Lesson

Today we did workshops in pairs based on the works of one of the practitioners we looked at. These were short workshops, no longer than 5 minutes but some people were missing so some of us had to do it without our partners.

I was supposed to have done my workshop with Marian, but she wasn't there. We had planned a workshop based on the works of Michael Chekhov and improvisation to help people learn the differences between themselves and their character. I decided that the best way to do this would be a game of park bench so I set up three chairs and an audience and had three volunteers go up and sit on the chairs. I then gave them a scenario and asked them to improvise as themselves, such as a waiting room and there is a god awful smell. When the scene fell flat, someone in the audience would say stop, tap one of the three on the shoulder, they would leave and the person who has just come in would change the scenario to a different one. I then got them to do this in their characters and the scenarios were more fitting to the time, such as three convicts and one morsel of bread and they decide who gets it.
For most people it helped but I really could have done better with the improvisation if I had set scenarios that I gave them and they reacted once as themselves and once as their characters. Choosing different scenes each time wasn't a wise move because there was just them reacting to one situation and their character to another. If they had reacted as two people in one situation, they would be able to see the differences between themselves and their characters, their attitudes towards each other, their ways of dealing with things and other stuff we haven't yet had the time or opportunity to discover ourselves.

Another workshop that was done today was Layla and Catherine's. They looked at Michael Chekhov's character types. They told us to put ourselves into the groups we thought our characters were best suited to and them Layla, as an officer came to tell us that due to technical and environmental matters we would be spending a few more months on the boat. Us thinkers went first and as soon as we were told the news, nothing was said. Not a word. We all just sat there thinking until Molly broke the silence and said that we should probably look at how much food we had left. There weren't many doers but when they were told, they were angry about it and showed us all how they felt by throwing chairs and kicking walls and cursing. The veils sat there and just spoke about it then wandered off the subject.
Then all three of us character types were put altogether and given the news. It must have been very interesting to watch because the thinkers were evermore still, the doers still got angry and the veils just spoke some more.
This workshop helped us and was in fact quite good because when we first did the exercise a few lessons ago, I couldn't quite take myself seriously and hadn't been able to apply it to my character. This workshop allowed me to do that and it created an atmosphere when we all reacted together. I was aware of all the various reactions, but I was concentrating on how to handle the situation. I understand my character a bit more now and can really see how different we are, because I myself would have been with the doers.