Week 4, Monday 30th Of September-Wednesday 2nd of October
To Start off this week was our first Btec Level 2 Performing Arts assignment, in which we were given the task to be performing the
play called 'Scaramouche Jones'. The play consists of only one man dressed as a
clown for the entire performance, telling his life story of being a Gypsy for 50 years and then performing as a clown for the next 50 years. Scaramouche Jones tells the audience of his life from
the moment he was born and how since the first half of his life was a one huge
tragedy story to begin with. The first half of his life was
dark and dull, and he describes to the audience through dialogue and mime, how his mother
had died in front of him, and also telling how he went through the Holocaust throughout the second world war. But
then he goes on describing how his life took a turn for goodness and how he experiences laughter
for the first time in his whole life, and then decided to take the role of becoming a clown for
the next fifty years of his life. The play begins and ends with
Scaramouche Jones backstage in a circus as he had just performed his last ever show
and the audience visualizes his life through all the mimes and dialogue.
The play was to be performed to an audience by all twelve of us in the group,
performing at least two pages of the script each. This was a clever
technique our teacher decided to do, with each member of the group to be able to perform as Scaramouche Jones perfectly from start to finish, and the audience will then be able to see multiple
personality changes and appearances throughout Scaramouche Jones' life as he grows from a young man to an old one.
After deciding this, we then began a read through of the whole script. The tradition of Script Reading was brought to the table, where all the cast members in the group would have to read parts of the script each to receive a better understanding of the play itself and it was better for our teacher to decide who should get which lines to memorize. When we had finished reading, we then turned to a discussion to both the teacher and the group to their thoughts and feeling towards the play. From what we all individually read, we all
had a pretty good understanding about what the character had been through his whole life. This is all important
information, as it would give an actor better knowledge as to how he/she is to
perform their character alongside their clown by knowing the origins of Scaramouche Jones. We presented our idea's as to why the character would react to some of the
situation's he describes throughout the performance, or even how he's feeling both Physically and Mentally at the beginning
and the end of the play. Which could also be linked with the initial idea as
to how the character should be staged and how he should move, to make
the performance more realistic and believable to an audience, which is an important part of Physical Theatre.
At the end of the day, our teacher revealed to us the real performance of 'Scaramouche Jones' shown professionally to a live audience in 2000. The video
showed a talented actors performance of the character 'Scaramouche Jones', this actors name is Pete
Postlethwaite. Our teacher showing us this video was very interesting because it can be good to see another actors interpretation of the character. Pete Postlethwaite's performance was very interesting as he was able to
perform as comedic clown, also showing the sense of an old man who knows
what has happened to him throughout his entire life, telling us that he has been through a lot in his life and wishes for it to end peacefully. Because Scaramouche Jones had a dark and dull childhood story leading to to early adulthood would of had a deep impact on him and the audience as they can see how
dark it really was through his description whilst miming with dialogue. It was interesting to know to see another actor perform, as the audience can see when he is performing as a clown, he is always happy to see people coming to watch him, and for the imaginary audience
when he is back stage after the performance is when he really shows his character and showing his
disagreement of life and that he wanted it to end when he turns 100 when Big Ben hits Midnight on New Years Day.
For the final day of the week, we had another Physical Theatre
lesson, focusing on the chorus for our 'Scaramouche Jones' Performance. Because since there were
twelve people in the group on stage at the same time since Scaramouche Jones never leaves the stage during the performance, there was to be moments when another member of
the group would come and perform their part of the play as Scaramouche Jones, whilst behind said actor performing, were the rest of our group mimicking as a chorus for Scaramouche Jones' character. In previous Physical Theatre lessons, our teacher did introduce to what a chorus is and what it does in a performance. And so for this lesson, we had a rehearsal session for both chorus and actor playing Scaramouche Jones. I was to be behind the first member of the group playing Scaramouches Jones as a chorus member whilst they read their first lines
in the play, whilst everyone else was to be presenting the same reactions as myself to the lines given by him. Each member of the chorus
presented different ideas as to how they should present these reactions, also sharing how the first member as Scaramouche Jones was to say and present their lines. Another interesting idea was to offer multiple
personality's within the chorus as well as the clown Scaramouche Jones, to show the different ages
of his life since he would look different. How we did this was that one member of the group was to
be performing their lines in which the chorus were miming the age of Scaramouche Jones they play as. So in the chorus, we would give multiple
reactions, starting with childlike up to more mature actions. But at the same time we tried to
use similar reactions and mimes throughout the whole play, as actors
would switch places with a member of the chorus and it would be their
turn to deliver their lines and the other member would turn to be a member of the
chorus. This lesson was all interesting and helpful for the weeks to come until our actual performance in November.
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