This speech is about Alister who is a high class, stuck up, Oxford University student who, along with other students are part of the Riot Club. As the lads get more and more drunk and riled up with the fact that the prostitute wont suck them off. They wreck the entire room, enraging the landlord Chris who they then beat up and leave unconscious. Alistar's speech takes place just before they smash the place up, giving the members a piece of his mind on what he thinks about poor people.The reason why I did not choose this speech is because, although I enjoyed the story, I have two characters that are of high class already and wanted to play someone from a completely different nature. I also didn't enjoy the story or the character as a person as much as I did with Bert in first light. I also believed that Bert was a dynamic side that I have not done before and so I want to prove to myself I can act in that way and also show the panel that I can be dynamic and differentiate between a variety of characters.
Two Gentlemen of Verona - Launce
Launce is the Shakespearian fool in this play and he delivers a comical speech full of over exaggeration, tears and silliness. I did not have a comical monologue even though some of my monologues have aspects of comedy within. This appealed to me because Launce was a really funny and over the top character. The reason why I did not choose this speech however is that, I heard that drama schools like people to do speeches that are lesser known and I was told that Launce was quite a common speech for auditions. This and the fact that I liked the other speeches more than this for their stories and dialog and the language meant this one is on the side lines for another day.
Antony and Cleopatra - Antony
All is lost;
This
foul Egyptian hath betrayed me:
My fleet hath yielded to the foe; and yonder
They cast their caps up and carouse together
Like friends long lost. Triple-turn'd whore! 'tis thou
Hast sold me to this novice; and my heart
Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly;
For when I am revenged upon my charm,
I have done all. Bid them all fly; begone.
[Exit SCARUS]
O sun, thy uprise shall I see no more:
Fortune and Antony part here; even here
Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts
That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave
Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets
On blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark'd,
That overtopp'd them all. Betray'd I am:
O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,.
Whose eye beck'd forth my wars, and call'd them home;
Whose bosom was my crownet, my chief end,.
Like a right gipsy, hath, at fast and loose,
Beguiled me to the very heart of loss.
What, Eros, Eros!
Antony is the poor man who falls in love with Cleopatra in this Shakespearian tragedy and ends up being betrayed with his army's leaving him for his enemy. The speech is a soliloquy with Antony questioning why he has been betrayed with in anger and dismay and pleading to the gods. I did not choose this speech for I already had enough speeches to audition to drama school as the required number is 3 and I now have 6 so this definitely in the library for a back up speech if I need one for a later date.
First Light - Bert
Bert is from Salford in Manchester. He is young soldier fighting in world war 1 in the battle of the Somme, France, famous for being 'one of the most savage assaults in the history of human warfare' - Mark Hayhurst. The story is about Bert and his best friend Alfie going to fight in the war, their journey of desertion and the effect it has on them and their family. Bert's monologue takes place in a British army prison cell. He has been imprisoned by the British for deserting his battalion on the front lines, trying to escape to America on a cruise ship where Alfie and himself are caught. He has just been trialled in court and sentenced to death by firing range. He is talking to his close friend Conker who he fought along side in the trenches. Conker is in tears so Bert, trying not too cry himself, decides to reminisce about home. Why Enlist, Bert? - Link - http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/shot_at_dawn_01.shtml
When enlisting to join the army, men knew that they were signing a contract to fight for their country, it's King and it's people. They were expected, without question, to face any mortal danger that came like men, honourably and courageously with out hesitation. The ultimate sacrifice. 'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing' - Edmund Berk. By understanding that this was the mind set of my character before going to war I learned that by being young and naïve made it easy for the government to advertise war as an appealing way of gaining honour as a man, not forgetting that during this time, there was still this stereotypically masculine agenda that men had to be warriors and courageous fighters and protects as if they were still in the medieval ages.
I believe that it was an easy and obvious thing for Bert to join the army at his age when it has been so positively advertised by his own country. Knowing this was the start of my research into this monologue and figuring out how each emotion that Bert is feeling in the speech has been forged by his journey from enlisting to knowing he has been sentenced to death. This was the task I set myself before I started rehearsing to make sure I could portray Bert in the most truthful and realistic way possible.
Examples of WW1 Propaganda Themes
Friendship, Respect, Courage in light of Cowardice, Sacrifice, Family
Contrary to the pictures above that I thought would have been the real reason that Bert deserted the army, the main reason and theme of this play is that Bert and Alfie are so close, that when Alfie propositions Bert into leaving, Bert feels inclined to go with him. It's the sort of friendship where to people can't do something without the other one being present down to the fact they have so much love for that person they might as well be brothers.
Bert We cant do it.... Alfie Course you do. They love you.. And I love you too, and that's why you should come with me. Bert Where would we head?
This scene shows this as it tells of how Alfie is set on leaving. He has planned it all out pretty thoroughly and with lots of imagination. Bert tries to tell Alfie that people will notice their desertion and will report them missing and tries to convince Alfie that they should stay. But eventually, understanding that Alfie is hell bent on leaving, he decides to go with him. It shows Bert is a loyal friend and values other peoples goals more than his own. It shows he is rational and optimistic and trustworthy. Knowing this is important as during the speech Bert says how his dad is like his role model and that he is proud of his him for being a caring father that doesn't turn to violence like the other men in the neighbourhood;
'He was a giant in my eyes'
This shows Bert's respect for his father.
'One night he were taking a thrashing from his dad'
Bert is describing how their neighbour beats his child; Robert and how his dad never once hit him and actually took Robert in to protect him from being hurt again;
'He got up out of his seat and the door went, we knew where he were going. Anyway the sound stopped. Such silence like when the guns stop here ya know. And in a minute he comes back with Robert and mum takes him in that night and protects him...'
Knowing that Bert has the up most respect for his dad and finding out that Bert is staying loyal to Alfie even though it goes against what Bert wants to do, knowing that his life is at risk. I think that Bert is a really good, respectful human being and I think that he does everything knowing that his father would be proud of him. What hit me hard about this speech and is why I decided to chose this is because of how Bert admires his father, he realises, at the end of the speech, that he thinks he has let his father down;
'I think he should know what has happened to me'
and how he feels disappointed, failed and un-deserving of his fathers respect leading him to feel empty and lost inside and yet never ever giving up his loyalty to his friend.
'I am with you Alfie... forever'
To conclude the themes I found in the amongst the speech, there's an infinitely strong friendship between Bert and Alfie which never broke during the harshness of war or nor the tearing loneliness of death. Bert's upmost respect of his father and how he feels like his actions have disappointed him. How Bert has sacrificed his position in the army and the way his father will look at him all in the name of friendship. And last but not least, what would seem like cowardice to the inexperienced that can be seen as courageous respect for Bert to follow Alfie to first light. Putting this Knowledge to Use
The first thing I did was stand in the front centre of the stage, focusing on a point in the back of the room, keeping my feet still, hand movement to a minimum and made my facial expressions show emptiness by barely doing anything. I read the speech like this to see where that level of expression worked the best and found that it suited the last line;
'I think he should know what has happened to me'
I found myself feeling lost and lonely and felt the need to hold in a tear which I think Bert would do.I started saying the first line;
'He never hit us, Dad'
in a remising way and was telling the story as if I had already planned out what I was going to say. After doing it this way it didn't feel right and I was redirected by a teacher to try again and instead of having Bert tell a story that is already planned out, make it seem like Bert was thinking about his dad, then he remembered that his dad never hit him, then he remembered a lad across the back called Robert who's dad hit him and then he remembered that his dad did this and that... I tried the speech using that thought process and I found my body started to encompass subtle hand gestures every so often that showed a new thought, my face would lighten up with every new thought;
'Must of been a Sunday I suppose, so there were no smoke in the sky to spoil it.(New thought where the energy would increase slightly) / The bloke had sobered up and he was no longer angry...'
By making me think about my character's thought process in a different way I have been able to show how Bert is reminiscing and how thinking back to the past is making him remember a proud event that happened allowing him to momentarily forget about being shot at dawn.
I thought that my monologue was ready but then realised it was very similar to my other two. I decided to change the staging so that it contrasts which is what the drama schools require. To do this I sat on a chair back a bit from the front of the stage and pictured Conker to my diagonal left. I looked at Conker and spoke my dialog facing him looking out to the sky when hitting a positive thought and looking down at the floor when hitting a negative thought like;
'Through what? not pity, shame I suppose'
where Bert's saying how he didn't do anything to help Robert next door, they just acknowledged it happened. I think these actions really attributed to the truth of the speech and helped direct the language with visuals that will hopefully be interesting for the panel. I also found it natural to say the line;
'He was filling the doorway my dad, but it were like his spirit were filling the whole street, the whole universe aha'
out to the audience giving it the appearance of Bert talking out to the sky. I think that this action helps amplify the dialog and make the meaning behind it more powerful.
To conclude, I went to see this play in the Minerva theatre in Chichester as it premiered and had instant rapport with me. It was really powerful and dramatic which is a side of my acting ability I wanted to test and to be able to prove I can do to in my audition. I think that this is a speech that the audience will enjoy and hopefully remember me for.
Friday, 9 December 2016
Angelo - Measure for Measure
Angelo is deputy to the Duke of Vienna who has mysteriously disappeared leaving Angelo in charge of the town. Angelo has noticed an uprising of sexual activity in Vienna lately such as prostitution and whore houses. To stop this from happening Angelo resurrected an old law stating that any type of fornication is against the law and punishable by death. Claudio is a man who has been sentenced to death under the new law who's highly religious sister, Isabella, has tried to negotiate with Angelo to get him to free her brother. Instead, Angelo propositions her, and states that he will set him free if she sleeps with him. She refuses and before Angelo can act, the Duke, who has been hiding as a prier and watching over Angelo to test his loyalty, comes out of hiding to set everything straight.
Speech
What's this? what's
this? is this her fault or mine?
The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most?
Ha! Not she, nor doth she tempt; but it is I
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness? Having wasteground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary
And pitch our evils there? O fie, fie, fie!
What dost thou? or what are thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live:
Thieves for their robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,
And feast upon her eyes? what is't I dream on?
O cunning enemy that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook: most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue. Never could the strumpet
With all her double vigor, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. Ever till now,
When men were fond, I smiled and wondered how.
Themes and Rehearsal Process In this monologue, Angelo is confronting his confusion with this situation he has found himself in, being that he has fallen for Isabella and has the desire for lust for the first time, something Angelo has previously disagreed with enough to make it illegal and punishable by death. I know this because Angelo is constantly asking questions in the soliloquy and lots of answered questions can mean the lack of knowledge and experience in that specific subject and therefore leading to confusion. 'What's this, what's this?... What dost thou, what art thou Angelo... What is't I dream on?' By understanding that Angelo is feeling confusion, I had to figure out how I was going to portray this in my performance. I started with the first line; 'What's this, What's this...' This line is the opening of my monologue and therefore has to be instantly engaging and truthful to capture the attention of the audition panel. Firstly, I asked the question out too the audience in the way I would naturally ask a question to someone. This gave me a basis that I could build on. I then thought of Angelo as being panicky and nervous as I know this can be a good way of showing the confusion of a person. I added heavy breathing and a shakiness to Angelo as I stood and used my hands a lot to rustle through my hair and cover my mouth. By acting in this way, I nor my teachers felt this was a truthful portrayal of Angelo at all and decided to scrap the nervous confusion idea and made me think in a very different direction. I researched more carefully into Angelo's personality and the things he has done like sentencing a man too death for a crime he may not have committed. I decided to see Angelo as devious, well thought out and took away any guilt or conscience I portrayed him to have in my first rehearsal. I stood in the centre front of the stage and spoke calm and rationally, pausing and taking my time to ask the questions. This felt a lot more real and I believe that I was feeling confused as to why I'm feeling like this but yet being calm and collected to show how Angelo is someone with a lot of power and responsibility and control. To further enhance my performance I focused on movement. I noticed that my feet have lots of nervous energy and my hands touch my face a lot. As an exercise to get rid of this nervous energy I put my hands behind my back and kept my feet in place and focused on using the language to tell the story. What I felt this do was give me so much more control of my diction, pronunciation and the language devices Shakespeare has used in his writing like metaphor and imagery; 'O cunning enemy, to catch a saint with saints doth bait thy hook...' To add another layer to my performance, My teachers taught me how to picture myself in the room the character is in during the soliloquy and interact with objects in the room. I decided Angelo is in the privacy of his private quarters where he is free to express himself without judgement and let loose. I pictured a door behind him, a window to the left of him and a wall to the right and the audience in front who could represent a mirror. I experimented by walking to the window and saying a line, then looking back to where the audience would be, and then face the wall and then turn and look at the door. By saying; 'What do I love her that I desire to hear her speak again and feast upon her eyes?'
to the window, showed Angelo was dreaming and feeling desire and love for Isabella. By saying;
'O fie fie fie, what dost thou, what art thou...'
to the imaginary wall shows how he is having conflict in his mind between trying to stay close minded and disagree with sexual desires or accepting his new emotions of his feelings for this girl and how this has made him angry.
During my rehearsal period of this audition speech, I have been taught, experimented and implemented different techniques and devices that have helped me characterise Angelo, filter out the things that were damaging my performance and hopefully made my interpretation of this Shakespearian speech one that the audition panel will like giving me the highest chances of a successful audition.
Why I have Chosen this Monologue
I have chosen this speech because it caught my eye when reading the play, Measure for Measure. It caught my eye as Angelo is a high class character who has a lot of power and wealth and responsibility and has chosen to use it in a controversial manor. He can be looked at as a man who is quite evil and wants an easy excuse to kill people in order to achieve a clean, sex free town. Or, he can be seen as a man who has not experienced the feeling of lust yet and therefore disagrees with it and is punishing a man who has broken the law as it is his job to do so.
In my opinion, Angelo, although being a high class character too, contrasts really well with Edgar as Edgar is someone who is from a high class background who has renounced his own name, becoming a crazy beggar in order to survive loosing everything he once was. I am playing Edgar as in shock, fearing the worst, scared and thinking of an escape plan, where as Angelo is calm, collective and wanting to understand about his scenario by asking questions and trying to figure out how he can get this girl he likes as evidenced above.
This piece will be used as my back up piece when auditioning for drama schools which are as followed;
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Central School of Speech and Drama
Guilford School of Acting
London academy of Music and Dramatic Art
East 15
Drama Centre London
Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Bristol Old Vic
Rose Bruford
These schools all require me to perform 1 classical and 1 contemporary and ask for one classical piece to be called upon if necessary. I have chosen Angelo's monologue as my backup monologue as I have performed the character type before and Edgar is a completely new type of character that I have never had the experience of playing which has given me the challenge of learning something new, and been a great learning curb during the rehearsal period. I really believe that both classical monologues are rehearsed to the best possible standard for my level of experience as I have used all of the devices and techniques taught onto me to analyse, research, characterise and understand the text hopefully making my performance of Angelo's monologue; if called upon too do so, one that hits the criteria of the panel.
Edgar is the legitimate son and heir of the Duke of Gloucester. He has a half brother/bastard called Edmund who wishes to claim his father's position as Duke to gain power and wealth. Edmund is a bastard and therefore; unlike Edgar, is not a rightful heir. In order to obtain what he wants, he writes a letter in Edgar's name stating that Edgar is planning to murder his father to steal his position and then shows this letter to Gloucester. Gloucester responds with utter surprise and confusion, feeling betrayed by his son who he loved and trusted and sends mercenaries to hunt and capture him, bringing him back to the castle where he will face his punishment; death, for his treason. Edmund then lies to Edgar saying how he is being hunted by the Duke causing Edgar to flee into the woods where the monologue takes place.
Fear
Edgar is on the run. If he gets caught he will die. He's scared and worried about these consequences.
'I heard myself proclaimed... No port is free...'
This line shows his fear as he has heard men shouting his name and he cannot escape Gloucester because there are mercenaries everywhere looking for him. He is stuck in the woods with know where to go. With this information, I decided to experiment with different energy states to find the right energy to accurately portray Edgar's fear. I started of walking around a room at normal pace and then pictured someone walking behind me in the dark but at a reasonable distance that would make me uneasy but not scared for my life yet, walking slightly faster and checking behind my shoulder. I than sped my pace until I was running around the room and pictured myself in a paranoiac scenario which was set in a dark woods where I envisioned voices coming from every direction closing in on me. This really helped increase my heart rate and I felt myself breathing heavily constantly checking my shoulders and rapidly moving my eyes around. I thought this was very powerful energy and slightly to in realistic for my Edgar so I toned it down from a 10/10 to around 8/10. With this emotional energy I had just created, came the ability to remember it and use it during my monologue. In my opinion, I believe doing this exercise helped me instantly remember the energy I need to be in during the first section of the monologue quoted above which will hopefully make my performance much more believable and one that will make my audition hit the right criteria.
Survival
As a human, when being hunted, fear is instinctual. Fear is a chemical that exists to spark the survival instinct in our minds. Edgar is experiencing this in this speech. He is in fear which is now triggering these ideas he is having of how he will escape the hunt and stay alive.
'Whiles I may 'scape, I will preserve myself, and am bethought to take the basest and most poorest shape that ever penury in contempt of man brought near to beast. My face ill grime with filth...'
He is coming up, on the spot, with a plan. As he thinks in the moment, these ideas come to him and he eventually, at the end of the speech, successfully devises this plan of how he will survive;
'That's something yet, Edgar I nothing am'
So, to find this instinctual emotion, I used the exercise used to find fear, and pictured; in this dark wooded scenario of being in danger, salvation in the distance. A way out, a road with traffic, people and light but the only way of getting over to this salvation was to overcome my personal fear of spiders. A dark forest where I can hear voices and the only way out is past some giant river of creepy arachnids. What I experienced next was my first instinctual reaction to surviving, my first idea was to become invisible to the spiders and simply walk among them to escape. In reality this is a very far fetched idea that is only possible in the minds of our imaginations and may seem very naïve. But what I learned from this interesting exploitation of the human mind, was that invisibility is exactly what Edgar is trying to achieve but in a real way. He is becoming invisible by changing his smell, appearance, voice and personality and becoming someone else, a 'poor Tom' which is a homeless beggar. He is hiding in plain view. I believe by understanding that he is coming with a plan on the spot, by understanding the energy and emotions Edgar is experiencing through a simple exercise that exploits my own mind, I have learned how to naturally and convincingly portray someone who is in a survival situation and therefore my audition will hopefully hit all of the right criteria.
My Exterior Vision
Edgar is from a high class and privileged household as he is the son of the Duke of Gloucester appointed by King Lear himself, a position that makes the Duke on of the most powerful men in the country. I have chosen Edgar to be 19 as there is no information that directly tells me his age but he is very naïve being easily manipulated by his brothers evil plan and later on in the play I found that he and his father meet under the disguise of 'poor Tom' under accidental circumstances and yet he does not tell his father that it is him. I have pictured Edgar to be wearing pretty much nothing at all during this scene as I think, during his escape from home, not had time to get changed into any thing. As the speech progresses, I picture him slowly becoming Poor Tom by rubbing dirt on his body, messing his well groomed hair up into knots and cutting his arms with things he has found on the forest floor;
'And with presented nakedness outface the winds and persecutions of the sky. The country gives me proof and president of Bedlam beggars, with roaring voices strike in their numb and mortified bare arms, pins, wooden prick, nails, sprigs of rosemary...'
With this research of how I think he looks I decided to use some actions against some dialog. For the line evidenced above, to symbolise Edgar thinking about cutting his arms up to look like a crazy man, I would gently lead the audience to look at my left arm by moving my right hand over my forearm. Also, at the start of the line I decided to lift my head and arms and body up to the 'sky' so that the audience can understand that Edgar is thinking of how he will survive facing everything that God throws at him. This is evidence that I have used hand movements and types of actions and gestures alongside certain lines to enhance the importance of the story the language is telling.
Before my research into classical speeches started, I was delving into every drama school website I planned to audition too to cream as much information possible. To sum my findings up, I need to have prepared two classical speeches from the Jacobean/ Elizabethan era and on contemporary piece after dates which varied from school to school. For one of my classical pieces I chose this speech. Now it didn't come to me in a dream, actually from Central School of Acting's website which contains a large list of male classical monologues that the school would like candidates to use. I found that Edgar's speech was amongst one of the most interesting speeches on the list, and one of which had a pace that I have never acted to before which I thought would be a good way to show my adaptability as an actor.
The speech is a high energy and fast pace speech which I am physically able to do with the help from acting exercises such as stretching and relaxing my bodies tensions. This monologue also challenges my vocal ability in a positive way as I have discovered new things like the stage whisper which appears to the audience as a whisper even though I still have to project loudly out.
To conclude, I believe that with my research into the play and the character, exploring context, characterisation and experimenting and developing everything in rehearsals has added truth and believability to my performance hopefully making it memorable and criteria hitting giving me the highest possible chance of being selected out of the vast amount of candidates. With virtuous practice and direction I do believe I am ready to use this monologue as my audition piece.
Tuesday, 6 December 2016
A Midsummer Nights Dream - Actors Blog
My personal discovery of Shakespeare's language, my theory behind it's meaning and how I have decided to imaginatively and creatively interpret, respond and develop it in rehearsals
Shakespeare has used many linguistic devices in this play. Some of these include prose, blank verse and imagery, iambic pentameter, rhyme and metaphors and similes. During the rehearsal process I had to fish out all of these devices used so I could understand the descriptive power of the lines, what they mean, how they should be presented to the audience, where I should take my breathes, add my movements and characterise in order to illuminate my performance on stage. Bellow I shall analyse such diverse linguisticisms.
Prose is ordinary dialog in the play that does not consist of a regular pattern nor have any sort of rhythm. For example;
'What is Pyramus? Is he a kindly man? Oh hello there, such kindness coming from me, kindness coming from above...'
The fact that this line is Prose means that I did not have to follow a pattern when speaking it. Therefore I had freedom of choice in the pace and energy of my speech. In rehearsals, I chose to experiment with confusion having Bottom not know what the line means nor who Pyramus was. This felt unnatural so I played the line eager and with lots of excitement with Bottom not knowing who Pyramus is but with utter ignorance of Peter Quince's direction, diving head first into his own characterisation. In my opinion, Prose gave me the positive ability of imaginative experimentation with certain lines like the one exampled. I think that Shakespeare has done this to make the actor work and search within myself and the character to choose the perfect delivery of the line without the help from rhythm's and rhymes and therefore illuminating my performance.
Blank Verse and Iambic Pentameter - Link - http://www.theatrehistory.com/british/midsummer006.html
Blank verse is verse without rhyme yet differs from Prose by containing a fascinating poetical charm, iambic pentameter. This marvellous dignitary follows these rules;
Each line contains 10 syllables with certain irregularities including the addition of extra syllables
Consists of 5 iambs which are equal to the metric 'foot' measurement and contain two syllables
A stressed syllable is always followed by an unstressed syllable - da DUM da DUM
An example of this in the play is here;
'if I were fair Thisby, I were only thine'
Bottom has not been given much blank verse in the play. He speaks in blank verse when he is playing the part of Pyramus in their play they're putting on for the Duke and Queen. I believe Shakespeare has done this to make it clear to the audience that the character Bottom is performing a another character; a play within a play. I found the way Bottom's dialog changes when he is acting out his part to be more poetical and un-Bottomly and therefore I took from this, the fact that Bottom is not smart enough to speak in such a well thought out way allowing me to imaginatively and creatively experiment with Bottom's level of stupidity and how it balances with his arrogance to create over confidence and the blundering acting he does in my rehearsal process hopefully making my performance illuminating and engaging for the audience.
Imagery
Imagery is the figurative or visual description of any given subject being objects or scenario's. When analysing the play during the rehearsal period. It has been used allow the audience to see what is being described in their minds as if it were unfolding in front of their eyes and has a powerful effect on how the audience reacts to the atmosphere of the setting, the characters, objects and subject matter in the play. For example;
'Most radient of Pyramus, most lily-white of hue, of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier...'
This line that fellow Thespian Jack Colin's had to yak shows this imagery Shakespeare used in this play. I believe Shakespeare has used imagery for this scene particularly to add comedy. I think this because the line before that is of Pyramus saying how Thisby's perfume smells nice. They are meant to be in love and Pyramus is whooing Thisby with his charmful comments and Thisby is reacting rather flattered returning the favour. What makes this scene hilarious is other than the Bottom physically turning into a Donkey is that he messes up the line which comes out as;
'Thisby, your perfume, you smell of sweets... Thisby, your perfume... Onions!'
My point is that Shakespeare has used the once emotionally investing imagery that showed the audience a charming man trying to flatter his lady, turned it completely on it's head and made it seem like Pyramus is saying Thisby smells of onions when in reality it's Bottom messing up and Flute actually smelling of onions which is obvious humour meant for the audience. Knowing this, I understood that I had to portray this scene in a comedic way creatively and imaginatively experimenting with slapstick comedy by dropping to the floor when Bottom takes a drag of Flutes onion body odour, testing out giving Pyramus a brummy accent and assigning some purposely forced facial expressions such as over excessive winking, squinting, awkward smiling. After trying and comparing different ways of performing Pyramus and interacting with Thisby, I decided to have him pull these funny facial expressions and gave him a slightly tyrant like accent which Bottom is quoted to having desired;
'My chief humour is for a tyrant'
I believe that by using Shakespeare's imagery and playing around with different ways of characterising in the complete opposite way of what the imagery used to describe Pyramus and Thisby is, and understanding the comedy that Shakespeare is wanting the actor to uncover will give my Bottom and Flute's relationship on stage a hilarious edge and therefore making my performance illuminating.
My Shakespeare
I was given the character of Shakespeare. This character was not conceived by the man who shares the same name, but instead, is a modern device used to enhance and adapt the play from a classical piece to a children's theatre piece without loosing the 'magic' of what a Midsummer Nights Dream is all about.
Shakespeare is an up beat, highly energetic positive narrative character who's role is to follow the story along and simply narrate and explain what is happening in the classical scenes to the children to help them understand and learn about Shakespearian language and to keep them engaged in the story. Without this character, the children may not learn anything about the basic meanings behind lines such as;
'You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart'
They may not understand that that means that Helena is in love with Demetrius and wants Hermia to tell her what makes Demetrius like her so much so she can be loved by him herself.
'Helena wears her heart on her sleeve, you see she wants to marry Demetrius'
With this knowledge of the character Shakespeare I decided he must be easy to understand, have clear movements that direct the young audiences eyes to what he is explaining and he must be engaging, friendly and smiley so he is liked by the audience, gaining their trust and therefore; unknowing to the children, start the subtle education of Shakespeare's language in the most exiting way possible, a play. To make sure I hit this criteria I had to imaginatively and creatively experiment during rehearsals with my voice, movement and expressions. With the staging we decided to position Shakespeare centre back stage sitting on a block where he will stay for the whole performance near enough. This ensures he is in a good position to be seen at all times and will be above, looking down slightly at the play as it unfolds allowing for directive narration. With his voice, I did some research on children's TV shows and realised that everyone speaks in a really over exaggerated 'cheesy' way but very friendly and welcoming to any kid in the audience and therefore I chose to go with this voice. Learning about over exaggeration, I practiced using my hands and arms more when I spoke my lines which at first, to get it to feel natural was hard, but over time it became easier and more necessary to do to the point of which it felt like it was working really well in amplifying every sentence and should hopefully make me more engaging whilst narrating the plot. A very difficult part of the character Shakespeare was learning the songs and keeping everything I have learned about exaggeration of voice and gestures. An example of this is the opening song;
'Hello there I'm William Shakespeare, I'm very very busy, I'm writing a play here'
I thought was a hard song to learn as I came across the challenge of balancing timing with projection and acting. I think this was because I have never done anything like that before. To get used to the timing of the songs, I listened to them at home on YouTube and sang along to the backing track we were supplied with. Then, once I got more confident with the timings I started to mark on my script movements and actions next to each section of dialog and practiced listening to the song, singing and acting until it felt more natural. As I grew more confident I then started to focus on my projection. From having singing lessons I know that to project well I need to breath into my diaphragm, expending my stomach and lower back whilst keeping my shoulders still and take strong deep breathes then singing my lines allowing more air to pass through my vocal chords with lots of control, directed out to the front of the stage. After practicing some vocal warm ups like lip rolls and pumpkin and raisin face where you open your mouth and jaw wide and stretch, then pinch your mouth shut to increase flexibility of the mouth, and using everything I have learned during our class rehearsals I eventually overcame the difficulty I had before and by the last rehearsal periods, I found myself acting much more confidently alongside song and therefore learning a completely new skill, a very stressful experience but an opportunity that I am very thankful for.
Shakespeare also interacts with Sparks and Gaffer which are meant to be the technical crew and yet are totally in experienced and have no idea about any thing much really. They are a slapstick comedy element added in by the modern adaptors. Shakespeare has these funny and exciting confrontations with this pair when they constantly stumble on the word Athenian and there daft antics during the scene change song where Sparks accidently hits Shakespeare with the mop that most definitely is not on the bloody list!
'What, no no mop! OW! Right come on, off quickly.'
When looking at this line I understood that I had to experiment creatively and imaginatively with this comedic relationship between the trio of children entertainers. To achieve this, Katrina, Jack Ashley and I created some actions that would happen as the play progressed. We tried things like me looking disappointed in them, Katrina blowing a party blower, Jack and Katrina falling asleep on me, them being totally over excited, myself eating popcorn, looking impressed when they got something correct and all three of us laughing when something funny happens in the play to encourage the audience members to laugh along with us. We chose to do all of these actions throughout the play as we decided they really the character building between the three of them, found that adding some funny facial expressions between us and mannerisms like eating popcorn and looking intrigued and interested in what the Athenian characters are saying filed in a once empty and dull space with lots of well timed, naturally comedic elements which should stop the three of us from seeming out of place or un interesting preventing the purpose of Shakespeare's story telling presence of engaging and educating the young audience.
To conclude my personal discovery of Shakespeare's language, my theory behind it's meaning and how I have decided to imaginatively and creatively interpret, respond and develop it in rehearsals, I have found there to be many powerful devices that Shakespeare has used in A Midsummer Nights Dream that by learning the meaning behind why he has used them has allowed me to experiment vastly with concepts created in rehearsals and choose my character decisions that will enhance and illuminate my performance.
Thursday, 1 December 2016
Character Study; Bottom
Bottom is part of the Rude Mechanicals is A Midsummer Nights Dream. The Rude Mechanicals are skilled workers from Athens who want to put on a play for Duke Theseus of Athens and Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons. There are six members of this group:
Peter Quince the Carpenter- The leader of the group who has chosen the play and assigns the roles to the other Mechanicals. Quince has taken the role of the director.
Snug the Joiner
Nick Bottom the Weaver
Francis Flute the Bellows Mender
Robin Starveling the Tailor
Tom Snout the Tinker
My Exterior Vision
He wears a white shirt with a fancy but well worn and torn, long red coat and short trousers. Maybe something he made to make himself look like royalty but he still had to work in them as at the end of the day he was a weaver, a working class man.?
Well groomed hair to make him look a handsome, attractive man whilst he has a hairy body and dirty and course hands. A mirage of his ego?
Bottom holds his self esteem very highly and never looks down an opportunity to perform, always believing his acting is superb and above all of the other Rude Mechanicals. Little to his knowledge, his ego betrays him as the other Mechanicals and the audience are instantly shown that this is not the case. The case being that Bottom is actually rather stupid and not very good at all.
'What is Pyramus? Is he a kindly man? Oh hello there, such kindness coming from me...'
I retrieved this evidence from the script from this line here. It's the perfect example of Bottom taking on the role with utter confidence of his abilities and instantly delving into his many interpretations of the character Pyramus whilst not having received any back story of the character what so ever. My opinion of this quote is that from the evidence that Bottom divulges when he dives into the instant characterisation of Pyramus without even reading the part shows he has no idea of what is actually required by the actor during the rehearsal period of a play therefore showing me that he lacks any theatrical education but also by him participating in something new that he has never done before, it tells me that his confidence is nothing but an eager excitement to start.
Bottom and Peter Quince share a very interesting relationship with each other I have found. Peter Quince is the; yet new and in experienced, director of their play and therefore is in charge of the group. Bottom is an over confident fool who is eager to do everything; including directing. The relationship arises from the first scene of the Mechanicals with Bottom's first line;
'You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the script'
This shows Bottom is trying to be the director and take over every aspect of the play; a one man band as you will, as his excitement and ego prevent him from restraining from trying all of these new, fun experiences he is finding the theatre to present. Peter Quince is much more subdued and has a much lower self esteem than Bottom and ends up in a scenario where they are trying to be in control but lack any power or presence which leads them to having an awkward and nervous air about them. For example;
'If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, but with good will'
With misplaced punctuation and muddled sentence structure that doesn't really make any sense, I decided to use this muddled mess and make Bottom react to anything that Peter Quince says in an endearing and patronising manor. The relationship here being that during rehearsals I realised that Quince reacts to Bottom in a slightly frustrated and annoyed way as too show them being over shadowed by Bottoms energy and ownership of the directing role due to his confidence.
To conclude the end of my Bottom study, I found Bottom to be an overly excited donkey that wants to do everything and be everywhere and have the most attention whilst at the end of the day, is a simple and un-sophisticated creature. I think Bottom has a ton of energy, confidence and presence who has little to no idea what he is doing when it comes to acting in a theatre. He is totally oblivious to how ridiculous he looks and sounds when he performs his ideas of what his characters might be and overrides the stage with his arrogant presence obscuring the other mechanicals. I think he is a large comedic element of the play and there are times where he is trying to be funny but there are also times, un-aware to him, where the audience are laughing at him and not with him making him a bit of a fool character within A Midsummer Nights Dream.
Friday, 30 September 2016
Researching classical plays - Shakespeare's; Midsummer Night Dream
Brief History Link to Globe History - http://www.shakespearesglobe.com
The Globe theatre exists today to serve as a popular, historical and traditional home to the performances of Shakespeare's literature. This all came about during the start of the Elizabethan Era where English actors and playwrights would form companies and perform in inns, yards, college halls and the private houses of the wealthy upper class.
In 1576 an actor and manager called James Burbage built the first purpose built theatre (playhouse) in Shoreditch, Shakespeare and other actors grouped together to form the company; the Chamberlains, later known as the Kings Men which went on to create perform for 20 years. After James Burbage passed, the lease for the theatre was under heavy dispute. As a drastic action, the theatre company rented out some land across the other side of the river, knocked down the old theatre and used the materials to build the Globe. In order for the costs to be covered, shares were sold off to some members of the company such as William Shakespeare. For 14 years, Shakespeare used this company to perform many of his works. In 1613, whilst performing the play Henry vii, a stage cannon set alight to the thatched roof burning down the theatre. A replacement theatre was built with a tilled roof but was closed down and demolished during Oliver Cromwell's puritan reign of which theatre was banned.
An American actor and director called Sam Wanamaker spent many years fundraising, founding the Shakespeare Globe Trust dedicated to rebuilding a new Globe theatre as close to the original as possible. This Globe theatre is used today by the Globe Theatre Company who perform many of Shakespeare's plays. Old and the New Construction
The original Globe was made from Oak timbers which were strong and easily craft-able yet much cheaper than building from stone. The walls were made of lime plaster and coated in lime wash becoming white. The modern Globe was built with the same materials to be as original as possible which includes using wooden pegs to keep everything together and the techniques used by the carpenters. The only modern aspects to todays Globe are the machines used to construct everything on site and the health and safety requirements such as fire alarms, fire escapes and fire proofing.
Seating and Standing
The globe theatre's consists of three levels. Level one houses the yard, a large area right in front and to the sides of the stage where people stand and the lower gallery. Level two consists of the middle gallery and gentlemen's rooms and level three has the upper gallery. There are also the balconies which the original theatre would have used but are now used for actors or musicians. The seats are all benches with the gentlemen's rooms being more comfortable.
- video of a news report during the building of the globe - link - https://youtu.be/N_QjrZN5vrM
'A Midsummer Night's Dream' - Link to information - https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeares-life-and-times/performing-shakespeare-in-the-17th-century
A Midsummer Night's Dream would have first came about by William Shakespeare discussing the idea for the plot to the theatre company. Then the leaders of the company would decide if they liked it and offer a down payment so Shakespeare can complete it. This allowed the playwrights to write the play and create characters with actors in mind which meant if Shakespeare has a character with a long monologue he could chose an actor best suited to remembering the lines or if there is a particular accent he wanted his character to have, he new which actor would be able to do it best. An example of this character-actor basing is when Shakespeare chose the leading man of the company, Richard Burbage to play Richard the iii as he had the best memory. This differs to today's form of playwriting and casting because there is a playwright that writes a full script with characters that are created without the actors in mind. Once the play is finished, the playwright has to advertise their play and find people willing to invest in the production and a location of production. Once these foundations are laid, people with the right skills accordingly have to be hired such as directors, technicians and managers through casting websites and connections. Then the company needs to open auditions top find actors for the play. Where Shakespeare and other Elizabethan playwrights would base their characters on the abilities around a particular actor in their company, a casting director is hired for the specific purpose of choosing the best actors (in their opinion) for the role. Then the actors are handed a full copy of the play where they are expected to read it all and fully understand the plot and their characters. This is very different to a Shakespearian actor as they would only be handed a script with their lines to prevent copyrighting the playwrights play and taking it for themselves and selling it off. The Shakespearian actors; to characterise, would have to formulate an idea from their lines but also take direction from Shakespeare himself. They would not know any of the other characters in the play yet nor how to react to them until rehearsals where they could experiment with movement and expressions and reactions of other actors on stage.
I believe that the process of finding the actor to play the character was a lot simpler and easier back in Shakespeare's time because the playwright already knew which actors were playing which character whereas todays process is much more complex for the playwright as they must go through a long, challenging process of auditions to find the right actor to play their character. I think that the process's are so different as nowadays there are so many actors trained in many different ways, that are adaptable, experienced and dedicated to their industry that means the playwright just cannot limit themselves to the people they know if they want perfection when it comes to the actor suiting the character.
Evidence for this point is that their were an estimated 4,000,000 people populated England in the 1600's - http://www.localhistories.org/population.html, whereas now the total UK population is estimated at 65,000,000 people - http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/uk-population/. I believe this extremely large population difference between then and now, with the added factor of international actors performing in the UK, shows how the process has become much harder and why play writing and casting has changed so much from Shakespeare's era.
The performing of this play originally would have been very different to todays version that we went to see. Firstly, the actors of that era would have been lower class men that were looked down upon in society for being common and rough. They would have been very skilled in acting and some being trained to only master certain character types. Also, there were no women actors so men were specifically trained to mastery of performing as a female, usually the young men who would sometimes be injected with feminine hormones so they could keep their high voices. This differs from today as being an actor is seen as a dream job and actors can have a very high standing in society with people becoming famous celebrities in the eyes of the media. This would not have happened in Shakespeare's era and if actors were to open about their career they would be shunned. Something actors would never do after a performance is walk around in costume or as character as this would have been an absurd by the public which contrasts with today as we find it entertaining when our favourite actors are in character maybe on the Graham Norton show for example. Another contrasting factor is that women are now in the industry. Some of the best actors in the world are women which shows how equal rights back in the 1600's was not at all as prominent as it should have been.
The music was a prominent factor in the modern interpretation of the 'Dream'. Shakespeare did use certain woodwind and string instruments and also had lots of singing and dancing in the play which I believe would make the audience receive the play better, say if some of the audience did not understand the language or like the characters, then Shakespeare knew that having music, dancing and singing would be a way to make the audience understand easier but also for the audience to join in and have fun. This was very similar to the one we watched as their were times were I was having great fun when the music was playing and the actors were dancing in silly ways and reacting to audience members and pulling faces.
Something different about the modern version is that it was very sexualised. There were many scenes and characters that were sexualised but one character in particular was Puck.
'Ill put a girdle around the Earth in forty minutes'
In the modern adaptation, Puck's arms flowed with flamboyancy, her eyes became locked onto a single audience member enticing them into a harsh gaze and shew would chose somebody from the audience to latch onto and touch or arouse. As she said this quote she ran off stage but with interactions that can only be described as cheeky, devious and lustful.
Now, in the original performance characters such as Puck would have never been as sexualised as they are today. One reason being that all actors were men and it was not accepted in society to be homosexual and therefore would not have been welcomed for the character Puck to touch up audience members. I think that the modern adaptation of Puck could still have been played by a man but have been just as sexualised as the female Puck due to the homosexuality being accepted in our society.
The original Globe audience would have been formed by just about all different types of classes in the city of London. This remains the same today but with the added international audience members from across the globe from increase migration. I think the amount of culture in the audience now has affected and increased the diversity of the story telling. The modern version has adapted to their audience by adding in cultured music like the sitar, has a multicultural cast and has identified that sexualised content is found humorous. This contrasts due to the African and Arabic slave trade which meant there were minimal to zero rights for non Europeans therefore no integration of multiple cultures in society for many years on. I think this would have made the original performance different as the play would lack the cultural influence of music and comedy and would have been much more subdued knowing that the audience would either not understand or dislike anything that wasn't what they understood or educated upon.
Class. City of London. Elizabethan era. You have your monarchs, royalty, Lords and Lady's, business men, working class, peasants and the homeless. Something special that Shakespeare; situated right in the middle of the classes, was able to do was bring all of these different people together in one room, something that was a rare occurrence when the poor are shunned and avoided by the rich who want nothing to do with each other.
Here be the existing Globe theatre as an example to demonstrate the class seating of the original theatre.
The Yard and its Audience
The yard cost 1 penny to get into and there were no seats. The standing rabble were working called the groundlings or 'Pennystinkhards' as they were never cleaned or smelt like ale and garlic. The floor was thought to have been made up from sand and nut shells. Many members of society deemed the yard to filthy and would pay a little extra for an upgrade just to protect their moral standing.
There are 240 pennies in £1 and 1 loaf of bread cost 1 penny. If you compare this to todays ticket price for the yard; £5 which could buy you about 5 loaf's of bread, it's relatively dirt cheap. This is the reason why there were so many lower class people at the theatre so often as they could go after work to have a great time drinking and laughing. These crowds of people the theatre attracted were allowed to buy food and drink ale in the performance and were loud, drunken and usually under-educated which resulted in them not understanding the plot and throwing food at the actors. This is something that the actors had to overcome. They had to project much louder than today's performers due to this ignorant, rowdy noise so the people sitting higher up could here them. Also, they would have to be very clear with every movement, word and action they carried out as they are telling a story in a very different language that many audience members will not understand unless every action is carried out with meaning. Otherwise the crowd will boo and throw food and the play will be effected negatively. Also thieves were common in the crowd which caused fights. Today's audience in the stand are usually people that fancy a taste of what the lower class audiences would have experienced without the smells and rowdiness of it all. As a yard audience member, I feel like it has the most atmosphere as the actors walk past and interact. Also, I was closer to the stage which made me feel a connection with the characters making it very enjoyable during the comedy aspect which is exactly what Shakespeare wanted.
The Gallery and Beyond
The gallery cost 2 penny's and the audience members can sit down on a bench and watch the show with a roof over their heads next to slightly less 'common' co-audience making it much more comfortable. This 2 penny difference isn't much so I believe that the working class actually preferred standing and had a much more enjoyable time instead of wasting another penny to sit next to somebody that cares to much about their appearance to others or the rain. To upgrade for a cushioned seat it cost another penny. These seats were for the middle class but were still loud with people booing villains, cheering the special effects and laughing at the comedy. The boing and cheering aspect of the audience has changed today as audience members are a lot more respectful of the actors and conscious of other people and will be quiet during the play but will openly laugh at the comedy which I again believe was Shakespeare's ideology. This aspect of cheering and booing however has been transported out of classical plays and into pantomimes and contemporised for the younger generation. In my opinion, this aspect of booing and cheering would have made the modern version more entertaining as there was not much of this during the performance but at the end of the play there was suddenly a roar of cheers which projected the atmosphere and sent me travelling 400 years into the past.
The high class seating area was called the Gentlemen's stand and the balcony. These were two stands on either side of the stage and two areas just above the stage. These people were lords and lady's and wealthy advisories who paid a lot of money to sit facing the audience to literally show the audience members that they were wealthy and of high class. The people in the gentlemen's stands would still be able to watch the play. Today, the balconies are not used as seating areas and the gentlemen's stands are still the most expensive seats. I was looking around at different audience members during the running and noticed that certain people sitting in the gentlemen's stands were very well dressed up, had a glass of wine in their hand and were not as involved as the people in the yard with us. I also noticed that certain individuals would not laugh as much as say we were. I believe that this shows that the wealthy are still very obvious when watching theatre even though there is not as larger social divide as there was in Shakespeare's time, there is most definitely a certain obviousness with some people that like to invest their money in their appearance and seating whilst going to the theatre.
Themes
Love - https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/m/a-midsummer-nights-dream/critical-essays/major-themes
Love is part of every culture. It is a natural animal emotion that we have. But, love being one of the most powerful emotions can also be one of the most dangerous, blinding and difficult to understand. Shakespeare saw this difficulty with understanding love in society and wrote 'Midsummer Night's Dream' with this ideology. The play explores how people fall in love with someone who appears beautiful to them which creates an illusion of love at first sight. A quote in the play that shows this is;
'The more I hate, the more he follows me, the more I Love, the more he hateth me.'
This scene between Helena who is love struck for Demetrius and Hermia who Demetrius is love struck over. All over beauty. I think Shakespeare has done this to show his audience how they easy it is to fall for someone without knowing them and to be 'in love' but blinded by the fact they hate you.
'For love I follow'd him; but he hath chid me hence, and threaten'd me to strike me...a foolish heart that I leave here behind'
Helena has realised here she only loved Demetrius for his beauty and due to his threats she her love has turned to unattraction and a repellent. Shakespeare has shown this to the audience to educate how falling for beauty can often feel like the most powerful form of love preventing you from seeing what the person is like on the inside.
The last factor of love Shakespeare writes about is real truthful love. Love that has formed from much more than just physical attraction. This is shown here;
'Come my queen, take hands with me, and rock the ground whereon these sleepers be. Thou now and I are new in amity.'
After all of the jealousy and spite Titania and Oberon have had for each-other, and through using the magic of the flower to alter the love that the characters feel for one another and seeing the effects of loving beauty, they both have finally learned how to overcome beauty and fall in true love with each-other.
Overall, I think Shakespeare has used love to make the audience ponder how irrational and mischievous love can be but how everyone can find true love if they were to stop looking and start feeling.
Gender - http://www.litcharts.com/lit/a-midsummer-nights-dream/themes/men-and-women
This theme is something Shakespeare has used to show the social side of men and women being in love, the cultural side of arranged marriages and political side of female oppression. The theme is about how the male characters are trying to control the female characters and the problems this causes and how the only way to fix these problems is to let everything form naturally without any pressures by society.
'With pomp, with triumph, and with revelling.'
Hippolyta is one over by Theseus by him beating her in battle. This shows that in the Elizabethan times men should always be manly and have to prove themselves to their women and fight in order to get them and that a man will always win over a female in which the female would be overcome with love and affection. This today would be seen as very sexist and I believe Shakespeare new this which is what he is expressing to his audience. This is quite the political tool I think in order to make women in the audience become slightly 'pissed' and take a fighting stance for equality.
Religious Influence
Shakespeare has been influenced by religion whilst writing this play to bring a deeper darker meaning behind his characters and the setting of the fairyland where he has used many biblical allegories. For example; Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow), are both names derived from catholysis meaning devil and Pyramus and Thisbe are medieval names for Jesus and the church and Peter Quince is actually St. Peter. Also, the wall symbolises a division between Earth and Heaven of which prevented Jesus from being with the church.
'I see a voice; now will I to the chink, to spy and I can hear my Thisby's face. Thisby! My love!'
This is a very comical part of the play were Pyramus who represents Jesus has found a hole in the wall; which symbolises the division between Earth and Heaven, and can hear and see Thisby who is his love representing the church. The fact that this scene is made hilarious and is about religion tells me that the play is a satire of religious beliefs which makes sense when we look at modern day comedy which can be seen as racist satires such as Mock the Week and the films Airplane! and The Dictator.( - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080339/ - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645170/ ) where many comedians use satire mock certain aspects of society. I believe Shakespeare is mocking the ideas of heaven by Jesus squeezing through a gap to get back to Earth and sleep with his lover. This sort of humour was first developed by the ancient Greeks. Therefore I think Shakespeare has referenced them in his play by having the character Hippolyta who was; in Greek mythology, the Queen of the Amazon possession a magical girdle given to her by her father, Ares, the god of war, which is a large belt which signified her authority over the Amazons. This girdle is actually mentioned by Puck;
'Ill put a girdle about the Earth in forty minutes'
by which she is talking about getting Oberon his flower in which he will have authority over the people in the woods and their love.
To conclude, I believe that Shakespeare's writing was influenced a lot by who his actors were, the different classes of audience that come to the theatre and how to tailor to each member of society so well that it brings everyone together to be entertained, how the emotion of love can be so blinding but so pure in the end, how genders are not equal because of oppression, the culture of forced marriages and the satirical comedic nature that religion and Ancient Greek mythology has. He writes for purpose, to educate and aggravate audiences to do something about the problems in society but also fabulously entertains audiences of all wealth and knowledge. I have also found the sexualisation, mixed gender and race casting, integration of cultured music and the way the audience acts today to be highly contrasting to that the original yet aspects such as the comedy, seating/standing and atmosphere I believe, have held the same historical value to that of which Shakespeare desired.
Monday, 23 May 2016
Earthquakes In London Online Blog Assignment
Personal Introduction to Play
This play follows the lives of Robert Crannock's three daughters, Freya, Sarah and Jasmine. Freya is the mentally un stable wife of Steve who has been told to abort her foetus by her scientist father due to the Earth being over populated. Sarah is the environmental secretary for the government who is trying to prevent the extension of an airport owned by Carter who is a business man out to make money with little care for the environment. Young Robert back in the 1970's worked for this very company and due to being corrupted by money, he lied about his conclusions about how damaging green house gasses really are to the atmosphere and therefore damaging his career. With this and his beloved wife Grace passing due to cancer, he becomes a bitter old man whom resents his daughters do to their likeliness to their mother. The youngest of the daughters is Jasmine who is burlesque dancer and very flirtatious and seductive. Overall, this play contains many individual story lines that all foreshadow and symbolise the dramatic conclusion to the play, the earthquake.
Research into Themes:
The Coalition Government
In May 2010 the UK's first coalition government was formed since 1945 between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats with Prime minister David Cameron and deputy Prime minister Nick Clegg. What this means is that there are several political parties cooperating in parliament to run the country reducing the dominance of each party. This happens when no party reaches majority of seats in parliament.
Coalitions Policies in Accordance to Climate Change and Energy Relative to the Play
Mike Bartlett has brought up problems with the coalitions policies in this play. Three policies that the play addresses are;
Climate change
Foreign affairs
Energy
Examples from play;
Robert "...it's clear that releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at such a high altitude will cause eat to be reflected rather than released, potentially causing rising temperatures and..."
Tom "...the crops don't grow anymore. The temperature is rising year on year. The people, my family, they're getting to the point where either they move or they die."
Sarah "I called the Prime minister's office to bring forward the meeting... he's very green. He's got a wind turbine on his roof..."
Starting from Roberts quote, he has been hired by the airport company owner Roy to carry out experiments on fuel efficiency and how their planes will effect the Earths atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Robert has proved that having planes in the sky is bad for the environment but Roy doesn't care for facts, he just wishes for his jolly planes to heat up the planet to get his share of the profits and to expand his company. To help prevent issues like this the coalition government has come up with the climate change policy. This states that they wish to cut EU emissions by 30% by 2020, letting Lib Dems to maintain their anti stance on nuclear power whilst the conservatives are pro nuclear. They will ban a third runway at Heathrow airport, with no permission for extra runways to Gatwick and Stanstead. To me it is obvious that this is what Mike Bartlett as used in his play as the Prime ministers office bans the runway that Carter wants to build. I believe he has done this because it shows how the coalition is positive in trying to act upon climate change and lower pollution levels. In order to make his play have an interesting and impactful and very daunting storyline is that he has made the audience think that with these changes in place, it is still too late to change anything and the world is doomed.
"you want to be green? Hold your breath. The planet can sustain about one billion people. We currently have six billion..."
Another aspect Bartlett has looked upon is foreign affairs. Tom is the device used to make the audience current with this policy. The governments policy states they will support permanent seats in Africa. That's honestly all I could find on that one. The government in the past has given money to African countries which has been used not by the people that deserve it, the communities that the money was meant to help, the schools it was meant to build and the lives it was meant to better No. These countries are run by dictators whom have generously taken this money and spent it on the betterment of their own health and well being. "How much is a private jet you ask? But a few million pounds Sir. Ill take two." Point is that from much research, foreign aid hasn't really worked and has done more damage if anything. Funny really, I mean, they bought a plane with our aid money and the play is about preventing flying. Relating this back to the play, I believe that the character Tom is really Bartlett teaching the audience how the government hasn't figured out a way to help countries like Eritrea unless it involves money which has been proven to make things worse.
Week one of the play me and younger Robert seemed to develop a meaningful connection. Whilst doing the workshops and trying out characters such as Colin and Older Robert, I found that, from the beginning, I was able to become young Robert. The first time I was Robert me and Chloe Smith who was playing Grace decided to stage it in a naturalistic way as we hadn't learnt about Brecht just yet. We were sat at the table eating our dinner on a date. From there we read through the scene to understand the context a bit more which helped me understand who my character was, that he was a young scientist studying a doctorate. I tried speaking with a slightly nerdy, intelligent accent, well articulated and chose to play my character as quite innocent and nervous and awkward. I feel this was a pretty good go for the first time playing him as I really feel I became the character and the scene became quite funny and humorous for the audience to watch but from the feedback it was nice and softly played.
Testing out older Robert was also a fun experience. I was paired with jack A who believe it or not was playing Steve. After reading through it and understanding the context more just like with younger Robert, I asked Jack who had been given some information previously about Robert and found out that this character has lost everything he ever cared about, his wife and career and whom despises his children and has become bitter and monotone. With this information I chose to perform this scene very monotone and I think it worked very well in displaying to the audience Roberts loss and how he is basically just an empty shell full of information and facts and missed opportunities. The paragraph;
"I told her to kill it"
felt really real when I was reading it and I felt like the tension was building up with Steve who was becoming angry and frustrated at Robert but Robert well passed any emotions stays monotone throughout talking about the way the world is overpopulated. Conclusion of Workshops
Overall, the workshops felt really positive and working with these characters and experimenting with different emotions and energies and just cold reading from the first time seeing the script, I believe I characterised well and felt truth when it came to these characters. When being chosen to play Younger Robert, after many of these workshops, I was really happy and really looking forwards to this play to expand on this character and to learn Brechtian style and add this style to my performance.
Character Outfit
white baggy trousers
grey cardigan
large shirt
large nerdy glasses
black smart shoes
This outfit is something I have come up with after researching the play. Roberts scenes are in the late 60's and early 70's and these are the sort of things men would wear at this time. I'd say that due to Robert being a scientist he is way above fashion and doesn't care for matching clothes as much as the next man so maybe ill go with odd colours of odd patterns that don't usually go together but still look as though he has made an effort to get dressed for the date even though he hasn't got a clue what he is doing. I believe this gives him a very innocent and awkward person that the audience begin to like and become enrolled in his 'cute' little date with his love, Grace.
Smells and Colours
When I read my scenes in the play, in the prologues, I smell the 70's so herbs, old woods and hair pomade. I see bright and vigilant colours such as pinks oranges, greens and yellow but outstanding colours that people wear, painted cars, advertisements and houses. Everything is eccentric and unique and stylish but in a slightly crazy way. I think this because from the researching the 1970's clothing you can visually see the colours and style of clothes and how eccentric they really are. I think our play would be transported back if we performed it in this 1970's manner with bright colours that just pop to the audience. I believe that the Brechtian style being overacted and very visual will compliment the attire and staging that would enhance the play massively.
Brechtian Theatre
Brecht was a German playwright who disliked the likes of Stanislavski and Checkovs naturalism and wanted to, instead of portraying character through emotion, visualise the emotions through actions and also make the audience think to specify that they were watching theatre not real life. "Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it."
Brechtian theatre has a very strong political aspect it which is why Bartlett has chosen to take the play in that direction as he was influenced by epic theatre. An example of a very Brechtian device Bartlett has used in the play is this stage direction;
"A number of swimmers are in ponds, swimming. They have similar swimming hats and swimming costumes. One by one they come and stand in the fresh morning air. Birds fly past, a clear blue sky. One of the swimmers has a ukelele."
He has created a whole section of a scene dedicated to visualise what is going on in Freya's head during this part of the play. Freya is looking into the pond and she being a very 'out of this world' character, imagines all of these strange scenarios to show the audience that she is mentally not all there. I believe that this makes the play a whole load more interesting and fun to watch. What isn't funny about watching a bunch of lads in swimming costumes swimming in a pond in the outskirts of London inside the imagination of Freya. That is so Brechtian and just shows how Bartlett was inspired by Epic Theatres way of taking the normalistic, naturalistic way of moving and characterising things and turning it on its head and making it ridiculous but managing to make it work in a way that is entertaining to watch but can also be used to create deep, meaningful or sad powerful scenes as well as humour. I believe that visualising these emotions allows the audience to remember that they are obviously not in real life, and that they are watching the directors/playwrights vision of a story. I think this is great because why would you want to go to the theatre to watch a piece of naturalism when you could walk into your community and watch naturalism unfold in front of you. Surely going to the theatre should be memorable and a unique experience? That's what I think Bartlett wants from his plays and what Brecht has helped create.
