Finishing up on Commedia!

Monday 18th March

As Mr Fearnehough was absent, we set to work on improving our play. After receiving feedback on it in the previous week, we tried cutting it down by getting rid of the parts that we didn't like. This made me realise that a lot of the things that we though were hilarious turned out, well... NOT hilarious. We also improved some scenes, particulalrly the love scenes. We gave the lovers more text and cut out the zanni, which enabled Abby and Mary to be more concentrated and more "in love". It was important that the lovers get their say as they are the main characters and they have to show the audience that they're in love, which is incredibly important.

Wednesday 20th March

On Wednesday, we did two warm-ups. One was the slow-motion race, which we had already done. This got us all really focused and concentrated. However, the following warm-up was unlike any I have ever done. Its premise is simple. In pairs, you count to ten. One counts the even numbers, the other the odd numbers. Simple, right? OH HELL NO! that was hard, as we had to stare at each other and try and keep count, which is a lot easier said than done. But wait, there's more! Every round, a noise or movement was added in replacement of a number. The speed also increased dramatically which required even more concentration. On the last round, we had to slap each other whenever we messed up. This is when I realised that we were basically acting like clowns do, by taking every mundane task and making it the most serious thing in a row. This taught me that in theatre, everything is very serious and everyone in the ensemble needs to have the concentration (keeping count) and the motivation (not getting slapped) to see it through, even when wwe make mistakes. On the day of the performance, if anyone messes up, we have to keep going and act like nothing has happened.

Thursday 21st March

In this hour we perfectecd our piece by adding the music and rehearsing the play in general. In the music we added, "Eye of the tiger" was put into Mickey and the Zanni's fight scene, "I believe in Miracles" in the "boy meets girl" scene and the jaws theme was added to the cinema scene. Although Jaws wasn't supposed to be in there, I thought  it would be a good idea as it would show that Rose's dad is very angry.