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.
