6.2.

   Today we really tackled on the last scene to work on the notes Andy gave us on Wednesday. The main problems were the blocking and reactions to other characters. We decided to focus on the blocking first, having Sophie as our main director, since she doesn't really do much in the scene. I helped with this too when I wasn't on stage. It was good having Sophie there to help, especially when everyone else was on stage she was able to move us and tell us what looked good and what needs to be changed.
   We started by running the scene, and every time there needed to be something changed, someone would stop us and suggest another solutions. Mainly this spaced us out a bit more, balancing the stage, but also giving people the chance to move more. The scene is 15-20 minutes long, so having the blocking work is extremely important and I feel that we really did massively improve it.
    Sophia and Yunusa especially worked on their placings, since they were often blocking each other or simply not giving space for each other. We changed it so, that Orsino should be more comfortable and controlling of the environment, since he is a high status man, a duke. Especially after Olivia blows the bomb that she and Cesario have married each other, we wanted Orsino to have a strong reaction. So, at the end of his speech after the line " to spite a ravens heart within a dove" we thought that it would be effective to have Orsino actually throwing Cesario towards Olivia, to show his anger and frustration. He feels betrayed by Cesario and of course sad about losing Olivia and this way it also gives Sophia more room to run after Yunusa.
   Towards the end of the scene, when Sebastian and Viola have their moments between each other, we also wanted to bring more focus to it. We decided to have all the other characters more on the sides of the stage, to leave the middle front for Viola and Sebastian slowly walk towards each other and meet in the middle to embrace each other. Helen also suggested that perhaps they should fall on the ground from the overwhelming of seeing each other again, but also bring more levels to the stage.
   We still need keep running the scene to get it to run smoothly, especially when people finally are memorized. My personal goal is to be memorized next time we do the scene, so that I can work on the physicality of Feste in this scene more in detail.


   I went of from working on the end scene at one point to work on my scene with Michael for a little bit, when I wasn't needed in my other scenes. We hadn't had the chance to work on the scene together yet, so today was very important when deciding what we want from the scene. We really want it to have a devilish feeling when in comes to Feste and Malvolio, since Feste is putting his revenge on Malvolio. It still needs to be funny and lighthearted as well and we need to sort out the cage, but this time we didn't necessarily need it to do our scene.
    Honestly, I didn't feel like we got too much done in this scene, partially because I was more focused on the end scene, but also because I found it hard to get feedback from Michael. Right now, I am running around the stage, trying to hide from Malvolio and trying  different ways to do it, for example crawling on the ground, hiding like a child behind my hands(block my face, doesn't work), being behind the imaginative cage etc. but I think that Michael could do more to draw the attention to him. Malvolio is a very big part of this scene and so he should have a fair share of the focus, but right now Michael isn't doing much with his character. We need to figure out something for Malvolio to do physically so that perhaps I will get a chance to catch a breath, but also focus on the sir Topas characters clarity, since diction is still a problem for me with the voice I chose to do for him.  Of course I could still change the character of Sir Topas, but I feel that it works as a contrast to Feste, who is fast paced and unlinear, where as Sir Topas is slower and more grounded.