Lewis & Clark Moodle

This week began with some significant tweaks to the staging as well as some changes in some of the beats in the script. We added a chair for Olivia to sit in by my bedside and changed some of the blocking so our close yet rocky relationship can be seen better. The second half of our scene was our biggest concern after last week so we spent a significant amount of time on that. We reworked the dancing beat so the emotional connection of Doug and Kayleen could be better shown. We had some time in the Blackbox to mark all of these changes and run it a few times. It is coming along well! There are still some beats we need to work on, specifically clarifying intentions in the first half of the scene. Once we specify and clarify our intentions the given circumstances of Doug and Kayleen's relationship will be clearer going into the awkward and climactic second half. We are both very excited to work in our one on one this week to get more specific notes and have time to really work each beat. Here's to the next (and last) week!!!!!

This past week, Kaili and I worked on the notes from our first showing. Mainly, we worked on raising the stakes of our scene, by implementing better the given circumstances that our characters are in. I think it is safe to say that one could observe this work in our second showing. In our rehearsals before the showing, we realized that our voices could be a bit higher and that our body gestures could complement this. We also noticed that intensifying our dialogue enabled us to be better at listening and responding (somehow, shouting at someone can definitely get you into believing you are having a genuine argument... haha). Having said that, you can see why I believe that our physical behaviour and voices made us much more in sync with not only the context of the scene and our own characters' but also with each other-- something which allows us to portray better our sister relationship on stage. However, the feedback from our second show did shed light on some areas of improvement. Intentions could be a bit clearer, and I agree with this. We have the beats, the voice, the gestures, but we could have more present what our character's intentions are. If we do that, we will be able to show more of the purpose of our characters in the scene, as well as the purpose of the scene as a whole. There were also some suggestions here and there, some tweaks which despite being simple, do add a lot to our scene. (i.e. making me look more hungover by not entering with heels on, Kaili responding a bit more hurtfully when I call her off on a few lines, etc.). I believe that these minor tweaks and focusing on intention and purpose will finally set all of the elements we have been working on this semester and enable us to do a great scene!

Finally, Alex and I got to work in the black box! Certainly, helps when we have our props and furniture around us so that way we can move with purpose. After watching videos on YouTube we realized after the last practice performance that we should not use those videos as a reference, were just going to go with our impulse when we decide how to move on stage and what lines to do what for. But certainly, the videos were a great tool to get us started. On a side note we really do appreciate everyone's comments about our performance I think I speak for both Alex and myself when I say we try hard to take those comments to better improve our performance! For example one of the bigger notes were about how fast we were and how to raise our volume so those two areas are the primary focus at the moment. 

We are in final preparations for our scene. We have all our dialogues and have practices multiple times through whole scene. By this point, we got the feedback, and are trying to incorporate the things that you (professor) advised us on.

Alex and I spent most of our time just running over our lines over and over again. But now we are devoting time at looking at blocking/props and what thing out characters want to be known for doing. We start with looking at clips on YouTube of people performing and checking out what props are essential to get the point across. We are spending time writing a list of what we need. For example my character yells at Alex’s character for his backpack, therefore we know we need Hal ( Alex’s character) to have a backpack. Also, we know we need notebooks 103 to be exact but we only need a good pile to get the point across so we are working on getting the specific props and our blocking. When it comes to how we perform on stage we also read how it is really important not to have out backs to the audience so we also work on our stance, still working on how to make use of the space rather than just walking back and forth. So, that’s that and I hope everyone enjoys their break!!

Today was a fun but more serious and concentrated rehearsal.  We especially focused on the second half of our scene and working on our urgency and speeds.  I personally worked on the melancholy and the friendship and laughter between Dennis' character and I.  Together, we worked on our urgency and the stakes in the end when Dennis is begging me to touch his eye and I refuse to.  As we rehearsed, we talked louder and faster and with more emotion and body language.  Also, Dennis especially did well being grounded in the scene tonight as when I looked at him during my lines he genuinely seemed inside the scene and worried for me.

Update: Rehearsal with Olivia is awesome, I think we are finding something new every time we run it, which is great 'cause the last thing we want to do is get in a rut. Today's second run also went well, real blood always helps raise the stakes. If only I could muster up real tears, that would be the icing on the cake. But for those people who wish to keep things fake, I'm attaching a video on how to do some simple stage makeup, all you need is a blue and red pen.

I have been enjoying practicing our scene using the techniques we learned in class. For example, as we practiced, we exaggerated our performance in order to stress out our emotions. Also, we stood far way from each other and shouted our lines when the stake was high. We have improved a lot in terms of listening and responding, which has been a problem. One important thing that we should improve on is to make our performance more realistic and emotional. Since we have been focusing on memorizing lines and what we were taught in class, we have not put enough emotion in our body movements or facial expressions, instead we have just emoted through our voice, so the audience will not be able to reflect upon our emotions. By the use of hand gestures and our posture, then our performance will improve and it will reflect our passion, our emotion, our hard work, and our energy to make the performance as epic as it could be. So the audience can sympathize with the emotional response that the director or author had put into the play in order to demonstrate their emotional and physical struggles during their era and what they had to loose in order to get to where they were at that time. I am thankful to work with Sarah and I am looking forward to performing the final product.

This past week we have spent the majority of our time working on specifics. We went through our entire scene and looked at the places where our tone of voice seemed to be random and not match up with the rest of the scene. An example of this is where I ask Torin about where his girlfriend is, even though she has not been mentioned yet in the scene. We worked this part so that my line sounded less random and less like I don't care. Previously, I was saying the line with a very laid back attitude. This approach just wasn't fitting with the scene. We have thus played with different tones of voice to try and capture the reason as to why Warren is asking where Dennis's girlfriend is.  We have taken this approach to many parts of the scene. We are really getting into the tone of voice that the characters are using at different times. In some instances, we realized that we had overdone what we felt the characters behavior to be. We realized that Warren should not be totally making a fool of himself up on the stage. We realized that warren does care about the situation and he is not as laid back as we once thought. We have tried to work bits of depression and anxiety into Warren's voice in order to convey that Warren still cares about the situation. Torin has also become a lot more physical with me while rehearsing. I guess we are becoming more comfortable with one another. When his character is getting angry or serious, he often comes over to me and either pushes me or throws something at me. This has created a much freer environment for us to work in and more aware of how our bodies relate to the space.