Drama Response 2018 Year 10 4Period
Sabrina Orczech
1) As an actor, explain how you used Stanislavski’s approach to create character and convey meaning to your audience. Justify with detailed reference to your scene from Hedda Gabler.
As an actor playing the role of Ejlert Lovborg, in Hedda Gabler (1890), by Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), my aim was to convey the character as a hardworking, passionate man who hopes to continue something worthwhile in his life and to not have to “start again, anymore now.” Constantin Stanislavski (1863-1938) was a Russian performer-director who had a large influence on 20th century theatre. Stanislavski is also known as the founder of the performance style termed ‘realism.’ Using the psychological approach developed by Stanislavski to enable a truthful performance requires the actor to focus on elements of thoughts and feelings of the character they are playing. Throughout the rehearsal process and performance I used techniques developed by Stanislavski such as given circumstances and super objective/objective. I was able to identify the given circumstances through thorough textual analysis of the character and research of the social context at the time it was set.
The given circumstances that I have determined about Ejlert Lovborg that influence’s his behaviour is that he comes from a wealthy, aristocratic family, placing him as an equal in society as Hedda and Brack, not in the middle class like Jorgen. Throughout the play we learn about his “past sins,” alcoholism, which he swore off after meeting Mrs. Thea Elvsted who helped him write his second book. He used to go around town drunk and associating himself with Mademoiselle Diana, a prostitute of sorts. Ejlert is a complex character that also struggles with being in between – the pressure to move forward and/or to start again. He is caught in between Hedda and Thea, scholarly fame and shameful disrepute and drinking and not drinking. Ejlert and Hedda formed a relationship, a friendship but it is apparent that on the line, “I can tell you the truth, Hedda,” Ejlert wanted more, evident when he still has trust in Hedda. These given circumstances allowed me to understand the character and convey to the audience that he has tried to start again, a new life without Hedda’s help and manipulation and a new book with Mrs. Elvsted which he has now “torn into a thousand pieces.” Ejlert has failed to resolve the pressure of starting again. This lead me to change my non-vocal communication to a less excitable facial expression by turning the corners of my mouth down more than the beginning of the scene to convey that I have now “murder[ed] a child” and need to come to terms with it. By increasing my proximity on the line “Promise me first, give me your word, that Thea shall never know what I tell you” to Hedda, it reflects my realistic attitude toward her, conveying and expressing great grief about the loss of the manuscript, reflecting the given circumstance of not wanting...
