Units and Objectives

Knowing a characters objectives in scenes is extremely important. Because 1 your characters objective could change more than once in a scene for example in my scene I think Lopakhin changes his objective 5 times and this to me tells me a lot about him as a character. It tells me that he does indeed care about what other characters think. His super objective is indeed to get Ranyevskya to sell the orchard, but in this scene he starts of angry and then hears what Ranyevskya has to say and calms down and I feel he eventually comforts Ranyevskya by bantering himself.

Cherry Orchard Reaction

The Cherry Orchard

I enjoyed reading the Cherry Orchard by Chekhov because it was a play that stands the age of time, as you can link the main themes running through the play with modern day society. The main issues I picked up on where political and class issues which were commonly highlighted by Lopakhin and Trofimov. The others ideas touched upon where gender dominated roles. These ideas where mouthed by the characters Ranyevskaya, Anya and Varya.

My favourite characters from The Cherry Orchard were Lopakhin and Trofimov. These two where very good characters because they both clashed in their political and social views of Russian life and tensions rise during the play as we learn more about each character. Lopakhin comes across as a nice Gentleman at the beginning of the play we think he is a humble man as we know that he has come from a less well-off background and has worked his way to becoming a successful man. He seems sincere in the way he communicates to Ranyevskaya, he is insistent when talking about the selling of the property. At the end of the play he buys the orchard and he feels bad for Ranyevskya but he knows he did all he could to get her to listen to him. I feel he would be an interesting character to explore because he is very money driven and puts that ahead of personal relationships. This is why he fails to marry Varya. This money driven middle-class mentality is the reason that Lopakhin and Trofimov don’t sit well with each other.

Trofimov I feel is a very important character as I feel he mirrors Chekhov's real life story in the cherry orchard. He is a studious man much like Chekhov who studied at university, he also did not let money rule him. In Chekhov's real life his dad goes into debt and Chekhov is very poor however Chekhov paid for his own education and wasn’t ruled by money, this is the same as the character Trofimov as he doesn’t accept a loan from Lopakhin at the end of the play, because he doesn’t want money to rule his life. This is the key reason why Trofimov and Lopakhin don’t see eye to eye as Trofimov is very liberal in the way he thinks on pg 318 act 2 Trofimov shares his anger of how society is run and how there is no support for struggling families where as Lopakhin as a capitalist man disagrees with this view because he is a specimen of the idea of meritocracy as he started from nothing and achieved success. These two characters have great representation in upcoming Russia because they represent the two different ideologies that were beginning to be formed in Russia. Trofimov represents the left and Lopakhin the right.

The other characters that intrigue me in the play are the female characters, particularly Ranyevskaya,Varya and Anya. Ranyevskaya is the Landowner of the big estate and the main story is based around her needing to sell the estate. All characters in the play treat her with the utmost respect however she has very little power in this story. We know this because she would like to keep hold of the estate however she is incapable because she has limited money. We also know that she is in a failing relationship with a man in Paris who comes across as a foolish man who is no good for her however in the end she goes back to be with him. This shows her lack of power in her relationship. But what is interesting is how she tries to keep hold of the power she has left. She does this by spending and giving money away even though she doesn't have much to give away. We see this when she gives money to the random passer-by and also hires the band to play at the ball. This makes her feel good because it makes her remember the times where she did have the power to do as she wished, and this is a struggle we see her go through throughout the play.

Varya I feel represents the women in the middle-class bracket of Russia. In the play she is portrayed as a busy body rushing around and doing little bits. However we never hear about dreams or aspirations from this character, she only wants to be married  then to look after the House, children and husband which is a very unfulfilled life. Even her mother was worried about this way of life as she says ‘My other worry is Varya. She’s used to rising early and doing a day’s work. Now she has nothing to do all day she’s like a fish out of water.’ The way that Ranyevskaya speaks about marriage between Varya and Lopakhin is simply to do with economic reason. This illustrates the way that women were used in older days in Russia, they were seen as a means of linking one family to another to help each family out economically. Varya is very aware of the fact that this is how marriage and “love” works so this is why she gets agitated by the love affair between Trofimov and Anya because Trofimov believes in love and doesn't view marriage in the same way as Varya nor does if have any intention of getting married, this frustrates Varya because she wants Anya to marry a rich man to help the family remain prosperous.

Stanislavsky system

Stanislavsky was a very practical hands on practitioner,whose ideas and investigations have shaped and developed modern day performing , to be able to do simple exercise’s  that allow you to understand that characters you play and their emotions/feelings. A lot of his exercise’s I didn’t know myself that he created are used throughout the performing world in, theatre companies and drama workshops and this shows how extremely influential his work is.

The Stanislavsky system was a long process throughout his years of trials and errors to eventually create his end “final system”.  I feel that Stanislavsky had a bright start and was always bound to be in the performing industry because of his rich family, they could afford to take their children to the theatre, this lead on to him questioning theatre when he became an actor about finding truth in acting. A key point in his development was the creation of the round table analysis, where he actors themselves would work and analyse the script to help gain greater knowledge of the play, however this was still clearly taking its baby steps as the actors were not being allowed to find their own interpretations of their characters it was all Stanislavsky’s ideas due to the production plan he spent a lot of time making.Stanislavsky I feel learned a lot from putting his different ideas into practice and actually using them himself. For example when Stanislavsky was working on Julius Ceaser with Nemirovih,  he wasn’t letting Stanislavsky create and use his own interpretation and this made him think that  an actor cannot be controlled to play someone else’s emotion because this losses the truth in the character because it’s not coming directly from the actor. This then corresponds to one of Stanislavsky’s later exercises perioding.  This exercise is very useful and would be an especially good one to use because, it encourages you to break up speech to really pick out in what way a character is trying to communicate something , in turn it helps you with your performance.

When Stanislavsky began to work with Suler he was tearing away from the production plan phase and beganto really focus on the actors themselves as he realised they had all the tools to make an excellent performance they just had to work on each tool like a muscle. This is where exercise 4.1 comes in because they spend time relaxing and isolating every muscle you can in your body. I think that this exercise is crucial to being a better performer because the body is THE tool that helps you act, so you need to understand everything about it, the way the muscles operate to move certain parts of the body to move in different ways. Even to have control of the muscles in your face to understand how to express different emotions. On the other hand exercise 4.1 is helpful because it encourages you to internalise thus being imaginative and creative and to be in touch with your mind. This can help you as an actor because it’s important to stay in touch with your feelings so that you can connect with a character you are playing and draw from experiences you have gone through to help you with a particular role.

Another exercise that caught my attention was exercise 4.4 where you are given a card with an idea that you must try and put across on it and so does the other person, you don’t know what the other persons says and you don’t have any other form of script so it is just improvisation. This exercise not only sounding very fun also help you as an actor pass and idea on to someone else, much like in a play your character will be trying to communicate an idea of some sorts to someone else. Because you are using practical improvised experimentation you forget about the worries of needing a script and purely feed off; the scenario you are in, what your idea is and what the other person is trying to communicate to you. So as a performer you are learning to work alongside people in a scene and building tension as an ensemble.

In conclusion I feel that Stanislavsky’s system is a vital tool kit for an a director to get the most out of there actors because his System broadens the mind, gets you I full control of your body, allows you get in touch with your body ,mind and thoughts and in whole helps you to study and a play and understand character in any play. Stanislavsky was one of the best practitioners about because of his dedication in creating a system that lives on and is used all over the performing world.