Michael Chekhov

We started off with an exercise where we imagined we were watching our character do a simple, mundane task, as if they were another person completely. We would then pose questions to them, like “what are you doing?”  Or “how are you feeling?”

The first time I did this exercise I found it hard to see the face of my character and what their surroundings were. But as we did the exercise more the surroundings became clearer to me, she was in a kitchen making a cup of coffee, and her face was more defined but still not clear enough for me to make out any features.

This was helpful for me to understand my characters physicality, and her feelings towards her family and her work but it didn't give me any revelations.

We then wrote down:

1. The importance of our character within the play
2. If our character wasn't in the play what would happen

I came up with:

1. She is the representative of the underdog or the nomad in the play; the audience want to see themselves within my character
2. If I wasn't in the play Ruth wouldn't be able to do her job and the dynamics of the government scenes would not work as well

Doing this was useful as it gave me the bigger picture of my character within the play and reminded me of why she is there.

The next exercise we did was to create the atmosphere of a library. When we started it worked and it did feel as if we were in the library, but as time went on the focus started to slip and the atmosphere was broken. It was useful in that reminded me of atmosphere and how important it is but the exercise did not benefit me a great deal.

This session was interesting and reminded me of elements of theatre I had forgotten but it was not very challenging.