Road: Week 3

Today was a continuation of the blocking for Road, as we had blocked some scenes with Kirsty the previous week; we showed these to Deborah so she is aware of the blocking for the scenes she missed etc.

However, today we had a Greek Theatre (Context lesson: with Kirsty) In this lesson we are covering the three theban plays:Oedipus, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone. Today we purely focussed on Antigone; the story of Antigone (main character-protagonist). Her two brothers are fighting for the throne, they both die. Antigone's uncle Creon (to be King) wants one brother buried with a full funeral/ceremony and the other to not: to purely just rot onland. Anitgone, being brought up with love and kindeness, goes against Creon demanding that both her brothers require a proper burial. The fight continues, Ismene (Antigone's sister) takes her side. Antigone is sent to a cave to die. A blind prophet comes along and again, demands to Creon that Antigone should be released and the brother to have a proper burial. But it is too late, Creon goes to release her but she, and her husband-Haemon, have both killed themselves. 
The moral of the story is that Antigone set out to do well but due to the flaws in the other characters such as Creon it lead to her demise.
But whilst talking about all the characters in Antigone I briefly linked them to some in Road. (Bearing in mind that this is all very loosely done) Carol as Antigone. Carol plays a very dominant women and does not let the boys (Eddie and Brink) walk all over her nor does she let the boys think that she is 'easy'- "For a minute then I thought I was at the Ritz"- she is also very sarcastic and rude. Antigone, for the era, was seen as almost a 'wonder-women' having a female as a protagonist back then was a big deal and very rare- due to womens rights etc. Carol plays the leading female protagonist in the final scene with the four of us. She doe'nt necessarily do all her actions in order to make things right like Antigone does but she is definitely flowing closely in the footsteps of being a leading women, who has her own opinion and will do and say what she wants and what she believes in. As I said, it is loosely linked but I thought this was a good link to Road at the same time.
Ismene could be linked with Louise. Ismene is Antigone's sister (both Oedipus' daughters). Ismene states that she would die in order to help her sister. They are very close. So I've linked Ismene and Antigone for Carol and Louise. Ismene; perhaps the tag along to her sisters bold actions in her demands to Creon, but still she supports these actions as does Louise. Louise is fond and close to Carol and acts as very much the tag along to her with all the 'Louise laughs' 'Louise splutters' etc. Ismene is scared of Creon, a very dominant male character in the play. Just as Louise is scared of her brother- the only dominant male in her life that we are introduced to in the play, Louise is intimidated by her brother and I also get the impression that Ismene is of Creon. However Creon doesn't scare Antigone nor would Louise' brother scare Carol, if they ever did meet.
So perhaps Creon could be linked with Louises brother- someone who always believes that they are right and will fight for this perhaps...
Which leads me onto this particular relationship (Antigone and Creon.) In a short National Theatre clip watched in class( I annoyingly can find the link for this. I will keep searching), it is to be said that this uncle and niece relationship is not like any 'normal' family relationship, as you might expect- something like love and kindness shared between the two. However, this relationship is far from this. "He treats her like a criminal" ~Jodie Whittaker whom played Antigone in a contemporary version. Similarly to how the brother treats Louise, not quite like a criminal but he certainly doesn't treat her nicely or even like a normal brother would- with bickering and petty arguments.

These links to the theban plays we are covering in a different lesson; I think, are very interesting. It proves that 2000 years on these classic tragedy plays are still having a huge (but an unconscience) effect on plays being written in this 21st century! Which is brilliant and it just shows how much we owe this pleasure of a college course and industry to the Greeks themselves!

So in our actual dedicated Road lesson we did: scenes that I had already taken notes for; so tried to look deeper for more thoughts about the characters and scenes: In Dor and Lanes scene (Act 2 page 47) they both mention how they 'are not going home to him'. Him is written in italics to show emphasis needed here. Which made me think that they are both married which naturally knocks up their age range to about 30 onwards. Although saying this, I had imagined Dor and Lane to be young and in their twenties enjoying the pub and club life of a young adult. So perhaps their 'him's' are boyfriends or even brothers or fathers. As if Louise were to be saying these lines she would most definitely be referring them back to not wanting to go back to her horrid brother. Their age can be decided on this very argument (whether its their husbands or boyfriends etc?)

Valeries monologue, this was the first time we got to see this monologue as we went off and did our accent work when Sophie (whom plays Valerie) blocked this scene. The first introduction to Road, a couple of weeks ago, I was chosen to present my interpretation of this monologue: so to play the character of Valerie. I tried to incorporate some movement into mine such as when she mentions how "dry her hair is" I tentatively looked at my hair as though reminiscing to how she used to look and how her hair used to be. This will show how she feels about herself which will also gives us a bit more of an insight into her character; seeing as this monologue is her only scene!

Script notes

She goes on to tell us how she "feeds every baby in the house" and "'does' everything else I can" etc which made me think that she is bored of her life. It's repetitive and dull, and Valerie isn't the only one to think this as Louise mentions this also. 

Valerie is so poor she begs for money off of the same people and her only thanks she can give them is to say 'thank you, thank you' 'til it makes you sick.' When I heard this line in Sophie's version, it made me believe that she wasn't apologetic that she has to beg for money, it sounded more like disgrace to herself and that saying thank you every time made her sick with hatred towards herself and her life?

She then goes on to talk about drink/alcohol. "Drinks a bastard" this is a massive contrast to what everyone else on Road thinks about alcohol. Others use it as a method to forget the world in which they are living in. Whereas Valerie talks about how it has ruined her life. I

I picked out an interesting thought: that when she mentions "him" "he" "not his fault" that she is referring to the alcohol as "him". On the surface it is to be seen as though she is talking about her husband (whole we never actually meet) which can only lead me to the conclusion that perhaps the drink is her life; as would a husband be if she did have one. However saying this she does mention "his fat hard hands in bed" which is almost certainly a reference to a human male but it, again, could be seen as though the "fat hard hands" are the feeling that alcohol has left her-hung over and a negative attitude to life in general? "He's so big and hunched and ugly" tells us that she is scared of this husband or the alcohol as it has changed her life considerably as she goes on to talk about how she "hates him now, and I don't want to". She's asking herself more than the audience what changed in her life . 

This entire monologue has more meaning to it now. As I can see it in the context of the play. Valerie is weak and alone, and she only has the husband or alcohol. Cartwright has written a few characters whom appear to be lonely. I think this is because he writes the theme of sex as such a casual thing and that love in that sense wasn't a big deal then; it was more casual and it didn't seem to matter if you had sex with someone you didn't like let alone love. Making the characters lonely in their family or relationships that are mentioned, gives us a clear insight into what life was like on Road-"dull" lonely, "slag heap" and "where things all come but don't drop off."

I will, again, be passing on my notes to Sophie so she can improve on the things mentioned, this way I am both helping myself, as an actor, develop and am helping others too.

Talking to you on Wednesday evening of this week: I can now say that I expressed my feelings to Sophie, about how I felt that Valerie is talking about 'him' as alcohol instead of the top layer of it being that she is simply talking about her husband. Matter of factly, I feel that Sophie didn't take this suggestion openly mindedly as her immediate reaction was too far abstract it was. This halted my idea completely so I felt that I didn't get a full opportunity to explain my suggestion. I can fully understand why she blocked off this suggestion as I clearly see how far out the idea is from the naturalistic play of Road that we are to be performing. However I am pleased I expressed my point to her as I will continue to do so to both improve my skills as an actor as well as assisting others.

This led us to my scene with Eddie, Brink and Carol (Lewis, Milo and Carol.) This scene was blocked on our previous Thursdays lesson so we just presented this back to Deborah. During this, I noted that I need to work on 1. My accent. Milo and Phoebe have mastered the accent really well, and because Phoebe is playing a dominant and loud character, I, and my character, are represented as very little and quiet! Which is said to be as though I am playing someone too much like myself, which is something that I desperately do not want to do. And 2. That although Louise is the tag along of the group she also has her moments of sticking up for herself such as when she repeatedly says "Carol" in a motherly sort of tone as though to be telling Carol off; only because Louise really likes these boys and probably wouldn't mind the sexual tension that begins to rise. 

Speaking with honesty, I feel as though my level of acting is being held back in this scene because I have found myself apprehensive of the two kisses. Which sounds daft coming from an actress but the surrounds I imbed myself in (other teenagers, friends, peers etc), it is quite hard to explain that the two kisses are only for acting purposes and mean nothing more. This being one naff excuse and the second being that I have been holding back with the thought of having to block this scene in front of the class, as we have been doing so for other scenes. 

So with all this beared in mind, I personally feel that I am holding myself back from this scene and that the energy I have been giving this scene has been low due to the false lead up's of blocking this section and then not blocking it. With all that said, I am now more determined to jump this acting career hurdle, as I know, silly as it may sound, that I will be pleased with myself to overcome this 'apprehensiveness.' I also feel it best that I am honest with myself and my thoughts about my acting in the early stages of Road and I feel as though I am pulling back more than I should. With that said, again, I'm even more determined to take this scene away this weekend and learn the lines so by Monday Iam at least off script for this scene, this way I can begin to really become Louise and focus on the characterisations of her which will remove p, hopefully, aspects of my own personality so when it comes to the kisses, I am Louise kissing Brink and Eddie, two boys who have chatted me up etc etc. 

Going through this scene again was really helpful as it refreshed us with the new blocking that had been set and it also meant that the rest of the class could see it, with that said I asked what the others thought of this scene and the relationships that are in the midst... I did this because I wanted some feedback to improve on in these early stages of Road so I can have something to go on for the next couple of weeks: 

So I asked firstly, Joe. I asked Joe because he seems quite observant, he takes in a lot and notices how people are around others which is a great skill. Joe's feedback (via message) was: 

Joe: I thought it was very good with what you have so far. The only thing I feel though which is just Phoebe being herself, which means that she takes away the lime light away from you as she performs to an extent in which blocks you. I know that's her character but I'd really like to see you at every availability when speaking or an action to put yourself out there even more"

Joe's comment is very detailed and extremely useful. My main points noted from what Joe has said is to make Louise that much bigger, not to overpower Phoebe, but to reach nearer that level of performance status. This is feedback that I will be sure to take on board for the next couple of weeks!!

I then asked Kennedy, the same question of her opinions on the final scene. I asked Kennedy mainly because we never seem to work along side each other so this way  I was able to be made aware of how she responds to what she sees on stage etc: 

Kennedy: I only saw you begin learning lines but I just think once you get confident in your lines it will be great! You just need to make the awkward bits funnier so they're not awkward in a sense of being real-life awkward." 

By this she meant the kissing section specifically as we have been sharing our thoughts on both mine and her scene (in which she has to kiss Nyakeh!) But her main message was that as soon as I get confident with the lines I can begin to imbody the character of Louise. Again this is another really beneficial bit of feedback for me. 

I thirdly asked Sophie. Sophie is good fun to be around and she gives some really detailed feedback and honest opinions which is what you need in this industry: 

Sophie: Overall its a working progress. The first time I saw it, it was a bit bossy from Carols behalf. But then Deborah said how she was too shouty and to bring it down a notch. So Phoebe varied her voice which made it better. I also liked the eye contact moments that you made with Lewis. And also the dynamics of the relationship between Brink and Carol. On the whole the piece is looking good. 

Sophie's feedback was again very detailed. She points out that now Phoebe has toned down her characters voice there is now more limelight on the other characters; similar to what Joe said. The eye contact moments with Lewis were, obviously, noticeable and they helped to lead us up to the physical contact made later on in the scene. So I will keep up the eye contact moments with Eddie however I need to also do this to Milo's character also, as the scene leads to me kissing him as well. These eye contact moments need to represent the thoughts of Louise such as when you can simply look at your friend and know what they are thinking. The eye contact needs to show the audience that Louise likes them.

I have found this feedback to be extremely useful. They are all giving me constructive criticism as well as the parts there were good. I will endeavour to take all of this feedback on board in the next couple of weeks of Road, and I look forward in showing them how I have improved on these points etc.
To finish of Mondays session, Deborah spoke to me about all the little aspects of Road/Louise. She firstly mentioned my accent and that how I am being overpowered by Phoebe's very good northern accent; and so this was suggested by her to work on the accent more to bring my voice up to Phoebe's level. She also spoke to me about how comfortable I felt in kissing Milo and Lewis. I expressed my opinions to her honestly. Talking to Deborah about all of my apprehensive feelings cleared things up a bit for me and it also gave me more motivation to beat Phoebe's level of the accent-which I know will be a very tough challenge for me but I am willing to put my best into it all.

Wednesday' session was a jumbled scene rehearsal. We were all put into pairs or groups in my case and were instructed to go an work on a scene which we were both in (the pairs: such as Clare and Joey, to rehearse their scene together) I was in a group with Lewis, Phoebe and Milo and we worked on our final scene together. We firstly went through all four characters, listing ideas and thoughts that we have made over the past couple of weeks in playing them.

We began with Eddie (played by Lewis.) Lewis said that he felt as though Eddie wasn't this 'swarve, lad' sort of guy like Deborah had suggested but he was a guy trying to be polite and to make the best impression to these girls. He got this idea from his first scene in which he is desperately trying to make himself look presentable when tying and re-tying his tie etc.
Carol: Carol has set out to make a point about her dominance and she is a feminist, Phoebe suggested no more about Carol but it is clear that she wouldn't let any man trample over her nor would she allow them to do this to Louise- "Give it here, sap. Top her up."
Brink: COCKY! He is very much the big headed, swarve and cocky guy you get in year 11 at school who thinks they are the best and that he just has to stand there and all the girls come swarming over! He's not particularly bright either. But amazingly, Carol manages to knock his ego a bit but he soon regains this when he manages to get Louise.
Louise: Louise is Carols tag-along, and at times encourages Carol . But I get the slight impression that she may be a year younger than Carol because this as well as the fact that she is quieter. But also the fact that perhaps Louise is very insecure, so she sticks with this loud, bossy person as a friend as a safety net of always having someone there to stand up for her...?
I individually noted down that each time the boys leave the room, which they do alot, they are secretively talking about us, just like we do to them. This proves an interesting thought and it would be something I would've liked have seen in the actual script by Cartwright because this would give us a clearer understanding of what the boys actually thought of Carol and Louise- but delving deeper than the fact that they might have a chance of having sex with them. So hearing what they actually think of the two girls personalities would've been very interesting and I can imagine that Eddie would keep as polite as he could, but be the one to like Carol, And for Brink to dislike Carol and really like Louise.

Still in the same groups we began reading through this scene but this time only focussing on our accent work. I am still finding the accent difficult but working alongside Phoebe's strong northern accent helps me to hear what it should sound like and I can take this and put it straight into my own dialogue. Milo is currently still using his strong Scottish accent; which throws me off of my attempt of a northern accent as I begin a slight Scottish accent when I respond to his lines, not that I can do the Scottish accent either but I inherit some of the sounds when I say my lines. Which makes my attempt of the accent inconsistent which isn't good! Lewis is getting there with his accent and it is definitely stronger than mine. With my weak accent in mind, that evening I found an accent app on my phone. The app doesn't specifically say Northern accent but instead I brought the Yorkshire-Sheffield accent. The app is really useful, there is a audio story read in the accent which I can listen to. There are also repeat-after-me sentences and a microphone device so I can speak my lines into the app and hear them back. The app will definitely be something that I listen to and experiment with a lot, as all this goes towards more practise in the accent which will resolve in me hopefully performing a decent northern accent in the performance.

We went over this scene with Deborah and she gave us some helpful tips into what our characters meant by the things they were saying such as Louise, whom repeatedly says "Carol" all with slightly different meanings. Such as one on page 69, the tone in which I plan to say this line is drawn out in a slight motherly tone as though getting her point across that she would quite like Carol to be quiet because she really likes these boys. This is made even more apparent when Carol wants to leave but Brink manages to change her mind and it is I, that moves first to put down my bag to stay a bit longer. Deborah suggested for Carol to be less aggressive and to bring down the character a notch. So she continues being a dominant character but just a bit less than before. Having done the scene after changing this, it felt as though the scene was evenly distributed between the four characters and the moments and dialogue Louise, Brink and Eddie have began to have more of a say in the scene.
Deborah also suggested that Louise was a lot more giggly, she really likes these guys so she is trying her best for them to like her with a flirty, ditsy and giggly attitude. This gives us a huge contrast between Louise and Carol as Carol sticks to her firm, and dominant attitude and doesn't let on that 'she might've liked the boys in the pub.' Making Louise more of a flirty characters suits this scene a lot better to how I had first interpreted her- like a shy and reserved character, and even though I represent her as quiet and polite she still knows how to get boys that she likes etc.

After finishing the practical side of our scene we were then instructed to cut out unimportant sections of each of our monologues, because the scene needs to be cut; even though it is quick paced it drags on to much! It was hard to get rid of parts of the monologue because it was written to make sense but I kept in mind that Louise was incredibly intoxicated with alcohol so even if it didn't make a lot sense after cutting it down it wouldn't matter much. The parts I have decided to cut out are not set in stone as we will be running past these ideas with Deborah on Monday however:

"Its all gambling this, in'it. Gambling with gabble to see what come out. That record its so about pure things it make you wanna cry. Why's the world so tough? Its like walking through meat in high heels. Nothings shared out right, money or love. Im a quiet person me. People think I'm deaf and dumb. I wanna say things but it hard. I've got big wishes y'know. I want my life all shined up. Its so dull. Every things so dull. When  that man on the record sings, you put the flags up. Cos he reminds you of them feelings you keep forgetting. The important ones. Once you wrap em' up and put em' away thats it, theres nothing left but profit and loss and who shot who? But its so hard, life. So hard. Nothings interesting. Every things been made ordinary in our eyes. I want magic and miracles and a Jesus to come and change things again and show the invisible. And not let us keep forgetting, forge-netting everything, kickin. everyone. I want the surface up and off and all the gold and jewels out and all the light out on the pavements. Anyway I never spoke such a speech in my life an' I'm glad I have. If I keep shouting somehow and somehow might escape." 

Louise ending monologue above and the highlighted bits are the sections I picked out to get rid of. At the moment its not much but I'm waiting to put this into practical action so we can hear what it sounds like in the scene. Event the little bits I've cut out of my monologue will contribute to the cutting down of the whole scene, especially if the others cut down sections of their monologue too. 

After doing this in lesson, I set out to work on my accent on my own. I focussed the accent work on my monologue as it is the biggest section of text Louise has. I began by highlighting certain words that I knew would have an obvious accent added to them. (Accent words are highlighted in blue, above.) Doing this meant that I could the recite my lines and focussed on adding the accent on these words first and then once this is done I can go onto work on the rest of the speech. Words such as 'come' and 'tough' I emphasise the 'o' sound, my mouth forming a slight pout structure. And words beginning with an 'h' I would turn into 'ad' from 'had' and 'igh eels' instead of 'high heels.' 

I then went through the whole monologue, the bits without book that I have learnt already, and put the accent on these words above (in blue). This was really helpful as it helped me learn my lines in the accent which means that whenever I recite the lines I will remember them if I do it in the same accent.

My line learning is also coming on with improvements as I have now learnt my entire beginning scene with Louise's brother in. Which means when we come to this scene I can now play that intimidated character who is probably trying to get out of the house as quick as she can. Doing this scene without my script in hand will also mean that I can use my entire body to react to the brother and include those looks at him and reactions. Overall I'am beginning to feel more and more confident in the role of Louise especially now some of my lines are learnt, and the accent is 'getting there but still has a long way to go.' 

Outside of college research:

I took out three drama/acting/accent and voice related books to assist me through this assignment and other assignments for other lessons. I issued an accent book 'Accents, A Manual For Actors'. Acting in general book, 'To The Actor.' A voice book, 'Voice And The Young Actor' and I also brought The Three Theban plays by Sophocles in Waterstones and the 'To the Actor' book, this weekend. 

The accent book focusses on tonnes of different accents, the only important one for me being the Yorkshire, Manchester, Northern section. The book, written by Robert Blumenfeld, teaches you the 'important sounds' of the accent, the vowels pronounced in the accent and it gives you practise texts and the sounds of the sentence that you should be producing. These specific sentences challenge the very words that the accent is heard the most such as 'but as I say, do you see that cloud passing overhead? That means rain, that does, before the afternoon is out. No it's not over yet, this rainy season.' For me, this sentence challenges some obvious words that the accent shines through on such as 'passing' saying it without the 'r' sound that us Southerners add into it. 'Overhead' getting rid of the 'h' sound on 'head'. 'Rain' and 'does', and also 'afternoon' turning into 'after/noon' with a slight pause.
The book also taught me how to see the Northern accent pronunciations written down such as: 'taught me' turns into 'tawLt mee' The 'l' sound isn't obvious but I tried to  focus on how I was saying it, and I could hear the 'l' sound. And 'me' is drawn out more than how we naturally say it  and I have found that I say it like 'meh' but again making it a bit longer. [See future blog posts for quotations from the books mentioned above] 

The Young Actors book, has a range of different subheadings in it that focus on specific subjects in the world of acting, such as Character and characterisation, gesture and movement, and the atmosphere and individual feelings. I flicked through this book briefly and I fell in love with it. It is pretty much the best actors guideline to everything we do, as actors, in our 'occupation'. I loved it so much that I actually brought this book for myself, so I can now highlight key things in it and fold over pages etc, so it acts as a sort of notebook for me. I haven't yet had the chance to really look into it and take things from it yet, but that is my task for this weekend and the Easter holiday.
         The Voice book is less relevant to Road but there are still good vocal warm-ups and exercises that I can take on board when learning lines or rehearsing at home and in class time which I will endeavour to experiment with and put into action.

When learning my lines today (Friday afternoon) is highlighted words that I struggle with in the accent. The mains ones being 'hello.' This should be easy to say but when I try and say it, it comes out too Scottish. For me, the northern accent for 'hello' would be written as 'ellow' in terms of pronunciation however when I say it like this it still sounds Scottish with a hint of Irish and Northern. The possibility of changing this to something like 'aye up' is there, if I still can't hack saying 'hello' in the accent. I will be making it my job to ask Matt, Phoebe and Sarah, my voice teacher, how to do this and hopefully by asking that many I can cotton onto how they pronounce it. (I' am asking Matt, because he is northern. Phoebe because she has the accent sussed, and Sarah as she is providing us help in the run up to Road with the accents.)
Another weak line for me is, when Louise says "very different". Every time I say it, I turn straight back into the well-spoken Southern accent I have. Or when I try really hard to get into the accent on this line I tend to roll my 'r's' which again sounds more Scottish than Northern.
"Well I like 'Hot Chocolate" is another that often doesn't sound very Northern when I say it. As well as 'miracles'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFGZPaUknRA&list=PLYZAE0tEtmh274WMmmrF9mq7RVQBJgjjo&index=1- Series1/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IiaiDOcd1k&list=PLYZAE0tEtmh274WMmmrF9mq7RVQBJgjjo&index=4- Series 4/5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rUV_brvkiU&list=PLYZAE0tEtmh274WMmmrF9mq7RVQBJgjjo&index=5-Series 5/5

 I went onto research the tv series of Road that I found on YouTube. The last link is the ending scene in which Louise has her monologue.
But I originally set out to watch the series in a quest to find how Jane Horrocks, who plays Louise in this version, says the words that I' am having trouble with. She says it in a deep tone, 'ell/ow' She pauses slightly between the two sounds, and the 'o' sound is drawn out.
Annoyingly. in this series, they have cut out the section where Carol and Louise talk about what they think of the boys (page 68) which is where Louise says 'very different'. I am thinking; that the best way I can pronounce it, until I get a better understanding of the accent, to raise the pitch of my voice at the end of the word 'different'. This will add a slight ring of a Northern accent until I get round to asking Matt, Phoebe or Sarah in the week.
'Miracles' is said like 'miricles' so the 'ie' sound is a bit more dominant than how we would say it normally.

Later (or earlier) on I go onto mention a quote from The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, and how I've linked it to Louise. The quote is about being a 'wallflower' which is someone who is quiet, hears and understands things, observes all of this but keeps quiet about it all. But I know want to link Louise with Charlie, the main character of the book/film. Charlie is played by a very good looking actor by the name of Logan Lerman. He is the wallflower. The story is all about him, and as the story unfolds it becomes more about his childhood and the things that he has kept from everyone in his life until he reaches his teens and he mental health gets worse and the truth is told. By no means is it a happy, feel good film with hot actors in but I highly recommend watching it.
Charlie has had a really hard childhood, he was really close to his aunt but it tragically is revealed that she raped him- maybe on one or more occasions. But Charlie loved her, as an aunty but she dies in a car crash. This ruins him, mentally. The story is told from his first day of high school in a diary form so you really do begin to be him. But linking this back to Louise I feel that she has secretly had a really tough upbringing. In no ways do I mean as tragic as Charlie's but I've come to the conclusion that her dad is or was abusive to her brother. Depending on how much the mum cares for her children this would ruin her as a parent but she stays married to him because it was almost looked down on to be single. And some people would still look down on it nowadays. This abusiveness has rubbed off on the brother which leads to him to it to her when the parents aren't around.
Like Charlie, Louise keeps this all to herself and comes strutting into her next scene with her head held as high as she normally holds it when she comes in contact with Brenda and Carol. Charlie struggles to find some good friends and he doesn't even confine in his parents for support that much, he is an introvert as such. Louise, I can imagine was very similar when starting school. It wasn't until she found Carol that she was really lonely, and would've had noone to talk to at home- like Charlie. Charlie sees a lot and observes people- not in a creepy way but he just see's things but will always keep quiet about them. Louise does the exact same, for example she knows full well that Carol secretly likes Eddie or Brink, or both for that matter as she puts this across as soon as they leave the stage: "Eh? But you fancied em' when you saw em'!?" Carol easily brushes this off, most probably because she knows Louise would never dream of saying it out right to the boys when they re-enter. Charlie does something similar when he walks in on his to-be friend 'making out' with another guy; he doesn't say a word.
Charlie has a huge downfall nearing the end of the book/film where the secret of him being raped is revealed and I think that one day Louise can tell someone about her abusive brother but that will only be when she escapes Road, because it is only revealed when Charlie gets some really great friends.



I was thoroughly looking forward to Thursdays session as I knew we were working on accents! We began with some basic vocal warm up exercises lead by us, seeing as we had just worked on this subject in our voice lessons. We did tongue twisters and humming also. We also did some physical warm ups such as star jumps and the plank. And also a mental warm up, the name game. All of this prepared us for everything; vocally, physically and mentally.

Accent helpsheet, including notes

As a class we then did a repeat-after-me accent workshop. Blogger, unfortunately, won't allow me to insert the audio recording I made of this lesson; I recorded it so I could listen back to the sentences and words we worked on in the accent- as a method of repetition of the accent. I even went to the extent of listening to this recording on the bus home, so I could listen carefully to the exact pronunciation of the words covered today. We were also given a sheet that matches the practical side of the accent done today so this will act as my guideline to learning the accent, as well as plenty of other research. Above is the worksheet we were given, and on it my notes that I made after class to assist me on how I pronounce these words in the accent. My main point of focus for the accent is the pronunciation: All use of 'the' and 'to' is replaced with 't', which is pronounced by replacing the vowel sound with a half-audible 'uh' noise, the kind you would make if you were lifting something unexpectedly heavy. EG: "I'm going in'uh woods". This is something that I have to really think about before saying because to me it feels so unnatural, this is my main point of focus for the accent in the next couple of weeks (over Easter!) 

Using everything we'd just learnt we then had to learn a section of our text (preferably monologues) in the accent and then present this to the class in the time limit of 10 minutes. I worked with Phoebe (seeing as she plays alongside me as Carol) Phoebe had began learning her monologue (on page 74) 

so this exercise was fairly easy for her, and her accent doesn't need much improvement on at all.

However for me, I had very much familiarised myself with my monologue but I had, admittedly, not looked at it much this week due to in class us working on the scene that led up to it and not actually the monologue. So this exercise was difficult for me, but I had learnt a good three quarters of it. But as soon as I had to present this to the class after the 10 minutes I managed to mess up the very first sentence which threw me off completely; making a right idiot of myself! This really frustrated me because I knew the monologue, but I still feel really un-confident with the accent so I think in the context in which we had to present these pieces of text, with no script, in the accent, and out of the normality of the scenes- and my nerves threw me off... 

In the 10 minute break we had straight after this I was determined to learn the monologue, and to prove that I could do it, without script and in the best accent I could; this was like me proving to my self-confidence. I did it, too. But this whole situation has made me really push myself to set the target of learning my lines for Monday: SCRIPT DOWN! I' am still on the mission of proving to myself that I can do it and not embarrass myself again like I did today! 

So talking to you, Friday afternoon, I have learnt my entire beginning scene with the brother, and also my entire monologue at the end! I will continue with this aim, for Monday, and prove to myself, and myself only, that I can do it. Also, the quicker my script is dropped the better I can act in the scenes I am in, as I can be Louise, the, at first, intimidated character, and become this more confident, flirty character to the incredibly drunk character right at the end. 

        I need to closely work on playing drunk which means I will need to look into other actors in films etc doing this as this is something that I have personally never experienced. 

To finish off our lesson, the rest of the class were instructed to begin work on their character studies; looking into their characters costumes and props etc. Whilst me, Lewis, Phoebe and Milo were held back to finish the rest of our scene, covering the section that I have been apprehensive about...

We started where we had left off, on top of page 72. Louise is still sat, with Eddie close to her left and Brink on the sofa arm. We decided that when Carol leaves 'to go to the toilet' there is to be an awkward silence to prove that Carol was definitely the talker of the group. Brink then goes on to say 'what is it?' which picks the pace up again between me and Brink. Brink then leaves, which leaves Louise and Eddie sat closely together on the sofa. 'In one single movement, Eddie takes Louise and sits her on his knee' following this stage direction in the script we knew we wanted Eddie to sit Louise on his knee for the kiss but weren't, at first, sure how to do this. Lewis was sat to my right, and in the stage directions it says 'Eddie stands' so we choreographed that Lewis would stand, pull me up to standing and go to kiss me. But instead bring us both back to sitting, to the left side of the sofa, me on his knee. He then pulls me in with enough force so when we sit we are close enough to kiss. This whole movement sequence is done quite slowly which I feel is a nice way to contrast how Eddie comes across; as a 'cocky' with the ladies, (which means we will have to make this scene run smoothly to represent that Eddie has done this many a times before!) but because it was slowly done, it was represented as a lot more love-felt than how I would've gotten Eddie to do, but it worked and flowed well. 

    Then as soon as Carol comes charging in, ruining the moment for poor Louise who was probably enjoying herself, and the light is switched on, I move away from Eddie which clearly shows Louise's personality of being shy- similarly to how I would act in the same situation, so there are perhaps some minor similarities between the two of us. But there is a nice moment that Eddie goes to bring Louise back into him but due to Louise being confronted by two other characters she snappily moves away from him. This little moment is quite sad, because it is so apparent that Louise really does like Eddie but Carol has come in and ruined it for her. This isnt something Carol would on purposefully do but it highlights their friendship more. For example, if Carol was a really good friend to Louise, she would perhaps leave the room again and let Louise and Eddie regain whatever they had etc etc. But because Carol is such a dominant character, affecting Louise's confidence with Eddie doesn't faze Carol. 

Eddie does try and regain what him and Louise had with 'anyway' but the confidence is dropped by Louise because of her confident friend barging in. Louise quickly returns back to Carol's little tag-along friend:

Louise: Carol.

[Carol stops]

Carol: Come on the Louise [she gets her bag]

[Louise gets hers, they start leaving.]

Louise does what she told to do, despite the obvious fact that she would much rather stay because she really likes Eddie. And it is also obvious that she would rather do this because as soon as Brink persuades them to stay, Louise is already sat down, 'looking mystified' but most definitely a lot happier to be staying that Carol is. This is also, seen when they are 'downing' their drinks as Louise asks no questions and simply does it; purely because she wants to. Whereas Carol questions the action with 'what are you doing?' 

This where we reached on this scene today, the rest of the scene will be blocked on Mondays session. But overall, I am really pleased with this scene and all the work done this week on Road. The dynamics of the relationships the four characters have are really starting to build and the entire scene is beginning to be filled with the right reactions and emotions by each and everyone of us. By Monday, continuing with the target I set myself yesterday, I will have my lines learnt for this scene so when it comes to, probably, showing back what blocking notes we created to Deborah I can be off script, and really become Louise; which will help me overcome the re-occurring nerves of the physical contact that I will have to perform in front of the class. 

Road: Week 2

Today we dived into our second week of being casted in Road.
Our first task of the session was to go through the script and editing out scenes throughout the play. We ended up cutting a lot of sections but these were all parts that had no obvious effect to the stories that they told. We are aware that more cuts will be made such as in my ending scene with Eddie, Brink and Carol but these haven't been confirmed yet.

The most exciting thing of today's session was that we officially started the blocking process of Road. Louise and her brother open the play so this scene was blocked today.
Louise and her brother have a very different sibling relationship to what you would normally expect. The brother is creepy and angry as well as extremely intimidating towards Louise and I get the impression that he is older than her. The brother pays little interest towards his sister so this scene is set with him watching tv and Louise applying make-up in the imaginary mirror i.e. the audience. Louise asks a lot of questions and I get the impression that she does this purely to fill the painful silence that would exist otherwise. "Lets dance" provokes Jake to tip his chair over and stands. This line is meant to be delivered sexually and intimidating which it does because as Jake stands he towers over me (naturally) but it gives off the right image to the audience. "Don't run the immersion..." is the final line for this particular scene which theoretically pushes the brother over the edge and it really winds him up. He then comes up close to me and wipes his oily hands over my face. I could tell, when blocking this scene today, that Jake felt awkward seeing as this was the first time we had both 'performed' this scene and those lines and also that he had to rub his hands all over my face; but I think as soon as he (and me)crosses this awkward stage of this scene then it will be a really creepy and intimidating and the audience will get an immediate insight to how Road and our sibling relationship is messed up.

The next few blocking of scenes went smoothly and it was interesting for me to watch how it will slowly come together. As the other scenes were being blocked I made notes about my character in the first scene. I originally imagined her as though she wasnt intimidated by her brother but now practically performing this scene I can so clearly see that Louise is intimidated by her brother and that he does scare her. She is trying hard to get him out the house to perhaps show the world what this man is really like. But at the same time she continues to act in a motherly way for example questioning why he doesn't go out and that he shouldn't go back to bed etc.

The first couple of scenes are beginning to look really good and I am beginning to see Road take shape which is very exciting. I thoroughly enjoyed playing Louise for the first time and I know that I have a lot to work on to build her up.
Which leads me to- this evening I began looking into the Northern accent. Accents in general aren't my strong point but I am determined to learn a decent accent for Road/Louise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sumStCchdn8 I found this video on youtube which taught me points to remember to learn the Northern accent. Words such as brother are extended from the 'er' sound to a 'broth''a'' sound. These little tips are something I tried working on this evening and I also watched my mouth in the mirror to see how my mouth moves when producing these different sounds.
Even this was quite tricky for me but it is something I will be working on and it's definitely my aim for Road- especially as I am aware that I, naturally, don't have a strong voice on stage so this accent needs to be strong enough for me to project well and also to be understood. I am also looking forward to this challenge of learning the accent as accents in general have been something I have been dying to experiment with in the world of theatre.

Class notes made in these sessions.

Wednesdays session began with recapping the assignment brief, ensuring that we meet all the criteria in order to gain a distinction. We then began blocking more scenes of Road. The scenes we blocked today were scenes that I do not feature in so I knew that it was my responsibility to make the most of my time seeing as we all had to remain in the room (and not go off and rehearse already blocked scenes.)
During this session we began with a scene including Skullery, Dor and Lane. For a minority of the time I was reading through my lines as a memory line learner method that I use in order to learn my lines (repetition.)
But for the rest of the session I observed the blocking process and made notes: For this scene Skullery (played by Matt) was stood on a table to make-do the fact that he will be on a high piece of staging to represent a building rooftop. I really liked how this scene was stage balanced; at the beginning of the scene Dor and Lane are on floor level and Skullery towering over them. This really caught my attention because of the status work we had done the week before.
         Status is often very prominent due to use of levels. It is clear to me, after reading the script and having done bits of research already, that Skullery is the only character whom sits at the very bottom of the status 'chart.' He is alone (no family or friends mentioned) it is assumed that he is homeless and jobless also. The Road is all that he has which makes him hugely proud of it. Returning back to the scene, Skullery being on a higher level than Dor and Lane mixes up Skullery as a character, which I personally thought was very interesting and effective. Dor and Lane then meet Skullery at the top of the building and immediately the status levels are evened out.

SkinLad then runs past and presents a monologue. SkinLad is a character in which Louise does not come across nor mentions but to use my time efficiently in today's session I noted down my first impressions of this "nutter" of a character. As a class we briefly discussed that SkinLad is classed as the nutter because he isn't into the pubbing and clubbing like all the other characters in the play. Because he is different he is classed as a nutter. In this particular monologue (Act 1 Page 21)  he talks about how he was into "fights on Saturday nights" and he talks about how he "came out of the disco" and he explains how he saw the SkinHeads outside. He goes on to explain how he knocked out them all with his magnificent fighting skills he so likes to brag about. But the point I am meaning to make is a few lines on, during this same after-pub fight, he sees a figure and this figure speaks out to him saying "Over to you Buddha." Which made me piece up the puzzle to how he got to how he is in Road now. This figure reminded him of his past life or his spirituality and how his fighting wasn't what he was born for which has lead him to 'read the Dharma. He evens states that he refuses the pornography passed to him at work and is happy continuing with the Dharma.

Dharma: The Dharma is an Indian religion and is known as the "teachings of Buddism." ~Buddha by Jon Ortner.
SkinLad tells us how he refuses things that go against the Dharma such as ' eggs,bacon and chips' and "when the guy on the bus pushes" he reminds himself of the Dharma which acts as his main guideline to living life as a Buddha.

SkinLad, for me, was originally a character that I didn't understand nor did I understand his effect on the play- however after really listening to Nathan recite this piece in today's blocking and after my research I now really like the character; he acts as light relief to the play and because he is so different to all the other characters he has now become my favourite character in the play, so far!!

We then went onto a scene between Brenda and Skullery; and as soon as Brenda enters (played by Hannah) it is apparent that Skullery is only interested in her 'juicy daughter.' It is also apparent that these two characters, before the play, had some sort of connection or was it just meaningless sex...? But I read into it that this wasn't meaningless for Brenda and was to Skullery as he so quickly brushes it off. Although, contrasting from what I have just said, Brenda gets closer and closer to Skullery (in the scene, as she climbs the side of the building) as soon as she gets close enough she asks "lend us a fiver."
This scene showed Brenda in full view, how she uses herself as a way to get money. Again, as a class we discussed how Brenda might just want to be her daughters age again, pubbing and clubbing and enjoying life, hence all the questions in her first scene (Act One Page 7, with Carol.)
"Skullery, that night I felt I'd been shot" Deborah asked us what this line meant and the first response was how it was a sexual reference. Although as we later discussed my first thought was that Brenda felt strongly about Skullery at the time, so the reference to being shot was how hard the love hit her back in the day. This was to a similar conclusion, as a class, that we settled on. Being shot was giving us another reference to how powerful love was and how it made Brenda feel at the time etc.

There, in Road, is a burglary scene, at Mr and Mrs Baulds house. They catch Skullery burguling them and I noted some questions for them to think about, and am meaning to explain my thoughts to Jake and Donna (whom play these two characters.)
I fully understand that this was their first viewing of this scene etc however I wanted to assist them on their reactions and emotions to this.
My house was burgled back in November and it massively effected me, and it's still something that constantly plays on my mind when I'm home alone today. My house was the last place I wanted to go to after college/work and it really did take along time to rebuild the relaxed state in being home alone.
Which made me think that Jakes reaction needs to be a lot more prominent: angry (a manly response) scared etc etc. Although as soon as I had made my point I contradicted myself because was this a thing that people living on Road were used to? Had this happened before to them all? Or did it really bother them, seeing as noone of them have any possessions to be proud of or treasure... So, in the end, the only reason I noted this all down was to give these questions for Jake to think about- in order to help him decide on a reaction, which I think should be the latter; not really being bothered about Skullery. I thought this an interesting suggestion for them both and although I, now, don't think any of this is hugely relevant to this scene because the characters of Road are most probably used to things like being burgled all the time hence why Cartwright was written the dialogue this way; but it was simply something that grabbed my attention.

Asphalt factory: mentioned by a character named Jerry (played by Frank) a old man, lonely who is reminiscing his younger days.He reminises about the good ol' days in which men governed women- 'the men would go to the pub while the women waited in the dance halls until we returned.' This explains the unequality between men and women which was normal in that time and now, in the 80's, it is clear that Jerry would prefer life to have stayed how it was and not for women to grow with more rights (equal).  The ashphalt factory was a factory for creating the substance used for constructing roads/car parks etc. This is what ashphalt is.

Marj Proops: mentioned by Joey (played by Brandon) a young teenager on a starvation protest. Rebecca Marjorie Proops OBE was known as an 'agony aunt' (advice columnist.) She was a well-known column writer, the writer of Dear Marje in the years of 1939 onwards until her death 1996.

Also in Joey's scene Clare mentions that 'she also has no job'. Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, "destroyed Britain's manufacturing industry and her policies led to mass unemployment".This wasn't her aim, for 'mass unemployment' but the consequences to her actions whilst in parliament led to this. "Britain was struggling with rising unemployment, up from 5,000 to 1,500,000 and repeated strikes did not help the matter.
Clare, again in this scene, mentions how she hears her mother crying. I immediately reminded myself that Clare is a 16 year old character. So I noted down that hearing your mum cry at the age of 16 is a big deal. Yes it may have happened a lot of times before but it genuinely does effect you as a child when you hear your mum cry because they have been this strong figure head for you etc. I pointed this out to Frankie (who plays Clare) and she agreed with my suggestion and was pleased that I had mentioned this because she said "I was struggling to decide on how I would act and what emotion I would portray in this scene." So I am pleased that I identified this and hopefully helped out Frankie.

Today's session was really interesting for me because I was able to delve into Road more as I wasn't part of any scenes. I really enjoyed making my own notes of the scenes and characters and this has really helped me to understand the story in more detail which is beneficial when it comes to playing Louise and acting and reacting to other characters in scene or mentioned for example.


Before Thursdays Road session with Kirsty and Laura I was doing some more research into Road itself online. After a while I discovered that Road was created into a television series. It was directed by Alan Clarke and was a popular tv series in 1988 when it was produced.
I began with watching the first series of 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFGZPaUknRA
This short minute clip proved a really, really good watch. Louise and her brother (played by Jane Horrocks and Andrew Wilde) open the series. The accent was the first thing I picked up and this tv series, I know already, will help me a lot in learning both my lines and the accent. Louise is preparing for a night out with Carol and it is clear that she is in a rush but also wants to look perfect. You can tell, when she enters the second room with her brother in, that she is frustrated with him due to her running around the motorbike to get to the mirror. The brother is immediately portrayed as a stereotypical grumpy man, and when he asks "do you wanna dance?" his entire personality changes into this almost psychotic mannerism. He never takes his eyes off Louise and  intimidatingly walks over to her. As Jake is a lot taller than me, if he recites the line just as the actor in this clip does and then walks towards me; the sibling relationship will shine through and the audience will then be totally aware of what the relationship is between them. The wiping of the oil on Louise's face is a lot more violent than how we had blocked it. He physically pushes her against the wall to do this; but I think that our version is a lot more effective. The movements Jake does are slow and drawn out to build the tension and then when his hands reach my face he slowly drags them down my cheeks. Making the movements this slow makes the brother a lot more intimidating.
Louise's only reaction to having oil on her face is that she's going to be late. She confronts him when she delivers the line "you pigging bastard" but because the line is so weak the brother has no need to retaliate. The relationship portrayed in this clip is highly intimidating to watch as an audience member and this is something both me and Jake need to portray in our version in order to give off the same effect. We open the show so it has to be a dominant scene which plunges the audience straight into the wonderful and weird world of Road.

The music in the clip is Im In The Mood For Dancing by The Nolans and because of it's upbeat tune I think it would fit well with the pub scenes; as it would both fit the era and the play.

Road, literally

The houses are empty and dull and generally don't look like nice places to live in. The décor in both Eddies, Carol's and Louise's house clashes such as the floor pattern with the settee design and colours. And at the beginning we get to see the outside of the houses. All identical in straight roads, some with graffiti on them etc. I think this image would provide us with a good road backdrop if we were to create a everlasting effect of council estate houses: similar to the image left. So the houses get smaller as the road goes on. All the houses were brick, and looked fairly run down and dull so this is how we would present the houses if we were going to create a backdrop.
All the male characters were suits, shirts, smart trousers, ties and trouser braces; and this was very much the smart look the men were into in the 80's. I had portrayed the men in our version of Road as more scruffy and definitely not wearing suits and ties because they were poor. But this is a debate that will be discussed nearer the time and when we know more and more about our characters real lives. The young women, Louise, Carol and Clare all wear fairly dull colours. Louise wears a tight, black leather jacket (which had been included in my brief ideas of my costume ideas) she wears a tight leather, pencil skirt and white high heels. The outfit is simple but looks classy and looks as though she is going out on the town. Carol wears a black vest top and a dull-ish red pencil skirt. Both outfits look very rock'n'roll/punk to me but they both suit their characters well- slutty but classy with men.
 Joey is, so far, the only exclusion to the tie look but then again he is not mentally well in this scene due to him starving himself so I can only imagine that his appearance is past him now. Clare is also one with the brightest colours with a blue, long jacket and a blue skirt. Again the colours all match as did the all black outfit Louise wore. All the costumes in this series are inspiration however me and Phoebe have already discussed some of our costume ideas (tbc).

Jim Cartwright was brought up on a northern council estate; which can only lead me onto say that it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the characters we meet on 'Road' are over exaggerated characteurs of people he met or knew when living on the council estate. "So I know what its like to have no money,, Making yourself get out of bed in the morning, the rejections, no work-" This is all the characters in one. Joey is suffering from this, deeply and he sees no point to make the effort to live now that he has no job. And so Joey is Cartwright at times, but then so is Louise, Carol, Eddie and Brink whom are all young and wanting to change the world- but not knowing how to- "somehow a somehow might escape".
In a very interesting interview published online: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/may/04/jim-cartwright-ancient-secret-of-youth-and-the-five-tibetans-little-voice Cartwright talks about his home town and how there used to be large lion statues, in Bolton this is, which he used to ride when little. "It's a shame...its like a symbol of being young and thinking we were going to change the world" this quote could pretty much sum up Road. All the characters we meet are desperate to change the world in some way or another. Louise talks about how 'theres nothing left but profit and loss' and she believes that if 'magic and miracles' occurred and a 'Jesus to come along and change things again' the world would start to become a better place. Brink mentions how he 'wants to be a cowboy' which sounds a bit childish on the subject of changing the world, but he says 'I'm just cattle, herded, helpless' he has a real strong insight to the fact that he and the others have no power to change the world. Like the young Cartwright riding those lions, they had all these amazing fantasies about changing the world and their lives but they were all just 'herded cattle, helpless and waiting' for someone to change it for them ~ 'Somehow a somehow might escape'. The older generations whom feature in Road such as Brenda, Valerie and Jerry all talk about how they 'can't forget the past' and they question why 'can we not have before again?' They want the change which changes the world to what they did know it as, whereas the youngsters want a complete new and fresh change where they can 'be cleaned' and 'sweat or something' and by that last quote from Joey I put 'sweat' in the context of letting out all of this fears and negativity about his life and also to let out why he really is starving himself as I don't think we are let onto the full story.
The whole prospect of changing the world, as I said earlier is almost impossible and they are all aware of this. Which leads them to the possibility of 'escaping' is much more reasonable. So its all good that these characters are listing their fantasies of 'escaping' however Cartwright believes that in the 80's, the time of the play, "Thatcher had a hold of everyone" so escaping nor changing the world was a complete waste of a fantasy- hence the very relevant line of "you can't escape".
As teenagers him and friends went on missions to extend their youths as this was something of a popular command then which is where SkinLad's yogic features appear from.
It seems to me that all of the plays Cartwright has written all have very strong links to his life. For example when he moved away from Bolton and to London instead he shared a flat with "skint Bohemians" which then turned out to be 'Road' itself.

Now at the age of 56, Cartwright has set up weekly acting classes in the less well off places near his home to allow the children of this generation to have a better childhood and to have something in life, an "alternative route for those unable to afford the fees of a regular drama school or dramatics club" He also believes that there is no good reason to make acting for those 'Gorblimey' people by that he means the posh actors and the only ones whom could afford the fees for drama schools- and Road is a perfect example of the breaching away process from the 'gorblimey' acting.

Some song lyrics reminded me of 'Road' and its characters. The song is called Read All About It, by Emeli Sande'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaAVByGaON0 The song lyrics read: "you've got the words to change a nation but your'e biting your tongue" I feel like this is extremely relevant to the characters on 'Road' however. They all have the power to change the world or escape but they are 'biting their tongues'. Like Clare, she says how she took a 'honey quiz, and got full marks' but she believes that 'she has nowhere to drive this'. The mentality on Road is very negative. People there don't fully believe that they can change or escape so it just doesn't happen and it stays as this impossible fantasy. So these lyrics are summing up all the characters and how they all want something more, a 'change', 'magic and miracles', the 'before' and to be a 'cowboy' but they are all 'biting their tongues', they've spent all their lives in silence and even though there might be glimmers of hope they don't do anything about it.


Returning back to another of Louise' scenes in this clip, her one line being "me shoulder pads slipped". In this clip she isn't reacting to this happening because I have come to the conclusion that the reason her shoulder pad has slipped is because of her brother pushing her up against the wall in the earlier scene. She makes no fuss about this happening which could be because she is a quiet character but its more likely that she doesn't want to mention what happens between her and her brother so she keeps it quiet. The shoulder isn't mentioned again which could mean that she tries to forget the things that her brother says or does to her... This point I found really interesting however I then looked in our version of the script and there are no specific stage directions saying that he pushed her against a wall, so the shoulder slipping isn't directly caused by the brother doing this but it is an interesting point made and it could well be the case of another physical abusive action because Carol mentions that "there's always summat with you" which tells us something like the 'shoulder pad slipping' has happened before...

This clip was extremely helpful and it will continue to be throughout this project. It has already given me some important notes for the two scenes in which Louise features in and it has given me a really clear idea of the two relationships i.e. Carol and her brother. The accent used by Horrocks will massively assist me for my accent as I can take the entire line and how she says them to work on how I say them.
I am really pleased with my find of this useful bit of secondary research, and it will be my own task to continue watching the series and find more helpful hints for our version of Road and my version of Louise.


Thursday's session began with continuing blocking Road. Again, like yesterday's session, I have no scenes until the end of the play so I took it upon me to continue making notes on Road and the scenes blocked in this session:

Script notes 1

This began with a bit of fun dance choreography as Hannah, Kennedy and Donna volunteered to play the short part of the live dance entertainers that go wrong at Bisco's Disco. The sequence is short but very humourus so it acts as a nice bit of comic relief into our play. 

After the dance piece Bisto goes onto a second monologue about it being the last song etc, and I identified that his character, in this monologue, really changes from when we first meet him and before the awful dance. "I love you, we love you, so you love you too, you're worth it, people" is all said softly and slowly which is a massive contrast to how Bisto (played by Luke) opens this very scene. Luke suggested that he softens down the tone and slows the pace because perhaps he loved someone once and wanted those at his disco to be with the people that they lived because perhaps he couldn't do this to the one that he loved. 

       Bisto is an extremely lively character and this, I think, is a front that is put on by him. I think that he is incredibly lonely. And that his disco means the world to him as much as everyone who attends his disco does. The soft tone to which appears in the final section of this scene makes this loneliness more apparent because all he wants is for his disco 'customers' to be happy and to "love theme selves" etc. This is a very interesting contrast that Cartwright has used and its well hidden behind a loud, boisterous, sexual, well-liked Dj. 

Script notes 2

Curt (played by Nyakeh) is a really interesting character; he tells us little about himself which left me guessing. In his monologue (Act Two Page 48) he mentions that he shouldn't be drinking with "what he's on". This is obviously a reference to him being on medication perhaps anti-depressant drugs? He says that 'he doesn't bother now' which makes me think that he has been on this medication a long time and that now he simply isn't bothered if he takes them or not. He goes on to describe, in detail, the smells of the Road. I came to the conclusion that the drugs that he is or was taking either made him very aware to the things that surround him or that he was taking them due to this (I am unsure of which) but it striked me odd that Cartwright has made this character so observant of Road whereas the other characters just live life on Road without a passing thought of what Road is really like. Curt is written to see Road as a very negative place-completely contrasting to other characters such as Scullery who lives and breathes 'his' Road. He, Curt, says how Road is "where things slide to but don't drop off" by this I read it as Road is where all the crap in the world literally and theoretically goes to and stays- 'doesn't drop off'. This includes the bad people as well as the literal sense of rubbish dumped around etc.
A second reasoning to why I have linked Curt with anti-depressant drugs is because at the end of his monologue he gets quite angry with himself; "aw I'm sick of moaning" and he suddenly changes his 'tune' and stops the moaning and finishes on a positive; perhaps this was him taking the advice given to him by a doctor consultant...?

At this point in the session, we were all split up. So the scenes that needed to be blocked would be done in the training studio with Kirsty and the rest of us were taken into another room with Laura to work on our Northern accents.

Accent work

      Laura got us to repeat after the words in the picture (above). For each line she got us to identify the sounds that would be changed in order to create the northern accent. So for example, 'Task, last and dance' we would remove the 'ar' sound and change it i.e. Taarsk to tAsk- so emphasis on the 'a' sound instead. The second line, we changed the 'eugh' sound to a 'ur' sound so 'girl' changes to 'gurl'. The third line was changed to an 'or' sound so it went from 'law' to 'lor' by dragging out the final 'r' sound. Fourth line the 'u' sound changed to an 'o' sound so 'under' became 'onder.' And finally the fifth line, these words are split in half when said in the accent; so 'clear' becomes 'cle' 'ar' you don't take a breath in this split just simply pause momentarily and emphasise the second half of the word.

We then, one by one, had to repeat the two sentences at the top of the board making sure we changed the sounds of the 'werds' we pronounced.
And our final task was to rehearse a couple of lines from Road in the accent. I chose the line "you can't dance with your brother" as this includes three strong words that would be prominent in the accent. The three being 'carn't' to 'can't', 'darnce' to 'dance'. Brother being the final word, which is said with more of a roll of the 'r' sound to change it to 'brewther'.
Matt, being from Middlesborough, has the natural northern accent and he helped me a lot in today's session. He would say one of my lines and I would repeat it. The notes he gave me was that I would say the words to cheerfully whereas they needed to be delivered at a slightly lower pitch, so instead of going up (in pitch) at the end of brother, I need to stay at the same pitch.
The point of this final exercise was to present this line to the class and get feedback but unfortunately I was pulled away to do my final scene with Eddie, Brink and Carol. However, I found this exercise extremely useful! I know have a set line which will act as my line to set into the accent and also have clear instructions set by Matt to watch out for when I say my lines in the accent. I also have the image of the whole exercise process so I will aim to do this daily to really master the art of the northern accent. 

As disappointing as it was to miss the rest of the accent 'class', I got to block my last scene. The scene begins with Eddie entering with an armful of wine, then Brink enters and then Carol and I enter giggling. We identified that Louise, in this scene, acts as Carol's tag-along. But Carol has taken the role of protecting Louise and caring for her because this is perhaps something her mum (Brenda) never did for her.
Carol is very dominant and will never let any man walk over her (which so happens to be both mine and Phoebes 'motto' in life and if we were playing ourselves, we would never let this happen) Carol is very sarcastic and she is very much my humour- "lovely place you got 'ere" "thought it were the Ritz for a second" and poor Eddie is oblivious to this sarcastic remark(s). For the majority of the begining scene Louise sits very quietly and just laughs along to what Carol says and 'splutters her drink' every now and again; which led me to the fact that Louise is actually quite polite. She refuses the offer of Brink's glass due to the fact that he won't have one so she is considerate and even though she doesn't know these two boys she still keeps it up. This is the opposite for Carol and I think she plays this more dominant role in this scene as a way to mark where she stands with boys and one night stands as this scene could end up as.
When Brink and Eddie leave the room we get an insight to what the girls actually think of the boys; Louise seems quite keen but Carol (as expected) is a bit more stubborn but she also continues to mention 'how long it takes them to get a cloth' etc as though speeding them up in this process.
There's one bit of this scene that we all laugh together and although we didn't attempt this in lesson, later that evening (at work) I suddenly had a thought that this was the only time that we have a connection. Us all laughing together represents us being quite close, friends even and enjoying one another's company. This connection doesn't last long but I think it is an immensely important that we have this in our scene because it shines a light on this 'friendship'. Unfortunately we only got half of this scene blocked but I think it's starting to look really good. The stage balance is effective as only Carol gets up and moves, I, Louise stays in the same place the whole time, Eddie and Brink sit close to us but then don't move again until Brink goes in to kiss Carol.
The relationships between the four characters is shown strongly through our version of Road and the two dominant characters (Carol and Eddie) couldn't be less alike and in actual fact its the quiet Brink who goes in 'for the first move' and begins the more loved up ending to the scene.
This scene was really beneficial for me to identify the relationship that me and Carol have; it is clear that I am happy in Carol's company and am perhaps used to her sarcastic and dominant ways. We are close friends and stick with each other but also know where we can have the friendly banter- "I'm saying nowt."

Whilst walking home, I had my headphones in (bear with me!) listening to a Ben Howard song called Promise. The introduction to the song is the sound of rain hitting some sort of tin roofing etc. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjg0Ip7TzzM 

The link above is the song including the introduction. As the song isnt an 80's tune we would stop the song before the music really begins however this introduction, I felt would fit Road well. The rain, to me, sounded like it was hitting glass bottles; this would fit with Road because I can imagine lots of beer bottles left out on the street after the dramatic nights out all the characters seem to have, with the exceptions. The introduction could be played at the beginning of our piece; to expand, I think at the begining would set a very peaceful outlook on Road and then as soon as we begining the audience will be quick to understand that Road is nothing like what they have just heard. The rain closely links with the season in which I think that Road is set in-dismissing the fact that it is set in Northern Britian where it, unsurprisingly, rains alot- I got the inclining of the season one because my imagery imagination brought me to the fact that whenever I picture the scenery that surrounds Road it is dull, both sky and land, so it being stormy, cloudy or rainy is something I have always pictured. Secondly, because the proffessor (played by Joe) mentions "an episode occurred in winter" 'in 1982.' This reference to a season is the only one that features in the dialogue so it has only given me this to pull thoughts from. But linking it with the fact that I can only picture this Road as a dull place with rain or storms the proffessors line fits itself in with this statement perfectly. Which leads me to conclude that this Ben Howard introduction could fit our version of Road well. 

 So to conclude, I really enjoyed this whole week of blocking and even though it included a lot of scenes which I didn't feature in I used this time wisely and I can now say that it was really beneficial for me as I now know more about Road and the characters inside it.

Road: (Before) & Week 1

So today we were introduced to our second contemporary theatre play that we hope to perform in April. The play chosen for us is a play called Road by a play-write Jim Cartwright. The play 'explores' the lives of those who live on this 'road' in the working class area of Lancashire. At the time in which the play is set, Margaret Thatcher was in power (80's) and a time of high unemployment. Cartwright first published this play in 1986 and has won many awards. The play is, simply, a huge selection of interconnecting stories and relationships.

Taking a step back a bit, we were first asked to analyse our previous characters in  the play '13' to remind us and to ensure that we wouldn't pick a similar character/s. Rachel was a feisty and dominant character who believed heavily in politics and largely against religion. She was loud and passionate: so from this I knew to have a less outgoing character to also have a character whom had more friends and family that surround them. I knew that I couldn't go for a much quieter character than Rachel because in some cases I could end up playing myself. I also wanted someone less politically drawn and perhaps more religious based to have a real contrast in characters.

Our first task related to Road was almost like an auditioning process. We were all given a character and a page or so of text and a partner. We, mainly individually, had to create a short scene (movements or just a chair, an accent, attempt to understand that character etc)
With that said we went on to read the play allowing us to understand the story and meet all the characters as we went... I was given the character named Valerie for this exercise. I had to perform this short piece of text as Valerie- or as well as I could from the ideas the text had given me about this character. I portrayed her as a chavvy women in her mid-forties and she mentions having children and a husband. The husband treats her badly and gives little money for her to feed the children. As this activity was short I created the scene with just me sat on a chair- which represented Valerie owning little. In the text she comes across as a food-deprived character and she talks about how she looks and her feelings about her appearance. I recited this text with me sat in the chair smoking. Simple but effective as I felt it represented my interpretation of Valerie perfectly!
I enjoyed playing Valerie because although she is similar to a character I have previously played she was one character who really expressed her feelings-others in Road don't do this as much (or in the style of a monologue.) She just sits and tells the world and the audience her problems and I think in that era- doing something so honest and talking honestly about your life and the Road was brave- especially as Skullery and other characters appear extremely proud of their Road. I know that I could do something interesting with Valerie but I really want to try a character that I haven't played before.
Even though I am still not set on a character despite the fact that I was able to see others play these different characters which briefly introduced them all to me- I have yet to settle on a character in which I am drawn to.

A few weeks later we did a proper introduction to Road; a read through.
My very first thought of Road was that it reminded me of The Royle Family (a comedic television programme). The accents in Road mainly made me link the two: The Royle Family is set in Manchester so the accents are Northern, witty and rude. And the few pages into Road that we were made me think of the similar accents. The accents are very strong and all the text is written in the accent-so I can already tell this will be something of an aim for me because accents are a weak point for me. Another immediate acknowledgement of Road was that it was comedic. There are many rude elements to it and other dark moments but majority of those rude sections are written in a humourus way-which of course appeals to the age range which the cast majorities (16-17). The play, to me, is fairly patchy to begin with and it doesn't always make much sense but as we read on I began to understand it more but I still haven't formed an opinion on it as I want to re-read it to really analyse the storyline. At this stage I am thoroughly looking forward to getting stuck into Road and the casting day because this entire play is different to what we performed together back in October- so I look forward to how we all come together and hopefully put on a great show.

Following up from this read through we had a session of discussion all about Road. We had to write words/themes/ideas that sprung to mind that related to Road, on the board, and this is what we came up with: We did a similar session with Deborah so I am combining both sessions information

Road, themes and other 

The main and probably the most re-occurring theme is sex. Prostitution is mentioned with some of the female characters as well. But sex back then (80's) wasnt passionate or hugely heartfelt- it was more of a way to get (females mostly) at they wanted. It wasnt a private matter either- as it was kept silent in the years before the 80's. At first glance the women in the play are portrayed as slutty and unintelligent but looking into it more they come across more intelligent when looking 'behind' the language. They have control over who walks over them and they're not easy to 'pull' as such-Carol is a perfect representative for this as in the final scene she makes it very hard for Brink and Eddie to lay hands on her whereas Louise is a lot easier. Some said, in our class discussion, that Road was written from a very male perspective of women- which in some ways is true seeing that the author is a male; but the women are definitely mis-interpreted: they are clever and as said above they use sex as a means of getting what they want.

Mental health/ issues/disorders was another theme mentioned. A lot of the characters are deprived of things we take for granted now; such as education. Education is something never mentioned apart from the Professor who's previous occupation was coincidentally a professor. And not much about the future is mentioned either which leaves that open for our interpretation when it comes to our individual character profiles. Returning to the mental issues Joey and Claire deprive themselves of food which leads to Claires death. Their method was being locked in a room, in bed and not eating nor drinking; their method is a lot more of a protest. Whereas if people were to do that nowadays they would simply just not eat... Perhaps it wouldn't be so 'dramaticised'? But then again it would be treated as a lot more serious than it is in Road.

Alcohol. Road is fuelled by alcohol. The pub is the main place to be and to drink! Perhaps they all drink to solve the problems and issues of Road? Skullery acts as the audiences tour guide and even he is drunk by the end of the play: This tells us a lot about Road, the characters and the time-era...

Poverty is another running theme. The characters have little possessions. Skullery appears to have no friends or family- or are the audience his friends...? He is lonely and poor. And many of the other characters are also.

The 80's were free of rules and freedom was admist. There was, still, rivalries, fights, rights and violence. The time of Margaret Thatcher in power. Male and female arguments occur in Road also such as between Marion and Brian and family arguments between a mother and daughter.  Which leads me onto talk about relationships during Road:

The relationships contain a lot of emotion especially between Marion and Brian. The relationships, at them moment, are unclear at the moment purely because I haven't had the chance to re-read into each of the characters and whom they relate with etc etc.

And finally music is also a key element to Road- various 80's tunes are blarred out in nearly every scene. Music is a great way for forgetting- so perhaps the characters listen to a lot of music, again, to forget the real issues in Road. But on the other hand Road doesn't sleep- it is always alive and there is always a lot happening. This is relevant in the interval which theoretically isn't an interval- the play continues and the audience come and go.

So to conclude: Road, at the moment, is coming across as a really interesting play- personally. I think it will be challenging in all aspects but I can already start to see different ways of doing scenes/characters etc and I am really looking forward to it.


So, the following week we did some practical improvisation on Road. In pairs, in front of the class, we were given a line from Road and had to create a fully improvised piece. Me and Hannah nominated ourselves (more like Hannah nominated me!) And we were given a starting line (a line from Road). Our piece was all about why I wouldn't go out (out to the pub etc). The scene was started with some force and the tension was kept up throughout the whole piece. Improvisation is something I find quite hard but I think we did really really well and performed a well told story between these two random characters. I think this was mainly due to the fact that me and Hannah are close friends; that we could easily bounce off one another's ideas- whereas if we didn't know as much about each other then the scene mightn't been stilted with ideas etc.
I enjoyed this activity and especially watching everyone else's improv. Although it didn't relate to Road much (apart from the starting or ending line) it was really interesting to see how it could fit into Road well and match one or more of the storylines that feature in the play.
After this session we were set the task of listening to our road. We had to listen to and observe the sounds we could hear firstly in our bed rooms, then our house and then our road at different times of the day. This task was really interesting because, living on a busy road, I could really notice the differences in the noises at different times of the day. For example Saturday night (11.00pm) was busy- the cars were driving past frequently. And then 7.00am Sunday morning there wasnt a car to be heard.

But the lead on from this exercise was in our Mondays session (p.s also happens to be the day of casting!) We formed a line and one by one had to read a section of our 'road diaries'. Then we spoke them two at a time; forming a overlapping and a jumble of words-but we were still able to understand what they were both saying. Then we had to choose three noises, that we identified in our rooms, houses or on our roads, and make these noises. I chose the ticking of an alarm clock, an iMessage tone and a lawn mower- all being sounds I had noted that I heard in my house. Still in the line format, we all started making our first noise; mine being the clock ticking. We had to keep the noise level to a real minimum. We slowly had to increase the noise volume, again and again until it was above shouting level. We had to drop straight into making our second noise silently and so on for the third noise.
When we were introduced to what we were going to be doing I felt apprehensive about it purely because I wasnt sure how well it would sound as the finish project. When doing it; it felt too much. The noise level was high and it was impossible to pick out any particular noise so my brain was overloaded with thoughts and sounds. When we listened to it back however, it was much easier to pick out specific sounds. Although it still made me feel uncomfortable- too much going on and too hectic for my liking- I could clearly see/hear how well it had formed and also how well it all sounded. The sudden silences worked the best purely because as the noise level rises you start to identify that its too much and then it drops completely. The silences were refreshing! In the quiet sections it was much much easier to identify and pick out specific sounds and even notice the slow rumbles of the motorbike noise etc. The loud parts drowned out the peaceful noises of the birds tweeting but what would've been effective is if we had risen the volume of the birds and dimmed down the other noises and this is the case for other noises being made.
This exercise was really interesting as it is nothing like I've done before. It felt almost Berkhovian but nowhere as near as grotesque so it really was a new experience for me; and an experience that I know to use in the future because that hectciness of overlapping day-to-day noises created such an atmosphere and told such a story that it turned out to be really powerful to listen to.

So after this we were casted... I am casted as a character named Louise. Louise is nearly always with Carol, a close friend of hers, and from what I can see, they are up to no good; messing both Brink and Eddie around at the end. Louise is the character I asked for because, although I know little about her, she intrigued me because she appears as a tag along to Carol in the final scene: it made me wonder why this is, if there is a reason or not? I am really pleased with Louise and I hope I can make her a unique character in Road.
I want to make her different to me although I understand she is really quite similar to me any ways. From what I gather she is quiet and a bit of a tag-along to her loud friend Carol. I said above how I felt she was a tag along and I knew that I wanted to look into why this was and talking to you from the day after the performance (15th May) I feel as though I now really understand why she is the so called tag along to Carol and I also now wouldn't class her as this. She sticks closely too Carol because she has noone else, but she is sort of using Carol as a protector. So is it Carol using Louise or Louise using Carol?
Louise, once, appears alongside her brother played by Jake. I am pleased with this pair casting because I know I work well with Jake and we are good friends which will help smooth the creepy scene which is between only me and him for the opening scene.
Louise mostly appears with her best friend Carol who will be played by Phoebe I am really pleased with working alongside Phoebe because she is a brilliant actor, she is really easy to work alongside and we often bounce off each others ideas (so we work well together.)

In my final scene I am acting alongside Lewis, Phoebe and Milo. Me and Lewis have acted alongside each other many times before (school shows/GCSE Drama etc) so I know I work well with Lewis and I know how he acts and vice versa.
Milo is someone I've not yet acted properly with yet; so I am yet to discover how he acts i.e. teamwork/pair work etc. I know we will work well together because I'd like to think that I am accepting of everyones ideas and suggestions and that I hope I am good to work with. This final scene is basically Louise and Carol being brought back to Eddie's and Brink's apartment for sex (in the boys and Louise's case particulaly) so this scene is quite close between the girls and boys. I am willing to accept that this scene is purely acting and I hope that this applies for the others in the scene and that make it casual like our characters and not awkward because "Issie is kissing Milo" etc etc. I am also willing to take on this new challenge for me in my acting experience.

My set design for Road

On our Wednesday session we came in prepared with our ideas for the set/layout of Road. My layout is above. This design is for the housing scene(s). The sofa and chair is to be clashing 70's/80's patterns. An ironing board with clothes piled up. A washing line hung from one side of the stage to another- all with dull and dirty clothes on it. The audience either in the round or on either side of the stage. And finally a Road sign that stays on stage the whole time.
My design is simple but I feel this is effective because the characters in Road aren't they don't have the latest designer home items-far from it really. The clashing of patterns represents the era in which the play is set in (1980's.) The washing line is compulsory in my design but for me it will immediately show the audience what sort of living conditions that this area is living in.
My idea didn't live up to the standards of others design for Road however.

More set designs

Luke's design was for the audience to be in the round. Each different scene would be set in different places around the stage. This idea is strong because it will give off the impression of being on a journey.

Hannah's idea was having the scenes set in a snake like structure. This forms the representation of repetitiveness (a circle). The stage would have various household objects around the snake structure also.


Matt's suggestion was to use all the rooms in the drama department. So the main stage would be where the household scenes are held (excluding Joeys scene) The training studio would be the pub and a room leading off of the training studio would be set out to look like Joeys bedroom as a lot of the play features in this room. This is one of my favourite ideas purely because its a style of theatre that I've never taken part in nor seen before.

Half way through our design discussions the idea of having the audience go around the 'tour' of Road in sets of 10- I suppose this is so it's not overly crowded. So when the first group are done they will go sit in the 'pub' and we will provide refreshments-soft drinks etc. To me this is a really fun idea and it's diving us version of Road straight in with the audience interaction take on theatre- which to me is so fascinating!!

Frankie suggested having dim lighting to match the dull aspects everyone has mentioned for their sets.

We had the idea for which the audience would walk through the ruined engineer car park (the wrecks of cars etc) so they enter from outside, and then in through the fire exits. But, returning to the room scene layout, we were faced with the hurdle of those whom are playing two characters- how can they be in two rooms at once etc?

Joe's idea was that the staging would be in the structure of thrust like a never ending road. Two characters in the play relate Road to a 'pigs trough' which is how Joe settled on the thrust staging. I, again, really like this idea because it is simply showing that this play is set on a road.
Joe's second idea was to have every scene on stage the whole time- so noone and nothing leaves the stage.

Franks suggestion was the stage would be set in the round. Household objects, again, would feature on stage and the strong smell of alcohol would be apparent as well as muffled music and dogs barking so eventually it seeps into your subconscious.

Milos idea was to set it into four separate sections of the stage. One being a construction site- "bulldozer wheel" is mentioned which links it to a abandoned construction site. Another section being the pub, the third houses and a wall which would be the seating for the audience.

The others are best described through my drawings however: Sophie's idea was to simply have our Road set out in a simply, stereotypical road layout.

Lewis' was my favourite idea. He suggested using the whole drama department to perform Road. The dance rooms would act as two/three housing scenes (so decorated as three different scenes in one room.) Room 341 (end room) would be the chip shop as this is a scene setting used a lot in Road- here could be where refreshments are served...? The training studio would become the pub setting and the final room would be decorated as Joeys bedroom. I really, really like the idea of setting our Road around the different rooms however I can see many downfalls to this idea. Firstly we have the herdle of those whom play one or more characters. And also, if we expect a large audience then not all of them will be shown around at the same time and also a lot of audience members won't be capable of standing for the whole performance which is something we all want to take into consideration in order for all of our friends and family to attend.

Set design 3

Set design 2

Nyakeh's proved similar to Lewis' idea however
 some scenes would be performed 'behind closed doors'. By this he meant that some scenes would be pre-scenes and the audience would only get to see brief clips of these scenes from an outsiders view. This will leave any pre-conceived ideas about specific characters open for the audiences interpretations.

Jake's explains itself in the image, right, above.
And finally Pheobe's was for the road sign to be the main focus point of our performance. The stage to be the main setting and the use of both entrances to the theatre.

It was really interesting to get an understanding of everyone's individual ideas and designs for Road as they were all fairly different; until we began discussing and ripping apart different ideas. We have a fair bit of knowledge to how Deborah wishes to create Road and to me- they all sound extremely intriguing so I am genuinely looking forward to getting stuck into it.
All the set designs suggested today all appeal to me and they are all very intriguing! Lewis' has to be one of my favourite layouts. However all the ideas are really good and I think, if we can, we should include an aspect of everyone's design to fit all needs etc.

Today we were set the aim of 'selling' road. I was in a group with Nyakeh, Lewis and Nathan and our stimulus was both selling Road to the audience; as though it was the best place to go to!  Our second stimulus was the notes we had made about Road itself.

We created a short piece that told everything positive about Road- we played our own characters and did a vlogging style (video logging) as though we were filming our individual opinions of Road. As my character, Louise, I knew to mention going out to the pub and meeting all the boys because this is all Louise is known for in Road. Lewis playing his character mentioned the 'birds' of Road that you could meet. Nyakeh did the same. And Nathan didn't say a lot but moved around-energetically like his character. 

This little activity really allowed us to delve into our characters and what they think of their Road. This gave me a clear insight that the people of Road are proud of where they live so this activity proved very beneficial to us; it also proved as a good introduction to Road itself.

Thursday we jumped straight in with practical activities to again, introduce us to Road. We first focussed/discussed characters and people statuses. For this activity in groups we had a selection of images of celebrities and had to put them in order of status-purely on the basis of what the image told us and not who the people in the image actually were! 

Some images such as Dot from Eastenders were put at the bottom of the status level: she wore a long 'tramp' coat and her face looked drooped and exhausted. Her back was slightly hunched with her hands neatly placed in front of her stomach. She was put at the end for all the reasons above. 

We had an image of Matt Smith who wore a dull tweed jacket and bow tie. We placed this image in the middle of our status ladder because although this guy in the image looked smart he didn't look as presentable as David Beckham did in another image we were given. 

We were given about 9 different images and an image we placed at the top was a picture of Superman. We chose this to be at the top due to his stature. His arms resting on his hips and chest out 'puffed'.  This image beat all the other images because he portrayed the whole representation of being of a high status. 

This activity sparked a lot of disagreements in the group: these disagreements would revolve purely around who thought where each image should be in level of status. It, also, became obvious that we all had very different interpretations of these status levels and also how some people found it very difficult to see these people in the images as just people and not the celebrities they are well-known for. 

We then did a second status activity: four people stood out as observers and the rest of us were all given a number. This number would represent our level of status (number 1 being the lowest and 12 the highest.) The four whom observed had to watch how we all moved and acted and had to select and guess what number status we were and then put us in order.  This exercise allowed us to embody the status in which we were representing. I can see how it was difficult for the observers to identify what statuses we all were because for example number 3 and 4 were represented quite similarly.

Continuing our practical work our second activity was: we were all given an animal and had to briefly described the human like physicality that this animal would have if it were to become a human. My animal was a hippo and I decided that if this were to be a person then it would walk heavy footed and lead with its nose- like the qualities of a hippo. We then had to move as these human/hippo characters. This exercise is there to remind us that animal influences can assist us when bringing our characters to life in Road. For example Louise is a quiet but confident character. She could then be linked to an animal that represents these characteristics (look in character study/profile.)

And finally, our last activity for todays session was: we were in pairs and one of us was given an emotion in which we would have to represent to our partner (in silence and only with movements, facial expression and body language.) This exercise proved really, really difficult. It was really hard to identify the emotion Hannah was trying to show and vice versa. Which shows that we, both me, Hannah and others in our class, need to work on how we specify emotions and express these through body language, facial expressions etc etc. A lot of times we could look at everyone (everyone was portraying the same emotion) and then use them to gather more 'information' to what this emotion could be such as frustrated, guilty.
All of these exercises done today were to assist us further into our introduction to Road. The status and animals will help us apply those learnt today to our character(s) and Road itself.

Road houses?

Added in, three weeks on from this blog post week:
When sat at the bus stop I came to properly notice this house in my local area. It is situated on a very busy road (the main road to reach Waterlooville) and it is a house that I have known off all my life due to once living in the road opposite and now for it to be where my bus drives past everyday to college. But today I actually looked at it. Noone is ever seen to be living here, despite the light that's on in the image that I took (This image was taken from across the road, and zoomed in so the privacy level was not forgotten!). But, when I looked at it, it reminded me of how I first had imagined Valerie's house, the very first day that we were introduced to Road.
The paint work is rotting, the front gate rusty, and ivy swallowing the right side of the house and the windows looking like they had seen much better days. Which leads me to say that the owner of this house is either quite elderly or poor due to the house looking as derelict as it is. The house is surrounded by some really lovely, and well-kept together houses so it's not due to the area in which I live in or anything. When really thinking about this house, I could begin to relate it to how I had pictured the living room in which I set Valeries monologue in.
- The patterns in the room clashing, and the colours considerably faded
- Mould begining to appear in the high corners of the ceilings
- Mess and untidiness surrounding each room
- Unclean plates/dishes/cutlery left out in the kitchen
- Empty cups and plates again in the living room.
All of these images I had created with my imagination, later helped me to conjure up the exact image I wanted our Road to look like (see above.)