Be sure of what you want...

As of late I have been wondering what my best options are for work and education and whether I made the right choices at school and college. Then I thought about the system we had to go through...UCAS

To apply for college or university, you have to apply before Christmas if you want to get in for the following September. This is fine for people who know exactly what they want to do, but for people like me who aren't really sure, this was a bit pushy.

I picked A levels at college rather than the BTEC I wanted to do in Music because I thought it would give me a better chance at getting into uni and give me a wider range of subjects to explore. To be honest, I regret this now. I absolutely adored my A levels and they were good learning curves, but now I am at university, doing something different to what I originally wanted to do, I am unhappy. My course isn't what I expected; when I applied for this course, they said there would be a lot of practical work - there really isn't. Also, even though I love acting, I cannot see myself teaching drama at school. I still want to be a teacher, but in music, my first love.

Now this has left me with a terribly difficult situation: do I leave university and go back to college doing what I wanted to do in the first place, or finish university, then go on to do a music course and do what I wanted to do before?

I have decided that my decision is to leave university early and go back to college, but only if I am successful in my application process for college. Personally, I do not see the point in finishing something I am unhappy with if I have the chance to change it. If I'm not successful in enrolling at college, I will continue my course at university because that seems the more sensible option instead of getting a full time job; at least then I will have a degree under my belt.

If anything good is to come out of my experiences is that I know now what I would rather do for the rest of my life instead of being stuck in a job I don't like. Also, I can tell others of my experiences and it may help those to really think about their options at college and university. If you want to do a certain subject, do it! No matter what anyone says or anyone thinks, do it! You'll only regret not doing it later.

Phenomenology (pt.2)

Trying to understand phenomenology is hard! This is why I wanted to this blog post in two halves. This analytical approach isn't something you should try to do on it's own, it is better to use this approach to push your analysis into another analytical approach, such as semiotics. 

To understand this approach, you must learn how to use it. If you are analysing an object onstage, you must look at how you react to it, without using many adjectives...

...yeah, I know!

Generally, if you eat a lemon, you would say it is 'sour' or 'bitter', but this wouldn't be a entirely phenomenological approach. You could say, however, how you reacted to the tasting of the lemon, even if you just make a noise. The next challenge is to transform this reaction into language, as close as you possibly can to the real reaction. Avoid using adjectives as these are only signifiers to your emotions or reactions, rather than the correct way to describe this. 

If you are to write about an object and your phenomenological approach to it, you would describe how you felt around it, what it feels like in weight, texture, the smell of it, the taste of it, everything to do with your senses that you instinctively react with. 

There is no right or wrong answer to your own phenomenological approach and this makes it difficult to be of use to other people around you that read your phenomenological analysis of a performance, however, it is very useful in conjunction with other analytical approaches. Finding how you react to something, then getting into the nitty gritty of what this means and the semiotic approach to it is a far more effective way of analysing a performance. Nevertheless, you shouldn't dismiss phenomenology, but don't get too bogged down into the meaning of it.

I could go on and on about how to write about the phenomenological approach to something, but I find that all research on phenomenology is very repetitive. In a sentence, phenomenology is the build up to a very effective analysis of a performance, and can be used in conjunction with other analytical approaches.

I know this is a very hard subject, and it can relate to many other industries and subjects of interest, but it is very hard to discuss this without over-complicating. If you have any questions at all, please leave a comment, email me at sophiimaria@gmail.com or tweet me (@SophiiMaria), and I will try to answer your question as much as I can; after all I am here to help you understand! If you have any examples of this, please leave a comment or if you just want to say hi! again, please leave a comment. 

:D

The importance of knowing your script!

Now I know a lot of drama students (and professional actors) hate performing Shakespearean texts because of the flowery, poetic language that is sometimes difficult to understand, but for the few of us that adore Shakespeare (like myself!), the language is just something to get our teeth stuck into. 

I have just come back from a mini rehearsal with my duologue partner and I could not rave about the importance of knowing your text more than what I'm about to! We are doing Act 3 Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet (where the Nurse tells Juliet of Romeo's banishment and Tybalt's death) and we didn't know what the hell Shakespeare was on about when we read through it a couple of times. Then we thought, right, let's go through it, line by line, and try and decode Shakespeare's language. 

You would not believe how much you do actually understand of Shakespeare's texts! If you go through each line - make sure you are not reading the lines as they appear, but as sentences (so forget about the line break and just take notice of commas, full stops etc.) - you will actually be able to get a jist of what he's saying. For example, "What devil art thou that dost torment me thus?" simply means, "Why are you tormenting me and not telling me the truth?" 

Yes, it takes up a lot of time, but understanding what Shakespeare is saying helps you discover what the characters thoughts and feelings, helping you understand how you should play the scene. 

The next thing you should think about is where there are shifts in thought/emotions/goals. Where are the cues that tell you when to change emotions and physical memories? Go through the lines again and mark where these are! All the time you should be reading this over and over, making sure you make sense of what is being said and what your emotive memory should be picking up on so you can successfully portray the emotions needed for the piece! 

Even when you've done this for one scene, or only your scenes in the play, you MUST go through the rest of the play and create character profiles. Character profiles are a collaboration of every single detail about your character. Go through the play and write down all the things that have been said about your character, all the things that your character has said about themselves, and all the things that your character says about other people. 

Once this is done, collect all the given circumstances. These are all the details that are given to you in the text about the scenes, the places, the staging, the characters etc. Everything that is written is a detail about something. Character profiles help with this, but still, go through the text grabbing every single detail about the play, whether it's in the dialogue or the stage directions (obviously there are limited stage directions in Shakespeare but this works for any play too). Shakespeare gives a lot of information about the play in the dialogue so pick through EVERYTHING.

I know it's a lot of hard work but STOP BEING LAZY! If you want to successfully play Shakespearean text you have to put the work in! Work out what is being said, interpret the emotions involved (there may be several ways of going around this too so try them all!) and produce your own interpretation of the text. 

If you have any more tips and tricks on playing Shakespeare, please share them in the comments section or email me at the information at the top of the page! Also, let me know of your experiences with Shakespeare or anything else you find interesting in the world of theatre, film and TV.

:D

P.S. If you find on YouTube clips of the BBC's version of Romeo and Juliet, don't watch it, it's not as good as you might think! (I thought it was absolute rubbish because Juliet is a wimp!)

Drama Snobs

I don't know about you but I get really annoyed by those overly confident types that are instantly classed as the "Drama Snob". No, this is not a hate speech about these kinds of actors, but more of a critique of their style of acting.

Like all stereotypes, there is a general list of common behaviours of this kind of person, including: an overconfident personality, the ability to throw themselves in any sort of acting situation, a smiley attitude, ability to take criticism, a good posture and a generalised British accent to name but a few. 

The thing that annoys me most about this sort of person is their acting style. Don't get me wrong, I am so jealous of how much confidence these people have! To be able to be confident in yourself and throw yourself into any situation is fantastic! I wish I could do it! But I'm sorry, to me the way these people act is not realistic enough. In my opinion, theatre and film should be as realistic as possible (unless you're acting in a genre that doesn't require a lot of realistic acting, i.e. comedy or presenting), but this sort of person has only one or two acting styles that crop up every single time they act. Sometimes, you get the odd person that is just naturally talented and can mould to anything, but this is once every now and again! 

I think this type of actor needs to break out of their habits of being "generally good" at acting. These are the types of people that would benefit hugely from Stanislavskian theory and methodology. If you have the potential for being an amazing actor, why just stick with what you've had since GCSE/A Level Drama? Please boost yourself! Make yourself more realistic because that's what's annoying, the fact that these people are really good, but not realistic enough!

I think it is more important to be realistic in your acting than to be confident. There's nothing worse than watching a performance, whether its TV or film, and cringing at how unrealistic and amaturist the acting is. Again, this is not a hate speech, I'm just stating my opinion. I'll say it again, I am jealous of these people, I just think their acting style could do with a little tweaking! 

If you agree or disagree please leave a comment. I know this will offend a few people but don't take it to heart, I just think some people can do loads better. Let me know what you think!

:D

What the hell is dramaturgy!?!?

Dramaturgy! That one word that sends shivers up the spines of Drama Students. What the hell is it?

I will try and explain as simply as possible...

Dramaturgy is the composition or structure of a play and the process of making theatre. It covers all the elements of the text in hand including: the context of the play, the history of it's adaptations/translations etc.,

Dramaturgy is not a fixed process, it is a development of a play from text to stage. There are many things to think about when considering the dramaturgy of the play: the stage space, the spectator, the live performance text vs. the original text, etc. The list is endless; from scenography to performance style, all this is part of the dramaturgy. 

To create a successful performance analysis, you would have to consider the dramaturgy otherwise you would be creating a review of a performance rather than an analysis. You can analyse the dramaturgy of a performance in terms of the play, which includes the text, context, scenography, acting style, etc. Then you can analyse the dramaturgy of the performance in terms of the spectator, which includes how the audience interprets the play etc. And finally, you can analyse the dramaturgy of the performance in terms of the framing of the play, which includes the space in which the play is produced, the theatre, etc.

Basically, dramaturgy is all the elements of a performance that you can possibly think of and how they contribute to the final performance.