Caroline's Acting Blog

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For my first season at Cheshire Academy, I was apart of the stage crew of the fall play. The name of the play is The Caucasian Chalk Circle, written by Bertolt Brecht. I worked at all the shows November 9-11, 2017 in the Black Box Theater of Cheshire Academy. For our school's production of the play, Mr. Aronson directed and some of the main characters include Grusha, Simon, Azdak, Natella Abashwili, the Singer, and Michael. The plot of this show is told by the Singer, who doesn't actually sing. Grusha, a peasant servant of the royal Natella Abashwili, finds Michael Abashwili, who is the royal heir, in the midst of the war that her fioncé is fighting in. Michael is found alone and forgotten about. She takes him and flees the dangerous area as she intends to keep him safe. Over the course of the first act, Grusha tries to avoid running into Natella and her armed forces who are rapidly looking for the child. Grusha adopts the child, and finds ways to get him food and shelter. The ...

The first half of the video that I watched was the actual performance with the masks, the second half was what looked like them rehearsing without the masks. What was interesting is that, while performing, the actors really used their bodies to direct attention and show emotion/personality. For example, the disrespectful girls put their feet on the table to show that they are sloppy and rude and disregarding. What was also interesting was that the actors, when they weren't performing, would show their masks facial expression, even when they weren't wearing them. I didn't expect this. By practicing making the face of their mask, it probably helped them get into character for the actual performance. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGRi-pYV-4g

Made of stiffened and painted linen The actor could play more than one part with the use of different masks Men could play female roles, and vise versa Mouth hole allowed for projection of the voice Greek theatre had a lot of plays that involved gods Many masks of different gods (Dionysus) http://www.teachinghistory100.org/objects/about_the_object/greek_theatre_mask Masks were also used in celebrations and ceremonies Masks covered most of head, with eye holes, mouth hole The Greek thought that the masks should “melt” onto the actor's face;the mask was to become an actual part of the face to the audience Greek mask makers were called skeuopoios, “maker of the properties” Over exaggerated facial features https://greektheatre.wordpress.com/home/

During this Silent Movie process, I learned a lot of things. Not only about how to act on screen, but also how to put the movie together and how to add things into the movie to add character and clarity for the viewing audience. One of the most interesting things I learned was how big your movements have to be. Since the characters don't speak, you have to make it really clear and obvious what your character is feeling and is trying to communicate to the viewers. During the beginning, my movements weren't big enough or clear enough, and the points I was trying to make were not portrayed in what I was doing. Throughout the process, I tried to find a good balance between showing emotions through movement, but also keeping it semi-realistic. This was more of a challenge than I thought because, at times, it was uncomfortable and I didn't know what to do with my body. I really had to experiment more than I thought to create my mature, yet annoyed character. This also leads into...