The Cherry Orchard By Anton Chekhov And Metamorphosis

Jamie Barker Candidate number 3375 Exploration Notes In this unit we were studying two contrasting plays which were the Cherry Orchard was written by Anton Chekhov and Metamorphosis written by Franz Kafka. As a class we first read the plays and then explored these plays through a series of workshops and as a result this helped deepen my understanding of the plays and help develop and strengthen my acting skills. Social Cultural Historical and Political The Cherry Orchard Social: Social change is one particular theme that is mentioned throughout the play. In one workshop we looked at Ken Johnson s idea on status to deepen our understanding of characterisation. The key to Johnson s work is to follow simple techniques to show what type of status the character belongs to: not holding eye contact, weak in space, sitting to show the use of levels. These techniques are for the low given status characters. Not moving your neck, commanding space and holding eye contact for 3 seconds is the status of a high status or status expert. I watched another group but I focused on Henry as he explored the character of Yasha, I thought her given status was low because he was formerly a muzick and was brought into the family by Andreevna. He also used the technique of being weak in space by letting the other characters demand the space and use it more effectively than herself to show how she is represented in the play. Although he did show his character to be a status ex pert later on in