Realism Journal Prompt
Applying Stan’s Methods
Reflect back on the various exercises we discussed and worked to apply throughout the rehearsal process of Homesick. How did each of these exercises help you (or not)develop your character? Which ones did you find the most useful, and why? Which actor skills did the exercises help you develop that you could apply to future performances?
(approx. 500 words)
<Homesick>, a Singaporean play, is based on the concept of theatrical realism. Throughout the rehearsals we did lots of practices that ultimately help getting into our character. Laban's movement initially help us seek our character in Stan's way, first by determining the way of movement of our character, the swiftness, the strength of each action and the intention or the attitude while doing the actions. Then, we recognize the signature movements or shadow gestures of the character. To bring a greater fidelity of real life to our play, we have to go through the intention and the goal of our character in each scene and our character's super objective for the whole story in a bid to be able to act and react in the most natural way our character will response in the theatrically real world. Revising the super objective of my character - Arthur - has helped me understand my character better and hence, when I get into my character, I can intuitively respond to any interaction required in the play, in this case, my mother Patricia. Researches about the background of the story, the characters and the people in the play is of tantamount importance for the actors. I would like to use these technique in other productions to see to what extent is this method applicable. So far, it worked quite impressively well for the most of us. Even though none of us have the experience of being a pro-Chinese man, a mother, and an activist, we still manage to put up a show in delineation to our characters. This shows that we do not need to authentic real life experience of the character to be the character. Take, for instance, a serial killer. If an actor has to be a murderer, he or she doesn't have to kill to know how the psychological judgement of a killer will work in a play.
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<Homesick>, a Singaporean play, is based on the concept of theatrical realism. Throughout the rehearsals we did lots of practices that ultimately help getting into our character. Laban's movement initially help us seek our character in Stan's way, first by determining the way of movement of our character, the swiftness, the strength of each action and the intention or the attitude while doing the actions. Then, we recognize the signature movements or shadow gestures of the character. To bring a greater fidelity of real life to our play, we have to go through the intention and the goal of our character in each scene and our character's super objective for the whole story in a bid to be able to act and react in the most natural way our character will response in the theatrically real world. Revising the super objective of my character - Arthur - has helped me understand my character better and hence, when I get into my character, I can intuitively respond to any interaction required in the play, in this case, my mother Patricia. Researches about the background of the story, the characters and the people in the play is of tantamount importance for the actors. I would like to use these technique in other productions to see to what extent is this method applicable. So far, it worked quite impressively well for the most of us. Even though none of us have the experience of being a pro-Chinese man, a mother, and an activist, we still manage to put up a show in delineation to our characters. This shows that we do not need to authentic real life experience of the character to be the character. Take, for instance, a serial killer. If an actor has to be a murderer, he or she doesn't have to kill to know how the psychological judgement of a killer will work in a play.
From <Homesick> production, I clearly see the importance of lighting in theater. No matter how subtle the changes are, the effects can be tremendous. For my first involvement as an actor in a production, I realized discerning observation and repetitive trial-and-error are needed to trigger the impact for the genuine and realistic setting in a Realism play. The slight change in the warmth and the hue of the light from the bedroom to the living room boosted the atmosphere of a home. Before such an experience, I didn't know that a warmth lamp as the single source of light in the dark theater room not only contrived to help the crew (in this case, us - the actors and two tech-men) to make the rapid scene-shift possible but also help clarify that the transitions between the scene can be individual acts in the play. The voice-acting during the scene transitions is, without a doubt, a brilliant idea. We manage to connect our 4 short, separate scenes together, logically and chronologically, for the audience - since we can only choose some of the scenes to do, and not the whole play. Hopefully in the near future, we will get to experiment with various lighting and audio effects, with the aids of modern instruments as well as innovative D-I-Y substitutes, as a part of learning that will definitely help deepen our understanding of stage-designing and theater effects as vital elements in a production.
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