Stanislavski's System

Stanislavski's System is a list of techniques that actors use to bring up believable emotions, emotions used to make the audience think that the play could be real. This is effective because it puts the audience in a world that doesn't exist and makes them believe it's real. The System consists of techniques like emotional memory, this is when you think of something that's happened in the past and use the emotion from that in the acting situation you have been given. This is an effective method because the audience don't know what you are thinking when you're on stage so they just assume that you're thinking of the the situation in the scene. Focus is a key part of Stanislavski's system, if you're not focused you can't seriously take on the role and more importantly the the mind of a character. To get focused the System talks about concentration and relaxation. I applied all of these to my performance, for the emotional memory I thought of something in my past that angered me at the time, and used that emotion to unlock the character of Jimmy Porter. This worked because Jimmy is a very angry man and had aggression towards a lot of things. The System describes a technique known as 'magic if' this is when you put yourself in the same situation as the character, I did this with Jimmy and it was effective because it helped me to understand why Jimmy is the way he is. As for the relaxation, we did an exercise with Jill that helped us relax, it was a 20 minute routine that is equivalent to 2 hours of sleep, I believe this works because it clears your mind, this is useful because if you're mind is clear, you can take in the character's thoughts and more of their personality.

Later on between 1934 and 1938 the technique evolved to be a method with physical actions. Stanislavski developed this system to try to learn how to control the emotions of the characters and genuine uncontrollable human behaviour. The System is very useful for this play because the play was designed to mirror reality and get it as accurate as possible, the methods in 'The System' help us to do this because it helps us get into character, which means it makes it easier to understand Jimmy's personality and get into the role. Jimmy is a very difficult character to play because he has many defining characteristics which make the role hard to take on realistically. I believe the character of Jimmy would be easier to play in a more theatrical piece because you could take it over the top but for the purposes of this performance we had to portray the character in a more naturalistic way, this means I had to create an imaginary bubble in the scene and anything outside that bubble did not exist.

Overall I think I used Stanislavski's System effectively because I achieved the desired effect which was to make the audience believe the scene was or could be real.

Reheasals

13th May
Today we got the script for 'Look Back in Anger' my first thoughts reading through were that I knew straight away that I wanted to play the role of Jimmy, this is because I believe we are alike in certain ways, I believe this is because we are both very sarcastic. When I first read the script I realised that Jimmy is a complicated character, he is sarcastic and horrible to women. This is a good play to display my acting ability because it's a naturalistic piece and is filled with emotions. After we chose our group we decided to do the last scene which involves Jimmy, Alison and Helena. This is the scene where Jimmy realises it's all his fault and he's treated Alison badly this whole time.

14th May
Today we done a workshop that was designed to help us with naturalism, in this workshop we started off by taking a bird made of paper and making it real, the objective was to create an emotional bond with the bird. This was effective because it helped us learn how to create emotional bonds that are real so that it looks real on stage. We passed the bird round in a circle being very gentle with it which helped strengthen the emotion. When the bird got passed back to Jill, she scrunched it up and we all felt quite devastated and Jill told us to simply let go of the feelings. This was effective because it is important for actors not to take the emotions on stage too seriously.

20th May
We started off the sessions doing vocal warmups, it is very important for an actor to warmup their voice. After the warmups we started working on the play, I didn't really know how to portray the character Jimmy so I held back on using any emotions for the time being. Jimmy comes across as arrogant and selfish, I need to show this with my voice and body language. Jimmy has a strange relationship with the other characters in the play for example, it sounds like he really despises Alison even though she is the woman he is supposed to love and she does everything for him, he thinks he can cope on his own but I think he wouldn't be able to deal with his life without Alison.

21st May
Today we done another Stanislavski workshop,this one was about emotion memory, this is a technique where the actors think of something that has happened to them in the past that is comparable to the scene, for example, if the actor has to do a scene where they lose their spouse then they could recall a time where they have felt loss before and use those emotions in the scene. This is effective because the audience doesn't know what the actor is thinking when they're on stage. It is important that when using this technique you leave the emotions in the stage. What we done as a class was shared an emotional story that had happened to us and use those emotions in a scene, this could be effective if the actor can control the emotion because sometimes the memory is just overwhelming and the actor can't continue the scene.

22nd May
I have learned my lines and developed my character, I have realised the emotions I want to use in the scene.He starts out quite angry at Alison, shouting at her and how everything is her fault. This has an effect on the audience because they feel for Alison and know that it's not her fault. When Alison has her big paragraph Jimmy begins to realise that it's his fault and he doesn't want to lose her. Beth has thrown her emotion into Alison and this has inspired me to do the same. There is a point in Alison's speech when Jimmy realises he's wrong, I decided to take this and add a physical movement. I decided to break eye contact and look away from Beth, this shows that Jimmy can't bear the thought of being blamed, I close my eyes at one point for more dramatic effect, this also helps my eyes to well up which is important because this is the big forgiving scene, Jimmy would be upset. In earlier rehearsals I didn't know how to say the last paragraph which is about Jimmy comforting Alison, I decided to try it without the lines so I wasn't just reading it off the page. I find it hard to show affection when it's supposed to look real on stage, I used a very comforting voice that came from inside me and wasn't put on, I acted like I was really trying to comfort her, this bit still needs some work but it's getting there.

10th June
Daniel brought the groups in one by one and had them perform their scene, the idea behind this was to keep stopping the group mid performance to try little bits in different ways, this was effective because we could decide which way we wanted to perform the scene and which way looked best. Some advice he gave me personally was to try and use more of my own voice instead of putting on a voice, this is effective because it makes the piece more realistic. Daniel told me to take the themes into consideration, I followed this advice by thinking of what the themes were and trying to incorporate them into the piece, this worked effectively because it helped me understand why Jimmy is the way is

Evaluation

On the 12th June we performed the play 'Look Back in Anger' this is a completely different style of acting than we've done before in the other plays for example this play and 'the Wolves of Willoughby Chase' are two completely different styles. 'Look Back in Anger' is performed as a naturalistic piece, this means the actor performs the piece as if it were real, to do this the actor can use techniques like emotion memory. 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' however is performed in a very over the top way,  these 2 styles are obviously very different, I believe that it is useful to teach students as many styles of acting as possible so it was very useful for us to perform these completely different styles of drama.

I believe that all of the performances went well, everyone remembered most of their lines, the few that did  forget their lines covered it up really well, for example in my performance Beth missed a word from the start of her line so she just made the line longer and added the bit that she missed at the end. All costume was perfect, everyone looked the part.

I believe I achieved the required emotion, I do feel that there was room for improvement, but for the bulk of the performance I believe I achieved the desired effect, I think this because for the whole performance I stayed in character and didn't acknowledge anything that wasn't supposed to be in the scene, an effective way to do this is to put an imaginary bubble around the scene and anything outside that bubble doesn't exist. Overall I am pleased with my performance although there were bits in it that I could've made better, for example there were bits of the delivery that I could've slowed down to make it more emotionally effective. When I performed the last paragraph I feel like I could have put more emotion into it to make it better, it was already pretty emotional but I feel like I could've put more in.

I believe that I achieved the required the impact on the audience, the idea was for the audience to believe the performance, that it could be real. To achieve this I had to put myself into the character of Jimmy Porter, this was pretty difficult because I don't have much in common with the character, this meant I had to work hard to become the character.

I think I conveyed the themes of the play really well, I think this because I took into account all of the themes and used them to try to understand my character, for example, Jimmy obviously isn't happy with the way the government is working at the time. This could possibly be because of the 'Angry Young Man Movement'. I used my emotion to convey the themes for example Jimmy kind of breaks down near the end, I think this is because of the idea that he was forced to grow up to quickly.

The Themes of 'Look Back in Anger'

The Themes of 'Look Back in Anger'

The Angry Young Man Movement

The Angry Young man movement was not recognised as an organised movement, instead it was what some individuals were referred to being part of. It describes post World War II artists, novelists and working class men. Jimmy is considered as an example of an 'angry young man', Jimmy has anger towards the political structure, he takes his anger out on his friends and his wife Alison. Look Back in Anger is one of the leading plays from the angry young man movement. This is important because it may explain some of the anger Jimmy has against some political views.

Kitchen Sink Drama

This is a term used to indicate plays that use realism that explore issues related to socialism. Realism was brought around in the late 19th century and the early 20th century by people like George Bernard Shaw. The idea of realism was to realistically mirror the upper class society in Britain. Many critics said that the idea of realism had became boring, this is when Osborne's play was released and changed that idea, Osborne's play tackled many social issues and most importantly the anger of post war working class citizens.

Loss of Childhood

This is one of the main themes in the play and it's the idea that the characters were forced to grow up too fast, the play uses specific examples of this for example, Jimmy was forced to watch his father suffering from quite an early age. For Alison's loss of childhood, it is best seen as the fact that she married Jimmy, her youth is wasted by the abuse Jimmy gives to her. Osborne incorporated this theme to mirror the fact that there was youth being wasted in Britain by things like the World War and the development of the atomic bomb.

Sloth in British Culture
This is shown clearly by Jimmy's character because he wants to search for a more vibrant lifestyle than his own which he blames the people around him for. He feels that the people around him are fundamentally and emotionally asleep, Jimmy's anger towards society is an attempt to rid people of the slothfulness he feels everyone has. This slothfulness is shown in Alison and Cliff's relationship  an example of this is when Alison says that their relationship is 'comfortable', Alison and Cliff are attached on a physical and emotional level nut neither of the two want to take it to any other level, this implies that their relationship is lazy and sloth-like. I believe Jimmy that Jimmy understands this which is why he is not jealous of the relationship.

The Style of 'Look Back in Anger'

Look Back in Anger
The style of this play is very different to the last play we done which was 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase'. ' Look Back in Anger' is a Naturalistic piece created by John Osbourne. The play bears resemblance to the work of Stanislavski this is because Naturalistic Theatre was mainly developed by practitioners like Stanislavski.

Naturalistic
Naturalistic theatre can be described as a perfect illusion of reality, this is where the actors take on the characters and try to understand what it would be like to be in that position, this effect can be achieved by using a technique called 'emotion memory', to do this the actor thinks of a time in their life that is comparable to the scene, for example if the scene is a husband losing his wife for whatever reason, you could think of a time in your life when you lost someone or think of losing your loved one and incorporate that emotion into the scene. One of the key aspects of Naturalistic Theatre is that you always need to remember to keep a little bit of yourself in the piece, you do this by using real emotions and in some cases interpreting how you might act in a situation like this.Naturalistic Theatre was brought about in the late 19th century by practitioners like Stanislavski. Some techniques for Naturalism are:

• Magic if - this is perhaps one of the most important techniques because it's when you place yourself in a kind of imaginary circle and anything outside of the circle does not exist, inside your circle you take the scene and imagine what it would be like if you were in that situation.
• A good technique to think about when performing a naturalistic piece is relaxation, concentration and imagination, it's the idea that you can train your imagination, to do this you can take an object and get a good feel of what it's like to use the object then take the object away, close your eyes and try to repeat the action without the object but imagining you still have it.

This is different from my role in 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' because that piece was very melodramatic and unreal, for example the way the characters react to situations in Wolves is unreal and comedic whereas Naturalistic pieces like 'Look Back in Anger' seem to be less funny and more serious so the reactions wouldn't be over dramatic but it would be mirrored to realism.