Drama @ MSC

Today we got into groups and chose a scene from Medea to perform that would incorporate all of us. I grouped up with Katelyn and Courtney, and together we chose to perform the scene from Medea where she kills her children and Jayson has a fight with her. Katelyn was to play Medea, Courtney was to play the child and I was to play Jayson. We found out that the best way to perform an improvisation is to firstly outline the 6 main plot points, then creat tableux.

After creating our 6 tableux, we were told to have each character saying one word for each tableaux. The first tableaux showed Medea with a knife in her hands in a questioning gesture. To emphasize the questioning motion, Katelyn was to say “should i?”. This tableaux also showed Courtney as the chid, playing with her toys. To portray the child as innocent, we had her simply say, “Weeee!” The next tableaux showed Medea hiding her knife behind her back while she turned away as her child came to hug her. Katelyn’s word was “Don’t” to show the mother trying to detatch herself away from her child. Courtney’s word was “Mummy!” to show the child’s want for her mothers attention. The following tableaux had Medea about to stab her child. Her word was “Sorry” to show she really cared about her child but she had to kill it. Courtney made a whimpering sound to display her as scared. The next tableaux showed Medea stabbing her child. Each character screamed to create a dramtic effect. After this tableaux, Jayson entered with a shocked expression, screaming “Medea!” in realisation of what she had done. Katelyn was on her knees and said the word “Done”. This symbolised the end for Medea. The tableaux after that showed me as Jayson huddled over my child and saying “Why?” to show the shock and sadness of Medeas actions. In answer to my word, Medea said “You!” to finalise her actions and blame Jayson for her own hardships.

 After putting in one word, we were told to add in choral speaking and repetition. The tableaux with the main use of these techniques were the first questioning scene and the scene where Medea was about to kill her child. As I was off stage for these tableaux, i was able to conduct most of these techniques. The firt scene where Medea was questioning herself, i whispered in a hissing manner, “Yes/No” repeatedly. This symbolised the thoughts running through Medea’s mind and also the good and bad sides of her soul. In The scene right before Medea kills her child, i begain whispering “Kill, kill” and gradually projected my voice until I was screaming it. This created a suspenseful feel and aso reflected the thoughts of Medea.

After we had played around with our tableaux, we had established the main points for our performance which we could build on to create drama. We began to write dialogue for each of the characters to build on their personality and reasons so the audience would react in a certain way.  

Today we performed our play of a scene in Medea. Courtney, Katelyn and I rehearsed for the first half of the lesson to perfect the performance. My group performed the scene where Medea takes the live of her children right before Jayson enters and the two have a big fight. We learnt that rehearsing is essential when creating a performance because we could add new effects, change ineffective parts and be prepared in terms of dialogue and staging techniques. We used our time effectively to ensure we didnt forget our lines or movement. We set the stage up with a staircase inbetween two big black boards to enable Jaysons entrance. I thought our improvisation performance was well rehearsed and displayed the raw emotions that needed to be displayed for that scene. I played the role of Jayson, Katelyn playes Medea and Courtney symbolised the children. Our performance encorporated repition, whispering and unison speaking which are techniques derived from Greek choral speaking. After we had all performed, we took notes on another groups work to prepare for the essay next class. This taught us how to reflect on other performances. I think our class did very well in presenting the scenes from Medea. 

Today we performed our improvisations of Medea. My role in the performance was King Kreon. As this character i decided that my verbal techniques would be projected to show confidence, a low pitch to show male character and to give character a serious approach, pause to show thinking- not dramatic pause like Medea, a slow pace to show thinking and wisdom. We also gave Kreon a calm yet firm tone, this is a quality that most King characters posess, it gives them an approachable feel as well as showing that they are worthy of their role as king.

I decided that Kreon should use the non-verbal techniques of walking with a dabbing motion (i.e light footed yet confident in standing ground), a smooth, gliding motion. Kreon walked with his body upright and his head straight, often looking down at medea. This posture shows that Kreon is a confident king, and also potrays tot he audience that he is of a higher level of importance to Medea.

Most of the staging posistions throughout our performance was determined by the tableaux’s we created in class. Our first positions were of Medea crying in the corner of the stage while Kreon was center stage, raised, greeting his people. This raise of Kreon symbolises his status compared to Medea’s and as he is center stage is shows that he is more important in society than her.

I enjoyed working with monique. As we have both had experiance performing pieces of theatre we were able to manage our time effectively and  knew techniques which we could use at home to practice our dialogue. This Performance taught me different ways in which it is possible to interperate scripts, as monique and I often had different views as to what the script was detailing to its audience.  

If I were to do this task again i would definately spend more time originating the script, as i didnt feel that we had focused on that aspect of the task as much as other groups had.

Today we spent our time organising our improvised performance for our assesment. Monique and I had already organised the costumes, and stage settings of our performance, as well as the different characteristics our characters should have. During this class we focused on wrighting out our version of the script. We decided that we still wanted to inclue most of the parts of the script to maintain the original characters which we had interpreted. In order to support the task of creating an original improvisation, Monique and I rearranged the script and changed a some of the lines out of the script to link it to our actions on stage. For example the lines of Kreon’s : “You can do things, destroy my daughter, my country, my home” as we decided to have medea in a freeze during this dialogue, we changed this line to “She can do things, destroy my daughter, my country, my home” This gives the audience some insight into what Kreon is thinking without actually telling medea i.e is including the audience and potraying emotions through audience interaction.

We then spent the rest of the period practicing our lines and blocking our scene. This would give us an image of what was going on around us when we were practicing at home. To better prepare ourselves we organised a rehearsal in the drama foyer out of school time. This was a great help and cemented our performance.

Today in drama was our final performance. It was so much fun.

For the first hour we were able to get costumed and put make up on and practice a little more before the big assessment.

Every one looked great, we were all dressed like ancient Greek people. Even the stage looked great. We used two black flats and stairs to form the door way exactly how we wanted it. It was brilliant. My group was the fourth to perform. It was really great to watch every one else’s and see how they interpreted the task.

My favourite one was Monique’s and Caris’s. It was amazing. They used the script from the book Ms Palmer lent us for their scene and they remembered every line perfectly. They used the stage very well and it was all very afective.

I was really happy with the over all result, every ones scene was great. I look forward to our next performance.

Bree-Anna Finlay

Woo! Today we practised our scenes loads and loads. It was so much fun. My groups scene is starting to take shape, a very nice shape. Ms Palmer then let us grab our costumes. Well not grab our costumes. We had to talk about our research on the matter. My group had drawn up a brief outline on what we wanted so that helped a lot. We needed costumes for all seven of our characters

• Madea
• Madea’s two sons
• the Messenger
• and all three chorus members

Madea is wearing a red silk dress with a rope tied around her waste nd across her chest. The sons are wearing plain straight dresses with a tie around their waste. I (as the messenger) am wearing a long cream dress with a tie around my waste and chest. As the chorus Shannon Micheal and i are wearing grey cloak things so we all look the same. I think our costumes work really well. For our set design all we want is a door way at the back or to the side of the stage for the characters to enter and exit from and two chairs for Madea to lie on. I cant wait to perform next week, it shall be great. I also cant wait to see what the other groups have come up with.

Bree-Anna Finlay

Todays lesson had us acting how we would react if we were:

*bored

*nervous

*extremely nervous

*in denial etc

This was then made our homework, put into tables, on how we used our voice,movement,pose,epression etc. We were also asked to research the history on greek amphitheatres and the types of plays that took place during the this time period.

This lesson helped me to identify the terms and actions you preform when creating a character. Most of which are what we draw from ’stereotyped’ images.

By Courtney.G

During this lesson we (class) were asked to identify the verbal and non-verbal techniques used to produce a play. During this time slot we were also seperated into groups to determine what we thought were the 6 main scenes from Medea. Then as a class we discussed and came up with a structure that depicted our overall 6 main scenes. They were somewhere along the lines of:

1-Medea realsing her betrayal

2- Medea in a grieving state

3- Medea conspiring to take  revenge also her banishment

4- The offering of the dress to Jasons’ bride to be

5-Death of the princess and Jasons’ father in law(the king)

6- Medeas escape

After this we were asked to take one of the scenes and in our groups that had previously been formed plan out 6 main plot points for that scene. This is where our class ended and it kept me so to speak ‘on the edge of my seat’ until next lesson.

By Courtney.G

Wow this lesson by far had been the best i didnt actually think our scene was going to work. The group consists of Carrianne, katelyn and of course mwah. The scene we have chosen to re-enact is where Medea kills her two children..except due to the number of group members we had one child. Katelyn plays Medea, Carianne is Jason and I am The child. Our six plot points are as follows:

1- Medea in total despair contemplating whether or not she should go through with her plans (to kill her child).

2- Child getting up from the floor and trying to hug his mother while she is pulling away.

3- Child realising what his mother intends to do after seeing the knife she holds raised…while hugging her and looking up.

4- Unable to break free from Medea  the child is killed after she follows through with the fatal strike.

5- Jason now bursts into the room and sees his child lying dead on the floor and is completly horified.Medea is on the floor bewildered at what she has just done.

6- Medea overcomes her shock and realise’s Jasons’ reaction is just what she was seeking and so she stands up tall and proud of the crime she has committed.

While planning these tableaux we first started off with still frames which could only show our pose and expression. Then we moved on to adding dialogue, but only one word from each character was aloud to be expressed in each plot point. This was followed by expanding our one word into an interesting way of speech..eg repetition and chanting. Finally we performed all 6 plot points as a whole scene with movement,dialogue (consisting of some repetition, chanting and normal speech),expression etc.

I believe my group has chosen wisely now with our scene and i can see great things for our performance. For now everything is smooth sailing and good luck to all the other groups.

Courtney