Man Of Mode- vocal work

Man Of Mode was written by George Etherege in 1676. The play is set in restoration London (16th Century). The play is all about Dorimant, the guy who simply sleeps around and gets all the woman (and men!) Mrs Loveit, the character in which I played, was his main lover (or was his main lover at the beginning of the play.) Belinda, Mrs Loveit's best friend, uses this friendship to get with Dorimant. Emilia is also another whose Dorimants charm has taken upon her. Naturally, Mrs Loveit is cross and sets out to make Dorimant jealous by flirting with Sir Fopling Flutter... you get the jist of it...
It's a comedy, but although times have been fun for me as Mrs Loveit, it's been a huge challenge for me. I really didn't want to be casted as Mrs Loveit, she is this feisty, loud character who is quite frankly the complete opposite of me. She is quite often angry and this anger is released onto nearly anyone she comes across, she is a big part to the show and so I was gutted to have been casted her. However, I want to start introducing you to the vocal side of her, something I had the most issues with:

The restoration era was the era of immaculate RP. Everything had to be well pronounced and you were of a really very low status if you weren't well spoken. Mrs Loveit is of a high status, she is talked about an awful lot during the play and is the only 'Lady' to have both a maid and a footman-which is something that just proves her status. So therefore she needed to be extremely well spoken.
     With some research into English RP I found a useful website with tips on 'how to speak like the Queen'. http://www.bloomsbury-international.com/blog/2014/09/19/how-to-speak-like-the-queen-received-pronunciationposh-accent/  A short section to this link says how its important to elongate each and every word you say, as that is an easy short-cut into improving your RP. Alot of the other information they have provided via this link is all about learning words to use more often to make you sound more posh; but luckily we have it easy here and simply have the words we need to speak, but its our task to present these in the correct manner.

I found in the weeks of our performances, tongue twisters worked best for me. They became something I was just constantly repeating over and over again to really warm up my mouth as well as my larynx and vocal folds. As Loveit, I have so many lines that need to be spat out at Dorimant but these are all hefty lines that are insulting but also really difficult to get out. So tongue twisters were extremely useful here:

How much wood could a wood chuck, chuck, if a wood chuck could chuck wood.

She sells sea shells on the sea shore

Unique, New York

Red Lorry Yellow Lolly

I found the shorter ones much easier, one because they can be found more repetitve but two because I wanted to be able to say them with pure clarity but at speed because that way it helped more with my Loveit lines. How much wood could a wood chuck etc is my favourite, its become one that I can say without fault at quite speed with it remaining clear. Whilst on the subject of vocal warm ups, running my tongue all around my mouth has to be my second favourite warm up during this entire production. It's obviously the most simplest one which is why I liked it so much and it was something I could be doing as I was literally walking on stage. It would really warm up my mouth and get my tongue stretched. Alongside this I would be doing all weird things with my mouth, as in stretching it in weird directions and opening and closing it etc. 

During practise, I made one section of dialogue my point of focus, and this was because I rushed it and stumbled through it every time, when really it needed to be delivered slowly and with thought going into it:

Without sense of love, of honour, or of gratitude: tell me for I will know, what devil masked she were you with at the play yesterday?

This is Loveit, now completely outraged with Dorimant, forcing out the 'masked female' he was with at the play yesterday. At this point she is in full rage and shouting at him, she's so cross because she knows damn well that he was at the play with someone because she believes fully the words of Belinda earlier on in the scene. As well with every other bit of Mrs Loveit, I really struggled with keeping the pace of my speech down to an audible speed but struggled with making sure what I was saying was coming out correctly in the correct manner too. So I'm going to run you through how I taught myself to conquer all the said things, with main focus on this line (although this was just one of all my lines that I struggled with!!)

It's all about pronounciating every letter that you produce, and so that very much meant me spending hours in the mirror saying these lines, making my mouth look  ridiculous and then once managing to say these lines correctly, reigning in the funny mouth actions (if possible!!) Although saying that, I found that my large mouth movements suited Mrs Loveit, she was no small actioned lady, so having a large mouth suited her to an extent-ha! 

'Without' the word itself has plenty of 't's which are a key area for pronunciation. I found that if I elongated the sound of the 'w' but then separated the two words in order of emotion. So 'with' was said in more of a questioning tone, that way it gave me enough time to pronounce the 'th' sound at the end of it. The 'out' was then said with a much harsher tone, ending on a very harsh finish with the final 't' sound being very prominent. I found that I would often end this word with my mouth in a kind of smiling shape, which is something very much against the meaning of the script, so I would pull my eyebrows in together to make me look more cross, so although my mouth might have looked happy my upper face and eyes said differently. But the smile that my mouth formed after saying this line was an over-emphasised gesture in order to get every letter of the word out correctly. This is something I sat infront of the mirror doing, I wanted to make sure my mouth matched the emotion in which I had to portray (similarly to the smile.) 'Sense' and 'of' for me, are fairly simple words to pronounce, they have no harsh sounds that need to be heard drastically so skipping to the word 'love'. I once again, elongated the 'low' sound to the word, and also found that I deepend my voice here, but in effect for emphasis more than just simply lower my tone. I slammed down my lips as soon as the 'l' sound had been pronounced (almost like you go to chew something quite suddenly) like you can feel your tongue moving more aggressively the quicker you say it. 'Gratitude' again has a lot of 't' sounds in it, I noticed that I was making the 'tit' part of the word seperate to the full word itself. So it would sound more like 'grah-tit-oode' which, the more I thought about it, sounded quite 'cockney'. I slowed it right down and focussed on breaking it down in a more English way. I made sure to cut the line off just as I reached the second 't'. So it became more like 'grahti- tude' So the 'tude' section had a much clearer 't' sound to it. Instead of before it was getting lost. My least favourite section to this line had to be the: 'For I will know'.I understood that it had to be the most confrontational part to the line but I kept elongating the 'will'  for too long and it began to sound really particular. But that was something solved quite quickly, instead I began to elongate the 'I' sound. This way, the 'will' could be said more aggressively and the 'I', being drawn out more, meant that it was a clear emphasis on how it was Mrs Loveit proving to Dorimant that she WILL know who this woman was he was with! Again, saying 'will' with this much attention showed my how happy my mouth looked. It looked like an excited face more than angry which is meant to be. Again, drawing in my eyebrows helped me in this situation aha! 'Devil' was just one that I could just add some emphasis to, making the 'd' sound the harshest sound of them all. I don't like the word 'mask' in general, I found it hard to produce the 'k' sound so 'masked' was even harder. I still don't think I managed it all that way, but I just tried to slow it down in order to say it as well as I could. 

Image 1, Patsy Rodenburg.

Someone I based my vocal research upon so happens to be the voice expert that is Patsy Rodenburg. As you would expect, from a vocal expert, her voice is perfect. Her articulation and diction clear, and she simply speaks well. In this short clip, I focussed on her voice, instead of the vocal information she is actually giving. She speaks in a high tone, which shows off her enthusiasm for the subject matter. 'About thirty years ago when I started to teach' every 't' sound in this sentence, that starts off the clip, can be heard. They aren't harsh 't' sounds, like some can be, but they are pronounced clear enough to tune into them. She talks slowly, which like I said earlier really does make her sound intelligent (not that she wasn't anyways) But her speech doesn't s

eem slow, because the pauses aren't over exaggerated, they are merely there for her audience to process what she is saying before she continues; which means that she nearly always will have the full attention of her audience. There is the such rarity that she uses verbal pauses, but we can always expect that off anyone purely because its more about how the brain is working before we can speak. But it adds no real effect to how Rodenburg portrays herself with her voice. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub27yeXKUTY (Try and listen to this without watching, it makes focussing on the voice a lot easier.)

  So my research started off again into researching articulation, and the ways in which I can improve my articulation. First off, is to speak slowly. That way every correct way in pronunciation can leave your mouth correctly because you aren't rushing through your lines. Speaking slower also gives off a more intelligent voice, which is something Loveit could easily house. During these endless rehearsals, I have been reminded to slow down in order to perfect my articulation, and again looking back on the project, I think this is something that highly improved my voice in the final piece. To avoid verbal pauses in speech, which is something that can lower this status that I have perhaps already created for Loveit. But mainly, it's practise on the text itself that has helped me work on improving my well-spoken character. I have the advantage that I am well spoken already, I am often being told I sound posh but I don't think this had much use to me as Loveit had such an extended version of what I thought was me speaking well. A really key tip that I came across during my research was along the lines of 'read for the ears, not the eyes' they seemed to think the pyscological effect on you as the actor massively improves your voice. I know that this is something that was a huge tip for me when working on my Radio project, however I've been finding it quite useful for ordinary stage work such as Man Of Mode, because it just brings me b ack to reality that the audience are here purely to hear you because the lines you are saying are what the story primarily consists of, so if they can't understand you, its not entertainment for the audience!! http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/communication/do-you-have-a-radio-voice?page=1

'1. Find a piece of text

2. In a room, pinpoint an object in which you will be addressing your text towards

3. Deliver your text to this object, begin with a whisper, and each time raising the volume/projection of your voice.'

For this, I chose the line: "I like this pretty nice humour of yours Sir Fopling, Oh with what a loathing eye he looked upon those fellows!"I focused my voice to the other side of my room (bearing in mind it is a very small room!!) I stood by my door and projected to the far wall. I began with a whisper, making my words whispy and soft and quiet. I then took it to more of a 'stage' whisper, which is actually considerably different in volume. The stage whisper seemed harder to maintain throughout this line, purely because you have to put more vocal effort into the voice compared to just a normal whisper. I then spoke the line at my normal speaking voice, which is possibly quieter than perhaps what you could label a 'medium volume'. This felt more than natural, as was expected. Although, I did notice I spoke slightly quicker than I had done for the whispered voice. I think this is because I had slipped into my normal speaking habit because I had reached my normal speaking volume. I couldn't label my next volume, but it was perhaps the preferred stage voice for me: think one up from my natural speaking volume. I found this one the trickiest because it felt so unnatural for me (I shall explain more when I get to the next 'volume') But it just felt weird for me to be speaking at a slightly more raised volume. I tried out more lines at this volume, to experiment a bit with it. My conclusion is that because I feel uncomfortable at this volume, I have yet to teach myself to slip into it whenever in rehearsals or on stage.

The final volume is the level I want to reach when playing Loveit (so LOUD) . Surprisingly, I find this easiest. Still stood at the other side of my room, focussing all my voice into the corner of my room, this felt quite natural to me. I have a feeling this is because every time I go in to play Loveit, I have to hype myself up a bit, and so then when I'm on stage, I can be really quite loud and silly, and for me that kind of knocks my low confidence out of the water. However in terms of voice, I think where I have been working a lot on my projection, for the above reasons, recently it suddenly felt really natural for me-despite the fact I was only doing this as a simple vocal exercise.

In terms of the actual exercise I was experimenting with, it was a clever way to help me vocally reach the volume that I needed to reach. It allowed me to observe my voice through my vocal range, and as I raised the volume it felt so much easier for my voice when I reached the preferred volume for the entire play!! 

I have really struggled with every aspect of Man Of Mode, from accsessing the anger to pacing up and down the stage to show this anger; but the voice has been just as hard. I don't have the confidence just to experiment with voices, and looking back on it, I regret not making my voice more different! With an awful lot of work alone, I think I reached the correct volume level for Loveit, and in the angry bits they were strong enough to see the anger, but they could've been a lot more louder! My clarity was possibly my strongest bit, the things I said were audible however I still felt as though I was talking too quickly, which is something I shall be working on for longer. 

Auditions for actors- Like A Virgin

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

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

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



Like A Virgin by Gordon Steele:

"No you go. I instruct I don't feel up to it, Maxine. I'm dying I state I don't know why, but I am. I don't know why I question I've been picked to have such a shit-awful life, what have I done that's so bloody wrong? So you can piss off with your lets 'lets play jolly' routine.I instruct With your 'lets pretend everything's alright and we'll have a laugh like we used to in the good old days'... Do you know something? [Pause] I've never had sex.I confess I'm a virgin. Yeh I know what I said, what we said but... well, they were just stories full of me, us, trying to grown up.I explain But I'm not going to grow up. I'll never grow up and be a woman and have children. Why me? Why the fucking hell does it have to be me? It's not fair. How would you feel if someone told you that you were going to die? Come on, it's not easy is it?I question you YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. You have got four weeks to live, what are you going to do? [Pause] it's not easy is it, and people are so full of understanding...so full of shit. "I'd go on holiday" "I'd travel." What is the point in spending your time in strange lands with strange people? So you'll have lots of happy memories and photographs to look back on? I am being honest When? I haven't got time, I'm dying.Honest What's the point in laying on a beach getting a tan?I question So I'll look good in my coffin? So people will be able to gork into my coffin with...with...tear strained eyes and say..."she looks really good Morbid sense of humour...she's the best sun tanned corpse I've ever seen"... well they can all fuck off. Sometimes I feel I should have dignity and write poems and raise money for charity an' all that...Be a symbol for people to look up to. But why should I? What has anybody ever done for me? AngryLook at you, you're pathetic stood there not wanting to say anything in case you hurt my feelings. Making excuses for me. "It's her condition...it's understandable...she's just a bit down." Well don't patronise me." I instruct you

"A romp through the bubble-gum years of teenage life. Angela and Maxine, besotted with Madonna, play truant from school, form a band, attempt to write songs and, with hairbrushes in hand, live out their adolescent dreams of becoming famous. Meanwhile Angela's mother, Vic, struggles to come to terms with her marriage break-up and her daughter's explosive lifestyle, as the play roller coasters through hope, sex, ambition, despair, and, most of all, love." http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsS/steel-gordon.html#33156 

Written in 1998, the plays talks you through the life of Angela, a 16-year old girl, who looks up to her icon: Madonna. Her and her friend, Maxine spend a lot of their time trying to be like Madonna. However, despite the hectic lifestyle she is living with her mum drinking and breaking up with her husband, Angela has Leukaemia. At 16, I can only imagine this is something simply un-fathomable. The monologue is Angela being un-able to cope with it all. She tells us that 'it's not fair' which could imply both the cancer and her mum. 

Leukaemia is a cancer of the blood cells, it begins in the bone marrow (which is the soft tissue in most bones in our body) The bone marrow is where the blood cells are made, and in particular the white blood cells which act as bodyguards in order to help our body fight infections. I began some more thorough research into Leukaemia as quite frankly, I know very little about it: So it is caused by abnormal white blood cells being produced; and because these are labelled 'abnormal' they can't do their job, which is to fight off infections. Unlike normal white blood cells, these cells grow and divide and eventually block off any other blood cells in the body. And without those normal white blood cells, the control of blood is lost, and the control of oxygen starts to deteriorate. There are many types of Leukaemia, and they are all based on how quickly the abnormal blood cells grown by etc, but it is not suggested to us through the play as to what type of Leukaemia Angela has. Even with just this basic information, I can already begin to see how difficult it must be to  stay positive with such a disease. At the time of the play, 1998, medicine was heavily improving and still is today, however I can't seem to find information as to why Angela perhaps isn't taking treatment for her cancer. However saying that, I get the impression that Angela and her family aren't that well-off. Divorces are expensive, they had been acceptable for a long while before the the date in which the play is set, but they have remained an expensive process. Vic, Angela's mother, is currently going through a divorce and she also has a drinking issue. Drinking, again, is an expensive habit, and not a healthy one either. So technically we can only expect that Angela and her mum are struggling a lot with money, so which therefore suggests that they don't have the money for Angela's treatment? Which would make Angela even more angry about her situation, and poor Maxine has to be in ear-shot of it all at the time of the monologue.

As briefly mentioned above in the short synopsis, love is mentioned as a key theme to this play. Originally, I wasn't sure I could identify this by just looking at the play. However, I realised that, yes love was the key theme, but not in the stereotypical way in which we all expect it to be. Her mum is going through a divorce, and the main reasons for a divorce are usually a loss of love, whether that be because 'he' went and slept with someone, or you just didn't get along anymore; they all are forms of not loving someone any more. Which I have linked to the loss of love between Angela's dad and Angela herself. We hear very little about this situation, so perhaps they didn't have a good relationship in the first place. But with him leaving, for whatever reason (in which we don't know) the chance that the love between Angela and her dad will have dramatically been lost. In another sense, her mum has a huge love for alcohol and that's taking away the love she has for her daughter. It's becoming something more than just over-powering which leads me to say that Angela possibly has lost some love towards her mum because of alcohol. And finally, Angela has probably lost a lot of love for herself, everyone loves themselves to a certain extent (not in a big headed way) but shes now realised that her body is 'shit'. It's not working as it should and therefore she hates herself for that reason.
So although love was not the obvious theme in the stereotypical sense as we were all expecting, it still plays a huge part. It was an interesting way to incorporate love into the play, and especially hearing that its a play about a girl with Leukeamia, you would expect love to be coming directly from her close family: but really it's quite the opposite once you look into it more thoroughly.

Another huge theme of the play, is honesty. Steel has a extremely honest and although sometimes brutal way of writing, but its what makes it so gripping for the reader; because people can relate to the issues that happen in the piece. Divorce rates in the year in which the play was set in (1980's) had just seen an increase, it had now reached the thousand figures at about 1,182 people divorcing in just that one year. It still wasn't and still isn't seen as something cool to do but at the time it was becoming an ever more occurring issue. Figures had suddenly started to jump, for example, in just 1975, figures sat comfortably at the bottom of the thousandth figure: 1,036. In just five years, 146 people divorced; whereas 254,46 people married in those five years. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005044.html So his honesty in his writing really showed itself here. He understood that divorce was such a big thing in the year in which he set his play in and so therefore made sure to include it. I also think at about this time, people started to accept it more; because any time before it was looked down upon. So as it began to become something more acceptable, more and more people began to understand the process more so. And that includes the children in the situation. We can only assume that a divorce, back in the 18th/19th century perhaps, was kept well out of the way from the children. But reaching the more modern era, us children were much more heavily involved. We began to earn a choice as to which parent we wanted to live with (depending on the situation) and so we were much more aware. So Angela, once again, has a very honest way of thinking. Her anger spouts from both her condition but her parents divorce has just as much part of it. It is proven that anger is a high contender of feelings and emotions after a divorce- from the childs point of view. http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/parentsandyouthinfo/parentscarers/divorceorseparation.aspx The link above talks about the effects divorce has on the children in a wider sense than just anger, it mentions: "and most families in this situation come under some financial strain" Once again, Steel's very real and honest writing steps in. Angela and her mum, Vic, are now suddenly in a lot of money issues from both the divorce and Vic's drinking issue. To prove how honest Steel's writing is, statistics show that deaths due to drinking were rocketing in the 80's. If you look at the graph, although I understand that this is based on deaths due to drink driving, it still proves my point that drink was becoming an issue. We are not informed during the play that Angela's mum drives, but the meaning of showing you this graph was to highlight that alcohol was becoming an issue and as it begun to become into a bigger issue, more and more people were loosing their lives through drink driving which is a perfect link to an alcohol addiction.



Again this would cause much tension in the house we get to know during the play. Vic doesn't pay much attention to Angela whatsoever and again this is something that would make Angela angry. I begin to see a pattern in me labelling Angela as 'angry' and although she's not constantly throughout the play, there are many things wrong within her life, which lead to her anger. And I'll give Steel credit for taking the time to really understand his character (Angela) and to focus so much on her emotions, because as the reader you can really begin to feel for Angela and you understand her situation and I know I began to feel angry for her, because of her mum and Maxine and the alcohol, the divorce and of course the Leukaemia.

I think this is all why I have fallen so much in love with the play. It is so true. Everything he has included and gone into such careful detail about during the play, is all something at least one of his readers will be able to relate to. I understand that many other plays write so honestly, however this is something that I feel really relates to me.





I wanted to now run you through the reasons as to why I picked this monologue. So it took me a while to choose all three of my monologues, I wanted to get three that suited me but challenged me at the same time, but they all had to be ones that I liked. Very simply, Angela is of my age and I can only guess has the same sort of college, social and work stresses that I have currently. But she also has a really difficult mum, her parents have just spilt up and she is really very ill. (I would like to clarify my mum is wonderful and has been so very supportive and truly brilliant!!) However, I can relate to having your parents divorced. My parents divorced when I was four so I remember nothing of it, but it has had a huge impact on who I am and how I've been brought up etc. At the time, I was apparently quite affected, and even now, my dad is something of an issue on occasions. So I can only imagine the stress and pain of it all being a teenager and being able to understand the situation much more clearly. I can only assume it might upset your college life, social life etc and it's probably a really horrid experience in general. I felt as though I could relate to Angela here, I can understand the difficulties of it and I am also aware of what affect it will have on her when she gets a bit older.

In a less close-to-home situation, I feel like her disease is something I can very mildly relate to (Please note this is in no comparison as to the cancer in which this character has!!) But I used to get really ill when I was little and was diagnosed with a heart condition (nothing too serious) but whenever I was ill, it was always a long process and hospital visits after hospital visits. I could never understand 'why me'. I hated it. And it just didn't seem fair that everyone else was ok and didn't have these problems. And this is precisely what Angela is trying to come to terms with. So I get exactly what she feels like, despite the fact hers is 10x more serious and will lead to her death; as we are so informed about during the monologue itself.
Just in general, I feel I can really relate to Angela and I hope that will be something that can benefit when it comes to the monologue itself.

However, more importantly, I wanted to analyse as to how good this monologue choice was in terms of audition. Firstly, she is both of my gender and my age range which is always, always preferred when doing an audition. It is not accented, which is another thing they don't want to see at an audition. It's fairly self-explanatory, and by that I mean it's not one of those monologues that you hear and you just simply don't understand and you need to read it in it's full context. As the monologue goes on, you begin to understand she has some sort of condition that will mean she dies. So you can just know it's not the light-hearted type play/monologue. It has a punch to it, depending on the performer I'm sure, but with it's short sentences, it has a kick to it from the beginning. Swear words, I used to think were something to avoid completely during an audition, however if the monologue that fits happens to have swear words in, just use them correctly. So in this case, I will be sure to use them with as much fight as Steel wrote them, but not over or under use them as that was simply not what they were written in for. Same goes for all the shouting bits. They are really not meant to be over-used, otherwise it just sounds weird and it can very often be a bit too much on the senses for the auditioner's'.  There are plenty of times that Angela shows her feisty side, which is a personal benefit in a monologue because I come across quite quiet. So it is a sort of method for me to show the auditioner's' that I have it in me.
It is a simple layout also. There is no need for props at all, nor is there need to really show where Angela is when playing her. The only thing is that you have to make sure you make it clear as to where Maxine is, on stage. But that can be done by just directing your lines to one specific corner. This is just as effective, and once again the auditioners don't want to see loads of props or you asking for someone to stand in as the other character because it really is just as effective and it shows off your flexibility.





As a progressive project, we had a couple of sessions with our lecturer to introduce our monologues to her and perform them and get feedback. Unfortunately, we never got round to performing all three of monologues, however we were able to work quite a bit on this monologue in particular. First of all, we decided to cut out one of the beginning lines, as it didn't make a lot of sense: "I've got to live a bit" It contradicted itself and made more sense if we didn't have it in the monologue. I ran through the monologue, not really pinpointing an area in which I should focus my eye level. Sally suggested picking a corner and aiming whatever it is I am saying, in that direction. But she also pointed out that it's not necessary to keep a constant gaze on that corner, because when we talk to people, we don't ever tend to keep constant eye contact anyways. She said that I can really mess around with the pace, and that I've got to keep it sounding natural instead of just reciting it. And finally, I need to build up the anger and make the last lines really powerful...as well as the shouting lines and the questions that need emphasis.

This monologue consists of a big need for projection. I have been working a lot on my projection and so I wanted to carry over my research and use it for this monologue:
However just before carrying out this projection exercise, I warmed up my voice. I used my favourite few vocal exercises.  My favourite being the 'chew gum' exercise:

1. Simply chew imaginary gum, for a reasonable amount of time.

This, I find, really makes use of my tongue muscle, it warms it up as well as warms up my gums. When hugely over-exaggerated, it can help me stretch out my face muscles to free them up too. My other favourite exercise is running your tongue around your mouth, again quite consistently. I tend to dedicate a good five minutes to doing this, because then you can really feel the difference in the flexibility of your mouth. Both of these considerably helped with the emphasis I placed on my various lines. 

'1. Find a piece of text

2. In a room, pinpoint an object in which you will be addressing your text towards

3. Deliver your text to this object, begin with a whisper, and each time raising the volume/projection of your voice.'

(For this, I chose the line: "Look at you, stood there, not wanting to say anything incase you hurt my feelings.") I focused my voice to the other side of my room (bearing in mind it is a very small room!!) I stood by my door and projected to the far wall. I began with a whisper, making my words whispy and soft and quiet. I then took it to more of a 'stage' whisper, which is actually considerably different in volume. The stage whisper seemed harder to maintain throughout this line, purely because you have to put more vocal effort into the voice compared to just a normal whisper. I then spoke the line at my normal speaking voice, which is possibly quieter than perhaps what you could label a 'medium volume'. This felt more than natural, as was expected. Although, I did notice I spoke slightly quicker than I had done for the whispered voice. I think this is because I had slipped into my normal speaking habit because I had reached my normal speaking volume. I couldn't label my next volume, but it was perhaps the preferred stage voice for me: think one up from my natural speaking volume. I found this one the trickiest because it felt so unnatural for me (I shall explain more when I get to the next 'volume') But it just felt weird for me to be speaking at a slightly more raised volume. I tried out more lines at this volume, to experiment a bit with it. My conclusion is that because I feel uncomfortable at this volume, I have yet to teach myself to slip into it whenever in rehearsals or on stage.

The final volume is the level I want to reach when playing Angela. Surprisingly, I find this easiest. Still stood at the other side of my room, focussing all my voice into the corner of my room, this felt quite natural to me. I have a feeling this is because every time I go in to play Angela, I have to hype myself up a bit, and so then when I'm on stage, I can be really quite loud and silly, and for me that kind of knocks my low confidence out of the water. However in terms of voice, I think where I have been working a lot on my projection, for the above reasons, recently it suddenly felt really natural for me-despite the fact I was only doing this as a simple vocal exercise.

In terms of the actual exercise I was experimenting with, it was a clever way to help me vocally reach the volume that I needed to reach. It allowed me to observe my voice through my vocal range, and as I raised the volume it felt so much easier for my voice when I reached the preferred volume for the angry bits in the monologue.

In a more abstract approach to this research document, I wanted to look into the lyrics of Madonna, specifically Like A Virgin. So Angela and her friend, Maxine, are simply obsessed with Madonna. Madonna really flourished in this particular era and it was very much the trend to dream of becoming just like your idol (you'd have a job if you were a fan of Duran Duran I'm sure!!) Steel tells us that Angela and Maxine are a fan of making their own music just like Madonna, with the same fashion choices and hair styles. (Once again, showing off his skill for such honesty in his writing.)
And as you may have already guessed, the plays name comes after one of Madonna's most famous songs: 'Like A Virgin'. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/madonna/likeavirgin.html

I made it through the wilderness

Somehow I made it through

Didn't know how lost I was

Until I found you

I was beat incomplete

I'd been had, I was sad and blue

But you made me feel

Yeah, you made me feel

Shiny and new

[Chorus]

Like a virgin

Touched for the very first time

Like a virgin

When your heart beats 

Next to mine

Gonna give you all my love, boy

My fear is fading fast

Been saving it all for you

'Cause only love can last

You're so fine and you're mine

Make me strong, yeah you make me bold

Oh your love thawed out

Yeah, your love thawed out

What was scared and cold

[Chorus]

Oooh, oooh, oooh

You're so fine and you're mine

I'll be yours 'till the end of time

'Cause you made me feel

Yeah, you made me feel

I've nothing to hide

[Chorus]

Like a virgin, ooh, ooh

Like a virgin

Feels so good inside

When you hold me, and your heart beats and you love me

oh, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

Ooh baby

Can't you hear my heart beat

For the very first time?

(I am linking the lyrics to the life of Angela during the play, obviously it probably has no relevance at all, but it's a unique method of research but just take it all with a pinch of salt.)
The very first lyric, ' I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through' seems a good place for me to start. It makes out that she's had more issues before we are introduced to her. However, although she had issues before hand, 'she made it through the wilderness'. We could assume that the issue is nothing that has a mention during the play because it says that 'somehow she made it through' which implies that whatever it was, it's in the past now.
'Didn't know how lost I was, until I found you' I think this could very much link to her, now, huge love for Madonna. Yes it sounds a bit cheesy and dramatic, but we now understand that she had issues before the play, she was 'lost' but now she 'found' Madonna, she realised how 'lost' she really was. At that age, we all had a love for someone famous whether it be a musician or an actor etc (mine was One Direction) and some people really do begin to find and understand themselves with thanks to the influence there role model had on them (I have no relation to this, I just fancied the One Direction boys, that was all!!) And because Angela had problems before we met her, as the readers, Madonna possibly helped her in some sense.
'My fear is fading' I haven't mentioned much of Angela's condition, despite the fact that the monologue is all about it but that's because although it is a massive, massive theme to the play, perhaps her nerves about it are 'fading'. I can perhaps only assume, that you possibly begin to adjust to such news. "What's the point in spending your time in strange places with strange people" this quote from the monologue makes me assume that she is past caring now. She understands that she's dying, and although there is definitely still a lot of anger and worry there, perhaps her 'fear is fading'?

Like I said, it most probably has no link to the storyline of the play but it was simply a more abstract approach to research, and it obviously has had some effects on how Steel has created Angela due to the fact she is in love with Madonna but also because of the matching titles.

A lot of this monologue is about accessing the anger that has been rising in Angela for so long, but like my Mrs Loveit situation, I don't feel like I can access this well which is where I think I am loosing out. Looking back on my performance of this monologue, I could tell I clearly wasn't angry enough. I think I have to picture myself in Angela's situation and think of the possible outcomes of me knowing 'I am going to die' etc beforehand, to really wind myself up. Its definitely a hard monologue to relate to but you understand a lot about Angela through just this short piece, which I think has helped me begin to understand her situation, but it's about me portraying all of what I can understand into just a short piece of text and push all this emotion onto the audience.


Character profile:
(I feel as though I have included a lot of research in the above blog that would be necessary in my character profile so this is just a short summary. Also where it's just a monologue, it's hard to have such an in-depth profile about Angela despite the fact that I have read the script.) 

Angela is 16. 16 and truly in love with Madonna. She is quite the feisty character, she won't hold back on her opinions, which I guess is both a good and bad thing about her character. She doesn't have many people to surround herself by. She has her mum, Vic, an alcoholic and current-divorcee, her dad has just left and her friend Maxine, whom we don't really know an awful lot about, apart from the fact she is also in love with Madonna. Apart from that we don't hear about many other people, which makes me think she is possibly really quite lonely, and her cancer won't help much. Most of the information under this character profile is of my own independent thoughts and ideas about Angela as I didn't feel as though I found much about her from the play itself.
She is young, and going through everything a normal teenage is going through in terms of popularity and socially however she has a lot more going on  for her. She is diagnosed with Leukaemia. This is not something you expect at the age of 16. And it goes against everything normal in her life. To me she seems like a very angry person, but that's all down to how shit her life is. She's struggling, and her struggle is very much in silence. Her mum is an alcoholic and is really quite hard work. She pays very little attention to her daughter and even more so now because she knows she has Leukaemia. Her dad has just left her and her mum and they are in quite serious money problems.  Her anger is very clear in the monologue, it features a lot of shouting and she takes this all out on her friend Maxine who is also stood in Angela's bedroom at the time. Angela is kind, we can see this, and we can also see through this nastiness that she portrays during the monologue because Steel has done such a good job at making us understand Angela and we begin to understand her anger- once again the key theme of 'honesty'.
She is fed up and frustrated with it all which is something we can clearly see in the monologue. Its annoying for her and she feels as though she can't do anything-'what's the point? ... I'm dying' But she also feels like she can't help her mum with neither the drinking or the money. She is going to die, so we can assume that she is worrying. Worrying about how her mum is going to cope when she does die. All these are things that a teenage girl shouldn't be worrying about.

Radio- vocal work

The Far Side Of The Moore was written by Sean Grundy and it tells the life story of Sir Patrick Moore. Moore, at the beginning of the script, is simply a guy in love with the stars and sky 'at night.' He is just desperate for work that will get his research and findings out there, to other astrologists. His first shot at this, a book about flying saucers, wasn't quite how he'd expected his career to take off. But with this, he was offered a short television series on his own knowledge. And ever since his first screening in 1957, 'The Sky At Night'  has been on broadcast ever since.
     This is a wonderful story. It really lets you into the life of Mr Moore, both his personal life and is public life. You get an insight into his relationship with his mother, we meet a few of his lovers and also his worse enemy, Dr Henry King.
The piece is set in the 1950's inside a BBC Radio studio. At this time, to be well-spoken was almost compulsory. All the characters in the piece are well-off therefore we can only assume that they would be well-spoken. Not only this, but the fact that they are all radio producers means that their speech must be really clear and correct, in order for them to produce a proper radio show.
Having a clear and well-articulated voice for radio means that your entire audience will be able to understand you. If they don't understand you, their interest will be lost in your show. This applied to us in two terms, we had to be well-articulated as our characters, but also because ours would be performed as a radio piece, so our articulation had to be immaculate.


I began looking into the radio show 'Cabin Pressure.'  Cabin Pressure is a radio sitcom as a handful of aeroplane crew take animals, humans and all sorts of others across the oceans.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDOblDaMm2s Limerick is all about one character, Arthur guessing the object inside the cargo of the plane. The three other characters are clearly a lot more intelligent than Arthur, whom asks some ridiculous questions...but it makes it all the more comedic.
The storyline is quick and funny and also very easy to listen to. The dialogue is clear despite the fact when sometimes they speak quickly. Moore speaks incredibly quickly in our play. Arthur's mother, in Cabin Pressure, speaks well, she sounds very posh, due to the elongation of her words and the clarity of her talk. For example when she says 'no' its drawn out but said in a high pitch tone which makes her sound well-to-do. I know that I don't want to change Gertrude's voice completely, but I know that I will need to make her sound posh and that can be done with the use of articulation.
      So my research started off again into researching articulation, and the ways in which I can improve my articulation. First off, is to speak slowly. That way every correct way in pronunciation can leave your mouth correctly because you aren't rushing through your lines. Speaking slower also gives off a more intelligent voice, which is something Gertrude could easily house. During these endless rehearsals, I have been reminded to slow down in order to perfect my articulation, and again looking back on the project, I think this is something that highly improved my voice in the final piece. To avoid verbal pauses in speech, which is something that can lower this status that I have perhaps already created for Gertrude. Although I don't think this is dialogued anywhere for Gertrude, she does have a few lines that begin with an 'ooh' which I tried to make into a more excited sound rather than an unintelligent sentence filler. But mainly, it's practise on the text itself that has helped me work on improving my well-spoken character. I have the advantage that I am well spoken already, I am often being told I sound posh so Gertrude was very much an extended version of my own voice. A really key tip that I came across during my research was along the lines of 'read for the ears, not the eyes' they seemed to think the pyscological effect on you as the actor massively improves your voice. So it means that if you are constantly in the mind set that this dialogue is simply just for the ears, then you start to push all your facial expressions and movement into your voice. So for example, Gertrude's most 'famous' line was 'East Grinstead, 13753' I started off pretending to pick up a phone to say this line but by our performance I was able to reel this line off without a second thought (it was a way of introducing yourself, but over the phone, so the number like your postcode) and so you could hear that it was my 'telephone' voice- everyone has a telephone voice so I hope you get what I mean. http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/communication/do-you-have-a-radio-voice?page=1

During practise, I made one section of dialogue my point of focus, and this was because I rushed it and stumbled through it every time, when really it needed to be delivered slowly and with thought going into it:

"With his forced visual images and vague generalties, author Patrick Moore is flirting with science. In suns, myths and man this amateur astronomer sows the seeds of irrationality...not very glowing."

As you can see, it has a fair few long words, and there not words that I would struggle in reading, but as a whole I tend to jumble them up making the entire piece unclear. This was my bit of text that I would result back to before each radio rehearsal to get me back into the swing of the immaculate articulation. And when doing this, I made sure to really over use the shapes that my mouth made when saying this, so each word was delivered with as much clarity as possible. Another trusty pre-rehearsal method for me was tongue twisters, which is something I really tried to keep to every rehearsal (and I can say I did stick to every day!) I varied the tongue twisters to save me from getting bored, but a favourite would be how much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood. This is one that I always stumble over, but for this I would put on a really posh fake voice, it sounded and looked hilarious but it really got me into the voice of Gertrude and helped me to get into the pattern of articulation and also gave me a method into how I wanted to create Gertrude's voice. 

Image 1, Patsy Rodenburg.

Someone I based my vocal research upon so happens to be the voice expert that is Patsy Rodenburg. As you would expect, from a vocal expert, her voice is perfect. Her articulation and diction clear, and she simply speaks well. In this short clip, I focussed on her voice, instead of the vocal information she is actually giving. She speaks in a high tone, which shows off her enthusiasm for the subject matter. 'About thirty years ago when I started to teach' every 't' sound in this sentence, that starts off the clip, can be heard. They aren't harsh 't' sounds, like some can be, but they are pronounced clear enough to tune into them. She talks slowly, which like I said earlier really does make her sound intelligent (not that she wasn't anyways) But her speech doesn't seem slow, because the pauses aren't over exaggerated, they are merely there for her audience to process what she is saying before she continues; which means that she nearly always will have the full attention of her audience. There is the such rarity that she uses verbal pauses, but we can always expect that off anyone purely because its more about how the brain is working before we can speak. But it adds no real effect to how Rodenburg portrays herself with her voice. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub27yeXKUTY (Try and listen to this without watching, it makes focussing on the voice a lot easier.)


As a small second character, I read in for Dr Henry King's secretary. I based my voice for these few lines as secretary on Mary from Downton Abbey (Michelle Dockery) She speaks in the highest of RP, it's not completely overexaggerised  but clearly noticeable. She speaks very similarly to perhaps the likes of Rodenburg, but I've given the secretary a much younger age. Again, she speaks slowly and quite high pitched and to me her voice sounds open, very much how a secretary might sound, having to open to hearing whose on the other end of the phone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6cdVwNq70c
With the secretarys lines, I tried to put on a high voice and really, really overexaggerised the poshness of how she spoke. 'I'll just see if he's in...who should I say is calling?' Again, I put on a 'telephone' voice which is just a more heightened way of speech and really try to sound posh, almost like my intention was to sound stuck up.