Drama A/2 (theme drama is a human being in a mess) this got me an A!
...tempts to show his superiority by using words Carol doesn't understand, although he does have two appear more anxious and confused. I felt that my interpretation of carols character would give me a real opportunity to radically altar my facial expression (would not be able to do so with Othello-masks) and mentality. Casting of Othello. Eliot was to play Othello, as we felt he would adapt to the character well, and he was what we considered to be the most messed up person, because of race, class, status issues, and although we looked at other characters-Iago, Desdemona and the "mess" they were in, Othello's character seemed to be the most interesting. This led us to selecting the scene-we needed to characters one being Othello. It was debated as to whether I should be Desdemona, a considerable possibility here because she was the only female connected to Othello by speech, and these being of a suitable length, however, I like the idea of playing the Iago, who, although male, presented a fascinating character this was ultimately possible because of the use of masks etc, and ultimately he was in a dreadful mess himself which he hides from both his friends and the audience except when he does his soliloquies. This led us to choose act III scene III, as it was a) in the middle of the play which coincided with Othello's character changing from a good honest, open character, to a suspicious, spiteful, doubting jealous character. b) It contains two famous soliloquies within it. We cut the scene in a way which showed Iago beginning to change Othello by his implications/suggestions, up to the point when Iago has succeeded and Othello believes him and his changes personality completely. Casting of Devised, because it was devised we could write it for the number of people in our group. The reason I acted two roles, was in order that I could have a wide range of role experience, and also play an old lady which I knew could not be done by costume alone, and would involve changing my voice, posture, and personality. We that we would concentrate on the character of Eliot being in a total mess, this contradicted to the chaotic muddle which Mrs. Braintree's character is in. The play itself evolved from considerable discussions between us about possible situations from which a main character would be suffering distress/or in a mess. Development process Commentary on the progress of the project I started by familiarizing myself with each of my characters, I did this by reading the play, researching the characters and through hot seating (see appendix for hot seating). I then inquired into Elliott's perspective of my roles. We found blocking/staging difficult with scripts and so wanted to learn our lines and as soon as possible. I decided to use the seven Stanislavski questions which examined my immediate and superior objectives as well as each of my characters purpose and motivation. This allowed me to make my characters real via creating history and traits. Elliott and my interaction got better as we went on; this was because we understood each other better and how to approach each other's new ideas. Analysis of staging the performance I think the staging of our players was well considered. We staged Oleanna in its natural environment and created a lecturer's office for all of the action to take place in, as it was one continuous scene. There was no need for any scene changes (except costume) and this meant that we could spend time on making it into a realistic but sparse set (this was because we wanted the audience to focus on our acting and the storyline rather than the set, although we used enough and the correct props that the piece to be real) For our devised piece we decide to use the audience as a fourth wall. We also decided to use the theatre curtain as a surgical curtain. This would allow me to get off stage without being seen in time to change and get back on as a different character. I absolutely loved this idea and felt it allowed audience involvement For Othello I thought it will be a good idea if we split/divided the stage into two sections, shown by our lighting and lit accordingly to our interpretation of the characters, we did this to show Othello changing with Iago’s poison (a fellow swap sides of the stage when entering or exiting depending on how far along the process was) We were very spatially aware when staging our performance and I felt that being aware of this allowed a great impact on the audience Analysis of group interaction in the performance It proved to be very difficult, relying on just one other person. Elliott and I had to be completely trusting of each other, as if one person messed up the other person had to know exactly how to deal with it, which proved harder on two people's imagination rather than say three or four. Analysis of personal and group interaction in the performance During the performance there were many things that went both right and not so well. To start with I remembered all of my lines, although this had not presented a problem in any of the previous rehearsals I was still glad to have been able to memorize, retain, and deliver all of my lines. I felt that our teamwork in the performance was extremely good. Indeed in the performance I was able to further my character and rose to the challenge of needing to use some improvisation, this made it easier to me to give 100% and boosted the energy of our piece. Oleanna went very well, we knew that it always been our best piece and this allowed us to excel during the performance. Our lighting in the peace enhanced our performance and added more atmosphere ands mood to the piece. Something that we had always found easy was the Mamet speech and indeed during the performance we successfully intervened in each other's sentences in the right places. We got a lot of support from the audience during this piece not from clapping or laughter but the continuous focus of their attention showed us that we had given an emotional, strong, powerful performance. For me our devised went a lot better than expected, I actually enjoyed performing our devised piece and believe that the audience gained a level of enjoyment from watching it. I felt very much in character for both Mrs. Braintree and carry Harrison and I felt I was able to switch characters and costumes very rapidly there were moments in it when the pace lapsed however we were able to pick it up, the audiences energy seemed to help this. During Othello I feel that I fitted in well as my character Iago, I was able to overcome the gender issues and it seemed that the audience found it interesting that a female was playing a male role. After all our problems with constructive criticism all of our stage directions were remembered. Our costume and masks proved to be very effective and lead to greater audience involvement. During all three pieces we were able to remember all of our props and costumes changes and this supported our performance. The main good point, was the fact that the order in which I had chosen the pieces to go work extremely well. I thought it best to start with Oleanna then have the devised and finish with Othello. This was because I wanted to build up the emotional atmosphere. I felt that it would be unfair on both the audience and actors to have two strong emotional pieces one after the other. Therefore I felt that we should start with Oleanna to engage the audience with a strong powerful story and acting but then break it up with the light-hearted devised piece finishing then with Othello which I believed would leave the audience stands and end our performance in a bang. The audience were very understanding of both Oleanna and our devised this was shown by them laughing in our devised and the anticipatory and slow pace in Oleanna allowed them to grasp it. Unfortunately however I was not feeling particularly well during our exam, so I felt that my voice strength was not as powerful as it had been in past rehearsals also some improvisation was necessary due to some forgotten lines (not on my part) this was not a disastrous thing however as it kept me on my toes, making sure that I was in character. It was alright to do so as it was not in for example iambic pentameter as Othello is which meant that the audience could not tell that lines were missing. However the pace did drop a little because of it. Elliott also managed to incorporate his forgotten lines into the script and it added weight to his character and our overall performance. We were expecting quite a few problems during our devised piece but in fact it went better than expected unfortunately I forgot to bring on the papers as carry Harrison as I was too busy getting changed quickly but covered it well by pretending that he already had them on his desk (he had some paper on there).Once again a few lines were missed out but it was not a problem at all. I was worried that Elliott would forget to draw the curtain halfway through our piece as he had done in rehearsals luckily however he took a moment to pause at the desk and then remembered. I was incredibly disappointed with our performance of Othello Elliott forgot quite a few lines, which for our exam was not a problem as no marks could be taken off, however, it did throw the whole scene(atmosphere, tension etc) and I felt unable to perform in my role of the Iago as well as I had done in rehearsals. All of our previous rehearsals had gone well in the sense of being character and I had worked very hard throughout the rehearsal and performance of Othello this was because I enjoyed performing Shakespeare and wanted to do well. Therefore I was quite upset when it did not go according to plan. The relationship between Eliot and I took a long time to get right-he didn't understand the implied meanings, so some of his interpretations of the lines weren't right this was probably due to him not reading the whole play. Unfortunately we were not able to regain the piece after lines were forgot and even in my soliloquy I felt that the audience were not enjoying it. Evaluation In terms of the practical and theoretical outcomes I feel that I've achieved my original aims. Through this experience I have learnt and benefited as an academic student, actor and a human being. As an actor I have learnt a lot about improvisation are setting the devised and about reacting well to the other's characterisation and performance on stage. Preparation is essential when acting any role, small or big, so having lots of rehearsals aided in this. When you familiarise yourself with your role and know your character's objectives, traits, past, personality and motives, only then can you perform in your role, and be so involved that if anything unexpected happens you can deal with it in role/character. Whether you are becoming the character (method acting) or pretending to be someone else but aware of the fact (Brechtian Theatre) you still need to dive deep into the character in order to be convincing. I also learnt that research into the role is essential and you have to know the whole play in order to perform just/even a small extract of it. I also discovered that stage acting is a very specific ty...