Lesson 17

Our first lesson back we decided we would do a comedic run of the play, which was interesting because it was apparent would remembered the scene order and it showed the people that were confident in themselves, from hearing other views of this exercise we realised some of us were not making solid choices in  our action because of fear, Ben explained that we have to be confident in the decisions being made other wise your level of confidence and commitment to the choice is clear. While doing the comedic run, each scene lasted no more than a few seconds as we were rushing through the play because Ben set us a time limit of doing the show in 20 minutes, in each scene we all picked a significant moment that we felt summaries the scene.

The following exercise was a presence competition; we had to walk one by one into the space turn to face the audience and then walk off. This exercise was to work on stage presence and if we have a presence that captures peoples eyes. The winner of this competition was Robyn, i felt this choice was made because she has a presence that stands out and makes you question things, she engaged her eyes a lot and  she made good eye contact while having a relaxed body, so she doesn't look like she is over doing it. Her posture was inviting yet mysterious. After the exercise we were discussing how people's went, some came on confident but as soon as they began to take in their atmosphere that when it dropped and you started seeing the actors fear seeping in, Ben continued telling us we have to own it and be stage confident in order to have good stage presence.

The circle of more: we had to step in and say a line in the play, this would start a run of the following section of the play. Each time we had to go more. This exercise was fun but challenging because smaller parts have fewer lines, so when they would go into the circle and say the line that gave other people in the scene a choice to either join or just allow the person in the middles moment to be significant. During this exercise it was fun to see the play coming to life, as we had to put in more and it enabled us to work on uping our energy. One actor that stood out to me was Benji as he embodied his character and began to mould his character into a more cocky and sarcastic person, which was portrayed very well and confirmed he will make the same choice in the show. He wasn't a selfish actor and made sure to perform and entertain the audience and it began to create an interesting backstory of 'Death'

Side stretch.

The last exercise was 7 Levels of Tension: we did this physically then lying down. Level 1: plenty of time to waste, a walk in the park, Level 2: walking to school, Level 3: fast walking so you don't miss your train, Level 4: you're late to an important meeting, Level 5: you think a bomb might go off, Level 6: you definitely know a bomb is in the room and its going to explode, Level 7: The bomb is going to explode. Having known this we explored each tension as one of our characters from the show and reacted as they would. We redid this exercise but laying down and using our breathe pace and weight to represent the tension.