28.1.15

If music be the food of love, play on,

Give me excess of it that, surfeiting, 

The appetite may sicken and so die.

That strain again, it had a dying fall.

O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound 

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour. Enough, no more,

’Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou

That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, naught enters there,

Of what validity and pitch so e’er,

But falls into abatement and low price

Even in a minute! So full of shapes is fancy

That it alone is high fantastical.

We ran the whole beginning of the play today, with the movement in the beginning, song with all the Feste's, Orsino's speech and Orsino's talk about Olivia. We hadn't done the movement piece for awhile, so it was a little bit off, and got told about that, People are still getting their steps wrong and I think some are unsure where and when are they supposed to do things. I would like to put up a video of this here,but our tutor hasn't put it up on YouTube yet. With this movement piece, I think it is important to stay in character, the high status royalty that we are supposed to represent, but also incorporate the movement of the sea to create the storm. I've learned that during this movement piece that even if I mess up, it is more important to stay focused and not show the mess up to the audience and just pick up with others.
   The song is getting better and better every time we do it. I feel we still need to be connecting with the others and eventually the audience more during the song, but otherwise we are singing it well acapella and in unison. The speech is going better as well. Where before my group had trouble with the lines, having me basically leading everyone, now people were actually speaking up and being more confident with the lines.
   We've also continues this scene with Greta rising from the ground as Orsino. The others will ask him in unison "Will you go hunt, my lord" playing as Curio. Orsino then continues to talk about his love towards Olivia, which we have to react to appropriately. We are shocked when Orsino compares himself to a hart and right after relief'd. There is also many sexual innuendos within Orsinos speech such as "When the rich golden shaft" which we have to laugh at gently, remembering that these people are graceful and completely relaxed.

I have received a lot of direction, what have I learned from it?
   A lot of the direction we received today was about the movement piece, which we have been working on for a while now. I think we all really need to start listening to our director's better, since the movement should be going a lot better already, where as people are still stumbling, because they are not either present or listening. Also, using my own imagination to create the scene in my head helps a lot with creating the mood for the whole scene and I want to explore the scene more with active imagination exercises, such as trying to do a relaxing exercise right before going trough this scene. I'm also going to be working on my imagination with the other scenes as well.