Monday, 17 December 2012
Evaluation of final piece.
Our final performance of In the Beginning by Neil Labute went, in my opinion, really well considering the sudden unexpected change of venues and the panic we all felt just minutes before we went on. We had originally planned to perform our piece outside, despite factors that went against this idea like the weather, and proceeded to spend hours rehearsing and devising outside using a range of props like tents and signs and even a car. We all began to look really forward to our performance; having it being outside and an unusual choice built more to the excitement. However, 20 minutes before our performance, we were told that we were unable to perform outside due to an absent risk assessment and the frosty ground. We were told that we had to move back inside and into a normal classroom like the other two groups - a classroom that was only a fraction of the size we had gotten so use to performing in outside. We had to drag the entire stage back upstairs, ditch most of the exciting props we chose to include and redirect our performance slightly so everyone was clear on what to do in the change of environment.
Yeah, at first I was pissed, I'm not going to lie but it wasn't hard to push away this feeling and just crack on. As an actor, we were told these things happen on a regular and who does it help if you get annoyed, have a strop and refuse to help? No one. Just causes an even bigger inconvenience than the one that put you in that position! It was important to work as an ensemble and do whatever you could to ensure that nothing is lost from the play purely because of a minor change. It was actually quite exciting to be honest!
Our performance went well! We all knew our lines, our cues and had a great time performing it. Our play included many of the famous Brechtian techniques.
My part in particular worked well to alienate the audience which is something Brecht felt strongly about. We as a cast and Brecht never wanted the audience to get too emotionally attached to the ongoings on stage so it was imperative we made the audience remember they were merely watching a play. During my lines where I screamed continuously at my "son," I broke out of character halfway between it and stepped out and addressed the audience, talking in my typical British accent and repeating the lines I had previously garbled just seconds before. This gave the audience a better sense of what was going on stage whilst thoroughly reminding them that they are on stage.
Another method we chose with the alienation technique was to use signs during our piece. We chose to have certain cast members hold up signs claiming: "STOP BEING EMOTIONAL" as to remind the audience also to chill out... it was just a play! We wanted the audience to analyse what was going instead of who was feeling what.
We also used the Brechtian technique of speaking in unison. Due to lack of characters our director was able to cast to each member in our class, the speaking in unison both worked in the sense of fairness that everybody received a line to say and yet also it supported Brecht and his theories. Our play was based on two sets of completely different people arguing and fighting for what they believed in, so speaking all together with the parents as parents and the children as children was effective because it created more of a unison feeling. Also, Brecht believed heavily on ensemble and as we performed in unison for some of the most crucial lines in thre play really demonstrated the importance of working as an ensemble. Each line was then more powerful and easier to comprehend from an audiences' perspective because all of the voices made it louder and bolder.
Our piece was exciting and effective and completely relevent to the idea of Brecht.
Yeah, at first I was pissed, I'm not going to lie but it wasn't hard to push away this feeling and just crack on. As an actor, we were told these things happen on a regular and who does it help if you get annoyed, have a strop and refuse to help? No one. Just causes an even bigger inconvenience than the one that put you in that position! It was important to work as an ensemble and do whatever you could to ensure that nothing is lost from the play purely because of a minor change. It was actually quite exciting to be honest!
Our performance went well! We all knew our lines, our cues and had a great time performing it. Our play included many of the famous Brechtian techniques.
My part in particular worked well to alienate the audience which is something Brecht felt strongly about. We as a cast and Brecht never wanted the audience to get too emotionally attached to the ongoings on stage so it was imperative we made the audience remember they were merely watching a play. During my lines where I screamed continuously at my "son," I broke out of character halfway between it and stepped out and addressed the audience, talking in my typical British accent and repeating the lines I had previously garbled just seconds before. This gave the audience a better sense of what was going on stage whilst thoroughly reminding them that they are on stage.
Another method we chose with the alienation technique was to use signs during our piece. We chose to have certain cast members hold up signs claiming: "STOP BEING EMOTIONAL" as to remind the audience also to chill out... it was just a play! We wanted the audience to analyse what was going instead of who was feeling what.
We also used the Brechtian technique of speaking in unison. Due to lack of characters our director was able to cast to each member in our class, the speaking in unison both worked in the sense of fairness that everybody received a line to say and yet also it supported Brecht and his theories. Our play was based on two sets of completely different people arguing and fighting for what they believed in, so speaking all together with the parents as parents and the children as children was effective because it created more of a unison feeling. Also, Brecht believed heavily on ensemble and as we performed in unison for some of the most crucial lines in thre play really demonstrated the importance of working as an ensemble. Each line was then more powerful and easier to comprehend from an audiences' perspective because all of the voices made it louder and bolder.
Our piece was exciting and effective and completely relevent to the idea of Brecht.
Characters ITB
When we read through the script, I began to imagine where this would play would take place, what the characters would look like, the relationship between them both ect but I noticed that my vision wouldn't be made into reality as we were using different cirumstances. In terms of the play being realistic and happening for real, I imagined the father and son situated in the front room of their house; the father wears his pyjamas and dressing gown representing his desire to stay and the son is fully dressed with a coat on and bags by his side, representing him wanting to go.
Ensemble.
You have to work together, as a team, to create the purpose of the play. You need to realise that what you're doing is important and whatever it is, it needs full concentration and dedication. If you're committed for 5 hours and 59 minutes out of a 6 hour rehearsal... it's not enough. You have to believe that every second you're performing, whether you're centre stage or an extra, is critical.
The transitions are the hardest thing for an actor to stay engaged with. Don't lose focus, it's imperative you do not lose focus. Keep the engine on at all times okay, don't stop it and fall out of character as your walking to your new spot on the stage and then try rev it back up when you're finished, keep it running smoothly the whole time from beginning to end. You can easily collapse the entire play or drop the audiences' engagement if the transition of two characters isn't done with focus and in role.
Another thing you have to be sure to do is to listen to other people. It may sound obvious and just basic mannerism but once you lose focus anything can happen. It's not an intention to be rude when you talk over someone, it just happens, but when it does it's distracting and can tip a whole cast off balance. Also, if you're talking over your director or someone with an idea that they choose to use, how will you know what to do because you weren't listening! With our performance, we're all near enough playing the same character so it's impossible not to learn something from someone else if you just listen.
Brecht emphasised the use of consonants. The consonants in a word carry the meaning and help articulate a message if you take great care to emphasise them when speaking in unison with other actors, like we did. Without the use of consonants, the line delivered is just a mess of words together and the audience may not be able to understand.
Never leave the play in the theatre. When you stop playing your character for the day, you need to understand that nothing just drops there. Your character should always stay with you during the audition/rehearsal/performance process. When you go to a meal with your family as your normal self and something kicks off on the table opposite, think about what you would do in that position.... then think about what your character would do. Always be on the look out for potential inspiration for your character or props. Let the play and your character live on way after the curtain has dropped.
The transitions are the hardest thing for an actor to stay engaged with. Don't lose focus, it's imperative you do not lose focus. Keep the engine on at all times okay, don't stop it and fall out of character as your walking to your new spot on the stage and then try rev it back up when you're finished, keep it running smoothly the whole time from beginning to end. You can easily collapse the entire play or drop the audiences' engagement if the transition of two characters isn't done with focus and in role.
Another thing you have to be sure to do is to listen to other people. It may sound obvious and just basic mannerism but once you lose focus anything can happen. It's not an intention to be rude when you talk over someone, it just happens, but when it does it's distracting and can tip a whole cast off balance. Also, if you're talking over your director or someone with an idea that they choose to use, how will you know what to do because you weren't listening! With our performance, we're all near enough playing the same character so it's impossible not to learn something from someone else if you just listen.
Brecht emphasised the use of consonants. The consonants in a word carry the meaning and help articulate a message if you take great care to emphasise them when speaking in unison with other actors, like we did. Without the use of consonants, the line delivered is just a mess of words together and the audience may not be able to understand.
Never leave the play in the theatre. When you stop playing your character for the day, you need to understand that nothing just drops there. Your character should always stay with you during the audition/rehearsal/performance process. When you go to a meal with your family as your normal self and something kicks off on the table opposite, think about what you would do in that position.... then think about what your character would do. Always be on the look out for potential inspiration for your character or props. Let the play and your character live on way after the curtain has dropped.
Political Protests! -Evaluation.
Our political protest was.... well interesting. My group: (Dajay, Sophie, Alice, Rachel and Megan,) and myself chose the topic of "legalising euthanasia in the UK" which is something we all wanted to change in reality. Initially we found it hard to think of ideas from the beginning as we were apprehensive about suggesting certain things in fear of them being seen as inappropriate or insensitive, as the topic is one of sensitivity. We were so adamant to do the protest and topic justice that we kept failing to stick to one plan and one idea. Eventually we did and when the day finally came, we were eager to perform. It didn't actually go to plan and we were taken by surprise at the elements of the protest we didn't initially expect, like other activities around us, the weather ect...
Suitability of area:
We thought it was good idea to do it outside in between the theatre building and the main building as the protests were during break time, so we would grab peoples' attention as they passed from one building to another. We chose the area on grass with wooden stumps in the ground as they made for a good platform to stand on. This would have been a good area if we had considered the weather.... it rained before, during and after our protests which meant the grass was muddy and horrible and as our protest was an audience participation activity, no one would be willing to cross over the mud to get to us, which we understood. We tried to move areas halfway through but by that point we were all wet and muddy, our paper signs were floppy and ruined from the rain and the fire we had inside us to do the protest has been extinguished. So in conclusion, the suitability of our area was.... unsuitable.
Suitability of choice:
To begin with, our choice to protest about legalising euthanasia in the UK seemed like a strong and prosperous idea as we were all so passionate about it, but as mentioned before, we struggled to come up with effective yet sensitive ideas to handle the matter. It was a nice idea to do, we all agreed, but then in the long run we began to realise that none of us could actually connect with the want on a personal level. We relied too heavily on other peoples' stories, which is fine, but it would have been more suitable to chose an idea we all had history with for example.
Suitability of audience:
If my group and I weren't able to intently engage with the idea, it was more than likely that neither would our audience. I don't think many of our audience engaged with it as well because I don't think it was something most people were familiar with; they couldn't engage or connect with the matter so they felt like it didn't effect them. When we addressed people on the matter, we did get some people thinking because I guess the fact that they didn't know much about it was an actual advantage to us. They acted as blank canvases so that because they didn't have an opinion on it, we could start them off and give them a base. Other people however, didn't have that desire to stay and listen to what we had to say because, to them, it didn't matter. Whether euthanasia was legal or not did not matter to them.
Preparation:
Our preparation could have been better... way, way better. We had so many different ideas between us but we failed to decide on one for a long time, meaning the rehearsing, looking for props ect was put off for longer than it should have been. We didn't want to be offensive or stereotypical within our protest but it was hard to think of an effective idea that didn't cross either of those boundaries. We didn't consider the weather in our plans: this is England, of course it's going to rain in November so we should have been prepared in wearing more suitable clothing and not having paper signs where the pen (a main feature we asked our audience to be involved in) failed to work on them because it was wet. We should have been prepared for the other groups that would be based around us: of course we weren't the only year 12 group in theatre doing a protest so we should have been ready to shout louder and be bolder when the other groups were drowning our chants out. We should have been prepared for some people who just didn't want to take part: of course they didn't have to and it wasn't personal, we were just thrown off guard and disheartened when some people just walked straight past us as in our little ideal world, our protest had everybody stopping and caring!
Refinements:
If we were ever to repeat this process, it would be highly beneficial if we chose a topic we all felt passionately about... one that we really really really wanted to change peoples' minds over as, after all, that is the point of a protest. That way we would probably come up with more stronger ideas which would make for a better protest. We would need to be prepared more and take every potential negative situation in our stride: think about weather, the audience ect... We would choose a better place where we were actually approachable.
Our protest didn't go horrifically but there were definitely certain aspects of it we could have improved to make it a million times better... we just didn't know it at the time.
Suitability of area:
We thought it was good idea to do it outside in between the theatre building and the main building as the protests were during break time, so we would grab peoples' attention as they passed from one building to another. We chose the area on grass with wooden stumps in the ground as they made for a good platform to stand on. This would have been a good area if we had considered the weather.... it rained before, during and after our protests which meant the grass was muddy and horrible and as our protest was an audience participation activity, no one would be willing to cross over the mud to get to us, which we understood. We tried to move areas halfway through but by that point we were all wet and muddy, our paper signs were floppy and ruined from the rain and the fire we had inside us to do the protest has been extinguished. So in conclusion, the suitability of our area was.... unsuitable.
Suitability of choice:
To begin with, our choice to protest about legalising euthanasia in the UK seemed like a strong and prosperous idea as we were all so passionate about it, but as mentioned before, we struggled to come up with effective yet sensitive ideas to handle the matter. It was a nice idea to do, we all agreed, but then in the long run we began to realise that none of us could actually connect with the want on a personal level. We relied too heavily on other peoples' stories, which is fine, but it would have been more suitable to chose an idea we all had history with for example.
Suitability of audience:
If my group and I weren't able to intently engage with the idea, it was more than likely that neither would our audience. I don't think many of our audience engaged with it as well because I don't think it was something most people were familiar with; they couldn't engage or connect with the matter so they felt like it didn't effect them. When we addressed people on the matter, we did get some people thinking because I guess the fact that they didn't know much about it was an actual advantage to us. They acted as blank canvases so that because they didn't have an opinion on it, we could start them off and give them a base. Other people however, didn't have that desire to stay and listen to what we had to say because, to them, it didn't matter. Whether euthanasia was legal or not did not matter to them.
Preparation:
Our preparation could have been better... way, way better. We had so many different ideas between us but we failed to decide on one for a long time, meaning the rehearsing, looking for props ect was put off for longer than it should have been. We didn't want to be offensive or stereotypical within our protest but it was hard to think of an effective idea that didn't cross either of those boundaries. We didn't consider the weather in our plans: this is England, of course it's going to rain in November so we should have been prepared in wearing more suitable clothing and not having paper signs where the pen (a main feature we asked our audience to be involved in) failed to work on them because it was wet. We should have been prepared for the other groups that would be based around us: of course we weren't the only year 12 group in theatre doing a protest so we should have been ready to shout louder and be bolder when the other groups were drowning our chants out. We should have been prepared for some people who just didn't want to take part: of course they didn't have to and it wasn't personal, we were just thrown off guard and disheartened when some people just walked straight past us as in our little ideal world, our protest had everybody stopping and caring!
Refinements:
If we were ever to repeat this process, it would be highly beneficial if we chose a topic we all felt passionately about... one that we really really really wanted to change peoples' minds over as, after all, that is the point of a protest. That way we would probably come up with more stronger ideas which would make for a better protest. We would need to be prepared more and take every potential negative situation in our stride: think about weather, the audience ect... We would choose a better place where we were actually approachable.
Our protest didn't go horrifically but there were definitely certain aspects of it we could have improved to make it a million times better... we just didn't know it at the time.
In the Beginning - INITIAL THOUGHTS
In the beginning is a play written by Neil N. LaBute, (born March 19, 1963) who is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright and it's the play we're studying for our political theatre workshop.
My first impressions of the text was that it was interesting and innovating despite being so simple. The beginning of the play is instantly fueled with an air of mystery and causes suspense as the opening line is: "I don't think so." From an audiences' perspective we're already instantly on the edge of our seats and asking "What to?! What don't you think?! Why don't you think so?!" and the child bites back, still not giving away any information, and reiterates what the father says: "You don't think so?" There is hardly any movement between either characters and a lack of stage directions in the script. This could be seen as either an open door for a director or LaBute intentionally desired to have none.
Because there are only 2 characters as opposed to an entire cast, it makes the conversations and action easier to follow on stage. The entire play and storyline is centred around two characters - a father and a son - which enables the audience to entirely devote their concentration and their attention on those two characters and what is exactly going on. As there in no interferance from other characters and both of them are present during every moment from start to finish, the audience can really get stuck in to the characters and learn every aspect of them.
The plot is basic yet has so much to offer in terms of the conversations and opinions from each character. This enables people to maybe even relate to each character in some way, whether it be the relationship they have with the other, the emotions they're feeling, the words that they're saying ect..
My first impressions of the text was that it was interesting and innovating despite being so simple. The beginning of the play is instantly fueled with an air of mystery and causes suspense as the opening line is: "I don't think so." From an audiences' perspective we're already instantly on the edge of our seats and asking "What to?! What don't you think?! Why don't you think so?!" and the child bites back, still not giving away any information, and reiterates what the father says: "You don't think so?" There is hardly any movement between either characters and a lack of stage directions in the script. This could be seen as either an open door for a director or LaBute intentionally desired to have none.
Because there are only 2 characters as opposed to an entire cast, it makes the conversations and action easier to follow on stage. The entire play and storyline is centred around two characters - a father and a son - which enables the audience to entirely devote their concentration and their attention on those two characters and what is exactly going on. As there in no interferance from other characters and both of them are present during every moment from start to finish, the audience can really get stuck in to the characters and learn every aspect of them.
The plot is basic yet has so much to offer in terms of the conversations and opinions from each character. This enables people to maybe even relate to each character in some way, whether it be the relationship they have with the other, the emotions they're feeling, the words that they're saying ect..
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