Final SWED

When I first received my stimulus for my devised piece, we began working our way through our
given story and then annotating and looking into further depth and exploring the elements of the story from which we could select potential plot lines. The story followed a warrior that was in search for love, but could only get his woman if he fought 100 men for her. The main focus of the narrative was the theme of love and how one person is in the search for their true love. I started our ideas rolling by suggesting that we steered away from the traditional story of two people falling in love after searching for the right person. I suggested that we looked into very current ways that people find
love, one way that we thought of was on TV shows, like ‘Take me Out’ and ‘Blind date’. We then
began to look into how everything was set up and fake, and looked into what goes on behind TV
shows.





Within the TV world I wanted to look into the characteristics of TV personalities. In our next rehearsal we started to look into plot lines and the journey that we wanted our characters to go through. Before we did more work on our characters, we did a character hot seat this entailed us looking deeper into our characters background, I started by talking about the basic details of my character. I then answered some questions that my group asked me, from this I learnt that my character really lives for his job and only ever think about it. This quick fired questions made me make some strong decisions about my character and his life for an early stage.




After we all had our characters decided we wanted to try and fill in some of the scenes, this
became a challenge at first but once we just started improvising the flow of the scenes, in the style
of our practitioner. This then gave us something to work off of, and then we could file down our
scenes from there. This then gave us something to make our decisions of scene structure and
what we wanted to include. The advantages of doing spontaneous improvisation is that you don't spend to much time thinking about your decisions about why we are giving our characters these traits. I found it helpful that we could make a decision and move on with it, and play with it and see if it could work and then ditch it if it doesn't work.





Once we had made our decisions about our set and the spacing of our play, we looked into old
games shows like ‘Blind Date’ this best fit our play as it utilized all our actors well but the host
figure of Cilla Black had some links to my character being big, cheesy and in your face.




Our next stage in the process was looking into ways of getting it up on its feet, and making it look
more structured. We looked into different styles of using physicality to bring a piece to life, we
took on board some of Frantic’s techniques to do this, such as manipulation and unison
movements. This then gave us a more rounded performance, where we could look into the flow of
the play, and the characters journey. We spent one rehearsal looking into music and how different music would fit with different moods of the flashback scenes. We explored different styles such as fast paced music to set a big mood and bring pace to the piece. Then we looked into slower music that would set a eerie tone to the flashback for contestant number 2.





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My main research about my character was based around TV stars and big personalities in
presenting. Our play has the same structure as ‘Blind Date’ this is a game show where the
contestants don’t see each other. We followed this format, so I looked into Cilla Black and the way
that she interacts with the contestants on the show. I picked up on the way she introduced the
characters, and how scripted she seemed. She would always say the same thing to everyone when
they came in. My research was manly based around TV jargon and how each the presenter would drop in facts and figures to make everything seem more rounded. I added some lines early on of figures like "views have gone up 12% in the last twelve months". This also backed up the context of our play.





I was asked some questions about my characters life growing up and his relationship with his
family during the hot seating on the spot I came up with him being quite a recluse and then
finding comfort in 50’s radio presenters and looked into how they use their voice to make
something come alive. Looking into their speech patterns highlighted mainly their pace and how
they would speed up and then slow down suddenly on words. From what I had learnt in the hot
seat, and exploring my character, I was able to make some starting ideas of movements for my
character.


We looked in to traditional ways of storytelling, and how that would be set, and they
would either perform in the round, with the audience set around the teller, from this I choose to
set it in traverse. This gave me ways to interact with the audience. This then led to me directing a
lot of my lines and the audience and making it come alive in that way. At the earlier stages of the
process my main priorities were character, and exploring background and how characters would
be around each other, before we looked at the whole narrative.



For my movement I took my inspiration from the TV presenters but also did some work on looking
into the game show theme music and how that made me feel, I kept my movements light but also
bouncy as I moved around the space. My character always tries to keep on his toes and uses quite
flowing movements. This worked well as it was a huge contrast to the off stage persona of my character and to the other character around me. I found it lifted the scenes that were set on the stage as it started with a big entrance.





Over the rehearsal period my character changed in a drastic way, from the start he was still a big personality but he was a bit more tame with it, but as we kept running scene, and particularly during the improvisation stage of the process, he became a lot cheekier, and I started to explore having more banter with the contestants. This then led on to Corny Craig being a focal point of the show, and adding in his own one liners during the show. By the end of the rehearsal process Craig was a big personality and I think this then helped to show the contrast between the onstage Craig and the backstage Craig in his personal time. My character always had two sides two him, one was the onstage Corny and the offstage corny which was a dull character in comparison.





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We spent most of our third rehearsal talking about our performance style, as our main
practitioner is Mike Leigh we found it easier to stick our style to quite naturalistic movements and
the context of the piece, however we needed to explore how for this we could go as we want to
try some physical scenes, for our character monologues and flashbacks. The scenes before the
physical theatre scenes are quite slow and dull, these naturalistic scene that showed off the dull
day to day life and the difference between reality and in front of the cameras. The physical theatre
scenes break out brought pace and life to the performance, which worked as a contrast to
everything else.



I suggested that we set the audience in a different style at the start, we explored what it would be
like for the audience to start outside of the theatre, then to be escorted in by crew members. This
was working well as they would experience the first daunting surprise of seeing somewhere for
the first time, like you would in a real studio setting. They are then shouted at as the enter in a fast
paced manner, as everything seems to be in a rush to get started. This created an atmosphere that
is already quite dark and negative, as people are pushed out of their comfort zones. This is then
the starting mood of the play, as it shows the characters during their reality. We explored using
mime at the start as we do our stylized movements, like brushing hair and tying shoelaces. This created a slow start and made the mood slow and calm before the big explosion as they enter the performance space with the music.


Once we had our set and our opening scene set with our movements, we discussed our story line
in detail, and what scenes we saw where important to carry through the theme. We wanted to
keep the two worlds very different and didn’t want there to be any connections between reality
and the TV life. We have tried to show this by having a different mood change whenever we
transitions through the scenes, we showed this through our body language and the change in
background music. This also helped to break up the scenes and then the audience would begin to
see a pattern emerging in the structure. We showed links to our practitioners that we are inspired
by, we showed this through our set and how we manipulate it, and work with it. We explored this
in the transitions and thinking of different ways of entering. Trying things like ‘Round by through’
which is a Frantic Assembly technique of manipulation. This created a big impact on the piece, which
really highlighted the contrast to the show as in the scenes before everything was very stationary.


We also indicated links to Kneehigh’s show ‘Rebecca’ where we explored the light and shade of a
performance. In ‘Rebecca’ they had the bright setting inside the manor house, where they used
the lighting to bring life to the set. They then had dark, murky lighting in the surroundings. We
tried to show this through our dull lighting in the off stage scenes, and the vivid lively lighting state
for the TV set.



Our performance style varied from scene to scene where we had imitations of Kneehigh’s style of
setting and lighting state, and Frantic Assemblies fast paces manipulation scenes, like seen in
‘Othello’.  This showed that we had taken some influences from other practioners and used this to broaden the style of our performance Our set was very minimalistic  and our main feature was the door frame, which we tried to utilize in most of our scene and make it a focal point for transitions and flashbacks. This gave us something to work with in each scene and we used it as an energy shift in our piece.



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At the start of the process we did a lot of work looking Mike Leigh and how his work on character added depth to the story.
We did some starting work on improvised hot seating. This led to us making a lot of decisions
about our character from an early date, such as age, name and professions. But using the Mike
Leigh methods it made us move on with our characters instead of hanging around on the details to
early.



We did some work on character by going around into the public around the college area, in character and we would go around and interact with people with out them knowing that we were in character. We were asked a lot of questions during this task, a lot of them where set around the time period of our piece. This gave us sometime to think about when we were set. And people thought that by the way that we were talking to each other it was clearly set in the modern times, due to our dialect and the words that we were using. As a group we all felt that working on characters before narrative made us think about our characters purpose towards each other, rather than towards the storyline. I often find myself getting too caught up in my own character within the storyline and how he plays a part in each scene.That is why out of all the practitioners that we studied i think best fit my working style.


We also tried to do another of Leigh’s technique where you use life experience and link in people that
we know of to create the character and given them traits. For my character i looked into big
personalities in TV presenters. By looking into these characters I took on board their stage
presence and how they would bring something to life with their voice. Later on in the process,
when we had all made decisions about our characters and the plot line, we started to work on
some more physical scenes and different ways that we could get it up on its feet. We looked at a
Frantic Assembly technique called ‘Round, By, Through’. This worked particularly well for one of
our flashback scenes, their production of ‘Othello’ gave us a lot of inspiration and how they used
manipulation to show the decline of Othello, we took inspiration in showing the ups and downs of
the rocks and roll lifestyle.



We also had some influences from Brecht's theatre, as we never left the performance space, and if we weren't directly involved with the scene we would either sit frozen, or have our backs to the audience to be in a neutral state. This made the piece flow better and didn't have entrances and exits breaking up the scene and slowing down the pace of the piece.


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As a group our main intention was for the audience to understand the difference between
people’s lives when the cameras are rolling and when they are not. We explored different ways to
show this by the two different energy shifts in the characters when they walk through the door. From our audience feedback we got that the big energy shifts made the audience feel really uncomfortable, particularly in the off screen scenes. The contrasting scenes created meaning more, by making a big deal about the change rather then hovering around it. 


This was particularly a big shift for my character. This was mainly shown when the characters
walked through the door; we would go from a very low status, using closed body language. Then
when we walked through the door we would go to big open bodies and making everything
exaggerated.



Our audience feedback really backed up that this was portrayed well. “The over the top qualities
of the studio worked well in contrast to the ‘downbeat’ reality”. This positive feedback showed
that our contrasting character traits worked well and showed off the difference between onstage
and off stage. In order to make even more of this change, from our first peer feedback we got that
the character of Corny Craig needed to be more of a contrast when he is off stage.


To make our contrast even more clear we spent some time looking at the backstage scenes and mainly the contestant’s relationships with Craig. This worked well in the performance as we only had
conversations if the contestants created them, and Craig would reply in a negative tone. This
comes as a shock to the audience and they can then see big contrast in the two characters.


We wanted our audience to feel shocked and unnerved by the contrast in the two settings, by
having the audience thrown from one drastic to the other, it played around with their emotions
and when they got to see the characters in different lights it made them think about television and
how people are played. Over the time of our devising the question that we wanted our audience
to think about changed as we went along, at first we wanted them to think about how dark tv
personalities are, but this then went on to the contrast between them on stage to off. This is often
the case with bubbly personalities and people become shocked when they see them in the own
surroundings. This was a highlight from our audience feedback, and they really picked up on how
the off stage scenes made them feel “discomfort towards the contestants, due to the hosts vibes”.


As a performer this was a proud moment as we had conveyed the theme that we set out for. The
contrasting themes of the two settings had the most impact on our audience and made them start
to think about our current time.



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We had lots of lines within our piece that linked to our social context, we quoted lines to do with current celebrities, popular culture at the moment, such as nando's, blogging and the new stalking laws. My lines in particular that I had to link to the social times of our piece, was speaking about other rival games shows. This brought the piece up to date, and gave the audience strong hints on where our piece was set. The audience understood this as through our feedback all of our audience got that our piece was set, in the current day as they all picked up on different bits within the play that indicated that.



The main structure of our show was based around the dating game show, this is also a very up to date concept now, and is a big way that people find love. The added detail of the game show being online also gave it a modern touch rather that the older game shows, this is a very popular thing, and a lot of TV shows are turning to online websites as that's where most of the audience are. The first performance that we did the audience didn't fully get that the show was set online. So in our final performance I made more of the online thing and made that prominent in my opening speech.



A very strong example of cultural context within our piece is the flashback scene that shows contestant number 3 in a club chatting up the women. I think that this scene shows a really example of how most people see men towards women. We were using crude pick-up lines, and prowling towards the female figure in the scene. From our feedback we got a lot of comments about how uncomfortable during this scene as they "Could really relate to how the female would be feeling".



Contestant 2 also had links to the culture of our piece. He was linked into the new laws about stalking. We then made more of this during his flashback scene. We all changed our focus in this scene and I did not break eye focus towards Carmella (the female figure). I think that scene was effective to the audience as well as they all picked up on how we were so drawn into her. This theme was also linked into our social context as the stalker was getting alerts about her through his phone.

Summer Drama Work

What is a Seanchai?

A Seanchai is a traditional Irish storyteller/historian who would be part of a group know as a clan, and they would be know as the 'Village Storyteller' who would tell all of their stories a traditional ceremony's and events in their villages. Some of the Seanchai's were not part of their own clan, so they would travel round to other communities to tell their stories and offer their skills in exchange for food and shelter for the night.

The main characteristic of the Seanchai is that their stories were never written down, and were just passed down all of the generations and then they would go around telling the stories, as the stories were never written down, they would change over time, so lots of different stories were formed from the original. The Seanchai's were highly respected in the villages and would act as  servant to the chiefs of the tribes and they kept track of all of the important information for their clan.

The modern day Seanchai are now members of the Celtic Revival such as the Padraic Colum who took a great interest in the traditional art of the Seanchai, and all of the stories that had been told were then written down and the published and passed around to a global audience. The storytellers that still preserve the stories and the style of how the Seanchai spoke continue to share the art while competing for awards at local festivals. Eamon Kelly was well known for the art of storytelling and went on to perform a one man show in Dublin where he shared the stories to others.

Who were the Fianna?

In Irish mythology the Fianna were a small independent warrior band, that featured in many of the stories of the Fenian cycle, the leader of the bands was called Fionn mac Cumhaill. The stories were all based on historical groups of men known as kerns (A Kern is a Gaelic Solider in the middle ages.) The Kerns were groups of young men and women who had no land, this was usually due to them not inheriting their families estate yet. If you were part of the Fianna you were known as a Fennid and the leader was known as the RigFennid which meant 'King-Fennid'. The group had a war cry that was known as a Diord Fionn they would use this during and before battle, either as a way of communication between the group of to put fear into their enemies. The groups had to follow three mottos:

• Purity in our hearts
• Strength in our limbs
• Action to match our speech

The Fenian Cycle

The leader of the Fenian Cycle was Oisin that is why the cycle was also known as the Ossianic Cycle, The cycle was a group of short stories and verses all about a mycological hero named 'Fionn mac Cumhaill' and his army who were known as the 'Fianna'. This cycle contained lots of stories about other famous members of the Fianna, telling stories about their adventures, some of the characters that were very popular were; Diarmuid, Cailte, The Leaders son Oscar and the Enemy Goll mac Morna.

The Fianna was formed by the high king of Ireland 'Conma mac Art', they were formed to protect their kingdom. One of the most famous stories about the Fionna's were where they were dominated by Clan Bascna which was led by Cumhaill and Clan Morna, lead by Goll. After the big battle Cumhaill was killed by Morna and Clan's wife and son ran away. This story was told the local villages and was well known by all.


Frantic Assembly

Frantic Aseembly are a fast paced, energetic devising company. They are mainly aimed towards new and younger audiences due to the non-naturalistic style. A lot of Frantics work is responded off of  scripted text, like their current production of Orthello, where they use the current script and bring it up to date, while bringing their work to life with music and choreographed movement.

Music is a massive inspiration to Frantic and they use music during the rehearsal and devising period and respond off it to help get the emotion and tone of the piece and scene. The rehearsal period is kept short as the team feel that they work best with a short time period and work well off of the intensity and not having the time to work on things for to long helps keep their work fresh and new. They devise using the trail and error method where they work through things and see what works the best, and what doesn't.

Some of the texts that they work from are pre-written scripts like old texts like Orthello, where they would stick close to the plot and the idea, and just add their style to it through the music and performance skills. The other way they would use a piece of text is they would have a writer come and listen to their ideas and the they would write their material around it. Another medium they respond off of is music and they would have it playing in rehearsals from the beginning rather putting it in towards the end in technical rehearsals. They would use it to help spark ideas and help with movement sequences.

In some of their productions they would take inspiration from the set and design elements of the show, and movement and ideas would be worked off of how they can use the set to create interesting shapes and sequences.


Kneehigh Theatre Company

Kneehigh started in the 1980's and they started off performing in marquees and village halls, they often use mythological tales as a base story for their performances. They are primarily a touring theatre company, where they would go to other theatres and education centres. They also have there own performance space, which they call the Asylum, which is a purpose built tent which can be adapted to 5 different styles to best suit the production.

Kneehigh don't have a set way in which the produce a production but it always starts with a well known story, such as fairy tales and myths. They never want to form a barrier between the actors and the audience, and they want the actors to understand how the audience feels from the reactions that they get and that this should effect the play and how it goes.

Long before the rehearsals begin the creative team all sit down to go over books, films and make sketches, to begin to create a idea of the production and where its going. this helps to create a world of the play for the actors to live in, as the more detailed world of the play gives more meaning and narrative to the story. Once they have a solid idea of the feel of the piece, the music director put together a musical track for the show and all the writers go off and write a collection of poems, monologues and ideas. They then all come together to what they have, one thing that they would not write is a script or polished scene. Once all the design, music and words are ready, they go into the rehearsal room.

From here on they work as a team and all discuss their ideas towards the ideas and write down their views on a big board and then use this to think of their own experiences to get the real feel for the characters and stories. From day one the music is used to help give a feel for the world, and the writers are present in the rehearsal room and are there to inspire and use the poetry and lyrics into the plot. Along the rehearsal process the foundations are lost but they believe the with a good team and great concept the show with create a life in its self.


Mike Leigh

Mike Leigh is a British film director and writer. He began as a theatre director in the 60's but went on to do films in the 70's. He is well known for his alternative style of directing. He is known for is extended rehearsal and devising process and his improvisation techniques with all his actors. He is known to work with the same actors for most of his films, as he feels that they know how each other work and can respond off of each other. He does this long process to create depth into his characters and narrative to the film.

He always begins the process without a script, he would start with a strong story line or a ruff idea of where he want to explore, which he would develop with a lot of improve and growth of characters. He starts the process with a one to one with the actors, where he would ask the actors to create a list of lots of people that they know or have known. They should be varied with people that they are close too and people that they have been acquainted with, this is then condensed and the eventually these peoples characteristics are used to create the character, where they can take on their characteristics, vocals and movement. This can be a long process where the character can change a lot over time, this gives a big detailed character where they almost become an alter ego to the actor.

Once all of the characters are made, they are gradually brought together and then start to do some improvisations together and to see if any relationships form and help to build the world around them. At this point in the process the actors know nothing about the piece other than them selves in it. after a while the actors would go out in the street and interact with other character and strangers. This helps to see reactions of the character and how there characters deal with things. This type of improvisation would go up all the to the recordings.

Leigh would then write outlines of the scenes in the film and themes for the characters to follow. The characters then improvise around these written scenes, the best lines and moments from his is scripted, this is where the shooting for the film would begin. Hours and hours of film are shot of improvisation and prompted scenes, then all of this is whittled down into the final product, and all that's the audience see's in the highlights and the best moments of the filming, where as the actors would have done much more. This then creates a film where even the smallest of characters are so in depth that they could have had a whole plot of their own.


The practitioner that appeals to me the most is Knee high as I love to work off an idea but still be able to add in my own ideas to it. Where as Frantic Assembly are given a text which maybe restricting to the way that you work. But the way that Kneehigh works creates a completely fresh and new feel to the piece, but with a story that is known. I also like the detailed character work that comes along with Mike Leigh's devising methods, and the way the characters all have their own lives that we know about outside the play.



Eamon Kelly's Storytelling

The story that Kelly was telling was about a man that went round selling tea too the locals of Ireland. He would go around selling all day but as the day drew in he came to a small house, as  strong storm came in and he had no other option then to take shelter in the house. The wife came into the house with a freshly baked cake, the smell filled the house and they could see that the tea man craved a bit, when the wife went to cut him a bit, the husband shouted "NO"... and that he wasn't aloud a bit and that he was just to be there to shelter from the rain. In this small house there was only one bed and this was taken up by the husband and wife, the husband worked through the night, so had to go to and from the bed during the night. The wife slept up against the wall and then the husband in the middle and the tea man on the end. When the husband had to go to work he would place the babies cradle in the middle of them, so they would remain separate, as if he didn't trust his wife. When he came back he would put the cradle back on the floor, and get back in bed. He did this a few times during the night but when it got late in the night, he forgot to put the cradle between the two sleeping. Once he had gone the wife turned to the tea man and said "Quick, while he is gone, you have your chance....have a bit of the cake!"

The parts that I found the most comical in the story was the unexpected and where I minds think of one thing and another thing happens, this is what makes us laugh to most comical moment to the story. I think because we don't see something happening, we come shocked then we turn that into comedy.

WCP

Edexcel Unit 2, Section A: Written Performance Concept

Luke Scattergood 1665

Monologue from ‘One Man, Two Guvnors’ by Richard Bean

Character: Francis Henshall

Richard Beans play is set in the seaside town of Brighton, he becomes fired from his skiffle band and is desperate for food. He seeks employment in Roscoe Crabbe, who is hiding from Stanley Stubbers, who also employs Henshall’s assistance. In order to keep both of his jobs, Francis works hard to stop his two guvnors from finding out about each other. My monologue comes early in the play, just before he gains his second job.

As the play is set in the 1963, where Brighton was known for its packed entertainment circuit, the play shows this through its use of music, and reference to the main characters musical background. The variety in the genres of music, would link to the End-of-The-Pier performances, which is seen in 60’s seaside towns. The play begins with the characters having fled from the East-End of London. Where crime was high with The Kray’s were trialling the streets of London, creating violent news. The use of weapons is a key feature to the play, where characters are threatened to do things, the Kray Twins created so much fear in people that they would move to get away. This carries in from the start of the play where Francis and his boss, having come to Brighton to get away from the violent streets of London. I will use this to show the fear of my character, where he has had to leave his home and come somewhere new.

To keep the context of my character I will explore the characteristics of a cockney lad, how he sits and moves around the stage. By making my gestures big, it really emphasises my character enthusiasm, and his boastful nature, as he is always trying to make himself seem bigger and better than he already is. I will also show this through my voice, but adding emphasis and a powerful tone to the personal pronouns in my speech, to really highlight that he did things and that he made it happen. At the start of the process of the monologue, I played around with the use of Emotion Memory, and started to think about how I would feel, leaving my home, to somewhere new and not having much to live off. This helped me understand my character being confident and looking big in the scene, but still having the underlying fear of being in a new place. I have developed the section of where he is describing his one man band, and have used stylised movement to bring it to life.

character profiles.

Chaufeur 

I would call this character something simple like Mr Smith. this s because i feel that people wouldnt adress him by his first name, as everyone else is the scene would not have a relationship with him outside of work. I see him as a middle agd man of 45, as he keeps him self  to himself, as if he has had alot of wisdom with people and just knows to stay out of things. From the text we know that his proffesion is a chauffeur yet i feel that this is not the job that he would have wanted when he was younger, yet had no option. The chauffeur came from a very working class background, and has respect for things that he has, yet has learnt to make the most of things that he was given. when it came to ducation he had very basic, as he didnt have a good enough one to et a better job. He keeps himself to a quite corner, as he sits at the back of the room and keeps covosation to a minimum. as speaks in a very diplomatic. my characters Super Objective, is to keep himself out of contriversy, and just trys to stear away from the point so that he doesnt sound like he is gossiping.

  My character speaks in a very informal manner in this scene, i think this is because there is no real authority in the room and he feels relaxed with the people there. but if her was working i think he would make more of an effort. I drop alot of my vouels and have bad articulation. My character is very closed with his body language, as he doesnt want to open himself up at work. My character moves very quickly and sharply, this shows his assertive manner. As a personal prop i would choose a ciggerette box, this is just something that i feel that he would require on his person all of the time, and would not feel comfortabe without.

Announcer

M next character is the annoucer, i would call him Hanns Satten, he is a young man at the age of 25 as he has youth and a fresh voice and speaks with energy and passion. In this scene he is a radio prosenter , yet does not always do this, yet is always revoved around performance, even before the war started. He was brought up well and in a good area and has had a fairly good education, yet knew where he wanted to go in life from a young age. He is respected a lot, as he is trusted with selling the third Reich. his is a full of life character that is possotive, but will do anything to keep himself on peoples good side. He speaks with passion and draws people in with every sentence. His Super Objective is to keep people intridged and do what he is told, even if he thinks different.

     My character will speak with passion and I will raise the pitch in my voice on everyl line to make what i say sound interesting. My body language is very open, and welcoming, even over the radio. movement wise he is very flowing, and has a real plan to what he says and which action he is doing when. My personal prop is a note book, as he is always looking out for  new story or something to share.

 

Scharfuhrer

My character would be adressed as Sir (or the german version), this shows his authority and lets his have power over others. he is an older man at the age of 65, as he has quite a gravaly voice and had authority. My character has retirered, yet at the start of the war, he took on the task of teaching the younger ages, but before the war he was quite high up in the navy, and has a past of bossing people around. And likes telling people what to do. He was brought up in a army background and has grown up with disapline and order, this meant that he has learnt everything from his elders and ther army members. He did not have a proper education, but was just taught everything that he needs in the army. He is a stern character that plays by the rules and is strict with everything that he crrys out. His Super Objective is to keep rder to everything that he does, and make sure everthing and one is in line.

     My character speaks in beats, putting emphasis on every word, as if he is following a script that someone has told him to do. He keeps himself up right and walks around a room with pressence to show everyone that he makes the orders. his movement is very robotic, yet this would have been influenced by the military upbringing.

Younger Worker

My final character is the younger worker, his name is Oli, and he is around hte age of 17, he is old enough to start making his own mind up with what he wants and ow he think people should be living. This really comes across in his lines, where he shows passion in his country, and really wants everyone else to belive that how their living is not good. He just works along side his family, and will do anything to help, as his family is not in the best finaltioal state, as they didnt have the best start in life. is education was cut short, when his family hit hard times and he needed to begin work to help them along. He has a very live life to the full approach to life and will always do his best to get his piont across. His Super Objective is to never give up on what you belive in. 

     He speaks wiht energy and passion and youth like manner, as when he gets an idea in his head that he belives in he will fight for it. his body language is open and he uses alot of gestures to get his point across. He uses fast movements and bouces around the stage, wiht agility and life. his personal prop would be his fathers watch, as that is what he was given by him, and it always reminds him to try his best and give his all.

'Frantic Assembly's' Othello Theatre Review.

Theatre Review of:

Frantic Assembly's 'Othello' at

The Oxford Playhouse on Thursday 23rd October 2014

In this production, Frantic Assembly took a well known Shakespearean play 'Othello', and brought it to life with a contemporary feel for a new younger audience. Their use of fast pace physical theatre left me on the edge of my seat and gripped to the characters and themes, the running themes of Love, Tragedy and Envy, kept the audience on their toes as characters emotions go from extreme to extreme, as


Set:
Pool table is being revolved around(centre of the set), important things happen there- night of their wedding was spent on it, death scene.
walls used to show his intoxicated state, not usual to see set manipulated by actors.
smashed windows.


Lighting:
Sliver white light to show her purity and self worth
Bland wash over main parts of the play, the lights pick up during physical theatre scenes.


Costume/Props
White tank top, Othello-dominance and  diversity shows him being a leader
Desdemona has on rolled up to show her being different and maybe a leader of the females.
Othello is the only one to have a weapon(Bat), this shows his status with everyone else.


Sound (music)-
pop, disco, techno music playing in the background brought life and linked it back to modernised version.


Acting:
use of gritty London accents contrasts to the text. Relatable to an audience.




Direction:


Perf-Style:


Conclusion:
Pros and Cons of the production,

Beautiful Burnout Exploration notes

Luke Scattergood Beautiful Burnout Exploration notes

Context

We wanted to explore the fact that boxing was often seen as a gentlemen's sport, and despite this Dina was trying to make herself known as an equal . In our scene Bobby gives Dina praise for her boxing, "Thanks Bobby". I slowly nodded my head to her, this showed my characters acceptance, yet still kept the authority, with the rigid movements, the simple movement doesn't show much praise to Dina, as he was to drive her to do better. I didn't want to make It over the top with Bobby's movement, as he wouldn't have shown  a lot of gratitude to all of the other male boxers. Later on in the play, Dina says that she "can see herself home", this showed Dina's independence when it comes to looking after herself. This may be because in her earlier life she was not always treated well, or as an equal status to others, So she wants more attention from the others. Bobby says "to do what she is told", by using a stern voice it shows that as much as Dina wants to be treated equally, it doesn't mean she can do what she wants.  

Language

Although all characters would have a Scottish accent, which is made clear to the audience through idiolect, such as "Gunnae" and "Nay". This use of colloquialisms can be used to expand a character, for Bobby he would put a lot of emphasis on these words, which may come across harsh or bully like. For my character of Bobby I could tell that he would be quite short and aggressive, I did this as Bobby's job would be coming tedious, as he does the same thing throughout the play, as the boxers is not always on their boxing technique as they should "think about boxing, not the humiliation of his opponent" I shortened a lot of my words, when playing Bobby, taking on a lot of the shouting characteristics, using the language to assert my authority from the characters language we could make guesses off where they were from, that they were from a place like Edinburgh rather than a place like Glasgow, where things are usually seen as a bit more high class.

 

Non Verbal Communication

When I first became Bobby in the play, I needed to show my annoyance with Ajay messing around in training and then leaving the club. I crossed my arms and began to walk away, to make it look like my character had given up, I then turned back sharply, that gave off the idea that my character was really annoyed that he wasn't getting the correct respect that he thought he should. To show my characters gradual agitation, I added more and more hand gestures, like a flick of the wrist to a tense throw of the arm, as the scene went on. This added different levels of tension to my character as Ajay said his lines. On the line " likes you tae win like that", I did a sharp point right in Ajays face. I held this position for a moment, this raised the animosity between Bobby and Ajay, as we stared into each other's eyes, we could feel the raise in tension, as the audience fell silent, this was a very good lead up to the next section of the play, where Bobby asks Ajay to leave the gym.

 

Vocal Awareness

For my character of Bobby I feel that when he is in the scene the level of tension is always high, I raised the tension on the line "Get your kit, Get out of my gym". I slowed downed the pace of my words, leaving big pauses between each word, this gave words meaning, to show that my character was being serious at this point. I also put a lot of emphasis on the word "My". This showed that the character of Bobby has control, by stressing the personal pronoun, to say that he owns the gym, so it is his rule you have to go by. My interpretation of the character of Bobby has a very strong Scottish accent this then comes across as an aggressive tone, which is how I read Bobby to be.

 

 

Characterisation

The character of Bobby is the main trainer in the boxing gym and too show that his is the most (important) person in the gym, I used big body language, keeping my head up and looking down on everyone else, at the start of the scene, to show Bobby's dominance I walked around the character of Ajay, this made my character some across as intimidating. We paid a lot of focus on the physicality of  a boxer, how they are light on their feet, I also used a lot of hand gestures, like emphasising words by waving my hands and using them to point to an area, this showed a lot of dominance for my character. The audience could then link this to my character being involved with boxing and being very hands on.

 

 

Response to a practitioner

The practitioner linked to ‘Beautiful Burnout’ is the theatre group Frantic Assembly, before starting on the play we looked into how they take general everyday movements and gestures and make them into a sequence or routine, we came up with 5 movements and put them together, changing the pace, dynamics and focus points. This then became more of a choreographed dance routine than the original movements. Putting this into boxing brought new life to the piece. It sped it up and made sure that there is always something happening. Another of Frantic Assembly's theories is that there should always be some form of movement, we added some chorus movements on certain words within our scene. On words like "Think", all characters tapped their head twice to emphasis the words that Bobby was saying, by all of the other boxers doing the same moves a Bobby, it also highlights the point of Bobby being in control, and makes the other boxers look like kiss ups as the "best boxers in the gym" is not in the good books.

 

Interpretation

In our scene Ajay quotes that "he is the best boxer" and he "has the best moves". We did the whole of this section in slow motion, this showed Ajay pin-pointing every move that he makes, and we had the other boxers mimicking him, and watching him box. This showed the theme of envy and how everyone wants to be like him, yet can’t do it. Within the script we felt that the gender difference between the boxers stood out, we explored this more by having Dina out in front of the scene, prating her boxing with everyone else behind then going up to her to tell her to stop and take her on.

To get into the theme of 'Frantic Assembly' style we focused a lot of our performance, mainly the physical theatre sequences. I used their technique 'Stylised Predestrian Movement', we took the basic boxing movements, like sparring, bouncing on the feet and skipping. We then played around with pace, exstaggeration and repetition. We changed from fast pace to slower added depth to the boxing. On the line " Style of attack", me (Bobby) and Ainsley went into slow motion, and stared out front with a concentrated face, this showed our focus on the sport. As the characters in slow motion, we kept turning around to watch was Ajay was doing as he was the "best boxer", and we wanted our moves to mimic his. We want to make it clear to the audience that the other boxers wanted to be like Ajay we kept copying him, yet at a slower pace to him. This highlighted to the audience the difference in abilitys in the gym.

 

 

Visual Spatial and Aural

Visual: I wanted to show the class of the boxing gym and how run down it was, we did this by having it very dull and dark lighting, using blues to bring a sombre tone to the stage. We kept set to a minimum, using muted monochrome colours in out set and costume design choices, This showed the concentration of the boxers and didn't draw away from the fact that they wanted to achieve their dreams.

    Spatial: We kept everything to the rule of quads, making it symmetrical and the same in every scene, this symbolised the repetition in the boxers lives, how they would always come to the gym to try and better themselves, yet they never seem to get anywhere.

     Aural: An underlining music track was played underneath our scene, it had a strong beat and fast pace, not only did this help keep up our pace and in time in the physical sections. But it symbolised the pressure that the boxers are put under. Like Bobby beating them down behind them.