Electra Audition workshop.

We did a Greek workshop specialising in the play. Electra, is a Greek tragedy by Sophocles. Its date is not known. Electra is set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan war, it is based around the character of Electra, and the vengeance that she and her brother Orestes take on their mother Clytemnestra and step-father Aegisthus for the murder of their father, Agamemnon.


For our workshop we entered the room and on the floor were a scattering of masks. 

Mask Rules
1) Putting it on and off in private - provides the mystery element. As soon as the mask is on, you are that character.
2) Treat it like a real face, as you would your own.
3) Face forwards as much as possible.
4) Treat it with respect.
5) Don't touch your mask when it's on.


These masks had multiple facial expressions that portrayed emotions. We were then told to get into nearest groups of two and we were instructed to tell the other person a good quality about the other, putting emphasis on how much we liked that person/quality. This is an exercise which is done a lot in american theatre as warm-ups. We then had to reverse roles, get into a new pair and say something you genuinely like about yourself to your new partner. I found both of these exercises a challenge, I did however find it easier to find positive things to say about someone else rather than myself, but knowing your strengths and weakness' in theatre is something good to know, so you can work on your weaknesses and excel on your strengths.

We all had to walk around the room and we were instructed to scan the room looking at all of the masks and be drawn to one,whatever your reasoning, but not yet approach any of the masks. 
Once you had chosen your mask you then had to, while still walking around the room, make up a character for that mask, there name, how they walked and three personality traits, My mask had a startled/shy expression. I named her Jean, a shy, withdrawn girl, who hates crowds and who is only relaxed and carefree in front of very close friends. We then walked around with the masks on and had to walk in a fashion that that character would walk. I walked slowly as my character is cautious with the outside world, my character finds it hard to trust others so i also crossed my arms and made my body movements scared and shy. 

We then got into pairs with people who were portraying similar emotions to us  and had to perform a section from Electra,we were given the scene between Electra and Orestes. The story of the scene is Electra has just been handed her brother's ashes in an urn, and is grieving for him. Orestes, who unaware to Electra is her brother, he insists that Electra knows him, however she is so distraught that she fails to think straight for a while. The scene ends on her realisation of Orestes is telling the truth, and is her long-lost brother, who she believed to be dead. 
We read the scene as a group first and then did the following: modernised it and translated it into modern day English, mime without and then with masks. 

Modernising the scene was challenging because the language is difficult to get to grip with anyway, obviously a lot of the words aren't used today, but once you have the general gist of the scene finding substitutes for the words is fairly straight forward. Performing it modern English is much easier than Shakespearean, and because we got to perform it overly intense, putting in dramatic pauses for effect it was a very enjoyable activity. In the miming tasks, I found it difficult to stop myself from mouthing the words or murmuring then under my breath. It's also hard to make miming look slick and professional, because as an actor it is odd to perform and not use your main tool which is voice and instead have your body movements over exaggerated. Miming with and without masks was very different. Once under the mask, you are reliant on just your body parts expressing your emotions. Despite my face being hidden, I found myself using my face, still acting behind the mask, which really helped me to stay in character.

I played Electra and moved around the space a lot in every task as I was headstrong to get away from this 'stranger' and just be left to mourn alone. I was very snappy in telling Orestes to leave and also through my actions, for example in the miming with masks, I stomped my foot on the ground and threatened to hit Orestes, to effectively show my anger.

At the end of the lesson, I felt a lot more confident with the mask and had a better understanding of Electra.

This was an improvisation activity which was challenging because when miming we usually rely on each others facial expressions to know where we are through the piece and to make the storyline clearer but when this element is taken away from us it proves difficult so you have to rely less on your facial expressions and more on your body language. 

However, even with the restrictions the masks gave us in mime, I felt it was easier to portray a character as you can hide behind the mask and the identity of you isn't revealed to an audience.


Below are the video's of the audition workshop:

Electra Audition (1)
Electra Audition (2)
Electra Audition (3)