The exercises in the rest of the book have been discussed already and although useful to take note of, I am not going to elaborate further on them. They are for instance “repeating words” where actors listen and repeat the last words of lines as spoken by one person to encourage listening and fresh reaction (Berry 2008:112–114). In “Spaces of the Mind” (Berry 2008:115–118) clarity of the thoughts in a speech is sought by moving to different spaces in the room; the actors allow the inner thoughts to suggest “places in their head” (Berry 2008:116) and they move to that spot and remain still while then speaking the lines. Each thought will have a specific place in the room and it assists the actor to be fully aware of the content of each thought before moving again. Berry (2008:116) feels this active way of working with the text can make the actor think faster on their feet which is something we do all the time in ordinary life “we are always moving to different parts of or brain, of our experience and our intuition, as we think through a moment of change” (Berry 2008:116). This exercise links up with those discussed in The Actor and His Text and Text in Action where the actor’s movement is guided by the punctuation.
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She continues with “Inner vs Outer Landscape―In and Out of the present” where actors mark out two small spaces in the rehearsal room and move between the two while speaking. One space is for the present and the other is used for the character’s internal thoughts or past experiences (Berry 2008:118,119). For our play this was a good exercise to incorporate as there is much interplay between the past and the present.
“Drawing a picture” (Berry 2008:120,121) is also one discussed previously and can be used very effectively during improvisation on themes and scenes from the play. This formed part of our improvisation explorations on the characters and making concrete their memories of earlier living spaces. “Concretising Thought” (Berry 2008:22,123) deals with using an object to represent an important, central idea in a part of the text of the play. The actor(s) move the object to different parts of the space as they speak and find a new weight to each thought as they handle it. “Marking thoughts” and “One-Upmanship” (Berry 2008:126) involve one or two actors who listen to each other and grade each other in a way, by making a tick on a piece of paper after each one has spoken a thought. The aim is for each character to make his/her point clearly and to add more ticks perhaps! This we did not use due to lack of time in rehearsal but it can be a competitive exercise between actors who are debating an issue.
The next strategy “Building Structures” (Berry 2008:127) links very clearly with the earlier exercise “Performing a task” and this has been discussed. Remaining exercises in this chapter are “Covert Relations” where two characters do not want something to be discovered or overheard (Berry 2008:131). It requires the actors in the middle to keep physical distance between two chairs while walking and speaking and not to speak when the other actors on the sides, approach the chairs. The two main actors become very aware of the danger of being heard and have to be precise and quick in their speaking to each other. “Making Contact” (Berry 2008:132,133) has also been referred to and is a good strategy for characters needing to express “quite deep feelings” (Berry 2008:132). This exercise was used to good effect by the Sorrows and Rejoicings cast where one actor moves around in the space and tries to communicate with others and they turn away when spoken to.
“Manipulation” and “Arguing and Questioning” (Berry 2008:135–137) are interesting exercises too and we used aspects of them in our more improvisatory exercises in the middle of the rehearsal process which focused more on psychological exploration of the characters and their backgrounds. It usually involves two or more actors who try and persuade someone to do something “against their will and judgement” (Berry 2008:135). An example would be of a character being persuaded (or manipulated) to lie down or drink something while speaking their text despite some possible resistance from him/her, or on the other hand, showing acceptance. The arguing or heckling situation is definitely a useful exercise as it immediately
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raises the energy levels in a rehearsal and leads to provocation among the actors. One of the actors has to clearly defend his or her ideas, arguments while being vocally challenged. Berry (2008:137,138)) concludes this chapter by affirming her belief that these strategies can release a sense of freedom in response for the director and actor. She suggests that directors simply go with their “instinct[s] according to the scene and the actors” and to apply the exercises at various stages throughout the rehearsal process to find different options and to get the most out of them (Berry 2008:137). For actors she says these strategies can help them to physically realise the “underlying motive of the text in some way” and to find their “own personal connection to the language in a different, and perhaps more profound way” (Berry 2008:137). She is confident that whatever is discovered during these sessions will be remembered and retained in the thought and feeling processes during performance (Berry 2008:137). For her it is ultimately about “finding and clarifying the thoughts: even negative ones, always lead somewhere.” (Berry 2008:138).
For myself, it was a constant process of also clarifying thoughts through exploring the writing in Sorrows and Rejoicings and finding how some of the strategies used on the language could evoke certain key sounds and images that would lead us to a clear concept.
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Further comments on the rehearsal process of Sorrows
and Rejoicings and consolidating a directing concept
In the previous chapter I discussed the many and varied exercises that Cicely Berry suggests as a blue-print for finding new connections and resonances in response to a text. I wished to show how I used most of these exercises to assist myself and the cast in opening up more possibilities for interpretation and direction of the play. These strategies helped guide our exploration towards finding sounds and images suggested by the language in Athol Fugard’s Sorrows and Rejoicings. Overall, I also hope that it has become clear how the exercises have had a cumulative effect in working on different scenes of the play, contributing to the acting and development of characterisation, use of sound and space, props, lighting and costumes and therefore a concept for the production as a whole.
In this chapter I wish to comment further on aspects that have not been discussed as fully yet; namely our warm-up process in general before rehearsals, the choice of performance space, fuller comment on a few improvisations and exercises that were instrumental in leading to aspects such as set design, costume and further soundscape development. Some mention also needs to be made briefly of other improvisations that were not directly part of Berry’s strategies.