The Cherry Orchard- Progress

From our very first read through, I found that I liked the script and had a good connection with the character I was assigned. Yasha, from first impressions, was quite suave and sophiscated ; especially for a manservant, and I felt that I could portray the role more than successfully as it seemed an exciting challenge. It was very different in comparison to 'The Wardrobe' as Benjamin could be seen as the complete antithesis of Yasha as both have very different intentions and objectives. For Example, Benjamin truly cares for his brother and perhaps even thinks more of Daniel than he does himself whereas Yasha only has his own best interests in mind.

I take the role of Yasha in Scene 1 and 2 and, as it was the first read through, we were not yet able to get into the character through obvious limitations however I still worked on becoming the character early so I could further develop personality and character traits towards the latter stages heading up to performance. From the very start it seemed people were already attempting to get into character and therefore stood out for me; these included Chloe S, Jack A and Sam. They seemed confident with what they were doing initially, however it was made much harder for us all when having to get up onto our feet and almost 'perform'; working on deliverance and figuring out where to place ourselves (of course as it is a play by Chekhov, we decided on very much open plan with actors spread across the stage). It took a while for me to adapt to this as our previous performance was no where near as fast pace and did not include so many actors on stage at one time. We were informed by Karen that almost entirely the whole performance had to be at an energy state 8 and could only drop down to a 7 otherwise the audience would get bored easily and therefore lose interest, taking away the naturalism in the drama as a result. I was keen to build on this as my character has bundles of energy due to his age and status of a manservant (is constantly running around for his employers) and then could at least match the energy state.

My only setbacks on achieving this thus far was the fact that I wasn't completely familiar with the script and had to look at it for guidance, and that I was almost trying too hard in matching the speed of the performance and getting my words mixed up or nobody being able to hear what I was saying. This bothered me as I was not able to perform to the already high standard I set myself and the fact that I had been told in the past that I, at times, could not be heard as I would know what I was attempting to say but could not actually speak the words without mumbling. This is a certain flaw I must certainly improve by the performance stage in order to maintain character as Yasha is a confident individual therefore would be whilst speaking- also in order for my audience to actually hear me!

On our second week of rehearsals, I was familiar with the script and knew most of my lines- breaking some barriers towards progress on my part; I now can experiment with movement and actions during scenes. Others I thought were disadvantaged at this point as some still relied heavily on scripts whereas I felt almost in control of my character- becoming Yasha by growing in immaturity and energy.

During our rehearsal of scene two, my character has to approach Katrina (Lyuba, the property owner and head of the family) in order to express how he feels living in the estate (and how he hates nearly everything about it) and to attempt asking to relocate to Paris once The Cherry Orchard and its estate is sold. I was told to go over my approach to Katrina many times in a search to find the truth in what I was trying so hard to ask for; this then took affect once I grew tired of repeating the same lines- this was the tone required for the line as my character would have grown tired of the residence by now as there isn't much to entertain him; so in many ways Yasha has the same mentality that of a petulant toddler...