Thursday 25th February 2016 - Character Improvisation

In todays lesson we looked at the concept we are going to use, we are looking at the difference between those who are very well off and those who are displaced, for example refugees. We started by doing an improvisation task based around scenarios that could possibly occur in a refugee camp. This was helpful as we got to explore the way that a "displaced" person may live, we really got to look into different types of characters as we had to come up with a scenario - ours was, we had arrived to the camp in a crowded bus, there was a couple and two children who had lost their parents. We then had to interact with others from different groups, this allowed us to build our ideas further as our characters had met new people. We had different activities that needed to be done such as finding food and putting up a tent for shelter, because of this we had to communicate with each other like if we were actually refugees, because of this we were able to build the improvisation to make it more realistic.


We then looked at the upper class people, we started by having to pose for a family picture, through his we had to show wealth, power and hierarchy. We had to use different body language in this exercise compared to our last task this is because the refugees are vulnerable, have no possessions, their social status is very low and struggling to survive. The two social groups are at complete opposites and therefore the way that we hold ourselves, facial expressions and the way we communicate with each other needs to show the audience these differences. After this we had to do a second improvisation task where we had to act as if we were at a family dinner, when speaking we had to project more and make sure that every word is pronounced and articulated correctly, this is because usually upper class people are very well spoken compared to those who are perhaps lower classed, this is linked to the quality of education that different social groups are likely to receive. For example refugees are likely to receive no or poor education however royalty and other wealthy families are more likely to receive a higher quality education. As well as this the priorities of the different groups also vary, one example of this is refugees main priority would be to survive with basic food and shelter however those with more power and wealth care more about the quality of the possessions they own and they way they live their lives.


This lessons has helped me understand the concept we are using for Antigone, as we practically got to see and understand the difference in the two groups of people that we are basing the show around - the "displaced" and the royalty.