Even though he thought this way, he disliked the fact that Lisa reminded him of being a cast-off from other boys. He knows that Lisa is happy with him and that she has nothing to prove to anyone but this made him more determined to cheat on her because she was dragging him down with her. All she wanted was him, but Collin knew that Lisa was nothing to boast about to his friends, as she is not very beautiful to other men. Collin had set out that he was going to be more confident and secure with himself.
DRAMA COURSEWORK- WRITEN EVALUATINON
The year of 1996 Collin had found someone who liked him and his other friends desired her. She was really pretty and strangely enough Collin could not believe what she could see in him but he kept his image above board. Meanwhile Collin knew that it was going to end someday with this girl because all that kept them together was sex. His relationship with Lisa was different he was not attracted to her like that, but she gave him security, he knew that she will always be there, whatever he did.
When I had developed this character for the man that Monday night, I did not feel complete. I wanted to explore the character of Lisa. When I came into the class on the Thursday I sat down in the corner thinking about Lisa. It was very easy to think of her character from doing Collins character. It was very prosperous doing the character development because knowing the background of any character helps me to develop it further.
Collins character was interesting to me but seeing things like this happen to women all time for example friends, television, family etc it would be good to tackle this issue. From that point on I concentrated on how I could show Lisa to the audience, as the person she was which was unconfident, insecure and doubtful to what she was doing marrying Collin Richards.
In my class rehearsal time I spent it thinking about my presentation. For some reason I wanted to make it theoretical and un-real, because I knew I wanted music in my presentation. I thought about the music I wanted to be in my piece and Lisa Stanfield ‘ALL WOMEN’ set me on using the single. I had decided that using her words in my performance to illustrate my piece or to talk over her voice was not a good idea.
When I told Mr. Rogers about the music criteria, that it had to be instrumental and have the same qualities as classical music he gave me a piece of music to listen to titled ‘ATOM HEART MOTHER.’ At this point of time I could see how I was going to perform my practical piece.
The ideas of the ‘black and white’ images with the mirror in the middle came into the picture. To add to this picture I wanted to take on movement, dancing. The reason why I
DRAMA COURSEWORK – WRIITHEN EVALUATION
Thought that music and dance was essential for my performance was because I could visualize it and also because it would have made my performance stand out more. As other plays have inspired me, that does combinations of dancing and acting. I think that it looks really clever because you are showing that you are capable of doing different techniques.
As movement and lighting were in my mind and the colours of ‘black and white’, two contrast colours, visions of bad and good came flooding into my head. Straight away I thought ‘one side of the mirror black and the other side white. This illusion reminded me of a book I read called ‘Double Image’. When I fully remembered what the book was about, I reminded myself of the deep, intimidating voice and this entire figure in my head resulted in me doing the practical piece I did.
Knowing that I had strong thoughts about the ‘white and black light’, the book ‘Double Image’ and the play ‘Stags and Hens’ I took the direction of doing a four-minute play that was about Lisa. Lisa was doubtful and she was very insecure. My touch to her character was to see another side to her, using my thoughts and ideas of the light, mirror and movement. Lisa in the play would see her reflection in the mirror and because of her lack of self-confidence and self-esteem she sees the other side to herself. This would result in her changing her mind about Collin Richards and not marrying him the next day.
The side of the mirror that was going to be white was the side where she sees the other side to herself, which had confidence, self-esteem and self-reliance. This was because she had seen the light. At the beginning of the play the light was going to be a normal light colour. After seeing herself on he other side, she would be in the normal light, but after she walks off stage, the normal light colour would change to black with the other side of the mirror where she had confidence would be white.
DRAMA COURSEWORK- WRITTEN WORK
As for the movement, it would go with the music because it showed that it was un-real and theoretical. I do not think that there is a person who can look into him or her in the mirror and see what Lisa could see about what was going on in her life. The dance and the music separated or distinguished the difference between the two worlds. The white light side was super-natural; it was there to stand out from the other side that was realistic.
The deep voice or intimidating voice was needed to show that she was confident and knew what she talking about. It helped to show the difference of the Lisa on the other side who had a much friendlier voice, as they were going to be played by the same character.
At this stage of my practical assignment I already knew how I was going to set it out. What I needed now was to rehearse Lisa’s character. My sister and friend hotseated me, this was very effective for both the two Lisa’s, because I began to understand her character more. The questions I was being asked I made them up as I went along to fit in with her character and if I contradicted myself I would have to change it and support it with a lot of reasons. I think it is a very good technique, because you have the knowledge of the characters background and remember it. Also in some parts of the hotseating I did monologues to create her background which helped me give people reasons why she could see that there was something wrong with her relationship with Collin. Which were, that he treated her badly in front of other women. He did not make her feel welcome to go out with him to a party or something, she very much knew that all was not right and definitely had strong suspicions that he was seeing another women called Kelley.
DRAMA COURSEWORK- WRITTEN EVALUATION
The ‘confident Lisa’ was easy to get into character for because I just reversed all the questions I was asked before for example ‘Why don’t you leave him?’ into ‘Why should you leave him after all these years you have been together?’ and answered them. Ii found this to be a very good method too, as it built up the anger and tension Lisa should be feeling for Collin.
The music that Mr. Rogers gave to me was ver effective. I chose certain parts out of the long musical piece that I thought would go well with certain parts of my performance. I did this by imaging the layout and just matching the music to it. When it came to rehearsing with the music I actually expected that it was going to be easier than what it was. My voice at first was singing to the music, so I took time out and rehearsed the words without the music for thirty-minutes. That helped a great deal because I just kept on talking like I was doing before, with the voice to go with it too. The dancing/movement came a little bit later when I fully understood the words and voice I was using. I did not use set dance steps; it was just natural body movement for me.
When it came to rehearse the other Lisa, I used a mirror to help me with the right face expressions. I wanted a calm face at first and changes into happier face expressions when she was looking at how the dress looked like in the mirror. I did find it funny doing it this way but it was a good way of gaining the face expressions I needed for this part of the play. I practiced at looking really nice and cheerful and settled with a face expression that I could repeat naturally.
When I had rehearsed both of the parts together, I used the mirror to see how it looked and how my face expressions were. I was not very pleased with the beginning because it was rushed to get on with the other part. I slowed it down a little and I spent more time going through how I would walked in, onto the set, what I would do once I was on the set and make it more obvious to the audience. I used more words and I mimed things like the door, wedding dress and the mirror. I did not feel that it was essential to require all these props as my performance was only going to last four-minutes the most and I could just use my creative imagination instead.
DRAMA COURSEWORK- WRITTEN EVALUATION
To make sure that my performance was not too long I used to time myself in rehearsals. I would go over the time limit, and I would correct it by talking about something quicker. My music also helped me with the time limit as I made it around four-minute long.
I wanted the mirror to be in the middle of the set, and when it came to my performance I thought that the mirror looked like it was in the middle. My teacher said that it was hard to tell that I was using a mirror because I did not distinguish the fact. I thought at the beginning it was very easy to tell that I was using a mirror, because I was trying a dress on and asking myself questions in the mirror, things that you would do in a mirror. The rest of my audience was able to see it too.
I used space on both sides of the bedroom. The space on the other side of ‘confident Lisa’ I think I could have used downstage to add to the effect of significance and I could have done this when I, Lisa had realised that Collin is no good for me. The space could have been small or large, but I do not think that it have made a difference, as long as I did everything I needed to in the space I was given.
After I had performed some of audience came up to me I told how good they thought it was. My most successful bit in my performance was doing the ‘confident Lisa’ and doing the actions and movement to the music. I think that that was the part that grasped my audience, because it went well together like I thought it would. I think that the audience was able to define the two characters being different from each other, by the using the properties of music and the technique movement. It did achieve the aim that the other side to Lisa was real but she was not seeing it like what I had performed. Instead she was feeling it inside her and when she looked into the mirror she could see everything I was saying on the other side of the mirror in her face.
Unfortunately I was not able to use lighting, however I did not need this property as the aim of the lights were to symbolize ‘bad and good’, but the aim was succeeded without these effects.
I think that I performed everything well. I was pleased with every part of the performance and with the reaction of the audience afterwards. I think that the beginning part of the play in rehearsals was not up to my standards but I worked on it and in my performance I liked doing it and thought it went rather well.
DRAMA COURSEWORK- WRITTEN EVALUATION
The movement piece was natural for me to do, I was a little bit nervous to do it, but I got into the character of being un-real and theoretical. I think that was the best part that my audience liked too, because of all the skills I had put into, it was very entertaining to watch.
The most successful rehearsal was going over what I was going to perform and the hotseating, because this helped me know who I was going to be. In turn that made me progress into what I was going to do and how I would talk etc. I practically rehearsed the piece in one rehearsal at home, for two and half-hours, so everything was rolled into that rehearsal time and then I was ready to perform.
I did not have any problems at all with the story/character/role etc. I had such a strong vision in my head of how it was going to be like and it went exactly like how I expected it to be without the lights and most of the props.
If I were to do the same topic or theme again I would do define the mirror more! I would definitely use lights and use props for example mirror, bed dressing table, wedding dress etc. I know that the performance went well without the use of these props but to enable more of the effect of my aim, I think it would look better because it could have been improved on by the music being more fluent and my voice being a lot more stronger.
If I were to approach this topic again I would do it from Collins point of view. I would probably work with someone else to achieve his or her thoughts about this topic, preferably a boy, because he would be able to see it from a different view than what I see it from. This would be good because then both genders are able to relate to it.
I enjoyed working on my own; it is a nice experience. I have now worked in a group and now on my own. Working on my own meant that I was able to get on with it when I wanted and did not have the responsibility for others. I was also responsible for anything that went wrong, this meant that I could not fall out with anyone. I also kept to my pace which was faster than before at rehearsing and everything else.
DRAMA COURSEWORK- WRITTEN EVALUATION
As before I think that my audience enjoyed the performance and I also enjoyed performing it too. From my point view the setting could have been better, the use of more props and like I have mentioned before using the stage better to define the mirror! Which everyone could see, but there is always one? Sub-sequentially I really liked my performance because the audience did too.
The audience understood everything; even some of the people who I thought would not catch on. I think my audience learnt that in drama you can use different styles and techniques to obtain the same image that you would by just talking or dancing alone. I think that the audience learnt new ideas by watching my performance, by the way how they reacted to me afterwards, telling me how good they thought it was and thinking that it must have taken a long time to compose.
I was very pleased with the outcome of my performance, but I was not so pleased with my mark as I still think that it should have been higher.
