Lewis & Clark Moodle

As we have really started to master our lines, Julie and I are starting to decide on how we want to say our lines and express ourselves within the scene. Every time we rehearse, the scene is a little bit different than the last. Because the scene is so emotional, we feel as if each time the scene brings out different emotions from us. This iterative process is really helping us make some decisions with how we want to make the scene ours. 

We hope everyone is doing well in this hectic time of the semester!

I'm writing this blog entry on the heels of another rehearsal with Charlotte. I've really been enjoying the scene and memorizing lines has gone well for both of us, baring a few lines here or there. All considered, I think we did very well this past performance in class today! I was surprised at how well I knew the lines and how engaged with the material of the scene I was. Personally, I still need to work on remaining grounded in the scene. I often have this tendancy to wander and pace when I'm speaking, but I feel like in order for me to really activate my lines I need to remain stationary and use the rest of my body to articulate my emotions. 

All in all, I'm very excited for our final performance. Me and Charlotte have alot of rehearsals planned, so we should be quite prepared for the final showing.

After I got feedback from the two-minute showing, I was really trying to find a good way to portray how business people rebound after a long night of drinking. So I tried to do all the research I could, without actually getting drunk myself. So, as my family is in the wine industry, I asked a family member how she dealt with hangovers when she had important meetings she needed to attend. She told me to drink LOTS of water, get some food in your stomach as soon as you wake up, take two Advil and avoid caffeine at all costs. according to her, caffeine can help at first but it will make you crash hard later on in the day. I found that interesting because my character is offered coffee twice and rejects it both times, so this might actually be the reason for it!

I also started thinking about my clothing. As Claire is a professional woman, I imagine she would have an ensemble of pantsuits and working dresses, but I also thought about how this is her traveling home after morning the death of her father.  She might not be wearing something so professional. I needed to find a balance. So I actually wanted to ask the class, what do you guys think? I could go for sweaters and a nice pair of jeans, or the same jeans and a button-up? I know that I want to use a long black coat that I have for the scene too, but it's just the top that I'm questioning. 

I also feel a bit worried about doing the full performance. I know that I can do it, it's just actually getting up there and doing it. I think that because I forget everything over the break, I don't feel as ready to do it now. But I guess that I have to buck up and do it! Does anyone have any helpful words of encouragement? Gifs/pictures of baby Yoda that can help relax you? I'm open!

As we near our final rehearsal days, Jake and I have been solidifying certain beat changes. For instance, we will rehearse all the way through once, then we will rehearse beat to beat. This has been helpful for us because it allows us to really understand each beat and see it apart from the others. I am already realizing it has lead to stronger shifts within our scene which create a more natural feel. 

Also, we have been solidifying certain physical action that best convey our tactics at any given beat. The creative process behind this has actually been very easy. I usually begins with one of us deciding a physical action and then, based on our knowledge of characters and given circumstance, we allow our initial reaction/impulse decide the next physical action or we use the pervious action as a que for the next. It rally begins to flow very naturally rather than trying make a physical action work at a certain point. It is a bit less overwhelming when the scene is able to create these moments for physical action rather than needing to search and search for alternative paths. 

After the rehearsals on Tuesday, we have really grasp the rest of the text in the book, so now we have to finalize all the physical action and blocking that occurs towards the ending of the scene. 

Reminder we're doing scene 2 from proof.

this is what we're imagining the setting of the scene is.

We focused mainly on blocking with this rehearsal as it pertains to beat changes that we've observed. We confirmed that my (Claire) passive action will be veggie prepping (will need knife and cutting board prop) and that Johanna (Catherine) will be eating/ playing with food thats on the table in front of the couch and I will be talking to her from the kitchen counter initially. Both of us will use our passive actions to fill empty space or 'awkwardness'  between Claire and Katherine that results from the intensity and the passive aggressive nature of their interaction.  When Claire confronts Katie about the police coming by last night she will step out from behind the counter top to face Katherine in the living room. At a later point in the confrontation after Harold Dobs comes up, Claire will pick up a champagne bottle laying sideways on the floor a few feet away form the couch. Things come to a head when Claire exclaims "YOU called THEM" then a little more fighting then Catherine says "well people are nicer to you" and that line triggers Claire's sympathy/ protective older sister persona to come out and with that she sits next to Catherine on the couch and asks her if she wants to come to New York. With her second to last line "I'm PERFECTLY OKAY", Catherine stands up to face Claire (still sitting) and that's the blocking skeleton! I feel like every time we run the scene, we gain even more insight into each character's internal attitudes towards themselves and each other and as a result the delivery of the lines, the space between the lines and the action that goes with the lines becomes more like a reflex or a reaction to the context. Happy with the progress! 

Unfortunately Charlotte and I have not had time to meet and work on our scene again since Thanksgiving break. When we are able to meet, we will be working on finding and better defining the physical space of our scene and continuing to work on our physical actions for the scene. 

Additionally, I personally know that I need to work on listening to Catherine in the scene rather than simply reciting the lines as I memorized them. This is becoming sort of a challenge and I'm not sure how to work on memorizing my lines without running into this problem. 

I'm excited to start figuring out costumes and to see everyone's final performances!

Because of happenstance Manu and I did our beat analysis and learned our lines independently. When we did meet to rehearse the scene for class it went extremely smoothly, we both knew the first two minutes very well. I will add that perhaps because we learned the lines independently we did not fully block the scene and while one of us said our monologues the other kinda just sat there listening, we do not yet know what physical action can be done along with our counterparts monologue. This is definitely something to work on. We also practiced having an audience, we preformed our scene in front of two of our friends. 

I posted this to my personal blog on Nov. 26th, Manu just informed me that it was not on the messaging board 

Ethan and I have not met up to practice since our dress rehearsal on Tuesday. Of course, that is not to say that we have not worked on the scene. In fact, we have been using Thanksgiving break to contemplate over our theatrical choices independently. We were given lots of constructive feedback during our dress rehearsal, and we needed time to digest all of it. 

One piece of feedback that deeply surprised me is when Rebecca stated that this was the most grounded she has seen me. The method I tried to use to become grounded was to avoid eye contact with the audience. I did not think this would work because if you avoid looking at the audience, you are acknowledging that the audience is there. Going out of your way to avoid looking at the audience could be just a dangerous as staring directly at the audience. So now I am not really sure how to treat the audience when I am acting.

Another realization I had from doing the dress rehearsal is that my back was turned to the audience. I need to find a way to fix this. Someone suggested going around the chairs to the other side. I appreciate this piece of advice, but I am not sure if that would appear natural for the character. To me, the most realistic thing to do in this situation would be to take the shortest beeline path to where Ethan's character is lying down. This is a problem that I need to think more about.

Since our last blog post, Caitlin and I have further developed and committed to our characters' given circumstances. We talked in great detail about the specific choices we would be making about our characters' relationship to one another, and to the rest of society. We are planning on memorizing lines as well as blocking the remainder of the scene in the coming week. This will allow us to focus on the depth of our characters as the date of the final gets closer, rather than worrying about memorizing lines and physical actions. 

I think it was really interesting to watch the other Proof groups present the first 2 minutes of their scenes last week. From observing others' character choices getting portrayed on stage, Caitlin and I were able to make more decisive choices about the direction we wanted to take our scene. We have aspects of our scene that overlap with some groups, as well as aspects that differ, which is pretty cool!