ANTIGONE - Vocal requirements and techniques of a Greek theatre performer

Today we focussed on our voices, specifically pronunciation and looking at how to pronounce words so that they do not get mistaken for other words. In Greek theatre, actors would not have microphones and would just have to project loud enough so that the audience can hear. However, sometimes when words are not pronounced properly, they can be misheard by audience members further back in the theatron. To counter this, there are are certain vowels and consonants that must be stressed in order for that word to be heard correctly and understood. For example, 'dead' can be misheard as 'debt' if the last 'd' sound is not pronounce properly, and 'strange' can be misheard as 'stranche' if the 'g' sound is not stressed and pronounced properly.

To practice this we were each given a text entitled 'Arthur the rat' and we had to read it over, making sure to really articulate and enunciate every word. However the trick was that we had to still make it sound naturalistic - as an actor would - which was hard for us all because of where we were all brought up, this style of speech is not our natural dialect.

We the applied this to our monologues/duologues and it proved to be very beneficial. When rehearsing my monologue, there were a few lines I had to keep repeating and going over to get the correct pronunciation. The lines were "When tragedy struck him, and his rule was ended ,// your loyalty to the blood royal was never questioned," This was difficult because there are so many 'l's' and 'r's' it is almost like a tongue twister; however since learning to lift my tongue when pronouncing an 'l' to prevent the 'w' sound at the end of the pronunciation, and keep my lips back when pronouncing an 'r' to prevent it sounding like a 'w'.
The second line I had trouble with was "each brother shedding a brother's blood" which was an issue, again, because of the 'r's'.

Towards the end of the lesson, we each performed our monologues/duologues to the class. I had learnt my monologue so I was off-script, and this made me feel so much more confident with the monologue because I felt like I was actually playing a character more and I could feel the thoughts coming to me naturally. I felt a much better through line and progression in my monologue, and I made an effort to make it more conversational. The main thing I was criticised on was my over use of pauses which evidently lose the emphasis effect; when you talk and you go on for a while without really pausing, then when you do pause it makes whatever you say after that pause seem important and it sticks in the listeners head - perhaps used purposely to make the audience think about certain things. However I was told I use pauses a lot throughout the monologue so it loses that effect completely, and there are many good opportunities in the monologue for pauses and emphasis.

ANTIGONE - Creon monologue

Monologue from Creon;

• Praising his soldiers for staying loyal
• Announcing that the traitorous brother Polynices will not have a proper burial
• Announcing that he will take over the crown

I need to:

• Think about where each though is in the monologue, where each thoughts starts and finishes and adapt my delivery and tone to suit, to improve flow and progression of the speech, and so the audience have a better understanding of what I’m saying and what exactly is going on.
• Consider my intonation and inflection in my voice to make the change of thoughts and, in some cases, my mood more distinguishable for the audience. 
• I need to get a better understand of the monologue so that I know how to deliver it, and get a better understanding of the character, thus giving a more believable and interesting performance.

To identify the different thoughts, I was asked to move from one side of the room to another each time I thought the thought changed. This put the text into better perspective and made each thought more identifiable.

ANTIGONE - Social, historical and cultural background of Antigone

• Antigone was the third entry in Sophocoles' "Theban" trilogy, based on the saga of the house of Laius.
• The other two plays in the trilogy are 'Oedipus the King' and 'Oedipus at Colonus'.
• Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus and Jacosta and brother of Etocles and Polynices, was an unusual protagonist in this time because she is a woman. Sophocles was warned that his play may not be as popular because mainly men went to the theatre. The philosopher Aristotle said that it is wrong for a female character to be portrayed as manly and clever. This reflects the opinion and they way women were treated in this time.
• Sophocoles challenged this statement because Antigone is both manly and clever. She is manly because she takes up the role of the man in her family, and clever because she does enough to satisfy the gods but in such a way that she is not caught. 
• Antigone is way ahead of her time - in an era of a mostly male dominated society, Antigone stands out as an independent woman who completely defies the system. In ancient Greek times, women would do as their fathers say until they are married, and then once they are married they do what their husbands tell them - they very little power at all. However, we see the blind King Oedipus as very dependant on Antigone to look after him in his final years. Also, when Creon decrees that Polynices will not have a proper burial due to his alleged betrayal of Thebes and his family, Antigone rebels against her uncle and sets out to give her dead brother the proper burial he deserves, despite the penalty being death (Creon then sentences her to buried alive).
• In ancient Greece, getting a proper burial was a big deal - it was believed that if you didn't receive a proper burial you were not allowed in the underworld and you were forced to wonder the shores of River Styx as a restless ghost.
• There have been many adaptations of this play, a very notable one being a version by a French playwright, Jean Anouilh, which is thought to have been adapted as a mark of protest against the Nazi forces in France. Similarly, the story of Antigone has been used to protest against apartheid in South Africa. In The Island by John Kani, Winston Nitshona, and Athol Fugard, two black prisoners in the notorious Robben Island prison perform Antigone as an act of protest.
• Antigone was performed around the year 441 B.C, and Sophocoles was one of the nine selected generals in the campaign against the revolt of Samos fought by Athens. These historical events reflect a lot of what happens in Antigone, and the themes and issues throughout the play. For example, the appropriate use of power by the state (Creon declaring that Polynices will not receive a proper burial, Etocles refusing to step down from ruler of Athens after it was agreed with his brother that they would alternate each year, and then exiled him) the possibility of justifiable rebellion (Antigone rebelling against her uncle by disobeying his decree and giving her bother a proper burial), and the duties of citizens to obey the laws of their government.

Classical theatre - Introduction to Greek theatre

Today’s lesson was an introduction to Greek theatre; we learned that the Greeks used a traditional ‘Greek Theatre’, which consisted of a Theatron (auditorium), Orchestra (stage) and two Parados either side of the Orchestra where the actors and chorus use to move on and off stage.

Tragedies and comedies were the most common types of theatre in Greek Theatre, and they used masks to amplify the sound and so that people at the back of the Theatron could see their facial expressions and emotion. They had a Dionysus festival where 3 playwrights would compete against each other.

There were three actors, who multi rolled, and there was no woman in the cast, the men played the women; there is a chorus and they sing and dance to put more life into the performance and help the story progress.

A Greek Tragedy

A Greek tragedy focuses on an event, and the tragedy occurs generally after an attack or a violent action (it is generally a death). Greek tragedies frequently use messengers to relate information, and they play takes place usually in one location over the same continuous time frame.

This is different to comedies whereby they focus more on characters rather than an event. Greek tragedies generally dealt with themes such as love, loss, abuse of power and the fraught relationship between Men and Gods. The main protagonist of the story would usually commit a terrible without realising how careless and arrogant he has been, then once he realises, his world crumbles around him. The three main tragedy playwrights were Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides.

A Greek Comedy

Greek Comedies were not admitted to the Dionysus festival unto 487-486 B.C, and they first comedies often mocked men in power for their foolishness and vanity. Aristophanes was the first master playwright of comedies and he wrote plays such as ‘The Clouds’, “The Frogs’ and ‘The Birds’.

Order:

1.     Prologue – a leading character would enter and put forward a ‘happy idea’

2.     The chorus would then enter

3.     There would be a debate amongst the chorus with people for and against the ‘happy idea’.

The chorus of Greek Theatre

The main role of the chorus in a ancient Greek play is to bring the play to life. They do this by:

·      Working together as one creating and portraying movement.

·      Reacting to the main action, as the playwright would hope the audience would.

·      Setting the mood and keeping the dramatic atmosphere.

Today’s task

We were asked to work as an ensemble on a chorus dialogue – we were taught that in modernised Greek theatre the chorus would have dialogue between them but it would be scripted as if it is a monologue for one actor; but there is often argument or change of topic or opinion with the speech, so it is broken up and shared between the chorus. We were given the task of splitting up a piece of chorus dialogue by change of tone, topic or opinion and then to bring it to life with movement and staging.

/Wonders are many, yet of all

Things is Man the most wonderful./

/He can sail on the stormy sea

Though the tempest rage, and the loud

Waves roar around, as he makes his

Path amid the towering surge./

/Earth inexhaustible, /ageless,/ he wearies, as

Backwards and forwards, from season to season, /his

Ox-team drives along the ploughshare./

He can entrap the cheerful birds,

Setting a snare, /and all the wild

Beasts of the earth he has learned to catch,/ and

Fish that teem in the deep sea, /with

Nets knotted of stout cords;/ of

Such inventiveness is man./

Through his inventions he becomes lord/

Even of the beasts of the mountain: the long-haired

Horse he subdues to the yoke on his neck, /and the

Hill-bred bull, of strength untiring. /

And speech he has learned, /and thought

So swift, and the temper of mind /

To dwell within cities, and not to lie bare

Amid the keen, biting frosts /

Or cower beneath pelting rain;

/Full of resources against all that comes to him

Is Man./ Against Death alone

He is left with no defence./

But painful sickness he can cure

By his own skill./

/Surpassing belief, the device and

Cunning that Man has attained,

And it bringeth him now to evil,/ not to good./

If he observe Law, and tread

The righteous path God ordained, /

Honoured is he; /dishonoured, /the man whose reckless heart

Shall make him join hands with sin:/

May I not think like him,/

Nor may such an impious man

Dwell in my house

Once we divided the lines up and shared them out between us, we began to block it. I found it very interesting how we were able to incorporate little movements to some of the lines as one, and it was very interesting to see how a simple piece of dialogue was brought to life so quickly. 

I think it could look even better if we considered facial expressions; this would entail us really understanding the text and possibly building a character around it.

For next lesson, I will look over the dialogue and think about any specific movements I could add in to do individually and/or as a company.

DNA - Character development/analysis and full run through complete

In today's lesson, we began by looking into our characters and sharing them with other members of the class. We were to share three interesting facts about our characters - I said Danny is generally just a bit lost and he can't really focus on too much for too long (i.e. his attention span is very poor, but in a comical way), and although he is constantly worried about dental college and getting references, I don't believe it is an arrogance or a self-centred thing about him, I think it is just him being stupid and not thinking of the bigger picture or the repercussions of what has happened. This is something that I missed earlier on in the unit was how important characterisation was going to be for Danny - Danny's anxiousness; this is an essential part of his character and since learning this about him, I have looked back at all of the scenes we've done and thought about how I could adjust my performance to apply this anxious trait. For example, in the first scene with Lou, John Tate and myself, I am now going to be pacing back and forth muttering to myself about dental college and trying work out ways around the situation that wouldn't put Danny's future in jeopardy. To the audience, I think this will come across as confusing to them at first purely by virtue of me just being in the background of Lou and John Tate for a whole page of dialogue. Then when I come in with "I can't get mixed up in all this, I'm gonna be a dentist." I have sort of given up trying to find a way around it and almost putting the responsibility on Lou and John Tate to get me out of the situation, or at least help me to get out; but from this it is easy to perceive Danny as arrogant, selfish and/or very dependant on others, but I don't think he is - I think he is just a bit stupid and he doesn't realise that everyone else is in the same boat as him, and that he really overthinks bad situations. To show this side of Danny I will still continue to show his 'lost' nature, being easily distract and amused by his surroundings and just generally show that he is a bit of a simpleton. For example, when John Tate announce the word 'dead' is "banned", I stop pacing immediately and stand in almost like a trance of confusion, and then when I finally speak and say 'Banned?' I think he is genuinely confused at how you can literally ban a word, and he genuinely isn't aware that you can't actually ban a word. Essentially, when showing these two traits I need to really focus on and consider my physicality and movement. Especially due to the fact that my character doesn't speak much, so the emotions I wish to give off will be heavily relied on my physicality.

I also said that he is one of the few characters who don't turn out crazy or mental - granted he does go on about dental college non stop throughout the play, and then end up hating it at work experience, but he doesn't go mental or crazy or any other form of what may be considered as 'insane' like Cathy or Brian does. I was in a group with Will (Mark) and Henri (Richard); when discussing Mark, Will said he could be speculated as being Jan's brother or girlfriend and I believe this to be dependant on how you play the character and how you interact with Jan and portray the relationship - from observing their performance over the rehearsal period so far, I see them more as brother and sister; they seem quite argumentative and petty, but you can easily tell they care for each other very much - much like a brother and sister relationship. He also that he feels like some sort of a narrator when playing Mark - which I definitely agree with, Mark and Jan open every scene with a duologue which I think kind sets the scene for the audience and soot explains to the audience what sort of topic they can expect in the scene, very much like a narrator, how he nor Jan ever address the audience. When discussing Richard, Henri said that towards the end he feels like a narrator because his monologue kind of ties everything together - he explains what happens to each character and brings everything to a close. We then were set the task of imagining we, as our characters, had been arrested for the crime of killing Adam and we were to act out what we would be thinking/saying to ourselves in the prison - kind of like an inner monologue. I talked about how it wasn't supposed to happen and that it was wrong. But then a sudden panic comes across me because I suddenly remember that being in prison will decrease my chance of dental college. This helped me to have an even better understanding of my character because I was able to think of what my character would do and say in an unknown situation. We then began a run through of the play, implementing our further character developments into our performance. For me, it suddenly made it a lot more interesting and enjoyable because I knew what I should be doing in terms of my thoughts and actions within the scene. I was able to interpret the scene and the dialogue in such a way that Danny would, thus improved my 'inner monologue' and my reactions.

DNA - Off-script run through 22/5/17

Last lesson, we were told to be off script by next week, so our job over the weekend was to learn our scripts. This entails not only learning our lines, but learning our cue lines, and stage directions and the order of the play. I am usually nightmare with learning lines, but this time round things are easier for me because I have very little lines. The only problem I had was a few slip ups on my cue lines.
That said, todays 'off-script' rehearsal went very badly because no one knew their lines. We began from the start and Mark and Jan knew their duologue mostly, with a few slip ups here and there but nothing major, Chloe cut massive chunks from her monologue. When we got to the part with Me, Lou and John Tate, that whole first page is just them two and they didn't know it very well at all; they were cutting each other off in and interjecting in the wrong places, completely losing the effect of the interjection, and they were dropping lines left right and centre. As a result of this, I was completely thrown off and I couldn't get my cues right, which then meant Lewis and Warren didn't get the cues from me either, so it all just turned into a mess. We were then sent away to learn the scene and work on it. We made sure we were not dropping lines and interjecting and the exact right points and getting our cues right. Also, another problem we faced off script was the fast paced dialogue we had with scripts which really brought out the comedy in the scene - we completely lost it when off script. So when we worked on the scene, we talked about it and made sure we were each fully aware of the cut offs and interjections, and cue lines. Once we sorted this, we ran through it a couple times and what we discussed seemed to have worked and had positive effect.

For next lesson, Mr Webb has told us to have our scripts learnt fully - including cues, cut offs and stage directions.

DNA - Staging and a strange run through of scene 1 complete

We began by observing our performance space and deciding on where to move the scenes and audience throughout the play. We ran through the scenes we set last lesson to show Mr Webb and he was happy with our staging. However only one aspect was altered. The part where Richard, Cathy and Brian enter has changed to a different place so they have a longer walk to the scene so the audience can acknowledge they are there.

After we discussed further staging, we read through scene 1 but all of us were spread around the field to work on our projection. Whilst we were running through the scenes before hand, we were told our projection was poor and we desperately needed to work on it because outside, the sound is taken very easily. When we read through it on the field, it was very comical but at the same time it was very beneficial. We were able to explore levels and volumes and somehow we were able explore our tones within ourselves and specific tones we have with other characters. For example, when i say "Shut up, Cathy." Mr Webb said that we done that bit very well and it resembled the relationship Danny and Cathy have so much better this particular time, though he didn't specify what it was that was different.

We were reminded of how each actor works well with their counter part and how they wouldn't work with other combinations of people. For example Mark and Jan, as mentioned before the chemistry between them is great, but Mark and Jan wouldn't have worked for Will and Chloe, or Tyler and Taylor.

Whilst rehearsing this scene, I took it upon myself to consider my character's objective in this particular scene and I then applied this to my performance. I think Danny is just trying to find a way to cope with this overwhelming stress and anxiety that has suddenly come upon him, and he is struggling to deal with it and thus driving him a little bit crazy and extremely worried. He is, in his head, frantically trying to find a way around the situation that would not put his future dental career in jeopardy. The application of this objective in my performance really helped to get further in to my character, and I was then able to apply method acting and think back to a time when I had this or a similar objective. This really helped my performance become more realistic, and it fitted into the naturalistic piece very well. For further lessons, I will consider my character's objectives for each scene and undergo the same process and apply method acting to make my performance more realistic.