... and unfortunately we were delayed in our 'Road' process due to watching the first years Musical Theatre acting project performance of the play Tusk Tusk by Penny Stenham. The play is one I knew quite a bit about before hand because of my sister being in the Musical Theatre class and the occasions I've helped her with her lines for it etc. The performances were really good, but in the politest sense, some of them lacked confidence which made their acting really weak, so it was beneficial for me to see this in action as I know that this is something I 'suffer' from. I could see those whom were less confident in acting, compared to their talents in singing and dancing which I have previously seen, and because it was so obvious I can now totally understand this is something I really have to work on to conquer, which I am and will be still in the process of. So watching their performance wasnt all bad despite having delayed us a fraction.
I think a lot of my confidence issues comes from the atmosphere and reactions I get from my peers that surround me. I know, and I can be honest in saying this that when it comes to messing around etc I portray myself as a very sarcastic person, and yes that is my type of humour. But this reflects badly when it comes to showing back pieces we've done; such as when Louise spills her drink, which is still something we need to work on because every time I do it, I do it wrong and it comes across really awkward- supposedly making it humourus for the audience members. From the 'To The Actor' book I read:
"You will help yourself immeasurably by ignoring all shortcomings or unsympathetic features of the members of the group... To avoid unnecessary embarrassment and artificiality, do not overdo it with prolonged actions"
This fits to me remarkably well! To interpret-ate, its telling me that for one it will hugely help me if I for one, ignore what's happening in the audience pit, so to ignore the laughing or comments. And to avoid this I need to not make what I do come across awkward, so like when I drop the glass, if we come to it tomorrow and we've not managed to properly rehearse I 'drop' it, with sincerity if you like, and try hard to keep the scene going immediately afterwards to destroy any humourus elements to it. I can see that it doesn't help with how I am outside of Louise, due to me being quite sarcastic and humourus but I feel if I really follow the book quote, we can push these comments and laughs away which should hopefully boost my confidence more and more.With that said, Wednesday was set with a better start and a daunting tone: We only have a few more weeks before we perform...
But today we dived straight into the pre-show, with Deborah's idea of showing all the characters in a freeze frame from their scene. Similar to how we ended our previous contemporary play, '13' by Mike Barlett, all characters will be on stage as their character, so for example Louise on Eddie's lap. Brenda getting drunk on Scullery's wall, SkinLad still meditating.The link here is to our recording of '13', skip to (about) 1:54 onwards... http://sdcstream.southdowns.ac.uk/view.aspx?id=8957~4D~fNFnj3IR .
| Pre-show staging |
During this lesson I roughly sketched the staging layout (above) labelling where each character is situated on stage and what they are doing there for example Bisto with his dj table, Joey and Clare dying in bed, Brenda getting drunk on the wall. From the sketch, you can see that the layout is very well planned and evenly situated around the stage, making the stage busy for the audience and aesthetically makes it look really really intriguing (hopefully!)
As briefly mentioned on my sketch above, the Professor and Scullery go to each character, almost like introducing them or in the profs. case interviewing them. I think these two characters are perfect for the job, as do I think both actors playing the two roles are confident enough to do this as well as approach the audience members to interview them also. This is giving Road a slight abstract to approach to theatre which I love also, the immersive theatre really interests me and I love the mind set in which Deborah is in for creating this as contemporary and unusual as possible.
After setting this, and running through how everyone exits etc, we began a quick run of the scene order but noting down all entrances and exits from either stage left or right. Beginning with the opening scene, naturally, which is between Louise and her brother. And secondly for me was the scene I feature in with Carol and Brenda, and then finally the scene we list pub names. I noted down all my various entrances and exits and then that was me done, practical wise today. I took it upon me, to continue making notes on the process of plotting other entrances and exits.
But before doing so me and Jake had the opportunity to run through our lines for this first scene as Louise and brother, this was more for Jake's benefit as I am feeling really confident on my lines, but it was really useful to go over this scene as it's one of me least focussed on scene. I got Jake trying it out with the accent, but like me at the beginning he doesn't have the confidence in the accent he's currently producing. I can hugely relate to him, as this was me three to four weeks ago. However I think his accent is strong, and the more he practises it when learning his lines more he will soon learn the lines in the accent, so will end up using muscle memory of his mouth when it comes to performing it. Hannah and Phoebe were running through their scene at the same (this was just casually done in our break) but when it came to my entrance they both, synchronised said "pissing hell Louise there's always something with you" and I pointed out that they should definitely say this at the same time, it represents a good bond between the two of them, and as soon as that line is said they return back to their moods with each other. To me this element of relationship is so relevant, its like whenever your in an argument and someone makes you laugh or snap out of that argumentative head space, but then as quick as you came out of the bad mood your back in it, willing to win the argument... No doubt we have all had this, which means that when Brenda and Carol do it, it becomes quite comedic and highlights their relationship even more so.
| Wednesday's blog notes |
Another interesting thought made to me today, when watching the rest of the play being plotted, was how when we first meet Eddie he is in his home with his dad; so he's still living at home with his dad. This brings me back to the point I made in my 'Road: Easter week blog' post, with what Margaret Thatcher imposed, with the "3 million people unemployed" which can only show that Eddie and his dad are or have been affected by this unemployment, as the character of Eddie would've wanted to have moved out into his own place, a place he can continue to 'pull all the ladies'. However, when we properly meet Eddie in the final scene, his dad is nowhere to be seen. I asked Frank where he thinks Eddie's dad is at the time, and he said "that he is still at home, but has taken some strong pills either to help him sleep or to put him to sleep." I think this idea is good, however I feel like it's purely just a means and an excuse to say where the dad was, as I feel there's more to it. Perhaps, he has a wife or a lover of some sort, there is never any mention of a woman in the family through the likes of Eddie, which could explain the solidarity in which his dad lives in. But I think it's weird that Cartwright has written this mysterious character into a scene, just to sit facing away from the audience; and I can't think why... Perhaps there is a mourning process, of him just loosing his wife but then you'd expect Eddie to be reacting to this also. Or was this father figure featured, so lonely, into this scene to properly show that loneliness is such a strong, running theme in Road. Nearly all the characters have times where they seem lonely, either physically or in their thoughts i.e. Louise. So did Cartwright believe that loneliness was such a big thing then, loneliness because these people could do nothing about the leader of the country, at the time being Thatcher, a widely hated Prime Minister.
Again this is all really intriguing to me as all the deeper meanings of Road and the different characters begin to come to life.
but I had an inclining to perhaps he isn't fond of his son and his ways with girls and the new way of pubbing etc, because we well know he later tells us how 'he cant believe how things were back then'.
Closer to home to me as Louise, was when we spoke about Jakes character as the brother: Annoyingly I cant find a full image, but back in October, I played a female war engineer. She was incredibly manly, and this was apparent in my costume. I wore big work boots (scruffy versions of the tan Timberland look) I wore a big boiler suit as trousers with the arms tied around my waist, with a really oily white (ish) mens shirt, and oil all over my face and hands. And it only occurred to me that I was pretty much dressed as Louise's brother, as this is how I pictured him and also what we came up with today. So Ele Wainwright, the WW1 character I played, is exactly how the brother should look like, description above, but just the male version. It will make a good contrast with my chosen costume design, as I will be wearing a much more punk look, dressing up and going out sort of look and the brother will be the complete opposite.
Moving onto, now to Mr Bauld and Dor trying to find the key, which has a bottle opener on, which I think is what is more important to them. On surface, this scene could be quite comedic because its silly, two people crawling around the floor looking for a bottle opener. But when you look into it much more, its quite deep and dark. Bauld goes to all the effort to just find a bottle opener, and so it really highlights the lives people were living in, in this era (80's). Drink is so important to Bauld. Maybe because drink is the only thing that can make him forget the life he is living in and all the world and changes around him, such as the likes of Thatcher and Mr Bauld becoming unemployed because of her decisions.
Everything that occurs in Road has a deeper meaning, and it really interests me when I find these deeper meanings to characters and what they say and do such as Brink never being seen to get ready, unlike Carol, Eddie and Louise all being seen; which I came to conclude that he was living alone, but in secrecy or that he had an abusive dad.
And finally to finish on the brief plotting of our scene between myself, Brink, Eddie and Carol.We are all to enter stage left, which is the opposite to what we've been practising but it makes more sense doing it this way, and whenever characters leave the 'room', this is done again on stage left. When it comes to our scene there will only be a chair center stage, and the sofa in the same position as it was in the pre-show, set diagonally to the audience, stage right. As we all enter, Eddie's job is to stack up the wine bottles etc, and it's Brink's job to pull the sofa round, to center stage, so as we enter, we are setting the stage to our scene. I think this is a really interesting way to set the scene, literally, as from my past acting experiences I have only known it to be done in a blackout, making it as discreet as possible, but it works so effectively, especially when we do it all in character so Louise and Carol enter, still looking disgusted at the state of the house, they can perhaps knock over a few wine bottles to add to the mess in which the scene is meant to look like. Meanwhile Eddie is bringing in and taking off wine bottles, glasses, taking dirty plates off etc. And Brink is pulling the sofa round, perhaps knocking off the dirty t-shirt which was sat there. By the time Louise and Carol are requested to sit, the stage is set for our scene to really begin.
This reminds me of a physical theatre show I went to see, done by Frantic Assembly 'Othello'. They highly modernised and set it in a pub, but each slight scene change was done on stage, in full view, but physicalised. So for example, if it were 'Othello's job (as an actor) to move the pool table to a vertical in order to kill Desdemona, he would do so by gracefully leaping on top of the table and do some short physical theatre sequence in order to move it to where it needed to be. It made the scene change a lot more interesting and its almost like what we are doing with Road, although we aren't doing it in the physical theatre style of acting, we do do it in our characters, still relying heavily on the characteristic's in which we have built up for ourselves in order to react to the scene change.
To end the scene we push the sofa back to its starting position, and re-turn to our exact positions in which we were in the pre-show, so Louise sat on Eddie's lap with her arm swung around his shoulder. Carol to the left of us, looking still quite stubborn with her back facing us more than her front. And Brink sat to the right of us, looking quite content in his own company, as usual. Whilst were doing this, we are doing this others are coming back on stage, to sit in their original positions, but this hasn't been practised yet.
To me, its like we are statues coming to life. We are frozen in our set positions, as is a statue, and then once we get the opportunity to come to life and tell our side of the story of ours lives and relationships and friendships throughout it. As this begins to run low, we return back to our frozen positions. This style, if it has a name, has a really slight hint that as characters we know we are performing, a very abstract approach to play writing and creating, but like in the recreation of EAST by Anton Chekhov that as a class we saw today, there was some mention in which they were aware, as the characters they were playing, that they were in a play and had an audience. So converting this to Road, its like we know that we are only going to be playing, moving/speaking for a certain amount of time, until we are told to stop, to evidently end the show.
To finish off this successful practical session, Deborah gave us new pub names to list off [page 12] for me and Phoebe, as Louise and Carol. We were originally going to find our own ones, but honestly didn't get round to doing so: However my new pub names, that I know need to learn are
Brandon, I suggested to them both that if they write down all the phonetics of their words, such as
"I aamm, sooo lone/lay. I aamm lie'in 'ere four days no/aw." This was the way I learnt both my lines and accent, as it will make him learn his lines in the accent, allowing him to use muscle memory when performing.
Here is what Sarah had to say about me, Milo, Lewis and Phoebe as I couldn't make any individual notes:
Milo, to drop more 't' and 'th' sounds
Lewis, girls to gg-eugh-ls, make your sounds harsher and more nasally- watch Corrination Street
Phoebe, to make your sounds more glottal (I looked into what glottal means, and they gave me the example of 'uh-oh' some places it is said as one consonant, but us Southerners, say it as two. That is a glottal stop (correct me if I am wrong!) Also waiter to wait-eugh
And finally me, and I am quite pleased because all she recommended was for me to make my sounds more nasally, so again to watch Corrie. (This little feedback must mean its definitely better than when I started!!)
Talking about accent work, I furthered mine outside of college. I did this using the CD that the Robert Blumenfeld 'Accents, A Manual for Actors' book provided me.
but I had an inclining to perhaps he isn't fond of his son and his ways with girls and the new way of pubbing etc, because we well know he later tells us how 'he cant believe how things were back then'.
Closer to home to me as Louise, was when we spoke about Jakes character as the brother: Annoyingly I cant find a full image, but back in October, I played a female war engineer. She was incredibly manly, and this was apparent in my costume. I wore big work boots (scruffy versions of the tan Timberland look) I wore a big boiler suit as trousers with the arms tied around my waist, with a really oily white (ish) mens shirt, and oil all over my face and hands. And it only occurred to me that I was pretty much dressed as Louise's brother, as this is how I pictured him and also what we came up with today. So Ele Wainwright, the WW1 character I played, is exactly how the brother should look like, description above, but just the male version. It will make a good contrast with my chosen costume design, as I will be wearing a much more punk look, dressing up and going out sort of look and the brother will be the complete opposite.
Moving onto, now to Mr Bauld and Dor trying to find the key, which has a bottle opener on, which I think is what is more important to them. On surface, this scene could be quite comedic because its silly, two people crawling around the floor looking for a bottle opener. But when you look into it much more, its quite deep and dark. Bauld goes to all the effort to just find a bottle opener, and so it really highlights the lives people were living in, in this era (80's). Drink is so important to Bauld. Maybe because drink is the only thing that can make him forget the life he is living in and all the world and changes around him, such as the likes of Thatcher and Mr Bauld becoming unemployed because of her decisions.
Everything that occurs in Road has a deeper meaning, and it really interests me when I find these deeper meanings to characters and what they say and do such as Brink never being seen to get ready, unlike Carol, Eddie and Louise all being seen; which I came to conclude that he was living alone, but in secrecy or that he had an abusive dad.
And finally to finish on the brief plotting of our scene between myself, Brink, Eddie and Carol.We are all to enter stage left, which is the opposite to what we've been practising but it makes more sense doing it this way, and whenever characters leave the 'room', this is done again on stage left. When it comes to our scene there will only be a chair center stage, and the sofa in the same position as it was in the pre-show, set diagonally to the audience, stage right. As we all enter, Eddie's job is to stack up the wine bottles etc, and it's Brink's job to pull the sofa round, to center stage, so as we enter, we are setting the stage to our scene. I think this is a really interesting way to set the scene, literally, as from my past acting experiences I have only known it to be done in a blackout, making it as discreet as possible, but it works so effectively, especially when we do it all in character so Louise and Carol enter, still looking disgusted at the state of the house, they can perhaps knock over a few wine bottles to add to the mess in which the scene is meant to look like. Meanwhile Eddie is bringing in and taking off wine bottles, glasses, taking dirty plates off etc. And Brink is pulling the sofa round, perhaps knocking off the dirty t-shirt which was sat there. By the time Louise and Carol are requested to sit, the stage is set for our scene to really begin.
This reminds me of a physical theatre show I went to see, done by Frantic Assembly 'Othello'. They highly modernised and set it in a pub, but each slight scene change was done on stage, in full view, but physicalised. So for example, if it were 'Othello's job (as an actor) to move the pool table to a vertical in order to kill Desdemona, he would do so by gracefully leaping on top of the table and do some short physical theatre sequence in order to move it to where it needed to be. It made the scene change a lot more interesting and its almost like what we are doing with Road, although we aren't doing it in the physical theatre style of acting, we do do it in our characters, still relying heavily on the characteristic's in which we have built up for ourselves in order to react to the scene change.
To end the scene we push the sofa back to its starting position, and re-turn to our exact positions in which we were in the pre-show, so Louise sat on Eddie's lap with her arm swung around his shoulder. Carol to the left of us, looking still quite stubborn with her back facing us more than her front. And Brink sat to the right of us, looking quite content in his own company, as usual. Whilst were doing this, we are doing this others are coming back on stage, to sit in their original positions, but this hasn't been practised yet.
To me, its like we are statues coming to life. We are frozen in our set positions, as is a statue, and then once we get the opportunity to come to life and tell our side of the story of ours lives and relationships and friendships throughout it. As this begins to run low, we return back to our frozen positions. This style, if it has a name, has a really slight hint that as characters we know we are performing, a very abstract approach to play writing and creating, but like in the recreation of EAST by Anton Chekhov that as a class we saw today, there was some mention in which they were aware, as the characters they were playing, that they were in a play and had an audience. So converting this to Road, its like we know that we are only going to be playing, moving/speaking for a certain amount of time, until we are told to stop, to evidently end the show.
To finish off this successful practical session, Deborah gave us new pub names to list off [page 12] for me and Phoebe, as Louise and Carol. We were originally going to find our own ones, but honestly didn't get round to doing so: However my new pub names, that I know need to learn are
- The One Eyed Dog
- Little Johnny Russels
- Porters
- Fat Fox
- Fleet and Furkin
- Molokos
Carol's new pub names are:
- The Centurion
- The Jolly Sailor
- Churchillian
- The Marmion
- Hong Kong Charlies
- Drift
- Spoons
I've never heard of any of them, and I already know that I have to have a really strong accent to say these as I wouldn't want the audience hearing the wrong thing!! But line learning in general is pretty much complete, its just practise, practise, practise and obviously to learn the new pub names to list.
This week was our first week with Sarah in focussing on accent, in our voice classes. I knew that this would be really useful for me, as its just extra practise for me, and it also gives me another method of hearing the accent, as I found the more ways I try it, the better I become at it. We went straight into running through short sections of random scenes, and we started with Brandon and Frankie, as Joey and Clare. This scene is our least worked on, due to Brandon not being in on the days in which they go to practise it, so it was nice to finally see this scene in action, despite that we didn't do any blocking or movements we just focussed on our voices, as you would expect in a voice class.
As the first half of the lesson wasn't for me specifically (aimed for Frankie and Brandon) I made notes on firstly what I thought they could improve on and what I pointed out, and combined this with what Sarah said afterwards.
| Voice, accent notes |
For Frankie, I noted that she needs to slow down what she says a lot, which will lead to us being able to hear her words clearer that are produced in the accent.
Brandon, I suggested to them both that if they write down all the phonetics of their words, such as
"I aamm, sooo lone/lay. I aamm lie'in 'ere four days no/aw." This was the way I learnt both my lines and accent, as it will make him learn his lines in the accent, allowing him to use muscle memory when performing.
Here is what Sarah had to say about me, Milo, Lewis and Phoebe as I couldn't make any individual notes:
Milo, to drop more 't' and 'th' sounds
Lewis, girls to gg-eugh-ls, make your sounds harsher and more nasally- watch Corrination Street
Phoebe, to make your sounds more glottal (I looked into what glottal means, and they gave me the example of 'uh-oh' some places it is said as one consonant, but us Southerners, say it as two. That is a glottal stop (correct me if I am wrong!) Also waiter to wait-eugh
And finally me, and I am quite pleased because all she recommended was for me to make my sounds more nasally, so again to watch Corrie. (This little feedback must mean its definitely better than when I started!!)
Talking about accent work, I furthered mine outside of college. I did this using the CD that the Robert Blumenfeld 'Accents, A Manual for Actors' book provided me.
Below are the notes I made whilst listening to the audio, under the subheadings of British Provincial accent: Midlands, Yorkshire, Manchester and Northern. He began teaching sounds that feature the glottal stop/sound: these words were such of 'bottle' and 'forty two' which I phonetically wrote down (to help me) as 'bot/ale', the / being a slight pause in speech, and 'fort/ay two'.
The open sound of 'a', turns 'cat' in 'caah/at' 'mat' to 'mah/at' and 'hat' to 'hah/at'. Remembering a slight emphasis on the 'at' sounds that feature at the end of each word.
A practise sentence he gave was "I cant draw the bath until I've finished my bottle of water" and again to help me I wrote it down to how I can hear the words which turns it to: "Aye, ca/nt draw/er the bath [no 'r' sound] til aye've finished ma bot/ale of war/ter." These all being words and sounds that I have heard before in the accent, and also words I know I can say in the accent, this section was simple but it was a nice way to get into the accent to lead me onto the next sounds.
Now we were instructed to concentrate on the 'ugh' and 'uh' sounds, such as 'book' 'look' 'above' and 'rough'. These turned into: 'book' and 'look' having a slight extenditure on the ''o' sounds, 'ah/bove' being like 'dove', and 'rough' being 'roh/ff'? But this last one I struggled with, as I knew exactly how it should sound in the accent, as its one that features in Road so I've heard it before, but I couldn't see it written down to how it sounded.
Now another practise text [image no.2] ; "now look here, thats not what I told you to do now, is it?" I changed this into: "Nah/ow (like ow, pain ow) loook ere (no 'h' sounds), that's knot wot aye told ya to do no/ow is it?" I believe that I must be both a a visual learner, as I like seeing what I am being told, for example if someone is asking me how to spell something, I have to see it written down. But also because I like to make tonnes of notes, little thoughts and ideas on what I am being told about (basically a 'read, write learner'. With a hint of 'an auditory learner' so someone who is both a good and natural listener. So to conclude I'm pretty much all the different learners!! But I've previously come to this conclusion because as said earlier, the more ways I do something such as the accent work I've used books, the internet, phone apps, audio stuff, making constant notes in and out of class, recording and observing Matt (sorry Matt!) and then actually talking in the accent, has all got me to develop my accent, hopefully considerably.
The guy on the CD, read out my favourite practise text, the 'cloud passing over head' one, that I have mentioned before now. But when he spoke this in the accent, it was completely different to how I've been saying it, and also really different to how we have been taught the words in the text itself. I can only think that this is because he's american, so his natural sound production is different to say Sarah's, Laura's and Matt's (all people whom have helped me learn) because they aren't american.
But to honestly conclude my work done today, on my accent, I don't feel that this CD audio helped me, surprisingly it went too quickly, and didn't give me a chance to actually recite after him the words said, which meant it didn't sink in enough for me. However the notes I've made are really useful purely because they are written to exactly how I hear the words, and I think it would be beneficial for me to start writing all my lines down like so when I practise my lines at home, because of me being a visual learner this will add to my practise and confidence.
| Accent work: Book CD |
| Accent work: Book CD |
Thursday proved as an 'individual workday'. But it started with us receiving the new and fully typed script including all the cuts we've made, with this printed ready for todays session later I have had a chance to flick through it and bring it up to speed with all my notes for entrance and exit cues, as well as cues in which I move on stage etc.
To start our actual lesson, we began from the beginning of the show, which is Louise and her brother, and I am really pleased because this past week we've (myself and Jake) have had many opportunities to go through this scene as this was my only main worry for Road. So after doing this scene we got feedback from the class and Kirsty which consisted of:
To start our actual lesson, we began from the beginning of the show, which is Louise and her brother, and I am really pleased because this past week we've (myself and Jake) have had many opportunities to go through this scene as this was my only main worry for Road. So after doing this scene we got feedback from the class and Kirsty which consisted of:
: For me to enter in more of a 'flap' to give the sense of rushing to get ready
: To pick up the pace as it reaches the last page of lines, as it begins to drag a bit
: Again, to act more appalled and shocked when brother says "shagging" - it is an appalling thought!!
: Jake to not rush his lines, slow it down!!
: Jake don't walk too slowly when you walk back towards Louise, it drags out too much
: Jake pull Louise into you when you say "let's dance"
: And me to begin building the anger as soon as he rubs the oil on my face and not to leave it just til "you piggin' bastard!"
These are all the notes that (put together me and Jake got) and we both tried to take these on board as quick as we could when we went over it again straight after, and when I, sorry when Louise, reacted to the "Shagging" line I had a really good reaction of laughs and giggles! But it was an improvement to people laughing at me, they were laughing because the line delivery was comedic, so I felt rather pleased of myself!!!
To contradict myself, I was annoyed with myself that I messed up on the lines a few times, I know this is only because we kept stopping and starting, changing the way perhaps Jake stands or the way I react, which put me off my lines, but knocking myself and myself only I was frustrated that I did mess up.
Below is an attached video of me and Jake running our scene in our break, the video is just of the "lets dance" line because I think this has become a really strong point in our scene, as it is a lot more tense and serious than when we first tried it back in blog post 1 and 2. Camera credits to Sophie as she really really likes this part of our scene, it was also her idea for Jake to pull me in on "lets dance" as though he's about to dance with me, see video.
After running through this scene we moved onto Joe and Donna's scene together as Professor and Dor. I did'nt get round to making many notes as I was still writing about my scene and the feedback, however I did write down for Joe to be less like him, slightly awkward and become more like the professor! His voice was good, which made the obvious change of personality, but like Nyakeh suggested he could change the way he stands, perhaps grounding himself to a more sturdy hold of his body, instead of swaying as Joe.
For Donna, all I got was to sloooooowwwww dowwwwwwnnnnn!!! She spoke incredibly fast which is probably nerves, but I think she needs to become more confident on her lines, then on her accent which will all lead to her having more confidence which will allow her to slow down a lot more. For both of them, I think they just need the confidence of just going for the accent, because the quicker they try the quicker us (others) can step in at times and adjust their pronunciation of words.
Below is an attached video of me and Jake running our scene in our break, the video is just of the "lets dance" line because I think this has become a really strong point in our scene, as it is a lot more tense and serious than when we first tried it back in blog post 1 and 2. Camera credits to Sophie as she really really likes this part of our scene, it was also her idea for Jake to pull me in on "lets dance" as though he's about to dance with me, see video.
After running through this scene we moved onto Joe and Donna's scene together as Professor and Dor. I did'nt get round to making many notes as I was still writing about my scene and the feedback, however I did write down for Joe to be less like him, slightly awkward and become more like the professor! His voice was good, which made the obvious change of personality, but like Nyakeh suggested he could change the way he stands, perhaps grounding himself to a more sturdy hold of his body, instead of swaying as Joe.
For Donna, all I got was to sloooooowwwww dowwwwwwnnnnn!!! She spoke incredibly fast which is probably nerves, but I think she needs to become more confident on her lines, then on her accent which will all lead to her having more confidence which will allow her to slow down a lot more. For both of them, I think they just need the confidence of just going for the accent, because the quicker they try the quicker us (others) can step in at times and adjust their pronunciation of words.
I then went on to make more notes of the scenes we'd just watched including mine and Jakes scene, ready to include here on my blogs. After this I refreshed myself on my monologue, writing it down from memory and then rehearsing it practically by myself. And finally I ran through all my lines in my first scene with Hannah, Hannah reading in as brother, and then I did the same reading as Carol. Me, Phoebe and Hannah ran through the scene in which we all feature in together, "hiyah Louise", and then all practised our ending scene with Hannah reading as Eddie and Brink. It was nice to have a relaxed lesson to just run through whatever we felt we needed too, and I felt that I did this, so I can say now that I feel a lot more confident on the scene with Louise and brother. And it was also useful for me to run through all my lines, however it would've been nice to have practically done our last scene because although we've worked on it a lot, we've not touched on it now that we're back from Easter.
Briefly I ran through props needed for Road and those in which I can supply:
A tape for the Professor
Plenty of empty wine bottles for any scenes in need, i.e. Ours at the end, Helen's, Brenda's house, Valerie?
A funky/old fashioned looking tie for perhaps Jerry as he's the older generation
Spare punk/ rock accessories for other female characters i.e. Carol?
Can maybe borrow a boiler suit for brother, and oily rags, oil can etc
Some sort of make up for me to put on in the mirror as Louise
Yogic/Buddist books... If SkinLad is ever seen with these sort of belongings
Stereo with a tape player included (whether it works or not is a different matter!)[UPDATE the tape and the stereo works, I just didn't know how to play it, its what happens if you were born in '98] for Prof
Glasses, also for Prof
Vinyl and records including cases as decoration of Bisto's dj table?
As Louise I don't need to many different props but above are things that might be needed and if so I can provide some of them, at a push, for other characters if needed.
So now, to begin to conclude I got round to recapping all the feedback I've ever been given for Road and I wanted to see which I have completed, and those things I still need to work on:
So now, to begin to conclude I got round to recapping all the feedback I've ever been given for Road and I wanted to see which I have completed, and those things I still need to work on:
- To be more confident, and start expressing the ideas in which I include into my blogs. I feel that I have started to do this more, but the more I do so the more confident I get with expressing my ideas however abstract they turn out to be (for example Valerie talking about alcohol not a real life husband!)
- To ensure I include book quotations from those in which I have loaned etc, which I have now since done on subjects such as accent and practical work
- Gain more confidence on my accent... Which I know I have definitely done, and am still working on
- Pick up the energy in the final scene; and this is something I think we could still improve on but it has been worked on briefly
- To make my character bigger!!! (It's getting there)
- Try not to loose my words in the accent
- Make my accent more nasally (watch Corrie!)
- Stay in character, is now much more improved and is consistent as Louise now
- Show your vulnerability when intimidated by brother, could do with more work which will come with more practise of the scene
- React to "shagging" REACT! This has come up twice now Issie!
- Start character study... ooops!
All the bullet points above is my known recorder feedback advice, with a mixture of character work, accent work, blogs or practical. Majority of them I know I have definetly targetted and hopefully have improved on and some I am still working on, but now with the refresh and a clear list of what I have been asked to do from both my peers and lecturers, I can go away and revise these along with a practical element at home rehearsing etc.
Assignment brief To Do list:
The images are of the highlighted Distinction criteria for Road that I am aiming to meet, I recapped them today (friday) as we get nearer and nearer our deadlines of performance and written work.
| Road: Assignment brief 2 |
| Road Assignment brief 1 |
I was also lucky enough to have a copy of the grading criteria in which my two lecturers will grade me through:
Unit 13 - Criteria 1 - Distinction Level = 'Research contemporary texts, selecting detailed features for their interpretation'
How can Issie achieve this? There will be full understanding of the social and/or political purpose embedded in the themes of the plays, ideas for interpretation will cover all aspects of the aesthetics of the work in great detail. I have made a good start on this specifically in Blog post 1 in which we spoke a lot about of the historical context of Road, and there has been short mentions of political themes in my blogs such as the mention of Margaret Thatcher.
Unit 19 - Criteria 2 - Distinction Level = 'Develop material for performance through confident and imaginative use of research, rehearsal and characterisation'
How can Issie achieve this? Learner will approach work in effective and positive manner. Learner will approach research creatively, in disciplined manner. I am thoroughly enjoying Road so I would like to say that all work I am thrown at linked to Road I complete to my best standard with an 'positive manner' and my imagination has sort of gone wild when talking about characters and themes in Road, but I could extend this to specify just about Louise in my character study.
Unit 7 - Criteria 2 - Distinction Level = 'Present an interpretation of the role showing energy, commitment, making a significant impression on the overall performance'
How can Issie achieve this? Learners wil perform with energy and focus, showing a complete commitment to and absorption of their role/character.. the performance will stand out and have particular meaning, whilst not setting out to deliberately 'hog the limelight.' I cant speak about the performance just yet, but it is my absolute aim to perform with 'energy, focus, commitment' and its not really in me to 'hog the limelight' so I aim not to do so.
The writing in bold (excluding the 'how can Issie achieve this) is my words of how I think I am going to do this or how I have done so, this is really helping me to focus on the things I need to do in order to reach the distinction grade level.
And finally I looked back over my '13' grading criteria and the things that I didn't do so well on:
- D3 N : You performed demonstrating good control of vocal and movement skills, however you did not perform in an imaginative manner to physically embody character or interpret text with clarity and intelligence. Performance: To embody Louise, you are not Issie!
- D1 N : You showed considered responses to resource material, exploring its more creative possibilities as performance material with insight and attention to detail however, you did not show a range of detailed responses to source material, in which the possibilities as performance material are explored in a perceptive and comprehensive manner. Blogs: Looking at the grade I got for my Devising project for blogs, I feel this is something I am already on top of
- D3 N : Your performed with a level of skill that shows a degree of control in the handling of the chosen medium however, you did not show confidence, flair and assured control of the chosen medium. Performance: CONFIDENCE!
- D4 N : You evaluated the potential of the work in artistic, professional and vocational terms, with considered judgements about what worked well and/or less well however you did not always clearly identify strengths and weaknesses and make judgements fully justified and thoughtfully expressed. Evaluation: Again looking at the devising grade I feel I have overcome this.
To fully conclude, this week was a big success and it's nice to be back and working on Road once again. I have clear work to work on after looking at previous grades and feedback, which I will endeavour to work on. My next big task is to crack on my character study, which I am feeling confident for, but I will have Karen's (previous lecturer) comments on my character profile for '13' to hand to ensure I reach the distinction grade in which I am aiming for.
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