Week 2 - 25th to 27th January

Today’s rehearsal was an exploration of our characters and starting to build the world of the Moors. Our assistant director, Ariana, led various exercises which allowed us to explore the peripheral of our characters (an in depth discussion of these exercises is in my character research section.) Doing these exercises really allowed me to find the physicality of Nelly and how she moves around people. We were given an open playing field to explore different pathways, as you aren’t always going to find exactly your characterisation in the first exercise. Having the space to explore without being judged is so important for exercises like this as we are at the start of this long journey of discovery, if anything the most daring and bold choices will be made now. But taking the jump to make those choices, that seem scary, is what enables you to unlock the depth of your character. Thinking about you character internally and externally for me is so useful particularly with Nelly as she is such a duplicitous character in how she approaches people. A particular moment of this character exploration that stood out to me was when we were asked to look at loved one and make a connection whilst doing a daily task, and looked at no one and no one looked at me. This really established the bizarre loneliness Nelly has despite being so involved with Cathy’s life, again having that duplicity. Through these exercises I have begun identifying Nelly’s world and how she sees the people around here, but what I think is going to be the hardest part is discovering what Nelly thinks about herself and she views herself. In the play Nelly never speaks about herself, hardly, it is always about the world around her so I need to think how I am going to unlock what she thinks of herself. However, by having some discussions about power dynamics, I discovered that the one thing Nelly knows about herself is her position, she is the only character in the play that doesn’t seek power as she knows she will always be a servant. And that almost gives her this emotional authority as all the character’s around her are in search of various forms of power.

We then began to physically explore the setting and weather of the Heights and created small physical theatre pieces depicting this. By physically exploring the setting we could get a better understanding of the physical and emotional affects of the weather, particular as it is such a large theme in the play. This physical movement that will all created will possibly manifests itself into the opening of our show to introduce the Heights and Moors. It is important that the opening does drag the audience into this world as it goes perfectly in tandem with Lockwood's opening monologue reading from a guide book about the Moors. We used small element of movement from most groups small pieces to create a large ensemble physical piece which sets the tone and atmosphere of the play. I find presets and pieces of movement before the text begins because it allows me to gradually step into this world that my character is in.

We also began the process of uniting the first scene and dissecting it. Uniting is important as it indicates when your character's objective or action would shift in the scene. Here are photos of how I have begun annotating my script with Units and queues. The play also has many stage directions and entrances and exists of character's units help break that up and makes queues easier to grasp. Tablework can be a tedious process but it makes so much easier to get it up on it's feet as all the technical stuff is done, and you can begin to be absorbed by the world. From doing some tablework we began staging some of the first scene and experimenting with having all of us on stage at the sides whilst the main action is taking place. We linked the first scene with the improvised opening we devised earlier.