'The Man of Mode' by George Etherege

Introduction to 'The Man of Mode'

 

For our final performance of the year at South Downs College, we will be performing a restoration styled play named 'The Man of Mode, or, Sir Fopling Flutter'. This play is of the comedy/drama genre and was written by George Etherege in 1676. The play is set in the Georgian period, and follows along with the story of a man called Dorimant as he tries to win the love of Harriet, whilst also disengaging himself away from an affair he had with Mrs. Loveit.

Initial Movement Workshop

Bows and Courtesy's

To start off this new era of performance rehearsals, we all needed to get our minds set into how the people of the Georgian era would have walked and greeted each other, whilst also understanding how they would've interacted in conversation.

To start this off, we learnt how both genders of the Era would have bowed to one another. The males would do a slight bend on their back whilst stretching their right leg forward and having their left leg slightly bent behind them. Whereas the females would do a courtesy, which is, in some scenario's, still used in the modern day, deepening on the occasion of course. It is also important to note that both sexes would be looking at each other eye to eye whilst executing their bow. For the servants of the main characters, this would slightly change, with them looking down at the floor rather than in their masters eyes as a sign of respect to their ownership.

Sitting/Walking/Posture

The way that both sexes of the Georgian Era would have acted in their everyday lives is much different when compared to modern day society. Nowadays, the general populace have become quite lazy and slouched over in their movements, they don't exactly portray themselves correctly. There are a bunch of exceptions of course, as not everyone is like this, but it's still true to observe. When we look towards the people of the Georgian Era, we can see that they really do care so much more about how they portray themselves to the society around them. At all times, both male and female characters would have correct posture, whether they be sitting down or walking around, their back would be straight, giving correct posture, and they speak over others considered below them.

Improv and Object exercise

As a sort of exercise to go along with our restoration project, and also to go along with an improvisation assignment for after we've finished performing 'Man of Mode', we all had to bring in an 'object' for each of our characters respectively. We would pick an object which we thought suited our own interpretation of our character, add some sort of backstory to it, and present a speech whilst using said object in front of the whole group and a camera to record evidence.

For this exercise, I brought in a flintlock pistol, with the back story that Old Bellair served in all the battles of the English Civil War. This was my idea to support his uprising and stature amongst the other characters featured in the play. I unfortunately didn't have much preparation with the flintlock pistol, as it arrived last minute, but I gave the exercise my best attempt, with a few moments of slurred speech just to think about what to say towards the camera. The trickiest part of this exercise mostly was when I had to answer questions from the audience. It wasn't too stressful that I didn't have a extensive knowledge of what I was saying, but I tried to give some sort of confidence to what I was replying back to them. Even if what I was saying was historically wrong in a way, I still gave my reply as if it was correct.

Overall, I think I did alright in this exercise. I definitely wasn't the best person in the room, but at least I went up on stage and gave it my best attempt. It was complete and fully improvisation after the first 10 seconds of speech, so I'm proud to have made this accomplishment with very limited rehearsal time.

Staging the Prologue

For the prologue featured in the script of 'The Man of Mode', there is a large block of text that needed to be said on stage. We had decided that instead of a main character, such as Dorimant, saying the whole thing, we feature all of the characters featured in the play saying a particular amount of lines. This is called a Choral Speech, and it is mostly used in circumstances like this, where there is a large block of text that needs to be read in order to progress to the main events of the play. By doing it this way also, it gives our audience a good impression of what the tone of the play is going to be, by form of how the actor would say their respective lines.

After learning and doing this first time, it must have been quite an impressive picture to witness for our tutor. To go back and forth between all of the actors, one after the other, and then progress to the next scene.

Adam's Workshop

After a little while of rehearsing the first few scenes of the first act for 'Man of Mode' with our tutor, we then had a workshop session with her husband to get a different perspective of direction. It was in this session that I portrayed my character ideas for Old Bellair. I wanted to portray a fair mix of characteristics from Brian Blessed, for this I spoke quite loudly when saying my lines, and also Matt Berry, by adding some range of humour towards my lines.

I presented this idea to our teacher for the session and he agreed with my decisions, saying that it would be something nice to see on stage every once in a while as there's a lot of drama currently on stage between Old Bellair's scenes. Since I am also playing as a Lady also for this performance, he said that I should try and diverse the same techniques of acting into that character, but obviously make it a little different from how I should act as Old Bellair so both characters aren't the same.

Development of Character and Relationships with other characters

Old Bellair

Since starting 'The Man of Mode', I'd just pictured the character being quite old and wise, just like any other regular old person in real life. That was until I'd done a bit more research into the Era. People who lived in the late 1600's would've died at quite an early-ish age, around 40 to 50 years of age. This implies that the character of Old Bellair is not old at all, not much older than his son, Young Bellair, perhaps. By acquiring this knowledge, it gave me a better understanding of how I could possibly play the character on stage.

Once I had a costume sorted out with Milo, who was to be Old Bellair when I was to act as Lady Woodvill, we experimented with how we would say our lines and also interact with others whilst on stage. I had told Milo of my intentions to act as Old Bellair by mixing Brian Blessed and Matt Berry together, to which he gave me his ideas, which are actually much different than my interpretation of the character entirely.

Here is a funny clip of Brian Blessed on 'Have I got News for you' which I took inspiration from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spS71LKcA3Y

and this is a link to a performance of Matt Berry in a show called 'The I.T Crowd': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oye9AmOdsZc

I really tried to make a combination of these two great actors for Old Bellair, which I hope I achieved in some way. I did find, through the progression of rehearsals and the blocking process that my more exaggerated movements whilst someone else would be speaking was limited, but I made the most effort I could for when it was my time to speak. A particularly scene which was my favourite as Old Bellair is the very first scene he appears in, which is at Lady Townley's house. As Lady Townley is Old Bellairs sister, I wanted to show the chemistry between them on stage with my co-star Sophie. We have a few moments on stage where it looks as though we're both completely mad, which is kind of a sigh of relief for the audience, since they probably don't understand a word any character is saying, and to see two actors on stage go completely mad and start laughing with each other does bring a great comedic moment for the two characters.

I think that me and Milo playing the same character differently is a good idea, as it offers the audience watching the play a second time with a new cast a much different take on the events occurring. It can turn out to be more entertaining, depending on the actor(s) on stage. Everybody in the group has their own take on their own characters, but no two people can play the same character exactly the same, as we're all unique in our own characteristics.

Lady Woodvill

Lady Woodvill was a much more interesting character play when compared to Old Bellair, this may more than likely be because she's a lady and not a man, but it can also be because it's something I've never done before when it comes to acting. By deciding to audition for this character, it presents me with the opportunity to expand my performance skills. To perform as an opposite gender from a completely different Era is a challenge in itself, and I'm not the only lad in the group to take this on, as Lady Woodvill is also double cast.

Both me and Lewis have progressed with Lady Woodvill much differently. I'd noticed he'd taken the role into his own real life characteristics, whilst also adding the slightly heightened tone of voice to sound more 'lady-like'. How I'd worked with Lady Woodvill is much different. I had a conversation with my step mum about the role and if she could recommend any sort of inspiration for the role. This was when she introduced to something called 'Hinge and Bracket', which is, evidently, two guys performing as women in a comedy series from the early 70's to the early 2000's. My voice for Lady Woodvill, as well as how I would kind of act on stage, was inspiration taken from this comedy series.

Here is the clip of Hinge and Bracket that I watched when I first learnt about them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=get7UPCe3I8

As rehearsals progressed, and as I learnt my lines gradually up towards the first showing of 'The Man of Mode', my confidence performing as Lady Woodvill improved a whole bunch to be ready for the main show. It was when I put the full costume and the make-up on that I really became the character, minus the few voice breaks I had on stage.