The Lake House - 9th November

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The Lake House come to rehearse.  They had a good run at things on Friday becasue they could effectively be working on the production from 12:30 through to ?? and in fact were still at it when I left at 4pm.

Today one of the three members of the cast is absent through illness.  Without saying anything they are rehearsing (albeit running through what they did last time) which means they must have made some kind of continuation plan for today.  Evidently they will suffer from missing 1/3 of the group- very frustrating.  I am interested to see what they will do...

I email the resources staff to try to find where the HD camera is: it can provide very quick feedback to actors and that info can be given to the students on memory stick to take away.  Tapes are far too fussy!

I also reach for the exam board criteria....

There are three sections, each marked out of 5:

Section 1

Top Band Candidates will demonstrate secure understanding of the style of theatre that they have chosen to work in as well as a strong commitment to it, throughout the devising process, to realise very clear dramatic intentions for the audience.

Section 2

Top Band candidates will demonstrate a high degree of creative co-operation and inventiveness throughout the devising process. They will maintain a high level of self-discipline and employ successful devising strategies. Candidates will display sound critical and evaluative judgements of live theatre, including their own work as well as wider productions seen, as they develop their work, in its distinctive style, promising a successful outcome.

Section 3

Top Band candidates will demonstrate significant development of their nominated skill in relation to the production/performance requirements of the devised work. These will be precisely attuned to the needs of the piece and be entirely appropriate to the chosen style of theatre.

So far I have heard students discussing the fourth wall.  But apart form that... it is starting to look like a planning session, again.... but wait.... what's this?  they look in their plot structure and ideas and identify a scene they can rehearse without the missing member.... and they are off again.

So  Section 3:  Demonstrating development of nominated skill.

How can they demonstrate development of the nominated skill....

a) They improvise candidly for several minutes, developing the "date" the two characters go on.  They continue despite hiccups.  In this relaxed atmosphere it is possible to start to believe in two people on a date... but then his accent keeps coming through and it somehow seems toooo relaxed for him to be saying "ayyup".

After 6 minutes, the improvisation ends and they go back to planning.

I "get off the Blog" and we chat for 10 minutes.  We come up with the idea of dividing the scene in to 3 phases: uncomfortable; becoming friends and then enjoying themselves.  After the first attempt, both actors agree there seems to be little difference between the first two phases.  The problem seems to be that as actors they find it hard to re-discover the idea of being unfamiliar with each other.

So they try a bit of "magic if" and it becomes painfully slow and awkward (!) so this has worked too well!  The later bits also work far better.  The difference appears to be in energy and attack.  The first part is too slow and therefore seems depressing rather than awkward.  A third run through tries to address this and there's much more to be learnt...

To what extent are Kate and Alex separate from the actors?  How can we identify the characterisation of the roles?

To what extent is the improvisation dictated by the pace of movement through the scene?  The latter bits will be hard to make lively if they are delivered as part of the same sort of "walk" around the auditorium...

The actors also need to list the 10 or 12 mini-topics addressed by the characters during this moment so the improvisation gains structure and purpose.