Artistic Vision

My artistic vision for our play, “Going Nowhere Apace,” is focused on the analysis of my character. I played Cecilia, a young woman who is most simply defined as Swedish. Besides the fact that she is married and likes to go to the gym, the playwright gives me no information about Cecilia. So it became my job to develop an interesting, three-dimensional person with only limited background knowledge and a short dialogue with Judd to go on.

I needed to create a little bit of a past for Cecilia, because even though the audience never learns these imagined details, they can be helpful to me as an actor. When I “know” about her past experiences and present circumstances, I have a better idea of how she would act in this crazy situation at the gym. So Cecilia is Swedish: not just of Swedish ancestry, but she is a Swedish citizen. She was born and raised in a small town outside of Stockholm, and lived in Sweden until she got married two years before this scene occurs. Her husband is an American businessman who was working in Stockholm, but they moved to the states after their wedding. So although she speaks English well (probably because she studied it in school), she still has a heavy accent. She’s also still adjusting to American lifestyles and social customs. When she meets Judd in the gym, she naively thinks he is merely being friendly. Her thought process is simply that American people must be really chatty when they’re working out! That’s why when Judd asks her out she is flabbergasted. She didn’t see it coming at all because she thought he was just being friendly. However, Cecilia isn’t stupid, and I tried to make sure she didn’t come across that way. She’s smart enough to get out of the uncomfortable situation she has found herself in once she realizes Judd’s real intentions.

The truth that I had to come to terms with is that Cecilia is not really a comedic character. Just because she is Swedish doesn't mean she is supposed to be over the top. During our first rehearsals I played her as larger than life, giving her an outrageous accent – one that any Swede would be offended to hear – and treating her like a cartoon instead of a real person. As we dug deeper into the script, it became clear that Judd is the comic, and the three girls are kind of like his sounding board. We’re not really cracking the jokes; we just act normal so that he looks funny in comparison to us. It makes me think of Abbott and Costello: there has to be a straight man for Costello to be funny. So I tamed Cecilia a little bit. I tried to play her as an average person who just goes to the gym for an afternoon, only to find herself talking to the strangest American man she has ever encountered!

"For colored girls" production

I’m so glad I took time out of my afternoon to go see this production (whose full title is “for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf”). I didn’t really know what to expect, except from what I could gather from the unusual title of the play. The production was loosely structured as a series of monologues, and it included elements of music, dance, and singing. Maybe it was because it was being performed in the lab theatre, but I couldn’t help comparing it to our monodrama performances we did in class. Compared to what I saw today, our monologues were so stiff! Looking back, I know I just sort of stood there while delivering my monologue. But these girls, they weren’t just reading words off a page, they were presenting a piece of their hearts to the audience, if that makes any sense. They moved about the stage so gracefully and naturally. Even though some of the girls had ten-minute or more long monologues, it didn’t feel like I was listening to one person talk non-stop for that long; they were really brilliant at keeping the audience’s attention. But I was so impressed by the amount of passion and depth that those seven actresses brought to the stage. The final monologue performed by Shamiah Palmer’s Lady in Red brought tears to my eyes. I got so lost in what they were saying because there was so much drive behind their words. Also, I liked how the play was performed in such an intimate setting. I feel like some of the connection the audience feels with the characters would have been lost if this were performed on a bigger stage. That being said, this production also deserved a bigger audience.

Dedication to Group Projects

I think our discussion in lab today was a helpful one. We talked about the importance of being committed to our group work, something that we all know already, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded. Though honestly, I am so proud of my company. I think we collaborated really well on our monodrama project and literally every member of the group put forth effort to make it successful. Most of us missed one rehearsal because of other committments or because we forgot, but because we met outside of class so much we could afford that. For this project, we definitely have bigger time constraints and so everyone is going to have to show up every time. But I'm really confident in my company's dedication to the class and, more importantly, to each other. Maybe I'm too optimistic, but I think we're going to manage our final project just fine. Another cool thing happened after the lab dispersed into the two separate companies and our group was talking about who would do what job for the project. I love acting, and so I was hoping that I would be able to act in the scene. But I also knew we needed a director and a couple of designers, so I might not get to act like I wanted. As it turned out, Kat wants to study lighting design so she's our lighting/set designer, Abby loves costumes so she's our costume designer, and Shifra was really pumped to direct the scene! It worked out perfectly; I think everyone ended up with the role they wanted, something that I think will help our group work well together again.

"It's a Bird...It's a Plane...It's Superman!"

This weekend I saw "Superman" at PBK for their final performance. I'm glad I went because it was an entertaining show, but I have to say that overall I was a little disappointed. What the director, designers, and actors did with the play was really good, but I think the script itself was only mediocre. The songs were pretty bland and didn't have very memorable tunes. The performance was funny, but I think it was largely due to the talent and the comedic timing of the actors as opposed to well-written jokes. That being said, the creative team behind the production did an excellent job. I loved the backdrop covered in pictures like those out of a comic book; it made for an exciting first image at the beginning of the show. The bold colors and angular shapes used in the set pieces also enhanced the idea of a cartoony and unrealistic world. The choreography was cute and well executed, but sometimes the actors looked a little bored with it. Now, it's worth noting that I saw the last performance out of six (or was it seven?) shows and it was a matinee, both of which probably contributed to a lack of energy among the performers. But it made me sad that some of the ensemble didn't appear to be enjoying themselves. Overall, the W&M company did a good job with what they had, but I wish, for the sake of the cast and crew, that a better musical had been chosen.

after-performance reflection

Our midterm performance is over. The weeks of work, the several meetings outside of class with my group all came to a climax on Friday morning when we performed our piece. I have to say, I'm really proud of my group. I feel like we presented a well-rehearsed and polished little production that we can honestly say was completely our own work. Besides the occasional guidance from Jason, we put it together entirely on our own, from original scripts to deciding how to stage our monologues to coming up with a plan for costumes, albeit simple: black shirt and jeans. But the simple stuff can go a long way; I think our clothing choices made our performance more unified. As far as ways I could have improved my individual performance, I think I was holding back a little bit. There's no reasonable explanation for it, but looking back, I feel like I could have let myself go even more. My monologue was a pretty emotional piece (it was about my grandmother passing away) and I should have really taken my time with it. Let words sink in. And apparently, or so I've heard, we could have made our pieces a lot longer. It's kind of frustrating that I misunderstood the directions because there were other things I had wanted to say, but I limited myself because of time constraints that didn't actually exist! Oh well. I think I did good work, but of course the monologue could have been improved.

costume design

If a person were playing me in a play, they would be dressed casually. They would definitely be in pants, because I usually only wear skirts or dresses if there’s an occasion for it. Jeans make the most sense, because not only do I wear jeans most of the time, I think they’re reflective of my relaxed personality. As far as the shirt, I think a light blue matches my personality the best (and blue is my favorite color). The shirt would be long sleeved because I always get cold, even when it’s summer! It would be feminine and pretty, but nothing very eye-catching because I find myself wanting to blend in a lot of the time. The shirt would definitely be long enough to cover my stomach because I’m kind of modest with clothing. The material should be soft because I would like to think that have a soft and approachable personality. For shoes: gotta go with the flip flops. You can’t go wrong with those. The only other must have is a hairband. I find myself wearing hairbands all the time because I'm too lazy to make my hair look perfect in the morning.

monodrama update

Today I spent some time editing my monologue for our midterm project. I hadn't changed much of it since the beginning of the process and it was still looking like a first draft. Maybe I hadn't tried to fix it because I figured it was good enough to get me a decent grade. But today I finally sat down and looked at it and I realized it was very stale. There were no glaring errors or anything I could label as particularly "bad," but it was just really flat. My monologue was originally about receiving my acceptance letter from William and Mary in the mail, something you'd think could make for a really exciting monologue. Well, it wasn't. It was pretty boring, and I didn't hear much of my own voice coming through it. So I sat down to edit it today, planning on tweaking things here or there, and I ended up with an entirely different piece! It would take a long time to explain how it got to this point, but now my monologue is about how my grandmother's death this spring affected my family. It's a very different subject I know, and one that's kind of hard for me to talk about, but I feel a lot better about my monologue now. It's genuine, and, cheesy as this sounds, I'm speaking more from the heart. Even if the monologue is a bit of a downer now, I'm glad it says something that matters to me.