We began devising the play of Macbeth as a class along side Rob who was sort of acting as director for the moment. He decided that it would be a great idea to do the play in an all in the round stage and we all agreed, then we just got on by reciting our lines one at a time and just came up with ideas as we went along, anyone could contribute ideas and help our classmates. As we went through the play we observed and took note of what each one of us was doing so that we had an understanding of what each character was supposed to do. We did this all week until the half term came to an end and it was our holiday, however I for one wanted to make sure that I knew everything beforehand so I began learning my lines and updating myself on my character of Banquo.
I WAS UNABLE TO ATTEND SOME DAYS AS I SUSTAINED AN INJURY WHICH MADE MISS SOME REHEARSALS HOWEVER I WAS ABLE TO ATTEND SOME WHERE I ACTUALLY DID SOME WORK AND WAS ABLE TO HELP MY GROUP!
For the days I was able to attend, I was told that we had to translate our lines from old English to Modern English this was because I few of us had the difficulty of understanding what some of the text meant so we all went online and used "nofearshakespeare" which was a huge help to us as we could now understand what our text meant and that way it was easier for us to analyse and interpret some ideas of how we could say each line. For a lot of us using nofearshakespeare was really good and I for one agree it was a tremendous asset to me as I could now try to get a better understanding of each line Banquo said.
EXAMPLE:
As well as translating we also worked on each scene and began blocking this not only helped us progress with each scene but it made the play look professional as everyone knew where they should stand and move and what actions they should do as we were doing an all in the round stage which for most actors is really hard as there are pros and cons to it such as you have to keep moving around the theatre so that all of your audience can see you and not just your back which meant that audience awareness was a massive thing look out for.
One of the scenes that I did was from act 2 scene 1, it was a scene with Me and Roman the person playing Macbeth. I had to be careful where I stood, so I began at the entrance and stood in the middle of the stage which are the only spots that are sort of safe from audience awareness although it was hard we still managed to get through it. In that scene I began with a projected voice for "who's there" I decided to use that as I wanted there to be a shift of tone in the voice as I carried on after Roman replies with "a friend", this made me think that I should then switch from loud to and a more calm and friendly voice but also concerned as Banquo wondered what had happened to Macbeth for him not to be in his chambers so I replied with a calm question, "what sir, not yet at rest?" Continuing I wanted there to be a shift in the mood so changed my voice from warm and calm to worried as I talked about the westward sisters (witches) so that could raise some tension in the atmosphere, and make Roman's reaction to that be quite alarmed and scared. However Roman didn't want to show that so he replies with "I think not of them". That scene was good in using tension I thought.
Some of the difficulties that we had to face as a group was people not being in, this had meant that the group was unable on doing some of the scenes as we didn't have the characters needed for that specific scene which meant it kept us from accomplishing the entire play. Another difficulty that a lot us had was time we all had only 1 hour or sometimes about 20-40 minutes of acting and blocking which wasn't enough time to complete the play and perfect every scene as we had to rush if we wanted to finish it. Finally we came upon a problem while organising the technical part of the play with all the lighting, costume and etc. we found out that doing the play in an all in the round stage was going to have problems as we going to blinded by some of the side lights, so we took in account that it couldn't be done in the stage we had chosen so we had to change it and we were told to do it in a proscenium arch stage, which meant that we had to change our positions and where we had to stand and move which was really annoying for some of us but nevertheless we managed to get through it.
As a group we had a lot of ideas on how we should make Macbeth our own and everyone decided to do it in a modern era however my group choose that we should make it unique as another group said modern so we instead said let's do future, the original idea was destopian future however not many people enjoyed that so we all said let's set it in a wasteland type of future. As soon as we confirmed that idea we went out and got ideas from anywhere, we researched movies and television series and we decided to try and get the style of "Mad Max Fury Road" and "Blade runner". As we got further into the technical and dress rehearsals we had to think and incorporate our ideas of a wasteland/ post apocalyptic world into the play Macbeth, this meant our costumes and props and other things we needed had to change, this is because when we started Macbeth we had ideas of a traditional Macbeth in medieval times and we as a group decided that we didn't want to copy anyone so we chose to do something original. Our costumes were "torn up" clothes and accessories to show we were fighting to survive, while we thought that the witches could be wearing elegant and colourful clothing to show they are important, we decided on this idea to show the contrast between the two types of characters as the character of Macbeth and the Thanes wear clothing worn by prosperous merchants and show they are rich in comparison to the witches who are hags and wear rags. In a medieval era we thought if we are wearing ragged clothes then let's make the witches wear something exquisite (to show the difference) however things had to change again, this time was because we had to chose the costumes that were available to us so instead we had the witches wear overalls and the king wear sumptuous clothing and the Thanes were in camouflage, so that we still had a bit of our ideas embedded in the play instead of getting rid of them completely. The lighting and sound for our play was chosen for us, due to some people not being in and some accidents occurring we had to get help from our teacher and other people from different groups. The lighting was the same as one group-the black group, and not just lighting but sound as well. As our teacher was working with two groups we just decided to make them sort of the same so that there wasn't any confusion.
The lighting that was chosen was similar but effective. To begin with we had dim and sort of cold lighting for the witches to show the difference between the characters. The colours used were simple again - red to show anger and madness, blue to show a clear sky and yellow to show a normal atmosphere. Then bright to show happiness and a neutral background and dim to show it's night and a change in the time. And finally towards the ending green to show the characters moved to a new place the countryside. As we were unable to use the projector we had to use the colours in the lighting to show a change in the places the characters were in.
The sound used was just normal, we had Celtic drums to begin with this was to not only to engage the audience but to also inform them where and when the play is set although nowadays the bodhran (Celtic drums) are known to be Irish but in the olden days they were assumed to be Scottish. Thunder sound effects were used for the witches and fighting music for the fight scenes. And finally we had a good idea where we could use sound, in Act 4 scene 1 the witches create apparitions to scare Macbeth and my teacher and I thought it would be a very good and innovative idea to have the apparitions be a voice over so it would look like the witches became these apparitions through voice. It was really effective as everyone in the audience really enjoyed it and were astounded and shocked which is what we set out to do with that scene.
On the day of the performance 19th March me and my group were very nervous and scared as it was time to show everyone what we've been working on. We came in super early to make sure that we had time to do a full dress rehearsal right before the actual performance. In the beginning we had a lot of technical problems, one major one was that our lighting installation was gone and lost so the tech crew had to improvise, they followed the script and made the lighting as we went along, throughout the rehearsal everyone was stressed out so there were so compilations between the cast however we sorted everything out and managed to get through it. I had a huge problem which was I didn't know what I should do for my costume change, as I was Banquo I get murdered and then have to show up as a ghost so before the day of the performance I had the idea instead of a ghost why don't I just look like I'm killed and I'm just an figure of Macbeth's mind playing with him so I decided to bring in fake blood and smear on all over me and it was really effective and looked frightening. On the day of the performance I choose to surprise my group of what I was gonna do as they had no idea what I was actually doing for the ghost so on the time of the performance I came on stage with a bloody shirt and fake blood all over me and it made my friend Roman get scared (the person playing Macbeth) which made him yell and exclaim which showed that he was losing his mind, and made the audience get spooked out which was what I wanted to happen. When we finished our performance it was such a relief and it made all of us feel so good about our selves, furthermore I got a lot of compliments and people gave me great feedback which I really enjoyed and made my day as I was really nervous about it. To conclude I thought we did a really good job at not only telling the story of Macbeth but making fun and interesting to watch. I thought that we could have definitely improved it by using the projector and all of our original ideas but I thought that even without some of them the show was a complete and huge success.
For my improvement I thought that I could have not muddled up my lines and got through them without some hesitation but I was told I did a brilliant Job from some of the audience and not to worry about it as a lot of actors do it and if you don't show it and carry on with the show as normal or make that hesitation part of how you say you lines then you don't need to worry.
When I saw some other performances from the groups I thought some individuals had some brilliant idea for example Banquo used a light up mask from a modern horror film, this was to enhance the future theme. However I did help out with some of the technical ideas as I was part of the technical crew for the other two groups. For my first group the blue group I helped out by doing the sound for them and then I agreed to help out the black group and I was technical director for them which was really good fun and exciting but it was hard work and it was a bit stressful however I really enjoyed helping out as I always do. For the bits that I did see I really enjoyed watching but for some improvement I would have suggested people remember their lines and remember to project as it made it really hard for the tech crew to understand when to change the cues for the lighting and sound as it was really stressful. But overall I thought everyone did an amazing job, if I had to choose the best group I think it would be hard as everyone had did an breathtaking and wonderful performance.
https://youtu.be/GfBvHwDlSus
