Road- Week 6

This week we focused in individual scene to refine them ready for the show.

I focused on emotion on my monologue this week. Deborah said to come up with six points on where I need to change the pitch or emotion. She suggested one point which was the part of 'Rough dog' because that part is telling a story and changing the emotion slightly brings the characters differences. I thought about the other five point and about how it would flow into the monologue.

I chose the other 5 points:

The second point that I thought changing the perspective of the of that sentences. The words of 'What a life' is a line that makes Valerie review her life and her daily routine after that line. The line follows by 'get up feed every baby in the house'. The daily routine is tiring and is very lonely.

The couple of times I have said the line "Im fed up" sounds very depressing and not realistic. Issie said a good point about not showing the right reaction of the word. I thought if i changed to be more angry and burst in with the monologue. Bursting in with the monologue will allow the audience to be more interested.

Another point that I thought I could change was the last final words in the monologue which was 'oh my man'. Laura gave me some feedback on changing the line slightly to be more sacrastic and bring more volume to that line. The volume will bring the monologue up and build up the emotion more. I think that Valerie loves her man but she is heart broken because of what he does and her experience with her husband.

The fifth point that I thought was changing the perspective of the line 'He'll come home soon'. I thought that Valerie could be a little nervous for when he comes in because she knows what he is like when he is drunk.  I thought that to feel that I am nervous I thought bring the pace faster and look around her to see if he comes home.

In my monologue I say 'drinks it' three times. I thought to change the tone slightly on every time I say it and a reason for saying it three times. For example a memory that my character that didn't like and show that emotion in my voice and facial expression and body language.

I took part in a audition workshop with Max Lewendel who is the artistic director of Icarus Theatre collective. He said to consider the space and imagine what room I was in. When he said this I thought that I was in the washing and that would make sense considering I look static at the moment.

I had feedback to have a prop so the monologue wont look as static which could be boring.

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. 

Road week 3

What have I done this week with my character?

This week I have been focusing on my lines. This has helped me understand my character more such as

'He has me pulling out my hair'

This line makes the character more mental as she has emotion in this monologue.The line is a sign of anxiety for the character. People with anxiety can go into into intense fear. I think that my character may have GAD anxiety disorder . It stands for  Generalised Anxiety Disorder. People who had GAD have something that they do all the time. People with GAD might be struggling with themes such as financial difficulties, bad things happening in the future or worrying about health or the safety of their family.The characteristics of GAD can be taken to develop Valerie's character.the worries go away sometimes because maybe shaking the worries feelings will stop. I think rocking back and forward will make the feelings stop for a while. Doing something all the time. I think that I should try different The disorder is when you continually feel tense and apprehensive, experiencing unfocused negative and out of control feelings. She feels worried all the time and feels that someone is watching her because of the description that he will come 'in pissed drunk'. She aims all her monologue to the audience as she is lonely and tired.

At the beginning of this week I started to read my monologue aloud more because I needed to work on reading the monologue aloud so then I can practise more before rehearsal. When I read aloud I began to add pauses for when Valerie's thinks.

I performed my monologue to Frank and Penny. The feedback was positive I was nearly confident with all of my lines which helped to deliver more of my character. They said that I should work more on my posture. Think about how Valerie would sit. I thought about this more as I was running through the monologue and I thought about having my character rocking back and forwards because she feels frustrated and she is trying to pass the time but scared to because of her husband bursting drunk. This made me look more interesting. Also fidgeting is a great effect because of the nervousness of the husband that effect the mood and her past.

Another part of the the monologue that I need to work on is the northern which I will keep practising and with the help of the sheet with the phrases such as clear, idea. This sheet will help me because the slang that people say such as 'Nowt' means nothing.














I watched Franks monologue this week. The first time he performed I wasn't imagining the character he was playing because his body language didn't change. The positives about Franks monologue was that he used a few pauses in the monologues which I thought was a great start. The second time I told him to work more on the accent. He thought that has his character was a young when in fact he plays a older character because of his experience of the war. He began to have a accent when he practised the second time. Things he needs to work on is the accent and research the feelings of how it felt going through the war.

For my character I added more movement into my monologue to make it look more abstract but naturalistic too. For example my says about fat hard hands I put my hand near my face. I thought that it was a nice tough to it because of the feelings that are going through match it too.

Week 2 Road

This week was the first stages of blocking the whole play. It was great to see the play come to life after reading the whole play. I can understand more about the theme in this play. I started working on Valerie's monologue more this week. I understood more about her monologue as reading it aloud with  Kirsty. I think that Valerie is at the last stages of giving up with her husband.

I looked up the monologue on

You tube and saw some many interpretations. The first one was I thought was in a constant panic and relied on her cigarette. She sat down the whole time at the edge of her chair. I think that she was scared for when her husband returned. I liked this part of the clip because it shows her fear in her body language. Her make up looked like it had been on for days. The make up adds to the image for the audience to imagine that she is tired and sick of waiting. Overall the monologue gave me a lot of ideas to develop my character. This week I will take the idea of related her troubles to the cigarette and see if it is a success.

Another monologue I looked was great. It showed Valeries emotions throughout using rises and falls by using her voice. I liked the way she used her voice like that because it showed her emotions in the monologue. Annoyance comes in because of the volume she uses. Sadness when she refers to

 'I would cry but I don't think tears would come '.
I think that this line is a crucial line because you can see that she has been going through this a long time. At home all day and sort out the kids. This is one of my favourite lines because the audience feels for Valerie. Valerie is going through a dark emotion that the audience feel empathy towards Valerie. I liked the version of Valeries monologue a lot so I will put in the rises and falls in rehearsals and see if it works when I rehearse. 

My character first line is 

' Im fed of waiting'.

I keep question to myself about who is waiting for. However throughout the monologue Valerie explains that she waits for her husband to come home although she doesn't say his name always referred to 'he'. My natural response would be that she is is waiting for her husband.

We also looked at the northern accent and how we can relate the northern accent to our character. We started by repeated words with emphasis on certain sounds. For example clear is stressed on the 'ea' sound. I already knew a little bit about the northern accent and how it sounded because i watched the performance of 'Teechers' which was performed in a northern accent. A northern accent goes up at the end of a sentence or a word.

We started to learn about connecting the vowels with the constants. I found this a little difficult because it wasn't a proper word that we were saying but it became easier as the exercise progressed. The exercise was to put the constants with vowels. Such as Ba. The sound Ba is not a short sound like I would normally say it. The northern accent elongates the a sound. 

Road week 1

We started our second contemporary play Road by Jim Cartwright. We started this project by having a workshop of some characters. I tried the character of Brenda with Kennedy as Carol. Once I read though the scene I thought that Brenda had a poor wealth as she is asking her own daughter for money for drinks down the pub. i thought that this would be a character that would step out of my comfort zone because Brenda is a lot different to my character in 13. I have not really been motherly character before but I thought that i would have a better character that would of suited me more.

The play Road is set in the 1980s up North where at people were losing there jobs and the Falklands war was happening and where people were highly unemployed.  This video explains the war about the Falklands. I think that one of the characters was in the navy at the time.

This week we read though the whole play and discussed the themes of the play. Cartwright has written a lot about sex.  Sex is a common theme throughout the play and it is a conversation that happens most in the play. Also alcohol is a key theme because everyone on the road likes going to the pub. Alcohol occurs in scenes particularly in the pub with Barry. As we read though I thought about what character interest me. I thought the relationship between Joey and Claire because of the love they are sharing whilst they are starving themselves.

Then I read the character Valerie's monologue and thought about how I could act this character though body language and facial expressions.  I think that Valerie is emotionally lonely because her monologue expresses that she is waiting for her husband to come home. i think i will enjoy this character as it is out of my comfort zone and will be interesting to get into a character of a lonely middle aged woman. I was happy with my character because it is a character that will challenge me. From the exercise that was led in class about animal i think that my animal for Valerie's  would be a mouse because a mouse is treated like dirt by humans because of the smell but however a mouse can be treated as a pet to others. It depends how to interpret her characteristics. It think that Valerie has two sides to her that makes the audience interests. The mouse has a interesting body language the way it curls up into a ball when it is frightened but then they can become a character who reacts very quickly.

We were thinking about staging which was a interesting discussion and exciting to listen to as it is a unusual to have the staging as what our group came up with. This is my interpretation to the staging of road. I wanted to make my design simple but clever at the same time because I like the little details such as the road is filled with little spots of yellow to symbolize the mood of the road. The yellow shows that everyone has a good time in the evening such as going to Barry's pub and then the morning after there is a brown atmosphere when no one is outside on the road. Most scenes are mainly in the evening because of the reason about the morning after the evening of drinking. The house represents the professors house as I imagine the professor having a big house because of his reputation on the road and that he is called Prof makes him have a higher status. The Professor could create animal characteristics such as a lion. A lion is proud with his head looking up high because he is the highest job. The same with a lion. He thinks that he is the chief of the pack.

We had many staging ideas that were interesting. An idea that was linked to group of people was to have the audience in a promenade stage where the audience can be taken around as a tour. I thought this was great idea because it will give the audience more imagination and that they can be apart of the such as being apart of the pub scenes by sitting down on chairs and table watching the scene. the tour guide will be scullery who is the narrator throughout so this will make perfect sense and that he will make it interesting as he is drunk at the time during the play. The idea was to connect the classrooms that connect to the theatre so it takes the audience by surprise. I also liked how we can use the corridor to perform the show because the shape of the corridor is shaped a road and there are places where scenes can happen throughout.

The activity that were done to introduce to us about status had a interested because the task was on the body language of celebrity's. A few from our class had some disagreements about the body language of some people. For example this picture.

There was some debate about where to put this picture in the line from high to low. I thought that the picture was holding a defense guard by having her arms crossed. However her facial expression says the opposite because she is smiling. Some people were battling between the picture of Dani Harmer and the picture of Taylor swift. Taylor Swift had a different facial expression whcih caused some discussion because some people wanted to swap the two picture over.










Next weeks blog will be about the blocking stages and how the play is coming to together in scenes.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Week 7 Devising

This week is our last week of the devising process before the performance. This week is the week for refining our work and making our transitions quick ready for the performance.

We then showed our work to the rest of the class to have some feedback of the final product. The other two groups were brilliant. What stood out for me was that the group that has the wedding in has a easy storyline to follow but at the the ending is left of with a cliffhanger of a death. It was great to see the whole product as had only seen bits of the piece. the style of Berkoff works well with the this group as they are all in unison when they are meant to be. it makes it look more interesting especially the head going round after the sound scape. The image that I always keep in my head was the still image at the beginning which is very effective to watch. The dinner scene works well with the clockwork because of the pace that is brought up to a high level to add more tension. The only thing which I didn't like was the lift between the two boys because it can be read as a romance not anger and fighting for the love of Bobby.Something to work on with this group was to make the break up scene between Billy Joe and Bobby is add up to the energy of the performance throughout. the pace through the whole performance such as they are building to a mini climax and then it drops to a less intense feel. For example the mother's monologue was a perfect example of this as everything she says the two characters that play Bobby would make a noise or do a movement to create a climax. this links to the stimulus because at the end of the song there is a big climax at the end which is suicide which happens at the end of Billy Joe. I think that this is a clever link but a simple link because suicide can be triggered in some many different situations. They picked love was also links to the song too because Billy Joe died for love. Also I loved the reference to the song when they say

    ' Today, Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge'
I thought that this was clever as they have referenced the song at the beginning and the end.

The next group was completely different to the first group. They responded to the stimulus to secrecy and privacy which they thought of linking to the stimulus as they have a therapist and there are four patients that suffer with OCD. I liked the first bit with the staging on the diagonal because it is a effective when seeing all of the characters on stage first. They made the physical element naturalistic but so effective such as the waving of the hand to wave goodbye. I thought the characters were very characters because were using physical theatre in there characters because they were all different characters in there physical ways such as the photo being moved in a square worked well because it links to the practitioners of Berkoff as all the movement was clockwork. The same thing with the jacket spinning around and fiddling with the zip. The one thing that they may need to look at is to make the triangle bigger or stage the scene when Frank (the therapist) is having his back to the audience because the sound it projecting to the back of the stage when we want the sound at the front also Frank was blocking Matt (the patient) at the particular part. Apart from that the group piece as a whole is a up to a great standard at the moment. I cant wait to see what happens next because the storyline hasn't come through much as I think as scenes progress the audience will begin understand the plot behind it all.

My group had a great response to the performance because of the emotions of betrayal, loneliness and fear. The opening created a massive response to the audience of fear because it was sudden after a calm atmosphere. As a whole they liked the level of energy at moments like this and the kidnapping because it makes the piece exciting and suspense.The monologues were great but the feedback said that there was too much going on behind the monologues.This needed to slow it down so the audience can focus more on the monologue. The audience also picked up that my character Violet was played younger that 14 years because Violet is more innocent such as the death of the dog. Throughout the piece everyone thought that they I was a sweet character and that they liked me at the start but then they turned to like to like Frankie's characters more because of the Frankie's character being stranded at the end. The ending was needed to be more clockwork when exiting the stage to keep the style of Berkoff.

Our targets for this week is to rehearse the whole piece so many times to get used to it and make it muscle memory and to try it with the lighting. Also we should bare the feedback in mind when rehearsing.