Reflective Report

Euripides – Herakles
Having performed in various contemporary pieces of docu-theatre, the grandeur
and emotional focus of Greek theatre appealed to my desire to be challenged, as I
had not undertaken a role within a genre so rife with extreme expressionism. I
began researching Greek playwrights, and Euripides particularly appealed to me, his
tendency to write deeply emotional scenes within incredibly tragic stories gives
room to display huge emotional intensity, something that excited me as an actor. I
read Ian Johnston’s Medea translation, but an absence of duologues pointed me to
his Herakles translation. The relationship between Herakles and Theseus was one
that my fellow actor and I thought had lots of exploratory potential and huge
emotional weight. It was perfectly emblematic of the heightened dramaticism of
Greek theatre that we wanted to explore. That dramaticism is at its most intense
when Herakles reaches his emotional rock bottom, right after he is possessed by
Hera and forced to kill his entire family. We chose to perform an extract from this
section, starting when Theseus arrives in shock to help his dear friend. The extract
covers themes of friendship, grief and shame, Herakles believes he has sinned
beyond redemption and deserves death, telling Theseus that he wants to “die and
go beneath the earth”. Theseus tells him to “let it stain [his] clothes, [he is] not
ashamed” - as Hera is to blame for the murder of his family, and he needs to remain
composed and strong.

To deepen our understanding of the text and establish what a Greek performance
would have looked like, we did some contextual research. I began by reading the
Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy where I developed my knowledge of the
City Dionisia theatre competition, where Herakles likely premiered around the 5 th
Century. Greek Tragedy in Action by Oliver Taplin shed light on the conditions of
Greek theatre, including the narrative role of the chorus, wearing masks and the
dissection of human struggles such as ego and loss. I resolved to play Theseus, as I
had often performed with emotional extremities that Herakles embodied, and I
wanted to challenge myself by trying to portray the nuanced pity Theseus displays.
I initially struggled with the complexity of the character, the genre’s detachment
from modern standards left me confused at some of his lines such as “There is no
avenging spirit which goes from one friend to another”. So, to compound my
understanding of his motives and feelings, I reflected on the key moments that
define his outward desires, and what thoughts could explain his actions. Having
discovered how I want my portrayal of Theseus to process the situation he is in; I
wrote a character profile; the following quote describes the key nuance in his
character:

“The ever stable and brave Theseus is unimpressed by Herakles’ perceived

emotional weakness, his inability to sympathise materialises as snark bordering on
disgust ... his friend in need, he resolves to provide a shoulder to cry on”
We initially struggled as some of the lines in this version of Herakles seemed
confusing and out of touch with the character’s emotions – such as when Herakles
says “yes, that is true. And I am not ashamed I helped you out” - which seemed
peculiar amidst extreme anguish. We worked through this issue by exploring the
lines in question repeatedly, varying the level of emotion in increments. We settled
on a monotonic emotionally numb delivery, as Herakles cannot grapple with his act
of heroism (saving Theseus from the underworld), seeing himself as “a pitiful
wretch”. We also began to experiment with the blocking; positioning Herakles CS,
leant against a pillar with his head covered, his central position drew attention to
him, while his crumpled body represented the unbearable guilt and crushing weight
of killing his own family. We also wanted to include a mannequin on stage to
represent Herakles’ dead wife for Theseus to ceremonially cover with a sheet; which
was in conjuncture with Greek theatre, as it often lent on minimal set pieces to have
profound representational significance, the lone mannequin a far cry from the
butchered bodies of Herakles’ family. We identified that we needed to work on our
emotional ranges, going through our scripts and writing the intensity out of ten for
each line – such as the line “is this the benefactor and great friend to man” having
an intensity of eight. This exercise helped us to understand the peaks and troughs
of the character’s intensity and ensured a measured understanding of their
emotion.

In the extract’s final moments, Theseus wants to pull Herakles from his state and
return him to his heroic glory, unempathetically telling him to “get up ... poor man,
you have wept enough.” Overarchingly, Theseus clings to the idea of being a
traditional Greek hero, unflinching even in the face of utter catastrophe – something
he is upset Herakles isn’t embodying. I achieved this air of traditional pragmatism
by adjusting my physicality, accordingly, puffing out my chest, widening my
shoulders and raising my chin, all to feed into the atmosphere of Greek ‘masculinity’
and heroism. We then spent time perfecting the moments of physical contact that
needed choregraphing, such as when Theseus throws Herakles across the floor to
shock him out of his emotional state on the line “Greece would not let you die so
stupidly”, or when they put their heads together at the end of the piece. We
rehearsed each moment several times, working on the fluidity of movement in each
moment, ensuring a seamless and un-awkward transition into the next line. This
contributed to a deepening understanding of the demanding and off-beat facets of
Greek theatre that make it so arduous and interesting. We resolutely conquered
these difficulties.
Samuel Beckett – Waiting for Godot
After exploring Greek Theatre, I wanted to pursue a contrasting type of theatre –
specifically, from the absurdist genre. Having previously enjoyed studying Beckett’s
Waiting for Godot and watching an excellent absurdist piece called “L’Addition” at
the Edinburgh Fringe Festival – I found a passion for the absurd, and I settled on
exploring Waiting for Godot. It is a play centred around two characters, Vladimir and
Estragon, who wait endlessly for the titular Godot, symbolizing existential
uncertainty. During their time the men squabble, ponder and reflect - their
conversations largely devoid of larger meaning. Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot in
1949 and reflects a feeling of despair in post war Europe – his characters confront
reality and existence, in a way that is amusing and unserious, which appealed to
people following the war. We focused on the subtle contrasts between the two
characters: Estragon, who is more grounded and preoccupied with physical
concerns, and Vladimir, who is more curious and contemplative. I wanted to tackle
playing Estragon as the challenge of seemingly completely aimless and devoid of
complicated thought was something new and unfamiliar to me. I read Sophie
Ratcliffe’s guide, which highlighted the balance between its absurd and concrete
elements. It emphasised which topics are left deliberately ambiguous – such as the
identity or history of any of the characters beyond their names. This extended to
what concerns Estragon; the immediate tangibles such as food and his boots; this
helped me to refine my portrayal of Estragon, focusing on his lethargic physicality
and his grounded thought process.

We picked a section from the play shortly after the travellers Pozzo and Lucky leave
the stage, Lucky leaving his hat on the floor – leading Vladamir to switch it with his
own, which he then hands to Estragon, who switches it with his own and so on. The
men then try “play[ing] at Pozzo and Lucky” when suddenly Estragon leaves the
stage, only to come back in fear of an ambiguous group chasing him from all sides
(they never arrive). We liked this extract as it has a lot of shifts in the men’s
relationship, from Estragon angrily storming off, to them insulting each other:
“Ceremonious Ape!” “Punctilious Pig!”, to finally making up and hugging. This gave
us room to explore all aspects of their relationship, despite their absurdities, the
characters still exhibit a wide range of emotions that we wanted to develop. Their
friendship represents finding companionship in the face of a dullen and desolate
existence. In order to find the perfect balance between humour and dread, we drew
up a list of what would be weighing on our character’s minds, and highlighted the
moments in the script where the negative feelings would seep into delivery. We
began exploring the extract by highlighting five moments from our extract which
were the most fundamental to the story and our characters:

- “What am I to do?” / “Curse me!”

- “They’re coming there too!” / “We’re surrounded!”
 - “Do you-”
- “Cretin!” / “Crrrritic!”
- “My Breast!” / “Off we go!”

We delivered each moment multiple times, focusing on balancing the meaning in

delivery with the deliberate aimlessness characteristic of absurdism. This exercise
helped us emphasise the key moments while delivering less significant lines in a
flat, mundane style, reinforcing the play’s absurdist tone. The moment “Cretin!” /
“Crrrrritic!” for example we performed with a sudden anger, spurred on by each
other’s insults in what was supposed to be a friendly joke with each other. We also
explored the piece without moving unless it was specified in the stage directions –
as we found that we were moving about the stage with too much purpose, and the
decrease in movement helped to fill the extract with a sense of boredom and
inertia. We then ran the extract at 0% intensity, giving us a baseline level of energy
with which to build on in key moments, while keeping it aimless at the right times.
Our final technique was to perform the extract in a completely different style.
Having developed our characters and relationship to a point of confidence and
completion, we performed the piece to a rhythm, delivering our lines in the style of
hip–hop rap, which may be absurd, but it carried that sense into our completed
piece – the uncertainty and variety of our performance lending it an authentic
absurdism.

Jez Butterworth - Jerusalem

I am an avid fan of Jez Butterworth, I studied Jerusalem for my A-Level English
coursework, and I've watched The River and "The Hills of California" in the West
End. So when I settled on performing a monologue for my third extract, I already
knew what it would be - "Come ye giants!" The final moments of "Jerusalem", the
speech is a ritualistic call to the giants of England to join Johnny "Rooster" Byron in
his final stand against the overarching arms of the law as they try to evict him once
and for all. Butterworth describes the when writing "Jerusalem", he "tried to write
something about England, and ended up writing something about myself", and the
deeply personal aspects of the play seep into the final monologue, as Rooster
explains his transformative experiences and gives some melancholic advice to his
estranged son Marky in a rare moment of vulnerability for the bombastic buccaneer.
In preparation to assume the character of the eccentric modern-day Robin Hood and
tackle the extremely demanding extract, I watched the hugely iconic performance
by Mark Rylance, who remains the undisputedly most iconic depiction of the
character to date. He performs the role with a thick west-country accent, which is to
be expected as Rooster lives in Flintock. The other key aspect of his performance I
found, was a somewhat indescribable emotionally void bombast, which I attributed
to a fear of change, he is pervasive of inevitability through recklessness; nothing
matters if you ensure nothing matters.
I then began to search for a practitioner who would enable me to perform the role
to the best of my ability - and introduce new and interesting aspects of theatre to
the performance. Katie Mitchell’s style, rooted in meticulous details, subtext, and
expansive construction seemed to be the perfect fit. I knew that her detailed set
constructions would aid in the depiction of Jerusalem’s wild and bombastic
conclusion, lending it a sense and grandiose that reflects the gritty might of
Rooster’s final stand. Additionally, her Stanislavski-inspired focus on intentions and
understanding of the character’s headspace would be ideal for my portrayal of
Rooster, who at this point in the play has not only lived a life of delirious counter-
cultural defiance, but has recently endured a myriad of emotionally rocking
moments (maybe add more detail?).

I began by reading A Director’s Craft that went into extensive detail about Mitchell’s
methodology and described “the essential practical skills needed at each stage of
the production process”. The first step is “extracting information from the text that
will help [me] to perform the character”, Mitchell suggests that the best way to do
this is by dissecting the character’s intentions from both their context, and the lines
they deliver. I started by listing 6 questions about my character and production that
I answered on an A3 piece of paper (1.4). I then mapped out Rooster’s entire life on
another piece of A3 paper to give me a sense of the finality he is feeling (1.1), and I
created a document with each of Roosters lines and the emotions he is feeling on
that line (1.2*). Additionally, in compliance with what Mitchell refers to as
“immediate circumstances”, I mapped out a diagram of Rooster’s recently acquired
injuries (1.3), as they constitute a large part of his physicality in my extract.

1.1 1.4 1.3

1.4-1) three words to describe my extract 1.4-2) intentions of character 14-3) What does the piece
look like?

1.4-4) What should the audience feel 1.4-5) biggest expected challenge 14.6) key application from
Mitchell

1.2
Physica His Loss The reflectio Pride Happiness Peace Anger / Spirit
l Pain (of imminent ns on his / love fury / of
family) destruction life gone ferality Albion
of his by /
lifestyle Englan
d
Lines 1-2

Lines 2-4

Lines 4-6

Lines 6-8

Lines 8-12

Lines 13-
15
Lines 15-
19
Lines 19-
24
Lines 24-
26
Lines 27-
29
Lines 29-
30
Lines 30-
31
Lines 32-
37
Lines 38-
47
Lines 48-
53
Lines 53-
62

These exploratory diagrams helped me to grasp the character and set a basis for
my practical portrayal, a product of the Stanislavski-inspired Intentions section of
Mitchell’s book.

After starting my practical rehearsals, I realised that adopting Rooster’s west

country accent would be amongst my most difficult challenges. I watched an
instructional video on the accent and rehearsed key sounds such as the rhotic ‘r’
and glottalized ‘t’ by creating phrases that I could recite to remember the correct
sound: “Alright my lover” and “Hermione! It’s quite warm out there”. I struggled to
apply the sounds to apply to all lines of my monologue however, and the
consistency of my accent was patchy, I specifically struggled with the double “oo”
vowel sound in the repeated “blood” and “boots” in “I hit that last bus so hard my
boots came off” , and the “æ~a” sound in “car”. In order to overcome these
difficulties, I began using my accent consistently in all my drama classes, as well as
often in the morning and after school. I also would recite the lyrics of some of my
favourite rap songs, as the wordplay and range of sounds in the songs forced me to
rehearse all different sounds in the west country accent, and over time enforced the
consistency of my accent. I also found a delivery of this final speech (exclusively the
initial talking to Marky segment), by a YouTuber who had a more subtle accent, and
so I screen recorded the video and played it on the train to school and home, which
helped to enforce my natural and consistent delivery, his more subtle accent
potentially toning down excessively accentuated moments, such as the “hit that last
bus so hard my boots came off!” line. I continued to work on this throughout the
entire rehearsal process and often asked for opinions on the consistency and
believability of my accent from my friends, family and teachers.

Whilst reading teaching and production material on Mitchell’s methodology and

common stage techniques, I found she often uses live camera feeds of the stage
itself to emphasize key moments and imply huge significance. Mitchell used this
technique in her adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s The Wave, something described as
lending those scenes a sense of being “at once singular and universal”. Rooster’s
simultaneously deeply personal and emblematic (of defending personal liberties
against encroaching establishment) fight reflects this notion, so I decided to use a
live feed in my piece.

Katie Mitchell’s book goes into detail about the key purposes of set design: “to
communicate time and place”, “to support the actors in transmitting the ideas and
genre of the” piece. I aimed throughout the process to instil a sense of finality in my
monologue; Rooster’s ultimate last stand, an awe inspiring and glorious end to a
symbol of defiance. As such I needed my set to support the history of Rooster as a
counter cultural, pastoral English icon. I achieved this by the symbolism of an up-
turned fancy sofa, a television broken in the centre of the stage and discarded bits
of trash and furniture that all get covered in gasoline soon to be burnt by the end of
the extract. Rooster’s rejection of civilised society in favour of an upturned life he
lives in the wood is symbolised in this way, and the wide range of household items
on stage develops sympathy for Rooster as he faces losing his beloved home in the
woods.

- Why i picked it
- Why drew me to the character
- What do i want to add – camera, ferality
- What challenges have i faced – accent, more accent
- How i envision the piece coming together -

Bibliography

- Cambridge companion to Greek Tragedy – P. E. Easterling

 - The Complete World of Greek Mythology – Richard Buxton
- Greek Tragedy in Action - Oliver Taplin
- Connell’s short guide to Waiting for Godot – Sophie Ratcliffe
- The Theatre of the Absurd - Martin Esslin
- Beckett's Theatres: Interpretations for Performance – Sidney Homan
- A Director’s Craft – Katie Mitchell

Webliography

- The Stanislavski System: Growth and Methodology – Perviz Sawoski

- British Accents: The West Country – English like a native, YouTube
- School of British Accents – WEST COUNTRY – Babbel, YouTube
- Practitioners in practice: Katie Mitchell (Film) - National Theatre
- Practitioners in practice – Katie Mitchell (Education pack) - National Theatre
- Katie Mitchell – Crafting live cinema – Mackenzie Davenport, YouTube
- Practitioner 1: Katie Mitchell (Education pack) - WJEC

Word Count

- 2913 words