session 3
Seeing as it was assessment week was coming closer during this week we mainly rehearsed and started more movement to our pieces. 
 This weeks feedback was our main priority to make sure that our peers and teacher can see consistent changes in our pieces.

Feedback: 
-Diamonds monologue as Chorus should be projected as if having a conversation with to audience and move around a lot on stage.
-As a group we shouldn't let the audience distract us when performing. 
-In the scene where Corinthian and Oedipus are conversating in front of Jocasta(Me)is my realization of my husband being my son and also the father /brother to his siblings and children.I must show in the background that I know and keep it bottled in to save the embarrassment.  

Week 5 x Session 4
Assesment week 
    This week was non stop rehearsals until the day of the assessment. We were able to fit in one more run through of all the pieces. 
At the beginning of the week it was straight into the theater to rehearse.We performed our piece and received feedback. 
This weeks feedback  
-My only wronging was that i had to under play the fact that i realized my mistake so when I say my last part "For your own sake -husband " I should hesitate calling him father seeing that wasn't only what he was but my son.
  To help with my nerves and also my pronunciation i made sure to do the vocal warm-ups that we learn at the start of the month,using my vowels and constants properly.

In the middle of the week we mostly practiced staging when to come in and where we would be standing and sitting arrangements were set for the big day.
pics    
   
Final assessment
The day that everyone was anxiously waiting to come to past in the best way possible.we had a quick 20 minute warm up then set to perform. My group and i added in  lots of things to the piece to ensure that our performance was perfect. for example treating Chorus like a worthless slave shooing her with my hands and even here we would stage our chairs.