Week 3 -31st Jan to 2nd Feb

Monday's rehearsal are usually lessons in which we do table work and continue to unit scripts where there are many character's in the early scenes as it is setting up the world of the play. Uniting is important to understand how your character's objectives change throughout the scene, as having one objective for a long scene isn't that helpful because they change. Uniting my first scene that I am in us helpful as I now can go away and write in my objectives and actions in tandem with the units. The scenes in the play are also quite long and many character's leave and enter, so it's helpful to have a systematic break down of the scene. Uniting also clearly reveals your character's intentions and who you are speaking to and why. We also discussed what we want to get out of our trip on the weekend to the Moors and Bronte museum. What came up most was fully experiencing the weather and climate there, and how the character's would have to walk through the Moors to get to anywhere in the area. Being able to see the Moors in person also will help us in visualising it when acting on stage, and how the weather affects your characterisation when coming in from outside. What is also going to be helpful is seeing what a traditional house from the 1700/1800s looks like as a lot of the furniture has been preserved from when the Bronte's lived there. Which again will allow us to visualise how a living room or bedroom what look like then.

Laban Efforts:

In today's rehearsal we did a thorough exploration of Laban efforts and how we can use them for our characterization. For me my character's physicality is something that is very important and I always explore it in detail. To remind ourselves of what Laban efforts we explored them without our characters just to know the physical qualities of each. There are three factors of Laban Efforts: Space, Weight and Time. Space can either be direct or indirect, Weight is either strong or light and Time is either sudden or sustained. Considering all these factors we went through all eight basic Laban Efforts: punch, dab, press, glide, slash, flick, wring and float. After exploring all eight of these efforts we then chose two to explore and play with however, with Nelly I was struggling to narrow it down as I saw her as using glide, press or float. But after experimenting with them all as Nelly I think she uses all three in combination, but one becomes more apparent depending on her objective. Intertwining with Laban efforts we had a look at Head, Heart, Gut and Groin and with what your character would lead with. After exploration I established that Nelly leads with either Head or Heart but it depends on the line and whether what she is saying is fact or opinion. As I am telling the story I have to carefully consider which lines Nelly is saying a truthful and what are biased opinions she has formed over time. In some lines it switches from Heart to Head and vice versa. A line that really plays into this is: 'Her spirits were always at high watermark - her tongue always going - singing, laughing, plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild, wick-slip, she was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent was to keep her separate from him.'

Music In The Space Exercise:

Using the Laban Efforts we discovered we then put in songs that represent our character's into a playlist, created a space in the middle, and when your song would play you would do a lap of the space, stop and say one of your lines. What I found most interesting about this exercise was how people interacted with each other when walking around the space, and who they made eye contact with. A particular moment that stood out was Chantel (Cathy) nudging Tia (Isabella) of her seat and them exchanging scowling looks. An interesting character dynamic was birthed here between Cathy and Isabella, this also had an affect on how Heathcliff would react to this. For me this was helpful because as I walked around I was able to make eye contact with characters and establish particular connections with them, walking around the room also allowed us to put the Laban efforts into practice. Walking to the song that we chose added extra depth and connection and I felt I really did find my character. Even just standing in the space and observing I was able to stay and character and judge as Nelly. The atmosphere that was created through this exercise really captured all the character dynamics and will translate when doing scenes with those particular characters. There was also such a strong sense of commitment from the ensemble and this really tightened the character's together as well as the ensemble as a whole.

Improvisation:

Using everything we discovered from those exercises, we acted in various improvisation exercises and scenarios. We did some ensemble ones, where we were all at a Liverpool market, it was interesting to see what characters people inhabited. I used this to work on Nelly outside of the Grange and the Heights and how she would act at market day. Due to everyone's commitment we were able to really establish the commotion of a market and the happenings there. I had some great interactions with the ensemble, particularly Jude who was pick pocketer and 'stole my loaf of bread' and a story line was immediately birthed from that. And from this ensemble improvisation, our director narrowed it down to just Heathcliff and Mr Earnshaw to improv that interaction that would've happened when Mr Earnshaw found Heathcliff. This allowed the Heathcliff's to start crafting their backstory and how he happened to be a the Heights. The ensemble's creation of the chaos also had an impact on how Heathcliff would be feeling in this situation and how he would respond to this unknown world. Improvisation is important and helpful because it forces you to make choices and find your character's feet. You can see what works and what doesn't so when it comes to working through the script the choices you make you are confident in and have layers.

Group Presentations:

For today's rehearsal we needed to prepare a creative character presentation to act as character development work also. My presentation was Nelly doing some needle work whilst talking through my day by the hour and what tasks I would do as Nelly. The research for this was the most useful because I was able to familiar myself with particular household objects that Nelly would use and how her telling the story fits into her day and what she would be doing whilst telling the story. It also adds to Nelly's physicality, as I tell most of the story in the evening I will be tired as I have just done a whole day of work and I am still technically 'working' tending to Lockwood. This adds a layer to Nelly's emotional and physical tendencies throughout the play. It was also helpful to practice needlework and talking at the same time which is what I will be doing in the play, it is quite a hard task to keep going at the same time but through rehearsals it will become second nature. Seeing everyone else's presentations was so interesting and useful to see everyone's different character interpretations. It also made me look at the character's from different perspectives that I wouldn't have necessarily considered. Particularly as some performed as their character's from different ages, Sasha in particular presented Young Cathy from such an interesting perspective, purgatory - and whether Young Cathy should go to heaven or hell. It also brought in ideas of religion from the play. Seeing everyone's also establishes character dynamics in how they talked about other character's in the play.

Lockwood's Dream:

We also began staging Lockwood's dream which is an ensemble section were we act out a very intense dream with religious connotations. Doing this scene made me realise that I hadn't considered or done much research on, so I will research into the names mentioned throughout the dream. As this was an ensemble section there needed to be focus among the group so we could move through all our queues and so we could hear instructions from our director. There was some lack of focus which made it difficult to move through smoothly and so the section did look messy and chaotic. But once focus was regained, by there being more understanding of the context of the scene we were able to work together and clean up the movement and start to build on that ensemble connection.