FULL LOG BOOK ENTRIES.

CHARLOTTE HOWES LOGBOOK FROM PERFORMANCE SKILLS CLASSICAL THEATRE

Volpone Tuesday 16^th January – To begin with we all sat in a circle and discussed the plot of Volpone, this was useful as it allowed us all to fully understand the play before we began to tackle scenes within it. We also discussed the themes within the play which were things like greed, temptation etc. We vaguely talked about how each character resembled animals within the play and how this could be reflected within our final performances. We then partnered up (I was with Emma) and we were given a scene per pair to look at and perform to the class with the script, this was a short activity. After we had shown it to the class we were given the task to make the scene improvised, without scripts and to use contemporary language to help us understand what was properly going on within the scene. This was a lot of fun to perform and it was really interesting to see how other groups interpreted their scenes too.  This activity was helpful as it helped me to fully understand the plot of the play and it allowed me to open my mind and see possible scene interpretations that could be used and played with in the future. I felt more comfortable with the play after this lesson as at the beginning of the lesson I felt rather anxious.

Jedd's Voice lesson Wednesday 17^th January - Prior to this lesson Jedd had asked us to select a sonnet from the list he provided, I selected Sonnet 113 as I felt it was the most interesting one for me to perform. He asked us to be off book for this lesson and to also have bought a bone prop. As we went into the lesson I was slightly anxious as I didn't know what to expect from the class. However, as soon as we walked in it was a very calm and relaxed environment, I felt comfortable straight away, we sat on yoga mats in a circle and discussed what we were and weren't good at, our favourite performance and something we want to work on with Jedd. I said a strength of mine was that I had reasonably good projection and I felt I can bring a comic relief to certain performances, and hopefully make people laugh. I said something I'm not good at is believing in myself sometimes and that my confidence can be knocked a lot which can sometimes get in the way of my mentality towards performing etc. My favourite performance was my clowning performance that I did in semester 1 as it was extremely fun to create and even more fun to perform. Finally, I said something that I wanted to work on was articulation especially with my accent, being northern I find it harder to speak Shakespeare without sounding common or lazy. He understood this and said that it was something that we could work on together. We then performed our sonnets to the rest of the class and he was okay if you weren't fully off book, I remembered all my Sonnet. He gave us all individual feedback, mine was to try and avoid having glottal onsets when speaking my Sonnet, he also told me to relax and try being smoother when reciting it. This lesson was really relaxed and made me feel more confident on my Sonnet it allowed me to understand what to focus on when trying to improve myself and work on my Sonnet. Overall, I left the lesson feeling a lot happier and a lot more comfortable within myself and the thought of performing the Sonnet in 7 weeks’ time to a studio full of people.

Volpone Thursday 18^th January – This lesson began with the whole class discussing the animals that were behind each character within Volpone. So, for example we discussed how Mosca is seen as a mosquito as he’s always around, very in the way and attentive and in a way annoying. We walked around the room and explored the 7 tension states, some of which are: Catatonic, Californian, Alert etc. After we had explored these 7 tension states we took part in improvised exercise exploring the first scene within the play. I worked with Emma again, my tension state was Californian for Mosca and Volpone’s (Emma) was Tragedy. Californian is a tension state that is very relaxed and not panicked at all, very calm and collected to the point where the character doesn’t seem to care. This was extremely fun to play with as Volpone’s Tragedy tension state made the master servant status between the two characters seem reversed and it was comical from the feedback we received from the rest of the class. At the end of the class we looked at monologues using the animalistic ideas to enhance the characterisation. I looked at Mosca and focused on the Mosquito insect to adapt the monologue I had and make it more animalistic. These two exercises we did within the class were extremely helpful to allow me to understand the wide spectrum of ideas and interpretations that could be used to apply to a certain character within the play. The improvised tension state exercise I found most helpful as it allowed me to view the characters in a different way and see how different interpretations change the way you perform a certain character.

Derren’s stage combat Friday 19^th January – Within this lesson we explored lots of different things including slaps, hay makers, dodging, stomach punches, face punches and hair pulls etc.  As Derren showed us all these moves, he explained the safety to them, the angles to them and how to assure your body and feet are in the correct position to perform the moves. I worked with Harry for most of this lesson, I really enjoyed working with Harry as I feel we have a good acting chemistry together which enhances our performance and sometimes makes our performances comical rather than serious etc. Later within the lesson I was partnered with Grace which was equally as fun and challenging. At the end of the lesson we showed our work to the rest of the class, Derren was really reassuring to all of us and let us know that we didn’t have to be quick or perfect to put on a good performance. I felt very excited after this lesson as I’m not usually a person who succeeds in fighting or serious drama like I thought this lesson would be, but I found my strengths in other ways which made my performance excel.

Volpone Tuesday 23^rd January – I did not attend this lesson as I was poorly but Evi, Julie & Ben were made aware of my situation and the reasons behind this and were understanding towards this. As far as I’m aware and what I’ve been told by my peers, we looked deeper into the animalistic signs within the characters into more detail and explored them with our bodies to allow the physicality as well as the voice come into play to ensure it would strengthen the overall character.

Jedd’s Voice Lesson Wednesday 24^th January – Again, I was poorly for this lesson, however, Jedd was made aware prior to the lesson and he advised me to not push myself too much if I was feeling poorly. I obviously found out what we did within the lesson, so I wasn’t missing too much vital information etc. In the lesson we explored ways in which breathing can help when speaking our Sonnet and different techniques to help control our breathing. Some of the reading on moodle allowed me to do this on my own and explore this for myself, and enabled me to not miss out on this vital information. I found it useful to use these techniques, but it took my focus slightly off the Sonnets which made it more difficult for me to concentrate overall.

Volpone Thursday 25^th January -  Poorly for this lesson again but found out what I missed. We did an exercise which I have done with Evi before called do the funny/sexy thing which is almost like an improvisation technique to allow exploration of the character and to see how your character responds etc. Evi also brought her balloons in to use to symbolise the penis and to distract the characters whilst they were on stage – this sounds like a lesson I would have probably enjoyed doing as it seems centred around comedy which I prefer.

Derren’s Stage Combat Friday 26^th January – Poorly still for this lesson but from what I found out we looked at using knives within stage combat and explored it by choreographing something and showing it at the end of the lesson to show the skills we learnt within the session. Obviously, I wasn’t there but it seemed to be a pretty interesting lesson.

Volpone Tuesday 30^th January – To begin this lesson we took part in a warm up which was exercising, and movement based warming up from our arms and legs, to yoga stretches and positions to ensure all our body was fully ready to be agile etc. For homework for this lesson we had to watch a few clips of motion capture one of them was Benedict Cumberbatch being a dragon with all the sensors on him and the choreographed movement he had for that character. From watching this we then ourselves considered creating these animals with our own bodies as if we were taking part in motion capture films. The animals we looked at included: crab, bear, monkey, lizard and many more. The bear we explored using stairs by using our feet and hands to crawl up and down the stairs it was very difficult, but it allowed us to understand why it was important to focus on every part of your body and individual movements. We were then told to pick an animal and a character from the play, I picked Volpone and picked Alex the Lion from Madagascar because he’s cocky and clueless sometimes. We used balloons to enhance this animal within our character, I stuck one to my bum for the tail and one to my head for the main and we performed whilst someone else read out the monologue to us. This was useful as it allowed us to see the animal within the characters within the play, it was also interesting to see people playing the same character as you are playing a completely different animal and see how they interpret it compared to you. Evi told us for the next lesson to bring costume in to supplement the balloons and develop these further. This also expanded my thoughts onto what possible ideas could be used for the final performance in a few weeks.

Jedd’s Voice Lesson Wednesday 31^st January – This lesson I felt was a combination of relaxed and intense. We started the lesson with a rather vulnerable discussion where people talked about their insecurities and things they may not be so confident with, which was hard to hear, share and take in. Some people got slightly emotional which was hard to see but also it was inspiring too. We laid on our backs and did several exercises specifically focusing on the mind and breathing when speaking our Sonnets. This activity was extremely interesting as it allowed me to understand how every – body in our class is different and everyone has different issues and comfort levels within themselves and have all experienced different things. This allowed me to open up to the class about me having bow legs and now developed into knock knees which I have struggled with in movement based classes before like dance etc. Overall this lesson was inspiring to see and hear everyone’s difference and uniqueness, but it was also challenging on a personal level to feel comfortable laying down and taking my mind off the awkwardness of my hips and legs. I found the exercises we did in a way comfortable but in another sense, I found it irritable so I’m slightly undecided on how I feel after this lesson.

Volpone 1^st February – We did the exercise warm up, movement and yoga stretch we did in the previous lesson again to ensure our bodies were ready for the lesson. This lesson was primarily focused on the use of voice within characters, we looked at 7 specifically. The first was an Earthy voice, which was a deep sound like an ‘O’ sound. The second was an ill sound which was just above the belly button which was an ‘OW’ sound. The next was described as lovey dovey which was an ‘AH’ sound. The fourth was a little dude voice which had a ‘HEHE’ sound. The fifth an authority voice which had an ‘EH EH’ sound. The sixth was a nasal voice which had a ‘HEEE HAAA’ sound to it. The last was a forehead voice which was really high pitched. This part of the lesson I really enjoyed as it allowed me to explore the comical elements in a rather boring play. However, the second part of this lesson I found very stressful and made me rather uncomfortable. Evi set us the task of attempting to do a one-man performance of the whole play using those seven voices, I know as a comedy actress this should be second nature for me, but something just came over me, I’m unsure as to whether it was because of the text that I didn’t fully understand it or whether it was just nerves because most of our class is funny actors. Either way I spoke to Evi and just explained my feelings towards the task and she understood – seeing the rest of the class perform was hilarious and made me feel guilty for not doing it but I did attempt it but just felt too uncomfortable with the task overall.

Derren’s Stage Combat Friday 2^nd -  I was not present for this lesson for reasons which Julie, Evi and Ben know about, but I found out what we did to ensure I was not slacking behind, I was told we worked with sticks within this lesson and explored what we could do with them within a choreographed performance and how to ensure it was safe to participate with them. We partnered up and choreographed a small piece and showed it to rest of the class at the end of the lesson.

Volpone Tuesday 6^th February -  This lesson was spent performing monologues to the rest of the class and giving critical feedback to each other to help enhance and inspire them to do better and adjust their work. I performed a Mosca monologue, using a voice and a coat to make me seem hunchback and more servant like as I was a slightly lower status. I added a pause in the line ‘I FEAR I WILL BEGIN TO FALL IN LOVE WITH MY DEAR SELF’ I placed the pause after the word love, so the beginning of the sentence seemed sweet then the second half I was self-centred, and the true personality of my character was revealed just from that very first sentence within my monologue. This was received well with the audience, their criticism was for the text to be longer and for me to more confident and off book, which I admit was true, I felt I could have worked harder on developing the character and focusing specifically on things like laughter and voice. Also, I noticed in the video my movement was very limited and short it looked slightly unrehearsed and messy to the audience which I was disappointed about. This lesson was beneficial as it allowed me to see myself and see how others saw me perform and how they were all honest on simple things I could work on to strengthen my characters personality and image.

Jedd’s Voice Lesson Wednesday 7^th February – To begin with, we performed some light stretches to get our mind focussed and ready for the lesson and allowed us all to be in the right mind set for the lesson. We then discussed the reading we had done prior to this lesson and we talked about if we did the exercises provided ourselves or not and how we felt after we’d done them and talked about how the diagrams within the reading was inaccurate, so it was hard to try and replicate the exercises ourselves. After this brief discussion we walked around the room saying our Sonnets to ourselves and forming eye contact with people and trying to hold the connection and not break it. This exercise for me personally was a challenge, as I find eye contact very personal and from previous experience not good. However, I know as an actress I must be able to fight past this and break boundaries. Jedd wasn’t pushing people to do this exercise he was interested in how everyone’s bodies reacted differently to it, sweating, shaking, staying the same etc. Personally, this lesson for me wasn’t beneficial, I enjoyed it as I do with most of Jedd’s lessons, but I did not enjoy this particular exercise I felt very vulnerable to people and nervous, it was not helpful for me at all.

Volpone Thursday 8^th February – We began this lesson with the usual movements, yoga and stretching warm up to ensure our bodies were ready for the lesson that was going to take place. We decided our groups for the performance within this lesson, I decided to go with Lauren, Emma and Ted, we chose a scene together to explore and start to develop together. This lesson seemed very relaxed as it was primarily focussed on selecting carefully our groups and our scenes. It was obviously helpful as it gave me insight on my character (Volpone) I selected Volpone as I felt it would be quite suited to have Ted, a man my servant, breaking the patriarchy and the usual, what the audience might expect from this kind of pairing. This I thought was a modern day, contemporary interpretation of the play and I felt it would be very exciting to explore it this way.

Derren’s Stage Combat Friday 9^th February – This lesson I was partnered up with Harry again, as I’ve said before we work well together in finding a comic relief in performances that you usually wouldn’t expect it. We worked with the larger swords this lesson and then later the smaller ones with the masks. Within this lesson we also learnt techniques to swing the sword around and look experienced when holding and using it. Me and Harry created a 1-minute performance which was really fun to perform with a really dramatic death to it which was fun to play around with. I enjoyed this lesson as it reassured me once again that you don’t always have to be deadly serious when you’re taking part in stage combat as we integrated comedy within our piece once again as this is the area both us as actors excel in. Overall, a really fun lesson to do.

Volpone Tuesday 20^th February – Within this lesson we all read out our scenes to the rest of the class to determine what everyone else thought of the scenes we had all chosen and possible ideas and interpretations etc. From our scene we decided that we’d go in two pairs, therefore, I was then partnered with Ted as a duo. We selected a scene and I was still going to be playing Volpone as I really liked the idea of a female ruler and breaking that patriarchal wall. We had a one to one with Evi to help us with our interpretations of the scenes and what we could possibly do with each section and actioning our scripts etc. This lesson was useful as it allowed us to see how our original scene was a little unrealistic and how going off in twos was probably the better outcome and it also allowed me to see how I could be an empowering sassy and bossy woman to control Ted. It was a good lesson overall.

Jedd’s Voice Lesson Wednesday 21^st – Within this lesson our bone prop was used a lot of the time to practice our articulation and pronunciation of certain words. We focussed on pronouncing all the vowels within a word but also specifically on the DT sounds. We focussed on the sentence ‘One and Two and Three and Four’ focusing on the ‘and two’ specifically as it is highly difficult to clearly pronounce the d on the word ‘and’, and the t on the word ‘two’. This exercise made me aware of my own articulation when speaking and especially within my Sonnet, it made me aware of what I needed to work on to show I was trying to tackle this challenge. We then performed our sonnets to Jedd and he made us aware of the specific areas within them that were weak and needed working on. This exercise was highly beneficial for me personally as it made me aware of every individual sound within the words that needed to be pronounced clearly. It also showed me that I wasn’t talking as smoothly as I previously thought.

Derren’s Stage Combat Friday 23^rd February – I was poorly for this lesson due to reasons that were made aware to the lecturers. Within this lesson the class partnered up with each other and started choreographing the final performance, we selected weaponry and started coming up with initial ideas for a narrative that could be used as a base for the reason for the fight. I decided to go with Harry and Grace and I felt I had the best working chemistry with them both and we were all comedy actors which would give us a fun twist on something that most people were taking quite seriously.

Volpone Tuesday 27^th February – As I was still unwell at this time me and Ted made a group decision to go our separate ways and focus on monologues. Although it was late in the process it was most definitely a good decision as it allowed me to work and focus on myself rather than worrying about letting my partner and class down. I decided to pick a Mosca monologue as I felt this allowed me to develop and use my physicality, my voice and my overall body language to show the full spectrum of my abilities and capability. At this point I felt very deflated and behind everyone else in the class, I wanted to be able to prove to myself and everyone else that even though I had missed a few lessons I could still work just as hard to get my piece perfect and as good as can be. I decided to change my mentality towards myself and my work and try to think and stay positive, it was difficult as I still felt unwell, but I knew to succeed I needed to work very hard to prove myself. I decided to wait until the next lesson to have a discussion with Evi about actioning for my monologue as I didn’t want to give the monologue the wrong direction or it not be very funny.

Jedd’s Voice Lesson Wednesday 28^th February – This lesson began with us entering the room and the other class being sat around in the space with table and chairs set up. Jedd then explained this is how he wanted the final performance to be laid out, he said that these were the places for the first class and our class must find spaces around them. The other class left and sat in their seats just as temporary. He then wanted the performance to flow from Sonnet to Sonnet to Sonnet with a gesture of some sort to connect each sonnet for e.g. clicking of pen, tapping of hands etc. Jedd wanted a full run through to see the flow and gesture, I made my gesture a sigh to go into my Sonnet. Once we’d had a full run through he gave us last minute notes on what we needed to work on most, he told me glottal onsets were still my main issue. This was really infuriating as I had tried so hard to avoid this stop start sound within my performance. I went away from this lesson really nervous for the following week as it was almost performance day. I wanted to try and conquer this annoying habit to put stop sounds in between and to try and make It as smooth as I possibly could. I decided to spend a lot of time with my bone prop in preparation for the performance next week.

Volpone Thursday 1^st March This lesson I came in feeling rather apprehensive as I was nervous to see how ahead everyone was compared to me, I had a discussion with Evi about my monologue and what it was about and what I could do to make it funny and she told me to action it and try to create a visual gag. She wanted to see everyone’s this lesson, but I was just not ready to show people yet, I wasn’t off book nor was I fully aware of my actions for each line. I spent the lesson developing my character of Mosca, creating a hunchbacked image with a nasal animalistic/gremlin style voice, I also wanted to incorporate a laugh of Mosca’s so that was also something else I focussed on too. At the end we watched everyone’s rough performances and gave them criticism, Evi was worried a she hadn’t seen mine and I had no feedback to work on, but I reassured her and told her that all this weekend I would polish it off and work on it. I left feeling really stressed out because I was still on book and wasn’t confident with the monologue at all I set myself the task to spend the weekend to focus on learning and perfecting the monologue to ensure by Tuesday the dress rehearsal I would be able to show something of good standards.

Stage Combat Friday 2^nd March – We did not have this lesson as it snowed so the lesson was cancelled but we were told to just work in our groups and try to create as much choreography as we could in preparation for the assessment next week.

Volpone Dress Rehearsal Tuesday 6^th March – I went to this lesson feeling very nervous on whether Evi would like my interpretation of the Mosca Monologue. For costume, because Mosca is a servant to Volpone I thought he should be partially well dressed and partially scruffy, I wore black trousers a plain black t-shirt and a maroon blazer to give me that scruffy but formal look. I only used one prop and that was a coin to link to a word I say in the monologue. I performed my monologue the first time to the class and we did it one after another, Evi gave us some critical feedback. She told me she was pleased I had managed to get it up on it’s feet so quickly that I had good energy, but she wanted me to come on as the character and use the space more and make more of the coin. We then showed our pieces to the class again and trying to incorporate Evi’s feedback. I decided to use the space more widely and for the coin I would drop it and at the end of the monologue I decided that I would show how Mosca as a character was tight and a bit of penny pincher, so I dramatically ran and picked the coin up and ran off stage. I interact with the audience during my monologue which I usually find VERY difficult, but I knew this was something I struggled with in Jedd’s lessons too, so I decided to go for it properly and try and break down my barriers slightly to ensure my performance looked as good as it could be. I’m glad and thrilled for myself that I did even though it was with my peers to me this was a massive achievement and something I’ve ALWAYS struggled with. I left this lesson feeling positive for the assessment, nervous but excited for the rest of the acting group to see what I had worked hard on.

Wednesday 7^th March Volpone Assessment – I felt extremely nervous for this assessment as I wanted to prove that even with the time I have missed in lessons I could still work just as hard as the others to create a good character and an even better performance. I got to uni about 8:30 to ensure I had some time to get changed and to warm up and rehearse. Evi came in at around 8:45 to warm up, we did the movement warm up we do every lesson to get our minds and bodies focussed and ready for the task that we were about to take on. As I watched Michaels and Jeff’s/Alen’s performance I felt the nerves building up inside me, the feeling of what if I forget this line or the first line?? What if I corpse on stage? What if no one laughs at all!!! What would I do?? I decided to close my eyes for a short period of time and calm myself down, taking deep breaths in and out through the nose out the mouth. This worked, and as it was my turn although I was nervous I was ready. When performing it all came naturally, the over exaggerated movement and energy I gave was my honest best that I could give, I pulled some ridiculous faces, but it was all worth it in the end. I interacted with an audience member and made myself very proud. Once it was over I knew I’d try my honest best because I was panting, out of breath, sweating, shaking and had adrenalin rushing all over my body.  I felt so relieved that people were laughing, and that people enjoyed my performance. After this many people congratulated me on it, including someone I had spoken to earlier on in the week and he said, ‘from what you’d told me I was expecting a really bad performance from you, but you could not tell you’d missed lessons or anything like that at all, it was really good!’. After that comment I felt so much more comfortable with my performance and my contribution overall. I felt very happy.

Wednesday 7^th March Jedd’s Voice Assessment – In the build up to the assessment I was trying to stay fairly relaxed and calm as getting worked up would not do me any good whatsoever. I was practicing my Sonnet with my bone prop for a while to try and perfect my articulation properly, I wanted it to be clear to Jedd that I had tried to adjust the way I was speaking my Sonnet and for him to hear that in my final performance. I went into the studio to help set up the arrangement and I found my place and as a class we went through our rehearsal to ensure we knew the running order and the person before ourselves, last line. When it came to the assessment Jedd was reassuring but serious, he told us to mentally prepare ourselves and the first person go whenever they felt the moment was right for them. As each person got closer to my go I felt the nerves build up inside me and the worry about forgetting a line or not pronouncing the words properly. I felt my hands start to get sweaty and my body was agitated, I was uncomfortable and nervous. When actually saying my Sonnet, I was trying to balance a lot of things, trying to avoid glottal onsets, trying to avoid gesturing and dropping d’s and t’s off words, I was focusing hard on my movement too. I felt like my performance wasn’t the best, but I tried as hard as I could. I mainly struggled because of my accent and wanted to focus so much on trying to be perfect. I’m not entirely sure myself how it sounded or looked, I’m just hoping that it was enough to get a good mark and to be pleased with myself from my performance. I am still a bit annoyed that it could have gone better but there’s nothing I can do about it now. It’s all done and I’m just proud of myself for overcoming the nerves and not forgetting any lines or words within my Sonnet.

Derren’s Stage Combat Assessment Friday 9^th March – Prior to this lesson Me, Harry and Grace had met up and started choreographing our final piece. We knew a lot of people were doing traditional styled fights, we also knew that Derren wasn’t a massive fan of comedy within stage combat. However, we decided to take a risk within this assessment and do comedy anyway. Our idea was a little different to how everyone else had taken on their narratives. We focused on the idea of BDSM almost, so began the piece with Harry slapping me and me begging him to do it ‘harder’ until the point where it was too hard, and I punched him in the face, we were about to kiss when Grace comes in and discovers our relationship. We then made it a very comical love triangle between me Harry and Grace, it was almost like an episode of Jeremy Kyle. We included a lot of jokes and funny dialogue within it. Derren asked to see everyone’s pieces for final feedback, as a group we were extremely nervous as we had looked around the room and seen other people’s performances were traditional fighting almost whereas ours was more contemporary and funny. We pre-warned Derren about our comical piece and the use of dialogue and he seemed okay. Once we had shown him our performance he said that he’s not a massive fan of comedy and stage combat together, but he absolutely LOVED our performance, he enjoyed it thoroughly. This was very reassuring for us and gave us lots of excitement for the actual assessment. When we performed it to the rest of the class we all agreed to go for it with all our punches, kicks, slaps and knife work. I put all my energy and enthusiasm within it and tried my hardest. We got a lot of laughs and people really enjoyed our piece so the risk we took definitely paid off. Evi said at the end of the class how she admired us for taking this risk and how it did work for us as actors. It allowed me to show my comical strength in something I normally wouldn’t, as a group we worked amazingly well together and had really good chemistry, I felt very very very happy with how our final performance went.