Verona Rehearsals 15/01-16/03

T E A M

 V E R O N A 

R E H E A R S A L S

15th of January - 16th of March [Showtime!!]

It was our first week into breaking down the script we simply read through it normally stopping if a member didn't fully understand a word or a sentence or even why a specific character saying such. Most of us had already worked with Shakespeare before so a majority of words and phrases weren't new and could be easily explained to those who were not sure. During my free time I took it upon myself to read through the play once over and researched into the character of the Duke, after an hour or two of consecutive reading and character deductions the Duke is known as Silvia's over-protective father so much so that he would go as far as locking up his daughter so she cannot escape:

"I nightly lodge her in an upper tower

The key whereof myself have ever kept

And thence she cannot be conveyed away" 

His protective personality is enforced even more when he catches Valentine with a letter addressed to his daughter as well as a ladder which was to be used to get the girl from the tower. This of course flipped the Duke's switch up to the max, up to the point where he up and decided to banish poor old Valentine with the threat of an early death slipped in there: 

"Be gone! I will not here thy vain excuse

But, as thou lov'st thy life make speed from hence"

The Duke is known throughout to be an incredibly powerful character as he uses his clout frivolously

for a number of things, an example of this is when we are introduced to the outlaws who're revealed to have been banished by the Duke himself. A clear notion to the fact that punishment is the Duke's middle name. He's incredibly insistent that his daughter marry the man of his choosing, in this case Sir Turio and when Valentine speaks of her asking if himself can win her the Duke responds negatively to the question: 

"No trust me she is peevish, sullen, froward

Disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty

Neither regarding herself as my child

Nor fearing me as he father"

This character is seen to treat Silvia as he owns her as in the finale he is seen speaking to Valentine and says: 

"Take thou thy Silvia for thou hast deserved her" 

with Valentine replying: 

"I thank your grace the gift hath make me happy"

After my intense session on the character I finally understood what it was I needed to do in order to portray him to the best of my abilities and beyond, this character again allowed me to come out of my comfort zone and truly take hold of another person and become them. I knew that the Duke was stern, overprotective, bold and forthright. Executing this would be a slow but sure process in order for me to perfect him.

Wk 2 <>

The following week Rob spoke to me during certain scenes in what I should do and how my attitude should be, an example of this was when I first make an appearance into the party I should stand next to my daughter Silvia (who is played by Kaede) with a strong defensive aura about me, this then later transformed as with another session I slowly made my way in front of her as if to protect her from Valentine already.
To further aid my development with this character I re-watched the play that we had previously seen in our introduction into Shakespeare but this time I focused my attention on the Duke entirely and deeper into his mannerisms and attitude towards the things he and I were faced with. I did this partly because I wanted to see another actors perspective on a character and also to see if there was something I could perhaps evolve/adapt from his performance which I thought was incredible.

Wk 3 <>

After days of scenes and discussions this session was to be and I quote "adding the meat to the bone" this was basically a metaphor for adding more detail to the things that we had already went through. It was decided that another section be incorporated into our play. for this we had included a scene with Lance (played by Jessica B) & Speed (played by Sara) where Lance was to speak with her dog and Speed was hastily looking for Valentine. The reason for this was to add more of a comedic sense to the play opening it up for our audience, after a while of work on this we then moved on to other parts in our play and started work on them.

For my scenes there were parts where a change of pitch was suggested when saying certain words or phrases to see how it would work coupled with the changes other characters received. This worked well for when my line: 

"Sir Valentine, your father is in good health

What say you to a letter from your friends of much good news"

I put emphasis on 'Sir Valentine' with a happy tone to it as well as saying the word 'father' again with a happy emphasis on it, this was completed due to the pitch changes implemented by Valentine to me which gave an overall calming joyful nature to the scene. 

There was another scene in which a dance was added, this was an inspiration taken from the Royal Shakespeare Company and was a good take too. This was added into the scene where Valentine and Turio try and get Silvia entranced by their dancing abilities. For myself I added my own spur into two scenes to really activate the power behind the Duke, for example during the scene where I am with Valentine and I find out that he is attempting to rally my daughter from a tower of which I placed her, I feel resentment and anger towards his incoming act and this is shown when I meet with him. I find a ladder and letter which is addressed to Silvia reading: 

"Dear Silvia this night I will enfranchise thee

Tis' so and here is the ladder for the purpose"

When I read this I felt a burning anger for the disrespect of Valentine, It was then that I implemented a slow raising voice for the Duke and then when I yell the line "Be gone!" I was to grab Valentine by the lapels and shake him. This proved strong in the rehearsals as Valentine was taken by surprise by my sudden outburst. It was thanks to the "What If?" technique that allowed me dig and wonder: What if this was me and my daughter was to be taken by someone who I despise? How would I react? How would I say these words?

Wk 4 <>

On the Monday of the following week we were to begin from the middle of the play and continue on. There wasn't much feedback for me to take on except from the here and there "more projection" or "say the line slower" and from that we moved swiftly on everyone getting their own tidbits to work on or go by. After the quick session we got some key feedback notes from Rob, these were listed as the following: 

Focus - Follow the script and remain focused.

Energy - To keep our energy turned on at high as if our energy was high the audience was going to enjoy the performance even more.

Commitment to movement - To do things with utmost commitment due to it being conveyed to the audience for them to understand it.

If not now when - We can't say that we will do something that we have been directed to do on the day of performance and not now as when we rehearse we form new ideas and make important decisions on what will/won't work.

Eyes - Keep eye contact with characters and audience and not look at the floor or actor/actresses shoulders.

Lines - The lines will need to be learnt and can't be paraphrased.

Go for it - Don't shy away, be afraid to do something we must always be committed.

Play the moment regardless of the language - This simply meant that we were not to search for the words or try to get them in the right order but instead play the moment truthfully and authentically as it was to be portrayed.

Touching on Tuesday morning our advice was different, but again we ran through specific scenes. The advice that was given to us is as follows:

What's the point? - We need to focus on the point we are trying to get across and what we are trying to do in the scenes. 

Every line needs an action - Each and every line needs a reason why behind it.

Talking stops and action begins - This basically means to not say the lines with nothing behind them, we need to mean them and focus, for when we go back stage not to get lost in speech by go to our scripts as not to get distracted. 

Playing the moment - This means that when we are acting/ in character that even when prompted we need to continue on still feeling the situation at hand and acting accordingly. 

Be on top of the moment and not the moment on top of you -  This means that we need to be on our A game in understanding what's going on and really know what or why our character is speaking. 

It is hard work - Even though it isn't easy we need to realize that when the work is put in we will gradually understand and it will become better.

During the afternoon we had self directed learning and focused on our ending scene as we all knew that was our weak point at that current moment. This carried on into our Wednesday lesson with Sharon as we also put our attention in character development, due to the small amount of people that was in the class at the time we worked individually. Such things like: What would our characters be doing before our entrance or thinking about our characters through line. 

A change into Friday as we were joined up with the other group and performed random scenes to each other to see where we had each gotten up to and how well the scene was portrayed, to me both groups showed exceptional understanding of the scenes that they were to do and again this was just after a few sessions/weeks and we were all yet to be finished. Rob's notes for Friday were as follows: 

Circles of attention - We need to focus on the other actors in the space as well as the audience, we need to be aware. 

Line run - To line run with each other looking for improvement.

Responsibility to keep going - That it is up to us to keep our energy on 10 and make the play more than just text.

Cues - We need to know our cues and not look in the script when it is our turn to make an appearance, also knowing what comes before to make the play flow brilliantly.

Make it your own - It is our interpretation and should be seen as so, showing that we ourselves have brought our own flair to the role and make sure that it is US playing it not that we get higher grades if we copy how someone else has played the role.

Energy - We need to be physically energized on stage at all times and not lose our energy after saying a line or two. We need to be engaged physically and psychologically, not getting bored or tired when performing but ready and raring to go.

These pieces of feedback is currently wedged into my mind and I will most definitely put this into practice effective immediately, especially considering that next week will be our final week of rehearsals before the week of our performances.

Wk 5 <>

Twas the following week on Monday in which we started straight into rehearsing the respective scenes as well as the go to line running. It was much the same as the week before as we kept with the changes we had already put in, again it was a SDL (Self-directed learning) lesson so we weren't actively given feedback. Obviously. Although we began blocking certain scenes to give the audience insight into who their focus should be on.

The Tuesday which came we were to do a full run through which was presented to the other group. Personally I thought that we done a real solid job with this, however it was nearing the end when we started to falter. This was due to missed cues or lines being forgotten, things that would be fixed after we finished but nonetheless was something to learn from. Rob, when we completed the run through supplied us with more feedback as a group, we were to rehearse from pg 72+ because as this was were we mostly had problems it was a surefire way for us to become more comfortable on this section. Eye contact again was brought up because it would lose the truth and meaning behind what we are saying if our eyes are on the floor, articulation as well as knowing the scenery was given to us also. Projection and gestures were needed to be upped for the audience purposes as well as our own.

Again on Wednesday we were touching on specific scenes once more, nothing to major that was recorded down in my notebook but to be fair the day went by incredibly fast. Personally I believe this to be the work of fun and a healthy work ethic.

Continuing on into Friday's session this was our technical rehearsal so all it consisted of was getting the lighting and sound synced up with our cues. There's a blackout in the scene I have with Turio where we enter in swiftly talking about his love of Silvia, but other than that there aren't any significant lighting changed regarding my character. Due to time issues we were to continue the lesson onto Monday. At the end of the lesson Rob sat us down to talk about props and what was needed to be brought in or what ideas we had for props, a handful of suggestions were given in and I had said that a cigar was dire for the Duke. Emphasis on dire. All in all I'm ready to go and wrap it up, I feel like the whole cast feels confident and I believe in them. We got this in the bag, no doubt about it!

Wk 6 <>

The start of the performance week, on Monday we went through scenes again to ensure there were no troubles. I worked consistently on my scene with Proteus and Turio of which who Silvia's love should be handed to and the last scene with the outlaws, Valentine, Julia, Proteus, Silvia and Turio. Come Tuesday and sadly some of the cast weren't able to make it in for the run through in the morning but when the afternoon hit we were able to start a line run with the full group. A couple hiccups along the way but I felt that they were due to nerves. No big whoop. On Wednesday we were to watch the other groups rehearsal (Much Ado about Nothing) it went really well I thought but of course us watching the performance meant that we had little time to focus on our own rehearsals. But come the dawn of Thursday we had our dress rehearsal. To be honest the dress rehearsal went along real smooth as I had hoped, I didn't forget any of my lines and there wasn't dead-staging or blocking occurring. We did get a chance to use our props for the dress and it was interesting to see how others used their's as well as thinking of creative ways on how to use my cigar. However I will say that due to not rehearsing for the past two days properly it was a little shaky/slow to begin with because we we were launched back into it. There were beautiful comedic accents that spilled into it which was what was desired as well as the serious tone at the overall happenings in the play. After the dress Rob gave us small notes on what could be added and then with that we prepared ourselves for what was to come. We had two shows upcoming, the 2pm showing which was for the level twos/musical theatre/dance etc and the 7pm showing exclusively for friends and family.

 Verona Assemble!!