Relaxation

"As long as you have this physical tenseness you cannot even think about delicate shadings of feeling or the spiritual life of your part. Consequently, before you attempt to create anything it is necessary for you to get your muscles in proper condition, so that they do not impede your actions." - Constantine Stanislavski

Today we explored the idea that one has to be both relaxed and energised to build upon a character and achieve truth in their acting. We decided to focus on relaxation by practicing the Alexander technique - This technique used to improve posture and also allows for a good neutral.

Stanislavski understood that unnecessary tension interferes with creating the life of the character in performance. The Alexander Technique deals with this directly. It's a method that helps the actor to become aware of the physical habits that flaw performance and to transform those habits therefore improving breathing, posture and vocal production. For me it really helps the physical life of the character to be explored with ease and allows me fuller emotional expression separate from myself as the actor.

Realism...

We discussed Psychological realism and how in naturalistic acting (which came after the period of melodrama) it is important to experience real things from real life to allow your acting to be truthful and sincere. The quote 'Truth is inseparable from belief and belief from truth' links to this as it means that for the audience to believe in what you are performing you have to be truthful to your character and the world of the play, but you also have to believe in what is actually happening in your play for the audience to think it's a truthful performance.  Some of the Stanislavski techniques which we talked about included:


The Magic If - the magic is is when an actor tries to put themselves into their characters shoes and they ask themselves questions like "What if my character saw a woman who had committed suicide" but ask themselves "How would they personally feel if they were in that situation" Therefore making the performance more realistic and authentic. Stanislavski created this method because he thought that actors cannot truly immerse themselves into the world of the play and their characters if the actor themselves didn't believe in the probability of the events. The magic if creates a sense of realism. This technique isn't to make the actor think the situations are real because that would make them seem crazy but instead it's to allow them to explore the reality if it was true.
For my character of Hedda I used the magic if to access the inner thoughts of such a manipulative and complex character.

What if Hedda truly used to be in love with Tesman?
This would mean that Hedda deep down has the ability to love another person. I think the 'honeymoon stage' of their relationship would have been one of great intimacy and romance but the longer it lasted the more Tesman's charm wore off and Hedda got used to it. George's ability to satisfy Hedda's need for material objects and a life of luxury would have really appealed to Hedda and would have made her more attracted to the idea of marrying Tesman and his wealth and so therefore him.

What if Hedda had an affair with Brack before?
Her relationship with Brack is one of passion and flirting. This leads me to believe that they have had an intimate relationship before. He is the only character that Hedda is honest with for example when she tells him about what she did with Aunt Juju's hat. She must be extremley offended then when he blackmails her at the end because she had actually let her guard down with him a little bit.

What if Hedda's mother died when she was young?
The absence of Hedda's mother is extremely important and highlights the relationship she has with her father. If Hedda's mum died when she was young she might find it difficult to connect with people and she may have issues with trusting people and letting them close to her because such a valuable relationship was torn apart in her youth. This would leave Hedda scared and because she knows her and her husbands relationship isn't one of strength and passion she doesnt want to give birth to a child and then ruin their chances of being able to trust people. I think losing her mum when she was younger made her quite sensitive and therefore she has built up a massive wall between her and other people to prevent them seeing her sensitive side. This is perhaps why her only positive relationship to something (inanimate or living) in the play is the pistols because they were her fathers.

Hedda Gabler initial reaction

Hedda Gabler is a play which I really enjoyed reading about a newly married woman in the late nineteenth century, struggling to conform to the social expectations of woman in that society, which for me is an intriguing theme from the offset of the play. For a woman to be so subtle yet so manipulative made me think that Hedda Gabler is a very intense and complex character which was definitely what I got from Hedda Tesman in that shocking and extremely fast paced ending to the play. The play splits into four acts, the structure of the play aids the intense development of the characters, especially Hedda. In the first act the audience (including me) may find Hedda slightly strange yet fairly endearing as her personality is very off and uncertain in the beginning. We can start to see that she is unconventional and harsh, but these personality traits seen in the first act are used to foreshadow the character development seen throughout the rest of the Hedda Gabler.

Hedda was so malicious towards Thea and Eilert’s situation and her little phrases and speech to interrupt Tesman repeatedly throughout the play. Which Is why I think Tesman is shown to be a boring and monotonous character with the constant use of ‘no?’ because Hedda is such an overpowering partner that George can’t help but be lacking in personality and excitement.

Throughout the text, the actions on stage are supported by stage directions. In many plays the writer’s direction can either be too vague, not giving the actor any insight at all to the character and therefore giving them more freedom as an actor, or too detailed, leaving no room for interpretation or artistic choice on the actors and directors behalf. However, the stage directions given by Richard Eyre, allow the actor to find a balance between the two. When describing how or what the character is doing, he lays solid foundations for the actor, which they can then go on to develop further. I believe this form of direction to be very beneficial and I can see how they will help me when I work with the text during BRIT.
Only having a cast of seven characters allows for a more intimate storyline. Being able to understand such complex characters and their relationships with each other, requires the audience to be able to focus on them all, both individually and as a whole, something only a small cast can provide. A play with a large cast has the capability to create a heightened atmosphere, but it can also be too much for an audience to process. The details in the text can sometimes be lost when transferred to the stage. The cast of ‘Hedda Gabler’ being so small allows the details of every character to be explored by both the actors and audience.

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Hedda Gabler is a central figure of the text and its plot, yet far from its heroine. The story is her story, not just because the play is about her life, but because she controls the play in the same way she controls people. Throughout the play, I believed that the next scene would suddenly reveal to me the truth beneath Hedda’s scheming and manipulation. However by the end of the text, even after its surprise ending, I felt parts of Hedda’s identity still seemed secret to me.. After the confusion of still being in the dark, I was finally able to conclude the full extent of Hedda’s manipulation. Even I reading the play felt manipulated by Hedda. I believed that I would be allowed to dissect Hedda’s character as a plot normally allows me to do, yet it never happened. I had been given a false sense of security that was only revealed to me long after I had finished reading.

Stanilavski book

The book starts by introducing the practitioner born in 1863 who influenced the theatre and acting industry immensely with his theories and exercises which enabled the actor to portray a truth through their acting. His legacy legacy lives on even though he founded these ideas back in the 1800s. Stanislavski's idea of naturalistic acting lead on to other techniques like method acting .

The book was really useful to read because it was not only informative and explain the reasoning behind each theory brought up in the book but also the book suggested exercises specific to the techniques which through my training as an actor will be really helpful to recall.

It was interesting because it gave a lot more insight and detail into the general information for example the detailed ground plan for Act one of Anton Chekovs "the seagull" was good to has as a visual in the book as many actors being fairly practical and creative people would benefit from seeing the actual set out of the stage. The bella Merlin book contains another interesting section about how to access a script initially called "stage 1:the period of study" I found this particularly engaging because I was able to recall some information I already knew in this section from past studies at The BRIT School and I was able to absorb the information in that section as an active reader and the questions that it suggests you ask which include : "what is the style of the writing", "what are the external characteristic of the dramativc personae" and "how do you personally feel about the play" are maybe both the first things you would ask yourself when initially accessing a piece of text however, if next I get a part of a play to analyse or I have to learn lines for a performance I will look at those questions and by looking through a different perspective it will really help me grow as an actor.

I decided to put one of the exercises in the book into practice over this summer which was exercise 4.1 because from past training and workshops relaxation methods really help me to feel energised and ready for anything which is crucial as an actor. However, I found this exercise fairly unhelpful in comparison to the relaxation exercises I have found in other actor's guidebook for example the sun salutation exercises which really helps me prepare calmly whereas the tensing of my muscles in contrast to the release of tension in my muscles in this exercise just caused me pain rather than relaxing me. This has a negative effect on me and therefore I probably wouldn't use it again in preparation for acting however if I practice this exercise i'm sure I will get better at it and will find it a good technique for me to relax and get into a state of readiness.