Road week 5

This week was blocking the pre show of the play. This is the first part which everyone sees. Our pre-show is slightly different to the script as we wanted to develop the pre show by having all the characters.  

This is a picture of the staging of the pre-show. The pre-show gives the audience a little insight about what the play is about. The pre-show is good image to look at because there is a lot of levels and emotions going such as the difference between the Jerry who is a older and remembering the "past" where as Bisto is happy and playing some music in the pub. Also because there is so many people on stage at the same time gets the audience interested to watch the rest of the show. In the pre-show we see the Professor and Scullery do a double act about doing a video of Road which there character more others but they are character that explains the storyline of road. Making the video shows there relationship and how they are popular to other characters in the play.

We worked on the entrance and exits for each scene which was helpful for us actors but now it will flow a lot better because of the transferring from each scene. For example when I walk on for my monologue I push in between Bald and Dor to make a good transition.

 

We went from the beginning scene by scene. The scene that stood out for improvement was Louise and her brother scene. From my research I have seen that Louise's brother is horrible to Louise but I didn't feel this in the scene as there weren't having the contact they needed to make it uncomfortable to watch as a audience. To improve it I directed them to on the line "lets dance" to get closer so they are breaking there personal bubble that the characters both have and it looks awkward too because they are brother and sister. The video shows the brother breaking the personal bubble with his sister. The atmosphere is great in this now because of the eye contact which builds the tension. This scene now has lights and shades which is a brilliant scene to watch.

I saw the monologue of Skin Lad. The first time I saw this monologue I thought it lacked some confidence with the monologue wasn't sure that the facial expression were there. However the monologue is twice as more energy that what I saw last time. Now the monologue is got more eye contact with the audience which adds comedy to the monologue which is a great moment for the character as he is described by Lane Dor and Scullary as a "fucking nutter". The adjustments that I would make is to slow the monologue as you couldnt understand what Skin Lad was saying. I understand that his character is a energetic character who needs to be up and moving all the time however the pace needs work slightly. The physicality side of the monologue fits with what he is saying. For example the punching to the sides of the stage saying '1 2 3' works well as it keeps the pace up. The accent need to be worked on but Nathan did a good attempt of the accent. Compared to the first time I saw the monologue it has improved lots as he is confident with the lines gives a advantage to work more on the monologue to performance standard.

Road- Week 4

What are my ideas for costume? 

This week I started to think about costume Valerie seems to be quite red in her monologue because of the children driving her crazy so what I thought was to have her in a dressing gown.

                                             Description of Valerie's appearance page 54

The stage directions already say about Valerie's appearance. My idea is to elaborate from the dressing gown and have the dressing gown tatted to show that she is poor and doesn't have enough money. Her costume will be a old dressing gown with maybe flowers on it to show the age of the dressing gown. The dressing gown should be a fabric dressing gown with a nightie underneath.



This picture is Valerie which I thought that my costume similar. Valerie character seems to show tiredness as she is fed up with her husband. This costume shows that she is tired as a dressing is a comfy approach when you are tired and reminds people of bed and the feeling of being tired which we make the audience feel empathy towards Valerie. Also Valerie mentions in her monologue about "fat hard hands in bed at night" which indicates that she may just be used for at night. The dressing gown I thought that Valerie hair would be greasy and hasn't been washed for days because of the amount of stress she is put though on her own. At the end of the monologue she practically begs "can we not have before again" to the audience and it is a question asking to her husband because maybe her husband used to help with the kids and her got out of control and that's why he goes to the pub and "drinks it drinks it drinks it".

What feedback did I receive when performing?

Good feedback that had was:
Good accent however some words needs to be worked such as softening certain sounds.
Improvements I need to make:

My pitch was good but the audience thought that I needed more when emotional words come.This will impact the audience more as it will vary the tone of my voice.

My pace was a little boring at times because my pace was slow at times. The audience said that I shouldnt be afraid to speed the pace up and slowly the monologue down.

What did they want me to experiment in my monologue?
My group (Frankie, Brandon and Joe) suggested that I should experiment with my emotions by using the method working up through the emotions until it is to your biggest but I should start at 5 then I have a gap to go down or up in the tension of my mood. I will take this on board as I think it will help me improve my character because Valerie betrays a lot of emotion throughout her monologue.