Cotume

This is my costume for Ceres the Spirit. I really like my costume, even though the first time I saw it, I did panic a little! I like the glitter and the feathers and hopefully I will be able to move around the stage without ripping it. I think it needs a little more glitter in some places, but I really like it.

I think it adds to my character and makes it seem more magical and special. I feel very fairy-like when I wear it and it makes me feel like I am going to be able to convey my character effectively on stage.

Shakespeare in Love

I have watched this film multiple times, however watched it again as we are studying Shakespeare. This film really helps with my understanding of how men had to play women and that women were not supposed to be in the theatre. I think that it makes all their laws very clear and shows Shakespeare's process of writing and that he needed a muse.

Although I'm not sure how much of this film is factual, it helps me to understand the basic process of Shakespeare writing and performing a play. This video shows how important it was to not be seen as a woman on stage. It would damage her family's reputation and she would not be able to marry an eligible man.

Tempest Rehearsals

Here is a video of us practicing our first scene as the spirits. We spent a long time working on our physicality and relating our movement to our spirits. For example, because my spirit is the spirit of the Earth, I spend a lot of time on the floor, rolling around, crouched down etc.

Research on Dogs/Wolves

I did some research into dogs stalking their pray and how they act. I found some youtube videos which show perfectly how dogs stalk things. This gave me lots of inspiration on how to physically portray this element of stalking Trinculo, Stephano and Caliban to the audience.

I found this video. Which shows perfectly how still and silent a dog is while stalking it's prey. It also showed me how quickly they can change from predators into showing their softer, tennis-ball loving side. This will help me to develop how quickly the spirits can changed shape and form.

This video also helped me to see the comic side that Jack is trying to get us to portray at this point, but also still shows the danger of what could happen and shows how wolves move when they run to allow me to physicalize that movement myself

This video helped to show me how fast wolves can run and how quick they can be when they need to catch their prey. It also made me aware of the movements that they make when they run.

All of these findings will help me to physicalize my character and allow me to personify the different animalistic traits the spirits have.

Rehearsals

We had rehearsals today in Theatre Workshop where we finished blocking the rest of the script and started to run through the whole play again.

We did lots of character work and each person on stage had to really explore their character and become more emotionally connected to the scene. Jack is very good at going over things and making sure people know what they are saying, which will really add to the performance and make our individual portrayals of our characters much more believable.

We had to be the spirits becoming dog-like creatures which chase Trinculo and Stephano away from the cave. We had to be very animalistic, which was really hard to portray to the audience. Although I think it will be much easier with sound, lighting and our costumes, to portray these scary creatures, it was really difficult while in a rehearsal room.

We also did a scene where Prospero sets us free, which took us back to the basics of being spirits, moving around and looking at everything that Prospero does in awe. We then finished the script. This was good as we got to see the development of all the characters throughout the play and now we got to see them when they were all together. It was really good to watch to see how each of the characters interacted with each other and to see how they've changed on their journey through the island.

It's looking very good so far, but people need to learn their lines and remember where they have been staged for their blocking, to speed up the rehearsal process when doing a second run through, which will give us a lot more time to focus on our characters, which we've done on our blogs anyway, but also the different characters interactions with each other.

Research for Essay

I did some research to help me to write the Historical Context essay. I compared Shakespeare's costumes to modern day costumes.

Shakespeare Costumes vs Modern Day Costumes

It is clear that in our performance of “The Tempest” we are using very abstract, interesting and flamboyant costumes to represent the different characters; however this contrasts to the types of costumes that would have been worn in Shakespeare’s original performances of his plays.

The kinds of costumes that would have been worn in the Elizabethan era would have been very colourful, probably very heavy and quite expensive. They would have been contemporary to Shakespeare’s time. Even if Shakespeare was putting on a play set in Ancient Greece, such as “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” the costumes worn would be Elizabethan or Jacobean.

Our costumes are very flamboyant and edgy, as we’re setting “The Tempest” in an 80’s, punk, rock theme, they relate to Shakespeare’s costumes by being very colourful and visually interesting. The costumes that the people in the mainland have to wear are very rocky, such as leather jackets, big hair and lots of makeup. Some of the boys are going to be wearing heels and in drag, which relates to Shakespeare, as all of the women’s roles were played by men, who had to wear dresses, petticoats and wigs.

The costumes of the people on the island are very other-worldly. My costume is a leotard with lots of different colours and sparkles on it, which will give the effect that we are creatures of the island. We’re having lots of makeup and body paint and things twisted into our hair to further create this effect. In Shakespeare’s time, they would not have had costumes that actually represent where or who they are, as lots of the effect for the audience came from hearing the words read out, rather than seeing it in their costumes or their set.

Shakespeare would have had a very minimal set, with few props, which made it easy for quick scene changes, whereas we’re going to have a fixed, visually interesting set, which shows both the island and the mainland.

There are some similarities to our costumes, such as the colours, however they mainly differ because Shakespeare used costumes that were contemporary for the time and although we are using very modern costumes too, fashion and styles have changed dramatically over the years and we are able to explore different and interesting things with our costumes without any restrictions on getting types of fabric or colours, as they’re much easier to get hold of in the 21^st Century.

Ceres

Some images of Ceres which helped me to learn more about my character.

 This image shows Ceres changing the seasons from Winter to Spring.

This image relates her to nature and her being in charge of the Earth.

These images show her being the goddess of agriculture and harvest.

Inspiration For Ceres Through Movement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuMb0KSkq3c

When I was researching "The Tempest" I found this video on youtube, which was Ballet West's performance of Michael Smuin's version of "The Tempest". This is just some of the highlights, but I found it really helpful to watch for the physical aspects of the piece because I am Ceres, I will have to move around and do a lot of physical theatre. This video helped to give me some ideas on how to physically portray our characters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkAa7bUk-Is&NR=1&feature=endscreen

I also found this really physical piece performed by Ariel in another version of "The Tempest" by Sergiu Anghel. It shows a physical performance by Ariel and portrays her as a very spirit-like, other-worldly creature and I found some inspiration from this video to include in my own performance.

The Globe Theatre

My drawings of The Globe Theatre where we went to see Romeo and Juliet. This is a picture of The Globe Theatre, which shows all of it's features and some of the seating area.

The Tempest

"The Tempest" by William Shakespeare is said to be based on an eye witness report by William Strachey of a shipwreck in Bermuda.

Shipwreck of the "Sea Venture"

Strachey was a passenger aboard the flagship "Sea Venture" with the leaders of the expedition when the ship was blown off course by a hurricane. The ship was run aground off the coast of Bermuda. The group was stranded on the island for almost a year, during which they constructed two small boats in which they eventually completed the voyage to Virginia.

Strachey wrote a letter on 15th July 1610, to a woman in England about the shipwreck. It is generally thought to be one of the sources for Shakespeare's "The Tempest" because of certain verbal, plot and thematic similarities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Strachey#Shipwreck_of_the_Sea_Venture

Friday Rehearsals

We had a really productive rehearsal on Friday, which helped us to get even further in the script. We had to do the scene where we make Ferdinand follow us with our singing. We all come on from different sides of the stage and start to walk in as other-worldly creatures. We have to come in to some music and do movements all across the stage, go up to the audience and look at them as if they're trespassers on our island  and explore the stage by crawling, running, pacing etc.

We had to use the research that we did on our spirits to develop these movements to make them more like our characters. For example, Marian is Juno, her goddess represents fertility and marriage. Her symbol is a peacock, so Marian is using the peacock as her animal to inspire her movements. I am Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, so all my movements are on the floor or quite low down to symbolise the earth and the fertility of the ground. Ceres story, which is in an earlier post on my blog, tells us that she is the reason that winter comes and everything dies, when her daughter is taken away from her and that spring comes when she is reunited with her. So I chose the animal of a door-mouse because I wanted something that symbolises her quick, sharpness in spring, which keeps her alive and healthy and her depression in the winter, which makes everything die and makes her go into hibernation.

Her sacred animal is a pig, so when we're rolling on the floor, I might use sniffing as her way of exploring the space and trying to figure out why they're there by sniffing the audience and staying low to the ground.

We sing and every other line of Ariel's song and repeat it three times, getting quieter each time and then sing the other song and sit around Ferdinand in set positions that relate to our character. We then one by one stand up around him and circle him and create wave-like movements around him to make it seem more like a fantasy.

We then all see Prospero enter and run away because he can use us how and when he likes, so we feel like he uses us and we're frightened of him.

The whole spirit section we ran worked really well and allowed us the time we needed to explore our characters and the meaning behind each movement we do across the stage. It is going to look really effective and give the audience a trance-like feeling. It will look really good when we're in our costumes and when we've got lighting and music too.

Romeo and Juliet at The Globe Theatre

We went to see a performance of Romeo and Juliet at The Globe Theatre. It was really interesting to get to see a piece of Shakespeare on stage and get to see the different interpretations of it. It was set in the modern day and have a very minimal set, which developed into lots of different things.

I thought that the set looked really interesting before the performance began and they did use some of it, for instance the blocks as the balcony, in an interesting way, but the car wasn't really necessary for the performance. It was visually interesting and was used in many different ways, but it wasn't relevant to any of the story line. This made me realise that we should only have set and props that are relevant to the play.

I have studied Romeo and Juliet a lot before, so I am very familiar with the story and I think doing it in the modern day has been used multiple times before. The man who played Romeo was funny at some points, but then did not convey to the audience the romance and naivety of Romeo's character. I thought that Juliet was very quiet and because Romeo was such a large character, she did not come across as one of the main characters of the play and it started to drag a little. 

I thought the guy who played Mercutio was not very believable, because I don't think he understood what he was saying. He delivered his lines clearly, however in the Queen Mab speech, he is supposed to be questioning his morals, his sexuality and many other things, which gives the audience a deeper insight into his character, and I did not, from his performance, understand any of the deeper meaning to his speech.

I enjoyed watching it, as a piece of theatre, but I don't think they delivered their characters very well and there were parts where the actors clearly didn't know their characters.

Watching this play has made me realise how important it is to understand everything behind your character. You also have to understand your lines, why you are saying them and what this adds to the story. It has made me realise that I need to do a  lot more research into my character and what she represents.

Theatre Workshop Rehearsals

In rehearsals this week, we started to block the first few scenes for our performance. We planned what we are going to do at the beginning to make the storm look believable. We all come on in different orders, the spirits come on last, and do movements to represent our characters. Liyah, Dee, Marian and I all came up with set movements, which we are doing in different orders to make it visually interesting, but also to show that the spirits are a group who are working together to create the storm.

The movements we have come up with are:

Fire: waving our hands like we are flames.
Animal: crawling on the ground and being the animals we have researched to go with our spirits.
Torment: pulling our hands from our heads, as if going mad to show how we are making the people on the boat feel.
Wave: using our bodies to create a ripple effect to show the sea raging.
Capsize: making large circular movements with our arms to show the boat going over.

We go off stage first after repeating these movements, while everyone around us repeats theirs. The spirits are not on for much after that, so I spent the time in the wings learning my lines and trying to work out the best way of saying them, while we blocked the rest of the scenes.

We had a meeting with the set designer, who showed us a model of our set. There is a tree that's going to have a gauze, so you can only see things behind it, when a light is shone through. The spirits are behind the gauze and when Prospero says his line, "What a torment I did find thee in." the light will come on and show our silhouettes behind the tree writhing and moving all over one another, as if in pain, to show Ariel's struggle when she was trapped in the tree. This will look really effective to the audience and the visual effects will improve their understanding of the play, if they are struggling to follow the words.

We then blocked as many scenes as we could in the rest of the rehearsal.