Thought tracking is good because we got to interact with the class/audience and you get to stay in role, but put in your own personal opinions of what the character should do.
Collective Voice
Collective Voice is when two or more people become a collective body or voice and say what the character is feeling and the pros and cons of a situation that they are in.
Jordan, Sam, Sophie and I did collective voice together because we needed there to be a positive voice (Sam), a negative voice (Me), and a neutral voice (Jordan) and Sophie was acting as Maudie and we were her voice about Moth and their relationship. We performed it in front of the class and had to improvise a little bit because we were trying to think of different opinions. Collective voice also showed what other people thought about Moth and Maudie and what type of characteristics and personality that the character had. I was the negative voice about their relationship because I thought that Moth’s character was a scrounger and just used Maudie for her money and security.
I think it was helpful because we got to show the internal struggle of the character and the pros and cons and neutral opinions and how people in the real world might make decisions, but without three other people telling you what to do. Collective voice is a good idea to get into a role and figure out how the character functions. Sophie played Maudie so she didn’t have to think of any opinions to say, but at the end of play she improvised and decided to go with Sam’s positive voice and stay with Moth which is what basically happened in the play.
Collective voice showed people teamwork and compromise and how to focus on one particular character and their collective voice.
Conscience Alley
Conscience alley is when you choose a play like ‘Two’ and involve the whole class.
The teacher makes everyone line up on different sides of the room to form an alleyway and then someone in the role of a character, in my case Maudie, and the people in the line have to speak or shout their opinion of what the character should do about their predicament. Miss Dennis played Maudie and the whole class lined up, we all had to say our opinion on whether she should stay with Maudie or leave him and we had to give a valid reason why. Both times she came down the alley, I said she shouldn’t stay with him because I think that he needs her and without her he’ll be broke and miserable because he takes everything, especially her, for granted. Other people said that she should stay with him because of love and commitment reasons. The second time she came down the conscience alley, she said that we had to be really convincing to make her stay or make her leave. I said that she doesn’t know what he does and says about her behind her back and that he’s always looking at other women.
Conscience alley was really helpful because it really helps me to improve my improvisational skills and think better on my feet. It is helpful because then you know what is convincing enough to make the character change their mind, and you know how to sound convincing and make something up that could be true about the characters like a background to them. It was also helpful because it got the whole class involved and everyone seemed to be doing really well with improvisational side of it.
Role Play
Role play is an instance or situation in which one deliberately acts out or assumes a particular character or role. Role play can be scripted or improvised.
I did role play with Sophie and we assumed the roles of the Landlord and the Landlady, I was the Landlord. We acted out the whole scene of the Landlord and Landlady up until the old woman’s long speech. Role play of those two specific characters was fun because it helped us understand that they are just and old married couple who have a relationship that is under stress because they live and work together. It was also fun to do those characters because the whole play is also set in their pub, so it gives us a better and more in depth view of how the pub is run, what mood it is in there, and who their customers are. I think the Landlord was a proud man or he was supposed to come off that way because he wanted to be seen as the man of the household and didn’t want his wife embarrassing him in front of paying customers and he also liked to make lots of really bad jokes, but I think people laughed out of respect. Those two characters had a healthy relationship because it’s okay to be angry and stressed once in a while and at the end of that scene he had the last word about her going to pick up the glasses.
Role play was helpful because it gave mew an insight into how to run a pub and how to deal with different people and their needs at the same time.
