Today we did another workshop with Scotty. We worked on breathing techniques, linked with voice usage. I found this very interesting and beneficial, as sometimes I find myself running out of breath on stage, not knowing where to take breaths in soliloquies. We learnt about the diaphragm muscle – the biggest muscle in your body that is right down the middle of you. I will now be more aware of my breathing throughout performances and know to breathe using my diaphragm; I also know not to clench my abdominal muscles when standing, which I usually always do. I feel these tips will help give me a more comfortable performance on stage and it’ll give me the option of focusing more on expression and performance. While it sounds easy, these tips and techniques are actually quite hard to follow, especially when I’ve been in a different habit for 17 years! But with some work I hope I can constructively use them to improve my performance 

Today we continued blocking the scene in which I’m drunk and highly inappropriate. It’s hard to act drunk with a comical aspect while maintaining the underlying emotions. It’s something I need to work on but feel I’m slowly but surely getting the hang of. Scotty.W mentioned something today that stuck out in my mind, in Mon Mon’s soliloquy’s there’s a strong sense of anger and frustration that need to come out. Mon is angry that she settled for an unhappy marriage and unhappy lifestyle, and now it’s almost too late to start over again, get married, settle down and have children. She’s angry that she wasn’t strong enough to get out of the relationship herself and now that its over, it may be too late and she is possibly now living with regret of settling for this lifestyle that she so hated. She’s angry that she wasn’t living for herself but rather for Martin, who she now realizes stole so many good years of her life. She doesn’t know how to deal with these emotions and therefore drinks away her sorrows, but through all this drunken madness she actually comes to many realizations that can’t be left “upstaged” by a drunken performance. She becomes confrontational and makes the firm decision that she is going to live for herself now. This night truly is an emotional rollercoaster and journey for Mon Mon, which I am privileged enough to have the challenging and exciting task of portraying. New aspects of Monika come alive to me every day and I finally feel like I’m strongly developing a character! Look out everyone here comes MON MON!

I officially hate this website! (although it is very good) but it deleted my detailed, long, lovely blog 5 times! So now im typing it on word so I can SAVE it and I’ll copy it onto a blog after, hopefully it’ll allow me to publish it this time! Forgive me if this blog isn’t amazing as it’s the 6th time I’m writing it and am beginning to feel quite frustrated!!
SO, here we go:
Today was an interesting and different day. Firstly, Scott.S spoke to us about acting, using expressive skills such as facial expressions, gait, voice and movement. He referred us to the textbook (page 12) for further information which I look forward to reading. We then did some workshops with Scotty before continuing to block. In our first activity, we began walking around as ourselves, then as 10 times heavier than usual, followed by ten times lighter. Our next activity was in reference to characters. We started off standing as ourselves with our eyes closed and had to envisage a tunnel with a figure in the distance slowly approaching us until we could finally make out who it was. We had to imagine the figure right in front of us, with no facial expression and we had to picture how they’d be standing and what they’d be wearing. We then had to step out of ourselves and become that person, we had to walk as them and portray them under certain circumstances, which Scotty outlined. We did this exercise with the characters Paula and Stephen. It gave us an insight into the other characters. I realized a few things about Stephen through this exercise. I think there’s a lot more to him than we think, and certainly a lot more too him than is portrayed on the outside. He’s a much more complex character than we give him credit for. While being arrogant and outwardly portraying this attitude, he actually has many deep insecurities, it is therefore possible that he’s not being true to himself and putting out a façade. We can draw some parallels between him and Dympie and I think these two actors could learn from each others performances. We can also draw parallels between Gordon and Monika in that they’re both dealing with a loss. Paula on the other hand is original within herself. The one thing they all share is loneliness and the desperate need for companionship, though they all express this very differently. This exercise is a good way to get into character and further develop your character. We then did an activity regarding gait (woo, Nai learnt a new word). We began by walking around as if a rope was coming from our spine, out of our head and we had to follow it around, we then repeated this with chest and pelvis. We discussed what kind of people walk in each style, and established that those who walk with their head are very aware of their surroundings, those who walk with their chest are unaware of what’s around them and those who walk with their pelvis are concerned with themselves. We established that Stephen would be a pelvis walker, Monika and Paula would be chest walkers and Gordon and Dympie would be head walkers. This activity made me realize that while being Monika, I have to abandon “Nai” in every sense of the word. I have therefore been trying to stay in character all through blocking, even when we stop to receive directors notes, because once in character I find it’s more effective to stay in character and fully absorb this new person, rather than attempting to click from being me to Monika. I learnt that I really have to establish a walk and movements that fit Monika in order to fully realize my character. I look forward to working on this more, further developing my character and fully absorbing her. With some more research, determination and hard work I think we’re well on the way to achieving some great acting! I’m pumped! Woo!

helo?

how about now

AAAAAH! i just wrote a MASSIVE post about today (workshops/characters/acting) AND IT DELETED I CAN’T EXPRESS MY ANGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today we had a much needed,lengthy production meeting. here are my recordings of what happened in the meeting, of course including my opinions and reflections.
Scott.S - told us that most of the acting he’s seen is pretty good and we’re well on our way, however, we can’t yet relax! There’s still a while to go.
Kimmi - described the set design, including the new idea of having a bar as part of the set - with much discussion we decided that this may not be appropriate as it may not fit in context with certain parts of the script. it was suggested that we have a bar outside the space, in the corridor at which audience members can get drinks (may or may not be included in ticket price). this incorporated the idea of having a bar - also makes the bar more “real” in context with the play and also Mond’s previous idea of byo/grape juice with mocktails. I feel the bar and mocktales really contribute to setting the scene AS soon as audience members arrive.
We then realised that we need to think up an alternative for a place for Mond to be sitting in order to control the techi business - Scott thought of maybe having a “kitchen area” other ideas were to have a little station where you pay. (only problem with this is…they discuss the bill…is the bill in front of them when being discussed?) Other things kim reported to us were that there will br 10 square tables, each with 6 people - so we will be aiming to have an audience of 60 a night. There will be two round tables for main actors on a platform - with carpet. She has some Ken Done to hang up and a picture of dogs playing poker. She’s also started sending out media releases….good work kimmi:)
Yaniv referred us to all the research he’s done on his dramaturgical post - there’s a lot of good research there worth looking at-but i think it needs to be put into context with our play - and how it effects our play.
Mel - we discussed props, and what will be on the tables - bread bowls and butter, most likely no individual plates.
Elise - spoke about hair. Mel - no red streaks. Goofy - grow his hair. Yaniv - grow hair and shave. Also informed us that Mrs Mac will be teaching her make-up stuff during the musical! And she told us about her experiences at a pub bistro on friday night - at which the bar was very separate from the restaraunt (even for diet coke!!!)
Jono - discussed the cardboardband - the class seems to be split down the middle as to whether this is a good idea or not. I don’t mind it either way:)
There will be a dancefloor at the back, which i really do like the idea of:)
I stressed the importance of blog updates and reading eachothers blogs. Also spoke about researching your character on a broader spectrum and how this is really positive influence on your performance - i found it helped me alot. For example, yaniv, you could research coping with divorce. Other than all this, i think our play’s coming along well - once we physical things start coming together we’ll be able to envisage it well and i think this will be a big motivator too. it seems that further research needs to be done across the board, on all aspects and all ideas and i think its really important that we update eachother on all our research and decisions.
i know this has been a long blog, but if you survived through it - thanks for reading:)
peace out

hello friends
After a meeting with Scotty and discussing my role - he gave me the idea of research coping with grief in the 80’s as this is what Monika had to go through - and there may not have been the same grief coping services in the 80’s .
I found some information on grief but there wasn’t much to be found regarding coping with grief in the 80’s specifically. i’ll continure this research, possibly through phoning a service and asking them what was available in the 80’s but for now this is some of the stuff i found that could be useful to me in understanding Monika.
Grief - the emotional response particularly of sorrow, over a great loss such as the death of a loved one.
Grief is a healthy and necessary process. It is not healthy to avoid grief or to deny a loss for a long period of the time. Avoidance of grief may lead to serious physical or emotional problems later in life. - Monika doesn’t deny her loss, however she does seem to avoid dealing with her grief properly and doesn’t seem to know which channels to go through in order to deal with her grief - causing her outbirsts - her avoidance to deal with grief and determination to forget the past and have a fun night out (possibly in order to escape from coping with grief) may cause problems for her later.
People who are grieving may need to keep certain coping tips in mind, including:
• Avoid isolation. It is important for grieving people to talk to others and explain how they are feeling. They must not be afraid to ask for support. - this may be Monika’s motivation to go out with the girls (she doesn’t want to be alone) and it explains her outbirsts and insistance to talk about her husbands death. she tells Paula and Dympie that they’re her best friends - she seems to be alone and not have anyone else to talk to - explaining her motivation for opening up to Dympie and Paula.
• Postpone major decisions when possible. Grief may interfere with judgment. Major decisions may need to be postponed. - her judgement may be skewed and affected by her grief - this helps us to understand what motivated her to get drunk, take drugs and especially helps to explain her decision to go home with Stephen, so soon after her husband’s death.
This research has helped me a lot to understand some of Monika’s motives and reasons behind her behaviour - i feel that this deeper understanding of my character will help enhance my performance. i recommend this kind of research to all actors! - research broader topics that seem to be apparent in your characters life in order to grasp a greater understanding of them.

As Mon Mon is having an adventurous time backstage, with drugs, drinks and men - i’m not being blocked for as while, so in addition to pondering Monika’s experiences and how these would influence her behaviour over the rest of the night, i decided to have a production meeting with Scotty.
I was confused as to where to go from here with my folio and how to refine and develop my work. i learnt that i have to continually question my work in order to be able to improve it and will do that from now on.
We discussed the costumes:
Scotty challenged my costume concepts causing me to rethink some of them:
Dympie - a red skirt may not be suitable as she does not like attracting attention and attempts to blend in ( a red skirt being an attention attracting colour does not achieve this)
I realised i still have a while to go until costume concepts, and the physical costumes are finalised.
We discussed how my costume work has been refined and developed over time:
It started by deciding on an 80’s theme with the set being a Pub bistro. I then researched 80’s style costumes and gained various ideas of how costumes could be formed, keeping the characters and their personalities in mind. After which i though of a vague concept for each character, i then made my first sketches. I made a costume concept map, outlining each characters concept and what they’ll be wearing, with pictures gathered during research. I went opp-shop shopping in search of perfect costumes and took photos followed by making first purchases. this process will continue to be refined, as finishing touches are added to the costumes and concepts are developed.
This meeting got me thinking about the costumes, how representative they are of the characters and how they can be developed, it also helped me to realise that i have a while to go before finalising the costumes.
well, thats all for now, peace be the journey!

I haven’t written in a while so im due for an update and since i learnt quite a lot today, it seemed the perfect day to do so.
We continued with our blocking and blocked scenes with the three girls.
We focussed a bit on the interaction between the characters. At times, with their conflicting opinions Dympie and Paula indirectly fight over Monika. Monika is often caught in the middle and this proves to be too much for her upon a rushed exit.
Scotty spoke to us today about attempting to absorb the character, even through blocking (even though this can be difficult) as once in a habit, it is tough to get out of it (and we don’t want to be stuck in the habit of acting out of character). Monika is a complicated character and as i myself have had much less life experience than the character it is tough to fully grasp her and i’ve realised i’ll have to work hard on this. I try put myself in “a zone” in which i push Nai (as sweet as she is) aside, attempting not to portray my own attributes and personality and letting myself show through the performance, but rather fully capture Monika thus achieving a much more believable performance. After Scotty spoke to us today, i’m putting more effort into being Monika during blocking. Today i tried to think as she would, even when not speaking so as when i do say my lines, im on Monika’s wave-length, thinking and behaving as she would - this seemed to help me be in character and i feel as though it enhanced my performance. Each day i get more of a grasp on who Mon Mon is and how to act her, and i hope to have fully absorbed her by performance time! i always have to start thinking about motivations/what Monika wants and needs.