Graded unit

Pa Ubu

During our lesson with Shiena as she introduced to a play Pa Ubu. we all sat down in circle as Shiena gave us a part to read. She gave me Ma Ubu to read and Immediately connected with this character. The play is wacky and different as I never read a play so hectic as I had to read the play a few times at to understand what was happening. However, because the play was so different to others I am eager to learn more about this play.
I felt like there was many unnecessary character in play and instead having 'All' saying the lines together it should just be one as it will make it less childish. Though it was not childish with the mature language I felt that having more then one character speak the same lines brought the play down.

Research
As for my research I wanted a video on youtube on the play to inspire me. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35lf_dc_SRM&t=5043s
this helped as I got to see how I should play Ma Ubu however, I did not portray the character the same as I wanted to make it my own. After watching this clip I understood the play much more as I was not to sure how play Ma Ubu. 

I play Pa Ubu wife and as they are both crazy Ma Ubu is very crafty as she lets Pa Ubu believe he is a manly man, when she knows he is he isn't. As Ma Ubu creates this whole idea about Pa Ubu being king so he can kill they king so she can be queen. 

Problem Solving

It took me a while to get used to my lines and would practice on our breaks with Irenna as she was playing Ma Ubu as well we both fed off each other energy and this really motivated  us. I also had problem when saying "Pa Ubu" I would say "Ma Ubu" instead I did over come this but it took a while.  I have trouble remember lines as I find it hard to see the script in my head and picture the words. To help myself I created moments 1 to 3 on each scene and with two different colour highlighters and focused on what moment I wanted to learn.

What went well?
I am confident on being able to play a characters well and and would say this is a strength of mine, as I can pick up what to do quickly and will let it flow. During rehearsals I would always give 100% even when I didn't know my lines well as I believe this will help. 



 Conclusion

Overall, I think the play went really well everyone stayed in character the whole time and any mistakes everyone just kept going. When rehearing we could not manage to get it on point however, I believe the pressure due to preforming infant of everyone really helped and we got through it all. I do think their could of been more enthusiasm and concentration during rehearsals. 

On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 11:41 AM anastasia pelagias <anastasiapelagiaswkc@gmail.com> wrote:

Immigration

May 03, 2019

1. Who Am I?  The kind of person you are these decisions must be personaised and particularised need to understand and identify yourself with your character until you can believe yourself in the character?

Business man 

My character is a wealthy business man who’s slightly arrogant due to being a container surrounded by what he thinks “lower class” people 

He is chubby man which the others mock him of because of how high maintenance he thinks

2.Where Am I? What kind of place is it? What are colour textur? What kind of future? Why does it mean to be me? What is in the room? How to I feel about them? 

I am in a container inside a lorry

It’s rusty and dirty as the people inside have been sick all over the place 

Everyone is heading towards Europe in hopes of good future 

My character feels that all the refugees in the container are below him , he doesn’t like them and nor does he want to borrow them money in terms of them asking in the plot 

3.When Is It? Time of day? What year? What season? Why now? What has happened in The last?

Nobody knows what time it is , all they see is day and night which makes my character frustrated as he wants to get to the Uk quickly  

4.What do I want it?  This is my action, what I want, need, desire, intend, wish?

Nobody knows what time it is , all they see is day and night which makes my character frustrated as he wants to get to the Uk quickly

5.Why Do I Want It? I must have a good reason for wanting my actions 

My character will get there by riding out in the container in hopes of getting out alive by paying his way out to the driver

Though i was not present due to circumstances i managed to pull through prior 3 days before the perfomance.
the pressure helped me pull through the show which helped me build confidences for more shows for the future.
i made a couple of mistakes yet again improvisation helped me pull through.

On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 11:40 AM anastasia pelagias <anastasiapelagiaswkc@gmail.com> wrote:

The Dumb Waiter

May 03, 2019

Dumb Waiter evaluation 

What is it about ?
A quick summary of the dumb waiter is a farcical, affecting play.
The play by Harold Pinter wrote about two hitmen named Gus , Ben , they are both waiting in a basement for their target to male an appearance. Pinter portrays the characters with two very different personalities which clash but create humour between both hitmen.

Props and Equipment

Whilst performing I had a kettle by my side as a prop to use in a part of my scene ,  I also had a pack of matches to improvise a scene (lighting them up) to suggest sarcasm  and emphasis on lighting a kettle the old fashioned way.
Rehearsals
Prior to the play , during rehearsals Mya and I picked up on the play.
We added a cockney accent to help us feel the measures of the character this helped us get into the motion of playing out Gus and Ben.
Downside on stage I had forgotten my lines.
I improvised on stage to act it out as natural.
I had picked up this method with our mentor Rob who had taught us to play it off by the scene.
The performance had gone really well , because Mya and myself bounced off each other really well throughout the play which help both of us as individual actresses.

Our mentor Rob had gone through the play a couple times to perfect scenes infront of our peers in order to asses what could have been better , a few things pointed out by my classmates where; to be more sarcastically witty as my character is disoriented where as Myas character Gus is more level headed and steady.
music and sound affects
Our play didn’t have music it was more of a silent play , where as the actions spoke more louder then the words itself , this is a good technique as an actress it creates more facials expressions.
Mandy’s lessons
Mandy helped us motion into character helping us balance out our expressions and movement sessions.
Facial expressions to portray someone who’s “dumb” or confused pretty much throughout. 

On Mon, Jul 1, 2019 at 11:39 AM anastasia pelagias <anastasiapelagiaswkc@gmail.com> wrote:

September 21, 2018

For my introductory lesson which was led by Rob, we had an engaging ice-breaker which specifically allowed me to get to know the people I was going to be working with throughout my course. I strongly believe team chemistry plays a huge part in Performing Arts and this lessson enabled that key factor which would also allow us to lead to great accomplishments and success.   We began by getting into partners; I partnered up with Kamilie and we had to construct an improvised piece based on the lines given to us which were "Excuse me...". 

Level 2 "Identity" Evaluation on performances;

Throughout the production, I believe we all felt anxious about performing all together in front of a audience; nevertheless for our first performance I am convinced we did extremely well. 

I started off with the opening line and projected my voice loud and clear giving the audience eye contact so they felt engaged. The performance Dani, Altin, Ellie and myself came up with was about was a family breaking up because the husband was having an affair with another woman but would not admit to it. This lead to an big argument between the pair which caused the husband to leave and the wife with an emotional breakdown. The next scene involved the children getting told that they had to be sent away which left the children to feel anger and confusion.

Over the past five weeks I believe that I have built more confidence and further communication skills. At the beginning, I felt I was quite shy infront of everyone however as we all got to know eachother day by day it was easy for me to come out of my shell. When speaking in front of my class and recieving feedback about the play we conducted and how I performed, I was told I had gained more confidence and had extremly good use of eye-contact. When rehearsing with Altin for the first couple times, we both felt uncomfortable if the class may be looking and laughing at us, however, we both got used to it and towards the end of the performance I believe we both really put ourselves into the character's shoes. 

Identity Play;

What was my scene about?

• I had paired up with my acting partner Altin to play out a scene. 
• Our scene was based on an argument between two couples

The plot 

• A back and forth argument about cheating, coming home late, miscommunication.
• The character (more so the female) was concerned about her husband coming home at late times and had assumed he had been cheating due to her spotting a name on his hand.
• The husband grows to become angry and fustrated with thw wife as his excuse was that he had been working over-shifts in order to benefit his wife and their kids. 

The twins 

• Both children become bewildered and startled in why their parents had been arguing.
• They also decide to side with their mother as they see their father leave the house.

Ending

• The father leaves the house, abonding the mother with the twins
• They silently reflect on what had happened, which can be seen by their facial expressions and the stage light gradually dims out. 

Lighting and Sound 

• There was no music involved but we decided to utilise the lighting here wasn’t any music but lighting had changed over a couple times to suggest when the scene was changing over. 
• It built up emotions 

My character 

• I had to play an insecure character who had problems in trusting. In order to do that, I had to watch a few scenes on YouTube to get a grap on how it would feel like to argue with a spouse. I then put my self into their shoes and practiced solely which allowed me gain the confidence to  do it within my group. 
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vGLS6kwIzA