Acid Tests, Commedia and more…

On Monday the 3^rd of December, we began with Stanislavski’s relaxation exercise. As hinted in the name, the point of this is to relax your entire body in preparation for ensemble work. Lydia took charge as she did this in GCSE and read out the instructions in a calm, relaxing voice while we lay down on the ground and followed. This was a great exercise to do on Monday afternoon as we were all starting to get a bit headachy. So, cool and collected, we proceeded in our practical exercise, which was a development of Abby’s masterclass on slow motion movement. We only did one exercise, but it took us about 15 minutes. It was called “The Slow Motion Race”. AS it says in the name, it was a race in slow motion, but with a twist. The winner was the person to arrive last. This demanded extreme concentration as no-one was allowed to stop moving. At first, I started confidently but that quickly changed when I saw that I was going faster than the others. I then spent an excruciating 13 minutes completely slowing myself down, which was a lot harder than I thought. We finished the lesson when Mr Fearnehough handed our commentary/analyses and our Pavis Questionnaires.  

On Wednesday the 5^th of December, Mr Fearnehough was absent so he set us some work to do. This was our official introduction to Commedia Dell’arte. He split us up into three groups to prepare some presentations. I was paired up with Mary and we worked on the conventions of Commedia, modern day Commedia and different types of Lazzi.

On Thursday the 6^th of December, we gave in and presented our acid tests. Abby, and Bekki did theirs on “Oh the Humanity”; Mary did hers on “The Container”, Lydia’s was on “One Man, Two Guvnors” and mine was on “Damned by Despair”. Internet research told me that fear can be smelled and the endorphins it releases are present in the sweat you get when you’re scared. So I talked some cotton wool under my shirt and proceeded to watch two really scary movies. Unfortunately, the smell of paint from my acid test meant that it was a futile gesture, but a gesture it remained nonetheless. We then sat down and talked about what we were going to do next in theatre. Mr Fearnehough unveiled his master plan and told us we would be staging a Commedia play as an ensemble. I’m really excited but also very nervous, having never done anything of the like before.