Lesson

Today we moved onto looking at declan donnellan.
He believed that everything an actor does on stage has a target and said the actor should focus on this rather than themself. You shouldn't look for the answers in yourself but outside your target, instead of worrying about what your character is doing, worry about what the other characters/target is doing.
Our warm up games today were based around having a target. We played:
Kill the president: this game uses a ball, someone as the president, another as their bodyguard and everyone else's target is to hit the president's legs with the ball. The bodyguard must make sure the ball doesn't hit the president, but when it does the bodyguard becomes the president and someone else is the bodyguard.
Dodgeball: for this game one person had the ball and their target was to hit everyone else's legs to get them out. Everyone else had to make sure they didn't get hit.
To be able to play situations realistically, you need to understand your target has two possible outcomes and you need to be able to play both of them. Every living moment has an element of quest and at one point, all characters will have their moments of doubt, but targets divide into a better or worse situation.
To look further into the better or worse scenarios, we compiled a list customised to our characters of possible outcomes of their lives. I had:
I might be promoted, I might not.
I might be able to study the plants, I might not.
Will the convicts be difficult or not.
I might have another heated discussion with the reverend, I might not.
We might get another ship with more food stock, we might not.
In a book declan donnellan once wrote, he relates all his target theories back to Romeo and Juliet. He wrote that actors should ask themselves the question "what is the target making me do?". He said attention is about the target and concentration is all about you.