Hot Seating

Today in rehearsal we looked at the acting game Hot Seating. This is a very good exercise for learning new things about your character, such as their life, history, personal interests and thoughts towards other characters. The contextual setting for the hot seating was that our character, so Wendla, had been invited to The BRIT School to be interviewed by the fellow students. All information would be classified. This would happen around the start of the play, therefore affecting out answers, responses and questions, so they wouldn't be affected by the action of the play. I was also very keen in discovering more about Wendla's past, as well as the other characters. 

Our group decided to set  a few questions that we would ask each character and then ask a few free questions leading on from their response. I decided to go first. Seth filmed my answers and I typed them up below:

• What's your favourite colour and why?Blue. Like the sky, because I always feel like the sky is really open and free and I like the feeling of being free. Oh and Blue really suits my eyes as they are blue too.
• What's your first memory? Going up to the apple orchid with my sister Ina and us picking apples and then making fresh apple juice in the afternoon. I don't know why I remember it. I think it was the first time I've ever been outside properly because we have a garden, a small garden, but we have a small forest by us but because I was only like five at the time I wasn't allowed to go in it by myself, and it was the first time I'd ever been in there. 
• What's your relationship like with your family?Um, I've got a very close relationship with my mother and my sister, um, not so much with my father because he left when I was just seven and then he died a year later. I don't know what he died of and I don't want to, don't feel the need to know, I'm fine not knowing really. 
• What's are your hobbies?I like reading, and um walking. I visit the poor which I really enjoy, that's a really fun hobby. I read historical things often there's a male in it and a female and they often fall in love and I like stories like that. Like romance although mother says I'm too young and aren't aware of it.
• What's your favourite item of clothing?Probably my ...see I would say my fairy dress, but it's not really my favourite. I think my favourite is this coat my mum got for me when I was about six. It's quite short and it's got lots of buttons and flowers over it and it just reminds me of being outside. It's blue and it's wool, so it's like a winter coat. That's why I liked it, it was like Spring in Winter
• What's your guilty pleasure?Chocolate. Mother only allows it on my birthday and Christmas.
• What's your favourite way to wear your hair?Loose and flowing down my back. Sometimes I like it when mother plates the front of my hair back and ties it with ribbon. 
• What causes you the most stress?Probably seeing mother upset because I know it's probably something that I've done and that doesn't make me feel comfortable. 
• Who was your first love?My Mother.
• What's your favourite song?It's, it's like this jazzy number by James Sherman and his Orchestra. It's really sort of...I don't know, it's not really suitable for my age I don't think but I always remember my parents putting it on and dancing around the sitting room to it. It always makes me feel something, even though I don't like dancing because I feel really exposed which I don;t mind but I'm not very good at it and I don't like doing things that I'm not good at and I don't like not understanding why I'm not good at things.
• What's your favourite subject at school? Probably Latin. Because it's so old and I love how its survived you know since like the Romans and it seems so romantic and it's like a lost language but we're still speaking it and I just think there's something really enchanting and magistic about that and I really like it. And I'm good at it as well.

Through hot seating I also discovered a fair amount about Wendla's past. For example her father isn't mentioned in the text, and Devan, Maya and I had discussed before that he had died, but it wasn't until hot seating that the story of him leaving mysteriously one day and then dying a year later only came up through hot seating. Afterwards I spoke to Devan and Maya about it and they said it sounded realistic. I found it interesting that her favourite lesson was Latin because she found it romantic and mysterious. Later on we did a whole cast improvisation where all the kids were in a Latin class, so that was extremely handy to see how Wendla would be in that circumstance. I found this process extremely useful and a great imagination exercise. I have always loved hot seating because I enjoy putting my own ''spin'' on a character and finding their past by myself. It is now more obvious to me who Wendla is and what she believes in. She has had a very cushioned and loving family life but has had enough and wants to explore her world for herself. 

When taking on the role of the interviewer, I was very interested in all the characters pasts and understanding their family and background. We started off using the questions as templates, but I soon found myself leading off them and asking more personal and specific questions for each character and spurring off their responses to the set questions we devised. For example, when interviewing the mysterious masked man we focused a lot on his past and how he came about doing the job he does. It turns out he does what he does due to personal experiences. He was beaten and abused as a child and came close to suicide himself before thinking that he could help others. He is younger than I expected and keeps his family close to his heart. This sparked questions such as 'Where is your mother now?' and 'How do you keep doing to job you are doing?' Besides these heavy questions we asked slightly lighter ones to try and figure out his personality. We got the impression that he was trying to do good in the world and stop young adults from doing something they might regret, as he almost did. It was also interesting to see his opinion on the suppressed society, as he spoke about how he thought this was the main reason for him having to do this job in the first place.

I found listening to everyone else as they were being hot seated very engaging as it brought out some answers that I didn't expect and lots of specific and thoughtful answers. I found out more about each character which helped my understanding of the play. It was interesting to see Ashleigh as the Headmistress without Jackie, as we could really question her about why she need oxygen and her background. It helped me as Wendla to understand her friends and teachers a little more. It was a lovely inclusive exercise as we were all watching each other delve deeper into our characters mind set and therefore develop the play character wise all together.

A still from Wendla's Hot Seating session.

The Mirror

As Devan and I share the role of Wendla, Tim wanted a clear way of showing to the audience that we are the same person at different points in her life. From the beginning we were told that there would be a mirror in Wendla's bedroom which would be a two way mirror, meaning that when the light shone on it the audience would be able to see through it, thus revealing either Devan or myself. During rehearsals Devan and I practiced mirroring each other, especially in the opening scene when we have to be as one, trying on the sackcloth and talking to our mother. At first we found this tricky to do but after practicing we managed to figure out a routine of trying on the dress and looking at ourselves in the mirror (this is done over My Body Is A Cage). We didn't get to try the mirror until the tech run, so we were all unsure as to whether it would look effective. During the run we played around with the lighting to make sure that when either Devan or I were behind it, the audience could see us. The image above is from the dress rehearsal and I think it looks extremely effect and atmospheric. It becomes a crucial part in the journey of Wendla, as it is how the older or younger Wendla communicates with the other. It's quite ghost like in it's appearance which contributes to the haunting atmosphere this play has.

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.  

 

Michael Chekhov Applied

Michael Chekhov was a firm believer in the actor using his/her imagination to create their character and make it personal to them. We studied Chekhov in depth during acting technique but Tim did this exercise with us to deepen our character work. This exercise marked the first of many acting and character developments we did in order to strengthen our  choices on stage. After a few vocal and character warm ups, Tim took us through this exercise:

We had to close our eyes and imagine our character standing in front of us. We pictured what they looked like and noted it down. I pictured Wendla as wearing a light pink satin fairy dress with a frayed hem as it had been unpicked so many times with rough light brown shoes and white long stockings which had been rolled down. She had thick long auburn hair which curled at the end, pale skin with a few freckles over her nose, large hazel eyes and a slim figure. Her chest had just started to develop and was made obvious by the ill fitting fairy dress. She was medium height and had a sweet and innocent look to her. She used her eyes a lot and secretly enjoyed being the centre of attention.  
After we had a clear image of what our character looked like, we then had to breathe them in on our in breath and slowly over a count of eight we would be come the character we had pictured in front of us. We then took on our characters physicality and pictured them doing an activity but being distracted b something else (linking this in with Stanislavsky's circle of attention exercise) I pictured Wendla eating breakfast but not being interested in it as her chest was hurting and she couldn't understand why. We then took on this action and started doing it.

After a while of living in the action, Tim got us to shake off the first presentation of our character and close our eyes. We had to see our character again, this time looking completely different.  This time a taller and more developed Wendla was standing in front of me. She has curly black hair which had been plated at the front but allowed to run free down her back. Her eyes were brown with long lashes and she had slightly fuller lips and cheeks. Again she was in a fairy dress but this time it was longer and less ''fancy''. It had a rip near the hem and was a washed out grey with lots of peeling off lace around the collar line and sleeves. Her boots were jet black and neatly laced. She had a brown leather backpack on one shoulder and mud on her knees from climbing the tree. 
Once we had this new character in our minds, we then had to see them doing another action, this time breathing that in over a count of ten. When we had merged into our new character's action, again being distracted by something, Tim added on another factor; seeing how our character would respond to being either hot or cold. My second action was sorting out food and clothes for the poor family I visit but I couldn't stop thinking about my body, my feelings towards Melchior or how reproduction works. I started to get hot, fanning myself with the clothes and putting the cool jars against my face. I noticed afterwards that Wendla likes the sun but hates being hot, so when she got warm, she tried everything to cool herself down. Just after I had cooled myself down, I began to feel cold which I welcomed. I noticed that feeling cool wasn't a problem for Wendla, it just made her work harder as a means of warming herself up. 

Succeeding this exercise we then all feedback about how our two characters looked and what it was like to perform two actions of theirs not stated specifically in the play. I discovered that Wendla didn't like the heat as it slowed her down and she is quite a fast paced character. I also realised that she thought a lot about Melchior as to her he has all the answers to her questions. This exercise was extremely useful for me because up until now I had struggled slightly with picturing Wendla outside of Spring Awakening, so through doing this I have no gained a new knowledge of my character. I spoke to Devan afterwards and one of her actions was sorting out food and clothes for the poor too. We hadn't planned this so it felt really good to see that we had done the same action, as I now feel that we have a good connection and shared understanding when it comes to Wendla.

Mike Alfred Applied

Mike Alfred's was a strong believer in actors and not the set. He believed that an actor should be able to be completely engulfed in their character without the need for set or costume and that the actors preparation on the character should be projected clearly enough onto the audience without the need for visual help. Due to this. Alfred devised many exercises to help the actor get into their role and become their character. One of his exercises which we did was noticing withing the play what your character says about themselves and what others say about them. This is a good start to building your character and seeing the plain facts which the playwright has presented for you. Below are a few quotes concerning how my character exists within the play:

What my character says about herself:

• 'I don't want to be fourteen'
• 'Perhaps I won't be here at all'
• 'I'm going to dress like a fairy queen underneath' 
• 'I would have run away long ago'
• 'I would have asked her'
• 'Melchi Gabor told me'
• 'I seem to be lost'
• 'I lay on the grass for ages dreaming'
• 'I dreamed I was a poor beggar child'
• 'I go hot and cold all over whenever she talks about it'
• 'I've never been beaten in my life'
• 'I've sometimes tried beating myself to find out'
• 'So now I've become an Aunite for the third time, with one niece and two nephews' 
• 'I really don't have much sense'
• 'I still have no idea how it all happens'
• 'I won't get better, I've got dropsy and I'm going to die. Mother I'm going to die.'

What the other characters say about my character:

• 'Other girls are so gangly and awkward at your age. You're the opposite.' Mrs Bergmann
• 'You're talking nonsense Wendla, utter nonsense!' Thea
• 'I'd be proud if I were you' Martha 
• 'Just look at the way she walks, her level gaze, the way she holds herself, if that isn't pride!' Thea
• 'I would say you were a wood nymph that's fallen out of the branches' Melchior
• 'I've heard that you often visit the poor' Melchior 
• 'So you visit the poor because it gives you pleasure' Melchior 
• 'You, Wendla Bergmann, toss your hair and laugh' Melchior 
• 'I know where you get this from, Wendla, from stupid children stories!' Melchior
• 'Stop it Wendla, I'm not going to beat you' Melchior 
• 'When will you ever grow up' Mrs Bergmann
• 'I love you as little as you love me' Melchior
• 'His transgression may yet bring about her happiness' Mrs Gabor
• 'I told her to stop her daughter from climbing into haylofts' Mr Gabor
• 'I'm sure she hates me because I took away her freedom' Melchior
• 'You're going to have a baby Wendla. You're expecting a baby' Mrs Bergmann
• 'I killed her. I murdered her' Melchior 

I've highlighted the key quotes which I think sum up Wendla and her characteristics. This exercise helped me see plainly what Wedekind had written about my character and was a good foundation to start building my own interpretation of Wendla. I found it interesting that Melchior is the one who says the most about Wendla, and I believe this is because when they are around each other they seem to be on the same level and therefore feel a strong trust between each other. During the woodland scene Wendla opens up to Melchior, revealing her hidden desire to get beaten and then asking him to fulfill that. Wendla is different to the others girls in that she wants to explore the unknown and will seek it until she finds it. I think the way she acts around her friends is interesting because she seems to be the ''leader'' but wants what Martha has. These points back up Wendla's innocence due to the suppressed society she lives in and through doing this exercise I have gained a wider understanding of Wendla and the world in which Wedekind created her in.

Teaser Trailer

Nairac suggested from early on that a good way to promote the show would be to do a teaser trailer and post it on all our social media websites (such as facebook, twitter and youtube) with the dates at the end. So, in December some of us spent the day in Hamstead Heath filming small moments from the play or bits which summarized the feel of Spring Awakening. For example there was a shot of my playing in the woods and of Josh (Melchior) and Harvey (Morietz) talking in the forest. Nairac edited it and this is the end result:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua0Z8MTf68c&feature=youtu.be

It was great fun to film and helped me get into my character, as I had to chose suitable clothes for Wendla which got me thinking about what she would wear on a day off from school. In my opinion it was good promotion for our show as it kept up with social media and was a good visual teaser for our show.

Promotion

This week we started thinking about promoting our play to the public as ticket sales would soon be opening at the box office. After a cast meeting in the library, we decided that we would hold a cake sale to raise money and set up social media accounts to promote the production. Eilliot was in charge of creating and managing the Facebook and Twitter pages and some members of the company made posters to display (such as the ones above). I think we managed the promotion and fun raising very well, as she created a buzz around our show due to each cast member sharing and tweeting about it and also managed to raise a substantial amount of money from the cake sale. I found this process very exciting as it made the play seem real somehow and I had a lot of people coming up to me asking when and where they could buy tickets.