Russia during the release of the play.

Russia was forced into war; The Russo-Japanese War (8 February 1904 – 5 September 1905) was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russia Empire and the Empire of Japan over Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of operations were Southern Manchuria, specifically the area around the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden; and the seas around Korea, Japan, and the Yellow Sea.

One year after the war, and the release of Chekov's 'Cherry Orchard' Russia had a revolution ; The Revolution of 1905 was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies. It led to the establishment of limited constitutional monarchy, the State Duma of the Russian Empire, the multi-party system, and the Russian Constitution of 1906.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LyZ7YMdoM54

I watched this clip from a rehearsal from the Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory theatre company, and I felt it was very interesting to watch elderly people playing the characters that I've began to know very well, and become very familiar with. For me, I felt it slightly brought some of my visions of the life for me, like Firs, and Ranevsky, in one scene Ranvesky runs to the chair sits down in excitement, and then I actually believe it, her character became even more believable for me because the actor was the appropriate age, to play her.

Rehearsals

Throughout the rehearsals of our piece I have been trying to watch the other people in my class's interpretation of the character of Lophakin, and think what I could change about my character to make him more natural and effective to watch. 

This image is from one of our rehearsals of last scene of the play, my character Lophakin is played by Solomon, I believe Solomon's interpretation of Lophakin was very different from mine, maybe because the scenes we both play our Lophakin's feelings are completely different. In my scene Lophakin turns from being excited to see Ranevsky again, to getting angry at her ignorance, and her disapproval of his help to save her and the Orchard. In Solomon's scene he is leaving the Orchard with most of the characters except Firs, who as you know gets left behind at the end of the play, and so Solomon in this scene in my opinion portrayed Lophakin in this scene to being happy, with the purchase of the Orchard and  at times disappointed with Ranevsky's decision. So both of me and Solomon's interpretation of Lopahkin in my opinion reflected the thoughts and feelings of him in that particular moment in time. 

I've also been looking at other interpretations of Lophakin like the 1999 film interpretation of 'The Cherry Orchard', Loparkin played by Owen Teale (all the way on the left), I believe played the character extremely well, and inspired me in some cases (characteristics), like the constant use of sarcasm he chooses to make Lopharkin use. I also loved his interpretation of the scene where he tells Ranevsky that the Orchard has been sold, and he's bought it, I felt that this scene was very effective and interesting to watch because I believe he really thought about Lopahkin's thoughts and feelings at the time, and you could tell he did that; so much that the naturalism felt so real that at one point I forgot that it was only a film. 

Here is another scene of a interpretation of Lopharkin played by Ben, this is the first scene of the play and again I believe that Ben's interpretation was completely different to mine, this was because I believe that Ben made his character a bit more working class than ours, this is because he added a soft cockney accent  to his voice, which hinted that he was from a working class family, and I believe could've been considered to be a smart decision on his part because some people see it as the progression of

the character, he starts of happy and fun, but begins to become more serious coming towards the end of the play.

Finally here is another interpretation of Loparkin, played by Josh, I believe Josh's interpretation of Loparkin is the closest to mine without a doubt, I think this maybe because his scene is fright after mine, so his feelings and thoughts are the same, so they would be portrayed in similar ways. In his scene he is again questioning Ranevsky about the selling of the Orchard, but she again is against it because of her memories there, and in Romy'a scene she expresses some of the terrible events that took place there, like the death of her son. I felt that some of his decision of the character were very powerful like, the decision he made to change the tone of his voice depending on what he was talking about, I believe he was did this very well and had complete control of how loud he wanted his voice to be, to express his characters emotions.

Cherry Orchard now showing at the Young Vic Theatre

http://www.youngvic.org/whats-on/the-cherry-orchard

I also chose to write about Felix who is ....... because I felt that he really understood his character, and his characteristics. In my opinion he really tried to push he's character to the limit, and I believe he was successful, I really believe his character was him, throughout the scenes, he would stay in character even when not on stage, which I thought was a really good touch because it allowed him get lost in his acting, and I really enjoyed watching his performance because of these reasons, it felt like he really pushed his character to make him believable, and bring more life and entertainment to the scene.

I chose to write about Romy who was playing Ranevesky because I believe she developed her character really well, when she read her lines it seems she had been really immersed in the scene and with what she was saying, so much I began to believe her, I also think it worked extremely well because she learned her lines so, she was able to focus more on acting than on getting her lines correct, throughout her scene she was complete focused on the other character on the stage, which I think worked really well and made the scene come to life, and better to watch, because you could see the connection and chemistry between the two characters. 

I also chose to write about Felix who is ....... because I felt that he really understood his character, and his characteristics. In my opinion he really tried to push he's character to the limit, and I believe he was successful, I really believe his character was him, throughout the scenes, he would stay in character even when not on stage, which I thought was a really good touch because it allowed him get lost in his acting, and I really enjoyed watching his performance because of these reasons, it felt like he really pushed his character to make him believable, and bring more life and entertainment to the scene. 

Task 2:

• What happens in the scene(s) you are in?      

Mrs Ranyevskaya returns home and is greeted by her daughter, Lopakhin attempts to give her a plan to safe her house, but she rejects because the orchard means too much to her.

• What opportunities do you have in this scene?

I have the opportunity to try and push the character in this scene and try to perform with the most realism and naturalism I can. I am very grateful that I was given the role of Lopakhin because I believe he is a very significant character in the play and I believe he will be a very fun and possibly diffucult character to play.

• They are getting familiar with each other. 

CHARACTER RESEARCH

Lopahkin

• People coming home, Mrs Ranevsky.  

• Anya goes to bed, after seeing her mother again. 

• Mrs Ranevsky is glad to be back. 

• Lopahkin gives Mrs Ranevsky the idea to make some of the land of cherry orchard into houses to let out for the summer to pay her debts.  

• Gayev is against the idea, and Lopahkin is still trying to persuade her, but Mrs Ranevsky is against it. 

 OBJECTIVE OF LOPARHKIN;

In the beginning the to help Mrs Ranevsky, but she didn't want to take his help with the land, and he bought it to make sure someone else doesn't buy it, so his intentions were good, also that his family were owned by Mrs Ranevsky so maybe he wanted to be better than her, and finally I believe one of his intentions was to become a powerful land owner to leave the title of a peasant life behind him.  

 SUPER OBJECTIVE OF LOPARHKIN; 

Uses steps throughout the story to help Mrs Ranevsky, but later goes on to work for his own gain. 

Homework
What do people say about you, what do other people say about you, and what u say about other people(Lopahkin).


He says he's a peasant, he says he doesn't understand his self.

He says to Gayev 'you're a old women' 
He says 'Mrs Ravensky is a fine women'

'I work all the hours god gave me'

I've began to think about my character more and try to develop him, I began to start thinking about my characters physicality, I first began to make my back straight and sit up straight, similarly to a person who was born into a upper class family (someone posh) but, I remember that Lopahkin was born into poverty because his father was a servant(working class), so I then began to think how can I show that I can wasn't born into money but only later came into it. So I tried to hunch my back very slightly, so slightly you could barely tell. I then thought about how my character would walk, would he walk with pace, would he walk on one side of his body because of sleeping rough, but I chose to give him a slower pace when walking, I did this because I thought he would possibly be reminiscing a lot, because he is constantly referring back to his days of being poor, throughout the script. 

The costume that all the Lopahkin's chose to wear on our performance, was black casual trouser/jeans, black converses or shoes, white shirt and a black jacket(leather, or waxed).

I have again began to think about some of the characteristic's that my character Lopahkin may have, so I've been trying to give him more characteristics to bring him alive become more believable and fun to watch, so I've began to try 'unnaturally' make him put his hands in his pockets while he talks to Ravensky, I chose to try and incorporate this into my character because I felt that the more unnatural things he has, like constantly looking at the time, and putting his hands in his pockets makes he feel more real and alive, because this is stuff common everyday people do, like for example, biting there nails or crossing their legs ect. 

Constantin Stanislavski research

Stanislavski was born in Moscow, Russia in January 1863, and died in August 1938.

Stanislavski's system is a number of techniques used to train actors and actresses to bring more emotion and realism to their performances, to make them believable. The method was originally created and used by Stanislavski from 1911 to 1916, it was based on the concept that an actor should use emotional memory to focus internally to portray a actors emotions on stage.

Stanislavski created the 'method of physical actions' to solve the dilemma of spontaneous emotion  in a created environment, in this technique, the actor would perform a physical motion or a series of physical activities to create the right emotion needed for the character." Emotions come for the subconscious, so this technique lets the actor consciously target and control subconscious emotions through movement. For instance, if a actor needed to weep, he could cuff his hands and put them over his face, a physical action that many who are crying instinctively do".

Tutor group performance

Friday 29th August 2014

Today was the day of our first performance as a tutor group, to the rest of the year group. As a group yesterday we began discussing 'The Cherry Orchard' and our thoughts on the play, so we could begin developing our characters and roles for our performance today. Last lesson as a class we began to make inputs as groups of our short pieces that we believed related to 'The Cherry Orchard', as groups we devised small pieces that we believed related to 'The Cherry Orchard' in my group we looked into the thought of one of the themes in the play to be family, and how as a family they grew up with the orchard trees. We were also told to learn a line from the someones discussion on the "development of memory". Today, performance day, we had a hour to rehearse our performance, in the piece I was apart of the main 'Cherry Orchard' tree, yesterday I went home and researched the trees and how they stand and move, and then today I tried to develop my character by applying my research of how the trees stood into our piece.
We also got to watch the other classes performances, that they created yesterday, and I really enjoyed Will's directing on his intepretation of the play, I believe the choice in music in his piece that he selected really worked well with the performance, it was all centred around a ballroom scene, which I believe was a good choice since in the play I believe it may be argued that the ballroom scene was one of the most effective scenes in the play. And they used the music to enhance the characters and storyline of the scene in the piece in my opinion.

First day broooooo

Thursday 28 August 2014

This is the first lesson as post 16 students, we began of the day with a talk in the Obie Theatre, and then moved into our class as a whole year group to discuss the ''do's and don't's''. Shortly after we began to split off into our assigned tutor groups, and we were told we would have to devise a piece of theatre and perform it tomorrow to the whole year. In my tutor group we began with a few games, simple acting games, that could help you develop my you listening skills as an actor and voice, some of the games was also played for us to get to know each other as a tutor group, as this is our first official meet. Once we have finished the games we had been placed into tiny groups where we discussed our thoughts on 'The Cherry Orchard' by Anton Chekhov, and our understanding of the play, we then began to do another activity within our tiny groups, where we got a partner and and asked them to close there eyes and draw out the favourite place of the partner as they describe it to them, I believe this excersise was really useful because it helped us gain consideration for 'Madame Ranevskaya' character and her love for he Cherry Orchard trees. Our teacher decided to put this activity into our piece of theatre, we then as groups began to make a selection of words from the book that we felt relates to a place, or being somewhere. Then we began to work around these words still in our groups and began to make small pieces of theatre in our groups which we performed as a, class and is going to be performed as an ensemble to the rest of our year tomorrow. This lesson I believe it really gave be more open mined into 'The Cherry Orchard' and made me confident about learning and performing this play later in the year.