Vsevolod Meyerhold - Biochemical techniques.

The rehearsal process

When we were first told that our final performance of the year would be Animal Farm, we were feeling unsure of how to feel. For myself and peers we were unsure of the story or context and didn’t know how to first approach the show. It took a few weeks if rehearsals for us to really grasp and accept the show for what it was. It was by far the stances (and fun) show I’ve had the pleasure to being a part of. By the end of rehearsals and the shows themselves we were all toughly in love with the performance and I feel that we wouldn’t have done it any differently.

In the beginning we started by watching a short documentary of the Russian revolution time line and understanding the context of the piece. And the cast list was revealed.

We also spoke about the allegory of animal farm, and the definition of Communism, totalitarianism and socialism.

Communism - a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

Totalitarianism- a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.

Socialism- a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Rehearsals:

We started out rehearsal by being involved in workshops, learning how to use our bodies in an abstract way to become our animals. One of the exercise we did was walking around the studio carrying a stick, we then without speaking through the stick to each other. We also grouped up into pairs and practiced passing the stick to one another as it was balanced on our outer wrist. Once we had created a short routine we then removed the stick but kept the exact same movements as though the stick was still there. This left us with our own unique and abstract movement which we could then later use to discover how our animal moves around the stage. Later in the day we then used the experience from the farm trip, videos and pictures we took to experiment in moving as an animal.  
We created some freeze frames, our animals in rest, moving around and as a group. While I was at the farm I noticed how the pig’s heads are very low to the ground and the way they walk is as though they don’t care. However when they eat its almost violent especially when there are other pigs around them. I’ve also noticed that pigs have very human eyes, there emotion is similar to ours. There’s clear intelligence behind those eyes and that’s definitely something I want to portray in my performance.

Once we stared blocking the first act the movement became more difficult, stating in character was a huge problem for all of us. To combat this we had another workshop focusing just on be our animals and how they moved along with voice and tone.

 The voice for snowball is a strong northern accent thicker than my own. I looked at people like Sean Bean and the voice he used in Game of Thrones as Eddard Stark. I wanted to have the stage presents of a figure of authority and while I took some inspiration from Eddard Stark I also looked at real life political figures like Jeremy Corbin and Mhairi Black. I’ve noticed that politicians use their body to get their point across, they use their hands and have add pauses to create a powerful affect. A lot of mu lines are speeches that are mean to be political so as I went through my lines and became more confident I started to experiment with pauses and using my hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2wsCBKVruY   Mhairi Black on misogyny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7Z_AeLcIe8  Jeremy Corbin on poverty and the conservative government.

We spent the majority of our rehearsals time blocking act 1 but due to this about two weeks before the show became public, there was a contrast in the quality of performance between the two acts. In comparison act two seemed messy and unrehearsed and as we got closer to opening night we were all getting more and more nervous about the show. However during the half term (28th -3rd ) an extra rehearsal was booked for the cast, unfortunately too many people couldn’t make it in but a group of 7 of us decided to come in anyway even if it was just to run lines. Though we didn’t block or rehearse anything in particular it was still helpful for the few of us who did come, like myself a majority of us find it easier to learn lines practically and with other people than by themselves. The week before tec we were pretty much in everyday which was definitely the right call from the director as the two days we would have normally had would not have been enough time to finish blocking before tec. 


It had been a recurring theme for us to set ourselves targets each lesson. However I didn’t find this to be effective for me and the way I learn. I felt that having a new target every rehearsal was pointless and it was more than likely I wouldn’t have achieved them. Instead I set my sled targets more specific to me and my performance for over the entire rehearsal period. At first I set very generic targets that I should have already been thinking about instead of having to right them down for example
:Learn lines
:Have discipline
:Take Notes
 At the time I thought that this would have been enough but after thinking it though it definitely wasn’t enough for the standard of performance I wanted to achieve. The original targets where not irrelevant and I still wanted to keep them as I moved though the rehearsal period but I expanded on them. Learn lines became learn like by tec week and know them confidently, but also I wrote how ill achieve this. So I stayed behind with other cast members to run lines after rehearsal had finished. Having discipline meant to pay attention and to always be actively listening. But also to be a  professional not only as an individual but as company of actors. Taking note became taking note fro all of the my movements and keep a record of what happened in each rehearsals. I feel that I could have achieved this better as I did take note especially when getting feed back but I didn't keep a detailed record of what happened which I feel would have helped me more at this point of writing.

Making set:

As well a rehearsals a group of us decided to volunteer to help build and paint the set, we spent hours after rehearsal painting, sanding and making boxes. This was an interesting experience as we had spent hours in rehearsals being very physical and then spent the rest of the day in the grange working with the teccies. However even though it was trying those of us who did stay behind felt as though it was a new learning experience, as actors when we go into the tec the set us already built or is being finished and we don't really get to see the process. We all wanted this show to be successful both actors and teccies as we'd all worked so hard on creating this show. In the end however the set looked amazing and I feel that it looked even better to us because of how hard we worked.