I'm struggling again with timekeeping for my diary, and I was sick for a few days, so I'll write only a short summary of the last three weeks. But to be honest, there's not really a lot to write about, because we didn't do much that's worth mentioning. This doesn't mean we're not working hard, we simply don't do many new things but mostly work on the existing pieces. As the performance is in a couple of weeks time, the teachers have been focusing mainly on the musical pieces rather than on the exam dialogues, but we still have plenty of time to practice our scenes with our partners on our own.
Week 17
This week we mostly focused on the choreographies of the group songs. We did a little bit of everything including both the solo songs and the group stuff. As somebody is always absent and we never have the full cast, it can be quite difficult sometimes to do the rehearsals of the group songs: one day you're standing between two people in a formation, then the next day there's somebody else next to you, which is really confusing. But apart from these difficulties, the whole show is getting better and better.
The Maids
I've finally finished reading the play, which took me surprisingly long. The language of the play is quite difficult to understand, and also the general idea is a little bit absurd and confusing, but it still helped me more to understand what exactly is going on in our exam scene and what sort of character I will be playing. Solange is very dominant, she's almost controlling her sister, but actually she is probably weaker than Claire – for example, she is definitely not brave enough to finish the ritual and murder Madame, in spite of hating her a lot more than her sister does. So she is quite a complex and interesting character.
Week 18
I didn't go to the rehearsal this week, so I used the extra time to work on my analysis of Solange. I did the same thing what I did for Mrs Johnston: writing at least ten fact about the character in first person:
My name is Solange. I work as a maid. I live in my madame's house. I have a younger sister Claire who also works at the same place. I am not very attractive-looking. I am more dominant than my sister, she usually obeys me because she is afraid of me. I love my sister. I hate Madame. I envy her youth and beauty and wealth. I am performing secret rituals with my sister about murdering Madame. I've never managed to finish these rituals, because I'm not brave enough to murder Madame.
Week 19
This week we went through the whole show from the beginning to the end. My solo song is going to be the first one, so my teacher said that is must be as powerful as possible. I hope I'll be able to manage. I got a couple of general advices about moving on stage such as:
* I should try to picturize the lyrics using my hands, body movements, gestures etc.
* when I have to stand still, I have to try to stay completely still without moving with the rhythm of the song
One huge difference between playing in a play and singing in a musical is that you have to use a lot more gestures and move a lot more in general while you're performing a song. When you're acting, you normally don't have walk around that much. Because I haven't had many experience in professional singing before (in this case singing in a church choir doesn't really count as experience, I think, even if it was a professional choir), I still need to get used to this, so I spent pretty much of my free time practicing Let It Go during the last few weeks.
The Maids
Since my partner and I had some time on our own this week, we sat down and discussed the play and I also had enough time to work on the objectives of Solange during the scene. Here they are:
Line 1: wants to play Madame
Line 2: doesn't want to take the apron
Line 3: wants to insult her (as a part of the roleplay)
Line 4: doesn't want the apron, but wants the ritual to be realistic – wants Claire to put out the light
Line 5: wants her to obey
Line 6: wants her to stop saying those things
Line 7: wants to know what she means
Line 8: wants her not to care about Madame
Line 9: wants her to be quiet
Line 10: wants her to take her seriously
Line 11: wants her to continue
Line 12: wants her to feel scared
Line 13: wants her to be scared and ashamed
Line 14: wants her to stop talking about God
Line 15: wants her to calm down
Line 16: wants to perform the ritual and this time eventually finish it
As for Line 16, which is the short monologue, I'm planning to make a more detailed analysis, because that's the part of the scene I'm struggling the most with.
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