Tuesday, 21 October 2014

150 words on Voice for Eqqus

Dysart is very much sympathetic to Alan throughout the text trying hard to understand Alan. I chose to use spontaneous improvisation and actioning the text in order to delve deep into the character of Dysart and focus upon his character objectives, I took a small monologue from the play and I used Max Stafford Clarke's actioning the text to reveal my character's objective. I did this by speaking with sharp sounds, trying to reveal Dysart's frustration. This revealed Dysart's desire to reach out to Alan, whilst also portraying his worry about his professional life from hot seating as Dysart, I realised that he is possibly more frustrated with his home life than he has revealed, as he was unable to have children with his wife. I decided to use this to explore Dysart's paternal feelings toward Alan. For example when Alan is confronting Dysart about his personal life with his wife my voice became sharper with a "slight grumble" however I almost "swallowed" my words attempting to show concealed thoughts and happenings.  

Monday, 13 October 2014

150 words on characterisation for Street Car

In A Streetcar Named Desire Williams describes Blanch as being 'mothlike' which are known to be attracted by light. Additionally he describes Blanche as being very weary of her appearance when Blanche says "And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare". This is a clear indication of the symbolism of light and connotes the meaning of light of numerous things in A Streetcar Named Desire. This first instance is the most important, and reveals Blanche’s fear of showing her leaving her insecure about her appearance. I used this information to influence my performance of subtext from where I used Blanches story of her husband and acted using it I then enclosed my movement and made myself feel small to show my own belittling as Blanche using quick movements to show my self-hate for my appearance these movements were almost "mothlike" too.

Thursday, 2 October 2014

Vocal Awareness notes-

Vocal Awareness notes-
What did I do in the lesson that improved my delivery of the monologue?-
  • We used Max Stafford Clarke's "Actioning the Text" to help improve our monologue
  • We established the characters objectives
  • We then named the action using a transitive verb "I ____ You"
  • After establishing how the actor was attempting to achieve with individual lines in their monologue
  • We then used this to vary the tone, pitch, pace and so on of our voice which helped up to deliver our monologues in a way that met the characters objectives to allow for a much smooth and meaningful monologue.
How did I experiment with pace and tone to build tension?-
  • I used tone to adjust to my characters feelings and mood at the current time.
  • This helped to create tension by creating a sharper, harsher tone on my voice to show anger and make the audience feel slightly threatened and intimidated. 
  • Pace of my voice helped to speed and slow down my voice to show an element of anger and also to help to create the climax of the monologue 
  • I then caused anti-climax by suddenly pausing and slowing down the pace of my voice 
How did you choose when to pause and why?-
  • I chose to pause at the end of the climax
  • To create the anti-climax and show the "cooling down" of my character
  • However I also paused when I started to hit some lines that were temperamental to my character to show suppression from my character.
  • Example- Actually it's a disgrace,(PAUSE HERE) you the son of a printer 
  • Where I wrote "(PAUSE HERE)" was the pause in my monologue to show his thought process and to allow the audience to slightly sympathise with Frank and think about what is to come.
Did the audience understand your intended interpretation of character better that in your final performance? If so, why do you think that is? If they didn't, what might you experiment with further?-
  • I believe that the audience understood my intended interpretation of character significantly better that my final performance
  • This was because I had a much better understanding of my character objective therefore could change the pace and tone dramatically to ensure I emitted the best interpretation of my character.
  • Pauses were also a great part of my monologue and allowed the audience to sympathise and sometimes almost hate my characters arrogance which I portrayed by a much needed sarcasm in my voice to match my characters personality of arrogance and selfishness.