Amy's Actor's Logbooks 2k11-2k13

[amylogbook]

Final evaluation

I think I as an individual and we as a company made a great deal of progress and many achievements throughout this process. In our own individual companies we managed to put out three totally bizare, absurd, random pieces that at the start of the process seemed impossible to fully comprehend, yet by the end of the process we had gained an insightful understanding to the piece itself and had managed to all pull together to devise an interpertation of it as a company as by the end of the process we did put out a set of shows to an audience that we were all proud to be a part of, and that we all enjoyed putting out knowing that we had all had some sort of a creative input into the piece, and we had the chance to showcase what we could do after two years of intense training.

Before the casting we did a lot of activities to warm ourselves into the process which was really helpful, such as devising our own interpretations of a Grimm fairy tale in small groups as well as create an interpretation of a section of what would be our final piece, Ubu Cocu. These tasks gave us a great kick in the direction of working indepentantly and devising our own work by working off the strengths of each other and I became a lot more confidant in using my imagination and letting myself go even further physically and vocally. I had the chance to explore a narrator role as well as a principle role in these two projects which really taught me the responsibility of carrying a show as an individual and keeping an audience engaged when I am taking up a lot of the audience's focus. We achieved a lot in these smaller companies, all putting out performances of good standards, and everyone really enjoyed watching each other and the teamwork we had put into our pieces of work clearly paid off. I got to work closely with people I've never had the chance to work with as closely in the past two years, and I became a lot more comfortable around individual company members that sometimes I hadn't really spoke to much before.

By casting time our company had reduced to it's tiniest-we had gone from having around 41 people at the beginning of the course, to 24 by the time we'd recieved casting. I think the smaller number of people being in the company allowed us to come together really well and be a lot closer than ever because it was a lot let 'cliquey' and it was harder to get your voice lost inside the company and there was more space to feel like I didn't need to hold back and I feel like a lot of people came out of their shells far more without an overwhelming number of people. By the end of the process everyone was working professionally with one another on the rehearsal floor and and outside 'beef' was left off the floor so we could keep our environment as positive as possible and not let anything outside the space or anything personal distrupt our progress. However, despite the reduction in size and the bonding, throughout the process I constantly noticed people speaking to others with disrespect and when it happenned to me it really brought down my working mood and made me not want to work with the peers responsible, and often I found that I had to leave the space to cool off if people got too much for me, but I now recognise that I should try to communicate to people when I feel they are speaking rudely so they know not to do it when someone really won't have it, and be able to calm myself down without leaving the space.

After the casting pretty much the entire company were satisfied with the roles. Even the ensemble was split into three groups with three different themes: musical, clowning, and combat. I was a memeber of the blue Palcontents, which was the combat group, and I was also told I could use stilts for the performance, however unfortunately as most of our routines were physical, the stilts greatly limited my physical ability and I don't think they would have been able to be worked into any of our physical moments due to the time limit we had. Being in a small ensemble groups gave me a chance to take ownership of what we created as it was easier to have my voice heard and get to try out my ideas with less people to have to communicate with. As I have had experience in gymnastics and Karate I was good at coming up with ideas for physical moments, and we also had the help of Matt who has had training in fencing who shared with us some skills which inspired us to create moments with fighting sticks, and we learnt some stage-fight techniques throughout the process from each other as well. 

I think a great weakness for me throughout this process is that despite the reduction of company members I still found myself overwhelmed when it came to trying to get everyone's attention for example when I thought it was necessary to run something or go through something, I wasn't really very good at driving the company and taking any form of control of them. I also was afraid to run a warm up because in every single warm up I saw that there were people misbehaving and not co-operating, and I didn't want to make myself look like a mug if everyone decided to behave like that if I took a warm up, which is cowardly and silly I know, and I wish I had used the opportunity of having a smaller company to overcome this, but perhaps if I get to continue to HND I suppose it's better to start late than never to try and overcome this.

In our company we worked at quite a fast pace to get our show so the standard we knew we wanted to make it, and despite some down days where focus and commitment were particularly low, we still managed to put out a set of shows of a good standard to an audience, and the piece did it's job by getting people talking about it and appreciating the cleverness and randomness of it, whereas some didn't understand it. By the end of the process we had a piece that was physically strong and that we understood thanks to our research of the social, political, cutural and historical context, and each of us knew that as individuals we had all had some sort of creative part in devising this piece, and that we all had strong characters which we had really taken the time to develop, and we had all collaborated and come together to put out something we could be proud of as our final piece.

A strengths I recognised from this process was my good research skills which helped me to drive certain pieces of work we did and help others understand concepts from certain historical times and social and political circumstances, and on the floor if stuck for ideas I always popped onto youtube and looked for something that could inspire us, for example I watched a few videos on vultures and showed the other blue Palcontents and got them to observe their formation, and way of approaching their prey which was something we used to inspire us when creating physical moments where we terrorize Acras and Flunky.

Another thing I think I did well as an individual as well as us as a company was often taking time we had into our own hands and driving rehearsals ourselves without the help of a director. This lead to us making progress quicker than expected, and throughout the process we gained the professionalism to listen to one another and allow other company members to take charge when appropriate and give people the respect to share their ideas. I think another strong point of us as a company was our determination and willingness to put out a good show despite low mood sometimes and lack of motivation.

A weakness throughout this process was that at times there was a lot of unfocused energy being wasted and unnecessary uncreative hyperactivity in the space which didn't set up a good working atmosphere for rehearsals. Attempts were made to channel this energy by other company members encouraging the company to play games, but even in the games the main culprits would still play up and mess up the game which I thought was a bit annoying as it meant that the rest of us couldn't take advantage of the activity.

This process has definitely taught me how to explore and me in the moment more so I can bring out my clown/child character, and to just commit to my character's reactions and choices and really share them and play them out. This process was well driven with a string of personal and company achievements that added up to a show we could be proud of, and from doing this process I have been inspired to look into theatre of the absurd a lot more and go to see some work of this nature. I am also eager to take a further look and do some research in my own time on Commedia, which I took a great interest into at the beginning to the process.

[amylogbook]

Matinee

This performance was a bit different from the others, the reason being that the audience members added up to zilch, yet we were still made to do the show, and as there were whispers in the wind that we were going to be graded by this performance, we did our best to make sure we did it as it it actually were a real performance. With this mutual intention in mind we managed to pull off a great performance, and in fact a lot of us were disappointed that there was nobody there to see it! I guess that will teach us that enough isn't enough when we think we've sold enough tickets to have done our bit. At some times though I feel like some people were unconciously performing transitions with less urgency which lead to occasional sloppiness, but other than that we pulled together to get through what felt like an almost futile performance for some.

Evening

There was a very intense atmosphere with it being the last show tonight as a company ever, and I think there was a lot of build up to the show because we were all so determined to make it the best thing we'd ever done. There was such a sense of mutial will and commitment and we carried this into the show and we did drive it and make it the best we ever had! As a result of the intense determination all the transitions went smoothly and props were sorted into the right positions and places to ensure a smooth run. There was an amazing euphoric feel to the stage throughout the piece and this really enhanced our child characters and I could sense the energy being thrown about and the shared commitment to the piece. The ropes when it came to hanging Rebontier up were all tangled, but I coped with this by tying both arms into one rope.

In the third piece the whole company mutually bonded to smash the dance and ship moment, and it really was a memorable experience. The stage was alive as were the characters, and at the end all the second years and HNDs just didn't want to leave the stage and we just carried on jamming until we really thought we should let the audience go, but we smashed the ending and did ourselves proud, making the most of our final moments together as a company.

[amylogbook]

Saturday performances

With only a small audience for our matinee performance I was fearful that the play would be a bit low-energized and the enthusasm would drop, but I think as a company we all had this fear in mind and managed not to let it get in the way of making our performance as good as it could be, as it’s unprofessional to treat a small audience like no audience; they should be treated as any other audience because they’ve still paid the same to come and see the piece and we are still representing our theatre to them. However there were a lot of errors on our part during the piece because the Cobbler’s table collapsed when Matt jumped off of it which must have been terrifying and could have been really dangerous, so this means we must take more care when building this table and ensure it is stable before moving into position, even if it takes slightly longer because this performance proved to us that it could potentially be unsafe. Another error was in the man and monkey scene where Sam’s toybox was back to front, and it took us a while to sort out and I had to help. This shouldn’t have gone wrong because it has been worked so much, and there wasn’t really an excuse for it, and we must somehow ensure that it doesn’t happen again.

The audience members we did have were really supportive, especially Betty’s family! They were really getting involved in the piece and gave us encouragement to play out to them which helped us a lot with clowning because we knew we were giving people enjoyment.

Evening

This performance seemed to run really smoothly and with a lot of energy despite peopls having complained about being tired beforehand after the show. This performance we took a lot more care with ensuring that the building of the Cobbler’s table was safe and cooperated to do so so as not to take up any extra time. There was a stick left on the floor in a stupid place before the Memnon scene causing me to trip before getting into positionm and that could have been dangerous, and it did take a while for us all to get into position because building the pyramids was a bit iffy.

The dance didn’t go so well tonight and we ended up out of time with the band again, but we just committed to the aspect of having fun as a company in this scene and this energy drove the scene and we pulled it off quite well, even though the choreography did go to pot a bit. The show ended with a great energy and I took responsibility to make sure to help the first years rotate the crash mat as sometime I see them struggle. I was proud of this performance tonight, and have high hopes for our closing show tomorrow and that we will give ourselves something to remember for our last show ever as a company.

[amylogbook]

3rd night

Another great night performance wise tonight. Enthusiasm and excitement was at an all time high and we felt a lot more confidant that we really had a show and that it would be a good performance. Also, because the plotting had been worked and polish earlier, the lighting cues were a lot more on point technical-wise, and I felt that we could focus on really enjoying the show tonight rather than worry about what could go wrong because we'd already proved to ourselves that we could do it, and enjoy it we did! We had a bit more laughter from the audience tonight and quite a positive response in general. Enjoying the piece is what I felt made it particularly strong tonight because it meant that we could be true to our fearless, carefree childlike charactors. Even when things went wrong on stage the actors involved dealt with it professionally, for example during the Memnon scene we were missing a stick which the Sams lift Betty on, but they coped with this error but just lifting her themselves. I admit to panicing slightly in this moment, but I managed to pass it off as a character reaction to the scene rather than it being Amy panicing. 

Despite the mostly good audience we did have an audience member who claimed that it was the most boring thing they'd ever seen in their life to Nikki, but I admired Robbie's ability to get us to look on the brightside when he told us about this, but reminded us that when this play was first performed it did have a very contraversial reaction, so we had evidently done our job well! :)

[amylogbook]

2nd Night

This performance also went out slightly late, but I feel like in our piece we picked up the energy a lot and it seemed to go smoothly transition-wise and cues were a lot sharper than last night. I think diction in this piece could have been clearer from some of the principle characters, and sometimes words couldn't be made out which meant the audience didn't get some of the little jokes. The pshittapump revelation went a bit wrong as the people who revealed it were waiting for a drumroll that didn't happen, so that created a bit of an awkward pause. We managed to pick up the scene afterwoulds though and keep the energy up. The blue Palcontent forest scene went well and people were a lot snappier with their cues.

The dance in the third play went a lot better than last night because we were listening to the band more, and people seemed a lot more confidant doing it on stage and were making more noise, but this was mostly encouraged by the second years. We were also clearer on what to do in the scene after, but there were still some second years getting confused on whether they would be reacting jubilantly or negetively to what was being said and going on, which meant that some of us weren't really able to fully commit to our choices straight away. I will make sure this is clarified and ask the Enchainé company to clear this up for us, or I'll find out and share it with the company.

The ship scene felt a lot tighter tonight and we managed to get into the formation quicker, and now that I didn't have to concentrate on the oar movements I felt even more like I could be in the moment, as though I was part of a reflective, meaningful image that is the end of our show.

The company really seem to have been coming together to put out the shows so far, and the level of commitment has been immense. People are all coming on to help set up as quickly as possible, and I feel that the Cocu company have been doing really well to drive our piece and drive energy into the scenes we are in in the third piece.

[amylogbook]

Opening night

The show began unfortunately late due to overrunning plotting on the set, so there was a lot of pressure on us to put out an entertaining show that was worth the wait the audience had to hold on for. In our piece I feel that our transitions were on point and everyone seemed confidant in what they were doing, and I felt very familiar with what I had to do, and I think we all managed to stay in character throughout the transitions. The cues were a bit off though, and in Act 3 sc 1 Mike forgot his line so I had to cover, and like the other day it made it look as though I was late, so I spoke to him about itt but I will make sure I'm always on standby in that moment to fill in if necessary. I think the diction in our piece could have been better, and before the show we didn't really have the time to do a thorough vocal warm up, so for tomorrow's performance we will have tp either do a warm up as a company, or take responsibility for preparing ourselves. A few technical errors brought the piece down a bit as well, for example sometimes voices couldn't be heard by the band and in the Memnon scene it took a little while for his mic to be turned on. The ensemble moments went quite smoothly and I felt that everyone was giving out a good energy which bounced around the stage, and it felt like a fun performance, except it did seem to drag a bit. We completed our piece in 40 minutes, so I'm not sure if cuts will need to be made, or we just need to up the pace.

When we were joining ni the third play for the dance, things went a bit tits up and because the music was slightly different we all endedup just having to go for it and cover up the fact that we didn't know what was going on. The scene after where Ubu is taken away was a bit of a challenge for the Cocu company because we didn't even know we'd be in this part, and we hadn't worked it at all so we literally just had to improvise our reactions and pay attention to the rest of the ensemble.

I think for the first night we did well so drive through the piece with the energy we did, and first nights are bound to have errors so it was inevitable that it wouldn't be perfect. The company and the directoors are all in this together though and I trust that tomorrow we will address any issues that need to be sorted.

[amylogbook]

15-19 June

Production week began this week, but unfortunately we only had a short amount of time actually on the set so by the end of the week we still hadn't managed to block and plor the entire piece on the set. I felt that the atmosphere this week seemed a bit too relaxed and lacked a sense of urgency despite the fact that we have a show next week, and a lot of people were just sitting around waiting for directors, but I did get my group to work a bit of stuff so we were actually putting ourselves in a productive mood. I know people are worrying because we haven't managed to put it together completely yet and there are still moments that need a lot of polishing. Lots of cuts were made this week because bits either weren't working, or were dragging out the piece. Despite the negetivity this week, however, the piece actually is starting to come together pretty well and we are a lot clearer and more confidant with the transitions having worked them repeatedly. 

Strengths

-Actively trying to motivate my peers and encourage some creative enthusiasm

-Being confidant with the blocking of the piece and knowing where I'm meant to be, where I'm meant to be entering from, etc.

Weakneses

-Misinterpreting directors notes causing directors to lose patience with me.

-Lacking spacial awareness

-Not having lead the company through a warm up, still!

[amylogbook]

8-12 June

After a botchy end to last week, the company really seemed to have upped the energy and the focus and rate of productivity was far better than last week. We got to do some work with the other Ubu companies on a dance moment for a ballroom scene in the third play, and we also worked a ship moment using ideas we came up with in groups including all company members. The blues managed to do some work with Ruth on some of our scenes and she helped us to tighten them and clean them up, which helped us a lot and gave us some guidence as to how we could work or adapt that scene when the directors aren't around.

We managed a full run of the piece this week, and have been working ahead of schedule so we're in a good place at the moment, despite the bad end to the week last week. I think people took being sent home as a wake-up call, as people in the company need to realise how hard it is to work with people when not everyone's fully committe to what we're doing.

Strengths and weeknesses

Strengths

-I did well to pick up the dance quickly, which allowed me to work my character when rehearsing. 

I've picked up my lines and am familiar with the routines we've been practicing, meaning that I'm aways ready to move on.

Weaknesses

-I think we need to work more on developing our character relationships as a group as there isn't much of a sense of heiarchy amongst us, and there isn't much clarity to what our relationship is.

-I've been finding it hard to interpret some of the director's notes at times making myself appear slow and not in the moment

[amylogbook]

3-7 june

This week started off really well for me. We recieved casting which I was happy with, and I agree that all the actors are appropriate for the roles they've been given. I really enjoyed exploring my character as a feisty, fight loving blue Palcontent, and I have had the opportunity to work with company members I haven't worked with much before. I also learnt some new skills with Japanese fighting sticks which could potentially come in useful for the piece. I think the Blue Palcontents achieved quite a bit this week as we managed to demostrate our skills to each other and incorporate them into routines with lifts and cool stuff going on, and we worked some scenes with dialogue and made them into physical moments with little help from the directors. However, focus was majorly lacking this week and as a company we didn't really get much done when the directors weren't around, or finding stuff to do. I feel like I could have done more to have driven the company to work stuff together, and sometimes we did play games to get ourselves focused, but nothing really productive. The week ended on a low when on Friday Ruth was not impressed by the way we had behaved and the fact that the unfocused energy lead to props being broken, time being wasted, and she didn't think we were in the right state of mind to do a run of act 3, so we were sent away early. She was right to do so because I agreed that there was too much energy being wasted in the space, and people were being too distruptive and it was not a creative environment.

Strengths and weaknesses

-I found my character development coming along really well throughout the week, and I was really letting myself go and being adventurous.

-I didn't hesitate to try out any suggestions when we were working physical routines for our piece, and I always took risks.

-The blues got on independantly with the work we thought we should do when we were told to do it, and we worked with enthusiasm and to a high standard, and everyone was showing ocmmitment.

-A weakness was that sometimes when the directors weren't around, people would waste energy messing about and this prevented people from using the space for creative/researsal purposes, particularly after lunch when everyone is on a sugar rush.

-I don't think I did enough to encourage people to work stuff and rehearse. I think I need to make my voice heard in the company more and not just leave it to the louder people.

[amylogbook]

28-31st may

This week was really productive as we managed to achieve a lot as a company, and in our smaller production company we made a lot of progress with little help from the directors. We were all assigned the task to create a performance for a part of Ubu Cocu, and as a company we all worked together to create an original, absurd, fun, dark piece to show to the directors and musicians. Our company had even built a den as part of our set, and did all our own lighting using lamps. I think that exploring Rebontier as my child character was really beneficial as I learnt things about my child character such as how much she loves to dress up, and I remember when I was younger I would take my dressing up so seriously and nobody could get me out of the clothes until I said that I wanted to, and as long as I was in those clothes, and I'd really play up to who or what I was pretending to be. Playing like this also helped me find different layers to Rebontier's character: as well as having the level where he is  an angry rentier, he also has lapses where the child character comes through in moments where he is genuinely scared or confused,

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

I think I did well to let myself go when it came to developing my character and ignoring inhibition when it came to expanding his personaiity.

-We worked well as a team in our production companies and got things done efficiently by focusing on our priorities and keeping each other up to date with what we worked when we went off seperately.

-I did well to develop my stilts skills enough for them to be used in the piece.

-A weakness was that sometimes the enthusiasm in the company seemed a bit low, but we didn't let it drag us down, and we always made sure we just got on with it.

-In the company not everyone was off book by the day before the showing. This was a bit of a pain because lines would have to be checked in the middle of scenes, distrupting the flow of the run.

[amylogbook]

20-23 May

This week we managed to evaluate all of what we did last week and take what we learnt into a new mini process which we began this week, which involves looking at and creating an adaption/performance of an act in Ubu Cocu. I feel like we have made good progress as a company this week as we are approaching our actual play closer and closer each week, so we're gradually easing ourselves into it. In our production companies we have made a good start, already having casted the piece and discussed how we could stage certain things, and at random I suggested to my company that we build a den, which we did, and once that was created it inspired us to create a scene with one of the Palcontents hiding on top of the den and giving his friends a fright when he jumps out at them.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

-I experimented with different toys such as skates and stilts, and worked on developing my own skills so I have more options to play with if I want to use anything like those in the piece.

-People have commented that I seem to have 'come out of my shell' a lot more and seem less inhibited to use my vocal range and adapt my voice to a heightened one to suit my character

-I have been taking responsibility to make sure I understand everything we're doing and sorting out any misunderstandings when it comes to works in the text and words I don't know.

-A weakness has been that I havev still been refraining from leading a company warm up. I really want to have the courage to do one before the year is finished, but I can't help worrying that I will be boring or people won't want to follow. I need to start not allowing myself to decide that I'm going to do one badly because I've been doing a vocal warm up every day for the last 2 years.

-I have been suffering from creative block a lot of the time and am still struggling to think outside of the box when it comes to coming up with ideas. I think for next week I shall set myself a target to try and not think things through too much and trust the randomness I know I can come up with, but just convince myself isn't good enough.

[amylogbook]

Weekly 29-3rd may

What I got out of this week was the ability to absorb myself into the playful, imaginative mindset of a child, and feeling free and developing a playful nature with the company. We haven’t delved straight into the play, and there is a vibe of impatience in the company, however I can see how it could possibly make sense to get us thinking in a certain way as I’ve heard about how wack the Ubu plays are. We’ve been playing childish games and finding the competetive nature of children and how they take things so seriously, and always wanting to win. We’ve also looked at some historical, political, social and economical contextual aspect of the piece to give us an idea of what life was like for people and what was going on around the time the play was written to to fuel our ideas and educate ourselves so we can have an idea what is going on in the piece.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

I feel that my strengths this week have been good research skills and sharing my research with the people I’m working with to fuel our work and give us a starting point/stimulus for tasks we had to do, such as a research presentation performance where we devised a childlike piece through which we could share our findings. I think I’ve been doing well to drive my peers and drive the work we are doing, and I think I have been good at encouraging my peers to get up on their feet and do more rather than talk about what we’re going to do.

I have found myself particularly enthusiastic this week, probably because after seeing Life of Brian and knowing that was the type of humour we would be aiming for, and knowing that it will be very political and chaotic made me want to make the most out of this process .

I think I am beginning to find a bit more of a voice in my company now that I feel like I can bring more to the floor and try to inspire others to make work around topics, such as political and cultural concepts that I know people find very boring.

My main weakness I’ve noticed this week is my lack of creativity and thinking outside of the box, as when it came to putting together the performance I felt like I was being quite literal with expressing my findings.

[amylogbook]

come on people!

I was surprised at the lack of atmosphere in the working space today seeing as the show goes out tomorrow. Members of the company seemed really unenthusiastic about the piece and getting it up on its' feet and the atmosphere really was quite Monday morning. We didn't have the auditorium because other companies were in there, but we ran the piece with an energy that felt really forced and draining and the lack of excitement was really infectios. I should have tried not to let it effedt me, but despite trying I failed to encourage enthusiasm. We worked some new blocking, and created a forest out of people, as well as a moving forest giving the illusion of travelling when Acras and Rebontier are  getting away from the cobblers. We also got some notes about reacting more to the action especially during action scenes, like fight scenes. We also reworked Matt getting his hair set on fire and changed the person in charge, because Mike wasn't being very careful with Matt and couldn't be trusted, so we worked a moment where Sophie does it but before she does so she shouts and asks if she should burn him, and the Palcontents respond, and then we laugh and then go silent so we can here the punchline. 

[amylogbook]

caffiene wired

After 12 hours of long hard work due to absense of a lot of the technical company, we finally managed to get the basic plotting and blocking done on the set for the whole play. I was a straining experience due to the physical nature of the piece, but we managed to get through it by supporting each other, knowing that we were all struggling to maintain patience, and knowing that we were all in the same boat and were sharing the hard work with others, including the technical team, whose show it is as much as ours. Tempers were often raised but a good level of commitment and focus were both present throughout the day. I know I sometimes have difficulty staying focused when I've been working on the same thing over and over, but this is something I need to overcome as is is always going to have to be done to allow the tech team to do their bit to make the best of our show. I think my next step should be to try and get through a day like this with stamina and not caffiene wired.

[amylogbook]

plodding along

Yesterday's low energy seemed to have doomed today as the focus was still a bit airy today, resulting in less being achieved than we could have. I tried to motivate my group of blues to get some stuff done, but whenever I suggested to work a moment I was just told that we could work it later. We did run the dance a lot as a company though, and in the morning we ran it and worked the bit after the dance where Ubu enters and has food which he's throwing at us, and there is a moment where he gets carried away. We did some more work on the ship as well and incorporating a song and some sound into it, which I think if done with commitment, will be a beautifully haunting image to leave the audience with at the end of the piece.

We vaguely marked the blocking and transitions throughout the piece that we would be plotting in the set so we could work with ease when it comes to it tomorrow. I feel like I am a lot more involved in the piece than I thought , which means I have to be fully on it all the time because being out of time could distrupt the flow of the piece as the blocking has all been planned out and marked, and I wouldn't want to be the cause of any hold up. 

[amylogbook]

We finally began plotting today, and I was hoping that because as a company we have been working ahead of schedule throughout this process, that we would get through more than half of the play in the 4 hours that we had on the set. Unfortunately we only managed to get to a point in Act 2 by the time it was two o'clock which was disappointing as we had spent a lot of time working hard this morning, having to redo the same things again and again, and waiting for the technical things to be sorted out, however I knew that they were working as fast as they could to make our show good, so I cannot complain. I found it hard to keep up with my focus when there were so many things going on at once and so many voices in the room and notes being given that Bronagh started getting impatient with me, and I am trying to work on my focal skills and not being sensitive to what's going on around me when I need to concentrate on something. I also found myself getting a bit slow and confused when it came to moving set and plotting transitions, so I need to try and articulate my confusion more clearly and learn to interpret instructions more efficiantly.

I really love the entrance of the blue Palcontents because we get to jump off the crash mat and rolly polly onto the stage, and I think this is a great way to show the blues' daredevil nature. During the run, there was a lot of energy being wasted due to people messing about and distractig others, people not responding to notes and directors having to repeat themselves and focus being dispersed.

In the afternoon we didn't make much progress, going through what we already had without much energy. I think people were low because we didn't achieve much earlier despite working hard, and everyone  was so exhausted that the energy in the working space was quite flat. We did have one development though, which was the revelation of the pschittapump, which we wanted to make a big comical moment out of. Before it is revealed, the conscience falls on Pa Ubu so Ubu sends him into the 'pooper'. We worked Craig and Mike carrying Jack off, and when  Andie reveals the pschittapump we all chant 'sacrafice' holding our noses  which I think works well for a childish reaction. The trouble was  that it looked and sounded a bit mess and again lacked energy

[amylogbook]

one week to go

We began today warming up as an entire company including the other Ubu groups again, however I didn't think this warm us set us up for the day as well as it could have because people were unfocused and chatting, and I didn't feel that the warm up was challenging enough to really work our vocal chords and resonance and I didn't really feel ready to use my voice as best as I could after it was finished, and when we went into performing our scene in front of the first years I felt like I was straining my voice a bit. physically, however, I felt that what we showed to the first years was strong and I felt that everyone in the scene, myself included was committed to the fight, and there was also a bit of competetiveness to be better than what the first years had just shown us!

The first years showed us their race scene from Ubu Roi. They showed good commitment, though I would like to see Harriet owning the stage more as Pa, and the ensemble making bigger slow motion moves. The slow motion could have been far more heightened and have more of a moment made of it, and despite the physical commitment a lot of the actors had, by some of their faces I didn't really believe that anything was at stake, rather they were just doing as they had been directed and were trying to do it well. I was really drawn to Kandiss as she was really showing her character's coimmitment to the race. Some of the first years need to pick up on their diction and articulate further because sometimes I wasn't hearing bits of dialogue and then couldn't find it funny because I couldn't hear everything or any of the jokes/punchlines.

I think tomorrow we should ensure we do a more thorough warm up because it seemed that due to lack of focus in the warm up, the day was infected with little focused and an unsettled company.

In the afternoon we ran our piece in the studio. We'd managed to knock off a whoppingTWO MINUTES off of it, bringing it down to 40 mins. The run itself was a bit messy and brought to light the fact that some of the company weren't 100% certain on all the blocking, and  there people having to run and get props which hadn't been preset which looked scruffy and disrupted the run. Cue lines were missed in the blue's scenes which lead to awkward pauses and I had to fill in with Mike's like which he'd forgotten, and made it look like I was late with my line which was a bit annoying.

Ruth wanted us Palcontents to appear to be more playful when we are first introduced, so we played with approaching Acras as though playing a game of 'Grandmother's footsteps', and we had a go at playing it for real so we could get a sense of what we should do and be familiar with the intention. We incorporated it into the piece and it worked really well. We also reworked some of the physical moments in the end of Act One where the Palcontents are revealed and taunt Acras, and Ruth and Bronagh got us to incorporate Acras more into our routines so it looks like we are bullying him more like kids, and there are moments where he is being used as a puppet, taunted, tormented, etc. We also worked a moment where he is lifted and taken off to be impaled. I think we need to commit to our intention which is to be pure menaces more than anything because at the moment I feel that some of us, including myself, are not exploring our reckless nature enough.