Development of Our Piece
Our piece took a very long time to get off the ground. Before starting anything we sat down as a group and discussed which themes we would like to incorporate into our play. The ones we came up with were :
- Power
- Loneliness
- Injustice
- Family honour/loyalty
- Nature
- Desperation
- Betrayal
- Marriage – family values
Following this we decided to think of something we could do to represent these themes. To begin with our idea was to have a normal everyday situation, for example a petrol station and have lots of different people from different backgrounds and pasts coming in and giving a little information about themselves. But as it happened this proved a very good exercise for finding out what kind of characters we would like to play. We also had an idea of getting four random people in a lift and the lift breaking down, thus leading the people to interact with each other and as they do this the audience see a connection between all of them. The inspiration for this idea I got from a production of 'An Inspector Calls' that I went to see in Year 11. This though proved unsuccessful and led us to the idea we finally decided on which is the comical and un-naturalistic interpretation of a court trial.
We felt a trial would be the best way to get across the three values/themes that we had decided on, these were injustice, desperation and loneliness. We each then chose who we would have as our focal characters in the drama and hot-seated each other so we could get the feel for our characters.
For the trial itself we chose a fairly serious charges of GBH and Murder, this was because they are the high profile charges most people are familiar with. Using the Bacchae as inspiration we decided to tell the tale of this trial in a comical way to help the audience feel at ease and to make it different from the stereotypical court scenes they will have seen hundreds of times already. We came up with the idea of having the same start as the finish but to a different person, the character (Mrs Jockmoore) who had betrayed her husband in the first trial is placed in the situation that she placed her husband in to begin with. She is having her sins catch up with her.
We decided introducing flashbacks would be a good way to break up the boring usual trial, so we included real time act outs of the evidence given by the lawyers to try and add some variation. Another aspect we used to do this was the legal language whilst Rachel (Prosecution) used mostly proper legal language Alex(defence) got his words mixed up and jumbled to connote his persona of a bubbling useless lawyer, and I as the judge used the phrase 'Blah,Blah' to symbolise where the usual boring required speech is.
Having finalised our performance it was then down to fine tuning it and we took turns in watching parts of the piece and suggesting positional changes or little bits and pieces that could be added taken out just to add an extra dimension to our piece. We felt this was nessacery as we understood from an early stage that our use of space and movement would need changing as it was very poor. This was helped by the addition of rostra and steps as it gave a fixed point for the actors to return to after they had finished acting out their little section. The lighting was then added with sound and this gave the piece a completely different look a much more professional one, including a pivotal point where a piece of evidence is being shown and the lights drop before the audience can see wether Steven(Danny) hits his wife or not. Overall I felt we had produced a very good piece of theatre and thanks to lots of hard work and dedication we had reached a point where we had a production that would keep the audience entertained whilst leaving them thinking at the end.
My Chosen Skill
I feel as an actor I have several strengths when performing. As I have been acting regularly for two years now I feel I have a good vocal projection range, this is helped by the fact I used to do singing when I was younger. I think I play angry or loud characters better than playing characters whose main aim is to use symbolism to get across their point rather than words. I am a very confident performer so I don't think this will prove to be a problem. I feel that when performing however I need to concentrate more on my positioning on the stage in correspondence to the audience and how my stature affects the impression I am giving. I also would like to work on my gestures as I tend to just randomly throw my hands about whereas I feel I could use them to more effect to emphasize my line or point that I am saying/making.
This is the first time I have worked with the two of the people in my group (Rachel & Cat) so I would like to create more of a bond with them as well as learning their different acting techniques and what they are good at.
In the early rehearsals's we used used techniques such as hot-seating and character placement to try and put together a character that would be best suited to the person acting and once done to put us in the right frame and mind and visualisation for the character I was trying to portray.
For my specific character, I needed to develop a very different posture and auora for my character. My character did not have a name as in our piece we wanted to stereotype him into the typical rich judge figure, although I also play other parts the judge is my focal character.
As my character I tried to limit my movement as this shows a much more commanding presence than someone who is constantly moving or fidgety. By doing this it also seemed that my character took up more of the space just because of his presence this was to establish the fact that he was of a high status and many people respected him. Throughout the piece I tried to keep a very serious facial expression as that was the type of character I was playing very serious and efficient. I used facial expression at key moments for example when I was showing my disgust with Alex's performance I looked at him with dis-taste as if I was looking at something worthless as this was the audience was supposed to be feeling for Al. I also used my vocal tone to suggest the realism of the piece. For my part as a lottery presenter I showed great confidence and buzz when introducing and then calling the numbers, just a real presenter would have. I am naturally quite a confident person so this helped with my portrayal of this character which was a bonus and helped me to fit into him more appropriately. When changing into my beggar character this was not that hard to do as it was a comical part and so however I acted the audience would have thought it just part of the act, I over-emphasized everything as this built the funny side of this scene up. One of my other parts was as a violent man at a anger-management class. To show his fragile state of mind I kept my voice low and then would shout things and then re-gather myself and go back to being quiet and unsure. I walked with a unsteady gait to again emphasize the confused and messed up feelings this man had.
As I was playing my parts we decided it was not required to change or put on an accent.
I feel my final performance was a very through one I think this is thanks to all the preparation and practice time we put it, which included lunch times and during holidays. I think this showed in the final performance as most of my lines and actions were said/done with good professionalism and confidence. I realise I still have room to improve as does anyone but in particular I think my portrayal of upset or depressed characters needs to be worked on.
Health and Safety
Our piece of theatre does not use any major equipment of movements that need detailed safety attention, although throughout our piece we use 2 sets of 3 steps and a rostra block. Before using this equipment our group first checked that the performance space was clear and had no loose wires or wet patches or any other situation that could endanger us at any part in our performance. We then had to make sure every time we moved the blocks we were doing it in the correct way, bending our knees and keeping our backs straight and always having two or more people carrying each item to avoiding damaging ourselves or the floor by scratching it.
Before using the blocks during performance we make sure they are not slippery and are stable and do not move in the place we have put them. We always stand in the centre of the block/step to avoid falling off.
In the performance we do not have any movement of equipment or picking up/carrying of people so this is not a safety worry for us. However we do at one point have two people running about so we had to carefully choreograph this part to make sure nobody ran into each other or any of our equipment.
During rehearsals for our piece we were either in the drama studio itself or in a classroom or undercroft area. In each instance we made sure all spaces we were using was clear and all equipment was safely positioned to avoid injury we also had easy access to a member of staff in case of trouble and a phone with us if nesaccery. Before we performed each time we also stretched off our major muscles to avoid any tears or pulls during performance.
Personal and Group Assessment
Our group as a whole once we pulled together worked very efficiently, quickly and with a very high level of effort. We began with little teamwork, compromise or commitment but finished with a very good piece of theatre that we had put our all into and could be proud of. After taking ages to get the idea developed we quickly got a base for our piece together.
I feel each member of the group contributed an equal amount over the period of time used to produce this piece with everyone contributing their own assists. I provided the group with certain props for example the bottles used for the poisons and also came up with several key ideas including using the same starting as ending and the beggar scene being run twice in two different ways.
The use of lighting and music defiantly helped our end performance as it adds another layer to what is being performed, for example our 'pink panther' scene would not have been any where near as effective without the music to accompany it.
Overall our performance was good every body performed their parts successfully and no lines were missed or fluffed and no one laughed, which had been something that had happened in practice. In summary I feel very happy with our piece of theatre and think we produced a entertaining performance which successfully fulfilled our aims and intentions.
