SCENE 1 - MARK-TO-MARKET PARTY

SCENE 1

MARK-TO-MARKET PARTY

Building the ignorant crowd

This is the first scene that we worked on and plotted. We started by developing handshakes and teaching them to each other based (i think) off of a music video. We all came up with handshakes in pairs and performed them back to the class, this acted as a bonding exercise as well as setting a tone for the pedestrian qualities of movement for the show. From the beginning the goal for Enron was to create surreal realism having backflips, lifts and high kicks in office scenes.

The creation lead through an exercise called hymn hands where communication is made between people only through the connection of hands, it informs the entire body and requires immense concentration which is probably why the ensemble tended to miss cue and forget to push me away in this introductory scenes. Our directly strongly believed in creating atmosphere for each of the scenes
and for this he wanted to create an atmosphere of falseness where people will share fake smiles but turn around and step over eachother.

Uta Hagens 9 Questions

1. Who Am I - I'm Andrew Stuart Fastow, 31 years old living with my wife. I taught Hebrew but my relationship with the Jewish faith isn't particularly strong. Skilling had him working in retail after the introduction of mark to market.
2. What Time Is It - It's the evening as people have been drinking and leave to go home in a drunkard state as the scene ends. It's 1992, there's no reference to time of year 
3. Where Am I - I'm in a Mark to Market party in the Enron building, Houston, Texas, USA
4. What Surrounds Me - It's a party, most likely one of the top floor spaces in the Enron building,. It's likely that it's after work hours as everyone but Claudia is dressed in their office attire. 
5. What Are The Given Circumstances - I joined Enron in 1990 so i've been there for two years and i'm still not quite integrated into the workplace fold, it's a while before i get promoted and i'm still very much making a name for myself. 
6. What Is My Relationship - I'm surrounded by drunk people and my workplace idols/superiors. I'm slightly higher in the company than some of my colleagues seeing as there's jealousy amongst coworkers over my invitation to Skillings "Death Weekend". They don't accept me and this doesn't discourage me but rather just pushes me to try harder to fit in. Jeff is my superior, i idolise him as he hired me and then introduced mark to market which i am VERY VERY excited about. If Skilling is my messiah then Kendra Lay is a god, she's untouchable, omnibenevolent and omnipotent. Claudia is also my superior but she opposes Jeff and his vision, therefore i oppose her in my own pathetic ineffective way. There are two employees that talk to me only with the intention to mock me but i take the interaction as a show of friendship.
7. What Do I Want? - I want to be accepted
8. What's In My Way? - My evident lack of social skills
9. What do i do to get what i want - I try to get close to people physically and impress them with my knowledge on Mark to Market because it's a Mark to Market party so i'm in now, right?

I find the process of answering these 9 questions somewhat redundant as i've already done the research and filled in the gaps but it's useful to have it all written down as a reminder. It makes sure that you know the surface info of your character and pushes you to fill in the gaps for what you don't know as facts. It assures that your work is detailed, like a stencil, it assures that all the segments are filled in.

Seeing as this the beginning of the creative process it was also essentially the scene that formed the fundamental elements of fastow and established the beginning of his character arc.

As an approach to playing scenes i like to write down a list of words and ideas to just bear in mind and see how it informs the scene when i play it.
thirsty - Ben suggested this as a motivation to push for the drinks so i decided to turn thirst up to intense dehydration, clawing at my throat and almost struggling to breathe)
unwanted/outsider - This was only brief in-between moments of finding a new target but i tried to find a short second of acception of failure before moving off again

~Fastow hates people but realises needs them~

I used my copy of the script to note units, and make rehearsal notes to help me remember cues actions and objectives.

Fastow finds a hint of this greater acceptance in this simple interaction with Skilling.