Mike Alfreds 

Who is Mike Aflreds?

Born in 1934, having trained in the USA and Israel, Alfred's has been referred to as one of the best directors in the UK. Alfreds began working with 'Shared experience' and has moved through the National Theatre and transformed the cambridge theatre company into 'method and madness'. This is a director that believed actors should learn from doing. With methods similar to those of Michael Chekov and Stanivslasky. His ideas are compiled together in his successful book 'Different Every night.'

In our classes we explored many different exercises, including improvisations, facts from the text, movement ect....

I was having real trouble finding character, this is something I often find hard to get going at first but i believe the Laban Efforts have been sent by a higher power to help me out.

Laban Efforts

Alfreds  says that the efforts are effective as they work from the outside in, this is what I found really interesting when doing the exercise as I wasn't using my brain, I was able to partially forget about myself and create emotion from the way I was moving. The efforts were developed by a man named Rudolph Laban. There are eight efforts which are determined by a combination of three different ingredients:

Light or Strong 

Direct or Indirect

Sustained or Broken

The efforts:

Direct, strong, sudden--------punch (thrust)
Indirect, strong, sudden------slash
Direct, strong, sustained-----push
Indirect, strong, sustained---wring
Direct, light, sudden----------dab
Indirect, light, sudden--------flick
Direct, light, sustained-------glide
Indirect, light, sustained-----float

In class we each stood in our own space. Tim described us being in our own glass box. we had to feel the box, explore every crevice. We built movement through being told to be 'dab' or 'glide' we had to carry on exploring our box but in the relevant effort. First of all this really got me out of my body. I felt a lot more free. Furthermore I explored ways of moving that could relate to 'Stephanie Crosseley' my common ground character. 

Once we had mastered each of the efforts we go into scene groups. We discussed out character and decided on which of the efforts our character would fall into. Phoebe and looked at many different ways of doing this but we found it most useful, changing between the efforts moving around and just experimenting. I  have come to the conclusion that Stephanie is two efforts her internal effort is push but her exterior effort is glide as she is trying to conceal her illness with a calm not caring yet graceful mask. 

Improvisation:

We did many Improvisation exercises, this is just one of them. For me Improvisation is really good because you have to live in the moment as a character and just run with the given circumstances and losten to those around you.

We began by getting into partners. I worked with Jesse. Tim sent one of us (me) out of the room. He then proceeded to speak to those inside the room. He gave them the situation. The situation was that Jesse and I were in a relationship and I have cheated on her. I entered the room not knowing the given circumstances but she did. This resulted in me having to be completely open to what was happening and react accordingly. I didn't know what I had done until right at the very end of the exercise but i knew I had done something wrong. 

from this I learnt that as an actor its so important to take what another actor is giving you and just ise the given circumstances to play the scene. 

Mike Alfreds is a director that I think is really relevant. I am currently reading his book 'Different every night' its a really good gide to creating character, learning how to pick objectives. I think I have found something really valuable in these sessions because I understand Alfreds way of working. 

Declan Donnellan 

Donnellan born in 1953 is not a trained actor. Having read english and law and Cambridge, Donnellan went on the form 'Cheek by Jowl' theatre company which is associated with the Barbican. Adding to this he has worked with the Royal Shakespeare company and recently directed the film 'Bel Ami' . Donnellan wrote a book 'The Actor and the Target.' His aim is to free actors of anxiety and have them live in the space as there character. 

Blocks!

an actors block is something that prevents the actor from being fully in character, finding objectives or stopping the process. I think this is a really interesting thing to do as we individually are able to identify blocks and work them through. 

My Blocks:

- I dont know what Im doing

- I dont know what I want 

- I dont know where I am

- I dont know how I should move 

- I cant find my objectives 

Once we had all identified these we shared them. We had the chance to advise our fellow cast members making us more able to find ways around these blocks.