General Scenes - Wednesday 15.02.17

Blocked the guard scene, (friggin love the guard's part) in which I get angry and impatient and stuff. Points I definitely think I need to work on are appearing intimidating, doing my intimidating step and remembering the points I raise my hand for silence because that was a bit tenuous. One major point I kept getting wrong for one of these gestures was a fist to display my anger and frustration: Mr Chipp had just done an example very convincingly then I had a go, thought, yeah I've got some guns (ish) I can pull this off. Complete fail, looked like some weakling and completely awkward therefore not quite grasping the whole intimidating, powerful, assured figure I was going for, so I've decided I might just play it safe and do a hand gesture for silence (got pretty good at that with a younger brother). Generally, not just in this scene but in all of them, I really need to think harder about my reactions and ensure I'm not just frozen in one position or facial expression the whole time. 

Me and fellow Creon, (Harriet) went and blocked the scene with the page and Creon.Quite a simple task, but whilst blocking it, we brought up the problem of our feminine walks and stances, some points neither of us had noticed till t'other pointed it out. This is a point I've been trying to work out for a while, I mean it's pretty difficult as a seventeen year old girl to walk and talk like a fifty-ish "Vigorous, old man", how can we look convincing? 

Definition of vigorous: strong, healthy, and full of energy.

The classic method of portraying elderly people is a bit stooped and stiff, but is I'm meant to be full of energy as well as convincingly walking like an old man, how am I supposed to achieve it?  Furthermore, Harriet often struts and I either do my cheeky pickpocket swagger (after having just performed Oliver Twist) or my weird-not-really-certain-what-I'm-going-for walk. Definitely something to think about. 

Following this, Harriet and I went through our lines and discussed intonation through which we discovered we had some different ideas for the character at certain points. In some parts I preferred Harriet's way, for example, the start of the first monologue where for some reason I'd shouted the fist line which in hindsight had felt quite awkward and now it's more of a disbelieving laugh and frustration at Antigone and her family. However, other parts I think I'll stick to my guns. 

The whole class then came back together and we did a ragged run-through as far as we could before we ran out of time. Didn't end up getting to my big scene, but we did do the chorus sections, some of which went well and others I think we need to spend a lot more time on to make them seem smooth and effortless.