Unit 310: Approaches to Acting - Emily Sliwka (cd no. 4545)

 My name is Emily Sliwka. My candidate number is 4545. I will be playing the role of Torvald Helmer in the play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen.  My chosen practitioner is Constantin Stanislavski, who aimed to keep performances as realistic and believable as possible through the use of his System.  To make sure my performance was as naturalistic as possible I have incorporated various techniques from Stanislavski's System. For example, in the scene I have used the Magic If to add realism to my character, imagining myself in their situation and considering how I might react, and basing my attitude off of that.  I have also made myself aware of the given circumstances of the character, by reading through the whole play and recognising how these events may influence my character's actions in this scene. My partner and I have also used external techniques such as pauses, to create a more natural sound to the dialogue.  To prepare for our rehearsals my partner and I m...

19th December 2023   What I worked on today:   Today we started with some naturalistic preparation techniques. We did some breathing exercises as well as stretches to relax our muscles.  We then ran through our script once without movement to get accustomed to the characters, then we added movement such as standing up and sitting down on chairs. We also annotated our scripts with these movements, as well as different tones and emotions for our lines. After this we ran through the whole script a couple of times, trying to incorporate these movements.  I attempted to incorporate the Magic "If" into my performance by imagining how I would react in this situation and channeling my acting through my own reaction. I thought that I would be shocked and angry at Nora's reveal, as well as hurt, but still adamant in the belief that I was right and knew what was best for her.  Moments of discovery or concerns/problems : I found that there was not much movement included in ...

Character:  Torvald Helmer  Torvald Helmer is a bank lawyer and husband of Nora, the main character. He is shown to be loving and doting of Nora, presenting their life initially as near-perfect but he is also patronising and condescending towards her, often treating her as though she is a child and he is her father.  Previously in the play he has referred to her as "like a child" or compared to an animal such as a "little songbird." While this may, at surface level, present him as affectionate and doting over his wife, the repeatedness of it suggests he genuinely views her as like a child, having inferior experience to his own and therefore less of a wife and more of a pet.  Despite his impression of superiority and power at the beginning of the play, he is later shown to be completely oblivious to Nora's struggles, showing his selfishness and lack of attention to his own wife. He appears to love his own idea of her rather than who she really is, which is shown...

My choice of extract is pages 96 to 102.  The extract begins on Helmet's line, "What's this? Not in bed? Have you changed?"  The extract ends on Nora's line, "All the more necessary that it should happen."  I will be performing this extract with Katie Harvey.  I have chosen this extract as it is a very intense scene that shows the final stage of Nora and Torvald's relationship, and how much it has changed since just the beginning of the play. It is also a turning point in general for the characters in the play, as the guise of their perfect marriage and Nora's childish façade to protect Torvald have both been dropped. It shows Torvald and Nora's characters in their purest forms, as Nora is desperate to show him who she really is and Torvald is reacting in shock of her reveal.  It is significant as it shows that despite his wife's distress, Torvald is still not taking her seriously and is treating her like a child. Because of this it is al...