In Chipp's lesson, we came up with a loose structure for the first ten minutes of the piece and discussed how to make it accessible to our TA through the use of facilitators and humour.
The framing device for the piece is that of an exam situation, where 3 students are taking their exam on Macbeth and are panicking because they cannot remember any quotes nor have they revised or simply they don't understand the text. We do this by having their thoughts behind them, expressing their worries and their inability to produce anything worthwhile. This starts the piece off with humour which will hopefully get our TA on our side and make them more interactive with us. A facilitator then comes in and explains who N2C are and what they're going to do to help the students pass their exams.
We then move onto Macbeth's character arc of hero vs villain. I think that in order to link it to the framing device, we should pose a question within the exam. We'd keep how we used the facilitator in the previous attempt but we should improve on how Macbeth is portrayed as a villain, perhaps finding another speech that describes something in order to portray the same amount of action as the hero. Maybe we should move the facilitator's offstage and have the person who is reading the Shakespearean in the middle aisle and have the translators at the edge so that our TA can watch the action without the facilitators getting in the way and still have the voices overlap it.
We'd then move onto Act 2, Scene 2 to show the various manipulations that Macbeth has placed on him. Perhaps our focus should be maintained on what influences Macbeth throughout the piece which would allow for the other important characters such as Lady Macbeth and the Witches to be shown. Anyway, Act 2, Scene 2 should be presented through the Character Mixing Desk which I talked about in my previous blog.
Saturday 16 February 2019
TIE - Part 8
In Starbuck's lesson, we looked at Act 2, Scene 2 of Macbeth. This scene occurs just after Macbeth has murdered Duncan - after the infamous dagger aside - and shows how Lady Macbeth maintains control over her husband by planting bloody daggers on the king's guards. It should be noted that there is a variety of ways as to how each character can be played in the scene, and indeed, we all came up with different variations as to how to play the characters - we were asked to perform the scene in a traditional style using the Shakespearean language. I'll write about these different interpretations beneath the video below, which shows mine and Bruce's version of the scene:
The Macbeth that Bruce was trying to portray was that of one still pumped up on the murder with adrenaline still rushing through him. This is why when he asks who is in the second chamber, he steps forward as if to go and murder the person sleeping there in case they heard Macbeth murdering Duncan. I do think that Macbeth should have more nerves about him and be more distraught than what Bruce was playing him as it does appear that at this point in the play, regicide is completely against Macbeth's nature and his description as a hero. This would have been played thus for an audience in the original performance context because of the Divine Right of Kings that had been ingrained into society - indeed, this is why Macbeth cannot say "Amen" after he murders Duncan. This fear and guilt should be such that Macbeth appears to already be going mad (as is shown in Act 3 and when he ultimately dies in battle in Act 5), seemingly making him 'less of a man' which links to Shakespeare's theme of Gender, but this guilt should not be so that he can't have the ruthlessness in later scenes to murder Banquo and to keep such things from Lady Macbeth.
The Lady Macbeth that I was trying to portray was that of slight manipulation but one who still cares about Macbeth - I hadn't decided whether that care was actual care or simply for her to manipulate him further as she has done previously. The interpretations of Lady Macbeth can be exaggerated either way for her to be really caring or for her to be really angry and manipulative. Personally, I think that Shakespeare wanted her to be overwhelmingly manipulative in this scene, using her guise of care to influence Macbeth further. Something that I wanted to experiment with was Lady Macbeth feeling afraid of the consequences which I showed in the scene by looking up every time there was a reference to knocking - in fact, every time this happened, Bruce and I looked to the same spot to allow for continuity - although I do feel that I was bringing too much of an element of naivety and innocence to the scene. Shakespeare may want her to show no guilt in this scene so that it juxtaposes with Act 5 Scene 1 where Lady Macbeth is having nightmares about the regicide. For an audience at the time to see Lady Macbeth taking control of the situation and for her to be manipulative would come as a huge shock and this is something we would need to get across to our TA.
After performing this, we split into 2 groups in order to investigate how to introduce a facilitator to the scene. The idea of pausing and stopping the scene to discuss lines is, in my opinion, too simplistic and will cause our TA to become bored. Chipp talked to us about potentially using a 'Character Mixing Desk' which would emphasise certain attributes such as making Lady Macbeth manipulative or Macbeth seem distraught. We could add some humour by having our framing device of 3 students whereby one student would 'have a go' at the mixing desk and make Macbeth a stoner or something of the like. The use of the Mixing Desk will highlight any differing interpretations of the characters which would help boost marks for our TA in their exams.
The Macbeth that Bruce was trying to portray was that of one still pumped up on the murder with adrenaline still rushing through him. This is why when he asks who is in the second chamber, he steps forward as if to go and murder the person sleeping there in case they heard Macbeth murdering Duncan. I do think that Macbeth should have more nerves about him and be more distraught than what Bruce was playing him as it does appear that at this point in the play, regicide is completely against Macbeth's nature and his description as a hero. This would have been played thus for an audience in the original performance context because of the Divine Right of Kings that had been ingrained into society - indeed, this is why Macbeth cannot say "Amen" after he murders Duncan. This fear and guilt should be such that Macbeth appears to already be going mad (as is shown in Act 3 and when he ultimately dies in battle in Act 5), seemingly making him 'less of a man' which links to Shakespeare's theme of Gender, but this guilt should not be so that he can't have the ruthlessness in later scenes to murder Banquo and to keep such things from Lady Macbeth.
The Lady Macbeth that I was trying to portray was that of slight manipulation but one who still cares about Macbeth - I hadn't decided whether that care was actual care or simply for her to manipulate him further as she has done previously. The interpretations of Lady Macbeth can be exaggerated either way for her to be really caring or for her to be really angry and manipulative. Personally, I think that Shakespeare wanted her to be overwhelmingly manipulative in this scene, using her guise of care to influence Macbeth further. Something that I wanted to experiment with was Lady Macbeth feeling afraid of the consequences which I showed in the scene by looking up every time there was a reference to knocking - in fact, every time this happened, Bruce and I looked to the same spot to allow for continuity - although I do feel that I was bringing too much of an element of naivety and innocence to the scene. Shakespeare may want her to show no guilt in this scene so that it juxtaposes with Act 5 Scene 1 where Lady Macbeth is having nightmares about the regicide. For an audience at the time to see Lady Macbeth taking control of the situation and for her to be manipulative would come as a huge shock and this is something we would need to get across to our TA.
After performing this, we split into 2 groups in order to investigate how to introduce a facilitator to the scene. The idea of pausing and stopping the scene to discuss lines is, in my opinion, too simplistic and will cause our TA to become bored. Chipp talked to us about potentially using a 'Character Mixing Desk' which would emphasise certain attributes such as making Lady Macbeth manipulative or Macbeth seem distraught. We could add some humour by having our framing device of 3 students whereby one student would 'have a go' at the mixing desk and make Macbeth a stoner or something of the like. The use of the Mixing Desk will highlight any differing interpretations of the characters which would help boost marks for our TA in their exams.
Friday 15 February 2019
TIE - Part 7
In today's lesson, we again focused on the character of Macbeth but more on his transition from hero to villain and how this can be presented to our Target Audience (TA). Macbeth's character arc is important because it allows an audience to see how ambition - Macbeth's hamartia (fatal flaw) - can be used for good and for evil. Certainly, this would be hard to spot for a student reading the play from start to finish but after analysis, the stark contrast of Macbeth at the beginning and end of the play can easily be seen.
We started the session by reading one of the Captain's speeches from Act One, Scene Two which describes Macbeth as a hero. Within the scene, all characters (including Duncan, the king) speak of how "brave" and "noble" Macbeth is. It was also noted that Macbeth is Duncan's cousin - Shakespeare has put this at the start of the play to show to the audience that Macbeth has a claim to the throne, albeit a distant one, which would satisfy a Shakespearean audience's belief in the Divine Right of Kings. This would be something that I think we should point out to our TA as it certainly was eye-opening for me as I previously believed Macbeth had no claim to the throne. As Chipp read the speech (lines 9 to 24), he explained in simple terms what the speech actually meant, something that would have benefitted me greatly during my GCSE on Macbeth and thus is a simple and effective way of getting our TA to understand the speech. In addition to this, it would be beneficial to have the speech up on a powerpoint presentation, perhaps having key quotes in bold as well as having the facilitator explain the speech in modern-day English.
Whilst the speech is being translated, we wanted to have a physical version of the scene the Captain is describing as our TA is more likely to remember the story of "brave Macbeth" if they see a physicalised version of it. Two groups came up with a different physical movement to portray the scene whilst my group translated the speech into simple modern-day English. We were then asked to link all three together and have an introductory skit into the scene. It took a while to get going, due to a lack of communication between the group, but eventually I had to take charge and tell the physical movers what images we should make and relate them to the plot points that my group had made when translating the speech - battle in a deadlock; Macdonald being a traitor; Macdonald having all the luck; Macbeth cutting through enemy lines to face Macdonald; and Macbeth killing Macdonald. I assured that we had a moment for each of these sections and felt as though I had taken charge and gotten the group on the right track once again. The introductory skit was created by Chipp and relates to the students that we will have taken an exam at the beginning of the piece - these students will be our main focus point for the piece as it will be based around them coming to understand Macbeth thoroughly - we chose students because it directly relates to our TA.
The video below shows our version of making Macbeth seem like a hero using physical and somewhat abstract movements, accompanied by the translation of the speech:
After this, we worked in a similar way to show how evil Macbeth becomes in an attempt to show our TA the character arc Macbeth goes on during the play. Chipp told us to look at Act 4 Scene 3 and choose a speech from it that related to how evil Macbeth becomes. It was hard to find a single speech and thus we had to use different lines from different characters which describe what Macbeth has done to the land in his tyranny, the murder of Macduff's family, and general quotes that show how other characters describe Macbeth. Once again, I feel as though I took the lead and it should be noted that half of the group I was put in were not bothered about choosing quotes and this made it all the more difficult to choose appropriate ones.
The video below shows a physical movement in time to how evil Macbeth has become in quotes:
We started the session by reading one of the Captain's speeches from Act One, Scene Two which describes Macbeth as a hero. Within the scene, all characters (including Duncan, the king) speak of how "brave" and "noble" Macbeth is. It was also noted that Macbeth is Duncan's cousin - Shakespeare has put this at the start of the play to show to the audience that Macbeth has a claim to the throne, albeit a distant one, which would satisfy a Shakespearean audience's belief in the Divine Right of Kings. This would be something that I think we should point out to our TA as it certainly was eye-opening for me as I previously believed Macbeth had no claim to the throne. As Chipp read the speech (lines 9 to 24), he explained in simple terms what the speech actually meant, something that would have benefitted me greatly during my GCSE on Macbeth and thus is a simple and effective way of getting our TA to understand the speech. In addition to this, it would be beneficial to have the speech up on a powerpoint presentation, perhaps having key quotes in bold as well as having the facilitator explain the speech in modern-day English.
Whilst the speech is being translated, we wanted to have a physical version of the scene the Captain is describing as our TA is more likely to remember the story of "brave Macbeth" if they see a physicalised version of it. Two groups came up with a different physical movement to portray the scene whilst my group translated the speech into simple modern-day English. We were then asked to link all three together and have an introductory skit into the scene. It took a while to get going, due to a lack of communication between the group, but eventually I had to take charge and tell the physical movers what images we should make and relate them to the plot points that my group had made when translating the speech - battle in a deadlock; Macdonald being a traitor; Macdonald having all the luck; Macbeth cutting through enemy lines to face Macdonald; and Macbeth killing Macdonald. I assured that we had a moment for each of these sections and felt as though I had taken charge and gotten the group on the right track once again. The introductory skit was created by Chipp and relates to the students that we will have taken an exam at the beginning of the piece - these students will be our main focus point for the piece as it will be based around them coming to understand Macbeth thoroughly - we chose students because it directly relates to our TA.
The video below shows our version of making Macbeth seem like a hero using physical and somewhat abstract movements, accompanied by the translation of the speech:
After this, we worked in a similar way to show how evil Macbeth becomes in an attempt to show our TA the character arc Macbeth goes on during the play. Chipp told us to look at Act 4 Scene 3 and choose a speech from it that related to how evil Macbeth becomes. It was hard to find a single speech and thus we had to use different lines from different characters which describe what Macbeth has done to the land in his tyranny, the murder of Macduff's family, and general quotes that show how other characters describe Macbeth. Once again, I feel as though I took the lead and it should be noted that half of the group I was put in were not bothered about choosing quotes and this made it all the more difficult to choose appropriate ones.
The video below shows a physical movement in time to how evil Macbeth has become in quotes:
Clearly, this physical sequence is not as well put together as the previous one because of the lack of speech describing the action. In my opinion, I think we should choose another scene that describes Macbeth's cruel actions, especially as Act 4, Scene 3 provides little to the plot.
In order to have the facilitator be included in the sequences and to look them together, I think we should have Macbeth from the start and Macbeth from the end face each other and to name notable differences about them, either from the play context or from analysis of the scene/sequences the TA has watched. We could comment upon the things that have forced Macbeth to change, namely the Witches, Lady Macbeth, and ambition which would describe how Macbeth became a tyrant. Perhaps this should be a springboard for the whole piece.
Director's Challenge - Part 21, Third Rehearsal
Plans for this rehearsal were once again abandoned because Evie (Leah) fell ill on the day of the rehearsal. We had originally planned to rehearse both Scene 3 Parts 1 and 2 and Leah's second monologue in Scene 4 but instead, we had to stick with only the Scene 3 parts. This means that we're even further behind than we had planned - originally by this point we would have blocked the whole play and would be making amendments, instead, we still have Scene 3 Part 4 and some of Part 3 to block as well as Scene 4. This can easily be achieved within a week if I am able to rehearse on a separate day with Evie.
Even so, we managed to get through Scene 3 Parts 1 and 2 in an hour as Megan had to leave at 5:30. It's simply a rough blocking and is liable to change especially as I feel like the characters are all crowded on one side of the stage in Part 2. As Ollie didn't have to leave as soon, we practised Mark's monologue in Scene 3 Part 3 which we hadn't managed to do in our Jan and Mark rehearsal in the first week of N2C. It should be noted that Imogen Blanchard who was going to be playing Cathy may not be participating in Director's Challenge, so for all intents and purposes due to Imogen (director) playing in The Pillowman with the Y12 BTECs, I will be playing Cathy. The videos below show the first attempts at blocking with the cast.
Scene 3, Part 1
Scene 3, Part 2
Mark's monologue, my attempt and Ollie's attempt:
Analysis of all three scenes:
Our plan for the next few weeks regarding rehearsals is as follows:
Half Term - learn lines at home for the scenes we have blocked; if possible learn all lines for future scenes.
27th February - block Scene 3 Parts 3 and 4; block Scene 4 with Evie another day this week, potentially on Thursday or Friday; it should be noted that on this week there are Y13 mock exams.
6th March - full run through and remind people of blocking; pause and tweak; remind about the line learning deadline.
13th March - line learning deadline; pause and tweak; ask them to think about costume and bring it in the week after; we must think properly about lighting and tech.
20th March - full dress runs; pause and tweak.
Potential Saturday rehearsal - full run through with tech; all day rehearsal with run-throughs and tweaks and the like.
27th March - performance week!
Even so, we managed to get through Scene 3 Parts 1 and 2 in an hour as Megan had to leave at 5:30. It's simply a rough blocking and is liable to change especially as I feel like the characters are all crowded on one side of the stage in Part 2. As Ollie didn't have to leave as soon, we practised Mark's monologue in Scene 3 Part 3 which we hadn't managed to do in our Jan and Mark rehearsal in the first week of N2C. It should be noted that Imogen Blanchard who was going to be playing Cathy may not be participating in Director's Challenge, so for all intents and purposes due to Imogen (director) playing in The Pillowman with the Y12 BTECs, I will be playing Cathy. The videos below show the first attempts at blocking with the cast.
Scene 3, Part 1
Scene 3, Part 2
Analysis of all three scenes:
Our plan for the next few weeks regarding rehearsals is as follows:
Half Term - learn lines at home for the scenes we have blocked; if possible learn all lines for future scenes.
27th February - block Scene 3 Parts 3 and 4; block Scene 4 with Evie another day this week, potentially on Thursday or Friday; it should be noted that on this week there are Y13 mock exams.
6th March - full run through and remind people of blocking; pause and tweak; remind about the line learning deadline.
13th March - line learning deadline; pause and tweak; ask them to think about costume and bring it in the week after; we must think properly about lighting and tech.
20th March - full dress runs; pause and tweak.
Potential Saturday rehearsal - full run through with tech; all day rehearsal with run-throughs and tweaks and the like.
27th March - performance week!
Saturday 9 February 2019
TIE - Part 6
In Starbuck's lesson, we explored the function of The Witches within Macbeth. My group decided to explore the attitudes of differing audiences towards the witches as one of the assessment objectives in the English Literature exam is context and thus the Y11s must explore audience reactions at the time and could compare it with modern audience reactions. The video below is our performance of this:
Despite the chaos that this video suggests, there were some positive elements to the piece. The use of humour would engage an audience. Also, the removal of the witches confirms that they are needed within the piece and suggest that they are the main manipulators of Macbeth. However, at some points, it was hard to know where to look and what was important. Moreover, we could have used the role of the Facilitator much more than we did in the piece which would have related it to the TIE style better.
Towards the end of Starbuck's lesson, we identified key scenes from the play and were told to act them out using the original Shakespearean language provided. I worked with Bruce on Act 1, Scene 5 where Lady Macbeth calls for spirits to "unsex" her. The scene demonstrates that Lady Macbeth has more control over Macbeth and the murder of the King than Macbeth, thus bringing into question her feminity, Macbeth's masculinity, and the supernatural element within the play. I found that reading Shakespeare was in some respects quite easy, however, I did find that at some points it was hard to get words out and to understand their meaning. This would be something that would need addressing in the final piece, that is, the meaning of what the words are and how that can relate to the major themes of the play.
We were asked to come up with a way of making the scene that we had chosen accessible for our target audience in the style of TIE and what our client had suggested. The use of the Facilitator to pause and explain what's happening could be used as well as translating the words into modern day text. Additionally, the use of key quotes on a powerpoint presentation behind us could work and the ability to make it humourous will engage our TA a lot more than having it be a normal style English lesson.
Despite the chaos that this video suggests, there were some positive elements to the piece. The use of humour would engage an audience. Also, the removal of the witches confirms that they are needed within the piece and suggest that they are the main manipulators of Macbeth. However, at some points, it was hard to know where to look and what was important. Moreover, we could have used the role of the Facilitator much more than we did in the piece which would have related it to the TIE style better.
Towards the end of Starbuck's lesson, we identified key scenes from the play and were told to act them out using the original Shakespearean language provided. I worked with Bruce on Act 1, Scene 5 where Lady Macbeth calls for spirits to "unsex" her. The scene demonstrates that Lady Macbeth has more control over Macbeth and the murder of the King than Macbeth, thus bringing into question her feminity, Macbeth's masculinity, and the supernatural element within the play. I found that reading Shakespeare was in some respects quite easy, however, I did find that at some points it was hard to get words out and to understand their meaning. This would be something that would need addressing in the final piece, that is, the meaning of what the words are and how that can relate to the major themes of the play.
We were asked to come up with a way of making the scene that we had chosen accessible for our target audience in the style of TIE and what our client had suggested. The use of the Facilitator to pause and explain what's happening could be used as well as translating the words into modern day text. Additionally, the use of key quotes on a powerpoint presentation behind us could work and the ability to make it humourous will engage our TA a lot more than having it be a normal style English lesson.
Director's Challenge - Part 20, Second Rehearsal
On Tuesday, night in lieu of Y11s having their GCSE performance on Wednesday, I blocked the first of Leah's monologues with Evie (who will be playing Leah). Unfortunately, Imogen couldn't attend, however, we had gone through what we wanted from the scene before but there are some aspects which are my own. The video below concerns what vocal tone and facial expressions I would want Evie to make in the scene:
Below is the first attempt at blocking with Evie as Leah:
Below is my analysis of Evie's attempt with improvements to be made in later rehearsals:
Below is the first attempt at blocking with Evie as Leah:
Friday 1 February 2019
Director's Challenge - Part 19 - First Rehearsal
Due to the Y11s in our cast having their GCSE practise performance on Wednesday night, we were without a majority of our cast and thus had to change our aforementioned plan. Instead of focusing on Leah's monologue and all the cast in Scene 3, we went over 2 of the Jan and Mark specific scenes - Scene 1 and Scene 3 part 3.
We had 3 cast members turn up - Megan, Ollie, and Grace and with them, we explained the plot, the set, and played a game of Ninja to get energy levels up and to bring more enjoyment to the group dynamic. I got contact details from all those present and have set up a Wattsapp group chat for directing; when I have everyone on the group chat I will post evidence of it on my blog and any communication made will also be posted. We let Grace (who plays Rachel/Richard) go home as she wasn't needed and proceeded with the aforementioned Jan and Mark scenes. With Megan and Ollie, we read through their sections of the script including Scene 3 part 1 as that has a large amount of Jan and Mark involvement.
The following video is an attempt at Scene 1:
The following video is an attempt at part of Scene 3 part 3:
The following video is an analysis of the above 2 videos:
Next week, Imogen and I plan to rehearse the scenes that we were going to do in our first rehearsal. However, we may have to do this on Tuesday night because of the Y11's final GCSE drama piece and thus the plan may change because of commitments of other students. This is something I will message Imogen about and we will discuss the plan from there. This is a severe hindrance because we won't have been able to block the whole play by half term as we would have liked thus putting us behind in our plan.
We had 3 cast members turn up - Megan, Ollie, and Grace and with them, we explained the plot, the set, and played a game of Ninja to get energy levels up and to bring more enjoyment to the group dynamic. I got contact details from all those present and have set up a Wattsapp group chat for directing; when I have everyone on the group chat I will post evidence of it on my blog and any communication made will also be posted. We let Grace (who plays Rachel/Richard) go home as she wasn't needed and proceeded with the aforementioned Jan and Mark scenes. With Megan and Ollie, we read through their sections of the script including Scene 3 part 1 as that has a large amount of Jan and Mark involvement.
The following video is an attempt at Scene 1:
The following video is an attempt at part of Scene 3 part 3:
The following video is an analysis of the above 2 videos:
Next week, Imogen and I plan to rehearse the scenes that we were going to do in our first rehearsal. However, we may have to do this on Tuesday night because of the Y11's final GCSE drama piece and thus the plan may change because of commitments of other students. This is something I will message Imogen about and we will discuss the plan from there. This is a severe hindrance because we won't have been able to block the whole play by half term as we would have liked thus putting us behind in our plan.
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