'Shakespeare's House Party' Character Development Assignment

‘Shakespeare’s House Party’ Character Development Document

 

Character Name’s With a Short Description:
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.

 Research I Have Looked up on Both Character’s:

For both of my characters, I have looked up on YouTube, different interpretations of the same play to see what the directors were doing in terms of character development. As I have said before, Proteus was the character I had spent more time on in terms of ‘embodiment’. For the ‘Lads in Love’ scene in ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’, The actor’s playing the same roles as me and my partner in the production are doing things very similar to what we have been doing in our weekly rehearsal sessions. The only thing different in our scene opposed to theirs is that we use a lot of levels for both character’s, there is one part in our scene when Valentine is fantasizing about the woman he and Proteus both love, and he then goes to lie on the floor being very cheerful and happy he has found someone to fall in love with, and then Proteus would stand up after sitting down and cast his eyes into Valentine’s whilst building up anger and confusion in his word’s. I came up with this idea in our rehearsal sessions since I think that doing this is very effective, as I think it shows more of a relationship between the two characters since realistically, they are both best friends.

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 suddenly
Deeply 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.

 

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.

Week 18 Blog ( Week 6 For Shakespeare )

Week 18 Blog, Monday 24th - Wednesday 26th Of February 2014

For today's lesson, we were to continue in preparation for our main production of 'Shakespeare's House Party'. The main focus for today was to rehearse the setting of the performance on stage and work on making it more convincing as a huge house party, and to also work on developing each actors performance, to achieve a higher grade for when it comes to the main performance.

To start with, we had to look at what we would do with the other actors in the scene changes, the main focus for this task was how we were to open each scene, since each scene is set inside the house the party is held in, we thought it would be better to give the characters their own privacy to highlight the scenes and characters. Whereas the opening monologue given by Puck and the opening scene dance routine still needed developing. The opening monologue was to be a speech given by Puck to present the production to the audience. The speech was to be giving the audience an understanding of each of the different plots being presented in this production. This would be a reference to Shakespeare's most famous tragedy, 'Romeo and Juliet', as the opening prologue to the play was to give the audience an idea of what's in stall for them (in the case that the Montague s and Capulet's are rivals). So the idea was to have the monologue be delivered on stage whilst having every other actor enter a freeze frame. The freeze frames were to highlight what the actors characters look like and what will happen in their scenes; the monologue also backs up the freeze frames. 
    
Our next task was to continue with the dance routine, so each cast member can have an idea as to how they want to present their individual characterization's through the means of dance, which would then go straight into the opening scene extract from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. The task of the day was to develop the performance, as well as making the setting relevant to where the scene takes place. The opening scene for the production after the dance routine is called the 'Actors Scene', as it focuses on a group of actors rehearsing for a performance in a Forest, or in the productions sake, the back garden of the house party. So whilst this group rehearsed their scene, our teacher wanted the remaining cast to stay at the back of the stage as if it was to represent the party taking place inside the house. Lighting and props would make the scene more convincing to being set outside the house party, as the first scene would come to an end, we would then be able to morph straight into the next scene after moving off stage after the dance routine.

As the lesson went on, we began to observe the next couple of scenes in the rehearsal. It was important to observe, as it would be essential for each member of the group to listen to others performing strategies throughout their scenes, which could also be implemented into their own scenes. This whole assignment helped each member of the group, since we were helping one another to further develop our acting skills.
    
As today's lesson came to an end, my input was assisting each member of the group, by offering ideas to help further develop their performance's. Along with inputting, with the rest of the actors, improvisation ideas whilst performing in the background for each scene.

Week 17 Blog ( Week 5 For Shakespeare )

Week 17 Blog, Monday 10th- Wednesday 12th Of February 2014

For the start of this week, we began with another warm up exercise, to prepare us for more rehearsals to develop towards our main performance. This warm up was to help us get through the long session of rehearsals we were to encounter for today. Once we had finished the warm up, the group formed a circular shape, and our task was to read our lines aloud with our partners, to see how far we had come with learning our lines; most of us had learnt our lines with ease and didn't hesitate upon announcing them. After partaking in this exercise, we went straight into the rehearsals. Me and my partner for the 'Lads in Love' scene from 'The Two Gentlemen Of Verona' were the first to perform, since we haven't had much time to develop it on stage, and after doing it, I thought this rehearsal was well needed for the 'Lads in Love' scene in particular. The pair of us had managed to present all of our lines whilst offering interesting characterization advances along with perfect comedic timing, this was followed by positive reactions from both the group and our teacher, whom were partaking as an audience to our performance. After scrapping many ideas given by me and my partner and the rest of the group, we had managed to create the 'Lads in Love' scene whilst presenting our lines in the way of our characters, to make the scene more entertaining and realistic to an audience.

Not only did it help us create an entertaining and realistic picture to an audience, but it also assisted us in developing our characters even more. To begin with, I had different ideas as to how I could present my character, whom is Proteus from 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona', I presented him as a character with deep emotions, as Proteus is both angry and confused in this scene. To show the comedic side to this scene, I used facial expressions to help with the long speeches that my partner was announcing as Valentine. To to keep the meeting of the two friends more serious, the last few paragraphs of the scene was show the serious reality of the fact that Valentine is in love. I was to portray my character in a way that he has to put doubt into Valentine's mind, to make him like this woman less so he has a fair advantage to woe her. Then as the scene draws to an end, my character has to then see the reality of it all as well. Whilst giving dramatic pauses, I have to then realize that Valentine isn't joking and he is truly in love. But what makes this scene more interesting and effective is the fact that in my research into this scene, I had discovered that both of the characters are in love with the same woman, and that Proteus discovers Valentine talking about the same woman he loves, which brings dramatic tension between the two characters. Because this kind of a senareo would make a great plot for a modern day comedy, this had assisted us in making the scene more realistic and comedic to an audience.

Whilst me and my partner worked together to further develop our scene and characters, the other actors that were also in this scene; performing in the background, helped the main performance as well. Because the other actors had participated in helping make our scene more comedic, I also assisted them in making their scenes more realistic and comedic, to give the whole performance an entertaining feel to it all. After our rehearsals for today,  our teacher had given us all a simple question to answer in this blog: Do you feel you've embodied your character? My answer would be a straight and honest yes. I do feel, after learning all of my lines and also having a decent few hours of rehearsal time, I feel I have created a decent portrayal of my character, Proteus. Whilst on stage and in my own time, I feel very positive about presenting Proteus, showing his thoughts and feelings towards the situation being caused in the scene whilst giving a comedic, yet serious, tone to it all.

On Tuesdays lesson, we had all learnt a new dance routine given to us by our dance teacher, to be included in our 'Shakespeare's House Party' production. In yesterdays lesson, we were all volunteering for a job role to choose to be in for our production. All of the tasks for these Job Roles were mainly back stage organizations, much like the 'Jack and the Beanstalk' pantomime, where we had worked in the backstage departments. But the job roles we had been presented with for this production was to arrange where everything should go on stage, what costumes we were to wear, and deciding the music and kinds of lighting we all wanted for our performance. My responsibility for this production was the role of Costume Manager, I was to decide what theme of costumes we were to wear and let the rest of the group vote on what we all wanted to wear. The theme was decided to be 'TV/Film Characters, the character I chose to perform as was Shaun from the zombie classic film called 'Shaun of the Dead'. The job roles, alongside deciding what we were doing in the production, was to be included in our booklets as the first production meeting; this was a good starting point. This allowed us to understand the priorities we had to acomplish during each meeting in order to create an entertaining performance. The priorities listed from having regular meetings outside of college and updating a 'To-Do' list in order to make a decent understanding of what we were doing in the development process as our different Job Roles.

After having a short break, we returned to our rehearsals and continuing what would be an essential part of our production, the dance routine. Our teachers idea for the performance was to open it with a traditional Shakespearean prologue, then to give a montage showing all of the characters in their individual costumes, and to present them all as friends at someones house party, hence the name of the production. We did this, whilst reminding ourselves, that we were to keep the idea that this production is to be set in the modern day times, with the theme of a Shakespearean house party. The idea our teacher had was to open the performance with one of the Puck speeches from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', then we have a dance routine to begin the performance's only thereafter opening with the actor's scene from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Our first session in rehearsing the routine was difficult but all the more still interesting. Difficult in the way of us having to choreograph each dance movement which we all have never done before. That's what made it more interesting for me, because it would also make the performance more fun, not only for us actors but for the audience.  Another crucial part of learning the dance routine was to also present our character through the dance. The purpose of this was to give an introduction to each of the actors performing, and for us to present our individual characterization ideas to the audience. So because my character, Proteus, is madly in love with a woman and is angry and confused throughout the 'Lads in Love' scene, I had to perform the dance routine showing my confusion towards Valentine. To begin with, it was making the routine more difficult to grasp, as we'd have to focus on the dance movement and focus on presenting our characterization. But with time to learn the dance outside the rehearsals, I think all of us might be able to give a decent dance routine to open the production.

As the lesson came to an end, my input was presenting my ideas for the costume theme we were to have for the performance's. Along with aiming to focus in making the dance routine more convincing and entertaining for the main performance.

Week 16 Blog ( Week 4 For Shakespeare )

Week 16 Blog, Monday 27th- Wednesday 29th Of January 2014

For the start of this week, our teacher had brought us to a computer room, we were given the task on the computer, to start our written work for the Shakespeare Assignment. She gave us all an hour of the lesson to complete as much work as possible until our time on the computer ends. After this session, we had returned to our classroom to continue with rehearsal's for the assignment. As always, before we start a rehearsal lesson, we perform a warm-up to get our bodies woken up for the day ahead. We did the 'Rubber Chicken' warmup, which I have mentioned/explained in a previous blog.

When we completed the warm-up, we continued on to the rehearsal's. Unfortunately, my partner who was performing as Valentine with me for my part as Proteus in ''The Two Gentlemen Of Verona', was absent for today's lesson, so my teacher decided that we should look back at this play when he returns from absence. I instead was to rehearse for the Actor's scene which is seen in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', where I perform the role of the character 'Puck'. Unfortunately, our teacher spent a lot of time choreographing movement's for each character in the different plays, and we were not able to reach my part in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in time before the end of the lesson. Obviously, this isn't good for me, as I don't know what my teacher wants me to do physically whilst on stage. To counteract this, I have thought about my character's whilst watching others perform their role, and I have acted out my scene's differently each time with personality changes. These personality changes can range from some overexcited character, scaling down to a more serious character. Both these personality's I have chosen, in my eye's, perform well, but for next lesson, I would like the opportunity to use my 'Overexcited' personality, since I do prefer using this whilst saying my lines to myself. Also, seeing as all the play's we are doing are comedies, I think it'll be good if there was a character that was overly excited and cocky in a sense. And I also noticed that my teacher hasn't used that kind of personality for any of the character's we are performing as.

When we reached the end of our lesson, we were given our daily note's to include in these Blog's:

The first Blog note was to say how I applied skill's/technique's I have learnt so far into the rehearsal's. Honestly, I haven't thought about the skill's/technique's I have used since I change up my performance each time to keep thing's fresh for me since my teacher hasn't given me any sense of direction for my character's in rehearsal's because my partner was absent for 'The Two Gentlemen Of Verona' and there wasn't enough time in the lesson to reach my part of Puck in the Actor's scene for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.

The second Blog note was to say if I had engaged with the language and why. For all rehearsal's so far and for my line learning, I have fully engaged with the language Shakespeare has used in his play's and reacted to each line with, in my opinion, the right use of expression. I do this because it will help me much more when it come's to the rehearsal's so it show's my teacher that I have gone through my lines understanding how I should react to other character's in the scene, and since we get marked in rehearsal's as well as the real performance, I thought this would be a good thing to include, also giving my teacher various interpretation idea's for my character's.

The third note was to say if I had any new idea's for my character after today's lesson. As I previously stated, I have personality change's that I give to my character's to spice thing's up a bit more whilst I'm learning my lines and using Physicality along with them. Since I didn't do much for my part's in the rehearsal for today, it has given me more time indeed to revise on my character whilst observing other actor's interpretation's for their character also.

The final note was to say what I had inputted into today's lesson. Since this was a rehearsal session, with me being with other member's of the group suggesting different idea's as to how we should physically perform our line's, there wasn't much that I have inputted since I was given the time to revise over my character whilst the other actor's in the Actor's scene were performing their line's, since my character for the Actor's scene, Puck, is offstage for the first half of the scene.

After our break, we all arrived to our Singing lesson. Today our teacher wanted us to go over our self evaluation's once more to prepare for a recording session afterwards in which our teacher would ask us, individually, question's about the different attribute's we had used in the assessment for 'Season's Of Love', these attribute's include Tempo, Tone of Voice, Rhythm, and multiple more attribute's we had used for the song. Unfortunately, the lesson ended resulting with me and several other people in the group not having our self evaluation' recorded, but this is good, since it give's me a whole week to think about what I am going to say to the different question's being asked to me.

For Tuesday's lesson, we continued with another Warm-up, to get our bodies woken up and to also improve our vocal's for the line's we are to perform. We then moved on afterwards to our rehearsal's for a short time before our teacher called us in so she could choreograph our Physical movement's along with the line's in the script. Once again, Unfortunately,  we ran out of time when it came to be choreographing my part in the Actor's scene, my teacher did come up with an idea with me being on stage with a beer can and cigarette's whilst sitting on a bench, whilst the other actor's were not to acknowledge my character being there with them. This idea was good, but I had my own idea as to how I was to come on stage for my part and I want the opportunity to show my idea in next week's lesson. And once again, my partner for our partake in 'The Two Gentlemen Of Verona', was absent from the rehearsal's, so I couldn't work on that scene since he isn't there to receive any choreographed movement our teacher suggests to use in the scene.

Once again at the end of the lesson, we had received more 'Blog Note's' to include in these Blog's:

The first note was to say what type of Warm-up we performed in today's lesson and how it would be effective for us to do before rehearsing. Once again we did the 'Rubber Chicken' Physical Warm-up to get all or bodily function's working, since this Warm-up involves our whole body to be moving in a quick motion. Afterwards, we had performed a Vocal Warm-up were we had to say a rhyme in different tone's of voice for each line said in the rhyme. These two Warm-ups are both effective for the rehearsal's since it really doe's help in saying our line's more vocally, so it's not one tone of voice for the entire part. And 'Rubber Chicken' is there to make ourselves show more Physicality whilst on stage, so we are not standing in one spot for the entirety of the performance.

The second note was to say what choice's I have made so far on my character's Vocally and Physically. For Puck, I would like him to be a loud character and to also be cocky with the way he would talk to the other character's in the scene, I feel that doing this would give the performance more interest for the audience since having a loud person on stage can be exciting and since it's a comedy play, how I say my line's might make a few laugh's come out of the audience. Puck, Physically, I would like him to be moving around the stage a lot more than the other character's in the scene, and I would like his movement's to have unique status, so he is much more different than the other character's on stage, resulting in him getting more attention from the audience since he is one of the main character's in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' .
For Proteus, Vocally, I would like him to have a more posh accent in his voice, since he is a one of the Gentlemen of Verona, hence the title of the play. I find it hard to say if he should be a loud or more quiet character since in the scene, me and my partner were given, Valentine and Proteus are having a conversation about a woman that they both happen to have fallen in love with, except that Proteus knows who Valentine is talking about and when reading the script, I caught the scene of sarcasm in his word's, so I can try and implement that in the rehearsal's in some way later on. For Proteus' Physicality, it's hard for me to imagine, since he is having a long conversation with Valentine and I can't see how they would move whilst talking to each other. Since I was thinking about this in rehearsal's, I feel that perhaps watching another person's performance of this scene may help me interpretate what I can do Physically in this scene.

The third note was to say how it was learning line's with no emotional connection at all in term's for our rehearsal session's. It was really easy for me since I have done this technique in the past for other performance's such as 'The Tempest', which is also a play done by Shakespeare. And I also used it for our 'Scaramouche Jone's' assignment which we had performed previously. I continue to use this technique as it doe's help me learn my line's a lot quicker than adding emotion when first learning them.

The final note was to say what I had inputted into today's lesson. Once again, I didn't have much input to give, since we didn't have time in the rehearsal to reach my part in the Actor's scene where I would of inputted several idea's as to how Puck would perform on stage Vocally and Physically.

Scaramouche Jones Assignment Evaluation

Development Of The Production

To lead towards the best performance possible, we ran into a number of developments in each actor’s performances, along with chorus staging and free movement whilst on stage.  When we began the assignment for the first time, reading through the script blindly was considered difficult for many members of the group. The reason partially was the fact that the character ‘Scaramouche Jones’ uses very descriptive words in order to depict dark and dull moments within his whole life, each member of the group admittedly, needed help in understanding the words he was saying, so we all knew how to pronounce them with emphasis and tone of voice, and also understanding what they meant. 

Other than trying to understand the descriptive words that Scaramouche Jones was saying, reading through the script and trying to understand the plot of the play at first hand was hard for most, however, having another read through of the whole script by ourselves whilst also discussing with other members on their opinion of the play, we managed to get a bigger understanding for the basics of the plot.

To ensure that each member of the group can understand the dialogue Scaramouche Jones was saying whilst they were to be talking aloud on stage, we began to look deeper into the more descriptive words and phrases in the script.  This resulted in us looking up the words using expert's knowledge, and also to take notes of each word's meaning in our own scripts. We all managed to get an understanding as to how we can pronounce the dialogue whilst on stage.   

 

Next on the agenda, was to look at the use's of accents we could use for other character's described by Scaramouche Jones in the play. When it came to describing other people which weren't from the same country as Scaramouche Jones, accents were used to paint an image for the audience for the fact he wasn’t describing himself, but another person he had met in his life.  Again we looked up how to pronounce the accent along with the dialogue written in the script using real people from these country's as Key Figure's. Although each member of the group's version of the accent wasn’t entirely perfect, it still worked, and also gave comedic value towards the performance since it's funny for people to mispronounce an accent.   

 

Because the script is written to only have one man onstage for the whole performance, so that the actor playing 'Scaramouche Jones' can give give his/her own impression to the different character's being described. This resulted in each actor in the group giving their own imperfect impression towards another character being described, making it more convincing to the audience that we are all being in character, and the events that were happening to Scaramouche Jones were real to both ourselves playing the character, and knowing how much of an impact it had on him for how much he remembers from his dark past.

After achieving the pronunciation of descriptive word's, we all began working more improved than we did on the first read through. Our next task to work on the staging. To begin with, we all improvised our stage movement's to see if it would work in the space we were given to perform in.  This task started off more downhill than we were all anticipating. To begin with, we knew very little about how our own version of Scaramouche Jones was going to move and present the dialogue whilst on stage. So to begin with, the first actor performing the lines had just read the lines out loud and improvised little movement's to keep the flow of the performance.  Although the section of the dialogue where he says “Fear and Delight”, I noticed that the movement's he used on this line was borrowed from the Pete Porstlewaite’s portrayal of Scaramouche Jones (which we had watched in a previous session). Our teacher suggested that the actor along with the chorus, should collapse on stage along with the opening line “God, what a day!”, to show exhaustion after doing Scaramouche Jones' last circus performance. This idea worked well, as the chorus was to be portrayed as younger version's of Scaramouche Jones leading up to the older one giving the first set of lines to introduce the character, therefore they will always know what he is feeling and thinking, resulting them in acting the same. When we performed the first section of lines, we began to develop towards making a slow walk, for the actor playing Scaramouche Jones at the time, towards a chair on the side of the stage, then having him collapsing and then standing up in mid-sentence to get the audiences' and chorus’ attention.  The chorus’ movement in this scene was mostly discussed before and improvised, especially with the use of hand gestures on the line “clucking round their kiddies”. These hand gestures were to show the clucking of a chicken, however most of the chorus’ other movements had a good purpose in the whole performance overall, such as interacting with the actor on stage to portray a prison cell, the gypsy camp that Scaramouche Jones grew up in, and many more other area's only just using our own bodies to imagine what would be happening and to show the area's that Scaramouche Jones had come across to the audience to show more realism and a sense of imagination. The significance of  doing all of this, was to see if we were all capable of using our own imagination to make the performance intriguing, interesting and also entertaining for a new audience. This also worked along with us starting with a very dull performance, to becoming one of the best performance's we have ever done in our career as a group.

 

The Character Study Of Scaramouche Jones

 

A key strategy for an actor’s performance, is to understand his/her's character inside out. This could range from knowing the age of the character being played, how the character would move on stage, and how the character would respond to certain events that had happened in his/her's life. This was another element in the development of our performance as to begin with, the character is both lifeless and boring to the audience. We weren't giving the impression that this man on stage was ninety-nine years old, but that he is a clown that just came out of his last show, and has a really interesting life story to tell the audience. The development of Scaramouche Jones' character began in our Physical Theatre lessons.

 

In these lesson's, we began meditating, to get our own thoughts to focus for when our teacher would ask us question to tell us who we are and where we are. He was telling us how we are this old clown, who has been in hundred's of shows, and is tired of his life, since he has traveled far and wide across the globe. When we finished meditating, we all stood up and began to walk around the class room showing the age of Scaramouche Jones, understanding how he would walk at different stages in his whole life. The best way to portray Scaramouche’s walk in my opinion, was to have the top half of the body pointing leaning towards the ground, giving the impression that he is old and tired, alongside this, the walk required the legs to be locked in place and to have the feet spread apart, to give an interpretation of an old clown. 

 

We next had to use our own depicted clown chosen by our Physical Theatre teacher in a previous exercise. My clown was a Naive mixed with Surreal.  A Naive-Surreal clown is partially shy, clumsy, sensitive, always considered happy, and try to make it look funny when they make mistake's (such as tripping over on the pavement and starting to do a dance to cover it up etc). I felt it would be best to have myself portray as my version of a clown for ‘Scaramouche Jones’, since he has been through all these tragic moments in his whole life, and yet he is able to still live on happily as a clown to show that these events had happened to him prposely. Alongside the movement of the character, the facial expression would be very sad to make the audience feel sorry for Scaramouche Jones as he tells his life stories before his hundredth birthday. 

 

After imagining how the character of Scaramouche Jones would walk, the next step was look at how you would react to objects and other people in the real world. Again, this was to use our own imagination as our teacher was describing what scene the character was going through whilst staying in character the whole time. Our teacher described how we were to be walking down a street and going into a random shop and wanting to buy a random object, the object could be anything we imagined at the time, our teacher said that we all wanted this object desperately, unfortunately not having enough money required to purchase the object. Our teacher then told us that we were to show our character facial expression after realizing he/she had no money to purchase the object, which resulted in desperation and disappointment. Our teacher then made us imagine how our character would react to an unexpected audience. This group of people would know who the character is and wanted to see him do a performance. We all managed to improvise all these events in character; knowing we all needed to show the characters thoughts and feelings using facial expression's to create our own portrayal of the character.

This lesson would help us in our rehearsal's for 'Scaramouche Jones', since we now knew how we could portray his character when it came to performing our lines also.

 

The Performance Evaluation

The performance's are finally over, but our idea's could still be improved. Since both performance's from our own eyes resulted in a success, watching it from an audiences point of view resulted in us seeing the whole performance in a whole new different way (a video camera was placed by our teacher at the back of the theatre behind the audience, recording the whole performance). Since learning all our individual lines and staging movement's wasn't a huge problem, there were many other moment's in both performance's that could have been improved in order to make it a perfect performance. ‘Scaramouche Jones’ is all about the life of an old man telling a story that made the audience use imagination to depict what he had went through his whole life, until the performance comes to an end by having the stage light's turn off whilst all variation's of Scaramouche Jones were standing next to each other. The Set used for the performance in the audience's eyes, was the back stage of his last performance in front of children at the circus, Scaramouche Jones also breaks the forth wall by telling the audience that he is only hours away from reaching 100 years of age, also telling the audience that when the clock strike's midnight, that is when he dies. Whilst using very descriptive dialogue to show imagery to the audience, he tells his life story from the second he was born to the current moment where he is standing in front of the present audience. He tells us all how he had become a clown, which was his destiny, and how a white clown mask had fused onto his face in order to complete his destiny of becoming the clown known as Scaramouche Jones.

 

Whilst reading through the script learning my lines and understanding the language used, I had realized that the play was well written, and very interesting to tell a fascinating tale of this old, lonely and dark character. Our director's plan was to have each member of the group to have at least two pages of the script to memorize off by heart, and to say the dialogue aloud whilst on stage in both rehearsal's and the real performance. Whilst the actor was announcing his/her part of the script, we had the rest of the group performing in the background as the characters chorus. The Chorus was to present the characters thoughts and feeling to different situations throughout the whole play, which worked extremely well when the character uses descriptive language to paint a tragic and dark picture in his life. Since our version of 'Scaramouche Jones' had a number of deleted scenes, partially due to the fact that two members of the group had left the Btec Level 2 Performing Arts Course, we still managed to get the basis of the plot to make sense, so when each actor performs on stage, they were to announce important moments and events in Scaramouche Jones' life. My role in the play was to perform as a younger Scaramouche Jones (about 10-15 years of age).  The character that I was portraying was just a young gypsy boy who is waiting for his father to return to him by the dock's, and he was to look out for an Elder Dempster (a large ship). Unfortunately, this Elder Dempster that Scaramouche Jones was looking out for, never appeared. I then went to talk about how Scaramouche was kidnapped by a slave trader, and was later sold off abroad. After this, I transitioned to become a member of the chorus, which resulted in the next member of the group to perform their segment of the script. Whilst the next actor was performing the next few pages of the script, I would partake along with other members of the chorus to whisper key words and/or act out certain events and to also represent certain characters Scaramouche Jones had met/seen in his past. Later in the performance, we came back to the ninety-nine year old version of Scaramouche Jones to conclude the story and performance. The way I used my character study was to give the impression that I was a sad, lonely character, I felt that my character didn't use too much energy, since the part I performed in the play was a very sad and tragic moment that had happened in Scaramouche Jones' life, and I expected the audience to understand that this was indeed a tragic moment and feel sorry for the character in a sense. As well as showing my own interpretation of a clown, which as I mentioned was a Naive-Surreal clown. Since the whole group had discovered and performed their own clowns, they were all mainly performing them in the chorus,  because the chorus were portrayed as the ghosts of Scaramouche’s past, also sharing his thoughts and feelings, resulting the chorus in representing an audience who knew exactly what he was going through; and are able to keep the audience entertained throughout the whole performance. Combining all the elements and techniques I had learnt in this assignment, I managed to give a portrayal of my own clown that was capable to tell the audience of a tragic story that had happened early on in Scaramouche Jones' life.

Whilst the whole group and the director were developing this play, we also had many Physical Theatre lessons, in which we explored the characteristics of Scaramouche Jones and discovered how we could present the origins of his clown within our own individual characterisation. This is impotent for an actor when learning lines, because when an actor knows their lines and the plot given they are to also understand the characters origins along with his/her thoughts and feelings to an event which has occurred. Once I had learnt my lines, I understood what Scaramouche Jones was saying and why he was saying it as he was, giving me a better understanding to know how I could pronounce my lines whilst on stage.

If I was to evaluate my own performance after watching the whole production on tape, I would like few changes to be made. When it came to my vocal skills, I was concerned that I needed to speak up at moments during my time on stage. I would of liked to to be a little louder for the audience (especially if there were older member's watching), and I felt in both of the actual performance's I wasn’t loud enough, this is mainly because I tend to be shy and hold myself back too much, I realize that I need to express myself more in the future, this is definitely one target I’ll set for the next assignment. When it came to vocal cue's to include the Chorus, it looked perfect on the video, which was good, it show's that when I was performing my lines, they were clear enough for the Chorus to understand and initiate their cue's on time. When it came to my Physical Ability, I, again, was holding myself back too much and standing in one place for a large period of time, but there were moment's    were I did step to the side of the stage as much as I could, since my director told me that I needed some movement for my time on stage, and I realized that when I wasent moving as much as I thought. I was also using both my arms and body to emphasize what I was saying to give it more meaning. Also I had an interaction with another member of the group which was when I went to join the Chorus after my part in the performance, it was good since we both knew when the transaction had to take place, the transaction resulted me in going through the other actor's legs whilst they were spread (each member of the group had different way's of joining the chorus once more). I felt the relationship as a whole between the whole group was positive, as we had all worked very well and hard together to get the whole storyline of ‘Scaramouche Jones’ to be entertaining to the best of our ability, and also understanding each of our individual/group cue's to give a better performance overall.

The mood and atmosphere of our production was to be both dark and dull to show the audience that we were to present a  dark tragic life story. We had Dark colored lighting as well as a brighter light behind our curtains to show that we are backstage. Set design consisted of a mirror with several make-up product's for the last minute preparations before the audience came in for the performance; as well as a mirror frame, which was used for several transactions in changing actors onstage from the chorus. Sound effects were used to begin with a sound as if there was an audience, who had just watched Scaramouche Jones perform as his clown, also announcing that the play is set and telling the backstage audience who is onstage at the time of the performance, which is obviously Scaramouche Jones. Sound effects were also used to support the chorus’ mimes for multiple scene's, a ship at sea, a moving train and a fireworks display on New Years Eve, which was the end of the play. This gave the audience a better picture of what is happening on stage in these descriptive flashbacks that Scaramouche Jones announces in his dialogue. The key aspect that created the dark/dull atmosphere of the performance as a whole, was the fact that all our individual performances were linked in with each other. Since the older variant of Scaramouche Jones was more confident and positive about his life at the moment, other member's of the group had to show negative and sad emotion's as he reflects on the more tragic and saddening events in his life. Having a dark atmosphere also created a terrifying image, although the chorus were trying to make the play as uplifting as possible to kept the audience entertained, it was the actor playing Scaramouche Jones who made the audience feel sorrow for this character and to know what pain he has been through his whole life.

The elements we included in the performance were used successful, especially during the          chorus/actor transaction's. One element we used for the chorus, which hopefully the audience understood, was that they could see all of the variant's of Scaramouche Jones behind him as he is telling his story, but in reality, Scaramouche Jones has no acknowledgement of them being there, since this is a one man play and we had to incorporate 10 people to perform in this production. Also the chorus had provided an entertaining role of providing a slight comedic interpretation of all the events that Scaramouche Jones had been through, using all the elements within a real clown’s performance. Along with the audience having to understanding that each member of the chorus was an actor who was going to come onstage at a certain point of time, this is when our director came up with the use of 'transactions'. The transactions used from the audience’s point of view, was when the actor changed with someone in the chorus to signify a flashback in Scaramouche Jones' life, and they would take over the role of the character. These Transactions were again pulled off successfully, as there were different ways in which each actor would switch from Chorus to the role of Scaramouche Jones, the main one was using the mirror frame on the right side of the stage, used at least four times throughout the whole production. Alongside the mirror frame, some actor's would simply switch positions on stage so one actor who is on the far side of the stage from the mirror frame dosent have to awkwardly walk around the back behind the chorus to reach the frame to go on stage, and as I have already mentioned, my transaction was to move between a chorus members legs. This was to also show that within the script written, Scaramouche Jones had some weird ways of traveling from place to place throughout his life. There were many other successful elements we had used in the production, but above all, these two elements stood out the most in my opinion.

If there was anything I would improve overall, I would say we have to improve on timing for both line giving and chorus cue's, and also have some dialogue spoken clearer by some other actor's. As well as improving on my own vocal and Physical work. But after all, I would say both performance's for ‘Scaramouche Jones’ were quite successful for the entire group.

Creating A Chorus of Clowns

 

Since the performance was well decorated with dark color's to represent a dull image, the main element we had on stage also was the chorus. The main purpose of the chorus was to present the character, Scaramouche Jones, whilst he was onstage, his thoughts and feelings to certain events that occurred in his life. Our chorus also blended in many other elements. Our chorus was created with nine members of the group whilst one member was to be performing their part of the script as Scaramouche Jones, the chorus showed they were a part of Scaramouche's inner thoughts and feelings by acting out descriptive words he would say throughout the performance. This was because the chorus was representing a part of Scaramouche so that when the performer on stage has to show emotion, the chorus can help by reacting to the line also, knowing full well what Scaramouche is feeling at the time as they too have been through these emotions before, since every member of the chorus is a ghost of Scaramouche's past. The other main purpose of the chorus, is to entertain the audience, because since 'Scaramouche Jones' was written to be a one man play, it can be very dull and boring to watch one acting student for the whole duration of the production, to counter this from happening, our director divided the whole script fairly amongst ten people. Because the chorus was to also be portrayed as a clown, our director thought it would be best if we made the chorus entirely out of our own individual clowns.  When I say "our own individual clowns" I refer back to the Physical Theatre lesson in which we discovered what type of clown we were.

    
In this previous Physical Theatre lesson, our teacher gave us a simple task to stand in front of the class and tell any joke we could think of off the spot. When we told our joke, our teacher looked very carefully at how we reacted by telling the joke and asked us if we thought it was a funny joke or not, whilst we gave a reply, he would examine any hesitation or anxiety whilst giving the reply. Then afterwards when everyone had told their joke, our teacher would tell us what type of clown we are by how we had told the joke, and if we found it funny. When it came to telling each of our joke's, we stood on stage and told the joke a number of times, in which resulted in some people mixing up the words a couple of times as panicked by trying to say the same thing over and over repeatedly. This exercise resulted in my teacher telling me that I was a Naive-Surreal clown. This was because after I told my joke, he asked me if I thought the joke was funny, and I told him that it was the funniest joke I know of, which resulted in the room going quiet and nerves start to kick in, which made me turn more shy whilst standing alone on stage, this moment is what helped our teacher depict what type of clown we were. Since our teacher didn't tell us why he was doing this, we couldn't make up our own clown off the spot. So after all of us knowing what type of clown we all were, I felt it would help me more with this assignment, because we used it in the chorus so that all of us would be representing a different variation of Scaramouche Jones throughout his life as a clown. Combining all these elements helped to create a vision for the audience which is called 'The Elephant In The Room', the audience can see the chorus of clowns, but the character of Scaramouche Jones knows them only to be his thoughts and feelings, and also the ghosts of his past. This is one main thing that was keeping the audience entertained and interested throughout the whole performance.