Week 3

Workshops

I really enjoyed the objective and obstacle workshop we did this week and I'm very proud of myself for volunteering to go up and have a go. We also used this to see what our characters objective is during the play. For example I think Holly's objective is to finally make something of her life but her obstacle is Mark, money and her past. Mark is her obstacle because he's become very attached to her and won't stop contacting her and leaving her alone "You haven't answered my calls. You're here every day. I see you on my lunchbreak. Going around with a your clipboard. Why didn't you get back to me?". Money is a big issue because she doesn't have any which is why she was sleeping with Mark and getting paid for it in the first place. "fucked up family with no money" The workshop where we pretending we were on a plate and had to balance it out on both sides which was good because I can see us using that throughout the performance.

Presentation

I did a PowerPoint presentation with Phoebe this week on morals and politics within the play '13'. We got good feedback from Karen. She did say that we explained our slides well and that we kept referring to the play and had good use of whiteboard. The only thing she said we need to do is become more confident speakers and read off of cards next time to prevent always looking at the screen and not making eye contact. We also needed to come away from the screen and go to the front to explain to the audience better.

Character Profile

I started to find out a lot about my character this week and I also got some input from other characters in the play that Holly is close to so I could find out their view on her. For example I spoke to Matt and Frank who play the character of John and they said that Holly is "Desperate and lost in finding her passion". I find that their opinions towards my character are correct as I also feel she is trying to find her way in life and is trying to find her purpose in life. She starts this by helping John, he helps her out of the dark and into the light and makes her feel as if she has a purpose in life.

I've also discovered that Holly sleeps with Mark for the money so she can pay for university "And I'm not liking university because I haven't got any money or well friends." However throughout "13" she goes from being scared of Mark to fearing him. He's let his emotions get between business and it's very unprofessional to get into a relationship. I find him very creepy and awkward to be around as he makes me feel uncomfortable. I have no sympathy for him even though he struggles in life because of the way he treats me and acts around me.

Blocking

When we experimented with blocking the Alpha group scene we decided to set it out like a group session by sitting us on chairs in the shape of a circle. At first I was at the end on the right side and Hannah who played Sally who is the leader of the group was sat in the center. Whilst we played around with it we realized that it was coming across funny. For example when Terry spoke about his ex girlfriend my character Holly would always interrupt's him. Then we notice Sally is a very emotional character so she starts to cry because Holly is sharing her opinions, thoughts and in some ways trying to take charge of the group. This scene helps me a lot with developing Holly's character vocally because after reading what she has to say, to me she would say everything quite harshly and with an attitude. I'm also experimenting with it because I don't think she'll have an attitude with everyone she speaks to, for example she wouldn't have an attitude with her Gran. Karen also pointed out that she see's Holly using a lot of hand gestures so I began practicing talking with my hands since I don't use hand gestures myself so it's also taking it away from me.   

Goals

For next week I need to go even deeper in finding out more about my character and talk to other characters that interact with Holly to find out their views on her and to find out how they met. I need to focus on my character on stage for example I need to find out how she speaks and acts around certain people. Then I need to make sure I remember and have all of act 1 sorted and then learn my lines for act 2.