Shakespeare, initial response

I felt that Shakespeare is cringe !!!!  for example Romeo and Juliet. How can you love someone that you've  meet only three days ago and then marry the person. After  killing  yourself because the person has died because they thought your dead. However  i like the way Shakespeare has hidden meaning in his  play and i feel that his plays shows a lot  issues that were happening at that time for example sexism. Women were treated unfairly by men. Women didn't have the same right as men.


Macbeth 
The play that we are studying for this unit is Macbeth which is written by William Shakespeare. The play was written  in 1606 which was first performed in the Globe Theatre
which is now called Shakespeare Globe. The Shakespeare Globe was built on 28th December 1598. However it got burned down in 28th June 1613 and it reopen in 1614. During the performance Shakespeare wanted his audience to stand but he a few seats. Shakespeare did as whoever paid the most have a sit on the top and the middle and people who have paid the least have to stand up and watch the performance. It like Upper class which is the Queen Elizabethan I and her lords and the rich people and then it's the middle class people who are sitting in the middle and the bottom and then it's the lower class people who have to stand up and watch the performance.



 This play is a tragedy. It show that Macbeth trying earn his success of being king however he cause alot of suffering along the way.Such as him cause  people to die such as King Duncan, Banquo and other dying. Also Lady Macbeth dying because of her plan kill Duncan and Macbeth doing it and she had to  through menta
The plot 

 Act 1

At the start of the play, we introduce to three witches who tell Macbeth and Banquo. That Macbeth would be Thane of crawdor and later be king of Scotland however Banquo would receive nothing. Later on the king Duncan rewards Macbeth "Thane of Crawdor"  because his work in the war. Lady Macbeth finds out about the prophecy and she willing to help Macbeth to be King. 

Act 2 

Macbeth returns home with Duncan. Lady Macbeth suggest the idea to kill Duncan so that Macbeth becomes King. At first Macbeth hesitant to do it however Lady Macbeth resures him. Lady Macbeth drugged the guards during this  Macbeth kings Duncan in his sleep. Macbeth kills the guards and Macduff sees. Duncan's children hear about the news about the father and leave fearing for the lives and they get blamed for his murder

ACT 3 

Macbeth becomes the king of Scotland however regretting the way he did got their . He breakdown however Lady Macbeth calms him down and Macbeth also fears for what the witches said about Banquo so he order an assassin to kill Banquo and his family. The assassin kill Banquo however his children escaped from the assassin

Act 4 

Macbeth goes back to the witches in the wood. They say that he should not fear for a women child however fear for local wood and Birnam wood because in the future the are coming for him Macduff tires to find Duncan children however only finds Malcolm. Malcolm is insecure and weak , he doesn't believe in himself however Macduff helps him to love himself and that he would be a good king.

Act 5 

Macbeth is happy and relaxed however he gets told that Birnam wood is coming for him which is Malcolm army. Meanwhile Lady Macbeth is sleep walking and she ends up in the doctor office and confesses everything  to the doctor and commit suicide. After Macbeth hears about the news and he is suffering and in mourning. Malcolm challenges Macbeth. Macbeth realises who Malcolm is and surrenders and dies. Malcolm becomes king of Scotland

Rehearsals 
At the start we made a list that will help us to improve our acting. This was the same skills and notes from the past units.

• Projection - We need projection because when it comes to performing the audience need to hear us.
• Tone -  We needed tone to show the audience we are feeling by our voices.
• Clear voice - We needed a clear voice so that audience could understand us.
• Eye contact -  We would need eye contact to audience and the characters that we are communicating to.
• Communication - we needed communication as it the most important aspect of drama when it comes to performing and giving feedback and coming up with ideas for creating  piece or doing a piece. 
• Improv
• Body language - we would need body language to make the audience understand how we are feeling.  
• team work- being able to work as a team because some scenes that you do is usually with other actor so you have to able to work with a team.
• humble/ patience  - not brings issues  from outside and just being able to do the work by bieng calm an patience with others and also listening to people ideas or feedback without disrupting them 
• time management - Always being on time to rehearsals because if your l]ate your effect you and everyone else that is working with you. 
• evaluation/ thick skinned  - Always listening to people feedback even if it's positive or negative taken it and working on it in rehearsals 
•  acceptance to others / respect  - Showing respect to the other actors in the class
• awareness
• creativity - being creative when doing scene, giving ideas to your group about things that you can do during a performances 
• risk taking- being able to not hold back when rehearsals and just being open to doing anything. 
• having fun 
• confidence
• take people ideas into consideration
• humour
• movement
• physical theatre 
• cultural sponge
• determination
• listening
• character

Reading through script for the first time as group. This was really good because we got to find out our character and who we are working with and see what things that we need to work on. Also it help me to pronouncing words because i'm not good with  Shakespearean language  and my group help me with words. 

During rehearsals, I was told what group I was going to be put in. I'm working with the blue group and the characters that I play is Duncan,  Apparition 1 and a lord. After we working on the act 1 scene 1 and act 2 scene 2. Act 1 scene 1 is the witches scene whereby the witches are introducing the play to the audiences. The scene that we doing is Act 1 scene 2 whereby I'm talking to the captain and finding out about Macbeth. In the first scene was the Witches scene.  We are performing in a circle shape. which is different from other performance. The problem is that the actor would have their backs to some of the audience member. So the solution for that is to move around so that your back not to the audience in the whole scene. The Feedback that I received from my peers in my class that I need to be louder and clear so that the audience members could understand me. Also, I need to move around a lot because we performing in a circle I need to not have my back to audiences. Also, I need to work on my body language by standing up straight, walking like I'm in power because I'm the king, I should behave like a King However It felt that I was playing by myself.   

Character profile 
After that I sat down by myself, I went through my character. I used the Stanislavsky method. This method has helped me with developing my character. I was using the Stanislavsky method which is BEING THE CHARACTER!!!!. Stanislavski also had 7 steps. Who am I? Where am I? When is it? What do I want? Why do I want it? How will I get it? What do I need to overcome?. Also, he believed that the actor should read the script first so that they know their lines. Also the 4th wall and What if?

I play King Duncan, The king of Scotland. He's is in his 60's or older. It doesn't say his age in the play but you can tell that his old. He really smarts however very stupid because he from a royal family he has received a good education however the things he does and says are really stupid and mean. He the king he feels that he was better than everyone else. He from upper-class society. He has 2 children, Malcolm and Donblain. The biggest success that he has done is in the beginning when he won the battle however he's friend betrayed him he trusted. The worst that happens to him is when he gets murder by Macbeth and lady Macbeth. I felt that Shakespeare is foreshadowing the future with Macbeth. King Duncan. Also, I play apparitions 1 who is one of the people that tells Macbeth that he is in danger.

This is the scene whereby King Duncan is introduced to Macbeth castle. He loves the fact it beautiful

 and lovely. After lady Macbeth comes and shows him around the area. I give this group peer

 assessment and my feedback was that everyone needs to be louder because some parts of the scene 

you couldn't hear them.  Also remembering their lines because reading from the script you can't see

 the acting. I just saw someone reading the script.

During this process, some days in rehearsal I would lead some vocal warm-ups that I have learned

 from the last term and use it for rehearsing. During rehearsal would do a couple of vocal 

exercises. This is good because we warm up of vocals because the vocal is a key thing in acting.

 One of the vocal warm-ups we did is tongue twisters. An example of a tongue twister is  Remove 

the Romans after approximately 400 years, add lots of Normans French to some angles, Saxons, Jutes 

and Vikings, then stir vigorously. Tongue Twister is very hard for me because I'm not good with 

articulated words when performing. However, if I keep practising them it would help with articulated my

 words with performing. Another vocal exercise that we did is imagine you were eating a sugar doughnut 

and their sugar around your lips. lick the sugar around your lips. This exercise helps us with our tongue using our tongue to speak. 

Another one is pushing your tongue to the back of your teeth and push your tongue out and in ( it's like 

press up for your tongue). At first, doing these exercise felt a bit weird because I'm around people that 

I only meet in a week. However, I had to let myself go and do the task because these vocal exercises

 would benefit me when I'm 

performing. It would help with pronouncing words. Also, I went back looked at the national theatre

 for help. 

Macbeth evaluation

During the process, it was very tough however exciting because the Shakespeare language is very hard
for me, because I speak the modern language, also I didn’t know much about Shakespeare so research about him was very interesting and fun. Whilst rehearsing Macbeth the feedback that I have gotten was that we worked well as a team. Everyone gave each other feedback for their scene for example if someone was quiet and we couldn’t hear them we would tell them or do some activities to warm us up so that we could energetic. Someday in rehearsals with have people not showing up or people be running late. This affected our
rehearsal time because we can't rehearsal the scene if someone is not there. What I do is learn my lines or try to find an actor who's free and asking them to rehearsal my scene with them. Whilst rehearsals I had problems with pronouncing the words be so my group helped me with the words. Also, I need to work one remembering my lines. This affected everyone in the group because everyone would know their lines I didn’t so it would mean that it would be hard for others to give advice on what to do for the next rehearsal. During the performance, I was confident and Loud. I had great eye contact. When someone was talking to me on stage or I was talking to someone I would look them in eye so that I'm listening and reacting to them. However, I need to work on my articulation with pronouncing words. Also, I need to work on my tone of voice. I had the same tone throughout the whole performance. At parts of the piece, I need to change my tone. Also, I need to work on my body language. I need to stand up straight because I play the King I need to show that I have power and I'm higher up.