Through this research project, I learned just how important reaction is to developing a character and making it real. Not only does it enhance the character who's doing the reacting, but the whole scene depends on everyone reacting to what is happening. The lead role would not come across as a powerful character if the entire room did not react to that power. Besides that, I also learned more about drawing the emotions of the character from my own emotions and having empathy. For my own performance, I will put more emphasis on my reaction and also explore my character more to understand her to a greater extent. That way, I would have more empathy for her and maybe not feel the nervousness of being onstage and instead just feel what the character is feeling.
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Amy Cuddy TED Talk
This TED video is about how body language affects the mind. It is fairly well known that the mind affects the body, causing humans to assume different postures based on their feelings, but this video explores how the flip side of this is also true and how those postures actually affect the levels of chemicals in the brain. Amy Cuddy, the speaker, also introduces the idea of power-posing, which is adopting a high powered, confident posture for two minutes. This is shown to increase confidence and decrease stress, while posing for two minutes in an insecure, low powered posed resulted in increased stress and decreased confidence. Perhaps this concept could be applied to the play. For example, in the lottery scene, when almost everyone is terrified they might be sent out to the snow, adopting a low power, scared pose would actually cause the actor to feel that way, which could help imbue realistic emotions into the character.