Today we carried out an exercise in class which got my actors working together to make the scene appear more naturalistic. My actors were labelled A and B and B had to repeat all of A's line then follow this with their response to the previous line. This continued until we had reached the final line of the scene.
From a directors perspective it highlighted the two different emotions which appear within the scene. At first the conversation appears fairly light-hearted with each character making small talk. However, as the scene develops Hedda becomes a lot more interfering and asks very personal questions in relation to Mrs Elvstead's personal life. At this point the awkward small talk vanishes and the questions begin to flow more naturally as Hedda knows what she wants.
After this exercise we developed further and read through the script with no emotion at all. We all noticed that when doing this it created a hidden awkward sub text. As Hedda and Mrs Elvstead are only acquaintances it seems strange as to why these two people would be upholding such a long conversation. As Hedda wants to find out information from Mrs Elvstead this makes the conversation more forced and it carries on for much longer than it should.
This gave me the idea that we could really play on the awkward silences between lines and even have the characters doing other things than just concentrating on the conversation alone.
The Theatre Whisperer was the next exercise and I found this difficult as a director to control. As my actors had only recently received their final script it was tricky to get into the characters minds and say the lines that they would normally say. The actors job was to stay focussed and respond to what the theatre whisperer would tell them. The whisperer would have their script and tell them to do things in keeping with their characters. It was a good way of getting to see how others responded to instruction and gave my actors ideas as to how they could physicalize their character.
The best exercise of the day was the proximity test. In the first exercise the scene was spoken with the actors talking face to face with no other movement. It certainly showed that we needed movement, no necessarily a lot but we wanted to not make the scene just a typical boring conversation.
The next exercise was back to back where the actors faced away from one another. It was difficult for the actors as there were many other groups in the room. However, as we will be performing in the university theatre it was important that we did this exercise to work on clarity, pitch and timing. I also liked this symbolic staging as at one point in our scene Hedda cannot look at Mrs Elvstead in the eye as Mrs Elvstead is suspicious and Hedda is the guilty party. During this part of the scene I want to stage it so that Hedda is behind Mrs Elvstead unable to settle and cannot sit near her or even look at her for a long period of time.
Walking around the space made it appear more of a confrontation rather than a light hearted chat which the scene initially is.
It is definitely important to understand the proximity on stage as it can change the whole meaning of the scene.
Initially I felt that my actors were hesitant to the idea of having a director but after doing this exercise I believe that they feel that having an extra pair of eyes looking in on the scene it will help them with the smaller things, such as proxemics and voice.
With this in mind I sent my actors away to work on character breakdowns so that we could begin to rehearse during the next meet up.
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