Declan Donnellan Applied

Another practitioner which we have been studying this year is the director and theatre practitioner Declan Donnellan. He is a contemporary director and is joint director of the Theatre Company 'Cheeky by Jowl' who prodominatley produce classical theatre but make the plot and general overall idea more modern but still keeping a lot of the set and costume the same as when the play was written. This is similar to our production of Spring Awakening. We all felt that is would be wise and important to look at a practitioner whose idea's focused on character building and overcoming obstacles in rehearsals rooms and on stage. 

The first idea we looked at was Donnellan's ideology of Blocks. Blocks are things and situations which get in the way of you feeling comfortable and relaxed on stage. They can be physical or emotional. First we were asked to list all the things that we thought were our blocks and what we were struggling with when it came to rehearsals or existing on stage as our characters during a performance. Here are some examples:

• Over thinking the lines and being stuck in the same way of saying the line, so having the fear of it sounding boring or monotone
• Being too aware of the audience and causing nerves, thus affecting the performance
• Vocals not being strong enough
• Unsure of the blocking for some scenes and feeling restricted and awkward by that
• Not sure how to say the lines
• Lack of connection between two characters/actors on stage
• Not knowing how to feel all the time
• Fear of looking too robotic and not feeling free to explore the stage, being controlled by fear
• Not feeling comfortable in costume and feeling weird and subconscious when wearing it
• Not having the right character choice and not seeing where one can go with it
• Not liking or understanding the character which results again in thinking too much 

I've highlighted the ones which I feel quite a lot and ones in which I need to get over. After a short discussion, we discovered that the above blocks seem to be the main issues people deal with and can be fitted into the categories laid out by Donnellan in his book entitled 'The Actor and the Target'. The categories are:

• I don't know what I'm doing
• I don't know what I want
• I don't know who I am
• I don't know where I am
• I don't know how I should feel
• I don't know how I should move
• I don't know what I'm saying
• I don't know what I'm playing

Declan Donnellan teaches that the real Block we all experience is that we don't always understand how, as actors, we should feel about the problems we are facing. He states that the real problem with all the blocks listed above is the idea of the block being their in the first place. He says we need to stop over thinking about ourselves and think through the eyes of our character.  If we are focused on how we as ourselves are existing as our characters in their world and imagine ourselves saying their lines then we can never truly know what to do within the play; we can never be truthful. He teaches that we shouldn't always know how we are feeling, as it is that uncertainty which makes us human and therefore realistic in our characters. Donnellan says there is too much emphases on wanting to know everything about our character which takes the existence of our character away, he says we should just be alive in the moment. 

One theory he has to help overcome Blocks is the Target. A Target is something to focus on during a moment in a scene, similar to actions or objectives, wants or points of concentration. The principle is that whenever you are on stage, you always have a target to think about and sometimes look at.Your target should always be in your characters mind even if it isn't needed in the room or on stage. For example when I am talking to Melchior about Martha's beatings, my target is Martha even though she isn't in the scene. Donnellan produced six rules of the Target. They are as follows;

1. There is always a target
2. The target exists at a measurable distance
3. The target always exists before you need it
4. The target is always specific 
5. The target is always transforming (changed and determined by the target) 
6. The target is always active and in helping you pursue an action 

As well as Targets and Blocks, Donnellan focused on high stakes in a scene and how they effect the character's choices. Similar to Stanislavsky's actions and units, this is where an actor notices their characters highest stakes within the play and note them down; clearly stating the want and potential form the scene and then the loss and gain from that want and sight. As well as noting all these things down, you give the stake a sensible title which sums up the scene and then an imaginative, silly one to ease the tension. Devan and I worked on these together and here are Wendla's highest stakes:

The Wanted Beating/the kinky foreboding switch 

seeing: to experience new things and emotions 

gain: access to herself and the world Martha lives in

loss:she's stuck, she could go insane with the want and her curiosity could get her into sever danger

Reproduction Discovery/the truth about the stalk

seeing: to find out where babies come from, about her beginning and why she is in the world, understanding herself

gain: the understanding of herself and humans, understanding her primal self

loss: find out how they are made somewhere else which could be dangerous or not being able to access the adult world so she can never mature, stuck in a child-like frame of mind

The Hayloft/scary realization for Wendla

seeing: she needs to escape from Melchior, it's outside social order, she sees herself as an outsider

gain: she has gained new experiences and got away safely 

loss: her innocence and respect from her mother

The gain is something which your character gets out of from doing the high stake and the loss is something which your character could lose if they didn't do it or if they did. These exercises helped me immensely with getting over my personal blocks and again just developing my character along with Devan.