ANTIGONE

ANTIGONE

Week 2:
We started out by getting our assignments and our scripts. Each person either was in a group or partnered up with someone. I was partnered with Michael and we were given a piece of a script from the Greek play Antigone. Everyone got either a script from Antigone, Oedipus or Trojan Women; as we were such a big group of 31 people. The script that I got was about 2 people- Creon and Haemon. At first I didn't understand anything such as the plot: who were these two men and why were they saying what they were saying? But as I started to read it I had an idea of what the play was about. Michael decided to read and act as Creon- who was a king- and I decided to be Haemon who appeared to be his son. As this script was from another era and place it was a bit wordy and it was written in a way that isn't how modern English is now however due to my ability of understanding things in a much faster rate to my partner I was able to help him and myself understand some of the words like "degenerate" meaning an immoral or corrupt person. When I first read the scene again and again I had the impression that Haemon's voice had to be loud and attacking towards Creon this was because at this I didn't really think towards the word 'father' that Haemon used in one of his lines, instead I just went with the idea that they were having an argument with each other about a woman who turned out to be Haemon's girlfriend/fiance, continuing with that idea it showed how much he would fight for her so I wanted Haemon to be attacking Creon with his words and by that I mean using  voice to show his anger and frustration towards Creon. Only after was I able to understand that Creon was Haemon's Dad so I thought maybe my idea was too much however I still decided to carry on with it.

We were then told what we should focus on in our scenes.

ANSWERS: 

• Reading my play/synopsis(story)
• Taking my time in rehearsals
• Learning the lines asap
• Look online clips and YouTube videos 
• Underline words/terms you don't understand & look them up 
• Avoid exclaiming tone it down

We observed one group that did the same scene as me which was the argument between Creon and his son Haemon. The group was consisted of two boys-Roman and Tristan this was good because I could take points and note on what they were doing which gave me an advantage cause I could then add it to my scene or make some modifications to my scene. While watching Roman & Tristan I was able to understand my character 'Haemon'. 

My review on Roman's and Tristan's scene: I thought that Roman and Tristan portrayed the characters  exactly like I would done. We saw them do the scene a lot of times however each one was different from the last, this was because Rob told them to change again and again so that it was their own piece and not a copy. The first time they did it was them shouting at each other having an argument where the use of facial expressions and voice was being used a lot to show there hatred for each other, I really enjoyed it, however Rob decided to change it by messing with the emotions that the characters had due to him saying "AVOID EXCLAIMING" so instead of an angry argument they created the scene to present a dad and son having a simple conversation, to do that Rob told them to devise a piece as if they were in a cafe trying have a secretive conversation where they didn't want anyone to know what they were talking about. From that I gathered that it made the scene still the same yet different at the same time, this was due to Rob saying think about the characters and who they are. (Creon is the dad and he has to have authority so he doesn't want his son shouting at him and Haemon is the son and he has to be listening to what his dad has to say.) To show what was happening Roman was going closer to Tristan as if to say this is a conversation that shouldn't be heard and Tristan did the same thing in comparison to Roman, Roman was also moving his head in a 'suspicious' way to show secrecy. This was all good until Rob told us to  think what is Creons purpose for doing what he was doing? (Creon is the King of Thebes which means he has more authority and power in contrast to Haemon.) So this time Roman was acting very annoyed and angry at the same time as being  secretive which really set teh story and showed us who each character was.

After watching and taking notes on Roman's and Tristan's performance I decided to change my scene and development it in some ways.

WEEK 3:
On Monday 24th September we worked in the theatre instead of our regular class the dance studio this was because we needed to see where our actual performance was going to take place and how we were going to set our scenes up. We started with our morning exercises and vocal warm ups and then worked with our groups or partners on our scenes. We were told to focus on key things.

When me and Michael were doing our scenes we went through it alot of times without the scripts so that we knew our lines by heart and from memory. We also wrote down what we did so we could then remind our selves what we decided to do.

Continuing on with the week, on Thursday 27th September we carried on with our scenes nevertheless this time we had to perform it in front of each other and Rob to show what we've been doing everyone went up and showed their piece I really enjoyed watching everyone perform but there were some groups which I really admired. Madalina's and Elena's scene they performed a scene from Antigone as well where it was an argument between Antigone and her sister Ismene I thought there performance was very heart felt as they showed there emotions very clearly through the use of voice, but what really caught my eye was how they used there own native language (Romanian) to show how angry they were but also to add some 'flavour' to their piece which really brought the scene to life and made it seem real. Another piece from Antigone I really liked was by Ben Taylor, Daniella and Katie, the reason why I enjoyed theirs was they added physical abuse to their scene which made everyone absolutely gob smacked due to them making it seem as Daniella actually got slapped in the face and there acting I thought was on point. Another group that I liked from a different play Trojan women was Maya's and Anakin's scene this was because when watching their piece I could feel the emotion of each character and it made me feel sorry and empathetic for Maya's character. The last group I enjoyed watching was Danielle, Troy, Diamonte and Jean Paul's group they did a scene from a different play Oedipus. I really liked their one because the plot was very understandable and each person did an amazing job at bringing their character to life especially Jean Paul who played Oedipus which is a very hard role to play due to the character's background I thought he was awesome at bringing the character of Oedipus to life.
Finally when I came to mine and Michael's performance I thought we did a really great job however we could of maybe finessed it better. Even though I thought every group did amazing I still thought there was room for improvement.
After everyone finished performing Rob gave us feedback:

• Why do you enter the stage, what's your characters purpose?
• Make it more open talk with the audience more than to one person.
• Takre your time with the dialogue.
• Play around with the dialogue (make it yours have fun and enjoy it)
• Haemon should wind up Creon play with him (act childish yet mature)
• "Lesson is always more"
• Keep your faces up, eyeline up, don't look at the floor.
• Avoid 'ice skating'.
• Avoid putting hands behind back. 
• Avoid attacking back/exclaiming. 

WEEK 4:

On Monday 1st October I decided to take on board what Rob told us and apply his feedback to my Scene.