Classical Theatre and Voice

Classical Theatre and Voice

This Unit we looked at different classic monologues and Duologue's and learnt different ways to learn the lines of the monologue and different techniques to present the monologues, also we are looking at voice learning different warms for our voice ready for us to create our own 15 minute warm up for the rest of the group.

Tuesday 21st January 2014

"Let's hear the play"

The first part of the lesson was to warm our voice we did this though learn the song Rose which is in Elizabethan English

Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose.
Shall I ever see thee wed?
I'll marry at thy will.
If thy but said. 

we then start to look at start of one of Shakespeare plays monologues the boy look at a part of "Hamlet"

To be or not to be, that is the question:
whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
or to take arm against a sea of troubles,

once we had read the lines a couple of times and learnt the line we walked around the room saying the lines how we would think then character at that time would have said the lines once we had got the character we want right we then performed the sort section of text to the rest of the class in the way that, that character would have said it, one of the challenges of the when performing was getting the Elizabethan English right which means to say the word correctly and to pronounce the word correctly, during the performance I stumble on a few words but after a while I was able to stay the words correctly.

Doing this Task has help me to have more of a understand of what we could be choosing for our assessment and to have a better understanding  of some of the old English we could be facing.

Tuesday 28th January 2014

During today lesson we looked at some duologue's and some monologues by reading though them and each reading a character from the duologue the one that me,Sasha and Tom looked at was "The Seagull" by Anton Chevok i was reading the part of Trigorin after the read though we were told that this would be the dialogue that me, Sasha and Tom would be doing for our assessment, the part of "The Seagull" we are doing focuses on Arkadina relationships with the start the extract the audience see Arkadina and her son Treplyov have a decision about what has happen with Treplyov and his hate for  Trigorin with Arkadina standing up for Trigorin the scene then change to Arkadina trying to flight for Trigorin love the whole extract mainly focuses around the main character which is Arkadina. 

After we had looked at the Duologue's we then started to look at the some on the monologues by having a read though them and having a looked at the once that we like and that we were going to chose for our assessment, the Monologue that I like was "Women of no importance" by Oscar Wilde this monologues is a comedy and is based around the character Gerald who is have a decision with his mother about his dream to work for Lord Illingworth at some point of the monologue the discussion turn into an argument. 

The other Monologue which is chose which is the character of Prospero from "The Tempest" this monologue is more drama then the other one and the character has change from a young man to an older man who is explain what has happen to them and why they're on a deserted island. 

Tuesday 4th February 2014

Today to start the lesson Kat lead the warm up she started with warming the body up with stretches she also led the drama game "I love you but I just can't smile" i found this game very hard as i laugh to easy.

After the warm up we start to rehearsal our monologues and duologues but we looked at an exercise that could would help us add emotions to our performance, to do this we worked in pears and we had to tell the other person a situation that could happen to them and that person had to think about there reaction to that situation I worked with Tom and the situation I gave him was that he was going to die very soon, Tom reaction was in shock and a bit of crying but he did show the emotion very well of someone getting news there going to die well, the situation that Tom gave me that I had won e lottery my reaction was disbelieve and happiness with a mixture of shock, but when I performed this to the rest of the group I gave away what my situation was by saying that I had never won anything before.

After this active we talked about our monologues and dialogues as a group we look at the text and looked at how we could stage the piece and looked how we could ad the emotion to the characters as well as looking at the movement, from this me , Sasha and Tom looked the emotion of the characters Sasha main emotion is sadness and anger from when she has agreements with her son to when see is talking with her lover, tom main emotion is disappear from losing the love of his life to hating his mothers lover and me emotion was lovestruck with his lovers son's lover and his real lover. 

Tuesday 25th February 2014 

Today we started the lesson with a physical and vocal warm up, once we had warm up our bodies we move on to techniques to learn line, the technique that we use was splitting the monologue up into section where the emotion change and then learning the first three sections, we were given 5 minutes to learn as much as we could then we were set a task to make breakfast but say our lines as we made breakfast, doing this is different to the way I learned line but it did help me to learn the first section of the three.

The next task was to performed our monologue but as if we were performing them in front of aliens that don't speck and understand English which means that we had to create an action for every single word which was hard but fun but when perform it was hard not to laugh when performing it as the action that we were creating were funny but not all ways representing the word that we were saying, but this task challenge us to use a drama improve techniques of on spot as the task was making think on the spot.

Tuesday 4th March 2014

For today lesson we focus on the monologue that we were least confident on and hadn't worked much on which was "Prospero" from the "The Tempest", I had to think how I would stage it that was different from my other monologue but as well working on my characterisation so the two characters are different to each other, I was thinking about standing for some part of the monologue when the character is talking to his daughter to the end of the performance be on his knees

During the lesson we move to our other monologue which was "Gerald" from "A Women Of No Importance"  I worked on my staging and character for the staging was just me standing upright back straight to so that my character is from a posh background have the character mothers sitting on a chair where the audience would be so i would be talking directing to the audience as well I was working on my character so I could present Gerald to speck with a posh accent but as well I could be silly with the character as the play is a comedy

Tuesday 18th March 

For today lesson we were performing our two monologues and our duologue's to Reese the theatre director.

First I performed A women of no importance I was nervous at first as and that I was wasn't sure about all of the lines but I tried my best to keep in character for the character Gerald I portrayed the character to have a posh tone of voice so I presented the lines with a posh tone of voice and have an up right stance, but half way though the monologue I forgot the line and had relied on my script which I came out of character and lost the performance which I started. 

The fed back I got so I could work on my performance read for the assessment was to be more conifer dent on the line and open out a bit more to the audience and keep the character constant all the way though other performance don't lose the character and work more on my characterisation of the character of Gerald I could my him more silly and add more humour and make the performance more comical. 

The second performance was The Tempest this time I didn't feel as nervous at the first one as I was more confident on this monologue then the first one this time the character was Prospero he is talking to his daughter about why they are on this island, I tried to present the character of 

Prosero to have a mixture of emotions with anger, sadness and forgiving tones in my voice, I did stumble on some of the line but I needed to get the old English right and pronounce it right. 

The fed back I got which I can work on for the assessment was to show a clear difference between the two characters Gerald and Prosero as I had the same tone of voice throughout both performances and once again be more clear and confident on what I am saying and presenting. 

The final performance was the duologue's (the scene) which was from the seagull this time I wasn't as nervous as I was before with the other two but I was a bit more confident as I knee the line and how I want to present the character,  I played the character of Boris who is in love with two women and is tormenting one with the other and is also lovestruck so I present the character with this love struck feeling by showing in one point I was in love with a calm tone of voice to a bit of anger with the line "she doesn't want to understand" to giving up at the end but when the character lovers is delivering her paragraph I show the character to be listening to what she is saying. 

The fed back I got was that I was listening to Sasha paragraph well and reacting to it how the character would and to show that to the audience the dedication to listen to what the character was saying was well present, I need to work on staying in character throughout not changing accents and be confident fully.

Tuesday 1st April 2014

Today we performed our monologue for the final time for our assessment I had taken on board all the feedback that I got from the mock mock performance to the other performances in class, when  I performed my first monologue I thought about my posture and my speech was I posh enough for the character but when I watch the performance back at a later date I realised  that I had all my speech to the side not towards the audience which would have made my performance.

If I could do the performance again I would change the position of the character i was talking to which was Gerald's mother and have my speech facing the audience and not to the side so the audience can face my posture and my facial expression as well the audience can hear what I am saying to them more clearer as I am direction my speech towards them instead of the side.

Then I performance my second monologue which again I took on board all the feedback I got and applied this to my performance but this time I was mainly focusing on my characterisation so the audience could tell that I was performing a different character to the first to do this I lost the posh accent I had put on and tried to speck in a normal calm tone then build up the anger then lost it again.

If I could perform it again I would change where the person I was talking to as this time was facing out towards the audience the whole time but not once having an look at the person I was talking to but as well I could have change the level that I was performing on as during the first monologue I was standing all the way though but for the second one there was time where I could change my level that could help build the character more. 

The research that I did for the monologue and dialogue, the research is broken down into social,political and historical context for the three different performances. 

A Women of No Importance by Oscar Wilde 

the play is about a story of an illengement son.

Social 

This play is presented in present time which the year was 1893 and was performed at London's Haymarket Theatre and is set in Victorian London in 1893 the whole play is set within a 24 hours in a country manor house called the the shrines  the house is own by once of the characters Lady Hunstanton the party is an upper class party with the all of the characters of the play are upper class. 

My Character Gerald is the son of one of the characters 

In Victorian England people had a set of value these are Lords Illingsworth and Mrs Arbuthorlot but he doesn't know that he is Lords Illingworth's son as his mother has kept that secret for most of his life. Gerald is a badly paid and not very demanding job at a bank clerk. the character development is influenced by his mother who brought him up too strictly. later on in the play Lord Illingworth offer Gerald a job as his private secretary Gerald accepts Lords Illingworth job offer which mean that Gerald get an unexpected chance becoming a member of an upper class society.

Victorian set of Values 

A - Work Hard 
B - Thrift 
C - Religious observance
D - Family life 
E - Awareness of ones duty 
F - Absolute honestly in public life 
G - Extreme respeactiabity in sexual manners.

when think about the classical presentation the character would wear these type of costume that would show their class to an audience. 

This is the sort of costume that an upper class man and women would have worn at the time that the play was set in.

And when also thinking about a classic presentation of the set this is the type of place where this play would be set in.



Political At the time of when the play is set and written in Queen Victoria was on throne she was Queen from 1837 to 1901 as the play was set in 19892 the person in flavour was William Ewart Gladstone as he won the General Elections of 1892. 

Historical
Queen Victoria all throughout her reign from 1837 to 1901 had the same powers as any other King or before her but she was seen to be the symbol of Britain success in the world, she set an example to the people by being a representative of a hard working mother of 9 children and being very religious and devoted to her husband Prince Albert.

By end of the 19th Century Britain controlled the world largest empire (the British empire) that the world had ever seen with countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and large part of Africa a part of empire.


As the population of London increased the census conclude that 79% of the population was working class but putting an all classes audience under a theatre roof in two to three playhouses was impossible. 

The most popular theatres was Drury lane, Covent Garden and Haymarket. 

This is the theatre where "Woman Of No Importance" would have been performed in 1893.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Historical    

The stages of Elizabethan and Jacobean period were for the most part bare and simple as there was very little on stage scenery and artificial lighting was very limited.

The Tempest was written by Shakespeare between 1610 to 1611 and was written in England and was published in 1623 which was 7 years after Shakespeare death in 1616.

At the time English people in the renaissance period were aware of the efforts of their government and the government of other European countries into exploring and colonizing distant lands, when Shakespeare was writing The Tempest the Jamestown Colony had just recently been established in America.

Social 

In Elizabethan time peoples beliefs an individuals social position was more or less fixed.
The King was King as he had been given a mandate by God and all positions below this were based on a rigid social hierarchy which were also dictated by birth.

Shortly after Queen Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 she declared that the context of the play performed in public could no longer have to be religious.

Political

 King James I was the on the throne when Shakespeare wrote the "The Tempest" was written, King James I was also the King of Scotland he was know to the Scots as King James VI, James I was crown King of England and Ireland on 27th March 1603 after Elizabeth I died on 24th March 1603.


"The Tempest" was performed at The "Global Theatre" on London's Southbank in 1911

Performance workshop

Performance Workshop

Monday 9th September 2013

Idea's for my biographical piece

• installation piece
• tour with pictures
• monologue
• duologue
• a song
• dance

What is a Monologue?
A monologue is a form of dramatic entertainment that involves one person which can be spoken to yourself or an imaginary person but it has to be address to the audience and also engage the audience and have a purpose.

structure of a monologue

• divided into manageable section with a varying in length
• chronological order
• clear (present tense) subheading
• used fade to black to show the scene change

create character

• ideal character indicators the age, social class, education and attitudes.
• chose appropriate level of maturity
• use similes and clichés
• contraction when retake a sentence
• personal idiolect, how do they speck
• intensifiers e.g. really?!
• metaphors

the idea that I went for was a monologue the reason why I choose that idea was so I could explore different parts o my life in a way that it was like I am talking to the audience. I thought of different themes with in my life that I could present in a monologue .

the ideas that I thought off...

• my time with NCS
• Television programs that I like to watch that helped me set my goals
• scars
• funny times of my life.
• my life challenges of when I was a kid.

the first idea I went for was Television programs that I liked to watch that helped me set my goal, now this idea was set so I could explain to how I to the stage that I am at now but I was writing the monologue it was clear in my head that it was working as others who read my monologue said that I only focused on program and I didn't really explain why this help me set my goals. But also when I was writing this monologue I wasn't really thinking about how I could stage it and what would I need staging and props wise, but there was one thing that I kept from my first draft monologue it was the opening line of "you the one who is setting there thinking what so interesting about you then." I decide to use this opening in my next draft but I changed the idea to scars as this ideas I could connect to the audience when sharing my experience with scars to them who might have the same as me.

Monday 16th September

My first draft on my chosen idea for my monologue which was about scars.



You the one who is sitting there thinking what’s so interesting about you then,


Well I will tell you, scars everyone’s got them you (point at audience members) you and even you have them all over your body physically and emotionally, we get them from accidents that we had, young or old,


But every scar has their own story on how they appear on your body or on my body with the physical ones that are all over but the one the will never fade is the emotional  when my parents spilt up when having two parents with two families with me in the middle of the gap,


 But I don’t think you know how this feels (point to the audience) this scar will never fade of time for the rest of my life.


But then you have the physical scar that everyone sees on your body which do fade of time but there is one that even I have never ever seen which is the one on my lip which happen when I was four years old at playschool,


Now you are properly think play school we supposed to be safe but there are not as I was able to rip me lip open on a sharp edge of a table, now you are thinking how was this able to happen but it did but I have the horrifying joy to go and see the doctor to stich my lip back together.


But the most stupid of scars that I have got was when I was washing up a baked bean tin and the sharp edge around the lid cut my hand but me being about 9 years old would have known better to wash a baked bean tin with a cloth.


But everyone (point at the audience) will have some of these scars yes the ones I am taking about is chicken pox scars when we were young and we couldn’t stop scratching the chicken pox spot until they bleed and scar up, so at some points we are in same with a scars.


So you the one who is seating there thinking what so interesting about you I think I have just answered you question.

I felt that this idea was the once that could work more with and that it didn't need to much staging and technical within the piece as my others ideas like the one about my time with NCS would need more technical with showing a lot of pictures, other reason I didn't go for the other ideas such a the funny times and the challenges as a kid was I have to many good times I didn't know which ones to chose for the monologue and for the challenges as a kid I didn't want unlock horrible memory's about those times again so that why I felt that the scars idea was the best to go for.

Monday 23rd September

I decided to stage my piece in a more simple way that didn't involve any one else except but in my oringal idea for my performance I did have planed to have a projection with a live camera to so the scars that I am talking about to the audience this idea didn't work as it was to technal for the performance so I decided just to keep my staging simple and use more of my body, the light I chose was a white wash I choose this so the audience can just see me with no other effects and no blackouts and the costume I choose was to wear all blacks as this shows to the audience that I am being professional.

Monday 30th September

during this lesion we run though everyone piece start to finish and started to place extras to people performances that needed it, the first performance was Amelia's I was used a child going to a kung fu lesson with Amelia being the teacher I was stage to have my body side on to the audience with my parentner being Tasha then I had to follow the movement that Amelia was saying but staying in time I had to continue doing the movements whlist Amelia was talking, to enter the scene we had to walk on a start talking to our partners until Amelia started, to leave the scene we had to was until Amelia had said a line when she was on the met to then leave. the next persons we looked at was Ryan Yarrows performance where me and Tom we acting as his friends on a street corner then on a certain line which was "I tamp that" I had to copy Ryan's arm movements then I had to follow Tom of when he went after the girls who had come by. then we looked at my performance which I didn't need anyone and the only other person piece I was in was Tom's where we are his audience to his rap.
 

Evaluation of Monologue
When thinking back to the start of what our assiment of an "autobiographical piece" I had the initianal idea of doing an installation piece, tour with pictures, monologue or  duologue but I chose to do a monologue as I could think more about put more of me in the writing of the monologue to thinking of the ideas I did a thought shower to show what I could do and what I could do then I thought of the subject I was going to talk about in my final idea of a monologue I chose this idea as it seem the best idea where I could focus more on about me as I want to present a story that wasn't boring to the audience but at the same time that was intresting for the audience to watch I also chose the subject by using a thought shower to see what ideas I could use I tired one idea out which was on about "Television programs that I like to watch that helped me set my goals" but once I had finished writing it I could see it was clear that the idea was to tehnical and wouldn't work then I wrote the idea about scars which was the final idea as it work and but is also an link to the audience as everyone has scars.as the lessons went on my idea developed within the stage of where I want to stage the piece if I need an extras or lighting or props also during the how I present my piece developed though the lesson with Laura suggesting idea in my staging that helped make the piece more intresting.

After every run of my piece the main feedback that I had was that I need to very my tone of voice and try to build up when the text got more intrestine so the audience would know that a certain part was intresting for them I applied this on the line It felt like the doctor was sticting my mouth together so I would never be able to talk" but at the start I didn't really applied this feedback to really later on as I would very the tone enough other feedback was that I need to artigulate more as I wasn't pronocing word full I applied this by slowing down my pace and pronouncing every word so the audience could hear what I am saying. the overall improvement help my piece as it gave it more liveliness as at the start all I was doing was saying my monologue sitting on the floor when performing the piece I moved my body and veryed the levels that I used so the audience could move focus with me and get more interaction with the audience by point at them when I said "you" and dividing the speech up so I could direct my  speech at different section of the audience so I could show that it wasn't directed at one person.

when I think about the strengths of my performance there were that I used the gestural well by pointing at the audience when I said "you" and using my hands when I say "having to parents with two sperate families" and as I was exgerating on the line "it felt like the doctor was stiching my mouth together so I would never be able to talk" as I was saying that line my level rose with it as the more exzergating I was and then lowering my level to when I said "then you get the stupid scars" to show the calm between the two I feel that these was my strength of the performance as they were more to focus point for to audience to take a real interest to. Then when I think about my weakness the ones that stand out to me is that I could always say the line correctly as I couldn't pronounce it correctly on the line "as I was able to cut my lip open on a sharp edge of a table" this was my weakness as this happen in the most interesting part of the performance also I like to rush though the performance as like I didn't want to be in the stage the lines that I felt like I rushed on was "baked bean can and cloth don't mix me being 9 years old at the time should have known better" i feel that rushing is my most strongest weakness which I need to break for further performances and learn to control my nerve's more. If I could improve my price if I was to perform again I would look at trying not to rush though the text and take my time to pronounce every word fully and try to enjoy my time on stage an not let my nerves get the better of me and to try and get more comfortable with the stage again as I feel that the time I have had off the stage has thrown my conference away. 

When I think about the technology I used in my performance I didn't really use any I was more of a simple performance I didn't use any light just the house light and I didn't need a microphone when I was present my piece as my voice did that for me as I was able to to project only technology that was use was a projected for sour name to be shown on a screen but I didn't use any film or pictures I feel not use technology didn't let me piece down I think it made my look more effective as everyone elses did involve technology and my piece was the break from the audience, if I could improve my use of technology for next time I would take a picture or use a live feed to show the scars to the audience instead of pointing to them so the audience could see more of what I was explaining to them so they could have a better understanding of the text. 

Performance workshop part 2

Monday 4th November 2013
Looking at the technique of Joan Littlewoods.

Vaudeville - a comedy genre, popular in US and Canada from the early 1880's to the late 1930's.

Music Hall - British theatrical popular between 1850's to the 1960's, British Music Hall was similar to the American Vaudeville.

Monday 11th November 2013

to help with the topic the stimulus I chose for the theme of war which was a quote from one of Churchill's speeches ....
"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender. "

Parody - an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect.

The task that we were set was to create a Parody, me and Kat choose to do a parody about Kristen Stewart's facial expression with me being to director of one of the twilight film that was asking her to show different emotion.


Monday 25th November
Audio

Using the theme of war we explored the audio part of our stimulus thought the different songs that was selected and thought of ways we could present that song or speech as well of thinking of what is made us feel when we listen to it.

we listen to

This Is War by 30 Seconds To Mars

 

 

 Love Like War by All Time Low

 

 

 

 

 

Jesus Walks by Kanye West

Earth by Michael Jackson           

Man In The Mirror and They Don't Care About Us by Michael Jackson

  

 

Winston Churchill 1940 Speech

Time To Say Goodbye by Katherine Jenkins

Stand Your Ground by Within Temptation

 

 The Ideas we created

From listening the songs we took 6 of them a focus on creating a scene,dance or movement, the main song to start with that we looked at was "They don't care about us" from this Ryan Y took a more of leader role when creating the movement piece with the rest of us helping to create an effective scene.

From this created a movement with our phones torch's an look at a lighting effective of soldiers marching in darkness then one by one as the beat developed more light would be uncovered. to start with we had Amelia go around shining a light in our face and miming the line that the girl on the song was singing which was "all I want to stay is that they don't care about us" also at the same time we had one light on which was showing Ryan's face as the beat change that when we came in one at a time to the beat marching.From the start of creating this idea I feel that this idea could be developed further in to more of effective because more can be added to what have so far as we have other songs to add in yet as well as looking at the messages that we were trying to present on what happen to the people who are left behind by war.

Monday 2nd December 2013

Continuing Audio and Starting Text.

For the first have of the lesson we looked continued to look at what we had created last week and adding new parts on the develop the first idea and trying out a new idea which was to have a another song and use our shadows projected on to the celling telling the message of the scene but from the early stages of this idea it was clear that it wasn't working this was because of we were all trying to have our own say in the matter and that we weren't listening to each other as well not having the right resources to make the idea work. so we went back the first ideas but also  adding Natalia in to what we had creating to make this possible we have two people Amelia and Natalia shining torch light in to our faces mining " I want to say is they don't really care about us",  After we went run thought what was already created we used the music to help with our creativity as the sound effects from music were the sound of bombs exploring we used Amelia and Natalia who were already on their knees after falling to them after shining the light turn to face us solider in a line and mined throwing bombs at us killing off four people which left me and Ryan the idea we that would turn on each other showing the two sides of the flight, from this we were showing to different parts of war to the audience in two different ways.

Text  

 We moved on to text and looked at a poem that Sasha bought in  as well as a newspaper article and also looked at the Churchill speech. The poem was called "Young Solider" which we linked to the news paper article about Britain youngest solider.

Young Solider

 Stay calm soldier

Do not panic
Stay calm soldier
And think of what you were taught
You're too young to die
My soldier
You're too young to leave

Run soldier
From the danger ahead
Run soldier
Don't be brave
You're too young to die
My soldier
You're too young to leave

Fight soldier
The enemy that fights you
Fight soldier
And make it though the day
You're too young to die
My soldier
You're too young to leave

Come home soldier
I miss you terribly
Come home soldier
To me and your family
You're too young to die
My soldier
Don't ever leave me       

Churchill Speech "We Shall Never Surrender"  

 We shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,
 We shall fight on the seas and oceans,
 We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,

 We shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
 We shall fight on the beaches,
 We shall fight on the landing grounds,
 We shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
 We shall fight in the hills;
 We shall never surrender

From reading both of these we came up this a range of ideas and themes inspired by the text, a couple of ideas that we looked at was having a scene with a family who have a young solider off at war and another idea was to have a Grandparent telling his Grandchild stories of the war to them then having flash back of the war with other acting out what had been described. the main idea that we went for was a comical one and we look at a "Dads Army" style theme this was inspired from the Churchill speech when Churchill state " We shall defend our Island" by creating a scene at looks at the Home Guard in a Dad's Army style, we experimented with the idea by having Sasha being the Sargent and the rest of us having different problems, the only problems we were having was trying to keep a straight face trying not to laugh at what was being said as well as trying not to go to far fending someone which some of the comments being said. From this I felt that this idea wasn't work well and that we need to think about a different idea.  

We then looked at a scene with the women of war working in the factors talking about their loved ones out in war each one of the four women which were Sasha, Amelia, Natalia and Tasha each had a different relative in the war, To show to the audience that they were in a factor all the girls did a synchronised movement which was sewing something together then Kat was the newsreader on the radio talking about soldiers deaths this was repeated four for each women starting with Sasha everyone else froze apart from her listening to news then behind her Ryan played her relative who was shot down then everyone unfrozen then the next set of news start this time Amelia was the only one not frozen which Tom playing her relative who had been captured then we moved on to Natalia which Tom again played her relative which this time was killed by an exploration then the last was Tasha who I played her relative who was killed by a gas attack. This idea worked as it was showing what life was like back at home during war and what effect it has on people at home.

The other idea was a verity show which different acts the first act was Sasha and Ryan which was called the Dummy which Ryan was the dummy and Sasha was the controller and they were talking about the first world war trenches and talking about what it was like in the trenches, then we moved on to Kat and Natalia which was a mime which Kat represented Germany and Natalia represented Untied Kingdom and this was looking at the two sides showing one side was better then the other with the UK winning, the last act was Tom and Tasha which was a song which was based on a solider missing his wife back home. this idea worked as well as it showed different parts of war in different techniques.

Visual

We moved from text on to visual and watch the opening of "Saving Private Ryan" that Kat suggested once we had watch the open then started to create a scene that we based on the Jews in a concentration camp,

The start of the scene started with everyone in the dark with morning music playing in the back ground with a family waking up talking to each other then the scene moved on with the lights on which showed the characters in a the concentration camp with having the lights on a the start we tricked the audience by making them think that the character was at home when really they weren't the scene moved to show that the characters we scared as one member of their family had already been killed then later on another character was shot, from this scene we found it hard as we had improvised the whole scene with some people not talking and others leading the scene.

we then character anther scene which starts with everyone around a table celebrating an event but with out food then one of the characters walk in after being tortured with the other character worrying about her an alarm sound with the grandparents leave then scene end with the child asking to go outside to play with her parents and siblings turn around after watching the grandparent walk to see the child shot. this scene worked better then before but it did still relied on someone leading.


Monday 27th January 2014

we watched back all the pasted weeks of material that we created and said what we liked about them and what need to improved for each item then created the running order for each piece.

1. Poem Sketch - A man's words

•  Split scene with the man in the trenches and his wife back at home going by her normal life.
•  The man in the trenches with other soldiers writing a letter or poem for his wife.
•  Could use a table to show the trenches and could show a solider holding a gun.

    2. Enemy across the pond (The Mime)

• Make it longer
• Needs to be bigger with the gestures to show which nation each person is representing.
• At the start needs to be in unison.

   3. The Dummy (The Puppet)

• Needs bigger movements. 
• Need to talk louder. 
• Needs to be cut down. 
• More snapper jokes. 
• Needs to be more slapstick.

  4.  Memories of Family

• Chop out all of the unnecessary dialogue.
• Add sound effect when the audience see the soldiers and helps to set the scene. 

   5.   Dad's Army

• Relies on Sasha to drive the scene as it relies on Sasha improv to keep the scene going. 
• Offencive very offencive and it is not taken seriously. 
• Way to long needs to be cut down and made shorter. 
• To heavy dialogue which needs more energy and have more vocal energy. 

  6. The March ( Michael Jackson's "Don't care about us" backing music)

• Needs to have more energy.
• Work on the lighting effects 
• Pause with the soldiers and repeat it at the end then end the play with the soldiers fighting.

After watch back every idea and talked about each one on what needs to be improved the make the idea work more effectively we talked the final running order the ideas for the final performance we each gave our own running order and reason why were put it in that order but the final order we went with the running order that I had suggested with what the ideas reminded me of war. 

The Final Running Order

Key 

Idea 

Reason 

1. The March Michael Jackson "Don't care about us", This shows soldiers marching off at a start of a war which pause at the part when soldiers die.
2. Enemy across the pond mine Britain Vs. Germany, This shows the Propaganda of the time of war as we show the propaganda of Britain is better than Germany at fighting by doing this we are being stereotypically British.
3. Memories of Family The women in the factories, This was showing what life was like back home during war whilst the men were off fighting and also shows the worry of the women when the radio mentions of a soldier's death. 
4. A man's word, The shows of a soldier fight in the trenches missing his wife by writing her a letter or a poem by doing this it shows what life was like for the soldiers in the trenches.
5. The Dummy The Puppet,  This shows the aftermath of war on the soldiers that fought and relives what life was really like in the trenches which was not as it was made out to be. 
6.  The March continues From the pause death scene,  This shows that war can make or break a nation with new nations forming from the effects of war.
7. Churchill speech,  This is to show that war can still continue after the fighting has stopped as one war ends another can start the churchill speech represent the end of the First World War to the start of the Second World War. 

We started to rehearse this order to work on what we had created but when it came to the following lesson which I wasn't there for they had released from the running order that was created that there wasn't a story there to tell and it would have been boring for an audience to watch so the ideas was change to make more an enjoyable story to performing to an audience to have more fun watch it.

Evaluation of Final Performance

Our task was to create a performance that was based around the theme of war to get to the stage of creating a performance we had to research different topic that we related to war which was broken down to three main topics that we could workshop and create a movement or a scene with the material that we which gave to create the final piece.

The three main topic we looked at was audio, written and visual for each we look at the material that we all brought in that we related to war the material that i brought in was the Churchill speech which comes under both audio and written, for each source we looked at we said what we like about it and what we could create from it, once we had looked at all the source and created a movement or a scene we looked at everything and talk about which ideas we like and why and which ones we didn't like we then looked at what needed to be improved, from this we were able to create the final storyline from but we realized once we started to rehearse the running order we realized that the idea wasn't working and that there was not really a storyline to the performance.

For the final performance we started with Michael Jackson's "they don't care about us" which is set in mild lighting with everyone apart from Ryan and Amila in a straight line with a straight face this was to show that we were soldiers once the music beat drop one by one starting with me we raise our hands to suitlet and turned towards Ryan who was standing on a child to show to the audience that he was a leader, to keep to time we waited for a hand signal from Amelia so we when to move and keep in time as one of the problems we had during rehearsal was that we couldn't stay in time with each other, we used the mirror to help us know when to face a different direction when Ryan turned the scene develops more as the beat drop again as we back towards Ryan then move out away from in a in a movement that showed that we wasn't sure about our surroundings to end the scene and help with thre transition to the next scene Ryan characters starts to shot everyone apart from Kat and Nat which lead to Kat and Nat turn on each other then the scene end "time out " which show that the scene has gone from some serious to a childs game which shows the two characters to be evacatees when the character Mrs Oaks comes out shouting asking the children what they are doing and telling them off for playing games about war, the scene then changes to two other kids played by Amelia and Sasha which both have a brummie accent the they play pirates as they finish the game that when two more children enter played by Tom and Tasha thats when Sasha character suggest about playing a game on war but Amelia character said that there wasn't enough people to play that when Sasha character suggest about inviting Berty my character to join which Amelia character leave to knock for Bertie the two characters return with the entrance of Kat and Nat the rest of the characters pick on them because of what Mrs Oaks said about playing war games Kat and Nat character decide to play any way and the scene develops when music and movement is added to build depths to the scene but start to play their games me and Kat were after Nat and she was after us aswell Nat kills me, at the start the war games scene Ameila and Sasha were using the style of Joan littlewood which added to the scene depth, the scene end with all the children apart from Amelia being killed which we linked to a bombing  which killed the children.

What would I improve about the performance to have more rehearsal time so the moves are right and sharpe and on time to the music, also another thing I would improve on is to have more descussion on the final piece so we can work out earlier if there is a story behind the material we created works in a story, also we could have brought in more sources to use to give more material. But from the improvements the final piece worked well it was funny and followed the style of Joan Littlewood.