Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Characterisation
The Crucible
In lesson we focused on the characters John and Elizabeth Proctor and their relationship. We
also looked at the development of characters roles and how our facial expressions and body
language could change the character. We focused on different Stanislavski techniques to prepare
actors to take on roles. In the warm-up we did an exercise called ³Point and Express´. In this
exercise, someone would call a character¶s name and point at someone. The person she pointed
would then have to act like that character and say a line that, that character would say. We found
this hard because we didn¶t fully understand the character and we didn¶t know who he/she was
talking to. Stanislavski believed to truly play a character unless lived the life of the character
(Given Circumstances, Magic if). We explored characterisation in the ³The Crucible´ by getting
into groups of two and looking over a conversation with John Proctor and Elizabeth in act 4. We
then used Stanislavski techniques such as magic if, emotional memory and given circumstances.
With these techniques we changed the circumstances to different times and settings such as when
they first met, 2 years, 5 years and 10 years down the line and at parents evening and at a party.
When we rehearsed the first scenario, I realised that my character (John Proctor) had true
feelings for his wife. When we done it 2 years later I realised that the relationship was
unintentionally falling apart because of the stress from John¶s Work. By doing this we found out
more about our characters history therefore we knew more about the characters and had better
idea of there feelings they had. This made it easier to play the character effectively.
I found it much easier to play my character after I had done the different activities as it gave me
more control over my character.
The Crucible
In this section we only focussed on spoken word. We focused on what the characters say,
punctuation, rhetoric, repetition, hesitations, sentence structure and ungrammatical
phrases/sentences.
The lesson we took a passage from the play, ³The Crucible´ and acted it out while using the
different language techniques. Below there is a list of the different techniques.
Old Fashioned Formality The type of dialogue used according to
what time it is set. E.g. Aye, Goody,
Thee, Thy
Convention of Time All the things that would be going on in
that time. E.g. bowing, positioning of
women sitting.
Dialect The type of accent or phrases used,
according to when play is set. E.g.
Mom, Dude
Stage Directions This would give the character
motivation to speak and move.
Grammatical usage Type of punctuation used according to
character. E.g. commas might be used a
lot for a nervous character
Therapeutic purpose The idea that the actor must have a
purpose in order to have motivation.
Supernatural language E.g. Spirits, witches
Religious Language
We first read through the text while only using some of the techniques, we then later explored it
physically whilst using more techniques. I found it difficult to do this because when I tried to use
all the techniques, I couldn¶t fulfil the techniques to there full potential. I also found myself
forgetting them whilst acting it out. The Grammatical usage In Giles Corey speech revealed
information about his character, ³I¶ve not said a word. No one here can testify I¶ve said a word.
Is she going to fly again? I hear she flies.´ In the quote he uses short sentences; this tells us that
he is nervous and possibly excited. This helped us when performing.
At the end my class and I were asked to place the techniques in order of how important they are.
We found this hard as we soon realised that the techniques were equally important.
In this lesson I learnt that the techniques used are all equal. Stanislavski believed that to play a
character you would have to become the character. I learnt that these techniques helped me to
become my character. I also learnt how hard it was to properly act the Stanislavski way, as there
are many techniques.
In this Section We Focused on Non-verbal communication. This refers to any form of action on
stage which conveys meaning to an audience. We focused on body language, facial expression,
gesture, movement, mime, tableaux and physical theatre.
The Crucible
In this lesson we focused on the relationship between Proctor and Abigail. We first familiarised
our selves with a conversation they had in Act 1. We then debated about with our partner what
there subtext was. Subtext is the unspoken thoughts and motives of your characters (what they
really think and believe). It was interesting to see how subtext can be interpreted in so many
different ways. An example of this is when Proctor says, ³Abbey, that¶s a wild thing to say´, this
could be interpreted that he thinks on it as unreal, or he could actually like it and see it as some
sort of game. This was important to Stanislavski because he thought that when people act
without using subtext, its the same as jus reading a book; he said. This reiterated the importance
that subtext played in the Stanislavski System. We then did the same thing with another scene
with the conversation between Proctor and Elizabeth but focused more on the proxemics and
body language. When one grouped performed, the wife kept trying to make physical contact but
Proctor didn¶t seem to be interested. This Portrayed to the audience that Elizabeth was trying to
sustain the marriage and Proctor wasn¶t. Another group portrayed the same thing but instead of
Elizabeth making physical contact, she was constantly fiddling with her fingers, implying to the
audience she was nervous while Proctor just carried on as normal as if he didn¶t care his
marriage was empty. I learnt that Subtext is an important part of Stanislavski system because it
shows what the character is feeling without saying it, which might have given of more emotion.
Vocal awareness
In this section we focussed on applying our voice to our work on texts. We focused on how our
voice relates to the characters background/ education/ experiences, the situations the character is
in, the style of the play and the character¶s objectives. The following elements are important in
finding a character¶s voice: pitch, range, pace, pause, tone, volume and articulation.
The Crucible
In this lesson, we started of by doing a Stanislavski exercise called circle of attention. This is
when someone sits in the centre reading lines while the rest try to distract them by shouting at
them. Stanislavski done this, so the person completely becomes the character, therefore not being
distracted. We were asked to choose a character and write about the characters background/
education/ experiences, the situations the character is in, the style of the play and the character¶s
objectives. We were then debated on how these elements could affect the characters pitch, pace,
use of pauses, tone, volume and articulation. From this I decided that Proctor voice sound proud
and higher than others as he is very proud of his name but in certain situations sound bored as he
had an affair current wife because of empty marriage. After this activity, we acted out a scene
with the chosen character. We as a class acted the characters much better as we had a better
understanding of the character.
In lesson we made a play which described Grusha¶s journey in scene three. For visual we were
given masks, Placards and Costumes to create an atmosphere for the actors and audience. The
masks hid the iron shirts faces from the audience, this kept the audience from seeing the facial
expressions (which were scary) towards Grusha. In turn this made the audience feel less emotion
for Grusha. The Placards were used to describe the different places and state the obvious which
created humour; this made the concentrate less on the emotion which was Brecht¶s aim. To help
us make the scene we were given Bamboo sticks. This was easy to move which meant that after
we finished using it for one scene we could easily move it. For aural we made a sounscape to
describe to the audience what Grusha must of heard when wondering through the woods. We
used sounds such as her heart beating, iron shirts coming (chair clashing on floor), wind and
weather (whistling) and chaos behind crossing the bridge (humming). The sound scape got
louder and faster until it ended suddenly, this created an atmosphere which made the audience
feel part of the actual performance as if they were actors themselves. For spatial we split the
stage into three to represent Grushas journey. This made it clear for the audience to see where
she was at each time.
I learnt that how a small movement of staging or character could change the meaning of the
scene
I don¶t think that our soundscape was good as we only had three people doing. I think to make it
more effective, I would have to have more people doing it to make it sound more authentic.
The Crucible
This lesson was similar to the last but we focused more on visual. We were given the task to act
out act2 from The Crucible where Elizabeth is taken. We were split into two groups; one had to
act it out in modern times, and the other, where it was set. This was to see if the audience had a
different reaction to the situation. We were given props and had to specifically choose them the
character we were playing. I was playing proctor and I chose a hat which helped me to show the
audience that I was superior in the house. We were also given stage blocks which we used to
create a fire place and a mantle piece. This helped create a feel for the audience.
Unfortunately our performance did not work as it was not naturalistic enough because we over
done it. But as an actor, I felt more my character when with the props.
Cultural, Political, Historical and Socially
The Crucible
Cultural
Political
Social