6.3

 

 

Electra Notes on production features

 

6.2

Directors Vision of how I would direct the play of Gotcha.

 

If I was to direct my own version of the play of Gotcha I think I would really highlight the idea that the character of Kid is very lonely and feels very isolated, and all of the things that he does in the play like, lock them in the storeroom and threaten to kill them and come onto Lynne is a cry for attention and love as he is not getting it at home. I think it is important that the audience understand that this play is not just about a troublesome child doing bad stuff, yet a way of telling the audience that not everyone is just bad that there are reasons too. This can be shown through the time set of the play, made clear by the music playing, and the links in the text to the context of the play like maybe the character of Kid having a possible learning difficulty yet in the 70's he would just be labelled as 'bad'. To get this message across to the audience I would get the character of Kid to add a lot of depth into his lines, by delivering them with a lot of different emotions, by jumping from one to the other. I would also put a single sharply focused spot light on the character of Kid when he is delivering his anecdotes about his life and family, this would make it clear to an audience that the character of Kid is feeling very isolated and doing this for attention.

6.1

 

6.1 Write notes on the language of the play in Gotcha. Discuss specific dialogue/language the suggests the context of the characters. List references and explain what you feel they suggest

 

 

 

On page 60 of the play text 'Gotcha' the character of Kid has a monologue all about how Kid would not give over his report to Head. In this monologue Keeffe has added in a lot of personal pronouns like "My" and "Mine". This makes the character of Kid seem as if he doesn't have much to his name and feels a bit worthless about himself, yet by him using the personal pronouns it gives him some purpose and some worth. When delivering these lines as an actor I would put a lot of emphasis on these words, to really highlight to the audience how the character feels and show that this is the characters way of telling people that he is in charge of his own life. At the end of this monologue the character of Kid swears, I think Keeffe added in this to show the audience and the actors when the climax would be in this scene. Later on the in the scene Keeffe has added in some improper English. I think that Kid uses this to show the audience of the status difference in the characters, this then shows how bad the character of Kid is compared to everyone else. 

 

 

 

 



5.1

I went to see Electra at the Old Vic theatre staring Kristen Scott Thomas. During the show I focus on two parts of the production.

One of these things was the way they used the Space and the Set Design. For this show the Old Vic was designed in the round, this gave the audience a new experience, as it was not the usual state for the Old Vic, By doing Electra in the round and having the actors on the same level to some of the audience, and not on raised rostrum, made the audience feel closer to the action as the character would say their lines out to us to bring us in to the scene. The acting area remained the same throughout the production, as the play is set in one location (Outside the mother’s house). This is common for Greek theatre as they would not have had the budget to keep changing area and set. By the director choosing to do this show in the round it brings back the authenticity of the Greek Amphitheatre, as they were usually in the round with the audience on racked seating with the actors at a lower level.

For the set for Electra the designers kept it very naturalistic, by changing the stage floor to make it look all worn and dusty by adding scattered rocks around, this gave the audience an idea of where the play would be set and what sort of era. The designer only used one set for the play, which represented one location of the house. From this people entered to talk to Electra, within this area there was the door and steps, with a tree stump and a water pipe. As the play was in the round it makes it harder for the acting area to have lots of different exits and entrances. For this production there were three exits/entrances, the main one which was used was through the house door and then two others located by going through the audience, By putting the actors entering through the audience gave the audience the impression that the house was not near any others, as the actors would have to walk further to get to it. The audience could then link this to status by thinking that I could not be near any other houses as they are of higher status. The whole of the set was quite muted in colour, using mainly browns and greys; this gave the scene a very plain, sad, sombre mood, which fit the play as it starts off very sad, with Electra grieving for her father. By putting the characters within the set that was very bland, with a very run down looking area, doesn’t necessarily reflect the characters wealth yet the whole mood of the play.

The lighting for Electra was very simple and used in a naturalistic way. By keeping the lighting very simple it gives the audience the idea of the play being very naturalistic and straight forward. The designers started the play off with lighting the stage with a blue wash, this helped set the scene before the play had started, by giving everything as sad mood with the blue lights, this then faded into a general wash, as if it was a sun lit day, this made it clear to the audience that the play was starting. The designers chose to light the set with a yellow tinted wash, this linked well with the muted colours used within the set. The lighting remained in this general state for most of the play. However the designers used lighting to draw the audience’s attention within the set, like a light coming from within the house and out the door to show the audience that someone important will be entering the scene. Or in the scene where the chorus and Electra light the fire, the lighting focused one, red spot light onto that area to make it look bigger and more significant than it was on the stage. Small hints were made to the audience about the era that the play was set in through the use of lighting. The designers had placed lanterns around the area to not necessarily help light the area, yet to give the audience an idea of the time set, as they would not have had electricity in old time Greece. The lighting as never focused into sharp edged spot lights, as would make it look very serious and sharp, however they used very washed out lights which gave the scene a messy look, which could the relate to the mood that Electra was in.

word count :748

4.4

In one of the lessons this week we explored the voice and all of the different ways that we can adapt it to give the lines we say more depth. In pairs we had to choose a couple of lines with the script of Gotcha and try delivering them in lots of different ways. In my pair we thought about the pace in which we delivered the lines. We tried acting the scene out really fast and cutting each other off with our lines and we tried it slow, adding in lots of pauses. We felt that it worked best doing it slower as it gave a lot of tension to it, as in this scene they are flirting with each other. We also thought about the articulation that we used in our lines. We found it worked best if the character of Ton spoke with bad articulation, we did this by losing lots of vowels and constanents.

4.3

I went to see a play called 'Blacks Comedy' at the Chichester Festival Theatre by Peter Shaffer. This is a one act play about a power cut in the 1960's. Shaun Evens plays the part of the husband (Harold Gorringe). This characters objective throughout the play is to get all of the stolen furniture before his house full of party guests realise where it has come from when the light come back on. The part is full of comical moments which need an actor with good comical timings. The audience could see the actors on stage as the lights were on yet the actors made the audience believe that they were not through their physicality. The actor would hold his arm out in front of him as he moved around the space. Keeping his arm locked at the elbow and his knees bent, whilst using short, jumpy footsteps, made the audience really believe that his character really un-able to see his surroundings. Shaffer used very close proxemics to all of the other actors, which is unusual to normal actors which tend to use the space more, yet this brought more comedy to the piece as the other actors did not realise that they were so close to each other. Peter Shaffer used very plain facial expression throughout as he is acting as if no one can see him, yet when in reaction to others comments he really over exaggerates his facial expressions by really using his features like, opening his mouth really wide and cocking his next at a faster pace. Shaffer did this to really emphasize to the audience how he felt on the other actor’s opinions of what they should do about the power cut. Throughout the play the actors used very loud volume with their voice, as their characters did not anywhere they were in respect to others in the room. To make this even clearer about the spacing they spoke really clear with good dialect, by them over-exaggerating their word not just made it clear to the audience what they were saying also gave others characters on stage an idea of where everyone else is. Peter Shaffer used great comic timing in his performance, he responded well to others on stage; in one scene another character found some matches and lit them, his character then ran straight over to blow it out before other characters could see what he was doing. This worked really well as it had all of the audience in laughter throughout the play.

4.2

Select a character from Gotcha and write a description of how you could use the exercises you tried to develop the character 4.2

This week we did work on non-verbal communication, this made me thinks about how to create a really interesting character with lots of depth without saying anything. For the character of Kid I would think mainly about his proxemics, for the character of Kid I would make him very edgy and in his own space, for kid I would keep him always on the move and whenever someone comes near him, I would make him retreat very fast away. This would make the audience feel that the character has got something to hide or feels guilty about something as he always has his guard up. The character of Kid is a very stereotyped character of a teenaged boy, I would slow his pace down in the way he moves, by doing slow gestures and slower walking speed, this would give the impression that he doesn’t care much about anything and is really laid back about what he has done, by trapping them in the storeroom.

3.2

Review by Tobias Chapple

 

"To an extent, it's unfair to take Gotcha to task because the hostage situation is implausible. The practicalities of the situation (it's actually quite difficult to set gasoline on fire with a lit cigarette and even if does burn, it's only a surface fire) are distracting but should be put to one side."

 

I think that this is opinion of the reviewer as it is not really relevant of the technical side of whether it would really set on fire, rather than that he is threatening to do it to the teachers. By adding in a small snippet of his own finding of parts in the play it makes the audience feel as if the play was not written well and the playwright left out a lot of details.

 

Telegraph Box Office Section

 

"Keeffe may rely of soap-ish ingredients to bring matters of head, but the all-or-nothing recklessness of the boys actions underline how, for him, the stakes are incredibly high."

 

This reviewer almost uses his own opinion to tell everyone his thoughts on the playwrights style by describing it as 'soap-ish'. I think this is to do with the way that the playwright uses fast pace action with a lot happening all the time.

 

 

3.1

In the lesson on the 25th September 2014 we did a version of Stanislavski's emotion memory method, for this we all laid on the floor and closed our eyes. We did this to get ourselves into a calm state where we could really concentrate. Grainne then spoke to us and told us to thing of a time in our past where we went through a similar experience to the character which we studied beforehand. As my group were studying Ton I started to think about a time where I was in a sudden panic and was not sure what to do next. By placing all of my focus onto this time I really got my self back into that panic, as if it was still happening. I started to then go onto think about what I could have done and what other options I could have taken, this came more easier when not in the moment. Then relating these feeling to the character of Ton it really made me think of what he would of felt like when being trapped in the cupboard with a dangerous character. Although my experience was not the same as Tons I could use it to adapt it to his, This is a very effective method acting technique which could really work to create a naturalistic performance.

2.3/2.4

Stanislavsky System is the method where actors take on portraying natural, believable characters on stage. This style of theatre was a big contrast to the theatre before where actors would involve the audience and have more interaction.  In this style the actors would not even realise the audience, eye contact was even avoided. Stanislavski is the father of todays method acting, where actor would emerge themselves into the character as much as possible. Stanislavski also made the 'Magic if' theory where actors should ask themselves 'What if I was in this situation?'. this works well as this gives a very naturalistic response to the characters on stage.

2.1

I chose this set design to evaluate as it very similar to what my group decided to do for the play 'Gotcha'. This designer had chosen to do this play in the round. I think that this is a good staging design as every audience member gets a different view and experience from the show, I think this would work well or 'Gotcha' as it is a very fast pace play and there is a lot happening.

 

When doing a show in the round it is very limiting when it comes to set and technical elements. This design has been very creative by hanging set from the rig above. this works well as by having a lot of set on the stage when doing in the round it can obstruct audience view of the stage. By hanging from the rig it gives the audience view and the actors more space to move. This also makes the stage feel more filled and cramped which can work well for some plays like 'Gotcha'. I would chose this staging for 'Gotcha' as by doing it in the round the audience can see well, they also get the impression of the cupboard setting. This would make the audience feel a lot more intimate with the actor on stage, give the impression of being in a small area.

 

However by doing a show in the round it also limits technical elements like lighting, as you cant have front lighting and you have to use the lighting on the rig to light all round. This set design has a very light set by having a bright wash on the stage, as much as this makes the audience feel positive and bright that doesn't work for all shows like 'Gotcha'. Not that the playwright wants the audience to feel negative when watching, I think that a much darker lighting would work well as it would give the impression of being in a dark, dull cupboard.

 

This staging works very well for non-naturalistic plays, as you cant hide any technical elements from the audience, this is a lot like Brecht as he believed that audiences should not be fooled into believing the story and should always be aware that they are watching a show and realise how it is made, by not hiding any technical element and actors doing things like costume changes on stage.