Bibliography:
- "The crafty art of play making" Alan Ayckbourn
- "IMPRO" Keith Johnstone
- www.jakja.pl
- "Konstantin Stanislavski" Bella Merlin
- theatre dictionary "Słownik Wiedzy o Teatrze" ParkEdukacja
Inspiration and Influences
The inspirations we have chosen are people’s fear of others (how it helps people with higher status to manipulate those with lower status) and that love is a real relationship between two people (does not need any helpers). These are taken from "A Midsummer Nights Dream" which we studied in September 2007 and "Chatroom" by Enda Walsh which we saw at West Yorkshire Playhouse in October 2007. People’s fear of other people is connected with using "internet relationships" and virtual conversations as a substitute of real life. Chatrooms are established as a safe and neutral spaces; no-one knows each other, no-one uses their real name and people move fluidly from room to room. For example, for Sophie, the dating web-site is the only place where she can meet people and talk with someone else, not her mother or best friend Natalie. However Natalie as a higher- status character manipulates Sophie, who cannot take her life in her own hands till she faced a real relationship with (finally not-virtual) Tom. She realises that not everyone wants to hurt her and that being self-secure does not mean all-reserved.
These inspirations will contribute to the achievement of our aims, firstly through the use of "in front of the computer" bodily movement to show my emotions more clearly, thus giving the audience a greater understanding of my character and also staying within the bounds of realism and not to stray into untruthful drama. Influences for this I have found through the use of Stanislavski’s techniques, giving me time to stretch my imagination in order to find my character thoughts and actions (especially a body part that leads, which is very important when I have to act sitting-on-chair scenes to prevent being stable, boring and untruthful for the audience). By doing this, I can create my character in the way I sit, hold my hands and play with my hair. This will stretch the audience’s imagination, instead of all the information being in the script.
Another inspiration was "The crafty art of play making" by Alan Ayckbourn. Our decision to achieve humour through truthful observation come from his book. It stated that one of his ways of gaining amusement in his plays was to make them shocking in their truthful observation. (The author ever wrote ‘Always be prepared to lose laugh to keep the truth’) Therefore we wanted to do the same and his book has given us much guidance in doing this.
We have two themes which we have used to form the base of our play. One was "A Midsummer Nights Dream". We were particularly intrigued by the confusion and chaos created when third person tries to come into others relationship or create it. This is shown clearly in the play in the Puck-like character- Natalie, manipulating Sophie and arranging her boss’s blind date, which creates only confusion. Another theme was taken from "Chatroom", which interested us in the way in which it differentiates people’s behaviour in chatrooms and in real life.
It was decided that we would show the hope in confrontation, openness and truthfulness, which our characters can find for their selves. Everything is solved when Sophie meets Tom by chance and they both face their lives. The inspirational figure from theatre was Jim from "Chatroom". We meet Jim in the Teenage Suicide Chatroom, where young counsellor Laura listens to him talk about his depression and troubled relationship with his family, after his father left them when he was six. Later high status characters encourage Jim to commit suicide publicly, as a statement on the dissolution of today's youth. At the end Jim delivers a monologue to the audience, the first time any character has directly faced us, and eventually shares his deep-rooted feelings about his estranged father. Some of Jim's language comes over as dramatic exposition or social instruction - 'You shouldn't be made to grow up so fast'; 'I just wanted my childhood back' - it shows dramatic power and importance of direct communication.
My character; Sophie is similar to Jim who desperately wants his life to have a sense, but is too shy and frightened to change anything.
Sophie is lost in a new world: a different country, foreign language and new people are obstacles for her which she cannot overpower on her own. Finally, Jim turns to talk face to face with Laura breaking through the e-communication barrier between them and their normal life begins. The same for Sophie- meeting at the bus stop becomes a crucial moment in her life; it is a moment which starts something new, a moment when she realizes that the only way to give her life a sense is to have normal relations with other people. Also that she is the only person who is in charge of her life and who knows what is best for her. This is the time when she has to decide whether or not she is ready to change- to take the initiative and face her choices or to stay in her old shell- and she chooses life.
Skill Development
In terms of voice I can project well, however I had some problems with my accent, as I am not English, especially with sound "th" which does not exist in my language. We decided to use this fact in our play and my character is foreign as well. However I had to improve the clarity of my English pronunciation. A voice- exercise which I found really useful was repeating my lines with the tongue outside of my mouth, or with a cap between my teeth trying to sound as clear as possible. I realized that after this exercises I can control my voice better because I put more pressure on voice-clarity. I think the difference can be heard.
The physicality of my drama in many ways has improved. Playing the part of Sophie will prove very demanding in that she is a very quiet character in vocal and physical areas, so a careful approach to her is needed here. The use of naturalistic physical expression is a key here and in the use of Stanislavski techniques I have made this area of my performance tighter.
As Sophie is a very shy, reserved character, I would like to develop a more acute sense of body language on stage. In doing this I will show the audience Sophie's emotions through movements instead of speech. Scenes which required more movements than words are above all “in front of computer” scenes and the “café scene”. In the internet scenes Sophie is scared and surprised by people bombarding her. On the dating web-site she is not less shy than in real life. As Sophie I will sit with uncrossed legs, toes pointing inside, playing nervously with my hands, touching hair and knees. In the “café scene” Sophie sits in the background and does not say anything. My movement will be in many ways similar to this from the previous scenes, however when Sophie realizes her worries are coming true- her date did not turn up- I want to look really sad, with tears in my eyes and nervously- touching my face and hair. Also in the last, “bus stop scene” I would like the pause moments to tell the audience more than Sophie’s and Tom’s words. These silent minutes are for both of them moments of inner fight with their shyness.
To improve my skills for the drama we did the session of hot-seating. This enabled me to explore Sophie's character through answering questions put to me by the rest of the group. Before this I had been questioning a way in which to approach the part of Sophie. However this helped me spontaneously form a base from which to work my character from. For example in the hot- seating my movements were in many ways similar to that of a depressed person. I was biting my nails, shaking legs and hands, nervously looking around. In reaction to this I used ideas about bodily movements from the research with people talking by mobile phone or by the internet and combined them with things which went well in the hot- seating (playing with my hands, touching face, hair and knees, looking down on my toes). This proved very effective in the development of my skills as an actor.
Rehearsals technique which I found really useful in case of finding something more about Sophie was putting our character into a situation when they had to phone their mother. During phone calls when we think nobody can see us, especially talking with our relatives who know us very well, we do not pretend we are someone else, so this exercise helped me to know who my character really is. I learned that the only person who is calling Sophie is her mother. They have got good family relations however Sophie does not talk about her problems, even though her mother is her only friend, Sophie does not want to worry her. But not discussing her problems makes her more and more closed in her shell and it becomes harder for her to open it in front of someone else, especially someone, who is new in her life.
An exercise based on telling the same story (Little Red Riding Hood) by each one of us, staying in our characters helped to find objectives and counter-objectives. I found out that once Sophie trusted someone (like Little Red Riding Hood trusted wolf) who betrayed her. It was a hard blow for her and even though she would like to be in the relationship based on trust, she still remember her last suffering too well to be ready to start something new.
To improve our skills in demonstrating status, the group did various role-plays where status was to be applied. For example we would shake hands with each other, one playing a low-status part and the other a high-status part. We found that body language was essential here. The low-status part would shake hands with eyes away from his opposite’s eyes while the high-status character would keep a strong eye contact with his partner. In another situation where partners would sit across from each other at a desk, the person playing high-status would have his legs imposing on the others space, showing control of the situation, whereas the low-status character would keep to his own space, speak quietly and maintain little eye contact.
For Sophie I wanted to show the audience her shy, neurotic character. In achieving this I observed the low-status character in all of our exercises. From this I developed a bad posture to show my slightly neurotic shy side. This includes hunching my shoulders, looking down on my toes or again playing with my hands, nervously touching hair or face.
We did various warm up exercises to get into character before rehearsals and eventually performances. One prominent one was "The Banana Exercise." This prevented us from losing energy, and helped us being more creative during improvisations. Another exercise I performed while preparing for my part was where I would lie on the floor tensing and relaxing my body. Then I would stand up and walk into my character. This proved very helpful in finding Sophie's character quickly. Mirror exercise was also very important for improving our final simultaneous scene on the bus stop, when Sophie and Tom catch each others attention by doing series of the same movements (shaking umbrellas, looking at their watches, bus timetable and each other) at the same time.
I feel that my character has definitely improved in all areas since I began this production. There are however many areas in which I can improve before the final performance. My whole area of acting needs to be very tight, it is essential that I keep a close monitor on my character, which will keep the audience more involved in my performance and the play as a whole.
From this production I feel that I have learned to keep my performance much more exact and slick. My bodily movements are more definite and I think a lot more about my character and what she is thinking. This has encouraged me also to be more observant of people's actions in real life, improving my realistic way of acting in this play.
Costume, Set and Lightning ideas
As we wanted to achieve humour through truthful observation, it was essential that we wore realistic clothing. This was possibly the easiest part of the piece to decide. We agreed at normal school suits. It was very clear however that there was more that we could do with them to define our character and to show the contrast between them. For example, Sophie- the boss, a very strong and independent character would wear fashioned, looking- expensive clothes to show her self- confident nature. My Sophie however, a shy character might wear shirt with all buttons done, long dress (longer that knee-length) and flat shoes. There is also the character of Natalie- a liberated, middle-aged woman who still wants to be attractive in very drastic way. She would ware unusual suit- bright colours and too tight.
We also wanted the set to be as realistic as possible. As almost each of the scenes was in different places we decided to use the screen to show the audience where exactly we were. It was really helpful and prevented long changes of the set. We tried not to use many props because we did not want the stage to look cluttered.
All of this things combined, created a look of realism in the overall production of the play. An intriguing set is always a good way to grab an audience attention. The costume and the set have also helped me a great deal as an actor. The costume has aided me considerably in getting into character and feeling shyer. The set has also created a naturalistic atmosphere instead of me feeling I was acting with nothing.
The lighting was a case of creating simple, realistic phase of lighting for each scene. Therefore we decided to have certain lighting for the “office scene”, “café scene” and “bus-stop scene” with bright yellow light, then to show the difference between normal and on-line life we had spot-lights in the “internet scenes”.
It was essential that this was not too complicated and did not confuse the audience. Simplicity was the key.
My contribution
We all had equal input on each section of the play which meant that we could all listen to each others ideas and as a result have a more defined and thorough finished product.
With this the group worked well together, driving in the same direction. We did have many moments of lacking enthusiasm, mainly due to tiredness but this was quickly seen to on most occasions, bringing us back to concentrate on the matter at hand. One thing which went very well in our working as a group was our ability to listen to everyone’s ideas and not be narrow minded about things. We were putting all good ideas onto paper and trying to fix them together. Some of us had other commitments at certain stages in the development of the production but this did not stop the rest from working as a group in order to make a deadline.
To help with sharing our ideas few times we changed or roles make ourselves play different parts. We could see how we behave on stage, feel how would audience react and see what maybe we can change or improve about our acting.
Working together has meant that we have been able to watch our ideas from an audience perspective. This will mean that we have a much more precise production and defined performance, finding what will have the best effect on the audience.
Health and Safety
Every time when we were rehearsing or preparing the set a teacher was with us or knew where we were. As it was possible we were rehearsing at bare rooms to minimise the risk, and in groups of three or more as even when someone would have to get help, another person could stay with injured one. There were always telephones close in case of emergency.
During the set build we were always sure that everyone knew exactly what to do and has his own job, to prevent crowding (dangerous when moving heavy objects). Lights had been carefully fixed to bars and checked maximum 20 kg per metre along with being attached by a clamp or chain.
During working with a ladder there was always another person helping with balance by holding the ladder. In case of the fire we minimise the audience number (to prevent overcrowding) and made sure that fire exits were clearly marked and easily accessed.
We didn’t forget about warming-up before each rehearsal to keep ourselves away from any injury.
Evaluation
In terms of the audience, I felt that our play had a good effect on them. They laughed at all the intended moments in the play and seemed interested and intrigued throughout. The beginning of the play with internet conversation between Kiki and her boss with a spot-light grabbed the audience attention immediately. We managed to keep the play going on slickly and therefore not causing the audience to lose concentration. However there were a few flimsy areas in the production. In the “first log-on” scene, when we were changing characters to show how many different and strange people we can meet on dating web-sites, I felt that we should do more work on that in order to make it quicker and more remarkable. However I do feel that the elements of people’s fear, confusion made by internet relations and resolution in real life were shown very clearly.
In working in this project I have learnt that in devised drama, open minds and strong commitment are the most important areas. Open minds because a willingness to try things out means that all ideas are discussed and therefore the result is more meticulous finished product. Strong commitment means that everyone is going in the same direction, therefore with more eager hands in the production, the weight and pressure is not left on one person. Keen and open minds are the most effective in any type of theatre.
