22nd April

We started the lesson by reading through scene 1 and 2. As a class we all discussed what was happening in each scene and a bit about each character. We also jotted down some words that we didn't know and put them into a list so we could look them up for homework.

We then played an improvisation game called the shed game. What we had to do was go into the middle of the circle and ask if we can help to build a shed, but we all had to do it as different characters. We created these characters by using our voice and body, then the people in the middle of the circle had to copy your characters mannerisms. I decided to take inspiration from an animal and walk into the middle like a penguin. This game demonstrated a variety of different performance styles that we could use within classical theatre. For example, Bottom turns into a donkey therefore he is going to have to research different animal gesture that he can do to physically show the audience that he is now a donkey.  

Then we split off into groups and blocked the scenes. Fran and I worked on the part of scene 1 when Helena walked in. We started by performing the scene a few different ways and seeing which way looked best and felt best. The first way we tried out was acting it out like an argument, I think this way was very strong however I thought Helena and Hermia were more friendlier than that. So we tried out doing it very overly friendly but that wasn't as strong as the first time we did it. However we started the scene by hugging and that did work really well. So we tried doing it as Helena was quite angry and I was trying to calm her down. I think this worked best because the scene was very strong but also portrayed to the audience that we are friends. We then decided to play around with movement and levels to make the scene look more interesting, for this we used a chair. When Fran is ranting at me I sat down on the chair, this shows that she has the power. Then when I say Take Comfort, I sit her down on the chair and I kneel down next to her, this shows the audience that we are on the same leave and that I am trying to calm her down and comfort her.