Classical Theatre Assignment 2

Rehearsal Preparation

We are currently working on the play Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare and we're modernising it for today audience. Like most people I personal don't like Shakespeare very much not because the text itself isn't good but because I can't understand it. Luckily Sally worked on the text first with us giving us some Shakespeare words with the modern English version next to it and some verb inflections. This helped a lot because I began understanding a little more about the language so that when it comes to getting my part I would have a better understanding. Sally also showed us the modern version with David Tennant which definitely gave me a much better understand because I could understand more of what they were saying through their actions and humour. I'm really happy Sally should us the modern version first and that we’re doing this specific play as it’s made my feelings towards Shakespeare change completely. Due to this play I am actually really fond of doing Shakespeare and I'm really looking forward to performing it. In order for me to have a even better understanding of the play Sally had us write our lines in modern English.  This helped me so much because when I went through my scene with Issie I suddenly knew exactly what the scene was about and what we were actually saying to each other. My main part is in Act 3 Scene 1, where I play Ursula. The meaning of this scene is for me and Hero to set a trap for Beatrice in order to make her believe Benedick loves her. When watching the David Tennant version this scene was a comedic scene and we want ours to be the same. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzfthz-I8aM 

During this scene all the lines are iambic pentameter and it's important we enthesis on important words. Sally has gave us many tips in order to help us understand our scenes more, for example she had us write next to each line what our objective is when saying that line. I think that in my main scene the main objective is definitely to convince, persuade and trick Beatrice into thinking Benedick loves her so that she can accept her true feeling towards him which is that she does love him too. I believe my role in the scene is to just play along with Hero and just have fun with it because we know she can hear us which is why we big it up and exaggerate.

        

 

In total I was in three scenes and two movement piece. The first scene I was in was the first scene of the play. I played the character Hero and only had one line but that didn't mean I wasn't important. I read through the scene so I know what was happening and it was basically the audiences first look on the relationship between Benedick and Beatrice and when Claudio and Hero first meet and fall in love. Being Hero meant that I did have an important part because I had to show the love connection between me and Claudio from our first meeting. I also have to laugh at what Beatrice was saying which is actually really hard especially when I don't have a clear understanding of the Shakespeare language. Due to only having one line which I knew what it meant to get a better understanding I spoke to my fellow piers who were in the scene with me. We also changed some of the words to help make it more modern. I feel like this scene its self just shows the true meaning of the play because you see Beatrice and Benedick putting on a front that they hate each other when really they love each other. Then there's Hero and Claudio, the lovers who feel in love at first sight of each other, the fairy-tale love. Later on you see love at first sight isn't always the fairy tale ending. When you look back to the Elizabethan era it was also very unlikely that a women would Marry someone she truly loves and it would normally be an arranged marriage by her father. I think the reason why her father allowed it is because Claudio is at a high status like them.

My second scene is act two scene one where I am Hero again with the one line again. This scenes hows Beatrice's humour and thoughts on men and my main job is to react. I rather like this scene because you get to see Beatrice's personality which is really funny because she's all about not needing a man and just being a strong independent women. Which when you look back to the Elizabethan time women weren't independent, it was a women’s duty to look after her husband, the house and the kids whilst he went out to work. I think she's a great character and I love the way Catherine Tate portrays her in the modern version. She shows then women don't need men in their lives and can be much happier without them. I've thought about how Shakespeare would have got this character of Beatrice and my theory is Queen Elizabeth because although she was married she was the women in charge and he used to go see her often so maybe that whole independent thing with Beatrice could be a bit from the Queen.  The scene shows the comedy side to the play so the laughter and comedy needs to be high throughout the scene.

 

 

My third scene which is my main scene, I play the character of Ursula. This scene is to convince Beatrice that Benedick loves her. After reading through the scene I feel like I had a true understanding of Beatrice was and how she worked. I read through the scene quite a few times at home as this was the only scene Ursula was in so it was all I had to make my own interpretation of her. This was a very important scene because the real love of the play is between Beatrice and Benedick and we're helping Beatrice realise it. They both say that would rather be on their own but back in the Elizabethan times you had to get married, you had no choice, man or women. When watching the Catherine Tate version of this scene this was my favourite seen so I was so happy to be able to do it. The one thing I worried most was trying to make it funny as it's so hard to make something funny when it isn't already.But I like a challenge and I look forward to starting to rehearse it and hopefully it goes well.

 

Character study - Hero

My interpretations of Hero is that she is a fun, outgoing, young and a girly girl type of girl. I feel like she adores her father and he adores her as she is his only daughter and he only wants what's best for her. I do feel like he has her feelings at his best interest and when she falls in love with Claudio he fully supports her. "Daughter, remember what I told you, Ii the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer."She has a great relationship with her cousin Beatrice also and wants the best for her. I know this because in act three scene one she's tricking her cousin into thinking Benedick loves her but that's only because she knows she does like him and she wants to see her happy. Hero's objective in the play is to marry Claudio and when she is accused of something she hasn't done it's to make things right and prove her innocence. Which is obviously very hard as Claudio knows that he witnessed it himself and her own father doesn't believe her. She's young and just wants to have fun and I think she just loved the idea of a fairy tale wedding and the fact that it was love at first sight for her and Claudio. I feel like she gets embarrassed easily, for example when Beatrice mocks her in act 2 scene one or in act one scene one when Don Pedro talks about her and she goes all shy. She's very innocent and loves to party, she's happy to help out with anything and doesn't need anything in return. I feel like she was more than happy to help her father out with whatever he needed. Yes her father is pretty wealthy and she has maids but she never treated them or anyone else any differently to how they should be treated and saw them more as her friends. A true lovely and hear warming young women. I wore shorts, crop top and a shirt tied around my waist with my hair curly in plats to give of this young, stylish look.

Me as Hero  Joe as Claudio

 

 

Ursula

 

I see Ursula as a funny, overeating, energetic and a bit dumb sort of character. In the modern version she is played as a middle aged women but due to us changing it a bit ourselves by making it a festival I thought I'd bring her down a little bit and make her younger. I decided to make her just a bit older then Hero and I saw Hero as being 24 years old so I made Ursula about 26 years old. Ursula was more seen as Hero's friend in act three scene one but like the sidekick friend, the unpopular one compared to Hero. I put her as a bit dumb because when she's saying all these things about Beatrice she doesn't know how far to go or when to stop. For example she goes too far when saying "Sure, sure, such carping is not commendable." She's saying Beatrice is so hard to please she doesn't deserve all this praising, which is obviously way too far, especially when she can hear. I wanted to have her laughing whenever she wasn't talking and moving around to show that energy and the weird laughter. I see Ursula as one of the last people you would pick to be a spy with you but because she's the only option she gets so excited you've actually picked her and just goes overboard with the whole thing. That's how I see Ursula due to my own interpretation of her from how I read the script and because we changed the setting to modern day. Her role in the play is to just convince Beatrice in the best way possible that Benedick loves her and try not to give away too much when doing so because Beatrice doesn't know they know she's there.

Sophie has Beatrice Issie as Hero,

 Frankie as Margret and me as Ursula

 

 

Rehearsal Development

I've been given the role of Hero from the play Much Ado About Nothing in act one, scene one and again in act two scene one. I also have the role of Ursula in act three scene one which is the main one I've been working on as I have way more to say. We have made our performance into the modern day and after Sally suggesting have it at a festival we all loved the idea so that's what we decided to do. We had to change some scenery to make it work like in act three scene one we had her hide in a porterloo instead of a woodbine coverture in the garden. This allowed the audience to have a better understand as most of them were students at the college and would probably have all been to a festival, it also made it more fun for us.

 

When I went through my main scene with the girls I automatically put on this excited tone as in my opinion the scene is very upbeat due to the humour of it. I thought this because of the way they performed it in the modern version of the play. This scene is about setting a trap in my eyes, setting a trap to make Beatrice believe that Benedick loves her. The trap is for her to believe he likes her so she can then realise her true feels for him which is that she loves him. Our main problem for this scene is making it funny, I personally find it hard to make things funny.The girls in the scene and I had a discussion about what we can do. During something I say, Sophie who is Beatrice spits out her drink so I thought maybe I should go up to the porter-loo where she was and say the line then react after hearing her spit out the drink. After that as a group we thought of other things that would help like whoever isn't speaking reacts to what the other person is saying and then have Sophie reacting as well so it’s funny on both sides. I also let the girls in my scene a trick that I used in the last play I did to help keep the funniness in the scene. I said when someone is speaking the other two need to whisper something the other person finds funny because laughter can be contagious. Our scene has developed so much, we just need to keep the ‘banta’ throughout the scene and make sure we have constant expressions and laughter to keep it upbeat. Beatrice needs to react to what we’re saying and we need to react to her reactions but due to her not getting a hang of it for a while because we hadn't actually gone through it in class it was hard and we just had to try. We helped her through it to see what she could do and how to deliver her lines. I demonstrated what she could do when in the portaloo and what lines she could react to and stuff then we went over it all again with Sally. I also helped her with her monologue in the scene by showing her videos of other people like Catherine Tate performing it so she could get an idea on the tone and expressions. The main feedback I got was to keep overreacting from the beginning to the end, slow down the lines which I always find quite hard because I'm a fast talker anyway. I got feedback from Matt that I was also very breathy saying my first line as I'm supposed to be whispering it to Hero so I had to work on that a lot at home so I wasn't and I think I sorted it so I wasn't. He said to tease more as I am trying to trick Beatrice and get carried away with it more. I feel like due to us practising a lot and discussing what we could do it really helped us to bring it up and it was a great success in the end.

 

 The first scene of the whole play obviously has to be upbeat because it's the first scene and it has to draw the audience in. I didn't have much say in this scene as I only had one line and Sally had directed what everyone was doing anyway. I think I might have suggested doing the flags but I'm not 100% sure. I'll admit at first it was hard for everyone to try and make it funny because it's all about the understanding and delivery of the lines. We also kept going over and over it was not much progression so it also got a bit boring. We didn't give up though, we ran through it helping each other out on how to deliver the lines to bring the energy up and what we were all doing. Due to me having my one line I had to be doing something throughout but making sure I was reacting to what everyone was saying. During the scene I'm putting up flags for decorations with Beatrice whilst listening to Leonato who is my father talk to the messenger about Don Pedro coming to Messina. Due to us modernising the play this was all set at a festival and Don Pedro was part of a band that was the main performance. So at the beginning of the play when that line has been delivered me and Sophie act excited and happy because anyone would be happy to meet a famous band. The next thing to react to was obviously Beatrice moaning about Benedick which at first I would just laugh a little to the bits I knew that were funny but it was hard as Sophie didn't but the tone needed to it. After practising she got it and then it was much easier to laugh and everything. Then I have to pretend to not be able to actually hang the decorations so Claudio could help me and then you see the love connection which wasn't hard as me and Joe are quite close. Whilst doing that we listened into the rest of the scene and would love a little when necessary. I feel like by the end the scene flowed really well, everyone still had a few key things to work on and mine was mainly to react and make sure I'm projecting.  Throughout the scene I just wanted Hero to come across as a young, fun, girly girl and I feel like I've achieved that on stage.

 

The second scene of the play in my eyes is to show Beatrice's character and the comedy side to her and what she thinks about men and marriage. I play Hero again so she makes a few comments to me due to Hero and Claudio being in love. I think it was hard for all of us to understand the scene and know what we were going to do. Issie and I decided it would be good to set up a table with drinks as at the end of the scene is the silent disco. Again it was about reacting but it was hard when at first I didn't understand what she was saying and Frankie hadn't developed her character enough to make it funny. We practised this scene on our own a few times to help each other as we didn't really get around to doing it in class a lot of the time. I soon got the hang of everything and it naturally become really funny so most of my laughter throughout the scene is real. This scene like the first scene relied on our reactions to bring up the energy which wasn't that hard once we all knew what we were doing and saying. I only had one line for this scene and at the beginning I honestly couldn’t say 'melancholy' so we had to spell it out and I was saying melon and colley together so I could actually say it and then I was finally able to after practising a lot at home. I didn't get much feedback for this scene as I only had the one line, all I really got was to react at the beginning but then by the end I was getting good feedback because I was reacting. During this scene I wanted to show the family connetection  between Hero and Beatrice because they're close cousins and are more friends than anything. We show it through when Beatrice takes the mick out of her and we decided I'd joke around and push her a little whilst laughing to show the playful side.

 

The first dance sequence was the silent disco and Sally wanted us to come up with four moves that we could do that was linked to a festival. We all found it really hard and then Luke came up with poo, smoke, drink and selfie so we call decided to do the same that. Of course Sally didn't like the first one so we changed that into our own individual dance moves. We ran that a couple of times and then moved on to where the front show which was me moved around to the back and Phoebe and Lewis (Beatrice and Benedick) did a little sequence. Then it went to slow Mo and then me and Joe (Hero and Claudio) did our little movement bit. Ours was to show him proposing to me so we thought have him propose on one knee and then go into a lift we it ended up him walking off whilst carrying me in bridle style. We had a few troubles so we practised a lot to make sure we got it right and that he could lift me and that I could get my leg over and back over for him to catch me. Then we had to add another 8 counts as we were stood waiting for a while so he spun me from the top of the stage down to the front and then he picked me up and spun me. It wasn't that hard but we did have to practise a few times to make sure we had it and there were a few times we messed up because our headphones got tangled and I put my foot in the wrong place so we just practised and we got it. I think it went well when we performed it.

 

The second dance sequence was okay but I found it all very confusing and didn't really understand what was going on myself. I gave some ideas on what to do but Sally didn't want to overcomplicate things and just wanted it to be simple for the audience to understand. During it you see Don John and Borachio doing through with their plan to stop Hero and Claudio getting married by getting off with Margret, Hero's gentlewomen and pretending its Hero so Claudio won't want to marry her anymore.  We go into a wedding scene which is still part of the dance sequence where we show Claudio pushing Hero away using this pull and push move that I suggested as there was no talking. The rehearsal process for this was pretty long as it had to be in time and everything and we had to do certain movies on the right beat but it turned out really good by the end. Like the first one, five of us at to think of four movements to do with if we were watching a performance at a festival. Whilst Hero and Margret where lifted onto the boys shoulders so they kind of knew they were the main focus. Our four moves were fist pump, body twist, lean back and lean forward. I and Phoebe were at the front and we thought it would be a good idea to have like a barrier like they do a festivals. Well we didn't have one so we used wooden poles that we held and put together so it looked like one. We began using them and then after a while I hated them because we couldn't hold them straight and everything but Sally still wanted us to use them until our performance week when she also agreed to get rid of them. We had a lot of trouble with the music for this scene but on the show week we finally got it done and the scene went really well.

I feel like I’m definitely taking some responsibly in order to help improve the scenes as I’ve gave the girls some helpful tips and I also helped Sophie with her reactions and monologue in the scene as it hasn’t had much work done to it. I feel like throughout rehearsal I have tried to give my opinion on what would be good, I’m very happy I’ve started to do this and have become more creative because I couldn’t do any of this last year. Throughout the process I feel like I have grown and I’m able to develop my character and the scenes I am in. Sally gives me more confidence as an actor to perform and give feedback and my opinion on things to others. I have been very opinionated throughout the rehearsal process but that's only because I want to be able to enjoy and like what I'm doing but I learned that it doesn't really matter if I look stupid, just as long as it all fits together. I think it was mainly the dance scenes I wasn't fond of, I just didn't like them but I tried anyway and put in my idea and we actually put a few of them in.

 

Much Ado About Nothing