Week 20, Monday 17th - Wednesday 19th Of March 2014
To start off today's lessons, our teacher had written on the board what the course of action was for the session we had with her today. The main thing that was written on the board was 'Present Evaluation'. Although I had already written a blog of my self evaluation of 'Shakespeare's House Party', the group still had to present their individual evaluations in front of a camera, whilst our teacher was to ask us questions like, "How did you think the production went overall?", "What were the Strengths and Weaknesses encountered during performance?", the list goes on to trying to explain each category with detail to eventually go towards our final grade. After completing my evaluation, I felt that I was being honest with myself and presented what I could to my teacher, but I also left the room thinking that the majority of stuff I said in front of her and the camera, she had already read in my blog entry of the 'Shakespeare's House Party' Written Evaluation. She then went on to tell me afterwards that in tomorrow's lesson, me and her are to have a private discussion as to how I did on this project, and hopefully giving me the target grade I am willing to achieve in the coming weeks, the grade, I hope, being a well deserved Distinction.
Monday 17 March 2014
Thursday 13 March 2014
'The Human Zoo' Physical Theatre Assignment Blog
The Human Zoo
Introduction To Assignment:
Throughout our second term in the Level 2 Performing Arts course, our Physical Theatre lessons have been leading up to developing and understanding each of our own individual physical movement. For this new assignment, we are to be assessed by our Physical Theatre teacher, what he is looking for is if we can use our own individual physical movement to relate towards how animals would move.
To start off this assignment, we were all given the exercise to create our own animal. The purpose of this exercise was to show off our understanding of animals and how they have their unique way of movement, it also prepares us for the task ahead where we have to move and act physically the same as a real life animal. To begin with, we all had to create an animal, present its key features to our teacher and to inform the group about its habitat and if it was a predator or if it was a prey of another species. In creating our own individual animal, we were to show off our own understanding of how to present an animals movement without background information to help, as well as mixing several animal features in order to further develop our own creations. The animal that I had created has its natural habitat in a Jungle, its key characteristics were having big long arms with big hands which had sharp claws, and the legs were similar to a Monkey's, were they were always bent. After the creation of the animal, I then had to present its movement to my teacher and the rest of the group. My idea of its movement was for it to move quite slow (much like the tempo of a bear), having the big long arms, it balances itself by wobbling side to side and using the long arms to help support its movements. To conclude my presentation of my newly created animal, my teacher asked me to present also what my animal is like in a combat situation. I presented this by having my movement increased to a much higher tempo, I did this so any potential predators would be caught off guard and be caught by my animal with his large arms. it would then use its sharp claws to quickly dispatch any animal that may now be considered prey toward it. I left this lesson feeling prepped for what was next in this new assignment, this lesson gave our teacher a good impression on what could potentially happen next lesson when we were to act as a real life animal by our choosing. Performing this exercise was a good start to the new assignment, and was very enjoyable to experience, as I have never acted like an animal before and it would give me time to develop on my new ways of physical movement.
On the next week of the assignment, our teacher had arranged to go to the animal care department in the college to observe an animal and later on return to the classroom to mimic our chosen animal with both physicality and personality features included. The animal that I had observed and mimicked for this task was a Ferret. Acting physically like a Ferret was much the same as a Meerkat and, looking back at it after the assessment for this project, some of the things I had to do physically to act like a Ferret was merely the same as when I had to act physically like a Meerkat. The things I'm talking about is how I had to manipulate my body to come as close as possible to portraying my own interpretation of both the Ferret and the Meerkat. When I talk about manipulating my body, I specifically mean doing things like tensing my abdominal muscles, to help support my weight whilst I'm in a uncomfortable position, these positions include just trying to stay above the floor with my hands and feet helping me move around, since I couldn't use my knees to help support me since a Ferret doesn't use its knees to move around. I also had to relax my shoulders as much as I could, to give the portrayal that I may look smaller, since Ferrets are small animals, much the same size as a Meerkat. Relaxing my shoulders, especially when using my hands and feet to move around the room, became more difficult for my hands/biceps, since my shoulders actually do help me a lot when I have to move around this way and, after a while, it came to a point where I needed to take a small break to relax my hands/biceps since they did start to hurt. But further practice outside the lesson trying to move like a Ferret once more, the process of movement did become substantially easier to achieve. Tensing my butt also helped me towards stability when I was moving around as the Ferret as, in some ways, it felt like the weight of my legs decreased and allowed me to move around at a tempo I could feel more comfortable with at a long period of time.
In our next Physical Theatre lesson, we began to look at our own individual physical movement, and discussed as to how we could relate it to a real animal. The animals that we all had to choose for this assignment had to live on land and also had to be an animal that you would find in the zoo. Our teacher carefully analyzed each of our movements when performing an exercise where we all had to move around the room in our normal walk pattern and tempo, doing this would then result in our teacher telling us what animal would fit all of us perfectly for this assignment. My teacher made the decision and said that I would fit being a Meerkat in this assignment. This made this assignment much more exciting for me, since the Meerkat is my actual favorite animal, and I have also seen many Meerkats in real life form at zoo's before. Being chosen to act physically and personally like a Meerkat made the assignment look easier for me to complete, since I acted like a Ferret in the previous Physical Theatre lessons, and Ferrets and Meerkats combined together, do have the same movement patterns but with the Meerkat moving at a much faster tempo, but moving at faster tempo was the only thing that I felt I was going to struggle with the most on this project, but with much more practice at home in my own time whilst researching a Meerkats physicality and personality, this should help with when I have to present my performance as a Meerkat later on in the Physical Theatre lessons.
What I Had Learnt From Watching "Kafka's Monkey" And "Project Nim":
“Kafka’s Monkey”, in my opinion, was a great example of a Humans portrayal of a Monkey. The story of the play involved the one and only actor on stage to break the forth wall by telling the audience the story of how she was originally a monkey and, over countless years of being experimented on, transformed into a human. The script of the production had a lot of detail as to how painful it was for this character to transform, both during experimentation, and even the journey from her original home to the land of Humans. Whilst the plot was interesting and intriguing to follow along with, the main focus for us to grasp by watching this film, was to look at the actress’s physicality whilst on stage. The idea that she was once an animal and had become a human, meant that she would have to walk and talk like a human but show past references to her being a Monkey, this showed the audience that she still had a bit of the Monkey within her still after all the experiments. This was shown both physically and verbally. Verbally, we could understand her perfectly, but there was that slight impression that the English language was still new to her and she was still learning how to pronounce different words. Whereas Physically, her body was split into two differently acted sections. The bottom half of her body was almost normal, with the legs being in use for normal human pacing; whereas the top half of the body had more relation to a Monkey, having a bent back and the arms looking longer than a regular Humans. But mainly, there was still a strong hint of the Human aspect as she communicated with the audience, she did use some of her physicality as a regular human; but there were times in the performance when she acted physically like a Monkey again, for example, there was one part of the performance where she had to hang on a ladder, the way she hand sat on this ladder was similar to how a Monkey would sit on it, with one arm dangling off the side and also leaning out towards the open air. After watching the film, I thought that the production was excellent and brilliantly detailed in terms of storyline, as the actress gave an incredible presentation of a Human who was once a Monkey physically going back through all the horrible experiences she had been through on her journey form a Monkey transforming into a Human.
When it came to watch the documentary movie called “Project Nim”, the experience of watching it was different entirely. This documentary told the story of a group of scientists in the 1970s that began a project, in which they took a live Monkey in captivity and taught it sign language, so it would later be able to communicate with humans in the real world. I thought watching this documentary was interesting, yet it was not as effective as "Kafka's Monkey". “Project Nim” showed us the physicality of the Monkey later called Nim, and how it would slowly evolve and develop a hint of the same characteristics of a normal Human Being. This documentary did show us that Monkey's can develop their own unique personality, and it was also interesting to see how it neglected against learning the ways of a human. The story of the scientist trying to change Nims personality was interesting, but not as effective as "Kafka's Monkey's" storyline, in the way of showing us the physicality of the Monkey being both Human and, at times, going back to how a Monkey would move. We saw what it was like for the Monkey to be slowly developing into a Human in "Project Nim", but it wasn’t as detailed as “Kafka’s Monkey”, as in that, we saw the point of view of the story from the Monkey who became a Human. Whereas “Project Nim” showed us the point of view of the story from the scientists, and they didn’t think that the project went through as a success in the end after all the years of trying to make Nim a Humanized Monkey.
But in the end, I thought these videos were very helpful towards my final performance for the assessment, because I knew that when it came to the physicality of turning into the human variant of our animal, to remember to also show a few hints of the animal it used to be in the actions, as well as to give a slow change into the human, to show the slow development of the animal turning into the Human, as by watching and understanding these productions, the process takes a while to complete.
My Chosen Animal And Why I Chose It (Similarities Comparison):
The animal that I had chosen to study and develop for this project was a Meerkat. I chose the Meerkat because I felt that my overall personality is, along the lines, the same as a Meerkat, for example, Meerkats, whilst in the wild, tend to be very aware of their surroundings and can be self conscious when protecting both themselves and all the other animals around them, specifically their own families. After studying my own personality, I had come to realize that I also act the same way, for example, I constantly try to keep out of any sort of danger that may harm me physically or mentally, and I am also very aware of my own surroundings when in a public place by myself or with friends. This is why I thought choosing a Meerkat to both study and develop on for this project would be perfect for me personally, since I think both of our personalities are much the same. It also, in my opinion, makes me stand out among my fellow actors in the group, since my animal is the smallest one in the zoo, and could be a challenge for me to mimic the movement of it..
Key Discoveries About A Meerkats Personality:
When I first decided to perform as a Meerkat for this project, I thought it would help if I got a better understanding of its personality, so I can give the most effective performance when it came to our assessment for transforming from a Meerkat to a Human Being. I understand that Meerkats are a very shy/nervous animal, and are always aware of their surroundings to see when predators are coming before they even see them. They are also very self conscious about themselves and when protecting their offspring from incoming dangers. Whilst researching further into their personality, I found a great website talking about all the things to do with Meerkats, things like, how they reproduce, the habitat that they live in, what they eat, and it also talks about its typical day and what they do to survive in the wild.
Here is the web link to the website I found: http://www.meerkats.net/info.htm
This website helped me a lot more when it came to performing my assessment, as I could build an imagination of the area a Meerkat would associate with, for example, in the rehearsals for this project, the whole group were put into a their own individual cage, and whilst rehearsing as our animals, I imagined the cage being filled with sand since that is the natural habitat Meerkats live in. This helped me since we were all being recorded and we would get marked on using our imagination for building an area, whilst in the cage, that each animal would naturally live in if they were in the wild.
Key Discoveries About A Meerkats Physicality:
When discovering about a Meerkats personality, I thought it would help me also if I had researched into a Meerkats physicality, to get a better understanding on how a Meerkat would move in the wild. For example, I researched into the Tempo of a Meerkat, to see how fast or slow it moves. Having already known the answer, a Meerkat moves very fast because of its hind legs and small figure so they can get away from predators very easily. I also discovered that Meerkats burrow into the ground, to either protect their offspring whilst the adult looks for food, or to make it a safe-house for when predators are after them and all the Meerkats have a place to rendezvous to later. Since the Meerkats are so much smaller than an average sized human, it was hard for me to move as fast as they do, but after much rehearsal time and practice at home in my own time, I was able to pull off their fast moving attributes effectively. Since Meerkats aren't a very large animal, throughout rehearsals and developing further in my own time, I tried to make myself look smaller by when the Meerkat would stand on it hind legs, I would bend my knees much more than it would normally do. Whether or not this affects my overall grade on this assignment, I felt that doing this may have shown my teacher that I tried to fully experience what it would be like to be a smaller compared to larger actors in the group, since my animal was the smallest in the room and other actors animals were much larger.
A task we did for this assignment was to print off the internet five, or more, different pictures of our chosen animal and we were to try and mimic the physicality of the animal in the picture. One picture I wanted to perform physically was a Meerkat actually smiling at the camera, this wasn't very hard to accomplish, as I only had to smile when my teacher observed us all. The challenge for me in particular during this brief period, was to try and hold the smile when my teacher observed me, as it potentially shows my teacher that I can't be put off easily during a performance.
When it came to achieving the physicality of a Meerkat, after watching several clips of them, I identified my own physical structure and tried to achieve my own interpretation of a Meerkat. I achieved the physicality of the Meerkat by standing in front of a mirror at home and I simply relaxed my shoulders and controlled my breathing pattern, and step by step, I went from head to toe mimicking the physicality of the Meerkat. The things I did to achieve a Meerkats physicality, in terms of movement, was that I had to manipulate my body by tensing my butt and my stomach and also keeping my back straight at all times during the performance; this would help me when the Meerkat would stand on is hind legs to look out, since tensing my butt and stomach made the top half of my body very stiff and still whilst performing with a straight face since half the time, during my research, Meerkats don’t have much physical features in terms of their faces. I did the same when I moved around the room on all fours but with my knees not touching the floor, since a Meerkat doesn’t move around with its knees touching the floor, the back legs, which I discovered through research, are bent when they move but aren’t touching the floor, this is when my abdominal muscles would come into play, as they would help keep my stability whilst I was moving around the room having a straight back and my butt tensed in. The idea I was focusing on the most whilst doing this was me thinking that my head would be the heaviest part of my body, this allowed me to move much faster around the room. A Meerkats inner tempo is very quick, for example, when there was music to be played during the performance, I would react very fast to trying to discover what triggered the noise. This was easy for me to achieve since I as well am very aware in all situations of life, this is one of the many reasons I thought that performing as a Meerkat was the best choice for me personally. The outer tempo of a Meerkat is also very quick, they would always move very fast even if they are relaxed. I said earlier in this part of the blog that I had rehearsed in my own time to move at the same tempo as a Meerkat and it came out effectively.
Whilst Observing A Meerkat, What Was I Looking For Specifically:
Whilst I was watching different clips of Meerkats on YouTube, I was specifically looking at how they would do things naturally, these things would include, how they sleep, how they act around other Meerkats (be it family or a stranger), and how they would react around Humans and other animals also. There was one funny clip I had found of a Meerkat nodding off to sleep whilst sitting down on its butt and then eventually just falling asleep whilst curled up in a ball shape. When acting around other Meerkats, they tend to fight the ones that they don't know and hug the ones that they love which signifies that that Meerkat was part of its family. Some of the other clips that I had observed contained the cameraman taking the video trying to interact with a Meerkat whilst it was looking out for predators in the wild. The person was a fair distance away from the Meerkat sentry, so it didn't react whilst he was recording it with his camera. But he told the viewers that he was going to make a quiet distinctive sound for the Meerkat to hear to grab its attention. When the Meerkat realized he was there making the quiet sound, it surprised me that it could hear even the most quietest sound from such a long distance. Other clips included the same cameraman very close up to a Meerkat family scrounging for food. There was one point in the video where an adult Meerkat had climbed onto the cameraman's head to look out in the distance for any predators that may potentially come by. This interested me as the Meerkat didn't react to the cameraman being there and had him look like some obstacle that was part of the surrounding environment.
When looking for how Meerkats react around other animals however, it wasn't an easy task. After not finding much information on the internet, I went to my colleges' library and found a book about Meerkats, the book contained information about how they survive in the wild, what animals were classed as predators towards them and, more importantly, how they would act around the potential predators. When a Meerkat is put up against a large creature, it would become very nervous for whats going to happen next. One key thing I found was that when a Meerkat thinks that the rival animal might eliminate them, the Meerkat would look up into the sky. This got me thinking that Meerkats don't want to see their own deaths coming by another if they know they are outmatched by a larger animal.
Another thing I looked into also was all the sounds that a Meerkat would make in different situations. The first noise that a Meerkat would make when nothing is happening and it is resting is a quiet cute squeaking sound. After further researching into this squeak sound that it produces, it dosent really mean anything, its just a natural noise that a Meerkat would make a on a regular basis. The second noise that it produces is when it is being chased by a predator, the sound is a loud bark, this bark sound is much similar to that of a dogs bark. The barking sound is meant to distract the predators away from the Meerkat when it is being chased. The sound is meant to be bounced off rock surfaces and create an echo for the predator to hopefully follow giving the Meerkat an easier escape. After learning of this sound that it produces, I can understand that Meerkats can be a very strategic animal, as being able to get away from predators using a technique is very smart and well processed, especially from an animal. The third and final sound that a Meerkat produces is a hissing sound, which is similar to a Cats when it looks at threats. This sound is meant to lure away predators when face to face with a Meerkat, as the hissing sound is meant to make the predator feel fear when the hiss is heard by it, hopefully making it turn away form the Meerkat. This sound however, dosent always work, since larger potential predators wouldn't feel as much fear compared to a smaller predator. I also leaned that when a Meerkat thinks that this predator would eliminate them, they would look up into the sky, I'm guessing they do this so they don't see their own fate coming, and it also shows how nervous Meerkats could be when put up against their predators. I used each one of these sounds in the assessment at the appropriate moments that I felt were normal to perform them. I felt that doing these sounds would also go towards my overall grade and it would also show my teacher that I further researched into my animal by discovering the different sounds that it produces. And since we were also being recorded by our teacher, it didn't leave me doing nothing but movement whilst on camera.
What I Found Easy/Difficult In This Assignment And How I Overcame Them:
Throughout the entire assignment, I found it very interesting to know the physical movements of a Meerkat through research and development, and how that can be reflected on your own physical movement. What I found easy in this assignment was learning how to move and embody a Meerkat, the process wasn't very hard to accomplish since I always had to have a sort of poker face whilst performing since Meerkats don't have any form of using facial expression. But the only thing I found difficult in this assignment was trying to move at the same tempo as a Meerkat, since they move really fast, and I tried to do it without going on all fours, since Meerkats don't move like that, and doing this movement for a long period of time hurt my lower back and my arms to the point where I couldn't do it any further without having a break first. However, before the assessment began, I did manage to overcome these difficulties by spending more time, at home, practicing moving like a Meerkat and the Human form of the Meerkat. I also constantly watched videos to help so I could analyze the Meerkats movement and facial expressions to get more detail in the assessment, and fully understand how to embody the Meerkat both as the animal and Human variants. Another thing I found easy to achieve in this assignment was to physically and mentally embody a Meerkat form. I say this because as soon as I had to become my chosen animal in front of my teacher, i knew exactly what I was going to do to achieve the tranformation from Human to Meerkat. The things I did to become the Meerkat, at first physically, was I bent my knees and my back was always to be straight throughtout the potrayal. I also pulled on a straight face with no expression to be done throught the potrayal, I did understand through research that Meerkats can put on a smile when looking at a friendly human/animal, but since I was performing in a cage at a zoo, I thought that the Meerkat would be sad and have no reason to smile because of that, so at all times I kept the straight face. This only became harder for me to achieve when students came to observe me for my assessment for my portrayal as the Meerkat, when the students looked at me, I found it hard to smile since I'm friends with a lot of the students that came in, and it was hard to look at them with a straight face. But I overcame this by still thinking about the atmosphere of being in a cage with no escape route possible which made me sadder overall since personally, I don't like looking at animals in cages in real life, I always have the urge to release them but also realizing I can't. The students also did find it obvious that I was acting like a Meerkat, they may have figured this out by either noticing the the piece of clothing I chose to wear with my portrayal, which was a brown hat with ears, or it was how I was acting physically, with my bent knees and straight back when I was standing on my hind legs and looking around with increased awareness to accompany it. It became even more obvious for them when I made the squeaking sound that a Meerkat makes, them catching on really quickly as to what animal I was performing as for the assessment made me think I was a really good interpretation of the Meerkat after much research and development at home.
So after completing the assessment, I felt that I gave the best interpretation of a Meerkat with both Physicality and Personality, and also with further evidence supported by a recording of my assessment, I think that I will be marked very highly by my Physical Theatre teacher, and after completing this evaluation of 'The Human Zoo', I think that alongside my performance, I will achieve a much higher mark.
Introduction To Assignment:
Throughout our second term in the Level 2 Performing Arts course, our Physical Theatre lessons have been leading up to developing and understanding each of our own individual physical movement. For this new assignment, we are to be assessed by our Physical Theatre teacher, what he is looking for is if we can use our own individual physical movement to relate towards how animals would move.
To start off this assignment, we were all given the exercise to create our own animal. The purpose of this exercise was to show off our understanding of animals and how they have their unique way of movement, it also prepares us for the task ahead where we have to move and act physically the same as a real life animal. To begin with, we all had to create an animal, present its key features to our teacher and to inform the group about its habitat and if it was a predator or if it was a prey of another species. In creating our own individual animal, we were to show off our own understanding of how to present an animals movement without background information to help, as well as mixing several animal features in order to further develop our own creations. The animal that I had created has its natural habitat in a Jungle, its key characteristics were having big long arms with big hands which had sharp claws, and the legs were similar to a Monkey's, were they were always bent. After the creation of the animal, I then had to present its movement to my teacher and the rest of the group. My idea of its movement was for it to move quite slow (much like the tempo of a bear), having the big long arms, it balances itself by wobbling side to side and using the long arms to help support its movements. To conclude my presentation of my newly created animal, my teacher asked me to present also what my animal is like in a combat situation. I presented this by having my movement increased to a much higher tempo, I did this so any potential predators would be caught off guard and be caught by my animal with his large arms. it would then use its sharp claws to quickly dispatch any animal that may now be considered prey toward it. I left this lesson feeling prepped for what was next in this new assignment, this lesson gave our teacher a good impression on what could potentially happen next lesson when we were to act as a real life animal by our choosing. Performing this exercise was a good start to the new assignment, and was very enjoyable to experience, as I have never acted like an animal before and it would give me time to develop on my new ways of physical movement.
On the next week of the assignment, our teacher had arranged to go to the animal care department in the college to observe an animal and later on return to the classroom to mimic our chosen animal with both physicality and personality features included. The animal that I had observed and mimicked for this task was a Ferret. Acting physically like a Ferret was much the same as a Meerkat and, looking back at it after the assessment for this project, some of the things I had to do physically to act like a Ferret was merely the same as when I had to act physically like a Meerkat. The things I'm talking about is how I had to manipulate my body to come as close as possible to portraying my own interpretation of both the Ferret and the Meerkat. When I talk about manipulating my body, I specifically mean doing things like tensing my abdominal muscles, to help support my weight whilst I'm in a uncomfortable position, these positions include just trying to stay above the floor with my hands and feet helping me move around, since I couldn't use my knees to help support me since a Ferret doesn't use its knees to move around. I also had to relax my shoulders as much as I could, to give the portrayal that I may look smaller, since Ferrets are small animals, much the same size as a Meerkat. Relaxing my shoulders, especially when using my hands and feet to move around the room, became more difficult for my hands/biceps, since my shoulders actually do help me a lot when I have to move around this way and, after a while, it came to a point where I needed to take a small break to relax my hands/biceps since they did start to hurt. But further practice outside the lesson trying to move like a Ferret once more, the process of movement did become substantially easier to achieve. Tensing my butt also helped me towards stability when I was moving around as the Ferret as, in some ways, it felt like the weight of my legs decreased and allowed me to move around at a tempo I could feel more comfortable with at a long period of time.
In our next Physical Theatre lesson, we began to look at our own individual physical movement, and discussed as to how we could relate it to a real animal. The animals that we all had to choose for this assignment had to live on land and also had to be an animal that you would find in the zoo. Our teacher carefully analyzed each of our movements when performing an exercise where we all had to move around the room in our normal walk pattern and tempo, doing this would then result in our teacher telling us what animal would fit all of us perfectly for this assignment. My teacher made the decision and said that I would fit being a Meerkat in this assignment. This made this assignment much more exciting for me, since the Meerkat is my actual favorite animal, and I have also seen many Meerkats in real life form at zoo's before. Being chosen to act physically and personally like a Meerkat made the assignment look easier for me to complete, since I acted like a Ferret in the previous Physical Theatre lessons, and Ferrets and Meerkats combined together, do have the same movement patterns but with the Meerkat moving at a much faster tempo, but moving at faster tempo was the only thing that I felt I was going to struggle with the most on this project, but with much more practice at home in my own time whilst researching a Meerkats physicality and personality, this should help with when I have to present my performance as a Meerkat later on in the Physical Theatre lessons.
The following lessons aloud me to present my Physicality of a Meerkat and also its Personality, this was all help by researching
into how I could develop the characterization of a Meerkat and when it would later transform into a Human. The research I looked at was some footage I found on the BBC's YouTube channel, the footage was the cameraman going into Meerkat territory and learning what a Meerkat would do in everyday situations. Later on in this Blog, I talk about what happened in these clips, and how it helped me develop my Meerkat impersonation further as we went through the whole assignment up to the point of our assessment.
What I Had Learnt From Watching "Kafka's Monkey" And "Project Nim":
Before
rehearsals began in this assignment, we had two lessons prior where we were watching two movies which showed
two different stories of animal to human transformation. The first movie we watched was of a stage production called “Kafka’s Monkey”, and
the second movie was a documentary called “Project Nim”.
“Kafka’s Monkey”, in my opinion, was a great example of a Humans portrayal of a Monkey. The story of the play involved the one and only actor on stage to break the forth wall by telling the audience the story of how she was originally a monkey and, over countless years of being experimented on, transformed into a human. The script of the production had a lot of detail as to how painful it was for this character to transform, both during experimentation, and even the journey from her original home to the land of Humans. Whilst the plot was interesting and intriguing to follow along with, the main focus for us to grasp by watching this film, was to look at the actress’s physicality whilst on stage. The idea that she was once an animal and had become a human, meant that she would have to walk and talk like a human but show past references to her being a Monkey, this showed the audience that she still had a bit of the Monkey within her still after all the experiments. This was shown both physically and verbally. Verbally, we could understand her perfectly, but there was that slight impression that the English language was still new to her and she was still learning how to pronounce different words. Whereas Physically, her body was split into two differently acted sections. The bottom half of her body was almost normal, with the legs being in use for normal human pacing; whereas the top half of the body had more relation to a Monkey, having a bent back and the arms looking longer than a regular Humans. But mainly, there was still a strong hint of the Human aspect as she communicated with the audience, she did use some of her physicality as a regular human; but there were times in the performance when she acted physically like a Monkey again, for example, there was one part of the performance where she had to hang on a ladder, the way she hand sat on this ladder was similar to how a Monkey would sit on it, with one arm dangling off the side and also leaning out towards the open air. After watching the film, I thought that the production was excellent and brilliantly detailed in terms of storyline, as the actress gave an incredible presentation of a Human who was once a Monkey physically going back through all the horrible experiences she had been through on her journey form a Monkey transforming into a Human.
When it came to watch the documentary movie called “Project Nim”, the experience of watching it was different entirely. This documentary told the story of a group of scientists in the 1970s that began a project, in which they took a live Monkey in captivity and taught it sign language, so it would later be able to communicate with humans in the real world. I thought watching this documentary was interesting, yet it was not as effective as "Kafka's Monkey". “Project Nim” showed us the physicality of the Monkey later called Nim, and how it would slowly evolve and develop a hint of the same characteristics of a normal Human Being. This documentary did show us that Monkey's can develop their own unique personality, and it was also interesting to see how it neglected against learning the ways of a human. The story of the scientist trying to change Nims personality was interesting, but not as effective as "Kafka's Monkey's" storyline, in the way of showing us the physicality of the Monkey being both Human and, at times, going back to how a Monkey would move. We saw what it was like for the Monkey to be slowly developing into a Human in "Project Nim", but it wasn’t as detailed as “Kafka’s Monkey”, as in that, we saw the point of view of the story from the Monkey who became a Human. Whereas “Project Nim” showed us the point of view of the story from the scientists, and they didn’t think that the project went through as a success in the end after all the years of trying to make Nim a Humanized Monkey.
But in the end, I thought these videos were very helpful towards my final performance for the assessment, because I knew that when it came to the physicality of turning into the human variant of our animal, to remember to also show a few hints of the animal it used to be in the actions, as well as to give a slow change into the human, to show the slow development of the animal turning into the Human, as by watching and understanding these productions, the process takes a while to complete.
My Chosen Animal And Why I Chose It (Similarities Comparison):
The animal that I had chosen to study and develop for this project was a Meerkat. I chose the Meerkat because I felt that my overall personality is, along the lines, the same as a Meerkat, for example, Meerkats, whilst in the wild, tend to be very aware of their surroundings and can be self conscious when protecting both themselves and all the other animals around them, specifically their own families. After studying my own personality, I had come to realize that I also act the same way, for example, I constantly try to keep out of any sort of danger that may harm me physically or mentally, and I am also very aware of my own surroundings when in a public place by myself or with friends. This is why I thought choosing a Meerkat to both study and develop on for this project would be perfect for me personally, since I think both of our personalities are much the same. It also, in my opinion, makes me stand out among my fellow actors in the group, since my animal is the smallest one in the zoo, and could be a challenge for me to mimic the movement of it..
Key Discoveries About A Meerkats Personality:
When I first decided to perform as a Meerkat for this project, I thought it would help if I got a better understanding of its personality, so I can give the most effective performance when it came to our assessment for transforming from a Meerkat to a Human Being. I understand that Meerkats are a very shy/nervous animal, and are always aware of their surroundings to see when predators are coming before they even see them. They are also very self conscious about themselves and when protecting their offspring from incoming dangers. Whilst researching further into their personality, I found a great website talking about all the things to do with Meerkats, things like, how they reproduce, the habitat that they live in, what they eat, and it also talks about its typical day and what they do to survive in the wild.
Here is the web link to the website I found: http://www.meerkats.net/info.htm
This website helped me a lot more when it came to performing my assessment, as I could build an imagination of the area a Meerkat would associate with, for example, in the rehearsals for this project, the whole group were put into a their own individual cage, and whilst rehearsing as our animals, I imagined the cage being filled with sand since that is the natural habitat Meerkats live in. This helped me since we were all being recorded and we would get marked on using our imagination for building an area, whilst in the cage, that each animal would naturally live in if they were in the wild.
Key Discoveries About A Meerkats Physicality:
When discovering about a Meerkats personality, I thought it would help me also if I had researched into a Meerkats physicality, to get a better understanding on how a Meerkat would move in the wild. For example, I researched into the Tempo of a Meerkat, to see how fast or slow it moves. Having already known the answer, a Meerkat moves very fast because of its hind legs and small figure so they can get away from predators very easily. I also discovered that Meerkats burrow into the ground, to either protect their offspring whilst the adult looks for food, or to make it a safe-house for when predators are after them and all the Meerkats have a place to rendezvous to later. Since the Meerkats are so much smaller than an average sized human, it was hard for me to move as fast as they do, but after much rehearsal time and practice at home in my own time, I was able to pull off their fast moving attributes effectively. Since Meerkats aren't a very large animal, throughout rehearsals and developing further in my own time, I tried to make myself look smaller by when the Meerkat would stand on it hind legs, I would bend my knees much more than it would normally do. Whether or not this affects my overall grade on this assignment, I felt that doing this may have shown my teacher that I tried to fully experience what it would be like to be a smaller compared to larger actors in the group, since my animal was the smallest in the room and other actors animals were much larger.
A task we did for this assignment was to print off the internet five, or more, different pictures of our chosen animal and we were to try and mimic the physicality of the animal in the picture. One picture I wanted to perform physically was a Meerkat actually smiling at the camera, this wasn't very hard to accomplish, as I only had to smile when my teacher observed us all. The challenge for me in particular during this brief period, was to try and hold the smile when my teacher observed me, as it potentially shows my teacher that I can't be put off easily during a performance.
When it came to achieving the physicality of a Meerkat, after watching several clips of them, I identified my own physical structure and tried to achieve my own interpretation of a Meerkat. I achieved the physicality of the Meerkat by standing in front of a mirror at home and I simply relaxed my shoulders and controlled my breathing pattern, and step by step, I went from head to toe mimicking the physicality of the Meerkat. The things I did to achieve a Meerkats physicality, in terms of movement, was that I had to manipulate my body by tensing my butt and my stomach and also keeping my back straight at all times during the performance; this would help me when the Meerkat would stand on is hind legs to look out, since tensing my butt and stomach made the top half of my body very stiff and still whilst performing with a straight face since half the time, during my research, Meerkats don’t have much physical features in terms of their faces. I did the same when I moved around the room on all fours but with my knees not touching the floor, since a Meerkat doesn’t move around with its knees touching the floor, the back legs, which I discovered through research, are bent when they move but aren’t touching the floor, this is when my abdominal muscles would come into play, as they would help keep my stability whilst I was moving around the room having a straight back and my butt tensed in. The idea I was focusing on the most whilst doing this was me thinking that my head would be the heaviest part of my body, this allowed me to move much faster around the room. A Meerkats inner tempo is very quick, for example, when there was music to be played during the performance, I would react very fast to trying to discover what triggered the noise. This was easy for me to achieve since I as well am very aware in all situations of life, this is one of the many reasons I thought that performing as a Meerkat was the best choice for me personally. The outer tempo of a Meerkat is also very quick, they would always move very fast even if they are relaxed. I said earlier in this part of the blog that I had rehearsed in my own time to move at the same tempo as a Meerkat and it came out effectively.
Whilst Observing A Meerkat, What Was I Looking For Specifically:
Whilst I was watching different clips of Meerkats on YouTube, I was specifically looking at how they would do things naturally, these things would include, how they sleep, how they act around other Meerkats (be it family or a stranger), and how they would react around Humans and other animals also. There was one funny clip I had found of a Meerkat nodding off to sleep whilst sitting down on its butt and then eventually just falling asleep whilst curled up in a ball shape. When acting around other Meerkats, they tend to fight the ones that they don't know and hug the ones that they love which signifies that that Meerkat was part of its family. Some of the other clips that I had observed contained the cameraman taking the video trying to interact with a Meerkat whilst it was looking out for predators in the wild. The person was a fair distance away from the Meerkat sentry, so it didn't react whilst he was recording it with his camera. But he told the viewers that he was going to make a quiet distinctive sound for the Meerkat to hear to grab its attention. When the Meerkat realized he was there making the quiet sound, it surprised me that it could hear even the most quietest sound from such a long distance. Other clips included the same cameraman very close up to a Meerkat family scrounging for food. There was one point in the video where an adult Meerkat had climbed onto the cameraman's head to look out in the distance for any predators that may potentially come by. This interested me as the Meerkat didn't react to the cameraman being there and had him look like some obstacle that was part of the surrounding environment.
When looking for how Meerkats react around other animals however, it wasn't an easy task. After not finding much information on the internet, I went to my colleges' library and found a book about Meerkats, the book contained information about how they survive in the wild, what animals were classed as predators towards them and, more importantly, how they would act around the potential predators. When a Meerkat is put up against a large creature, it would become very nervous for whats going to happen next. One key thing I found was that when a Meerkat thinks that the rival animal might eliminate them, the Meerkat would look up into the sky. This got me thinking that Meerkats don't want to see their own deaths coming by another if they know they are outmatched by a larger animal.
Another thing I looked into also was all the sounds that a Meerkat would make in different situations. The first noise that a Meerkat would make when nothing is happening and it is resting is a quiet cute squeaking sound. After further researching into this squeak sound that it produces, it dosent really mean anything, its just a natural noise that a Meerkat would make a on a regular basis. The second noise that it produces is when it is being chased by a predator, the sound is a loud bark, this bark sound is much similar to that of a dogs bark. The barking sound is meant to distract the predators away from the Meerkat when it is being chased. The sound is meant to be bounced off rock surfaces and create an echo for the predator to hopefully follow giving the Meerkat an easier escape. After learning of this sound that it produces, I can understand that Meerkats can be a very strategic animal, as being able to get away from predators using a technique is very smart and well processed, especially from an animal. The third and final sound that a Meerkat produces is a hissing sound, which is similar to a Cats when it looks at threats. This sound is meant to lure away predators when face to face with a Meerkat, as the hissing sound is meant to make the predator feel fear when the hiss is heard by it, hopefully making it turn away form the Meerkat. This sound however, dosent always work, since larger potential predators wouldn't feel as much fear compared to a smaller predator. I also leaned that when a Meerkat thinks that this predator would eliminate them, they would look up into the sky, I'm guessing they do this so they don't see their own fate coming, and it also shows how nervous Meerkats could be when put up against their predators. I used each one of these sounds in the assessment at the appropriate moments that I felt were normal to perform them. I felt that doing these sounds would also go towards my overall grade and it would also show my teacher that I further researched into my animal by discovering the different sounds that it produces. And since we were also being recorded by our teacher, it didn't leave me doing nothing but movement whilst on camera.
What I Found Easy/Difficult In This Assignment And How I Overcame Them:
Throughout the entire assignment, I found it very interesting to know the physical movements of a Meerkat through research and development, and how that can be reflected on your own physical movement. What I found easy in this assignment was learning how to move and embody a Meerkat, the process wasn't very hard to accomplish since I always had to have a sort of poker face whilst performing since Meerkats don't have any form of using facial expression. But the only thing I found difficult in this assignment was trying to move at the same tempo as a Meerkat, since they move really fast, and I tried to do it without going on all fours, since Meerkats don't move like that, and doing this movement for a long period of time hurt my lower back and my arms to the point where I couldn't do it any further without having a break first. However, before the assessment began, I did manage to overcome these difficulties by spending more time, at home, practicing moving like a Meerkat and the Human form of the Meerkat. I also constantly watched videos to help so I could analyze the Meerkats movement and facial expressions to get more detail in the assessment, and fully understand how to embody the Meerkat both as the animal and Human variants. Another thing I found easy to achieve in this assignment was to physically and mentally embody a Meerkat form. I say this because as soon as I had to become my chosen animal in front of my teacher, i knew exactly what I was going to do to achieve the tranformation from Human to Meerkat. The things I did to become the Meerkat, at first physically, was I bent my knees and my back was always to be straight throughtout the potrayal. I also pulled on a straight face with no expression to be done throught the potrayal, I did understand through research that Meerkats can put on a smile when looking at a friendly human/animal, but since I was performing in a cage at a zoo, I thought that the Meerkat would be sad and have no reason to smile because of that, so at all times I kept the straight face. This only became harder for me to achieve when students came to observe me for my assessment for my portrayal as the Meerkat, when the students looked at me, I found it hard to smile since I'm friends with a lot of the students that came in, and it was hard to look at them with a straight face. But I overcame this by still thinking about the atmosphere of being in a cage with no escape route possible which made me sadder overall since personally, I don't like looking at animals in cages in real life, I always have the urge to release them but also realizing I can't. The students also did find it obvious that I was acting like a Meerkat, they may have figured this out by either noticing the the piece of clothing I chose to wear with my portrayal, which was a brown hat with ears, or it was how I was acting physically, with my bent knees and straight back when I was standing on my hind legs and looking around with increased awareness to accompany it. It became even more obvious for them when I made the squeaking sound that a Meerkat makes, them catching on really quickly as to what animal I was performing as for the assessment made me think I was a really good interpretation of the Meerkat after much research and development at home.
So after completing the assessment, I felt that I gave the best interpretation of a Meerkat with both Physicality and Personality, and also with further evidence supported by a recording of my assessment, I think that I will be marked very highly by my Physical Theatre teacher, and after completing this evaluation of 'The Human Zoo', I think that alongside my performance, I will achieve a much higher mark.
Wednesday 12 March 2014
Week 19 ( Week 7 For Shakespeare )
Week 19, Monday 3rd - Thursday 6th Of March 2014
To start of the week of the 'Shakepspeare's House Party' Production performances, we continued to work through several rehearsal sessions, to give the best performance possible in front of a live audience for Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th of March. We mainly worked on all the scenes in the production, to see if our teacher or the rest of the group could find ways to improve the performance given by the actors. The parts that were to be improved for me were to slow down certain bits of speech during my lines, since my teacher thinks that I am talking too fast and should slow down so the audience could catch the words I was saying to the other actors on stage. Our teacher then gave us all the guidelines to achieveing the highest grade possible for this production, she explains all the key techniques that we all need to pull off in the performance to achieve higher, and also told us that when typing up certain bits of work to do with Shakespeare and the Character Development process, we were to be as detailed as possible and to give examples along with our findings of the subject.
After the first performance of 'Shakespeare's House Party' on Wednesday 5th of March, our teacher had given all of us a positive review and has given notes to certain actors in the room so they can improve for the next performance later on the same day. I got no notes from my teacher after the first performance had finished, so I imagined that during my performance, I had performed to my best ability and didn't need any improvements, but during the break between the 2 performances, I had thought of a few things that could of gone better during the performance, for example, I remember messing up on the dance routines on a few bits, and I feel I could of added more life to it whilst doing so. Also after we had finished the first performance, which was done in front of the Level 3 Acting students, we had recieved positive comments from them about funny parts of our performance. They also went on to say that our group for Level 2 Acting was much better than the previous Level 2's, since we had much more personality when it came to performance, and told all of us that we have a great chance of entering Level 3 in the future.
After finishing our second performance later on the same day, our teacher said that each time we all performed, it seemed to get better and better. For this performance, I was acting in front of my parents, whom have supported me since the beginning of my acting career and have enspired me to carry on performing to the best of my ability. I feel that I had performed better in this performance over the last because I felt alot more comfortable performing in front of parents as opposed to students, since they don't judge you as much on your performance and I went home with my parents impressed with my performance in this production. Again, I feel even more comfortable with my performance because my parents were pointing out stuff I did on stage that they found funny and they could tell how much work I had put into my characters whilst at home.
For starting off on Thursday, we didn't do as much rehearsals for the main performances later on, since our teacher thought that we had nailed the last two performances on the previous day and she was confident enough to trust that we would still rehearse on a longer break away from the theatre.
After our third performance had finished, only this time performing in front of the Level 3 Musical Theatre students, we had once again given a grand smashing performance that was later on afterwards, positively complimented by all of the Musical Theatre students. All of the compliments that were given were, along the lines, the same as the previous performances, but it still shows that we had performed to our bestest ability and haven't given up on our focus for the performance. I then afterwards realised that we only had one more performance to give for tonight, so hopefully it will be the best performance saved until last.
After later on completing the final performance, which was alot more different than previous, I felt that it was our best performance. It was different because the other actors in the group had performed much differently than before both physically and mentally for their characters. One example of an actor creating a different performance, occured in the first scene of the performance after the Prologue and opening dance routine. The actor that was performing in the 'Actors Scene' as Snout with me being Puck from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' had changed his characters personality completely, he performed with his voice being more high pitched and had acted more like his own interpretation of a 'Gay' person. This did make the audience laugh more at our performance, but it made the actors on stage come out of character, since none of us were expecting his performance to change. He did the same act later on in a completely different scene with a completely different character. I felt that this may have ruined his overall performance mark, since if you have several characters in a performance, they shouldn't act the same way. But overall, I thought that this performance was on of the best ones to be potrayed by every actor, since because it was our last performance, we gave it our all and strived to achieve the best performance until last.
To start of the week of the 'Shakepspeare's House Party' Production performances, we continued to work through several rehearsal sessions, to give the best performance possible in front of a live audience for Wednesday 5th and Thursday 6th of March. We mainly worked on all the scenes in the production, to see if our teacher or the rest of the group could find ways to improve the performance given by the actors. The parts that were to be improved for me were to slow down certain bits of speech during my lines, since my teacher thinks that I am talking too fast and should slow down so the audience could catch the words I was saying to the other actors on stage. Our teacher then gave us all the guidelines to achieveing the highest grade possible for this production, she explains all the key techniques that we all need to pull off in the performance to achieve higher, and also told us that when typing up certain bits of work to do with Shakespeare and the Character Development process, we were to be as detailed as possible and to give examples along with our findings of the subject.
After the first performance of 'Shakespeare's House Party' on Wednesday 5th of March, our teacher had given all of us a positive review and has given notes to certain actors in the room so they can improve for the next performance later on the same day. I got no notes from my teacher after the first performance had finished, so I imagined that during my performance, I had performed to my best ability and didn't need any improvements, but during the break between the 2 performances, I had thought of a few things that could of gone better during the performance, for example, I remember messing up on the dance routines on a few bits, and I feel I could of added more life to it whilst doing so. Also after we had finished the first performance, which was done in front of the Level 3 Acting students, we had recieved positive comments from them about funny parts of our performance. They also went on to say that our group for Level 2 Acting was much better than the previous Level 2's, since we had much more personality when it came to performance, and told all of us that we have a great chance of entering Level 3 in the future.
After finishing our second performance later on the same day, our teacher said that each time we all performed, it seemed to get better and better. For this performance, I was acting in front of my parents, whom have supported me since the beginning of my acting career and have enspired me to carry on performing to the best of my ability. I feel that I had performed better in this performance over the last because I felt alot more comfortable performing in front of parents as opposed to students, since they don't judge you as much on your performance and I went home with my parents impressed with my performance in this production. Again, I feel even more comfortable with my performance because my parents were pointing out stuff I did on stage that they found funny and they could tell how much work I had put into my characters whilst at home.
For starting off on Thursday, we didn't do as much rehearsals for the main performances later on, since our teacher thought that we had nailed the last two performances on the previous day and she was confident enough to trust that we would still rehearse on a longer break away from the theatre.
After our third performance had finished, only this time performing in front of the Level 3 Musical Theatre students, we had once again given a grand smashing performance that was later on afterwards, positively complimented by all of the Musical Theatre students. All of the compliments that were given were, along the lines, the same as the previous performances, but it still shows that we had performed to our bestest ability and haven't given up on our focus for the performance. I then afterwards realised that we only had one more performance to give for tonight, so hopefully it will be the best performance saved until last.
After later on completing the final performance, which was alot more different than previous, I felt that it was our best performance. It was different because the other actors in the group had performed much differently than before both physically and mentally for their characters. One example of an actor creating a different performance, occured in the first scene of the performance after the Prologue and opening dance routine. The actor that was performing in the 'Actors Scene' as Snout with me being Puck from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' had changed his characters personality completely, he performed with his voice being more high pitched and had acted more like his own interpretation of a 'Gay' person. This did make the audience laugh more at our performance, but it made the actors on stage come out of character, since none of us were expecting his performance to change. He did the same act later on in a completely different scene with a completely different character. I felt that this may have ruined his overall performance mark, since if you have several characters in a performance, they shouldn't act the same way. But overall, I thought that this performance was on of the best ones to be potrayed by every actor, since because it was our last performance, we gave it our all and strived to achieve the best performance until last.
Tuesday 11 March 2014
'Shakespeare's House Party' Production Process Evaluation
'Shakespeare's House Party' Production Process Evaluation
The Job Role:
For the 'Shakespeare's House Party' production, in which me and my group had performed to a live audience in early March 2014, I volunteered for the Job Role of 'Costumes Manager'. Being the Costumes Manager, I had to decide what costume theme the group wanted for their performance. I did this by, at first, coming up with different costume themes within the first production meeting where I was working with two other members of my group. I contributed to the meeting by suggesting that we first come up with different costume themes and let the whole group decide what they wanted whilst marking down their decision on a tally chart. My partners had agreed with this idea, so that is what we evidently did. The costume themes we came up with were: Formal Wear, Masquerade and Film/TV Characters. The costume theme the whole group voted on was the 'Film/TV Characters'. The costume I had chosen after this decision was finalized was the character named 'Shaun' from the zombie classic film called 'Shaun of the Dead'.
After the first Production Meeting had finished, I had told the rest of the group that I would create a chat group on the social networking website called 'Facebook', and invite every member of the group to this chat group where we would further discuss what costumes they had decided to wear for the production. At first, not everyone had decided what they wanted to wear and if they could get the materials required for their costumes. I had counteracted this by telling them to ask others in the group if they had the resources necessary for their chosen costume, for example, one member of the group wanted to perform as 'Jack Sparrow' from 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. I had told this person to ask others if they had a certain headpiece to finish the costume, and luckily, another member of the group had the headpiece to complete the costume and had borrowed the headpiece for the performance's.
After all the costumes where decided by the whole group, I did a final check on 'Facebook' to make sure everyone brings in their costumes on the same week of the main performance's. There was a situation where one members costume had not been delivered to her house after she had ordered it online. I told her to come up with a back-up costume until the ordered costume had been delivered, or furthermore, to perform as the back-up costume if she preferred. Below will contain the list of the costumes that each member of the group had performed in:
Nathan Stokell (Me):
Character: Shaun (Shaun of the Dead)
Kaylam Taylor:
Character: The Joker (Batman Series)
Jake Colley:
Character: Plays As Himself
Templar McGregor-Sims:
Character: Trevor Phillips (GTA 5 Video Game)
Kaleigh Mitchell:
Character: Harley Quinn (Batman Series)
Demi Miller:
Character: Castiel (Supernatural TV Show)
Logan Cutbush:
Character: Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean Film Series)
Nyakeh Tutunge:
Character: Agent J (Men In Black Film Series)
Frank Hussey:
Character: Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes Series)
Milo Welch:
Character: Flynn Rider (Tangled Film)
On the weekend before the main performance's, I had decided to message my partners on 'Facebook' and start the second Production Meeting. I told them that for this meeting, I wanted solutions as to how we could keep everyone's costume organized, so nothing where to be misplaced before the production begins. I contributed to this by telling my partners, and eventually my teacher the following week, that we could use a coat rack to hang everyone's costume on. This idea was a good one, and this is what we did when it came to the dress rehearsals and the main performance's. The one thing that wasn't contributed to thinking of a way to organize everyone's costumes was to have a shoe rack also, to place footwear worn by each member in the rehearsals and the main performance's. If I have had the resource available, I would have contributed by bringing in the shoe rack for the main performance's, so each members shoes wouldn't also be misplaced. I did counteract the shoe rack idea by telling each member of the group to either wear the shoes they would normally wear on an average day, or bring in a separate bag which would contain their shoes that they had chosen to wear.
Before the main performance's began, below will be the full list of equipment/materials me and my partners had used to contribute to the production:
Coat Rack: To hold each members costume on so nothing gets lost.
Coat Hangers: To hang each persons costume on the coat rack so their costumes don't crease.
As mentioned above, I would have contributed by using a shoe rack also, to place every members shoes on before each performance. Again, if I had the resource available, I would have brought the shoe rack into college for the dress rehearsals and the main performance's.
After having done all this hard work to make sure me and my partners keep the costumes organized for each performance, we had gained positive comments from the whole group for doing so. I had appreciated each comment given to me and if I had the opportunity to be a 'Costumes Manager' again in the future, I would consider picking it because of all the positive comments given by the group and also because it is a very important role to work.
If I were to evaluate my strengths and weaknesses in this Job Role, I would think of my strengths being that I was committed for the whole process in making sure that each members costume was finalized and ready to bring in on the week of the main performance's, that I was very organized as well throughout the whole process in making sure that each members costume was on the coat rack on the week of the main performance's, and if they also had any make-up/shoes brought in within a different bag. I feel comfortable to say that I had no weaknesses whilst working for this Job Role, because throughout the whole production process, I have been focused from the very start until the very end to make sure that the costumes were to be finalized by each member and ready for the main performance's. If I could improve next time if I were to choose this Job Role again, I would like to have the resources available to bring in extra equipment, to make sure that nobody loses their costumes and footwear, since not having a shoe rack for this production did cause a little problem with people finding their shoes before the performance if they had left them at college with their costumes on the coat rack. Another idea to contribute for this to stop would be to have name tags on the footwear of each member, so no-one wears the wrong footwear accidentally on performance's.
My Self Evaluation For Performance:
Personal Strengths Achieved:
For my performance in this production, I feel comfortable saying that I have a lot more strengths than opposed to weaknesses, I say this because I have done a lot of extended research into both of my characters for this production by watching a variety of different interpretations of the same play that I perform in as the character, and I have also come up with different strategies to make me more 'Embodied' with my characters before each performance began. The exercises I had come up with doing before each performance actually originated from our weekly sessions with our acting teacher. The exercises include going from normal breathing to an extended breathing pattern to help lower the heartbeats per minute which would calm nerves, I didn't feel nervous during pre-perfomance but I did the exercise anyway just to make sure. Also whilst we were all on a break between each performance before going backstage, me and another member of the group, whom is my best friend, would perform the 'Rubber Chicken' exercise taught to us by our teacher in our first few sessions with her. The 'Rubber Chicken' exercise is a vocal warm-up, its requirements are to count from 1 to 8 in a chosen voice pitch and tempo at which to perform the warm-up, for example, normally at first in our regular sessions, we start off the 'Rubber Chicken' whilst vocally performing much like a football player with a deep voice and regular tempo speed. Afterwards we would do the same thing, to count from 1 to 8, but this time we would vocally perform it in an female opera singers voice, this required me to sing at a high pitch and at a fast tempo. Of course me and my friend were messing around whilst doing this exercise, but that made me feel more comfortable during the time before the performance, and since I was to perform with my friend for the 'Lads in Love' scene from 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona', me and him being together makes it easier for both of us since we are both there to achieve the best result we can together. I would consider using these exercise warm-ups in the future before performance's since I feel that they have benefited my performance well.
Personal Weaknesses Noticed:
In the past, I have known myself to become 'self centered' during performance's, meaning that I don't express myself physically very much whilst announcing my lines. I felt this problem occur again during our first performance with other students watching us whilst we were performing the dance routine contained after the prologue to our production. I feel that the problem was that I am not very social outside performance time, and I didn't know who I was performing to very well, which made me feel less comfortable with myself whilst dancing, since during the routine, the group and I were meant to call out to the audience and interact with them whilst dancing. I didn't do very much interaction with the audience during the first performance, but after we had finished the performance and the students came to congratulate us for finishing it, I got complimented on my performance as Puck and Proteus. This made me feel more comfortable about my performance and influenced me to do even better for the next performance. This was a regular thing that happened after every performance, resulting in our final performance to be the best one out of all four of them, but the previous also not too far off perfect. If this 'self centered' action were to occur again in any future performance's, I would think about past performance's where I was complimented and only think about the positive things that were to come out of the performance and forget about the negative. I can only monitor this by thinking about the positive side of things and knowing that it will be an improvement over the last. I feel that I can achieve this in future performance's since the students above us in the Level 3 Course for Performing Arts Acting think that we were better than the previous Level 2 Actors and know that we will become Level 3 Performing Arts students in the future, hearing comments like this made me feel more comfortable with my acting/dancing since they only point out the positives as well and seem to forget about any negativity to the performance being shown. As long as I remember about all the positive comments that were given to me after a previous performance, I feel that it will not be impossible to achieve this goal in a future performance, either it be in front of a larger audience or in front of people I don't know personally.
How To Improve Next Time:
Something to improve for my next performance may be my diction and pronunciation of words, and to slow down on certain lines when I am speaking so the audience can grab the conversation happening between a certain number of actors. During rehearsal sessions before performance's, my teacher had pointed out that on certain bits during my lines, I would speak very fast and she thinks that the audience won't catch what I am saying to another actor on stage. I took note of this and practiced announcing my lines at the chosen tempo to say them so when It comes to the next performance, I can say my lines without having to worry that the audience can't understand what I am saying. I am going to consider trying to speak more slowly in the future so it becomes more natural when it comes to performance an line runs, so my voice is much clearer to understand.
How Do I Feel The Production Went As A Whole:
I feel that the 'Shakespeare's House Party' production has been one of the best productions I have performed in for the start of my acting career. I say this because I feel that everyone was a lot more focused in this production opposed to the last one we performed in at South Downs College. This ranges from me and my partners as the 'Costume Managers' being very organized with all the costumes, for example, I was very committed to my Job Role and contributed most of the ideas we had used in the production process to give the best organization possible. The 'Head of Props' also keeping all the props used on stage in an orderly/organized fashion, for example, she had placed the props on tables on both sides of the stage to later be used during performance by some of the actors to use in their scenes. The 'Lighting Technicians' managed to have the right contrast and moods of lighting fitted for each scene in the performance, for example, one scene in the production with Helena and Lysander performing their scene had a deep blue/violet light which was quite a nice color to see whilst watching their scene since it had a lot to do with love. The 'Sound Technicians' had picked very good songs that went well with the production as a whole, especially the dance routines, where we danced to 'Get This Party Started' and 'Bust A Move' in between scenes fitted well in the performance.
Could We Have Done Better Overall:
I feel that our performance couldn't really get any better than it has been since we all tried our best in the Job Roles we chose to work in, and we delivered a grand smashing performance to finish it off. I feel that me and the whole group worked as a great team overall and, in my opinion, we should all be graded equally since we all performed to our best ability and we all had a lot of fun during the process of this production.
The Job Role:
For the 'Shakespeare's House Party' production, in which me and my group had performed to a live audience in early March 2014, I volunteered for the Job Role of 'Costumes Manager'. Being the Costumes Manager, I had to decide what costume theme the group wanted for their performance. I did this by, at first, coming up with different costume themes within the first production meeting where I was working with two other members of my group. I contributed to the meeting by suggesting that we first come up with different costume themes and let the whole group decide what they wanted whilst marking down their decision on a tally chart. My partners had agreed with this idea, so that is what we evidently did. The costume themes we came up with were: Formal Wear, Masquerade and Film/TV Characters. The costume theme the whole group voted on was the 'Film/TV Characters'. The costume I had chosen after this decision was finalized was the character named 'Shaun' from the zombie classic film called 'Shaun of the Dead'.
After the first Production Meeting had finished, I had told the rest of the group that I would create a chat group on the social networking website called 'Facebook', and invite every member of the group to this chat group where we would further discuss what costumes they had decided to wear for the production. At first, not everyone had decided what they wanted to wear and if they could get the materials required for their costumes. I had counteracted this by telling them to ask others in the group if they had the resources necessary for their chosen costume, for example, one member of the group wanted to perform as 'Jack Sparrow' from 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. I had told this person to ask others if they had a certain headpiece to finish the costume, and luckily, another member of the group had the headpiece to complete the costume and had borrowed the headpiece for the performance's.
After all the costumes where decided by the whole group, I did a final check on 'Facebook' to make sure everyone brings in their costumes on the same week of the main performance's. There was a situation where one members costume had not been delivered to her house after she had ordered it online. I told her to come up with a back-up costume until the ordered costume had been delivered, or furthermore, to perform as the back-up costume if she preferred. Below will contain the list of the costumes that each member of the group had performed in:
Nathan Stokell (Me):
Character: Shaun (Shaun of the Dead)
Kaylam Taylor:
Character: The Joker (Batman Series)
Jake Colley:
Character: Plays As Himself
Templar McGregor-Sims:
Character: Trevor Phillips (GTA 5 Video Game)
Kaleigh Mitchell:
Character: Harley Quinn (Batman Series)
Demi Miller:
Character: Castiel (Supernatural TV Show)
Logan Cutbush:
Character: Captain Jack Sparrow (Pirates of the Caribbean Film Series)
Nyakeh Tutunge:
Character: Agent J (Men In Black Film Series)
Frank Hussey:
Character: Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes Series)
Milo Welch:
Character: Flynn Rider (Tangled Film)
On the weekend before the main performance's, I had decided to message my partners on 'Facebook' and start the second Production Meeting. I told them that for this meeting, I wanted solutions as to how we could keep everyone's costume organized, so nothing where to be misplaced before the production begins. I contributed to this by telling my partners, and eventually my teacher the following week, that we could use a coat rack to hang everyone's costume on. This idea was a good one, and this is what we did when it came to the dress rehearsals and the main performance's. The one thing that wasn't contributed to thinking of a way to organize everyone's costumes was to have a shoe rack also, to place footwear worn by each member in the rehearsals and the main performance's. If I have had the resource available, I would have contributed by bringing in the shoe rack for the main performance's, so each members shoes wouldn't also be misplaced. I did counteract the shoe rack idea by telling each member of the group to either wear the shoes they would normally wear on an average day, or bring in a separate bag which would contain their shoes that they had chosen to wear.
Before the main performance's began, below will be the full list of equipment/materials me and my partners had used to contribute to the production:
Coat Rack: To hold each members costume on so nothing gets lost.
Coat Hangers: To hang each persons costume on the coat rack so their costumes don't crease.
As mentioned above, I would have contributed by using a shoe rack also, to place every members shoes on before each performance. Again, if I had the resource available, I would have brought the shoe rack into college for the dress rehearsals and the main performance's.
After having done all this hard work to make sure me and my partners keep the costumes organized for each performance, we had gained positive comments from the whole group for doing so. I had appreciated each comment given to me and if I had the opportunity to be a 'Costumes Manager' again in the future, I would consider picking it because of all the positive comments given by the group and also because it is a very important role to work.
If I were to evaluate my strengths and weaknesses in this Job Role, I would think of my strengths being that I was committed for the whole process in making sure that each members costume was finalized and ready to bring in on the week of the main performance's, that I was very organized as well throughout the whole process in making sure that each members costume was on the coat rack on the week of the main performance's, and if they also had any make-up/shoes brought in within a different bag. I feel comfortable to say that I had no weaknesses whilst working for this Job Role, because throughout the whole production process, I have been focused from the very start until the very end to make sure that the costumes were to be finalized by each member and ready for the main performance's. If I could improve next time if I were to choose this Job Role again, I would like to have the resources available to bring in extra equipment, to make sure that nobody loses their costumes and footwear, since not having a shoe rack for this production did cause a little problem with people finding their shoes before the performance if they had left them at college with their costumes on the coat rack. Another idea to contribute for this to stop would be to have name tags on the footwear of each member, so no-one wears the wrong footwear accidentally on performance's.
My Self Evaluation For Performance:
Personal Strengths Achieved:
For my performance in this production, I feel comfortable saying that I have a lot more strengths than opposed to weaknesses, I say this because I have done a lot of extended research into both of my characters for this production by watching a variety of different interpretations of the same play that I perform in as the character, and I have also come up with different strategies to make me more 'Embodied' with my characters before each performance began. The exercises I had come up with doing before each performance actually originated from our weekly sessions with our acting teacher. The exercises include going from normal breathing to an extended breathing pattern to help lower the heartbeats per minute which would calm nerves, I didn't feel nervous during pre-perfomance but I did the exercise anyway just to make sure. Also whilst we were all on a break between each performance before going backstage, me and another member of the group, whom is my best friend, would perform the 'Rubber Chicken' exercise taught to us by our teacher in our first few sessions with her. The 'Rubber Chicken' exercise is a vocal warm-up, its requirements are to count from 1 to 8 in a chosen voice pitch and tempo at which to perform the warm-up, for example, normally at first in our regular sessions, we start off the 'Rubber Chicken' whilst vocally performing much like a football player with a deep voice and regular tempo speed. Afterwards we would do the same thing, to count from 1 to 8, but this time we would vocally perform it in an female opera singers voice, this required me to sing at a high pitch and at a fast tempo. Of course me and my friend were messing around whilst doing this exercise, but that made me feel more comfortable during the time before the performance, and since I was to perform with my friend for the 'Lads in Love' scene from 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona', me and him being together makes it easier for both of us since we are both there to achieve the best result we can together. I would consider using these exercise warm-ups in the future before performance's since I feel that they have benefited my performance well.
Personal Weaknesses Noticed:
In the past, I have known myself to become 'self centered' during performance's, meaning that I don't express myself physically very much whilst announcing my lines. I felt this problem occur again during our first performance with other students watching us whilst we were performing the dance routine contained after the prologue to our production. I feel that the problem was that I am not very social outside performance time, and I didn't know who I was performing to very well, which made me feel less comfortable with myself whilst dancing, since during the routine, the group and I were meant to call out to the audience and interact with them whilst dancing. I didn't do very much interaction with the audience during the first performance, but after we had finished the performance and the students came to congratulate us for finishing it, I got complimented on my performance as Puck and Proteus. This made me feel more comfortable about my performance and influenced me to do even better for the next performance. This was a regular thing that happened after every performance, resulting in our final performance to be the best one out of all four of them, but the previous also not too far off perfect. If this 'self centered' action were to occur again in any future performance's, I would think about past performance's where I was complimented and only think about the positive things that were to come out of the performance and forget about the negative. I can only monitor this by thinking about the positive side of things and knowing that it will be an improvement over the last. I feel that I can achieve this in future performance's since the students above us in the Level 3 Course for Performing Arts Acting think that we were better than the previous Level 2 Actors and know that we will become Level 3 Performing Arts students in the future, hearing comments like this made me feel more comfortable with my acting/dancing since they only point out the positives as well and seem to forget about any negativity to the performance being shown. As long as I remember about all the positive comments that were given to me after a previous performance, I feel that it will not be impossible to achieve this goal in a future performance, either it be in front of a larger audience or in front of people I don't know personally.
How To Improve Next Time:
Something to improve for my next performance may be my diction and pronunciation of words, and to slow down on certain lines when I am speaking so the audience can grab the conversation happening between a certain number of actors. During rehearsal sessions before performance's, my teacher had pointed out that on certain bits during my lines, I would speak very fast and she thinks that the audience won't catch what I am saying to another actor on stage. I took note of this and practiced announcing my lines at the chosen tempo to say them so when It comes to the next performance, I can say my lines without having to worry that the audience can't understand what I am saying. I am going to consider trying to speak more slowly in the future so it becomes more natural when it comes to performance an line runs, so my voice is much clearer to understand.
How Do I Feel The Production Went As A Whole:
I feel that the 'Shakespeare's House Party' production has been one of the best productions I have performed in for the start of my acting career. I say this because I feel that everyone was a lot more focused in this production opposed to the last one we performed in at South Downs College. This ranges from me and my partners as the 'Costume Managers' being very organized with all the costumes, for example, I was very committed to my Job Role and contributed most of the ideas we had used in the production process to give the best organization possible. The 'Head of Props' also keeping all the props used on stage in an orderly/organized fashion, for example, she had placed the props on tables on both sides of the stage to later be used during performance by some of the actors to use in their scenes. The 'Lighting Technicians' managed to have the right contrast and moods of lighting fitted for each scene in the performance, for example, one scene in the production with Helena and Lysander performing their scene had a deep blue/violet light which was quite a nice color to see whilst watching their scene since it had a lot to do with love. The 'Sound Technicians' had picked very good songs that went well with the production as a whole, especially the dance routines, where we danced to 'Get This Party Started' and 'Bust A Move' in between scenes fitted well in the performance.
Could We Have Done Better Overall:
I feel that our performance couldn't really get any better than it has been since we all tried our best in the Job Roles we chose to work in, and we delivered a grand smashing performance to finish it off. I feel that me and the whole group worked as a great team overall and, in my opinion, we should all be graded equally since we all performed to our best ability and we all had a lot of fun during the process of this production.
'Shakespeare's House Party' Character Development Assignment
‘Shakespeare’s
House Party’ Character Development Document
For this Shakespearian assignment, I play two different characters from two plays. The first character is Proteus from the play ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’, whom I have had the most development time with so far, he is an easier character to understand in terms of lines being given, and I have watched several examples from other interpretations of the same play. For my part in this play, Proteus, as a character, is deeply emotional when it comes to loving a woman, when he realizes that his friend Valentine also loves the same woman, he becomes angrier at his friend and when he realizes he is actually serious about loving this woman, that is when Proteus becomes more calmed and is more surprised than angry at him. And when it comes to Valentine asking Proteus to help woe this woman, Proteus would then enter a sarcastic state where he says he will help him eventually but realistically giving himself more time on how to deal with this situation.
My second character is Puck from the play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, for this character, I have spent less time on in terms of rehearsal time and I haven’t watched as much examples than Proteus. Puck is a Housecarl who is sent on a quest by the King of the land to find a specific flower, which when its scent is spilled into someone’s eyes, makes them fall in love with the person they first lay eyes on. For my part in this play, Puck is watching a rehearsal whilst drinking beer and smoking until he says his lines in the script. For my part in the performance so far, I would click my fingers to stop time and enter the Actors Scene to announce my lines. In terms of rehearsal time, we haven’t yet reached the end of the Actors Scene, so the development process for Puck isn’t completed fully. Like Flute, which is another character in the Actors Scene, Puck can also be a very background kind of character to witness, as for starters, he doesn’t have much to say in the Actors Scene, but closer to the end of the scene, he comes out to be one of the main characters of the scene.
First Idea’s I Had about My Character’s:
For Proteus, I
imagined him, at first, being a greedy person who normally gets what he wants,
whenever he wants it. I thought this when we had read through our script for
the first time, and I could see the anger in his words as he was talking to
Valentine. Throughout my performance in ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’, Proteus
changes his emotional feelings more than a few times, this ranges from being
happy to see his friend Valentine, to becoming more confused when Valentine
started talking about loving this woman and fantasizing moments with her, this
evidently made Proteus angry since the loves the same woman and thinks he
deserves to have her, but then Proteus realizes that Valentine really loves
this woman and wants to spend the rest of his life with her, but then Valentine
asks Proteus to help woe her which is when Proteus starts becoming sarcastic
and says that he is currently busy but he would return to Valentine when he is
free.For Puck, I thought of him being very cocky and very surreal when he says his lines, and that he also has a weird way of picturing situations when something happens. My part as Puck in the performance requires me to be sitting on a bench next to one of the other actors, and at certain moments, I would whisper into the ear of the actor telling him to be sarcastic with his words as one of the other actors in the scene is being very serious about the rehearsal session and is recommending idea’s to the director himself whilst they run through their lines.
For Puck, it became
more of a challenge, since most of the production’s I had managed to discover
only lead to them doing the same thing; I later found that their interpretation
was very different to ours for ‘The Actors Scene’. For their interpretation,
Puck is taking part in the rehearsals for the Actor’s Scene, but since Puck
doesn’t say any lines at all until later on, it became more awkward to watch. I
find our interpretation to perform better since having Puck on stage drinking
beer and smoking would make the audience wonder for a while what my real
purpose is for the scene, until it comes to my entrance to the scene where I
would click my fingers to create a freeze frame for the other actors in the
scene and I would announce my lines after.
Development of Character in Modern Day Whilst Using Shakespearian
Language:
Being honest, I
haven’t had much thought about my character’s in Modern Day, other than our
intro sequence for our production being shown, which requires all of the
actor’s to perform a dance routine in choreographed motion. For this dance we
are to still be performing as our character, we were to think, whilst dancing,
how our characters would dance if they were doing it and not us. This dance was
rehearsed recently, and I haven’t had much thought as to how my character would
dance at a house party other than what I am currently doing in this dance
routine, which is more my actions opposed to my character. It is also harder
for me to do since I have two characters to perform as, since the scene after
the dance intro is the ‘Actor’s Scene’ for ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, I
thought logically that I should be dancing how Puck would be dancing, but since
I have had more character development on Proteus, I danced as him instead. This
made me feel more comfortable whilst learning the routine, since I won’t be
thinking how Puck would dance right off the bat as opposed to Proteus.
How Has The Themes of The Plays Reflected In My Characterisation:
For the ‘Lads in
Love’ scene that I am performing from ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’, the theme
is obviously a comic romance, but our interpretation of this scene does build
up anger with my character along with other emotional statuses. Timing is a key
element in this scene since Proteus is constantly, throughout the whole scene,
confused as to why his best friend Valentine is suddenlyDeeply in love with this woman and has become a complete stranger to Proteus and doesn’t like how this has happened. For the 'Actor's Scene' in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', I am to perform as a prankster for the whole of my performance in this production, later on being cleared to the audience that the House Party was one huge prank being pulled on all who had arrived. This made me think of Puck being some 'Creatively Mad Person', even though he may not appear so in other interpretations of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', but this is what makes our production much more unique and entertaining to an audience.
Personal Creative Acting Decisions:
For this
production, I have come up with a lot of creative decisions to use for
development towards my characters. For example, each time I would perform my
lines in a rehearsal session at college or I do my own performance at home in
my own time, I would perform differently, both physically and mentally. I
choose to do this because having the performance being different every time I perform
it would make it so I don’t get bored of the performance as often. This
decision, in my opinion, might make other actors think weirdly about my
performance, but it gives me the opportunity to come up with different personality
changes for my characters, and if they happen to like another personality
better than the other, I would act as that kind of person or I would conjure up
another completely different way to act my characters both physically and
mentally. These acting decisions, I feel, are unique to me since I do try to
differentiate how I would deliver my lines every time I do a line run either at
college or in my own time. I use this to help me in rehearsal sessions also, as
each time I perform; the lines I announce are spoken differently, making the
process much more exciting and less of the same thing over and over, and it
also helps me decide what I want my character to act like for the final
production. In my time during this unit, I have not seen any of my fellow
actors do this, which I feel is better for me overall, since it does make me
more unique than the other actors and actresses in the group.
Descriptions of Exercises/Techniques Used For Development:
Before each
rehearsal every week, we perform a set of exercises and practise useful
techniques to help us with our acting and make us have more embodiments with
our characters. These exercises will range from Vocal warm-ups, to help project
our voice more efficiently. General body stretches, to get our bodies/muscles
working more effectively. To also help towards our character development, all
actors would do a complete line run, with no physical work added on to it,
generally this will help us learn our lines but our teacher is also grading us
as to if we have learnt our lines according to a deadline which was set for us.
When it did come to us actually performing our lines physically, whilst we were
doing the run through, either the teacher or students watching will come up
with ideas as to how we can use physicality in a certain scene, for example, in
the ‘Lads in Love’ scene for ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’, there is a moment
were my character Proteus is angry at Valentine after he points out that the
woman that they both love is not with anyone currently and says the line ‘she
is alone’ in which Proteus would reply ‘Then let her alone!’ which is followed
by a slap on the head, Proteus does this to show that he is angry at his best
friend and that he is trying to get his mind straight since Valentine has
become so much different and it’s like Proteus doesn’t know him anymore. These
exercises/techniques do help for both of my characters, and as long as we do
them each week before our rehearsals, in my opinion the performance will keep
getting better and better.
Voice and Movement Techniques Used:
For our rehearsals
in the 'Shakespeare's House Party' unit, we have come across a variety of
different techniques that is useful for both our voice and movement whilst on
stage. These techniques however, were discovered and revealed by our teacher
whilst we were partaking in different exercises before each rehearsal session
in the week. For vocal work, we have been saying a rhyme, and for each verse in
the rhyme, we use our voice to portray a different personality. For example,
using the rhyme we have been using for vocal exercises, "Why fly so high?
Said Naughty Nora. Whilst eating an apple, with Zoe the Zebra in the zoo."
The first verse of
the rhyme, "Why fly so high", is to be said in a high pitched voice.
I found that this verse in particular helped me not develop cracks in my voice,
so when it came to my parts in the production, I can say my lines with ease.
The second verse, "said Naughty Nora", is to be said whilst blocking
our nostrils, this makes our voice sound much deeper but more unusual than
before. This verse however, did not in any way make pronouncing my lines easier
because I don't see how blocking my nostrils helps with vocal toning, but this
may be different for others since my voice is much deeper than other members in
my group and maybe would of helped them further than myself. The third verse,
"Whilst eating an apple", is to be said in a more 'posh' kind of
voice, we had to use the lower part of the throat to properly pronounce this
verse correctly. Making this voice
wasn’t too difficult to perform, since I already have a very deep tone of voice
and I simply had to put on the pitch we were required to achieve. The final
verse, "With Zoe the Zebra in the zoo", is to be said whilst hitting
our upper chest, like a Guerrilla, with a very deep tone of voice to accompany
the physical activity. Again, this verse was easy to achieve for me, since, as
I have previously mentioned, already have a deep tone of voice and this verse
wasn’t too difficult to achieve for me because of that reason. For movement
techniques, we have to perform a dance routine in our production, we perform
this alongside the song 'Let's get this party started' and we have to make sure
we are dancing alongside this song in a sort of beat that dancers use when they
dance professionally. This beat requires the dancer to count to the number 8
repeatedly over and over until the song ends or the routine is over. The beat
comes to play when there is an actual beat in the song that makes it easier to
follow the rhythm of the song being played. For this dance routine, we are
meant to be dancing as our characters in the production. I have already
mentioned which character I am dancing as in this part of the production and
why I dance as him opposed to my other character in the performance.
The Key Processes Involved In the Creation of Dramatic Work:
For this section
for my written work, I am going to mention all the initial research that has
helped me develop my character's, also mentioning my understanding of the
Shakespearian text in the script and finally revealing my experience to learn
all my lines off by heart.For my initial research for both my character's, I have already mentioned where I have got my ideas for my character's from, watching different interpretations of the same production to discover similarities and differences in each of the different performance’s. Already mentioning that our interpretations of the 'Actor's Scene' in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and the 'Lads in Love Scene' from 'The Two Gentlemen Of Verona' is far more unique than the productions I have found on the internet to help towards my character development. Understanding the text with all the words William Shakespeare had used in his scripts for the plays we are performing for this production has been very easy for me to understand since I have done my fair share of Shakespeare plays outside School/College in the past with an acting company in Titchfield, having recently done one of Shakespeare's comedies called 'The Tempest'. Predicting that I was going to perform Shakespeare in my Performing Arts course at College, I thought that having a grasp of knowledge on this subject of theatre would help towards any character development and also understanding the script on a first read through of some of the plays I have not yet read or seen being performed. This comes to my final process of development, line learning, this has been very easy for me to memorize, having known the lines already a few days after we were given our scripts for the production, having done this gave me more time to focus on my character's physical activity, how he would move, talk and also express himself with free movement. This has also given me much more time to complete my coursework and my blogs which I post online on Blogger every week after each college day.
Monday 10 March 2014
William Shakespeare Contextual Research Assignment
William Shakespeare Contextual Research Written Assignment
The Introduction:
For this written assignment, I have been instructed by my teacher to write about how William Shakespeare changed Modern Theatre, I am to include all the genre's of play's he had written and explain each genre in detail. I have also been asked to research the stage layout's and to research how the audience had involvment in each of the play's being performed in the Globe Theatre in London, England in the Elizabethan Era, or more commonly known as, The Golden Age. I also have to include note's about the language William Shakespeare had used in each of his play's; more specifically, the Iambic Pentameter.
How William Shakespeare Has Influenced Modern Theatre:
William Shakespeare has totally transformed everything we know about Theatre; this is evidenced by his Complex Character's, Moving Storyline's, and current day Broadway Shows.
An Example Of A Complex Character:
Romeo and Juliet – (One of the more famous playwright's designed by Shakespeare). Romeo and Juliet are in two different familie's (Montague's and Capulet's) that have a raging rivalry with one another. After Romeo had trespassed with his friend's into a Capulet house party to celebrate Juliet's marriage, he had gazed his eye's upon Juliet and instantly fall's in love with her at first sight, this also happen's with Juliet once she has noticed Romeo. The play goes on with these two character's thinking of a situation to try and get the two familie's to stop their rivalry so they can live happily ever after, this resulted in the play ending with Romeo and Juliet killing themselves and the two familie's feeling sympathy for one another after their death. The complexity of these two character's are that Shakespeare had picked out two people and made them fall madly in love with each other, and put them both in a difficult situation where the two familie's hate each other which causes a tragic and overwhelming story that grab's the audience's attention and make's them feel deep connection's with both Romeo and Juliet.
An Example Of A Moving Storyline:
The entire world believes that Romeo and Juliet are the prime example of the phrase ‘True Love’ and we have grown over the years to believe this. But what do we see when we analyse them further…
The Length of Romeo and Juliet's Relationship: 1 day
Age's of Both Character’s: Romeo, 16. Juliet, 14.
Result: They both love each other very much, and because the two family’s hate each other so much, the only way they can spend happily ever after together, is to kill themselves and spend eternal life in each other’s arms. This made the play end with the two familie's from becoming Rival’s, to better friend’s.
Example's Of Broadway Show's Currently Showing:
The Phantom of the Opera
(Romeo and Juliet, The Musical).
Wicked
(Merchant of Venice, Modern Day Version).
Twelth Night
(One of the most Poetic and Exquisite Musical's Shakespare had wrote).
Richard The Third
(A Charismatic, self deligting villain, relieving every moment in his journey to power).
The Three Genre's:
Tragedy:
The play's written for this Genre were influenced after real life events that had happened in the past and has added feelings of emotion that span all cultures. Some Tragedy play's were written by William Shakeseare himself and are still performed in Modern Theatre and Film's, Romeo and Juliet for example, are one of these play's, and are one of Shakespeare's most famous playwright's. While they all started happily, they all end up in death. Ironically, Shakespeare’s Tragedies are performed more today than they were during his time in the Elizabethan Era.
Typed below is a list of all 12 of the 'Tragedy' play's that Shakespeare had wrote:
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Comedy:
These play's were written to give the audience, as well as the cast, a laugh and to have a good time. Sometime's these play's were written so the Protagonist starts off in a bad place, and by progressing through the play, the Protaginist starts to experience better events, and this later on results in the play ending happily. Comedy play's were performed more frequently than other Genre's, since people that lived in the Elizabethan Era, did not live easily and could of needed something to keep them going and also to have the times pass quicker.
Typed below is a list of all 14 of the 'Comedy' play's that Shakespeare had wrote:
All's Well That Ends Well
As You Like It
Comedy of Errors
Love's Labour's Lost
Measure for Measure
Merchant of Venice
Merry Wives of Windsor
Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado about Nothing
Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter's Tale
Historical:
The play's written for this Genre told the tales of many famous Kings/Queens and Emperors. This has spanned from the early Greek theatre to current day England. There is not much else to be said about this Genre other than that the play's don't always end happily, and has much more violance included than the other Genre's.
Typed below is a list of all 12 of the 'Historical' play's that Shakespeare had wrote:
Henry IV, Part I
Henry IV, Part II
Henry V
Henry VI, Part I
Henry VI, Part II
Henry VI, Part III
Henry VIII
King John
Pericles
Richard II
Richard III
In some cases, it was'nt easy to catogorize each play, since Shakespeare had blurred the boundarie's between the three genre's. For example, the play called 'Much Ado About Nothing' begin's like a Comedy, but later on decends into a Tragedy. This lead to some descibing the play as a Tragi-comedy.
In total, William Shakespeare over the course of his career, had written 38 play's.
The Language Used:
The Iambic Pentameter:
The Iambic Pentameter is the name given to a line of verse that consists of five iambs (a iamb being one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed), used in an example, I could use the word "before" having the "be" as an unstressed lamb and the "fore" being a stressed lamb. It has been used in a lot of English poetry, it has been used since the English Renaissance to the present day.
It is not necessary that every line in a script of text should be entirely slavish in following the rhythm; in fact, doing so could make the poem sound dull. Swapping, dropping or adding stressed and unstressed syllables will lend variety to a line without changing the underlying rhythm.
Poems that use The iambic pentameter may or may not rhyme. Those that are written in continuous lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter are said to be in blank verse, while rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter may be called "heroic couplets", particularly when each couplet closes a thought or sentence on its second line.
The Iambic Pentameter has three different forms of verse's that William Shakespeare had invented, each one having their own unique features. These are the three forms of The Iambic Pentameter William Shakespeare had used in his plays:
Prose Verse:
The Prose is used whenever a verse seems more bizarre than others. Scenes that use the Prose Verse more commonly is in the play Macbeth, since some of the characters in this play have scenes where they actually go mad (examples include Macbeth, Lady Macbeth). There are also other plays that use this verse for The Iambic Pentameter; plays like Hamlet, Ophelia, Edgar and King Lear. Some audience members at the time of Shakespeare considered the Prose Verse to be too regular and orderly for expressing madness. Prose would mainly be used in cynical commentary (examples range from Jacques and Touchstone in the play As You Like It; Edmund also in King Lear). It is used for simple exposition, transitions or contrast (used in the first scenes of As You Like It, The Tempest, and King Lear). It is used also in scenes of everyday life (Bottom and company in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Corin in As You Like It; William, Bates and Court in Henry V). Furthermore, the Prose Verse can be used for bantering, relaxed or unbuttoned conversations happening in plays (Celia, Rosalind and Touchstone in As You Like It; Gower, Fluellen, MacMorris and Jamie in Henry V; Prince Hal and Falstaffin in Henry IV).
Blank Verse:
When William Shakespeare used the Blank Verse form for The Iambic Pentameter, each line began with a capitalized letter, even if the line ended with a comma instead of a full stop, the next line was to begin with a capitalized letter. This was still done without regarding the standard rules of capitalization. Blank Verse is employed in a wide range of situations, because this form comes closer to the natural speaking rhythms of English but will also raise it above the ordinary without sounding artificial. Blank Verse, opposed to Prose, is used mainly for passionate, lofty or momentous occasions and for introspection; it may suggest a refinement of character. Many of Shakespeare’s most famous character speeches were written in Blank Verse. The plays include Macbeth, Henry V, Hamlet and The Tempest. A speech or scene written in Blank Verse may end with a single rhyming couplet known as a capping couplet. It is mainly used to lend a final punch, a concluding flourish or a note of climax to end the speech or scene.
Rhyme Verse:
The Rhyme Verse is often used in ritualistic or choral effects and for highly lyrical or sententious passages that give advice or point to a moral (for example, the Duke’s speech at the end of Act 3 in Measure for Measure). The Rhyme Verse will also be used for songs written in the plays (Amiens in As You Like It; Feste in Twelve Night; Ariel in The Tempest); in examples of bad verse (the Pyramus and Thisbe scene in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Orlando’s bad poetry in As You Like It); also being contained in Prologues, Epilogues and Choruses of plays (the Chorus in Henry V; Pucks Epilogue in A Midsummer Night’s Dream); in Masques (Hymen In As You Like It; Iris, Ceres and Juno in The Tempest); and plays within plays (Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; the Mousetrap play in Hamlet), where it distinguishes these imaginary performances from the ”real world” of the play. It is also used for many manifestations of the supernatural (examples like the witches from Macbeth; the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Ariel in The Tempest), but it will not be used for Ghosts/Spirits in plays (examples like Hamlet’s father), who retain the human use of Blank Verse.
After I had read and agreed with further evidence to support the webpage I had used, I will include the weblink for the website I had used to access some of the information provided: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl339/verseprose.html
The English Language:
The English language has changed a great deal over the last few hundred years, and it is still changing today with completely new word's. Several of the words we still use since Shakespeare's day either have different meanings today or have been nearly forgotten. Here is a list of some of the most commonly used words in Shakespeare which some may have never heard of before:
Hence = Away
Hither = Here
Prithee = A polite way of asking something to someone
Wherefore = Why
Fain = Gladly
Dost or Doth = Does or Do
Hark = Listen
Fie = An exclamation of dismay or disgust
Marry = Indeed
Sirrah = A term of address used for inferiors
How William Shakespeare Has Influence Modern Day Language:
The works of William Shakespeare has greatly influenced the English Language. Many words and phrases from his plays and sonnets have become iconic catch phrases throughout the years. His style of writing has also influenced many other writers.
How Extensive Was Shakespeare's Vocabulary?:
Shakespeare, in his plays, poems, and other writings, used 29,066 unique words. Most people today only use 7,500 to 10,000 unique words in their writing and speech.
How Did Shakespeare Influence Modern Language?:
Shakespeare introduced nearly 3,000 words into the English language. In addition, Shakespeare's works, which were often quoted, became such commonplace that they helped set the standards for Modern English; prior to Shakespeare, English grammar and spelling had few standards. In addition, many of Shakespeare's expressions (such as "a foregone conclusion") are commonly used today.
How Did Shakespeare Use Insults In His Plays?:
William Shakespeare used cleverly fashioned insults in his plays to amuse his audiences. He wrote insults that everyone could enjoy, and he used a large range of insults, some of which were vulgar, comical, cruel, or simply heinously descriptive.
How Did Shakespeare's Influence On Modern Language Reflect That He Was A "Man Of Words":
If William Shakespeare had not demonstrated such a mastery words as he did, he certainly would not have influenced the English language so robustly. His ability to formulate new, popular words and his ability to maintain an extensive vocabulary positively define him as a "man of words." For his phrases to stand the test of time, Shakespeare must have had a proficiency for the English language.
After agreeing with what was written on the webpage, I shall follow up with the weblink to the website I had used to access the information provided: http://www.efficientcode.com/shakespeare/influence-on-language
Stage Layout's And Audiences Involvement To Play's:
Proscenium Layout:
The audience is positioned in front of the stage, and the stage can be looked upon like a picture frame. The ‘frame’ itself is called the Proscenium Arch. This is the style of most traditional theatres.
Apron Layout:
In some proscenium theatres, the stage extends forward in front of the proscenium arch. This is called an Apron stage.
End Stage or Open Stage Layout:
Similar audience layout to a proscenium theatre, but without the arch. The audience is positioned in rows facing the stage.
Thrust:
The audience is on three sides of the stage as if the stage has been ‘thrust’ forward. This can be very apparent, like a catwalk, or more like an extended apron stage.
In-the-Round:
As the name suggests, the audience is seated all around the stage on four sides. A few theatres in the country are permanently arranged like this. Sometimes the 'In The Round' layout is called the Arena stage.
Traverse:
In this more unusual style, the audience is seated on either side of the stage, facing each other. The acting takes place between.
Hybrid or Flexible:
In an attempt to combine the best qualities of each style, many newer theaters have flexible staging arrangements in order to change between layouts as required.
Other theaters are a hybrid, or mix, of different layouts. The apron/thrust stage, for example, is a popular style for contemporary theaters as it allows the acting space to be closer to the audience whilst retaining a sense of the traditional proscenium style. It is also most similar to the original design of ancient amphitheaters which curved around the acting area.
Black Box or Gallery space:
A Gallery is basically just a room. Often it will have lighting bars and sound. A black box theatre is a subset of the 'gallery' category, and is exactly what the name suggests, a black room. Usually these are extremely configurable, with seating prostrate which can be oriented in a variety of ways. Most of these spaces do not use a raised stage, instead the actors act at ground level.
Rolling Stage:
A temporary stage with wheels toured with large (usually rock & roll) productions playing arenas.
A rolling stage is a way of taking advantage of the amount of floorspace available in a large arena to save time getting the show in and out. While riggers and lighting crew are working on the lighting rig, the stage is assembled elsewhere on the arena floor. Set, back line and monitors can then be set up on the stage whilst work continues on the lighting rig.
Once the lighting rig is at trim, the stage (along with everything on it) is "rolled" into position and the brakes applied.
The Globe Theatre Layout (Including Drawn Diagram):
Audience's Involvement To Play's During Shakespeare's Time:
When Shakespeare peeped through the curtain at the audience gathered to hear his first play, he looked upon a very motley crowd. The pit was filled with men and boys. The galleries contained a fair proportion of women, some not too respectable. In the boxes were a few gentlemen from the royal courts, and in the lords' box or perhaps sitting on the stage was a group of extravagantly dressed gentlemen of fashion. Vendors of nuts and fruits moved about through the crowd. The gallants were smoking; the apprentices in the pit were exchanging rude witticisms with the painted ladies.
When Shakespeare addressed his audience directly, he did so in terms of gentle courtesy or pleasant raillery. In Hamlet, however, he does let fall the opinion that the groundings (those on the ground, the cheapest seats) were “for the most part capable of nothing but dumb shows and noise.” His recollections of the pit of the Globe may have added vigor to his ridicule of the Roman mob in Julius Caesar.
On the other hand, the theatre was a popular institution, and the audience was representative of all classes of London life. Admission to standing room in the pit was a penny, and an additional penny or two secured a seat in the galleries. For seats in the boxes or for stools on the stage, still more was charged, up to sixpence or half a crown.
Attendance at the theaters was astonishingly large. There were often five or six theaters giving daily performances, which would mean that out of a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, thirty thousand or more spectators each week attended the theatre. When we remember that a large class of the population disapproved of the theatre, and that women of respectability were not frequent patrons of the public playhouses, this attendance is remarkable.
Arrangements for the comfort of the spectators were meager, and spectators were often disorderly. Playbills seem to have been posted all about town and in the theatre, and the title of the piece was announced on the stage. These bills contained no lists of actors, and there were no programs, ushers, or tickets. There was usually one door for the audience, where the admission fee was deposited in a box carefully watched by the money taker, and additional sums were required at entrance to the galleries or boxes. When the three o'clock trumpets announced the beginning of a performance, the assembled audience had been amusing itself by eating, drinking, smoking, and playing cards, and they sometimes continued these occupations during a performance. Pickpockets were frequent, and, if caught, were tied to a post on the stage. Disturbances were not infrequent, sometimes resulting in general rioting.
The Elizabethan audience was fond of unusual spectacle and brutal physical suffering. They liked battles and murders, processions and fireworks, ghosts and insanity. They expected comedy to abound in beatings, and tragedy in deaths. While the audience at the Globe expected some of these sensations and physical horrors, they did not come primarily for these. (Real blood and torture were available nearby at the bear baiting, and public executions were not uncommon.) Actually, there were very few public entertainments offering as little brutality as did the theatre.
Elizabethans attended the public playhouses for learning. They attended for romance, imagination, idealism, and art; the audience was not without refinement, and those looking for food for the imagination had nowhere to go but to the playhouse. There were no newspapers, no magazines, almost no novels, and only a few cheap books; theatre filled the desire for story discussion among people lacking other educational and cultural opportunities.
The most remarkable case of Shakespeare's theatre filling an educational need is probably that of English history. The growth of national patriotism culminating in the English victory over the Spanish Armada gave dramatists a chance to use the historical material, and for the fifteen years from the Armada to the death of Elizabeth, the stage was deluged with plays based on the events of English chronicles, and familiarity with English history became a cultural asset of the London crowd,
Law was a second area where the Elizabethan public seems to have been fairly well informed, and successful dramatists realized the influence that the great development of civil law in the sixteenth century exercised upon the daily life of the London citizen. In this area, as in others, the dramatists did not hesitate to cultivate the cultural background of their audience whenever opportunity offered, and the ignorance of the multitude did not prevent it from taking an interest in new information and from offering a receptive hearing to the accumulated lore of lawyers, historians, humanists, and playwrights.
The audience was used to the spoken word, and soon became trained in blank verse, delighting in monologues, debates, puns, metaphors, stump speakers, and sonorous declamation. The public was accustomed to the acting of the old religious dramas, and the new acting in which the spoken words were listened to caught on rapidly. The new poetry and the great actors who recited it found a sensitive audience. There were many moments during a play when spectacle, brutality, and action were all forgotten, and the audience fed only on the words. Shakespeare and his contemporaries may be deemed fortunate in having an audience essentially attentive, eager for the newly unlocked storehouse of secular story, and possessing the sophistication and interest to be fed richly by the excitements and levitates on the stage.
This information was grabbed from this web link:
http://www.bard.org/Education/studyguides/shakespeare/audience.html#.UvfkJ7Sw57g
I agree with the information provided by this web link, because William Shakespeare's intentions for writing these plays was to have the audience take part as well as the actors in each production. This is one of the main things that made William Shakespeare more successful in his career as a playwright, since the audience can enjoy it a lot more and it makes people come back to watch more of his productions.
The Introduction:
For this written assignment, I have been instructed by my teacher to write about how William Shakespeare changed Modern Theatre, I am to include all the genre's of play's he had written and explain each genre in detail. I have also been asked to research the stage layout's and to research how the audience had involvment in each of the play's being performed in the Globe Theatre in London, England in the Elizabethan Era, or more commonly known as, The Golden Age. I also have to include note's about the language William Shakespeare had used in each of his play's; more specifically, the Iambic Pentameter.
How William Shakespeare Has Influenced Modern Theatre:
William Shakespeare has totally transformed everything we know about Theatre; this is evidenced by his Complex Character's, Moving Storyline's, and current day Broadway Shows.
An Example Of A Complex Character:
Romeo and Juliet – (One of the more famous playwright's designed by Shakespeare). Romeo and Juliet are in two different familie's (Montague's and Capulet's) that have a raging rivalry with one another. After Romeo had trespassed with his friend's into a Capulet house party to celebrate Juliet's marriage, he had gazed his eye's upon Juliet and instantly fall's in love with her at first sight, this also happen's with Juliet once she has noticed Romeo. The play goes on with these two character's thinking of a situation to try and get the two familie's to stop their rivalry so they can live happily ever after, this resulted in the play ending with Romeo and Juliet killing themselves and the two familie's feeling sympathy for one another after their death. The complexity of these two character's are that Shakespeare had picked out two people and made them fall madly in love with each other, and put them both in a difficult situation where the two familie's hate each other which causes a tragic and overwhelming story that grab's the audience's attention and make's them feel deep connection's with both Romeo and Juliet.
An Example Of A Moving Storyline:
The entire world believes that Romeo and Juliet are the prime example of the phrase ‘True Love’ and we have grown over the years to believe this. But what do we see when we analyse them further…
The Length of Romeo and Juliet's Relationship: 1 day
Age's of Both Character’s: Romeo, 16. Juliet, 14.
Result: They both love each other very much, and because the two family’s hate each other so much, the only way they can spend happily ever after together, is to kill themselves and spend eternal life in each other’s arms. This made the play end with the two familie's from becoming Rival’s, to better friend’s.
Example's Of Broadway Show's Currently Showing:
The Phantom of the Opera
(Romeo and Juliet, The Musical).
Wicked
(Merchant of Venice, Modern Day Version).
Twelth Night
(One of the most Poetic and Exquisite Musical's Shakespare had wrote).
Richard The Third
(A Charismatic, self deligting villain, relieving every moment in his journey to power).
The Three Genre's:
Tragedy:
The play's written for this Genre were influenced after real life events that had happened in the past and has added feelings of emotion that span all cultures. Some Tragedy play's were written by William Shakeseare himself and are still performed in Modern Theatre and Film's, Romeo and Juliet for example, are one of these play's, and are one of Shakespeare's most famous playwright's. While they all started happily, they all end up in death. Ironically, Shakespeare’s Tragedies are performed more today than they were during his time in the Elizabethan Era.
Typed below is a list of all 12 of the 'Tragedy' play's that Shakespeare had wrote:
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Comedy:
These play's were written to give the audience, as well as the cast, a laugh and to have a good time. Sometime's these play's were written so the Protagonist starts off in a bad place, and by progressing through the play, the Protaginist starts to experience better events, and this later on results in the play ending happily. Comedy play's were performed more frequently than other Genre's, since people that lived in the Elizabethan Era, did not live easily and could of needed something to keep them going and also to have the times pass quicker.
Typed below is a list of all 14 of the 'Comedy' play's that Shakespeare had wrote:
All's Well That Ends Well
As You Like It
Comedy of Errors
Love's Labour's Lost
Measure for Measure
Merchant of Venice
Merry Wives of Windsor
Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado about Nothing
Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter's Tale
Historical:
The play's written for this Genre told the tales of many famous Kings/Queens and Emperors. This has spanned from the early Greek theatre to current day England. There is not much else to be said about this Genre other than that the play's don't always end happily, and has much more violance included than the other Genre's.
Typed below is a list of all 12 of the 'Historical' play's that Shakespeare had wrote:
Henry IV, Part I
Henry IV, Part II
Henry V
Henry VI, Part I
Henry VI, Part II
Henry VI, Part III
Henry VIII
King John
Pericles
Richard II
Richard III
In some cases, it was'nt easy to catogorize each play, since Shakespeare had blurred the boundarie's between the three genre's. For example, the play called 'Much Ado About Nothing' begin's like a Comedy, but later on decends into a Tragedy. This lead to some descibing the play as a Tragi-comedy.
In total, William Shakespeare over the course of his career, had written 38 play's.
The Language Used:
The Iambic Pentameter:
The Iambic Pentameter is the name given to a line of verse that consists of five iambs (a iamb being one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed), used in an example, I could use the word "before" having the "be" as an unstressed lamb and the "fore" being a stressed lamb. It has been used in a lot of English poetry, it has been used since the English Renaissance to the present day.
It is not necessary that every line in a script of text should be entirely slavish in following the rhythm; in fact, doing so could make the poem sound dull. Swapping, dropping or adding stressed and unstressed syllables will lend variety to a line without changing the underlying rhythm.
Poems that use The iambic pentameter may or may not rhyme. Those that are written in continuous lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter are said to be in blank verse, while rhyming couplets in iambic pentameter may be called "heroic couplets", particularly when each couplet closes a thought or sentence on its second line.
The Iambic Pentameter has three different forms of verse's that William Shakespeare had invented, each one having their own unique features. These are the three forms of The Iambic Pentameter William Shakespeare had used in his plays:
Prose Verse:
The Prose is used whenever a verse seems more bizarre than others. Scenes that use the Prose Verse more commonly is in the play Macbeth, since some of the characters in this play have scenes where they actually go mad (examples include Macbeth, Lady Macbeth). There are also other plays that use this verse for The Iambic Pentameter; plays like Hamlet, Ophelia, Edgar and King Lear. Some audience members at the time of Shakespeare considered the Prose Verse to be too regular and orderly for expressing madness. Prose would mainly be used in cynical commentary (examples range from Jacques and Touchstone in the play As You Like It; Edmund also in King Lear). It is used for simple exposition, transitions or contrast (used in the first scenes of As You Like It, The Tempest, and King Lear). It is used also in scenes of everyday life (Bottom and company in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Corin in As You Like It; William, Bates and Court in Henry V). Furthermore, the Prose Verse can be used for bantering, relaxed or unbuttoned conversations happening in plays (Celia, Rosalind and Touchstone in As You Like It; Gower, Fluellen, MacMorris and Jamie in Henry V; Prince Hal and Falstaffin in Henry IV).
Blank Verse:
When William Shakespeare used the Blank Verse form for The Iambic Pentameter, each line began with a capitalized letter, even if the line ended with a comma instead of a full stop, the next line was to begin with a capitalized letter. This was still done without regarding the standard rules of capitalization. Blank Verse is employed in a wide range of situations, because this form comes closer to the natural speaking rhythms of English but will also raise it above the ordinary without sounding artificial. Blank Verse, opposed to Prose, is used mainly for passionate, lofty or momentous occasions and for introspection; it may suggest a refinement of character. Many of Shakespeare’s most famous character speeches were written in Blank Verse. The plays include Macbeth, Henry V, Hamlet and The Tempest. A speech or scene written in Blank Verse may end with a single rhyming couplet known as a capping couplet. It is mainly used to lend a final punch, a concluding flourish or a note of climax to end the speech or scene.
Rhyme Verse:
The Rhyme Verse is often used in ritualistic or choral effects and for highly lyrical or sententious passages that give advice or point to a moral (for example, the Duke’s speech at the end of Act 3 in Measure for Measure). The Rhyme Verse will also be used for songs written in the plays (Amiens in As You Like It; Feste in Twelve Night; Ariel in The Tempest); in examples of bad verse (the Pyramus and Thisbe scene in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Orlando’s bad poetry in As You Like It); also being contained in Prologues, Epilogues and Choruses of plays (the Chorus in Henry V; Pucks Epilogue in A Midsummer Night’s Dream); in Masques (Hymen In As You Like It; Iris, Ceres and Juno in The Tempest); and plays within plays (Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; the Mousetrap play in Hamlet), where it distinguishes these imaginary performances from the ”real world” of the play. It is also used for many manifestations of the supernatural (examples like the witches from Macbeth; the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Ariel in The Tempest), but it will not be used for Ghosts/Spirits in plays (examples like Hamlet’s father), who retain the human use of Blank Verse.
After I had read and agreed with further evidence to support the webpage I had used, I will include the weblink for the website I had used to access some of the information provided: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl339/verseprose.html
The English Language:
The English language has changed a great deal over the last few hundred years, and it is still changing today with completely new word's. Several of the words we still use since Shakespeare's day either have different meanings today or have been nearly forgotten. Here is a list of some of the most commonly used words in Shakespeare which some may have never heard of before:
Hence = Away
Hither = Here
Prithee = A polite way of asking something to someone
Wherefore = Why
Fain = Gladly
Dost or Doth = Does or Do
Hark = Listen
Fie = An exclamation of dismay or disgust
Marry = Indeed
Sirrah = A term of address used for inferiors
How William Shakespeare Has Influence Modern Day Language:
The works of William Shakespeare has greatly influenced the English Language. Many words and phrases from his plays and sonnets have become iconic catch phrases throughout the years. His style of writing has also influenced many other writers.
How Extensive Was Shakespeare's Vocabulary?:
Shakespeare, in his plays, poems, and other writings, used 29,066 unique words. Most people today only use 7,500 to 10,000 unique words in their writing and speech.
How Did Shakespeare Influence Modern Language?:
Shakespeare introduced nearly 3,000 words into the English language. In addition, Shakespeare's works, which were often quoted, became such commonplace that they helped set the standards for Modern English; prior to Shakespeare, English grammar and spelling had few standards. In addition, many of Shakespeare's expressions (such as "a foregone conclusion") are commonly used today.
How Did Shakespeare Use Insults In His Plays?:
William Shakespeare used cleverly fashioned insults in his plays to amuse his audiences. He wrote insults that everyone could enjoy, and he used a large range of insults, some of which were vulgar, comical, cruel, or simply heinously descriptive.
How Did Shakespeare's Influence On Modern Language Reflect That He Was A "Man Of Words":
If William Shakespeare had not demonstrated such a mastery words as he did, he certainly would not have influenced the English language so robustly. His ability to formulate new, popular words and his ability to maintain an extensive vocabulary positively define him as a "man of words." For his phrases to stand the test of time, Shakespeare must have had a proficiency for the English language.
After agreeing with what was written on the webpage, I shall follow up with the weblink to the website I had used to access the information provided: http://www.efficientcode.com/shakespeare/influence-on-language
Stage Layout's And Audiences Involvement To Play's:
Proscenium Layout:
The audience is positioned in front of the stage, and the stage can be looked upon like a picture frame. The ‘frame’ itself is called the Proscenium Arch. This is the style of most traditional theatres.
Apron Layout:
In some proscenium theatres, the stage extends forward in front of the proscenium arch. This is called an Apron stage.
End Stage or Open Stage Layout:
Similar audience layout to a proscenium theatre, but without the arch. The audience is positioned in rows facing the stage.
Thrust:
The audience is on three sides of the stage as if the stage has been ‘thrust’ forward. This can be very apparent, like a catwalk, or more like an extended apron stage.
In-the-Round:
As the name suggests, the audience is seated all around the stage on four sides. A few theatres in the country are permanently arranged like this. Sometimes the 'In The Round' layout is called the Arena stage.
Traverse:
In this more unusual style, the audience is seated on either side of the stage, facing each other. The acting takes place between.
Hybrid or Flexible:
In an attempt to combine the best qualities of each style, many newer theaters have flexible staging arrangements in order to change between layouts as required.
Other theaters are a hybrid, or mix, of different layouts. The apron/thrust stage, for example, is a popular style for contemporary theaters as it allows the acting space to be closer to the audience whilst retaining a sense of the traditional proscenium style. It is also most similar to the original design of ancient amphitheaters which curved around the acting area.
Black Box or Gallery space:
A Gallery is basically just a room. Often it will have lighting bars and sound. A black box theatre is a subset of the 'gallery' category, and is exactly what the name suggests, a black room. Usually these are extremely configurable, with seating prostrate which can be oriented in a variety of ways. Most of these spaces do not use a raised stage, instead the actors act at ground level.
Rolling Stage:
A temporary stage with wheels toured with large (usually rock & roll) productions playing arenas.
A rolling stage is a way of taking advantage of the amount of floorspace available in a large arena to save time getting the show in and out. While riggers and lighting crew are working on the lighting rig, the stage is assembled elsewhere on the arena floor. Set, back line and monitors can then be set up on the stage whilst work continues on the lighting rig.
Once the lighting rig is at trim, the stage (along with everything on it) is "rolled" into position and the brakes applied.
The Globe Theatre Layout (Including Drawn Diagram):
Audience's Involvement To Play's During Shakespeare's Time:
When Shakespeare peeped through the curtain at the audience gathered to hear his first play, he looked upon a very motley crowd. The pit was filled with men and boys. The galleries contained a fair proportion of women, some not too respectable. In the boxes were a few gentlemen from the royal courts, and in the lords' box or perhaps sitting on the stage was a group of extravagantly dressed gentlemen of fashion. Vendors of nuts and fruits moved about through the crowd. The gallants were smoking; the apprentices in the pit were exchanging rude witticisms with the painted ladies.
When Shakespeare addressed his audience directly, he did so in terms of gentle courtesy or pleasant raillery. In Hamlet, however, he does let fall the opinion that the groundings (those on the ground, the cheapest seats) were “for the most part capable of nothing but dumb shows and noise.” His recollections of the pit of the Globe may have added vigor to his ridicule of the Roman mob in Julius Caesar.
On the other hand, the theatre was a popular institution, and the audience was representative of all classes of London life. Admission to standing room in the pit was a penny, and an additional penny or two secured a seat in the galleries. For seats in the boxes or for stools on the stage, still more was charged, up to sixpence or half a crown.
Attendance at the theaters was astonishingly large. There were often five or six theaters giving daily performances, which would mean that out of a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, thirty thousand or more spectators each week attended the theatre. When we remember that a large class of the population disapproved of the theatre, and that women of respectability were not frequent patrons of the public playhouses, this attendance is remarkable.
Arrangements for the comfort of the spectators were meager, and spectators were often disorderly. Playbills seem to have been posted all about town and in the theatre, and the title of the piece was announced on the stage. These bills contained no lists of actors, and there were no programs, ushers, or tickets. There was usually one door for the audience, where the admission fee was deposited in a box carefully watched by the money taker, and additional sums were required at entrance to the galleries or boxes. When the three o'clock trumpets announced the beginning of a performance, the assembled audience had been amusing itself by eating, drinking, smoking, and playing cards, and they sometimes continued these occupations during a performance. Pickpockets were frequent, and, if caught, were tied to a post on the stage. Disturbances were not infrequent, sometimes resulting in general rioting.
The Elizabethan audience was fond of unusual spectacle and brutal physical suffering. They liked battles and murders, processions and fireworks, ghosts and insanity. They expected comedy to abound in beatings, and tragedy in deaths. While the audience at the Globe expected some of these sensations and physical horrors, they did not come primarily for these. (Real blood and torture were available nearby at the bear baiting, and public executions were not uncommon.) Actually, there were very few public entertainments offering as little brutality as did the theatre.
Elizabethans attended the public playhouses for learning. They attended for romance, imagination, idealism, and art; the audience was not without refinement, and those looking for food for the imagination had nowhere to go but to the playhouse. There were no newspapers, no magazines, almost no novels, and only a few cheap books; theatre filled the desire for story discussion among people lacking other educational and cultural opportunities.
The most remarkable case of Shakespeare's theatre filling an educational need is probably that of English history. The growth of national patriotism culminating in the English victory over the Spanish Armada gave dramatists a chance to use the historical material, and for the fifteen years from the Armada to the death of Elizabeth, the stage was deluged with plays based on the events of English chronicles, and familiarity with English history became a cultural asset of the London crowd,
Law was a second area where the Elizabethan public seems to have been fairly well informed, and successful dramatists realized the influence that the great development of civil law in the sixteenth century exercised upon the daily life of the London citizen. In this area, as in others, the dramatists did not hesitate to cultivate the cultural background of their audience whenever opportunity offered, and the ignorance of the multitude did not prevent it from taking an interest in new information and from offering a receptive hearing to the accumulated lore of lawyers, historians, humanists, and playwrights.
The audience was used to the spoken word, and soon became trained in blank verse, delighting in monologues, debates, puns, metaphors, stump speakers, and sonorous declamation. The public was accustomed to the acting of the old religious dramas, and the new acting in which the spoken words were listened to caught on rapidly. The new poetry and the great actors who recited it found a sensitive audience. There were many moments during a play when spectacle, brutality, and action were all forgotten, and the audience fed only on the words. Shakespeare and his contemporaries may be deemed fortunate in having an audience essentially attentive, eager for the newly unlocked storehouse of secular story, and possessing the sophistication and interest to be fed richly by the excitements and levitates on the stage.
This information was grabbed from this web link:
http://www.bard.org/Education/studyguides/shakespeare/audience.html#.UvfkJ7Sw57g
I agree with the information provided by this web link, because William Shakespeare's intentions for writing these plays was to have the audience take part as well as the actors in each production. This is one of the main things that made William Shakespeare more successful in his career as a playwright, since the audience can enjoy it a lot more and it makes people come back to watch more of his productions.
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