Thea's Diary Entry- What If ...

I went into a room I'd never been in before, to experience how Thea felt when she first arrived off  the train and came into her hotel room, after she found out Hedda and Tesman were still away ...

I'm so alone here. Here in this empty room. Its so quite, so empty. I'm used to having the constant noise of the children and Eilert always talking to me. I've missed him so much this past week. He has consumed my every thought, to the point where I couldn't bear it. He bought me here, I knew I had to follow him, I couldn't doubt my love for him. 
The whole way down on the train, I kept picturing me running into his arms and him holding me, while he reassured me that he would never drink again because he valued our relationship too much. So my heart sank when I stepped off the train into this dismal town, where I knew no one apart from the Tesman family, who weren't even home. I stood at the front door for over an hour, hoping, praying, that they would come home. Eventually I gave up and made my way to the hotel, weeping in desperation the whole way.
So here I am, in this room, alone and desperate. George and Hedda are away, I've left my home and my husband and I have no idea where Eilert is.  I only just managed to get the money together to pay for this room. I have nothing in the world but my undying love for Eilert. I can only hope that I find him tomorrow ... 

Rehearsal 1

Melodrama 
Before Stanislavsky introduced his system, actors in Russia used melodrama to entertain their audience. The personality of the actor was more important than the character being portrayed. 
Melodrama exercise-
We walked around the room and became either a villain, hero or damsel in distress. We then came up with a gesture for each melodramatic character, Each action carried a lot of tension. After this, we got into pairs and were given lines for each character. We had to perform these lines to our partner, highlighting the important words and being as melodramatic as we could, through our gestures and voice. After doing this exercise I could see that performing in a stylized and melodramatic way, automatically becomes very comic and unnatural. There is nothing in the performance that has depth, it is fake and exaggerated. The task highlighted how important character preparation is. 

Before Stanislavsky -

• People would go to the theatre to see their favorite celebrity
• The actors were egotistical and refused to learn their lines 
• Actors demonstrated the character, instead of becoming the character
• Actors portrayed stereotypes and used big gestures 
• The plays were easy to watch
• They showed good and bad, nothing  in between
• People wanted to see the most famous actors
• Scripts were only written for what the audience wanted to hear
• The audience were never challenged
• The plays were conservative
• The government controlled what shows theatres put on
• The actors didn't portray real life or real people 

Naturalism-

Naturalism began as a literary movement and was concerned with real people doing real things. It was looking at its own society, which wasn't being looked at in performance at the time. It was about holing up a mirror to society. It showed reality in all aspects of life. People soon got bored of naturalism, It was becoming too realistic, People wanted to see drama, so realism was introduced.

Relaxation-

• Stanislavsky realized that actors had to be relaxed on stage 
• Relaxation allows you to listen and relax 
• Relaxation encourages imagination 
• Stanislavsky used yoga to practice relaxation with his actors 
• Yoga combines mind, breath and body
• Stanislavsky believed that actors should train themselves physically (dance, yoga etc)
• Actors have to be physically fit, vocally trained and relaxed

My response to Konstantin Stanislavsky by Bella Merlin

After reading this book I understand that Stanislavsky’s system was made up of many different elements, which all come together through rehearsal to create an effective and skilled performance. He came up with his system because he felt that theatre in Russia was getting worse, becoming meaningless and had to be improved. In the late 19th century, theatre was dominated by the ‘star system’ where the audience expected to see the most famous actors on stage. It took Stanislavsky a long time to finish his system, not before he made many mistakes and had done endless rehearsals and performances. He got things wrong first, like when he went through his ‘director dictator’ phase, in which he believed the actors shouldn’t contribute anything and it was all down to the director to tell the actors what to do.

Stanislavsky used the given circumstances in the script to begin to shape the play and the characters. To find the given circumstances you have to ask questions about the character’s past, their situation in the play and their relationship to the other characters. You can find the answers to the questions by searching the script for any clues. Once you’ve found the given circumstances of your character, you can begin to build around them.

Stanislavsky uses the idea of the fourth wall (the invisible wall between the audience and the stage). Stanislavsky felt the actor’s attention should be on the stage and not in the audience, as Stanislavsky was trying to get away from the ‘star system’. I think having this invisible wall makes the action on stage more truthful. However, Stanislavsky still felt that the audience had a vital part to play in live performances. He developed the idea of the fourth wall by using exercises that would improve the actor’s concentration. One of these exercises was abut shifting circles of attention.

Units and objectives are a vital part of Stanislavsky’s system. A play has to be broken down into units, so the actors can more easily understand the play and begin to colour the units with imagination. Once broken down into units, the actors can then find their objectives, which can be found by asking the question ‘what do I want?’ These objectives have to be physical, but should also contain a psychological component. The objective has to be something the actor can believe in, but still needs to be relevant to the character. When Stanislavsky’s actors practiced their objectives, it was an active and emotive process, to avoid it becoming a dry, intellectual process.

The super objective is the overall outcome of the play. It is the actor’s main goal, which all their objectives should fit into. It must unite the actors, the director and the playwright. The  super-objective must encompass the play’s main theme and excite the actor’s inner motive forces. The super-objective is important because if the actors know where they are heading, they can respond more easily if something goes wrong on stage, for example another actor forgets their line. Once the super objective has been carefully identified and all the preparation has been done, that preparation can fall away so that the actors can play ‘in the moment’, the whole time keeping the super objective in mind. Directors often tell their actors to ‘cut 90%’.

One of the components to Stanislavsky’s system is emotional memory. This is where the actor takes an experience from their own life, where they felt the same emotion which is needed from them by their character. The actor shouldn’t try to recreate the emotion, but use colours or some sort of stimulus, to provoke the emotion during the scene. Using emotional memory brings the performances to life and adds depth to the character.

Stanislavsky always used ‘if’ as a tool to make the actors think ‘what would I do if I was in this situation?’ Stanislavsky used ‘if’ to stimulate believable actions from the actors. This technique helps the actor to put themselves in the characters shoes and understand the character’s actions. To practice asking the ‘if’ question, Stanislavsky got his actors to do lots of different improvisations, asking what they would do in different situations.

Stanislavsky uses the idea of ‘grasp’ to engage and entertain the audience.  Stanislavsky said that in order to get the audience in your grasp, the actor has to have a great sense of inner activity. Actors have to be careful not to mistake ‘grasp’ for muscular tension, so by doing exercises in rehearsals, actors can practice their ‘grasp’ on other members of the cast. Actors practice this by communicating with one another by receiving and emitting rays, and paying attention to the physical sensations that arise. By doing this exercise the actors can begin to realise the different feelings between real ‘grasp’ and muscular tension.

I think that Stanislavsky’s method of actor training is very effective. It is complex because it involves so many different components and each one has to be considered and worked on during a rehearsal process. For his system to be truly effective, I think that every component has to be included and nothing can be forgotten. His exercises help focus and relax actors, improve their concentration and work on physicality and imagination. Without Stanislavsky’s system, theatre would be very different to what it is today, because so many actors structure their work around his methods. 

My Initial Response to Hedda Gabler

My initial response to the main character, Hedda Gabler, is that she is a very manipulative and selfish woman. She only does what benefits her and has no interest in other people. Her lack of interest towards her husband and his aunt, shows her selfishness and a superiority she feels towards them, even though they are new members of her family. Even when Tesman's aunt Rena is about to die, Hedda won't go and see her, saying 'I loathe illness and death. Its all so ugly.' This creates the impression that Hedda can only think about herself and how things affect her, instead of other people. She feels she is above everyone else and demands things from other people, without offering anything herself. If she is ever kind or shows support, it is only to manipulate a situation to suite herself. In the play, it is hinted that Hedda is pregnant, but she doesn't want to be and is in denial because she doesn't want the responsibility of being a mother.


George Tesman is naive and unaware of his wife's true character. He doesn't realise that Hedda manipulates him and doesn't love him;or if he does know, he pretends not to and ignores it. He believes that Hedda is happy because they live in the house she told him she loved, although Hedda reveals that she was lying because she felt sorry for Tesman. Tesman is constantly trying to please Hedda, who takes advantage of this. He is caring and loving, especially towards both his aunts, showing how important family is to him. He values the people in his life and values his work even more. He is totally absorbed in his work and his research, we see this when Hedda tells Brack that the whole of their honeymoon was spent with Tesman writing his book.

Juliana tesman is sweet and caring, looking out for others intead of herself. She is happy looking after her sister, Rena, and after Rena dies, anut Ju Ju wants someone else to look after. She has cared for and brought up Tesman his whole of his life because his father, her brother, died when he was young. She is a mother figure for Tesman, which means that his happiness is very important to her. She is also keen for Hedda to be happy and looks forward to Hedda and Tesman starting a family. We can see how gentle and forgiving Juliana is, because when Hedda is insulting about her hat, she quickly moves on and continues to be polite to Hedda.

Thea Elvsted is a caring and unselfish character. She marries a man who does not love her, but finds an escape when she meets Eilert Loveborg and falls in love with him. Loevborg makes a great impression on her and because she is naive and innocent, she devotes her time to helping him write his book, and even after he dies, she is prepared to devote her time once more, to recreate his book. She lacks confidence, however takes a huge step by leaving her husband and step children, which in the late 1800's was not common or accepted as being normal. She is always trying to please others.

Eilert loevborg is an intelligent and creative man. The book he writes is much more insightful and thoughtful than Tesman's, showing the contrast between the two men. However, Eilert is weak when it comes to drinking and after being sober for several years, he is manipulated into drinking again by Hedda, which then leads him to loose his manuscript. After Eilert starts drinking on the night he goes to the diner party at judge Brack's house, he losses his manuscript and the following day, dies. This shows Hedda's ability to sabotage the lives of people around her.

Judge Brack is a friend of Tesman and Hedda. He is disloyal to Tesman, by flirting with Hedda behind his back. After Loevborg dies, Brack suggests to Hedda he knows the pistol that Loevborg had, was hers. He promises not to tell anyone, but this makes Hedda his slave, as he could use the information against her at any time. Brack pushes Hedda over the edge, because shortly after Brack tells her this, she commits suicide. 

All the characters in the play are conected in some way. They each have a part to play in the death of Eilert Loevborg and Hedda Gabler. The two female characters, aunt Ju Ju and Thea, are used to show how different Hedda is to other women at the time. Eilert Loevborg and judge Brack are used to demonstrate how naive and unimaginative Tesman is. 
The play is mysterious because it hints at things about the characters past and what is going on in their lives, but lets the audience figure out what is going on, instead of it being spelt out in the script. For example, the audience can work out that Hedda is pregnant, But doesn't want to start a family, although this is never said in so many words.