Our Country's Good Research

Our country's good was a play based on a true story about criminals and if they can be redeemed after going to jail for the reasons they did, the play was by Timberlake Wertenbaker who adapted it from Thomas Keneally novel the Playmaker. 

The play took place in 1980s and mainly focused on the Royal Marines and the convicts, they were all sent to Australia. The play showed the class theme between the characters and portrayed lots of other arguments such as sexuality, punishments and many more also they looked at the idea that theatre that could be a humanising force. 

To find out more before writing the play Wertenbaker went to see a play performed by convicts, which was very moving and touching for him because he realised and understood that in prison theatre is not just something to do it's more than that it can be influential and brings new things to light. In prison there's not much you can do for example you can start following religion more seriously, you can becomes a gym addict etc but you can also love theatre and the convicts in the play he watched knew there lines and seem very enthusiastic about the play because they had nothing else to do to pass the time so when ever they had to rehearse they will take it seriously because their time was very valuable to them.

Timberlake Wertenbaker wanted his to play to as accurate as possible and so the people in his play were all based on real people even though some of them names were changed they still represented a real character and he also read the journals of the some of the members that went to Australia so that he could present them correctly in every way possible. 

While writing the play Wertenbaker made the actors plays multiples role so for example every played a two character one convict and one officer, how the actors differentiate them self during different roles was just through changing their jacket and wig. The writer used a group of 10 actors to play a cast of 22/23 with actors doubling up roles, the play has gotten lots of awards an has been nominate for many awards due to the actors brilliant performance and the writer dazzling way to portray the story. 

We are doing this play in college and the part that my group was given was the scene between Ralph and Phillip and was about how Ralph wanted to stop the show because nothing was going according to plans also the actors (convicts) were all chained up and was never around but Phillip connived him to carry on with the play because it will be doing a greater good for the convicts because he believe in redemption not harsh or cruel punishment.

They were 3 people in my group and I and Jamie were meant to take turns playing Ralph but then we thought that was long and would lose the audience focus so Jamie came up with the idea that we should do it as one piece, so we made it two characters and split the lines. We were the same character but different version of the character Ralph I was the more uptight and stern version but Jamie was the more relaxed and peaceful version. From there we worked very hard on the idea and made the piece our own, giving it our own style and interpretation. We added parts of where I and Jamie use synchronisation and many other drama techniques to keep the audience engaged.

Some of the award the play has gotten and been nominated are BBC Award for the Play of the Year, Best Play, Best Foreign Play ,Best Visiting Production and many more. Also the actors and actresses that were in the play were nominated for awards such as Best Actor in Play, Peter Frechette was nominated, and Best Actress in a Play Cherry Jones was nominated, Best Featured Actress in a Play etc..

Weekly update

23/11/2015-27/11/2015 this week we worked on our play our country is good with Rob and made sure everyone was off script. We also took the feedback we got from Rob and fellow classmate and work to develop our scene and characters.

Also we worked on Medea with Sharon and we had to learn our lines and put the pieces of the play that we are doing together into one.

30/11/2015-04/11/2015 this week we performed our Greek pieces to an audience, this was when we worked with the dancers and did a collaborative piece with them. After we performed that we then did our country's good which went great and the audience loved it and was very engage. Before we performed we we done a dress rehearsal to run through the Greek pieces but we ran out of time and did not get to do the same for our country's good but we got about 3 hours rehearsal on Monday which went great. Also we watched the years 2 plays and the level 2 plays.

7/12/2015-11/12/2015 

This week we went and saw the play the homecoming and was working on our blogs because we have finish all our performances.


11/01/2016-15/01/2016
This week we started a new project and we are doing Shakespeare in da house. we will be performing  duologues in our friends and family homes and we have been working on learning our lines to become off book as soon as possible. 

Background to Greek Research

Background to Greek Theatre

Greek theatre plays was created in Athens roughly 500BC. Tragedy at the time was very important at that time and they had tragedy competition and festival dedicated to tragedies plays and other festivals such as the panathenai festival. Tragedies and comedies plays were viewed as different genre during that time and was never mixed.

Greek theatres were large and this was to take in mind the large number of people that would be attending also the architects who built the theatres was able to create it by where the actor’s voice could be heard from the bottom to the top of the theatre. The theatre was built with a panoramic view so actors were able to see everyone in the theatre while performing. The theatres were normally built upon hillside in open air. 

Many Greek playwrights like Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plato and Aristotleused masks in their work to worship the Greek Gods which are mainly used in ceremonial rites and celebrations. The mask were handmade and designed by the actors and playwrights to suit certain plays, the masks were very important to in Greek plays because the represented lots of meaning also the actors would use different mask to play different characters and the audience wouldn't  noticed due to their being many different masks for the play.

 All Greek actors who performed at that time were male so having masks allowed them to play female characters.

Greece changed a lot since the 400 BCs; it was made up of small city like Athens, Thebes and Sparta which made things very difficult at the time because the cities had different view on different things like culture and politics which caused fights between them. Also women and foreigners in that time didn’t have much authority or influence, it was mainly men who took charge and lead the country. 

Many Greek playwrights like Sophocles who is one of the very few who’s play has survive until today, Sophocles wrote over 100 plays but only 7 has remain for example plays like Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the king and a few more has survived. Euripides is another Greek play wright who plays has survived for example play like Medea, Hecuba, and the Bacchae etc.  

Tragedy plays is one of the main genre related with the rich history of Greek theatre and how it all started. Some of the great tragedians are Euripides, Sophocles and Aeschylus, they wrote many great tragedy plays and some of their plays have still survive until this day. The original origin of tragedies are still unclear to many historians because they can't pin point exactly how it all started and the record they have of it are unclear and they are in doubt of it. 

Aeschylus is known for inventing the trilogy of Greek theatre a series three plays that tell one long story, a few of the famous and well known tragedies are Prometheus bound , Oedipus the King, Antigone, Trojan women and many more, these plays has still survived until today. Tragedy started in the 5 century BC  and they were normally performance during the Dionysia festival , Aristotle was known to be the first person to win the first dramatic contest and to create a character speaking as himself. 

Another genre at that time that was important was comedies plays because when Greek playwrights join competition they had to write tragedy plays, comedy plays and a satyr play. Greek comedy became more and more popular during the 6 century BC, writers like Aristophanes and Menander were brilliant comedicplaywrights at that time. Autolycus , Calluppides and Samia are all Greek comedies written by Greek playwrights such as Menander , Aristophanes , Philonides and many more , the Greeks also started comedy in poems for example Archilochus and Hipponax wrote poems which contained sexual and explicit humour.

In addition to poems the Greek comedy has evolvedover time for example old comedies which are written in the 5 century BCE like Aristophanes' Acharnian. Then they are new comedies which are different from old comedies because the new one mainly focus on the plot of the play and the chorus was less involved in the in the story also another difference is that new comedies tried to focus on fictional everyday people and the day to day life with their loved ones and friends.  

The chorus was important in Greek plays and they were made up of the around 10 to 50 people who would comment, sing and dance and act as third person/ bystander in scene that would help the audience follow the story and often they are known for telling the audience hidden thoughts of the main character the implicit meaning their true action. many Greek playwrights changed the size of the chorus for example Aeschylus used 13 people to be the chorus while other playwrights used 15 or more depending on the writer also the chorus was always the same sex as the main actor on stage I think this was to show that they are relatable to them and that they are really one character in a way.    

As well as acting in unison and with one voice at times they normally have an important job because they would have to communicate with the audience through narrating, singing, dancing and acting and they would do this through using many techniques such as echo, physical theatre and synchronisation and many other techniques. 

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The Greek play my group done was Oedipus, it was about the character Oedipus who accidently fulfilled a prophecy. The prophecy was that he would kill his father and marry his mother, when finding out that he had fulfilled the prophecy Oedipus gouged his eyes out and was banned for life from Thebes and his wife Jocasta who realised she had marry her son and had four children Eteocles, Polynices,  Antigone and Ismene hadkilled herself. They have been many different version of Oedipus over the years but they relate and follow the original story.

In class we discussed many things about the play for example we talked about the character them and how did their social class affect their behaviour to everyone and their views on certain things also we spoke about the characters them individually for example my group spoke about Oedipus and how it would be to put yourself in his shoes from the way he would act to the way he would move and this really helped us developed the character more and learn more about the Oedipus himself and the play. 

Konstantin Alexeyevs

Konstantin Stanislavsky was an actor and director who is known as one of theatre greatest practitioner. Stanislavsky thought actors required discipline, commitment and integrity to become the character, he believed in method acting and he practiced his own acting technique as much as possible to develop it and would reflect on himself to try and develop it .He experimented by trying to stay in character in real life for example he performed many different experiment like disguising himself as a tramp or dunk and visiting the railway station and recording his experience to make his character realistic as possible.

Stanislavsky was Russian decent and he grew up in one of Russia richest families which was the Alexeyevsfamily. some of Stanislavsky influences were Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Shchepkin becausethey all worked hard to develop psychological realism which they believe was acting truthfully in a certain situation understand certain circumstances.

The Stanislavsky system is a way to teach and train actors. they trained actors to work on concentration, voice, physical skills, emotion memory and observation, he tried to make his work easy to use and understand by all actors. One of Stanislavsky main message to actors was to find out which ways work for them best them, to find their own unique style. 

During his time doing what he loves Stanislavsky got a few honourable awards for his work and performances, he got the Order of Lenin award in 1937 , he got the Order of the Red Banner of Labour award in 1938and he also got the People Artist of the USSR award in 1936. He was a very successful actor in his time and a brilliant directors for his understanding to communicate with fellow actors and also of his work that changed the way actors see character and become them and has left a truly remarkable legacy in the  acting industry.

Stanislavsky was an inspiration to many people who loved his work and his methods, that they decided to follow in his footsteps and use his work to carry on and develop it even more. Michael Chekhov, Richard Boleslavsky, Yevgeny Vaktangov and many more are all students of Stanislavsky who took on his work and learnt from him because of the way they were captivated and interested  by him and his work and was a true inspiration to them. From his work they all went on to do great things with their career they used his methods as guideline to guide them to become better actors and directors.

The legacy of Stanislavsky still goes on, some of his students founded the American Laboratory Theatre and some of their students founded the group theatre which was known as the first acting company to practice Stanislavsky research but due to the fact they saw and his approach his work in different ways the group ended up splitting up and going on to create and founded their own acting studios where they trained many famous American actors in theatre and film.

Stanislavsky wrote many books explaining his work and life, for example he wrote My Life In Art, An Actor's Work on a Role, An Actor's Handbook and many more books which are available for anyone interested in his work and life to buy. 

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Our country's Good

We are doing a play called Our Country's Good and we have been working on this play for two weeks now. The play is going pretty well and everyone in my group have learn their lines and we are just making it better and improving it as we go on with scene. For example we tried performing the scene in different accents, in a sad way , a joking/fun way and a very serious way, we did these to experiment with the scene and just get to know it better.

In my group were we meant to do our scene twice because my and Jamie was playing the same character. We didn't do the scene twice because Jamie came up with the idea that we should try and make it one scene but with two characters and we did. 

I am the character that is stern and upright ,who's always trying to impress his boss and Jamie is the character that is quiet and always looks up to the captain as a role model, we decided to split the lines and it's worked out well and now we are always looking for new ways to make our scene even more better.

Improvements for Our Country's Good 

 My character is Philip and my objectives was to quit the show but later it changes and I want to keep going with the show because my captain convinced me that it was for a good cause and I should stick to it.

Notes and improvements 

- [x] Keep head up and don't look down, makes you look like your unsure about the line and your scene 

- [x] Remember to have an action for your lines 

- [x] Don't move around too much, it makes you look like your dancing around and can be distracted for other actors and audience 

- [x] And remember to keep the energy through out the play

Specific notes and improvements for my character and scene 

- [x] Slow down when speaking lines 

- [x] Play the emotions in the line when it's needed

More improvements 

- [x] Remember to keep the thought process going throughout the scene

Why acting

I would like to become a successful actor when Im older.

I would like to become a successful actor because I fell in love with acting especially growing up watching movies with awesome actors such as Will Smith ,Denzel Washington,Robert di Niro and Al Pacino.
I chose these four acting because I love their acting style for example Al Pacino and Robert di Niro how they prepare for roles are impressive ,they use method acting and has developed it to used it to their fullest a ability

They inspired me to be one of the greatest actors, because I love how they were able to change personality and became any character they had too it was like watching someone and watching them become a completely different person who acts different ,talk different ,walks different and who is completely different from the actors them self.

They had the ability to show any emotion and made it believe and realistic and I was amazed by it and wanted to be part of the acting industry and do what they did.

I studied their acting style and try and adapt it to my own unique style to become a better actor. I love the craft with all the ups and downs the challenge is what makes me want to do it more with every time I play a new character who might be the completely opposite of myself I find myself learning something new something I didn't think I was capable of but through acting I found it and fell in love with you the craft.


Actors should be able to change roles and should be very versatile for example they should be able to play a comedic roles and also play a sad role. To be a good actor I think its mainly based on experience and teaching it goes hand in hand, because you can have experience and still be a bad actor or you could be thought acting and still be bad.


Most actors should have experience and teaching, that's what makes you a great actor but its also debatable that some actors are great without ever been thought such as actor like Johnny Depp. it all depends on a lot of factors and many different people have their own interpretation of what an actors is and what makes a good actor.

Oedipus Evaluation

My personal performance was great in my opinion, I worked on my improvements and performed to the best of my ability. Some of my strengths was that I spoke clearly with a good clear tone and I didn't rush my words for example when I had my long monologue to say I took my time and made sure it was understandable for the audience. This was   because sometimes I tend to speak to fast and my words becomes unclear and all mumbled up during my performance, so I had to slow down when I was speaking.
In addition to speaking clearly with a good tone some of my other strengths were good movements, facial expressions and hand gesture for example when my character started to become agitated and angry in the scene I used movements by hand gesture and movement by walking around and using my hands to explain my points clearly, that made it easier for the audience to realise that my character was becoming annoyed and it made the scene more realistic.                                                    I also use facial expression to show the audience how my character felt in that point in time and to give them an idea of what was going through my head, I did this because action speaks louder than words and by my showing the audience how I felt through my facial expression and that would make our scene more engaging an enjoyable for the audience to watch.
I also had some weak points to my performance which I need to improve and over come as an actor but one of my biggest weakness was my articulation, sometimes I would mispronounce words and by I have a deep voice sometimes my words doesn't come out clearly, that is the main factor I need to work on to become a better actor and improve my performances.

Another one of my improvements was to remember some of my trigger words because my lines that I had would lead into my partner Tarkan's lines and if I forgot a line his lines won't make sense on its own and if I didn't say a line in a specific way his line would make sense.                                          
 For example I had to shout the line 'you'd infuriate a stone what kind of man are you' and Tarkan had to reply 'shout at me how you like', if I didn't shout that line his line won't have the full effect on the audience because they would be thinking that my character never shouted so why was Tarkan character talking about shouting therefore I had to make sure I know my cues.

My group performance and collaboration overall was very good because we all listened to each other and make sure everyone understood what they had to do and also we all listened to rob's and took the feedback he gave us and work on them to the best that we could. For example when me and Tarkan was looking at our scripts we were trying to figure how the characters were feeling in the time and how would they act based on their egos, experiences, position of authority etc, this helped us developed and connect to our character in great depth and put us in the frame of mind of our characters because we understood how they think and behave in certain situations.
Also our communication between each other and rob was very impressive because rob helped my develop our scene to its max potential for example he gave us ideas to play around with it and to try out with our scene like performing our scene in a cowboy theme or a French movie style, this was to explore our scene in more depth and to get a better understand of it.
one weakness of our play was that we struggle at first to understand the text because it was written in 406 bc and the language has changed a lot since then, which made it challenging to understand the meaning of some of  words but we figured it out due time through researching and general knowledge.
Another weakness we had as a group and overcame was using the space more because there were only three people in our group ,if we all bunched up in one side the audience wouldn't be able to see all of us clearly, therefore we had to try and utilise the space we had to make our scene look more naturalistic.

The music students performance was very good these use many different styles and techniques to engage the audience. For example they used improvisation when they had to make up a dance on the stop around the actors performing on the stage which was really good because they had to think quickly and try and adapt their own dancing style to Their play and also be willing to make it look smooth and have a nice flow to it.
I also like their madaya pieces it was fun and enjoyable to watch ,the movement that they used was really good and you could always hear them everyone in the group projected their voice and had a clear and Loud speaking tone.

One improvements the music students could have is that with their acting pieces they could make it longer and add more lines so that everyone in the group gets to say some lines to make it fair. Only an hand of them spoke and not everyone got to stay a line which made the people that didn't have lines to stay just standing there waiting for everyone else to finish their lines. Instead of having them stand their maybe if they weren't any lines for them they should have them do something productive.

my favorite performance was the rhythm song because it was enjoyable to watch and I like the technique they used they captured the audience attention and made the piece fun and engaging. I liked when they were all singing and dancing and then the groups started to overlap each other, one group was singing the first part of the song and kept repeating it over while the second group did the same thing with a different part of the song and same with the third this was great to watch because they were in perfect sync while doing this part and even though we're overlapping each other which was the purpose it sounded very good.                                               This was a great technique to use because during the whole song that was the part that stood out the most to the audience because of the style that it was done it and how well they portrayed it, the presentation was really good for example when in the three groups they separated to that everyone is the audience saw them. one group was upright on the stage of stage the next group was up left and the third group was right in the middle, this was good because it was eye catching for everyone in the audience where ever there were sitting.