Evaluation of Closing Night

Here we are then; end of the road. I've taken my final bow as a member of the Enron cast and am very sad to say goodbye. This has been a roller coaster of a production. As a company we have had our ups and downs but I know in my heart that it all paid off on the final night. We came together as a collective and delivered a strong, entertaining and fun production. The whole process is finally completed and I must say I have come out the other side of it understanding myself as a performer a whole lot more than I did. From the moment I knew I was going to be taking on this role I had a lot of excitement for it but also a whole lot of fear. I am glad that I could come to the end of it knowing that we produced a high quality show that will stay with not only me but a lot of people for a very long time.

However the show was not without it's fault. This time round the first thing that went wrong was the light up logo was broken and we had to stamp on a specific area to get it to work. After last performance I was so used to things going wrong I was ready and equipped to handle this sort of situation. During the preset I just added it into the way my mouse moved. This wasn't a huge issue but I couldn't get it turn back on for the "I'm Enron" moment but in the grand scheme of things I'm sure it didn't matter that much. I've realised how important is to sometimes just let things happen instead of trying to solve problems all the times. In this performance I allowed myself to be affect by my surroundings instead of trying to fix them. I felt really in the moment this time around because what the worst possible things could happen and was now fully aware of that sometimes things going wrong doesn't matter that much. 

As I knew it was the last time I would be ever saying these words on that stage I allowed myself to have even more fun. Every moment on stage I just felt like I was happy to be there. Scene 3 has always been my favourite scene to play and tonight was no exception. I felt like I was able to up the stakes even more and that every single word I was saying had importance. This in turn affected my vocal and physical choices. I felt more open as I was trying to hammer home the win and like I was able to share it with the audience more than I had on previous nights. Playing to three sides can be hard but it felt like during that scene I was giving equal energy to all 3 blocks of the theatre and that everyone was getting there moneys worth. Throughout this process Ben's always told me I can afford to be bigger. As someone who was constantly told to tonne stuff down in my early days when I first started at BRIT I really struggled with knowing where the line is. However tonight I believe I found just the right level and even when I was doing more subtle acting it wasn't missed by the audience. 

During the destruction of LJM for the third time the gun didn't go off. At this point I kind of expected it. Instead of just dying from my pre-exisistent Raptor illness, Will decided he was going to strangle me instead. Luckily he had mentioned at before so I was ready for this to happen. I believe this way the right move to make in the moment. It was less anti-climatic and very emotional actually. I may not have invested as much into my Raptor character as I did with Skilling but I was still really connected to being a Raptor. So having my creator literally choke the life out of me was a really moving for me. I think this translated across to the audience as well especially the ones who had seen it before. 

One thing I kept hearing from people that saw it multiple times is that it felt like a different play every night. This means we did a really good job at keeping all the scenes fresh and reactive every single performance. The way the play was blocked allowed for a lot of freedom and the ability to make decisions that could affect the whole dynamic of a scene. For example the office scene with Olivia I had the option to keep my cool when Claudia raises her voices or sink to her level. I differed every performance but this time I decided to be playful and just let me arrogance flow. I raised my voice, I withheld I contact. I just really felt in control of the whole scene. It's nice that I could still find new things even in the last performance. At the end of the office physical theatre sequence I accidentally made eye contact with my daughter up on the balcony and didn't look away until the end of the scene. I know it was a little detailed but it really fuelled the guilt complex I had towards her character. This may have gone unnoticed by every one but it didn't matter because I used it to charge my imagined inner life and relationship moreover adding another layer to my performance. 

In conclusion this process has been a difficult but rewarding one. As a company we have come together again and again tell this amazing story and I feel honoured to have been a part of it. I know that we made something truly special over these last few months, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

Evaluation of the 4:30 Matinee

This performance was definitely not what I thought it would be. So many things went wrong for me from the start of the play and I found the whole performance really difficult to get through. After the first performance I felt great about it until I got a barrage of negative criticism about some elements that really affected my confidence in the show. So a lot was riding on this performance to make sure it went even better than the first night. This was not a good mentality to go into the performance with as I had an unrealistic expectation I was putting on myself; nevertheless above all else I just wanted it to be well received.

For starters my shirt went missing and I was given a new one just before we went on. As I was dressing myself in the pre-set I discovered it was too small and that I couldn't do the top button up meaning I couldn't wear a tie. This was setting off alarms in my head as I knew I needed to be wearing it for the scene 2 because we'd decided to keep in the improvised tie moment. So all throughout the first scene I was worrying about how I was going to solve this problem. This meant that I couldn't be truly present in the moment and just living through the role like I could do on the first night. I felt messy and like I couldn't deliver a polished performance because I was focusing so much on everything that was going wrong.

Another thing that went wrong was my mic was nowhere to be found for the party scene. I only a few seconds before I needed to be back on stage so I was scrambling around panicking to trying find out. This meant I didn't have any time to get back into a calm head space. I could feel all this erratic energy firing around inside of me and I just had to put it into the performance. However in the back of my mind I couldn't stop hearing this negative inner monologue saying "You're messing it up, everyone's going to think you are awful, You've let Ben down". It was so difficult to switch it off and just keep acting. I really thought this was going to effect my performance however after the show I was met with amazing feedback and comments from the audience members. I was genuinely so shocked.

This lead me to do some critical thinking about acting in general. I came to the conclusion that internal experience doesn't always equal to external action. I honestly felt like I was having a panic attack on the inside for the duration of the performance however I believe it wasn't translated into my performance. Charlie also made a point that my character has that kind of inner life anyway and because I didn't have to try find that constant trying to solve problems and change the world mentality it just already existed in how I was actually feeling. Obviously it would've been nicer for things to go right but as long as the story was communicated and the audience had a good experience does it really matter if I didn't enjoy it? This experience really reminded me that the play is about the audience not about how I feel at the end of the day. At least I get one more chance to rectify these problems before I go on stage next time.

Evaluation of Opening Night

Well after 6 months since we first found out what plays we would doing for our Common Ground season opening night came upon us. It was a very emotional experience for me to be honest. The culmination of three and a half years of hard work and the realisation of how far we've all come as a company was very overwhelming. During the moment where we stand and just radiate energy during side stretch I just felt very connected everyone around me and that we were going to have a really strong performance. So with mouse head on and the pre-set ready to start it was time to let the world finally see Enron.

Strangely I felt very calm before we started the show. I always thought I would be in absolute hysteria in fear that if I didn't deliver a strong enough performance I'd be letting so many people down. However I just knew I could rely on the all the work we'd put in rehearsal and as long as I just allowed myself to live through the role nothing could go wrong. Well as we predicted things did go wrong but our problem solving skills have been finely honed over this process. For instance I knew I set the kleenex in my pocket however during the scene I just couldn't find it. In hind sight I could've spent a little longer looking for it but instead I just said "no". I did this because I had complete faith in Olivia and her improvisation skills to be able to remain reactive to the situation. I was correct as in a moment of brilliance she took off my tie and used that instead. My jaw dropped as I couldn't believe that Claudia had really done this. This in turn gave me such fuel for the next scene as I had been so disrespected and this raw anger could just genuinely come out of me. This happy accident can only really happen if we can really trust in each other and I was so happy to be able to make a mistake and not ruin the play but rather add a greater moment to it. From the audiences reaction it definitely tightened the grasp we had on them.

In the running scene I felt like I was at my most playful. One specific moment I can remember is when I began to run backwards while I spoke to Andy. I'd never done this in rehearsals and didn't pre-plan this move I just felt in the moment like I wanted to show off and intimidate him a little more. I believe I must've been subconsciously following my objective. From audience feedback a lot of people really enjoyed this scene and thought the energy and pace was electrifying. I was very happy with this and would like to hopefully replicate it for all  performances.

As I wrote about in a previous post backstage discipline needed to be perfect however it was not and it came back to bite us in the butt. One of the mics was left on backstage and for a good time you could hear people talking. At this point I was on stage as a Raptor but I just remember the feeling of my blood turning cold and trying to desperately to keep in character. At one point I was tempted to wander off stage to go find the source but I knew that my death scene was about to come and couldn't risk. Honestly I was a little disappointed in this as it really had an effect on the way the audience would've seen the play. It was a real shame that it had to happen but at least now we can learn from our mistakes a let it never happen again.

In conclusion I was mostly happy with my opening night performance, I felt connected to the role I was playing throughout the performance and found parts to be playful in. For next show though I want to take the playfulness up even further and I want to be genuinely surprised by some of the choices I make. Onward and upwards!

Psychological Gesture

Today I had a massive break through. In this session we did work around finding a psychological gesture for our characters. I'd studied PG before but never found a point of practical application. However today after we did the exercise I now understand why it's such a useful tool.

To create a psychological gesture (Ben's adapted method) you need to answer 3 questions:

1. What does my character want in the play? 
2. How does my character get what they want? 
3. How does my character interact with the world? 

In relation to these questions you create and refine a gesture. So for the first one I know my super objective is to change the world. So I played around with finding a movement that encompassed this. This eventually evolved into me making the circle of the globe with my hands and arms then feeling the weight of it when I reached the bottom. Then for how does my character get what they want I imagined Skilling climbing the corporate ladder so I placed my hands on the individual rungs. Then finally for the third question even if I don't want to believe it I know Skilling manipulates the world around him. So I came up with a gesture that encompassed that. The final element was to put all three of these gestures together and find away of flowing one into the other. This would eventually created one strong gesture that embodied all of these questions. There was suddenly a point where it just clicked and the gesture was born. 

I just felt such a strong connection to Skillings inner life in my centre when I started doing the gesture and I would start to feel all most instantly in character. As someone who is so far away from the character in real life it can sometimes take a little but of warming up before I feel completely in character. However now as soon as I do the gesture I just feel 100% there. It's like it instantaneously kick starts my engine and I'm ready to go. I can connect with the given circumstances, my physicality and my imagined landscape all in one gesture. 

This session has been so important to my development. I can now do this PG before I go on stage, during the warm up or whenever I need to feel a little more connected to Skilling in my rehearsals. During the section just before we start doing side stretch and we are repeating "flat back and wide" I will employ this psychological gesture so I'm ready to go straight into being Skilling from the jump. The only fear I have is the more I use it the weaker it might be come; I must make sure it remains to be as an effective of tool as the first time I truly discovered the gesture. 

Laban Effort Work

In today's session we did a mini-workshop on Laban efforts in order to increase the depth of our characterisations. This work aided to connect our bodies with our interpretations of our characters through tapping in to their physical traits. As an actor who works through the body a lot I really find Laban efforts useful and use them with nearly every character I create. However with Jeffrey Skilling at the beginning of the process I could never really find the right effort to match. In this session though I believe by combing a few efforts I started to find where I embody these throughout my journey through the play. I had already worked with Laban efforts before so here's a link to a post I made my I first started using them:

http://samjohnsonexperimental.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/laban-efforts.html

We were taken through all the different efforts one by one blending them into each other by playing with the different "rules". It was really useful instead of stopping to intellectualise and attempt the effort to just move through it.  This meant I didn't have time to stop and thinking about how the effort should look or feel I just did it. This is what allowed me to be truly exploitative and discover uninhibited by my own brain.

In this session I discovered that during the parts where my mind wanders i.e. when I'm counting money I can use flick. It's a physical way to embody Skilling's slight skatter brain. He's always thinking of the next big thing, the next investment the latest million dollar idea so his attention is sometimes yanked away from what he is doing. Through exploring flick I found that those qualities are definitely present within this Laban effort. To take this to the next level I can now play with this scene going extreme with flick so I get it into my body and then turning down when I do it for real. That way my muscle memory will take me to the place my impulse wants me to go moreover creating further depth to this scene.

There were lot's of other moments I could use Laban efforts in. The moment when I'm walking across the moving tables I should think about gliding instead of slow motion walking. When I'm delivering my testimony to win the battle of Enron I should be thinking about the physicality I found through punch. However the most important discovery I could apply is using wring for when I'm admitting to Andy that Enron is not making any money. I don't even have to do anything physically it's just what's happening in my inner life. It's physically painful and embarrassing for Skilling to ask for help in that scene and to have that imagined wringing going on inside of myself with help me root to his emotions.

Overall this session yielded some great results when it came to deepening my level of characterisation. At this point in the process I feel nearly 99% connected to Skilling and just finding these little extra details to add on to making him a three dimensional person is what is going that 1% up.

Dry Run

Today we got to run the entire play in the  new theatre with all our props! (minus the set and lighting). We had a lot of ups and downs; more successes than failures but it wasn't perfect. It was a very fruitful experience to run through our whole show in the space it will actually be performed in. The most surprising thing for me was navigating the new dimension. For instance on the marked out platform there was way less space than I had originally thought. This meant I had to adjust to moving around Kai when he was at his desk or when I needed to come over and talk to Lay. It was important for me to problem solve in the moment as stopping was not an option.

This was a great opportunity to figure out my entrances and exits for the whole show. Instead of just standing off at the side I could finally know exactly where I was coming on and off from. This changed a few things. During the street scene I now know that all the walking and running must be done on the diagonal as we didn't account for the 3 sided audience when we were choreographing the sequence. I either have to run towards A,B,C or D when running and go as far into the exit as possible. If we just walk in straight lines then we will be blocking the audience off from the action and the sequence will not be as effective.

Vocally the space absolutely sucks the sound away. This was really apparent as after the run was over my voice felt a little fatigued. I need to make sure I sustain a well projected voice throughout the whole performance otherwise not only will the audience not be able to hear me but if I'm not constantly hitting them with strong vocal energy they will switch off. Everything about the play is super high energy, from the music to the physical sequences. I must make sure my voice matches this on every single level. I must also be careful of damaging my voice however. I got a note in a previous session about how I was slamming my vocal cords. I was unaware that I was doing this and know that this can be very bad for my overall vocal health. I need to unsure I take part in my own intensive vocal warm up before every single session to avoid this happening again.

As a whole the show felt really strong in the space. We played to three sides very well opening up the performance for every imaginary audience member and not closing ourselves off. We had a lot of zip and pace to most of the scenes meaning our run time was not as high as we thought. I believe this was down to us really driving all the way through the play. In nearly all of the sections people were taking command of the action and hammering it home. It's so important that this far into the process we are now starting to all be in charge of the show and taking equal responsibility to how it runs.

In conclusion this was a good session and we discovered a lot about what real performance conditions will be like. Although we still need to work on discipline as there was a lot of talking going on back stage which obviously cannot happen in the real production. I think it's a case of just really tapping into what's going on around us and focusing on being in the world of the play.

Session Analysis- Going back over and polishing

We've officially fully blocked through the whole play! Getting to that final moment took a lot of energy, effort and whole lot of side stretches however we did it. Now that we have completed staging all the action that will take place we now begin to polish the whole thing. In this session I started to really believe in the play we'd made to be honest. This was an opportunity to return to where we began all those weeks/months ago with a in depth knowledge about what this show really is.

At this point in the process I know I have a real understanding of who Jeff Skilling is as a character. All his motivations, objectives and tactics are deeply embedded with in myself and I don't feel like I'm just presenting him; I'm really embodying him. This has allowed me to be way more playful. However I still feel like I can only be playful in the places I feel confident on. For example when we were polishing scene 8 I felt really inhibited as an actor. I felt like I was just trying to get through the scene. I wasn't able to be powerful and assertive as Skilling because I felt exposed and frightened as Sam. Both me and Kai struggle with the superfluous financial lingo at some points. I've done all my research and fully grasp what a special purpose entity is and the concepts itself don't confuse me however it's the actual language and communicating it all. I am very aware that all of the jargon will more than likely go straight over the audience's heads. This means I need to work ten times harder to ensure that they "feel" like the understand it through the way I present the scene. There can not be a moment where I break the facade. I can achieve this by going back to the text and make sure I understand my objectives and actions for each section.

When we went over scene 3 it was difficult to kick start the raw passion and energy I had before. The scene is literally the battle for a Enron. When we went back over it in some parts it still had that raw element that I found before however for the most part it lacked in energy. This scene really benefited from the polishing as it not only reawakened the action but reinvigorated too. I got a really good note about seeing in my thoughts this immaculate beautiful dream that I wanted to build and having moments of just purely seeing that when I'm pleading my case. This in turn raised the stakes of the scene for me allowing this controlled ferocity to come out. If I was to refer to a practitioner at this point it felt like a Declan Donnelan unblocking moment. I felt liberated in the scene and moreover gave a more believable and connected to performance.

Some notes to work on for next session are:

Mice - Work on the anthropomorphic states of putting on the clothes
Work out a movement sequence with daughter before office scene
Scene 8 - Simplify and edit
More sparkle!
Cut off Olivia on "Son of a bitch" faster
Feel like my manhood has been hurt more during the argument about how many times
Let the thoughts move me and not vice versa
Be more physically violent with people
Office scene needs more zip: don't drop sparkle for arrogance
Don't go British with Fastow
Bigger pause before "Problem"
Get quieter quicker during swap over

Physical Session - Creating street scene

Today was a very productive session; I mainly chalk it up to only have a few members of the cast in room. The concentration levels were brilliant and no one was talking instead over our director. This has been a huge problem throughout the rehearsal. There's a generally sentiment that when you are directly being addressed or asked to do something then you can just start chatting. This mentality is detrimental to making strong work; we could be getting notes could unlock a better performance or key things that have to happen to make the play run smoother. So by having a small group of people working together we manage to choreograph the sequence quickly and effectively.

This sequence I took semi-control of creating. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, the key was keeping it simple as possible. The sequence involved knocking into Charlie is he wanders aimlessly through the space until he eventually falls. The female members of the company are then allowed to do a little contact improv with him. This then leads us to walk backwards and Charlie jumping into arms, walking with him leading Olivia into the space; we then control him like a puppet and disperse moving on to the next scripted scene. The sequence is really strong and I feel it communicates the state of Skilling's intoxication and how he's being pushed around by the world. It's so important for this piece of the play to have clarity and still be exciting as it's close to the end and the audience will more than likely be a little tired. This sequence will hopefully wake them back and grab their attention again.

A moment that really stood out for me was the immaculate transition to the prostitute scene. Watching from the side, seeing Charlie follow Olivia off then Chloe take the focus is a moment of theatre magic. The slickness of changeover is what makes it so good; it snaps the audience out of this physical theatre-y world we just set up and brings that back to reality. I believe this will be a very effective moment because of this. To make this sequence even better I feel like we can add more moments of contact improv when we interact with Charlie. This could take the form of some interesting moments of shifting weight or some lifts. This will add an extra dimension of communication and add a further sophisticated layer of body contact that could give Charlie more to work with.

Overall this was a very successful session and am glad we could get a good amount of work done in a small space of time. I hope this focus and concentration can continue into future rehearsals.

Session Analysis - Chicho and Tobi

This session we polished a few scenes in the second act (post raptor death). This gave me a prime opportunity to set and review other cast members in action and reflect upon their process and practice. Two people I did a miniature peer assessment in my mind were Chicho and Tobi. In that session and (throughout the whole process for that matter) they have been effective members of the ensemble and good people to have in the room:

Tobi

Tobi is always offering in a scene, even it's small or big he gives. This is so important with the inception of this play, nothing is set in stone and the directing style has been very fluid; it is so useful to have someone like this making bold choices and giving the play shape with his choices. A specific moment where he did this was during the "flamingo court scene" he gave a massive reaction and fainted. Others might have seen this as too big of a move and over the top, however Tobi just went with his instinct and in turn made a very comedic moment AND giving him a stand out moment in the play. It also is a case of not holding anything back and waiting to deliver on stage. How are we supposed to know how the play we really look if we only ever see it 50% in rehearsals? Tobi makes sure to not use the lack of an audience to stop his performance really coming out. This also means his final product will be strong because adding an audience always ups the energy anyway; so theoretically his final performance should be stronger than the stuff he's producing in the room. If I was to take on these traits at all times I will always be a useful member of the cast especially in the moments I am an ensemble member.

Chicho

Comparatively Chicho always offers bold characterisation choices. I have never seen him half do a character; he is always fully committed and making bold decisions whenever he is working. From the jump he has treated every line he says with importance and never throws away a sentence or a gesture. This makes his work interesting, dynamic and great to watch. The trader scene act one has a tendency to lose energy however whenever Chicho comes in it always manages to pick back up. This is an invaluable skill; being able to sense when the scene needs a little boost is beneficial for keeping the pace right moreover making the action as entertaining as possible. Another key thing I really enjoy about Chicho as a cast mate is his vocal prowess when it comes to finding the nuances and distinction between his characters. This is so exciting to observe; the detail in his character work is immense and really pays off. I believe this will make the multi-rolling aspect of his job in Enron not only by a positive part of his work in the ensemble but also a major contribution to the overall story-telling in the piece.

Physical Session - Competiton and Office Sequences

As established from early on in this process the play exists in two parts; The Physical world and Scripted world. From now on we will be using our Tuesdays as purely physical theatre sessions to make sure the sequences are a polished as they can be. I believe this was a good call as when we focus we can get a lot done in a quick 2 hour session especially when we have a clear goal to achieve. As a company we do have trouble with maintaining disciplined for extended periods of time. The way we have figured out how to combat this is through turning things into competitions!

We started this session off with a plank off. The rules were simple, whoever could hold a plank for the longest would win. I however unfortunately did not last very long (I would blame injury but I'm not the type of person for excuses). When we got out we split off and cheered for whomever we wanted to. This brought about a pack mentality where we would all bound together and give support or alternatively demoralise  a person. When this got to the top two it became very heated. The competitive element really brought something out in us. It was very primal and aggressive; we almost went as far as bullying the opposing side. We need to be able to bottle this hyper-competitve atmosphere and use it to make the world of the play. Especially in the first half of the play the audience need to feel like they are "on the winning side" and go along with us. It was more simple than we thought to feel like a winner just by being around someone who was doing something successfully. Enron will only really work if the audiences feel like we are the winners.

To emulate this competitive mood we found we split off into 3 groups to devise a physical sequence for the office scene and then Ben would chose the winner. My group used a mixture of duet work, soundscape and motif movement. We even had a movement of "watching the sunset" to show the passage of time during our sequence and too juxtapose the bustling fast pace of the rest of the action. Sounds like the recipe to success? No. We placed a measly second place. So the competition had worked. All 3 groups worked really hard and produced very strong work and we had fun whilst doing it. The group that did win had a very unique approach of building the business slowly and having elements of calm within their piece. This will work well in the final product because it shows a very interesting arch and the narrative carries through within in the movement. Although if I was to critique it could take some elements from the other pieces such as the throwing the phones back and forth or the sunset moment in our piece. That way we have a strong narrative and cool tricks to make a fully fleshed out physical sequence.

Session analysis "Playing the Game"

In this session I had a break through with the Daughter/Counting money scene. When I first read the play and admittedly even when I started the process and now we are a good way through it I just glossed over this scene. It wasn't that interesting and felt really out of place in the play. I understand the requiring daughter motif to make Skilling into a 3D father, man and person outside of the world of business but I just didn't quite understand why I was really counting money with her. Although when we started working on this scene today I got some direction that completely changed the way I play the scene and my relationship to the daughter as a character:

Skilling neglects his daughter throughout the play; there's loads of example such as in scene 8 when I say I was on the phone when she was born. However I'd never really thought about the implications of what that does to me as a character. Just because he neglects here doesn't mean he wants/means or doesn't love her. He gets distracted by the world he's trying to change and accidentally leaves her behind. So in this scene he's trying to genuinely connect with her but the connection is broken by him counting the money.

So instead of pretending to start counting out of nowhere I have an actual objective that keeps being interrupted by my racing mind. I'm trying to connect with my daughter by playing this game where I chase her and try to get her attention but she's the one being distracted by her own childlike whimsy. roots me in the scene and actually gives me actions purpose unlike before when I was really just pretending. This work today has unblocked me from achieving good acting in this scene; I now have something to pursue and play. In order to make this scene even better I can build up my relationship to my daughter. I could do this by creating imaginary memories with her to deepen my connection to Chloe so I can have a more genuine reaction when I am playing with her.

Session 6 - Accent Training

Today we had a session with an accent coach; this was such a beneficial experience for us as a company. I wouldn't say we were struggling with doing a strong American accent as a collective however if we want to make sure that we are sustained and specific in our voice work this is the kind of work we need to be taking part in.

I learnt a lot about where and how to place sounds in my mouth in order to have an authentic accent. The "mantra" was "Flat, Back and Wide". These three key words define how the accent is produced from the mouth. Flat because of the position of the tongue, back because the sound comes from the back of the mouth and wide because of the shape of the mouth. When learning this I had lot's of images conjured in my mind like open fields. This gave me a nice image to work with when imagining what mouth was doing when I was speaking in this dialect. This is a good way of getting into the accent as those words utilise the sound I need to make. I can use this as part of a vocal warm up in order to prepare the muscles in my mouth for the vocal work.

We also learned about the difference between a dark and light L were. This was established through the word "Little"The two L's in the word are different. The first one is light and the second one is dark. The second one is the one we are most interested - the "UL" sound is very present in the American dialect.

Now to put this into practice we did nursery rhymes in the accent. I chose "Hey Diddle Diddle" which in hind sight was a pretty difficult one; mainly due to the placement of the tongue for "Diddle". Nevertheless this exercise was very useful in pairing what we just learnt about accent training to a bit of simple text. To expand this work we need to move away from the nursery rhymes and apply this to Lucy Prebble's words. The accent coach said it would be beneficial to go through all of our lines and re-work them with the new vowels sounds we'd learnt in order to be 100% clear on all the words we say. This will make all our vocal work much more detailed and authentic moreover making the audience believe in our characters more.

The last advice we were given was to listen to the accent we are trying to replicate. Through YouTube or www.dialectsarchive.com I could listen to someone with that accent to make my grasp on the dialect as strong as possible. However this could be dangerous as I might just start mimicking a specific person instead of sticking to my characterisation of Skilling. I must be careful and use consistent sources.

Friday Session: Creating tie sequence

This particular Friday session was very fruitful; not just for my work on Enron but my development as an actor. The two main focuses were creating the tie-sequence that me and Claudia do before we engage in our sexual activity.

Me and Olivia created the base movements mostly through exploration and improvisation with the tie. We managed to create a string movements very quickly and the movement itself was simple but effective. However when we repeated it, it was usually always the same and wasn't very instinct driven after a certain replication. So when Ben came in to watch he made us be more playful, he wanted us to forget the movement components and just focus around the feeling of it. This in turn made us change the dynamic and pace of the movement based around what was happening in the moment. This made the small sequence more interesting to watch and definite a little more "sexual" in a good way. This is also a good way for when we are actually running the show in the common ground season to always remain reactive and responsive to each other's bodies; keep in the moment; and actually listen to what Olivia (and anyone else for that matter) is giving me. That's what is going to make the acting exciting and fresh.

We also did some unrelated monologue work for my speeches for Drama school auditions. However within this work I made some discoveries that I can apply to my acting in Enron. Ben introduced me to his "Good acting triangle". One side is motivation (What I want has driven me to wanting to do this in the scene) my objective (What I actually want in the scene) and my instinct (What I want to do in the moment). Knowing that I'd done all the prep work and I could simply relying mostly upon my instinct was a huge revelation to me. Instead of trying to play all this different things, I could just think what's my motivation and objective and then just go with whatever my instinct in the moment is. Having the visualisation of this triangle also illustrated the simplicity of the method, it most importantly helped me to start simplifying instead of complicated everything making my performance messy and hard for an audience member to understand at points.

Overall these Friday sessions are undeniably aiding the rehearsal process and making my performance stronger. They have made me engaged with myself more as an actor and connect with Skilling. The way to make these sessions better is to encourage my other scene partners to come in and work with me in the same way. I'd like to treat scenes like Scene 8 with Kai which I am currently struggling to connect with on the same level as the rest of my scenes.

Friday Session

To aid in creating the best theatrical product we possibly can, our director has called people with substantial roles to come in on Friday's, to work on scenes outside of scheduled rehearsal time. This will mean we can add extra detail to our acting work and re-consolidate the work we've done in the week and fix the notes our director gives us.  

Whilst working on scene 2 Ben noticed I was internalising my thoughts too much. We had an in depth conversation about how as British people we don't externalise our emotions and reactions to situations mainly down to our social conditioning. However Americans don't do that. They have big personalities and are always expressing themselves. I connected this to the feeling when I hear American's on public transport you can always tell when one of them is on the tube because they voice virtually every thought they have in real time. They are not trying to internalise them they just have them and outwardly express them nearly 100% of the time. During scene I was reacting inwardly to what Claudia was doing to Skilling and that was wrong. If Skilling gets offended by a comment a man about his manhood or sexual prowess he's going to let her know he is not happy about it. This discovery was really useful to the rest of my scenes as well and it made me aware of any other time I was doing this.

In a part of the scene I was told to pace as I was trying to come to terms with Claudia potentially become president. However I couldn't quite connect with this and the move just became superficial. In order to find this outer experience I had to find this inner energy to propel me into moving. Ben gave me this exercise which I'd best describe as "egg hands". By moving my hands back and forth like I was shaking eggs this in turn effected my inner life and made me feel more anxious. This helped me because by finding the opposite (to calm down) it worked me up. This solved the problem of being disconnected from the thoughts I was having and allowed me to truly connect with the moment. 

After our director left in order to help learn our lines quicker and get a better sense of the subtext of the scene we were working did some improvisational work. Based around Mike Alfreds "Text, no text, text" exercise. This yielded some strong results as we started working from an instinctual place and we found out a lot about what our true motivations in the scene were. This kind of work is useful and we are going to hopefully approach all future scenes with this level of detail and introspection. I feel like I'm really starting to understanding Skilling on not just intellectual level but now on what's going on in his inner life. In order to progress with my characterisation I need to marry the research work and the instinctual things I am discovering in the moment so I can create a three dimensional character. 

Session 4

In today's session we began blocking the first scene. We already knew that the show begins with a pre-set of mice exploring the space and dressing themselves. I am to be one of these mice and will complete an animal study on another post. The actually first scene involving the full company was already started in a previous session but only the physical side, we were now going to jump to the scripted part. We were already going to be presented with a few challenges because the scene involves multiple conversations happening at once. In order for this to work the dialogue has to be snappy and move from one area to another with good pace. This was demonstrated well in the way Kai would cut in quickly after Tatenda finished speaking. We need to make sure the first scene doesn't kill the energy that is built by the high adrenaline music and physical theatre framing it. 

As soon as we started blocking I was asked to deliver my opening mini-monologue, luckily the night before I prepared by learning the first 3 pages of the play off by heart. By being off book I was able to respond to my directors needs instantly without having to stop and grab my script. In this process I want to learn my lines as quickly as possible so that we can focus around development the quality of acting rather than just reciting lines. Also it meant that Ben could give me feedback straight away. I was told I need to work on the muscularity of the words I was saying. I can do this by doing an intensive vocal warm up before every session focusing on my facial muscles and the muscularity of my tongue. The American accent I use requires my mouth to "work less by working more". It is a very lazy dialect which requires me to use a lot of open vowel sounds that resonate in foreign places to my own accent. I will do more accent training to improve this and take on Ben's note. 

Before I came to the session I made annotations on my script. In particular I made sure to find what actions I was playing in the first 3 scenes I was in. This wasn't so I had strict parameters to act within it was just a way to start experimenting and understand what Skilling was actually doing in the scene. This also helped when Ben would throw out "What's your objective?" type questions so I could work backwards and by knowing what action I was playing I could figure out what was motivating me in the moment and what my character was trying to truly achieve. To improve on this I need to annotate my given circumstances and other Stanislavsky-esque techniques. Even though Enron is a very heightened play I need to always be working from a place of truth and realism. This is because if there's a disconnect from reality the play just won't work, the audience will not go along with it if they feel like it's not "real" within the parameters of the world we are creating. 

This is the session we attempted to blocked the infamous "naughty" scene. We tried to do it one on one with our director. At first I was determined to just get through it, no laughing or awkwardness however inventively it proved too difficult. In hind sight I can't tell if it would be be harder to do in front of a room full of my peers or a single solitary figure of authority. The way to remedy this was to do it on just us two and get the giggles out. This will mean there's no pressure on us to get it perfect without laughing. Even though I did expect this working with someone who I already had a close relationship with regardless it made me realise that I am going to have work hard throughout this whole process to not let my personal relationships affect the work. 

Movement Videos

This piece could inform physical duets between the traders - Scene 4 there's a big movement sequence involving traders moving with dynamic possibly aggressive movement. Although it could be interesting to add some more controlled and "formulaic" movements into the sequence, this could nicely frame the text when the main traders are talking without 100% distracting from the main action. Simple repeatable duets utilise Enron's large ensemble whilst simultaneously making interesting stage pictures.  

Since we are using Frantic assembly as our main practitioner for the movement this video is a good reference for how their techniques can culminate into an effective piece of theatre. Specifically the section where they work with gesture could be stolen to use in our office movement sequence. I think the style of Enron definitely lends itself to using motif and gestural work which mirrors the mundanity of office life whilst also remaining interesting and adding to the world of the play.  

At some point I know I become a Raptor. However we are not looking at being dinosaur creatures in the traditional sense, rather zombie like creatures with grotesque and predatory animalistic type features. This video shows how body isolation and focus can create this type of movement. I could use this as a base to make a fully realised "Raptor" without delving into the realms of stereotype. I could also do an animal study to aid this work. This will allow me to embody rather than just copy. 

Session 3

The objective for this session was to create the opening "office party" sequence for the play. The vision was to go beyond the text and employ physical theatre techniques in order to make a party atmosphere to frame the scene.

The exercise we used to build this sequence was called "push hands" and comes from Frantic Assembly's approach to devising theatre. It's all about finding the pressure between you and your partners hands and using it to guide you through the space. At first the movement was a little disjointed but once we found the balance in the room it started to look and feel a lot more fluid. We then added in layers playing around with dynamic and spatial relationships. This was a step in the right direction as it added more interesting body shapes and started to tell the story. However we were still only at about tier one when it came to communicating the story. We needed more elements in order to make the sequence more clear. We achieved this adding intentions behind the movements; this allowed the movements to become superficial and actually add depth to the atmosphere we were creating. However I fear once we add in props (the glasses) it could cause problems. This is because unfamiliarity with an object can cause an actor feel unfamiliar with themselves within a situation. To combat this we need to add the props as soon as possible and allow us to not only use them but build them into the character we are portraying in the scene. This will not only make the sequence smoother but also will make us as performers more rooted to the action.

Fastow's relationship to the rest of the ensemble is really important. When he enters he frantically tries to become part of the group, this juxtaposes the smooth controlled movement of the ensemble and aids in setting him up as a character. This simple action already makes the audience identify Fastow as an outsider and will help story-telling of the overall show. On the other hand when Lay and Claudia enter the group respond in a different way. They all lightly touch them and they respond by flicking them of sharply. They walk through the crowd like goddesses among men. I think this a brilliant way of introducing these characters. When I watch theatre and don't enjoy it it's usually because from the start I feel disconnected to the characters I am being presented with (especially in plays with a large ensembles). I believe by having a strong character establishment from the get-go the audience will by into the story quicker and want to go on a journey with these unique and interesting people.

In this session our focus was strong and we really started to work together as a unit. There was a good sense of support and people were able to take lifts. Overall the energy and commitment to today's session was a good harbinger for a strong rehearsal process ahead of us. I'm excited to see where this takes us.