Vocal development programme: 4

This week, my focus was upon:

• 17th Century posture- Man Of Mode
• Bone prop exercise
• Breath work 

Posture:

Posture is slowly becoming something more and more important as we involve ourselves more into our restoration piece, Man Of Mode by George Etherege. Posture in the restoration period was a way of proving your social class, and so all the characters we played in the play all had to have immaculate posture in order to keep our characters well characterised.  Although posture, in this case, doesn't really come into consideration for our voices and how good our voices are, it still has a massive effect on our characters and our understanding of the development of our characters. So firstly I researched into posture in the 17th century. I wanted to understand the posture I needed to keep up throughout the play, and so with the voice and articulation/pace/projection work I have been doing could then be added into the posture work here:

 Something Sally had told us all was 'to make everything we do feel and look natural'. So the way I held myself had to look natural because at the time, it would've been the most natural thing for these characters. At home, I started off by looking at how I stood in the mirror. Observing where my shoulders sat. how my neck and head sat, how far apart my feet stood, if my hip was thrusted forward or in line with the spine. 

Image 3: Posture

I did a quick body sketch to highlight what parts of my body I am holding wrong, and it's actually a lot more than I had expected! When standing normally, my shoulders are rolled quite far forward. This used to be quite visible but I've taught myself to sit them further back, but for this specifically, they need to be a lot further back. I tilt my head ever so slightly to the right. This is just a long term habit but its always something I remind myself of when working on my posture. When relaxed, my arms sit too closely to my body. I think this is due to my shoulders being rolled too far forward, so if I realign the position of my shoulders, my arms will sit nicer. My hips just slightly pushed forward, and so therefore aren't in line with my spine and I lock my knees constantly, so having more of a bend to them will help the position of my hips. And finally, my feet could do with being placed further apart to enable my stability and to make them sit more central instead of letting them relax outwardly.

This link took me through the process of improving your posture, but mainly focussing on the neutral effect you can create for your body. Throughout the video, he talks you through various body positions,one being just a simple 'neutral spine' position, and a neutral spine in the seated position. The video talks you through all of these positions and I thought I could try them all out. Obviously I am aware of the correct posture for Man Of Mode but these are just some tips and come into practise for me. 

     In the seated neutral position, I felt comfy and it felt natural to be speaking in this position. It felt very much as though I was performing, however my neck felt awkward. For the neutral position, you have to line it up with your spine, so to me it felt a little bit out of place but apart from that it felt like a nice position. In terms of voice, I felt my voice was clear. There was nothing trapping the voice, not that that is something you can notice in your own voice anyways. I tried projecting and then whispering my lines in this position, and again it felt easy enough for my voice to do so. 

    In the standing position, it felt a little more forced. I find it tricky to remain with slightly bent knees as I tend to lock my knees, and I found  holding them unlocked for this amount of time, meant my lower back began to ache. I tried to keep my arms dangling down in a neutral and relaxed position but I found I wanted to use them as a gesture type thing; but I think I can be leanient with small aspects like so.

This was good practise for me and it gave me ways to slip into the correct posture each time I needed to. So I have decided to set this as my weekly homework, to spend about 20 minutes per week practising my posture. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCwyrA7G_0A

The posture is very much how I have been working on for these past couple weeks, and it's definitely helped a lot now that our posture is becoming something we need to work on. I feel like I can slip into this good posture a lot easier, and it becomes especially easy when I am in my costume because it's tight enough for me to keep my back straight. I also find that when I'm in costume I hold my hands in a better position. With the hip pads being at elbow's length for me, I can slightly rest my elbows on them and so my hands sit easily just infront of my stomach. 

   After working on my posture and ensuring that I looked natural stood, sitting and walking in this position, I worked on saying my lines in this position. I needed to make them work alongside each other, and it was definitely a lot easier than I had expected. Because my posture was tight and I felt very posh and upper-class, I think I could easily put my voice into this position. So it all felt natural to be doing along side each other, and I felt natural doing the two, so all-in-all it was very successful and I felt like working on my posture and then bringing my voice work into was the better was round for me, and so I feel like my basic characterisation of Mrs Loveit is coming along nicely.

Articulation/Pace:

The bone prop is a little 'prop' as such to help improve your clarity/articulation and diction of your words. It's to be "Lightly held between the teeth whilst performing articulation drills and vocal exercises - the Prop increases oral space without the need to bite down to hold it in place." http://www.themorrisonboneprop.com/about.html
As it says via this link, there are other ways of achieving the same thing, for example you can use your finger, which is the method I will be practising this week:

1. Place your index finger between your top and bottom sets of teeth

2. Without moving your tongue or your lips, recite a line. For this I spoke the line:

"I would die to satisfy that, but will not to save you from a thousand racks do a shameless thing to please your vanity"

3. Repeat the line, allowing yourself to move your tongue

4. Remove finger away from your teeth, you can now repeat the line with movement from both your tongue and lips.

I really like this exercise. To me, I can really notice the difference in my speech. Each step, you can hear the changes in your voice, obviously the first step, the vocal delivery is pretty much inaudible! As you give yourself more muscles to use to talk, the clarity of it becomes stronger as you've stretched the exact muscles in order to make it clear when you stopped the use of your tongue and lips. I figured that using this line was a little bit optimistic, it's a little bit too long to keep going for all of the steps, so on Wednesday I changed the line to:

"Horrid and ungrateful, begone and never see me more"

This was definitely a lot more effective as it gave me the opportunity to say the line more times for each step, whereas the line I had chosen beforehand was definitely a bit too long for this exercise. 

I did this exercise with a few other lines too, in order to help me along the process of improving my articulation. Over the past three weeks, I've been seeing much more of an improvement in my voice! Some vocal feedback I have received is as follows:

• Strong and very clear voice
• Make it bigger..."Belinda" needs to be bigger, and in a less angry tone
• Bring the attention back onto you
• In the asides, slow down - as though the audience is dumb!
• Pace is very good and very clear
• Articulation is good also
• 
  

Although these are only small little vocal notes, they are more of a confidence boost for me in terms of improving my voice. And although these notes are based on what Karen saw of my Man Of Mode rehearsals, I feel like my voice overall is improving, and I can see it remaining the same level when it comes to working on my monologues in the next couple of weeks. 

Projection:

For the final week of this, I wanted to incorporate projection work into the brief bits of breath control I worked on last week in order to improve my articulation/pace. Through research, I came across a very good breathing exercise to assist with my projection: https://www.theatrefolk.com/spotlights/just-breathe-breathing-exercises-for-student-actors

• Inhale fully and exhale on a vowel sound. Start quietly and build the sound throughout the exhale. Stay in control, keep the sound going for the entirety of the exhale.
• Inhale fully and exhale on a vowel sound. Start loudly and decrease your volume throughout the exhale. Stay in control, keep the sound going for the entirety of the exhale.
• Inhale fully and exhale on a vowel sound. This time move back and forth between a loud and quiet sound throughout the exhale.
• Inhale fully and exhale on a ten count going from loud to soft.
• Inhale fully and exhale on a ten count going from soft to loud.
• Stand on stage and whisper a speech. Make it a stage whisper, loud enough for someone to hear at the back of the theatre.
• This exercise is done in pairs. Everyone lines up, with the pairs facing each other. Each pair starts a conversation. After 20 seconds, tell the lines to take three steps back. The pairs must continue their conversation. After another 20 seconds, the lines take another three steps back, and so on. Discuss afterwards. Were you able to stay relaxed? What was hard about the exercise? Did you strain your voice? 

I made notes on my workings of this exercise:

This was a very effective exercise for me to do, and I wish I had come across something like this beforehand as it focusses on just working towards simple projection but with common-sense kind of exercises. I loved doing the stage whisper exercise, and for this I used my Like A Virgin monologue (by Gordon Steele) to make a pleasant change from Man Of Mode. It was nice to see how contrasting it was to then do this in a more projected manner, in comparison to the whisper. I performed this monologue to Sally this week, and she noted that my projection was a lot better than as she has seen it in our Shakespeare piece (Much Ado About Nothing.) She said it had improved significantly, and it just made me seem more confident, whether or not I was or not. In Man Of Mode, I got some really lovely vocal feedback notes in terms of my projection: 'You own your words', 'so fiery, its fab' 'you have really improved your character, she's suddenly come to life'. And from my peers, a lot mentioned how powerful I had become with Loveit, which came as a nice surprise to them, to see me in a completely different light. They also very much liked my line: "RUN I say, call him again, I will have him called" as I would tend to deliver this line extra angry and would often find my voice almost screeching out at Pert!!



Conclusion:
This past months work of weekly blogging based on vocal work has been really interesting for me. I sort of assumed that I perhaps wouldn't enjoy working on my voice so heavily, as I find it's something I push to one side when performing, which I think is the one thing that has been bringing my grades down as it's viewed as though I am not putting the effort in. However, after this past month of working so closely and intently on my voice, my opinions have changed. I think it's helped massively for me to hear that my voice was really strong during Man Of Mode, as that was something that I had become more and more apprehensive about as the performance dates loomed. So not only did doing well in that, help me to feel more confident about further improving my voice, but it also inspired me to work harder on my voice and experiment with it and see how by doing odd things such as changing my posture can affect my voice, and then working out how I was to keep my posture and then incorporate my well-articulated Loveit voice to this position etc.
   I can definitely see the improvement on my voice, and not only did I and others see this during Man Of Mode, but I also saw it during my monologues assessment. The loudness of my performances now just brings more life to my pieces and gives me a confident vibe- and because of this, it coats over my nerves, but doesn't view me in a big headed way. So all-in-all this months worth of vocal work has been extremely, extremely benefical for me and I aimed indefinitely to keep up this regular work to my voice, in order to continue improving it in the ways I have so recently done with the likes of Man Of Mode and 'Auditions For Actors'.  

Vocal development programme: 3

This week I worked on:

• Tension points
• Breath control
• Rubber Chicken

Posture:

This week I have changed my focus ever so slightly off of posture into more tension points in the posture. I had noticed that my posture was improving and I was running out of more things to work on with this, with relation to allowing it to improve my voice. So I lifted the focus more onto my tension points:

I hold most tension in my jaw, neck and shoulders. 

I began with working on my jaw:

I notice that my jaw is beginning to click a lot which shows I hold an awful lot of tension here. It never aches or feels painful but recently it was pointed out to me that I have a tight jaw when performing and delivering lines; which holds me back on giving off a good vocal performance. The Complete Yoga Book: The Yoga Of Breathing, Meditation and Posture - James Hewitt, is a book I looked into when working on posture in the weeks before now, but for this week I looked into how to relax the muscles, starting off with the jaw. "To help relax the jaw, yawn slowly, resisting evenly all the way with the muscles of the jaw. Hold the contraction for six seconds; then let go, close the mouth and let the jaw sag." So I tried this little exercise out. The first time trying it felt a bit odd, it didn't really feel as though it was doing an awful lot. Then I figured out that it was asking me to keep my mouth open in the yawning position for six seconds, and then bringing up and closing the mouth but letting the jaw relax still but with the mouth closed instead of open. Doing this felt nice, it felt like I was stretching out the jaw as well as my face. When I brought my jaw up and closed my mouth, my jaw clicked once again but it felt nice to have my mouth closed but with my jaw still really relaxed.

I did this a few more times. I spent a lot of my time this week concentrating on how tense my jaw was. Every now and then I would notice it was unnecessarily tense. I tried to just relax the jaw where it was, without opening my mouth etc, and I could immediately feel the difference. The jaw area felt a lot lighter and obviously a lot less tense. 

Another good jaw relaxer is just a simple rub down of the cheeks and jaw area. 

1. Warm up the hands first

2. Open the mouth slightly, to a comfortable position

3. In a fist shape, use your hands to rub down along your jaw line

Take special attention to working on the top of your jaw (near your ears)

4. Rub all along where you can feel your jaw

This is just a simple exercise I find I can do anywhere at anytime. At the same time of doing this, I rotate my jaw a lot, i.e. open and close my mouth, as well as moving it in circular motions. 

Doing all this really helped to relax my jaw, it felt a lot lighter after this week of regular warming up's and rotations etc.

I then moved onto working on my neck and shoulders. I combined the two because for me, I notice that if my shoulders ache so does my neck and vice versa. They are very closely linked in general but I notice they are very much in sync for me whenever I ache in those areas. I find the best method for me releasing tension in these areas; and its just simple rotations and stretches:

1. Rolling my shoulders back and forward. 10 times each way

2. Linking your hands behind your back, pulling your arms to a right angle from your back.

 3. Stretching your upper back as well as seperating your shoulders

4. Rub all along where you can feel your jaw

This is just a simple exercise I find I can do anywhere at anytime. At the same time of doing this, I rotate my jaw a lot, i.e. open and close my mouth, as well as moving it in circular motions. 

Doing all this really helped to relax my jaw, it felt a lot lighter after this week of regular warming up's and rotations etc.

I then moved onto working on my neck and shoulders. I combined the two because for me, I notice that if my shoulders ache so does my neck and vice versa. They are very closely linked in general but I notice they are very much in sync for me whenever I ache in those areas. I find the best method for me releasing tension in these areas; and its just simple rotations and stretches:

1. Rolling my shoulders back and forward. 10 times each way
2. Linking your hands behind your back, pulling your arms to a right angle from your back.
  Stretching your upper back as well as separating your shoulders
3. Hug yourself! Really tightly pulling your arms all around your body- which again separates your shoulder muscles and stretches them.
4. Neck. Look left, look right, up and then down. Each time holding the position and making sure to look as far as you can in that direction, in order to stretch the neck muscles
5. Very carefully! Tilt your head to (both left and right) the side. Using your hand, gently push your head further to that direction, you will start to feel the stretch in that side of your neck: don't do it if it hurts!

These are nice and simple exercises that can be done anywhere at any time. I made sure I was doing these various shoulder, neck and jaw exercises daily for this week in particular, as well as keeping up my weekly yoga classes. So talking to you on Friday, I have noticed a real difference, my shoulders feel a lot lighter and definitely free from a lot of tension I had perhaps been holding in them earlier on this week. Tuesday my shoulders seemed to ache more than they did on Monday, but I think this is probably because I was exercising them a lot at the beginning of this experiment. My jaw also seemed lighter and it clicked less which I can assume means the tension that was held here has definitely decreased. 

Articulation/Pace:

A big part of my articulation is the speed at which I talk at. Like I'm sure I've said many times before, there has been many times that I have been told that I speak too quickly. I have never noticed it in myself before but it really affected my work in Man Of Mode, as Mrs Loveit! I understood that she sort of had to speak quickly because whenever she did speak she was angry; and most of us speed up what we're saying when we're angry in order to get the anger out correctly. But whenever I said my lines in rehearsals, I was told I was speaking too quickly and I think the only reason why this wasn't working at the time was because I wasn't playing Mrs Loveit as an angry character. I also understood that my articulation was absolutely necessary in order for people to understand and begin to like Loveit, which happens as soon as the audience begin to know her. This is where the breath control exercises I taught myself for this week in particular came in handy:

     To begin my little self-created breath exercises, I simply laid on the floor and focussed fully on my breathing. Making sure my body was fully relaxed, arms either side of my body with my palms facing the ceiling. My legs flat to the floor with my feet relaxed. Making sure the bottom of your spine is touching the floor. 

     I made sure I was breathing into each and every part of my body. First imagining my feet being filled with air, then my lower legs then my upper legs etc. Each time relaxing these parts of the body. Paying attention to the movements my breathing was causing upon my stomach. Watching it rise and fall with each breath. (When standing) I watched my breath again, watching to see if my shoulders moved with each breath (something that shouldn't be happening.) 

   Spotlight: E-News from Theatrefolk, Issue 38- Lindsay Price: https://www.theatrefolk.com/spotlights/just-breathe-breathing-exercises-for-student-actors

   This article above taught me to ask my myself questions about my breathing such as "Do your shoulders rise and fall with each breath?" or "do you ever forget to breathe?"  The last questions might seem like an odd one however there have been so many times on stage that I realise I've forgotten to breathe and so my next few lines are delivered alongside me trying to take a big intake of breath. There was a key moment in Man Of Mode that this happened for me: It was when Loveit was at her most angry stage towards Dorimant. This bit in particular was Loveit really shouting and pacing up and down the stage so at this point I was already out of breath with the nerves of being on stage. At this point, I heard one of my lines come out really weak and stuttered slightly whilst saying it. I managed to finish it off a lot stronger, but noticed that I had dropped my articulation when finishing it off. This signalled to me how important breathing and taking it slowly when speaking is for us actors! 

After completing the very simple breath exercise, I began to ran through my lines in order (missing out any lines said by characters in-between my lines etc) I found that because my breathing pattern was already at a very steady pace even before I began running my lines, that the lines I was saying were a lot easier to get out, as it felt like I had more than enough breath to say them; whereas I had previously noticed I rushed them in order to get them out on the very last bit of breath I had before taking a big intake of breath. Lines that I struggled with in terms of breath were: 

"You, who take more pleasure in the ruin of a womans reputation than in the indearments of her love, reproach me not with yourself and I defy you to name the man that can lay a blemish to my fame" As you can see, this is a very wordy sentence-it's long too which doesn't help. I also found that there was little punctuation in it, which gave me the impression that it was definitely one of my lines that I had to deliver straight out. I found that I could just about get to the word yourself and then struggle for breath so I needed a way to last the whole sentence. I found that if I took a breath before the line, and then an even bigger breath straight after saying the word you. This way I had more breath to get to the word love. From here on I could reach the end of the sentence without struggling for breath. After breaking it down like you can see I've done above, it felt a lot easier to say this line and it also helped a lot when I finally became a lot more angry as the character.

"Whoever she be, may all the harm I wish her is, may she love him as well as I do and may he give her as much cause to hate him" This is the first time we see Loveit getting really angry and from the audience's point of view, we are just beginning to understand as to why she's angry. This is definitely the part I struggled with the most, as Sally spent a lot of time trying to encourage me to be more angry and directed me to pace up and down the stage- the pacing was the second most hardest thing as to me it just felt exposing and silly because I could tell I wasn't doing it with the anger I should've been. So before this line, I have been pacing for the entire scene, so I found I was really quite out of breath at this point, and it didn't help that this line was at her most angry! I found that it worked best if I ran to the word is then paused to breath, and then continued the line at an even quicker speed to enhance the emotion. This allowed me to deliver the line much quicker than trying to do it all on one breath; which I found clearly wasn't working!

"I would die to satisfy that, but will not to save you from a thousand racks, do a shameless thing to please your vanity" This line is one of my favourite lines! It's such a powerful line and should be delivered with as much power. Words such as 'die' 'not' 'you' 'racks' are all words that needed emphasis. I found that I could do this line quite well with only one breath, but it needed to be delivered powerfully so I found that I could take in a enough breath when saying the line from. I managed to do this without making it too obvious and I found it worked a lot better than actually pausing on the comma; because I was so desperate to make it fiery and powerful!

Breaking down my most quickly-said lines really helped come rehearsals this week. I felt a lot calmer about performing back my scene in front of my class, and because I was feeling calmer, I slowed down a lot on my other lines, including the ones I have just run you through. I felt my work on Loveit is slowly improving, I can see she is nowhere near the standard I want to perform her as but there were elements of me accessing the anger today and yesterday a bit more than there has been-so hopefully this will boost my confidence a little. 

Projection:

Rubber chicken has go to be one of my favourite projection exercises! It's silly, fun and energetic. But it also gets us to use our voices in completely different volumes. 

"1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
1,2,3,4
1,2,3,4
1,2,3,4
1,2,3,4
1,2
1,2
1,2
1,2
1
1
1
1"

So the sequence is as seen above. Each time you say the numbers you shake your right arm, then your left arm, then your right leg etc. The focus of this exercise though is your voice, and it's up to you as to how you want to say it. We often begin this by performing it in our deepest voices-accessing our chest resonators. After doing it this way, we change it and perform it in our head voices- accessing our head resonators. You can also do this shouting and then whispering. It can work any way you could possibly want to perform it in; which is why I like it so much. I find that its just a very easy way to warm up both the voice, resonators included, as well as the body. I used this a lot during Man Of Mode, as it was a very good way for me to get hyped up and angry in preparation for Loveit. It also warmed up my voice! 

So although this week wasn't too heavily based upon voice and how it is in performances etc, it was very much working on the preparation of the voice in order to have it ready for a performance. This included improving my posture, my breath control and projection.  

Monologues-Vocal work

For our assessment, we had to perform three monologues as part of our Auditions assignment, and then we had to perform another monologue for our voice assessment.
Our voice assessment was all about showing variety in our voices, so from the three monologues I did:

Like A Virgin, Angela
As You Like It, Phoebe
and:
Stags and Hens, Bernadette

Like A Virgin is fairly ordinary, there isn't much in terms of voice that I can vary in order to get a good grade. There are bits in the monologue which my character gets angry however I felt that this was too similar to my last character, Mrs Loveit from Man Of Mode.

As You Like It I performed as a very prim-and proper character. She spoke well, calmly and well articulated. Again, there was nothing in it to show I can vary my voice particularly.

Stags and Hens is a monologue which is in need of an accent, for this I did the preferred Liverpudlian accent. And although I don't think I'am very strong at doing the accent, it was enough to show that I can definitely vary my voice!!


Stags and Hens by Willy Russell:

"Ogh...God! Did y'see the state of him. An; he was serious. He tried to get off with me1 He was all of four foot nothin'. You should have given yours the elbow straight away. Didn't y'see me tryin'? "Are you stayin' up?" he says to me. All three foot six of him starin' up at me. I said "I don't know about stayin' up, don't y' think y' better sit down before y' get trodden on." He didn't have any feelings. He just ignored everythin'. He wouldn't take no for an answer. I said to him, "Look son, I'll let y' into a secret, it's no use tryin' it on with me, I'm a lesbian..." It did no good. "That's alright", he said, "I like a challenge," By this time I'm dancin' away again, hopin' no-one'd see me with him. And honest to God, he's so small he kept gettin' lost. I'm just walkin' away when he appaears again. "Goin' for a drink are we?" he says, I said to him, "Ey you'd better run along, Snow White'll be lookin' for you." Ey he didn't get it though. "Oh I'm sorry", I said, "But I thought you were one of the seventh dwarfs." He started laughin' then, y'know, makin' out he's got a sense of humour. "Oh yeh", he says, "I'm dozy," I said "Your'e not friggin' kiddin'..." I'm walkin' away an' he's shoutin' after me "Ey I'll see y' in the bar, I'll be in the bar. I said "Yeh, an that's the best place for you, along with every other pint that think's it's a quart!" 

Stags and Hens cast

"A boozy comedy of wedding-eve nerves, set in the Gents and Ladies loos of a tacky Liverpool club where Dave and Linda, unbeknownst to each other, are holding their respective stag and hen parties." This has to be my favourite monologue out of the three of them!! Its fun and upbeat and I got to try out the Liverpool accent. This was the only monologue that Sally chose for me, as I knew I wanted another contemporary monologue but couldn't find one good enough that was also contrasting to my other two.
Both the husband and wife to be hold their stag and hen parties in the same pub. This means that the play is full of alcohol, mistakes, men and woman. It's a really fun and witty play!!
The character in the monologue is called Bernadette, and of course, she is one of the hens. Bernadette is a blunt, loud and bossy character. She is married with children which means we can assume she is about 25 up. She is quite similar to perhaps my character from Man Of Mode, a restoration play, as she tells it how it is; she has no boundaries and will just say what she thinks. This just makes her character more comical especially with the mix of a bit of drunk acting!
The monologue itself isn't actually a monologue, its more of a duologue but with the other characters lines cut out of it. So the first thing I had to do was to cut it up and make sure it made sense.Similar to my As You Like It monologue, we are aware that Bernadette is talking to people but its not necessary that these characters need to be present at the time. Carol is the main character in this section of the scene, and its mainly Bernadette telling her all about this guy whom 'tried to get off with me'. Carol although described as innocent is still just as loud and feisty as Bernadette. Innocences means nothing when it comes to Carol describing the guy who tried chatting her up: "I had to Berni. He made me feel ill, honest. I hate ugly people!" http://www.lyttonplayers.co.uk/Previous%20Productions/Stags%20and%20Hens/Characters.htm

 After shifting around the monologue and cutting out Carol's lines, I realised it was really quite short! But for auditions they don't want to see anything over two minutes long; this monologue falls just a bit over one minute so I settled with this. I then had the choice as to what accent I wanted to do. Obviously the intention for the play is for it to be done in a Liverpool accent but I know that I can't do that awfully well! I can't do any accents well, saying that, however I wanted to challenge myself and also make this piece as contrasting to the other two monologues. So I began to work on researching the Liverpool accent:
"And that is one of the biggest features to the Liverpool accent, the 'ck' 'k' sound. It is generally done in the back of the throat." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY4aUdpK5qE In this clip, he walked me through some of the key sounds to the Liverpool accent. As quote above, he says that the 'ck' sound is the most important sound. This is a very glottal sound, coming from the back of the vocal folds, making a sort of 'choking' sound. For this, the mouth needs to remain fairly small, which is in contrast to the Northern accent I had to learn for a production early last year. I found that as I was improving the accent, that I didn't need my mouth open much at all as I began to notice, the more research I did, that Liverpudlians talk very inwardly. Their words aren't overly directed outwards, like perhaps the German or American accent is. I found that I was doing this too, because it meant it was easier for my to sustain the accent.
The word chicken was the one word I practised the most with, in order to get the accent. Us Southerners, we pronounce the word chicken with a very pure 'ick' sound. The sound of the k is smooth with a bit of harshness as you reach the end of the sound. However, for the Liverpool accent, this word is turned into a lot harsher and less audible. The ck sound merges into more of an h sound. So it becomes 'chihicken' but with the ck a lot more subtle. I found practising this word harder the more I tried it. It's all about getting the glottal sound to it, which I can do but then as soon as I try to do it for a bigger text, such as the monologue, I tend to loose it again.
So a word that I found a lot easier to say in the accent was serious: "Did'y see the state of him?An' he was serious". Again, as Southerners, we say this line nice and slowly to get the 'ri' sound of the word out correctly. Whereas, in the Liverpool accent, the line is delivered much quicker but rolling the r sound instead of having to make it into the glottal sound. I can roll my r's well and so this word felt a lot easier for me. And saying this line well meant I could go into the next line better with the word 'tried' another word that I focussed on rolling my r sound.

With research, I came across Blood Brothers. Another Willy Rusell story about two twin brothers separated at birth. I understand that this is performed in a Liverpudlian accent, and from my research, people were recommending you practise the accent on a certain bit of text from the play; Blood Brothers:

"I sometimes hate our Sammy,

He robbed my toy car y'know

Now the wheels are missin' an' the tops broke off

An' the bleedin' thing won't go"

This is only a very short section from the play. This part was recommended because Russell writes in the accent, which means you can see the words phonetically, which definitely helped a lot with me learning the accent. However I wrote it down as to how I knew I needed to say all the words:

"Aye sum'times ate hour' Sammy

E robbed me toy caaar you'knoww

Now the wheels r missin' an' the tops brooke off

An' the bleedin' thing woon't goo"

Bernadette and Carol

This may not make an awful lot of sense to anyone else reading it, but for me I can hear how the words are meant to sound when reading and writing them phonetically like this. For example, the word i changes significantly in the Liverpool accent. We pronounce it with force coming from the back of the throat, vocal folds. It is then changed into an 'ayyye' sound. So it sort of comes out like an 'ah' sound at the beginning of the word, and then it ends on a slight inflection of the voice with an 'e' sound. All 'h' sounds disappear when doing this accent. So like the word 'he' turns into just the 'e' sound. I tend to elongate this e into an eee sound. Other words I elongated during this exercise were words such as: car. For us, this is a nice short word, but its really drawn out in the accent. The 'a' sound is the sound thats elongated, which turns it into 'caaaar'. The 'd' sounds are also sounds that are rare in the accent, especially at the end of words, such as the word 'and'. It turns into a very simple 'an' sound. 

To continue this work, I worked through the monologue, working on writing each word phonetically. This really helped me with learning it as I began to learn it in the accent:

"Ogh Godd, did ya seee the staate of im' an' e was serious

E triedd to get oof with me

E wos all foour fooot noothin.

Aat leaast you got rid oof yoours afTer the first danCe

Din' ya see me try'in

Are you staayying op? E says t' me

Aal three fooot sixx oof im staaring op at me

Aye don' knoow bout' staaying op

Don' ya think ya better sit doown, before ya get trodden oon?

E din ave any feelin's tho

E just ignored everythin

Aye said t im, 

Looook sooon

Aye'll let ya in't a secrret

It's noooo use tryingg it on wid me

Immmm a lesbian.

It did nooo good

That's allllright, e says

I loke a challenge

By this timee I'mmm dancin away again

Oping' nooone will see me wid him

Nd honest to god ee's so smoll he kept gettin lost

Immm walkin away an e appears again

Goin' for a driinnk are we e says

I says to im don ya think ya better run along? Snooww white'll be lookin' for ya

Aye he din get it tho

Oh im sorrrry I said, bot aye thought you weore oone of the seven dwarfs

E stated laffing then, y'know makin oaut ee's got a sense oof 'umour

Eugh yeah, e says, Immm dozy

Aye said yous not friggin kiddin

Imma walkin away again an ee's shoutin after me

Aye'll be in the bar, Aye'll see ya in the bar

Nd aye said, an thats the best plaace for ya, aloong wid everyoother piint that thinks its a quarrt"

Like the Blood Brothers example, I wrote words that needed special elongation with an extra letter in to allow me to see physically, what sound needed to be drawn out more. The 'h' and 'd' 'g' sounds were replaced with a apostrophe to show that part of the word get's cut off. Some words don't even look like words, but again thats purely because that's how they sound, so like words such as 'like'. It has a slight cockney 'o' sound to it, which is why you see it written as 'loke' above.


I felt that this was definitely the right choice for me in terms of showing the variety I can do with my voice. I felt as though it went really well and felt like with help from the audience laughing, I performed it better than I have done before!

Auditions for actors- Stags And Hens

D1: ANALYSE THE SUITABILITY OF CHOSEN AUDITION MATERIAL FOR AUDITION CONTEXTS

D2: DEVELOP VOCAL AND PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE TECHNIQUE, SHOWING CONSISTENT CONTROL, PHYSICAL EASE AND AN IMAGINATIVE RESPONSE TO CHARACTER AND RESPONDING TO STYLE OF AUDITION TEXT

D3: DEMONSTRATE EFFECTIVE AND CONFIDENT VOCAL AND PHYSICAL TECHNIQUE IN AN AUDITION SITUATION


Stags and Hens by Willy Russell:

"Ogh...God! Did y'see the state of him. An; he was serious. He tried to get off with me1 He was all of four foot nothin'. You should have given yours the elbow straight away. Didn't y'see me tryin'? "Are you stayin' up?" he says to me. All three foot six of him starin' up at me. I said "I don't know about stayin' up, don't y' think y' better sit down before y' get trodden on." He didn't have any feelings. He just ignored everythin'. He wouldn't take no for an answer. I said to him, "Look son, I'll let y' into a secret, it's no use tryin' it on with me, I'm a lesbian..." It did no good. "That's alright", he said, "I like a challenge," By this time I'm dancin' away again, hopin' no-one'd see me with him. And honest to God, he's so small he kept gettin' lost. I'm just walkin' away when he appaears again. "Goin' for a drink are we?" he says, I said to him, "Ey you'd better run along, Snow White'll be lookin' for you." Ey he didn't get it though. "Oh I'm sorry", I said, "But I thought you were one of the seventh dwarfs." He started laughin' then, y'know, makin' out he's got a sense of humour. "Oh yeh", he says, "I'm dozy," I said "Your'e not friggin' kiddin'..." I'm walkin' away an' he's shoutin' after me "Ey I'll see y' in the bar, I'll be in the bar. I said "Yeh, an that's the best place for you, along with every other pint that think's it's a quart!" 

Stags and Hens cast

"A boozy comedy of wedding-eve nerves, set in the Gents and Ladies loos of a tacky Liverpool club where Dave and Linda, unbeknownst to each other, are holding their respective stag and hen parties." This has to be my favourite monologue out of the three of them!! Its fun and upbeat and I got to try out the Liverpool accent. This was the only monologue that Sally chose for me, as I knew I wanted another contemporary monologue but couldn't find one good enough that was also contrasting to my other two.
Both the husband and wife to be hold their stag and hen parties in the same pub. This means that the play is full of alcohol, mistakes, men and woman. It's a really fun and witty play!!
The character in the monologue is called Bernadette, and of course, she is one of the hens. Bernadette is a blunt, loud and bossy character. She is married with children which means we can assume she is about 25 up. She is quite similar to perhaps my character from Man Of Mode, a restoration play, as she tells it how it is; she has no boundaries and will just say what she thinks. This just makes her character more comical especially with the mix of a bit of drunk acting!
The monologue itself isn't actually a monologue, its more of a duologue but with the other characters lines cut out of it. So the first thing I had to do was to cut it up and make sure it made sense.Similar to my As You Like It monologue, we are aware that Bernadette is talking to people but its not necessary that these characters need to be present at the time. Carol is the main character in this section of the scene, and its mainly Bernadette telling her all about this guy whom 'tried to get off with me'. Carol although described as innocent is still just as loud and feisty as Bernadette. Innocences means nothing when it comes to Carol describing the guy who tried chatting her up: "I had to Berni. He made me feel ill, honest. I hate ugly people!" http://www.lyttonplayers.co.uk/Previous%20Productions/Stags%20and%20Hens/Characters.htm

 After shifting around the monologue and cutting out Carol's lines, I realised it was really quite short! But for auditions they don't want to see anything over two minutes long; this monologue falls just a bit over one minute so I settled with this. I then had the choice as to what accent I wanted to do. Obviously the intention for the play is for it to be done in a Liverpool accent but I know that I can't do that awfully well! I can't do any accents well, saying that, however I wanted to challenge myself and also make this piece as contrasting to the other two monologues. So I began to work on researching the Liverpool accent:
"And that is one of the biggest features to the Liverpool accent, the 'ck' 'k' sound. It is generally done in the back of the throat." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY4aUdpK5qE In this clip, he walked me through some of the key sounds to the Liverpool accent. As quote above, he says that the 'ck' sound is the most important sound. This is a very glottal sound, coming from the back of the vocal folds, making a sort of 'choking' sound. For this, the mouth needs to remain fairly small, which is in contrast to the Northern accent I had to learn for a production early last year. I found that as I was improving the accent, that I didn't need my mouth open much at all as I began to notice, the more research I did, that Liverpudlians talk very inwardly. Their words aren't overly directed outwards, like perhaps the German or American accent is. I found that I was doing this too, because it meant it was easier for my to sustain the accent.
The word chicken was the one word I practised the most with, in order to get the accent. Us Southerners, we pronounce the word chicken with a very pure 'ick' sound. The sound of the k is smooth with a bit of harshness as you reach the end of the sound. However, for the Liverpool accent, this word is turned into a lot harsher and less audible. The ck sound merges into more of an h sound. So it becomes 'chihicken' but with the ck a lot more subtle. I found practising this word harder the more I tried it. It's all about getting the glottal sound to it, which I can do but then as soon as I try to do it for a bigger text, such as the monologue, I tend to loose it again.
So a word that I found a lot easier to say in the accent was serious: "Did'y see the state of him?An' he was serious". Again, as Southerners, we say this line nice and slowly to get the 'ri' sound of the word out correctly. Whereas, in the Liverpool accent, the line is delivered much quicker but rolling the r sound instead of having to make it into the glottal sound. I can roll my r's well and so this word felt a lot easier for me. And saying this line well meant I could go into the next line better with the word 'tried' another word that I focussed on rolling my r sound.

With research, I came across Blood Brothers. Another Willy Rusell story about two twin brothers separated at birth. I understand that this is performed in a Liverpudlian accent, and from my research, people were recommending you practise the accent on a certain bit of text from the play; Blood Brothers:

"I sometimes hate our Sammy,

He robbed my toy car y'know

Now the wheels are missin' an' the tops broke off

An' the bleedin' thing won't go"

This is only a very short section from the play. This part was recommended because Russell writes in the accent, which means you can see the words phonetically, which definitely helped a lot with me learning the accent. However I wrote it down as to how I knew I needed to say all the words:

"Aye sum'times ate hour' Sammy

E robbed me toy caaar you'knoww

Now the wheels r missin' an' the tops brooke off

An' the bleedin' thing woon't goo"

Bernadette and Carol

This may not make an awful lot of sense to anyone else reading it, but for me I can hear how the words are meant to sound when reading and writing them phonetically like this. For example, the word i changes significantly in the Liverpool accent. We pronounce it with force coming from the back of the throat, vocal folds. It is then changed into an 'ayyye' sound. So it sort of comes out like an 'ah' sound at the beginning of the word, and then it ends on a slight inflection of the voice with an 'e' sound. All 'h' sounds disappear when doing this accent. So like the word 'he' turns into just the 'e' sound. I tend to elongate this e into an eee sound. Other words I elongated during this exercise were words such as: car. For us, this is a nice short word, but its really drawn out in the accent. The 'a' sound is the sound thats elongated, which turns it into 'caaaar'. The 'd' sounds are also sounds that are rare in the accent, especially at the end of words, such as the word 'and'. It turns into a very simple 'an' sound. 

To continue this work, I worked through the monologue, working on writing each word phonetically. This really helped me with learning it as I began to learn it in the accent:

"Ogh Godd, did ya seee the staate of im' an' e was serious

E triedd to get oof with me

E wos all foour fooot noothin.

Aat leaast you got rid oof yoours afTer the first danCe

Din' ya see me try'in

Are you staayying op? E says t' me

Aal three fooot sixx oof im staaring op at me

Aye don' knoow bout' staaying op

Don' ya think ya better sit doown, before ya get trodden oon?

E din ave any feelin's tho

E just ignored everythin

Aye said t im, 

Looook sooon

Aye'll let ya in't a secrret

It's noooo use tryingg it on wid me

Immmm a lesbian.

It did nooo good

That's allllright, e says

I loke a challenge

By this timee I'mmm dancin away again

Oping' nooone will see me wid him

Nd honest to god ee's so smoll he kept gettin lost

Immm walkin away an e appears again

Goin' for a driinnk are we e says

I says to im don ya think ya better run along? Snooww white'll be lookin' for ya

Aye he din get it tho

Oh im sorrrry I said, bot aye thought you weore oone of the seven dwarfs

E stated laffing then, y'know makin oaut ee's got a sense oof 'umour

Eugh yeah, e says, Immm dozy

Aye said yous not friggin kiddin

Imma walkin away again an ee's shoutin after me

Aye'll be in the bar, Aye'll see ya in the bar

Nd aye said, an thats the best plaace for ya, aloong wid everyoother piint that thinks its a quarrt"

Like the Blood Brothers example, I wrote words that needed special elongation with an extra letter in to allow me to see physically, what sound needed to be drawn out more. The 'h' and 'd' 'g' sounds were replaced with a apostrophe to show that part of the word get's cut off. Some words don't even look like words, but again thats purely because that's how they sound, so like words such as 'like'. It has a slight cockney 'o' sound to it, which is why you see it written as 'loke' above.

I wanted to know talk to you about the suitability of this monologue for auditions. And to start us off, no. It's really not suitable for an audition. Although the gender and age range of Bernadette is right for my acting age, and the length of the piece is just about suitable. They don't like you doing an accent; unless you can do it word perfect! - which I cannot! I still performed this monologue because I know my lecturer allowed me to do an accented piece, but I understand that this would be one that I could never use for an audition. The accent I do is ok, I feel confident doing it now after working a lot on it, however I know it's not perfect and no where near strong enough to perform for an audition. In terms of how fun and up beat the monologue is, I think it would be a really strong audition piece for me (excluding the accent issue!) For auditions, they like you showing yourself but also showing a little bit more. People see me as fairly quiet and show, but once you get to know me, I'm a little bit more confident and louder, perhaps a little bit like Bernadette. This piece allows me to go wild a little bit, and although I don't  like doing that an awful lot on stage, I can do it!
I gather I performed a really weak version of this monologue, but in my voice lessons with my other lecturer, I performed it really well with a much stronger accent!! So although it's definitely not suitable for auditions, it's definitely a monologue I want to keep to hand for the future, because it shows people a bit more of what I can do on stage!!

Unlike the other two monologues, I added more movement to this monologue. This was firstly because its a much more upbeat monologue in the first place. Also because Bernadette is meant to be quite intoxicated! And you don't see many drunk people standing still and talking well for such a long time. I made sure to relax my feet a lot more, when it came to this monologue to allow me to move around a bit. I paid a lot of attention to how much I was moving and swaying however, because I know when you get nervous you can start to shift your weight and its really distracting! As a little part of my rehearsals, I would hold my right hand as though I was holding a beer glass or something of the sort. This isn't something that was necessary but it just helped me build up my character, and I felt as though it just worked. I made a lot of my arm movements a lot bigger than I normally would, again to represent the over-confidence of a drunk person, which is where the imaginary beer glass in my hand worked. Obviously the monologue is all about this midget guy chatting her up, so I set out to make sure I was directing any quotes in the monologue towards the floor, as though he really was extremely short!
Like I said, I performed this monologue really recently to my voice class, and annoyingly it went so, so much better than it did for this assessment! I felt like the accent was a lot clearer and I sustained it throughout the entire monologue better than I had done for Sally. But I also made Bernadette a much larger and louder character! I was too reserved and going into Issie when performing it for Sally, but for Karen I became the character a lot more. I think this was because I had the class as my audience. I know I definitely have an element of wanting to make people laugh and because I'am relatively confident with doing this within my class, I felt like I could really just go for it and really over do the accent and the drunkeness and the talking to the midget. It also helped a lot that I got a lot of audience reactions from doing all this...the monologue is meant to be funny so it helped that I got the class laughing; although it did put me off my lines for a second or so! I was so annoyed with how my performance of this monologue went in comparison to when I performed it for Karen, but I think I know understand that I work better when working off of people. In this case, I had the audience to work off, as soon as they were laughing and reacting, I knew I could go further with it. But with Sally, I had no reaction (and I can expect to get no reaction from a proper audition situation) which gave me no indication as to make more of it! I think this counts for me outside of acting as well, which is interesting.

Like my other monologues, I didn't have the opportunity to show this to my lecturer before performing. which I think definitely would've helped me. Although I looked into how other people performed Bernadette in order to get more understanding of the character to help me with playing her for this monologue. Dancing Thru The Dark is the film interpretation of Stags and Hens.So this was the best means for me to find how Bernadette is to be played.
Whilst watching the film, I made notes on Bernadette and her characteristics etc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNafudj7m3Y

• She is played by a tall actress which makes the whole relationship with the midget so much more comical
• She quite likes the men, she takes a liking to Peter from the band
• At the beginning of the film, she comes across quite boring but livens up as soon as she's drunk
• She is quietly witty, which again, comes out when she's drunk
• She looks so unimpressed with the midget dancing up against her
• She's rude to him but doesn't care that she's rude
• The next scene is just her trying to move away from him!!
• "Its no use trying it on with me, I'm a lesbian" she delivers this line calmly but then is really annoyed when he says "I like a challenge"

It was really fun watching her and noting down her characteristics! It's also a very good and funny film so I enjoyed watching! All her little reactions towards the midget are priceless and although they aren't really things I can incorporate into my monologue because there isn't anyone I can react from, I can definitely have that unimpressed atmosphere about how I perform Bernadette. 

Character profile:

Bernadette is a fiery woman! She has no limits and just says what she wants. She comes across as a friendly character and attractive to men. She gets lumped with this short guy who spends the whole night trying to hit on her, and although I have been busy describing her as rude, she is polite enough to not ditch him fully. Her personality is loud and this appears more so when she's drunk! She's a very good story teller, or so I can see from the way that the monologue is written and she definitely know's how to make her friends laugh. From the monologue we can identify that she really didn't like the guy who was trying to hit on her, but she's light-hearted and simply saw the funny side in it. She goes straight back to tell her friends all about it, and its actually Carol whom questions how harsh Bernadette was towards the poor guy. Her light-heartedness could be just because she's drunk however she could've been aggressive towards him which would've created a completely different character. 

Bernadette is just slightly out of my comfort zone, in terms of how loud and funny she is. However I knew that I can often be like when I'm just me, so reaching this kind of level was fairly easy for me, I just had to hype myself up to it beforehand. The accent was definitely the hardest part for me, and although it probably wasn't the strongest Liverpudlian accent, it was some sort of accent, so it gave off the same vibe in a sense. I know I didn't perform this anywhere near as good as I can do it, which I am really disappointed about, however I did really enjoy playing Bernadette and loving the monologue as much as I do, made it all so much better! 

Auditions for actors- As You Like It

D1: ANALYSE THE SUITABILITY OF CHOSEN AUDITION MATERIAL FOR AUDITION CONTEXTS

D2: DEVELOP VOCAL AND PHYSICAL PERFORMANCE TECHNIQUE, SHOWING CONSISTENT CONTROL, PHYSICAL EASE AND AN IMAGINATIVE RESPONSE TO CHARACTER AND RESPONDING TO STYLE OF AUDITION TEXT

D3: DEMONSTRATE EFFECTIVE AND CONFIDENT VOCAL AND PHYSICAL TECHNIQUE IN AN AUDITION SITUATION

'As You Like It' by William Shakespeare:

"Think not I love him, though I ask for him.

Tis but a peevish boy, yet he speaks well.

But what care I for words? Yet words do well

When he that speaks them pleases those that hear. [Section 1]

It is a pretty youth, not very pretty;

But sure he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him.[Section 2]

He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him is his complexion;

and faster than his tongue did make offense, his eye did heal it up.[Section 3]

He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall.

His leg is but so so; and yet tis well. [Section 4]

There was a pretty redness in his lip,

A little riper and more lusty red 

Than that mixed in his cheeks; 'twas just the difference

Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask. [Section 5]

There be some woman, Silvius, had they marked him

in parcels as I did, would have gone near 

To fall in love with him; but, for my part,

I love him not nor hate him not; and yet

I have more cause to hate him than to love him; 

For what had he to do to chide at me?[Section 6]

He said mine eyes were black and my hair black;

And now I am remeb'red scorned at me.

I marvel why I answered no again. [Section 7]

But ommitance is no quittance.

I'll write to him a very taunting letter,

And thou shalt bear it. Wilt thou. Silvius?

Even before I started work on this monologue in terms of character and learning it, I looked into trying to translate it, so I knew what it all meant, with help from http://nfs.sparknotes.com/asyoulikeit/page_160.html :

"Don't think I love him, just because I am asking of and about him.

He's just an annoying boy, but he speaks well.

But I don't care about words, do I? And yet words are a good thing when Ganymede speaks them, because he is so pleasant to listen to. 

He's good looking, but not 'fit'.

He's a bit too proud, but it suits him in a way.

He will become a proper man.

The best thing about him is his complexion, and although he is quick to make offence, his beauty covers it up.

He's not very tall, but for his age he's tall.

His legs aren't brilliant but they're ok.

His lips are beautifully red. They were a nicer red than the colour of his cheeks.

His lips a more pure red and his cheeks perhaps a more pinky colour.

There are many other woman out there, Silvius, that would've fallen in love with him if they had taken proper notice of him.

But I don't love him or hate him.

But I definitely have more reason to hate him! What right did he have to be so rude?

He said my hair and eyes were black and I am very surprised I didn't bite back!

But I will get him back

I'll write a very taunting letter and you can deliver it, won't you, Silvius?"

Translating this into my own words helped significantly for me to understand what it was saying a lot more! I found I could relate to the words a lot more now that I understood them in my modern English language, which meant I felt like, with practise, I could definitely use the words to my advantage in terms of delivery etc. 

So it's fair to say, although I know the script, I didn't know the character and the context of the piece awfully well, which affected my grade in terms of performance. However, moving on from that, I want to introduce you to this blog all about my monologue from 'As You Like It'. Some parts may be research I have done since doing my monologues, because of not knowing my character before hand etc. 

Image 2, Phoebe and Silvius

As You Like it, needs  a detailed synopsis, as it's very much one of those plays that has a lot going on in it:

• Sir Rowland de Bois, father to Oliver and Orlando, dies. The majority of his land gets passed down to Oliver
• With this new found power, Oliver denies his brother the luxuries of an education and other things that were seen as key for becoming a gentleman
• Orlando and Rosalind, Duke Senior's daughter, who has just gone to live in the forest of Ardenne, meet and instantly fall in love
• With danger in sight, Orlando flees, and at the same time, Duke Frederick decides he doesn't want Rosalind to remain the city, and so banishes her just like her father
• She too, flees to the forest, with Celia, Duke Fredericks daughter
• For saftey, both Rosalind and Celia dress as men and common sheperdesses named Ganymede and Aliena
• Duke Frederick doesn't take long to realise that his daughter and Rosalind have both disappeared at the same time as Orlando vanishes
• The Duke orders Oliver to find his daughter and the others
• The two girls, still dressed as their disguises come across Silvius, a lovestruck Shepard who pines for Phoebe
• Orlando comes across Rosalind as Ganymede and begins to express all of his love for Rosalind, without knowledge of the fact Ganymede is Rosalind
• Ganymede promises that he is an expert in this area, and will help Orlando if he now pretends as though Ganymede is Rosalind...little does he know. So the love lessons begin
• The wedding day arrives, and Ganymede sets up all the couples, making Phoebe promise to marry Silvius is something were to mean she can't marry Ganymede, and also making sure the Duke was accepting of, if something were to happen, his daughter could marry Orlando
• As Ganymede and Aliena, they disappear, and Rosalind and Celia re-appear. The marriages all take place 
• Duke Frederick returns in his way, allows them all back into the estate and gives back the throne to Duke Senior.

As you can see, a lot happens in this place. It's possibly one of my favourite Shakespeare pieces because it's so mad but also so subtly clever! Its quite an abstract story line for our time period, however back then it would've been seen as extremely unacceptable! Two daughters running off after a guy but then disguising themselves as common men and living a fake life. Although this doesn't really have much to do with the character I will be playing in my monologue, but in order to understand the piece I needed to understand everything that was happening outside Phoebe's story. 

So this is things about Phoebe that I possibly wasn't quite aware of before performing it this week, however if I were to performed this piece again I would know how to perform it better!

Phoebe, a snobby shepherdess, who thinks she's far too good for Silvius, also a shepherd. Like the typical Shakespeare lover, Silvius is madly inlove with Phoebe but is aware that she will never love him in return, he spends the majority of his stage time complaining about this. She is very, very up herself, she takes Silvius' metaphors literally and takes offense to them and has a very sarcastic edge to her. In the end, she marries Silvius but that's due to Ganymede stitching her up a bit at the end of the play, and if she had any say in the matter, I can't imagine Phoebe would go ahead and marry Silvius. 

With new knowledge of this, I can see just how hurtful this monologue is meant to be delivered. The piece is to be delivered with Silvius on stage, and its about how perfect Ganymede is. How "the best thing in him is his complexion" etc. She is delivering this with full knowledge that Silvius loves her, and that's one of her main character traits: she's nasty.

     I had previously performed this piece without full knowledge of how Phoebe should be. I performed her far too well-spoken for a 'common shepherdess' and far too nice for the snobby, bitchy characteristics we come to learn. I am annoyed that I got such a wrong interpretation of the character, so do understand that this blog post is all about my work for how I performed the monologue, obviously performing it wrong. 

When first working on this monologue, I think I automatically linked Phoebe to Hero from Much Ado About Nothing, a character I have previously played; which is why I messed up the characteristics of Phoebe so much! However, in terms of character development, despite the fact it was all wrong, I worked a lot on trying to create this very perfectly posh character, whom was extremely innocent and simply just in love- exactly like Hero, huh?
I found that I didn't have to change my voice too drastically but I wanted to make it softer and slower in order to allow me to portray this pretty character but also to ensure everything I was saying was audible. Projection obviously came into this, but with it being a monologue and my portrayal of Phoebe being calm and polite, I didn't feel I had to work overly hard on raising my projection levels. However, I worked a lot on my pacing!
As a method of learning the monologue, I cut it down into 7 very clear sections (see above.) These sections were the way in which I could learn the monologue. So I'd learn each section at a time, and then once I'd learnt it all, I could piece it together a little better. I found that this also helped a lot with the speed in which I was saying it. Because it would slow me down every time I got to the next section of the monologue, making my physically slow down in order to remember the next section. I've often been told I speak to fast when on stage so this was really effective for me, and I definitely felt it slowed me down a lot! It allowed me to work more heavily on my articulation too, another thing just as important for performing Shakespeare.

Mean Girls is one of the first things I thought of when began to properly understand Phoebe. The characters in Mean Girls are just as snobby. Everything for them is about looking good and being the most popular girls in the school-with close attention to impressing all the boys they can. They do a lot to make others feel worse about themselves and spend most of the film bitching about one another about each others backs. Phoebe dedicates herself fully to loving Ganymede, she thinks he's perfect but with the perfect amount of hate towards him. Similar to my research with Mrs Loveit, Man Of Mode, Phoebe loves everything about Ganymede one minute, and then suddenly will hate him and bitch about him to Silvius. Its an odd character trait however its surprisingly common in our generation and its apparently the thing to do, to one minute love your boyfriend and then the next hate him; and make him busy himself trying to guess what he's done wrong. I looked into Mean Girls, and I wanted to focus my research on just getting a sense of facial expressions and reactions that read 'bitchy' but not something that becomes too overpowering. 

In this image, you can see how simple they are all sat but you can see the bitchiness from the three main characters. The red haired girl looks most innocent. She is not leaning into any of the other characters. Her hand sits quite calmly on her lips, whereas the other characters hold their hands firmly on their lips, making them appear more bitchy. The firm look they all hold, apart from the red haired character, makes them look more plotting and suspicious; which gives them a more evil look to each of their characters.
I know the film well, and so I observed the odd little facial expressions. They weren't really ones that I could copy for Phoebe however it was just interesting for me to see that even the slight raise of the eyebrow works well. I incorporated these slight moves of my eyebrow in my performances, but it needed to be something a lot more obvious and constant. 

From working on a Shakespeare piece earlier on this year, I was already very aware of the importance of the Iambic Pentameter. The iambic pentameter is a 'verse with five metrical feet, each consisting with one stressed verse.' In Much Ado About Nothing, our previous project at college, I really struggled with these 'stressed verses'. To me, its just emphasis on the correct words in order to put across the right message in the words you are saying. And so when it came to this monologue, I spent a lot of time noting down which words to emphasise and in what way they needed to be emphasised, whether it be with anger or confusion:

"Think not I love him, though I ask for him.

Tis but a peevish boy, yet he speaks well.

But what care I for words? Yet words do well

When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.

It is a pretty youth, not very pretty;

But sure he's proud; and yet his pride becomes him.

He'll make a proper man. The best thing in him is his complexion;

and faster than his tongue did make offense, his eye did heal it up.

He is not very tall; yet for his years he's tall.

His leg is but so so; and yet tis well. 

There was a pretty redness in his lip,

A little riper and more lusty red 

Than that mixed in his cheeks; 'twas just the difference

Betwixt the constant red and mingled damask.

There be some woman, Silvius, had they marked him

in parcels as I did, would have gone near 

To fall in love with him; but, for my part,

I love him not nor hate him not; and yet

I have more cause to hate him than to love him; 

For what had he to do to chide at me?

He said mine eyes were black and my hair black;

And now I am remeb'red scorned at me.

I marvel why I answered no again. 

But ommitance is no quittance.

I'll write to him a very taunting letter,

And thou shalt bear it. Wilt thou. Silvius?

All the words marked in bold are words that I need to pay attention to in terms of emphasis. I understand that the iambic pentameter is something that appears more frequently but I have just marked words that I think need emphasis. For example, like the first 'him'. This needs its emphasis to bring the audience up to speed and so that they can begin to understand that this character is talking about a guy, and which whom she 'love'. The colours she uses to describe Ganymede's 'cheeks' are very descriptive and beautiful so emphasis on these works well in terms of her opinions of Ganymede and his looks; which she very clearly likes. I have added emphasis to every time she says Silvius. I did this just to allow the audience to understand their relationship and also for them to be aware of his presence. Also, their relationship is a tricky one. Phoebe very clearly doesn't like him, and so this needs to be emphasised when she says his name. I wanted to add this kind of reluctance to her voice when saying his name-'there be some woman, Silvius'- because to me, it's almost like she has forgotten he's there. She get's so involved with her thoughts about Ganymede and then out of politeness in a way, she remembers to interact with poor Silvius. Perhaps 'out of politeness' was the wrong way to describe it, as she doesn't strike me as a character who would do this as she's very much all-about-herself!
     Marking all the words I need to emphasise helped me a lot when working on learning this monologue, it felt like I was putting across the right message to the audience but I missed the key bit about Phoebe being a lot more snobby and fiesty as annoyingly I played her extremely polite and posh! 

Love is, I think, the biggest theme in the play! Every little story each character holds, revolves around love! Duke Frederick allows Rosalind to remain in the estate because his daughter, Celia, is close friends with her. If he had banished Rosalind, he would've lost the love of his daughter. Orlando spends his time pining for Rosalind, whom has 'disappeared'. Ganymede (Rosalind disguised) acts as a love lecturer for Orlando and gets Orlando to woo him in preparation for having to woo Rosalind when she returns. Silvuis loves Phoebe, he also spends all his time pining. Phoebe very much dislikes Silvius and loves Ganymede: which could be seen as an act of karma, because Ganymede is Rosalind...little does she know! The story ends with marriages from every corner; so as you can see, love is the biggest running theme during the play! As stereotypical this may be from Shakespeare, it's definitely got a different element to it compared to his other stuff, like Romeo and Juliet.
    I think I need a way in order to show the relationships Phoebe has with both of the men around her: Silvius and Ganymede. For example, in the monologue, I aim to block out the thought of Silvius being in the area and focus on picturing Ganymede. So then when it comes to me mentioning Silvius, you see my character coming out of her little day dream. I think this will show her opinions of Silvius quite well, as you will see her body and facial language drop as she turns to look at Silvius. 

Image 1, body language

I wanted to talk briefly about how I want to change my body language when Phoebe brings herself around to notice Silvius again. I get the impression it would be disappointment, as her day dream has just disappeared and in return stands Silvius. The image here is of someone looking 'disappointed'. Her hands are crossed firmly across her chest. Her face sits quite firmly with her mouth raised to one side. Her shoulders are raised and also firm. I don't plan to go this over the top in my monologue, but the little bits like dipped eyebrows I can do and the tight mouth. 

I wanted to now run you through as to why I picked this monologue. It took me a while to choose all three of my monologues for this assessment and choosing a classical piece was the one I was least looking forward to doing! I can appreciate and love classical pieces but I know I prefer contemporary pieces, which is why I think I performed my two contemporary pieces a lot better than this monologue! Without any proper knowledge, I classed Phoebe as a calm and quiet character and this is how I performed her. This characterisation was wrong however this is exactly what I wanted for my monologues. I didn't want an over the top character because I don't ever think I can push myself enough to perform them well enough. My characterisation of Phoebe was a typical, well-spoken Shakespeare character and I was quite comfortable with that.
But apart from that, I do really like the monologue. I think there are many hidden comedics parts to it that I must admit I continue to hide as very often, for an audition, they don't want mad new ways to perform a well-known monologue like this one. She spends the entire time debating whether she likes him or not, and actually ends the monologue on hating him and 'writing him a very taunting letter'. So here you could make it comedic, she contradicts herself on loving or hating him and this could be done really over dramatically which naturally, would become funny!

Image 3, a modern Phoebe and Ganymede

In terms of audition appropriation, I don't think this would be too good for me because it's too well-known. Audition panels get bored of hearing the same Shakespeare monologues over and over again so I think I would stand a better chance of performing something less common for them, which would then give me the chance to make it into my own piece instead of just following them in the footsteps of the person before etc. However, she is my gender and also of a young enough age for me to play her, which is another key thing the audition process. The scene, like my Like A Virgin monologue, is a simple layout. There is no need for props and although we are aware that Silvius is in the scene, it is not necessary that he is to be seen. I can spend most of this monologue fantasying over Ganymede which can be directed out above the audience, so no need to an extra body on stage for that either.

As part of the rehearsal part to this assignment, we had two short sessions with our lecturer to show the work we have done on our monologues, although unfortunately we didn't get round to letting me show her this monologue. However I do know she approved of the monologue because we sat down and discussed what monologues I was choosing to do etc. This session highlighted to me how much emotion that I need to portray, similar to my Like A Virgin monologue. The emotion is both 'love' and 'hate'. Two very cliched but different emotions to portray. I like the fact that these two emotions are two strong emotions that appear in my Like A Virgin monologue; and although this may not be a good thing as this assessment is all about 'three contrasting monologues' however, the love and hate in this monologue is a very different love and hate that we see in the Like A Virgin monologue. The love and hate, here in As You Like It, is very light. Yes she loves him, but she hates him just as quickly and easily. It all very much feels quite light-hearted and that if Ganymede were to simply apologise for his bad words, he would have Phoebe right back at his feet. Whereas the love and hate coming from Angela in Like A Virgin is a lot more real and serious. She hates herself for being ill and dislikes her mum just as much because of her drinking habit. She hates her friends who 'constantly make excuses for me'. She hates her dad for leaving her and her mum alone, struggling for money. Her mum is going through a divorce, which is the sign of 'loss of love' very possibly causing hate. So although love and hate aren't themes you see immediately when reading the play, they appear in more subtle ways such as the divorce and the character hating herself, whereas you would typically only ever see a character hating another character.


Character profile:
https://www.playshakespeare.com/as-you-like-it/characters/2298-phebe
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/asyoulikeit/

Phoebe is a 'dark featured' shepherdess. She is very sarcastic and snobby! I have aged her in her early twenties, but I can't see her being any older than that anyways. She has to be quite young because of her flittering personality; which I link to people more my age than adults. She is a bit of a player, or so I can only imagine. We see her utterly head-over-heels in love with Ganymede who we see her meeting a quarter through the play. So we can only assume that she was in love with some other man before Ganymede; she's just that sort of girl! Silvius is head-over-heels in love with Phoebe, and being her snobby and bitchy self, she makes sure Silvius is busy trying to win her over and then she'll drop him at any point: she know's she has him wrapped around her little finger! So she's bossy too! Although, the ending surprises me because it's not how I would expect her to react. She goes ahead and marries Silvius, under the vows of agreeing to marry him if Ganymede was perhaps unable to marry. I would expect her to disagree to this vow, although I believe she becomes quickly aware that Ganymede is a woman and so therefore can't break her vow and so therefore marries Silvius. We can understand that Phoebe is perhaps one of those 'physco' girls. In the scene before the monologue, we see Ganymede explaining his hate for her because of the way she uses Silvius:

"Why that were covetousness.

Silvius the time that I hated thee, and yet it is not that I bear thee love

But since that thou canst talk of love so well

Thy company...I will endure , and I'll employ thee too"

Here, Phoebe is saying how, she does not love Silvius, and earlier on she questions that 'thou hast my love. Is not that neighbourly?' (She questions if her friendship is not enough for him and that he should stop being greedy) In the quote above, she says she hated him but now that he has become a man who can talk so well of love, she will keep him around for advice about Ganymede. Which no doubt, makes everything so much harder for poor Silvius. She is a evil character, but this evilness is definitely over seen in parts such as the monologue, and so I need to ensure that I portray this better. 

Phoebe is so very different to any other character I've played, and yes I played her wrong. but I am usually type-casted with nice characters. It's only been recently that I've got character slightly more fiesty and less nice such as Mrs Loveit from Man Of Mode, but before then I got characters such as Hero from Much Ado About Nothing. So this is a good character for me to try and show off a different side to my acting. It would've been beneficial for me to play this character properly, and so if I were to perform this monologue again, I am definitely aware of how bitchy I need to play her, and perhaps look more closely into bitchy characters we see in more contemporary stuff such as Louise from Made In Chelsea.