First rehearsal

1,2,3 exercise:

• In partners we had to count to three together, as in one person says "one" then the other says "two" etc, and keep on repeating it

• Whilst doing this we walked around the room with our posture like this:

• This posture meant that everyone in the audience was getting something (your face or your body)
• After we were comfortable with that we changed the counting to "Tell me" and "No"
• The people around the edges of the space put up their hands if they were not satisfied with what they could see and the pair in the middle had to respond to this and change it
• It worked when the pair let what they were saying bounce of each other, as it flowed, and when they played they're objectives, as a story started to emerge
• This was a useful exercise to help us to work the whole stage and how we can satisfy the audience

We devised from Scene 2 to Scene 9 today. 

The scene that stood out for me the most today was the first scene. It's set in an airport. To create the atmosphere of an airport some of us walk on stage and simply play an objective. I play the objective to search, Nora and Jack play the objective to wait, this means that our objectives cross paths, and the situation turned into Nora and Jack waiting for me to give them their car back. The division of the first scene ran smoothly because everyone involved knew their lines. Watching the scene be created made me realise how important objectives are, because if the actors were simply playing their objectives the whole scene looked more believable. I've also realised that asking questions helps you to get deeper into your character.

Scene 4 is my first speaking scene. Whilst this scene is taking place the protest carries on silently. This creates an obvious link between the two scenes, help the audience to understand the situation and is visually interesting and effective. During the scene I tried to remember the three sides. Getting the scene up on it's feet helped me to understand my character more. For example seeing Katie's natural reaction to my line "Haven't we all?" showed me how our characters may have a deeper relationship than I thought. The fact that the whole scene is on a block made the dynamics of the scene feel more closed in and also helped to enhance the feeling of being inside an office. Finding something to use as prop helped to get me into the character and, again, to understand what my character is like. I found myself writing in a notebook. This showed that my character is hard working and knows how to do their job. I found it difficult to remember the 3 sides of the stage whilst doing my scene, and this is something that I need to work on.

We worked hard this lesson and we have a good starting base for the rest of the rehearsal process. Everyone needs to do more character work. We all need to explore our characters and find out what their:

1. Status
2. Objective
3. Energy level
4. Voice
5. Physicality

There needs to be higher stakes throughout and we need to listen to each other and be more aware of one another more. We need to find a balance with the pace of the piece and find the different paces throughout the play. The energy need to be sustained and we all need to do research on the play and each of our characters