Lesson 4

In today's rehearsal we focused on being playful and taking risks. One thing that my partner and I did was try to make each other mad. My partner tried to get me worked up because in our scene Konstantin is on the verge of a mental breakdown because he doesn't think his mother loves him. On top of that he is unsure of whether he will be putting on a show if his love -Nina, doesn't show up soon because she's also the star in his play and it's due to start soon. My character is very dubious and unsure of his importance in society and so because of this, my partner playing Sorin, tried to get me worked up by shoving me whilst I was delivering my lines. This was almost a physicalized version of my emotions. It was as though, every word I said had an effect that got me down but I also got annoyed at the same time which allowed me to access a different vocal range that expressed different emotions. This exercise really allowed me to tap in with what Stanislavski wanted his actors to access and as I result I responded to my stimulus accordingly and purely from instinct.

In contrary, I had to take into consideration the fact that Sorin was boring me with long philosophical responses that sounded intellectual but didn't help my character at all. I also got quite fed up with some of his responses (e.g 'Your Mother adores you') because my character was so wrapped up with different ideologies that what Sorin was saying just seemed like lies. Nonetheless, Konstantin loves Sorin most (well apart from Nina) because he's one of two that has faith in him and his performance. This is shown in Sorin allowing him to put a show on in his theatre. Because of given circumstances like this, I can't allow Konstantin to lash out at Sorin because he'd do nothing to hurt his Uncle. In fact, he respects his uncle and so has to act in a certain way (especially during the time of the play and the way in which people had to present themselves and respect their older under all circumstances).