Paper 1 Unit 2 - mousetrap final
Paper 1 Unit 2
Assessment Task 2 (AO2)
For the past few weeks, we've been working on "The Mousetrap" by Agatha Christie. My group consisted of the following members:
* David Birch as Christopher Wren
* Lara Lutz as Mollie Ralston
* Cristiano Mondolfo as Giles Ralston
* Christian Sutmoller as Paravicini and Major Metcalf
* Antonio Carlos Tostes (myself) as Mr. Casewell
* Alexandra Stern as Mrs. Boyle
My group acted the scene where it was the first time when Christopher Wren appeared followed by other characters, we chose this part because we thought that, it was essential part of the play, where all characters arrive, and we are able to have an introduction of all characters, to know what they are like, their psychological habits, their opinion toward Monkswell Manor.
In the first few weeks of rehearsal I sat down in my group and we sorted out who should play who, after being sorted we chose the parts from the script we wanted to act. At first we read the script to obtain a brief idea of what our lines would be like, our play was from page 291 to page 304. We took lots of time to memorize our lines, about two weeks, until we could rehearse the play on stage, adding all stage directions, costumes and to set the stage itself. For this to occur we took about three to four weeks rehearsing our play by heart. Stage directions took longer to be organized as we thought it could be sorted out later.
In our play there was a problem, the groups were sorted by our teacher therefore we couldn't change them, and the part we wanted to act consisted of four male characters and three female. Our group had only two female characters and five male characters, so what we did was: choose a boy from the group to play the part of a female, so I was chosen and so instead of putting me to act as a female, we converted Ms. Casewell to Mr. Casewell. There were some speeches that talked specifically about Ms. Casewell, for example when ...
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In our play there was a problem, the groups were sorted by our teacher therefore we couldn't change them, and the part we wanted to act consisted of four male characters and three female. Our group had only two female characters and five male characters, so what we did was: choose a boy from the group to play the part of a female, so I was chosen and so instead of putting me to act as a female, we converted Ms. Casewell to Mr. Casewell. There were some speeches that talked specifically about Ms. Casewell, for example when Giles says: "Terrible female - if she is a female" referring to Ms. Casewell, in this case we preferred to "delete" this speech from the script and go straight to the next one.
Having done this we started deciding on our costumes, which is the first drama medium I going to talk about.
We each decided on our own clothes, the ones we thought best fitted our characters. David chose for Christopher white trousers and a white long-sleeve shirt and a rather feminine green jacket. We all agreed to this costume because as we had read the play before and done so many workshops on it we knew what Christopher's personality was like, like being and architect and adore cooking.
Lara chose for Mollie a black dress and a fancy brown jacket, we also agreed with this costume, but after having done the play I began to think that Mollie's costume should be more domestic material, clothes people wear at home, normally when they are alone, but on the other hand, we also thought that by having guests in the house Mollie would want to look better, so the guests would have a better impression of her and the house itself.
Cristiano chose for Giles a long-sleeve white shirt, and beige trousers from a blazer, we all agreed with this costume because, these are casual outfits for a man at that time (back in the 1920's), and for the same reason as Mollie he wanted to look nice for the guests in the house
Christian played two characters: Paravicini and Major Metcalf. For Paravicini he chose a normal outfit also, a long-sleeve white shirt and a jean trousers, Paravicini was an Italian man with a strong personality, and rather casual too. Different from Major Metcalf, where he dresses in a brown suit with a tie, he is rather formal man, also with a strong personality and always aware of his surroundings, we can also say he was dressed like that because he was the detective in the house.
I chose for Mr. Casewell a black suit, the way I chose my costume was by comparing with Ms. Casewell which is a very formal lady, so her "husband" would also be a formal man. I was trying to create the complement for to her.
Alexandra chose for Mrs. Boyle a black dress, as she was and old lady she would be formal and casual at the same time, so we thought a black dress would look good for and old lady, besides Alexandra already wears glasses, and this helped to emphasize on the image of an old lady.
In our performance music wasn't such an issue. We thought we only needed to use music in the beginning and at the end of the scene so we could set some rhythm to the play, and perhaps use the song to adapt our scene and a give a more astonishing effect. We used "three blind mice" as our track, to create in the audience, a certain level of curiosity.
The voices of the characters were used really to show the difference in personality. For example Chris Wren's voice was rather childish and immature; this was represented in the way he acted on stage, always acting childish towards the other characters and situations. Whilst Giles' voice was more serious and manlike. Different to Chris, he was more serious towards the other characters with whom he was interacting.
The climax of our scene was the moment where Paravicini enters the guesthouse when Mollie and Giles were alone; causing a surprising effect. When Paravicini starts to develop his monologue he causes tension and a lot of mystery to the scene.
Characterization is an important issue to look when performing a play. It is when you get to know who is your character, how does he think, how does he act in certain situation. In my case, while studying Ms. Caswell, I could see she has a rather manlike manner, even though she very formal and polite.
Overall I thought it was good to do this workshop so to enhance our knowledge on "The Mousetrap". It is a very good play to act as it has lots of contrasting characters, where each one has its own way of thinking, none of them a similar. But I think we could still improve our performance by adding more songs, to cause more impact, and also add lights to show better the emotions of the characters at a particular scene.
Antonio Carlos Tostes - 9C
Candidate Number: 0042
7/5/2007
