4/12/14

Rehearsing 

Disadvantage- Your back will be to the audience at any angle.  

Advantage- instead of viewing from a flattened up perspective thrust staging creates a 3D effect. 

As an actor what are the challenges you think you will have personally being directed in this space? 

I think balancing out the space will be my challenge because you have three audiences that will need to be able to see you even if it's not at the same time. I feel I might struggle to even out the amount of times each audience sees me. 

 How have we staged the prologue? Why have we made this choices? What is the effect that is created? 

We had seperate taxi's and each group had a taxi driver, two headlights and a passenger, the taxi driver was sat on the red stools and the headlights were beside him with their flashlights, the passenger was behind him and used his flashlight as an extra form of lighting. We were all scattered around facing different parts of the audience so they could all see the same thing but portrayed by different groups. The darkness contributed to the effect that was created because it made a night time  atmosphere this was portrayed by numerous lights in the dark room.

Tale 1 - Girls   

What is your role in the tale?

In the tale we are all one person. 

How has it been staged?

We were sat on the red stools In two rows back to back and because there wasn't enough stools we had people sitting on the floor in another row thus making two rows back to back. We all had our flashlights to our chests and they were only shown at specific times when we were told to.

Why have these choices been made?

I think these choices have been made because the audience can see one of each side or even both and even if they can't the other side they can hear their voices. 

What are the strengths of this piece so far?

I think the strength of the piece so far is that everyone is doing a different action whilst delivering a line such as texting, calling or playing with their hair and we were all working together to make the piece stronger. 

What developments need to happen throughout the rehearsal period? 

We need to create a stronger relationship between our characters because right now we are not very cohesive as a group. 

20/11/14

Developing Criteria

I feel like I have worked at a pass because although I was able to shape a role and develop ideas, I feel my research wasn't very detailed and I struggled to link it to the play and use it during practical activities, I didn't reach a merit because I was unable to expand my research and I think my ideas were not fully developed.

TALE 2

In the group I was put in, the vast majority of us agreed it was a metaphor in which each of the woman's trates symbolised a different part of the East end, however Taffie had a different idea. She thought that the woman the tale was speaking of was actually the mans true love and that he wrote the tale because his world revolved around her, and simply ignored the rest of the East end because to him the only thing that mattered was her and therefore she was his East end. 

Performance 

 We staged our performance by having us all in the same location, but different scenarios. We were all assigned one of the woman's trait and we had to interact with others. The scene was in a park because we knew that was a very regular place to run into people, we then spilt up into pairs and improvised out characters. This part was symbolic because we were able to create conflict between each of the woman's traits which allowed us to create an idea of what was happening in her head. 

My character was a 'health freak' she liked to take care of herself by working out, I portrayed this by making my character a determined and having a get go attitude, her vocals were very perky which showed she was happy to be taking care of herself. 

Different characters in Tale 6:-

🔘 Narrator 

🔘Landlord 

🔘Brother 

🔘Warm tired woman 

🔘 Sly man 

🔘Warm tired woman's daughter

🔘Sly mans mum

TALE 6

In my group, we did three different scenes by splitting into Pairs and cross cutting between scenes, we found this effective because it was easier to see different scenarios linking to the same situation.

We wanted our scenes to be unique and felt if all of us were in one scene then it would become to busy and it would take too much time trying to figure out how to do the scene so when we did the scene the first pair would go first while the other pairs would freeze until it was there turn.

We had a scene with the warm tired woman (me) and her daughter (Nina) who was in America and had forgotten about her, In this scene we wanted the main focus to be on their relationship  so we used split staging and imagined the daughter was in her house on the phone to her mum, rushing to go somewhere while the mother was trying to communicate to her daughter, sitting in a chair, trying to gain back the strong relationship they had before she left for America. The mother almost forced herself on her daughter showed no interest to her mother and became a very stereotypical character by using a patronizing tone, to show that she wasn't interested.

The scene ended on a cliff hanger with the daughter saying the line "I have to go, I'll talk to you later...love you" and then ended the call. We thought this would be an effective to use because it showed the daughter's character quite strongly as she didn't even wait for her mothers reply before ending the call, we felt that this would leave the audience intrigued on why the daughter behaves in that way.

Our next scene was also the warm tired woman and sly man, we had them in freeze frame whilst the previous scene was going on. We had them sitting on the floor, to show how their relationship has improved because of them sharing personal things about themselves. We thought this was effective because it showed the build up of their relationship and obviously this made the audience think what their situation was before.

Our final scene was a trialogue, there was a use of canon and unison because we felt it would make the piece more interesting,Taffie and Harmony were the same character, they got most of their characterisation from their role on the walls using canon. Then Daniela entered and They used pace for her monologue to link up with Harmony and Taffie's words, this worked effectively because It gave the piece a rhythm and a sharp ending.

What I did as a character?

My character was the warm tired woman, my character in my opinion is quite weak and a pushover as she let her daughter take authority over her, and didn't fight to gain her relationship back with her daughter. for my character i had a very calm and soft voice i think my character is very generous and understanding. 

Another groups performance

What was effective about the characters they'd decided to explore? 
Most people chose to do the Sly man and interpreted it in all different ways so you could see different views of the man, they all based it in a bar and explained how the bar is 'connected' to him. voice wise they all put on a cockney accent.

Did the scene help you understand anything new about the play or another character?

The scene helped me understand more about the play and character so much better, as in the text I didn't really understand and follow, but I think that because we got onto our feet and performed it and took more time to study it and understand the text , it was so much better and helped me increase my knowledge about the play and the characters and more about their back story.

27/11/14

MY MONOLOGUE

The day my daughter left felt like I was falling apart, she was the only thing holding me together. Seeing her so excited to leave me made me increasingly devasted. I never felt so empty in my life, the house was so dull and lifeless like the person living in it. Sleep didn't come easy hence the reason why I'm tired all the time my days were numbered and still she didn't bother to call me. I became paranoid checking my phone every second for a missed call or even a good morning text, but still her name never happened to appear on the list. My cell phone provider would send texts, you know them annoying ones that tell you about them shit deals that no one actually wants, I would jump at the sound of my phone text sound but Oceana's name was non-existent. Maybe some may same I'm being obsessive, intruding and pathetic but I'm just tired, tired of trying to stay strong all the time. I raised this girl for 18 years and she can't even pick up any of my calls, don't even tell me that's not taking the piss, don't even tell me I'm being crazy, don't even tell me I'm being paranoid and don't even tell me that she's going to call eventually. I'm a warm tired woman and I'm done supporting everyone else but myself. 

 🔘monologue task help you to understand the play further?

 The monologue task helped me to develop an understanding about the type of characters in the east end and why they behaved that way. My character was just one type of person and she was quite strong willed in my monologue I tried to address a sense of depression and struggle to show why she feels she has to be strong willed and how it will impact others. I made her go off topic every so often to show that she was a bit conflicted, I feel the task helped me with understanding the people within the east end rather than the east end itself. 

🔘What monologue performed by a peer worked well and why? What had they written about?

I liked Taffie's monologue, she wrote about the business woman from Tale 2 . Www- you could really tell she spent time creating the piece and making it seem true to the character, also her piece flowed and I liked how she linked her piece to the text and wasn't afraid to take risks during it. 

Developing Criteria

I think I achieved a P1 because I didn't perform Infront of my peers, however the task helped me create and explore my character for example the monologue task helped me to understand the 'why?' Questions I had. I did develop my research further but not to the best of my ability and I could of made it more detailed. 

13/11/14

Working on the prologue

in my groups prologue we had the lines from 'i reckon' to 'some people say the city sleeps at night!'. the taxi driver finds out if the passengers liked the east end, the passengers agreed that they did and the taxi driver corrected a line a passenger said, which was 'you see some real shady people' which then the taxi driver corrected ' you mean shadowy'. The driver then asks if its true that the city sleeps at night and the scene ended there.There wasn't a lot to work with, however the taxi driver could of made a more enthusiastic conversation asking who they were, why they were there and where they were going.

We had three people in our prologue- the taxi driver facing forward and two passengers back to back behind the taxi driver facing sideways standing up, to create some dynamics, we thought this was effective because it showed the different types of relationships that the passengers had with the taxi driver, because we were all really close together, this showed a bond in their relationships that's why they were upfront while speaking, when we first read our lines we interpreted them to be rather unusual for a common taxi driver to say, therefore we wanted to portray this and we did that by working a lot with characterisation so the passengers appeared to have some sort of underlying secret. in my opinion the exercise we did was challenging because there wasn't much creativity in the piece to collaborate with and so it was hard not to change the whole piece.

The group that was most effective was Ella's group because, they had added movement to their piece so it was more realistic and believable. They really added creativity to their piece and it worked really well.


Hot-Seating

 Why is hot-seating an effective technique to use in a rehearsal? 
 hot- seating is an effective technique to use in a rehearsal because its useful to build a character profile on the spot, think about their background, it also helps with understanding the text from different points of view and gaining more knowledge from facts you didn't know.

What did you learn about the driver?

I learnt more about the drivers background, for example his family life like having a pregnant wife and having a young child waiting for him at home. Also the fact someone mentioned he would live in an apartment helped me to understand his character more because he lives in such a small housing area, I knew he'd be very grateful for what he had and portrayed this in my characterisation of him.

What questions did you ask? 

🔘 How long are your working hours?

🔘 How would you describe the East End in one word?

Explain what you did as a taxi driver. Why did you make these choices? (Think about character- voice/physicality.)

As a taxi driver I was irritated and tended to take it out on my passengers I decided to do this because people in the East End are generally stereotyped to be rude and constantly angry because of this research I decided to base my characterisation on this stereotype.

What did other people do?

Other people portrayed the taxi driver as the complete opposite to my interpretation because they showed him as happy and extroverted.

 How did you work as an ensemble?

As an ensemble we illustrated other people's ideas of the taxi driver such as Alex's who was cockney and very masculine in her posture, I thought it was effective to do because we were able to differentiate one character from another and could grasp what was effective in each character and why and then we were able to use the effective techniques in our own character.

TALE 8

'Clap of thunder' 

'You're in the wrong place' 

'Just before sunrise' 

'Hail stones bombard the darkness' 

'Blitz'

'A burrow between buildings' 

'Lawless tunnel' 

'Hail piled up like icy gravel'

06/11/14

What did you think of the play and why? 
Although the text was well written, i found it very hard to process and keep to the story line of all the tales because it was difficult to grasp the language mostly because the structure of the stories kept me from understanding the whole flow of each tale.

What is the play about? 
The whole play consits of separate stories which tell us different things about the east end.

What was your favourite tale? Why?
I liked Tale 2 because it was symbolic, it intreged me how they used the business woman to symbolise what they thought the east end was and I was able to imagine every aspect of her life and link it to apart of the East end.

What did you know at the start of the session? 

I wasn't too sure what the east end was like at all but by the end of the session I had developed a greater understanding of what the east end was really like, for example I now know that a lot of people saw the east end as a very negative environment with a lot of bad people and a lot of violence. However, as seen in Tale 2 a lot of people just go about their lives undisturbed doing everyday things like jogging and working for a living.

What knowledge did you develop by the end of the session?

At the end of the session I developed a more understanding of the east end and as it turnt out it wasn't as stereotypical as people thought, I found out that the east end is full of cultures and strong personalties and everyone is a family.

Find out about the history of the East End.

Research some events that have happened recently in the East End.

Research some of the events from the text.

:http://www.eastlondonhistory.co.uk/
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/educating-the-east-end
http://bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search?q=eastenders