Electra 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 was a scattering of masks. These masks portrays facial expressions which shows emotions. We all had to walk around the room and get into nearest groups of two, we then had to say to each other things we really like about the other person. This is an exercise which is done a lot in American theatre as warm-ups. We then had to reverse roles and get into a new pair and say something you genuinely mean about what you like about yourself and inform the other person. I found both of these exercises a challenge i found it easier to find positive things 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 then had to wonder round the room again and when we stopped the nearest mask to us we had to use. Mine was a mixed emotion face as half of the face was happy and half of the face was sad. We had to build up a character for this person and share it in a pair with someone else. I said that my mask was confused and felt he hid his emotions, i then suggested that my mask could have bipolar disorder this would clearly be represented in the mask as half the time he's happy and half the time he's sad. 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 found it hard to trust others so i also crossed my arms and made my body movements scared and shy. 


Furthermore, we went off in pairs and had to perform a section from Electra without the mask, with the mask and then with the masks but just in mime. This was almost an improvisation activity which was found challenging with masks when miming, because when miming we usually rely on facial expressions to get across a storyline 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 movements. 

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


Below is the videos of this workshop and the auditions.
Electra Workshop 1
Electra Workshop 2
Electra Workshop 3