150 words on Non Verbal Communication for Streetcar

Use of non verbal communication is a very intense performance practice, without the use of words acting becomes a lot harder to accomplish. I started with the scene in which Stanley patrols into his house drunk and causes quite an up rawr in the house aggressively stopping the good vibe and finally hitting Stella. 

When thinking about communicating this without the use of voice I knew that movement was to be very important and the use of facial expressions. I therefore create a very heavy walk and threw myself about much like a Bear. I also created a very wide face opening my eyes as wide as I could, blowing up my cheeks slightly and then biting very hard. I was charging around much like his zoomorphic animal figure of a bull and was finally settled down towards the end.

150 words on Movement

Movement is used in drama to help create a character and to express the emotions of a character and themes of a peice. We created still images that were to connote "trapped". My group and I created images of jail and a mental asylum. 

We then took scene 4 from "Street Car" The poker scene. Here Stanley, Steve, Pablo and Mitch are playing poker. Mitch clearly doesn't feel comfotable and to show this I, as Mitch, became small and very on edge using quick pacy movement to show that I was promt to leave. Mitch also was quite fragile due his sick mother therefore again used fast restricted movements to show aggression but attempting to remain calm. 

150 words on Interpretation and Practioner for Eqqus

In todays lesson we performed our devised Artaudian performance to the audience of our class, it was very successful and left the audience effected in the way we had forecasted to happen. We new from Artaud's techniques that the performance was to be very audience absorbed, we therefore chose for the audience to be Dysart and for us to be the children, we has children tormented each member of the audience to show the torment that Dysart felt as a result of the dream, this all helped to engage the audience and force them to feel like they we in the situation which is another one of Artauds techniques to make a performance as real as possible. 

Our use of randomised proxemics also helped to create the realistic performance and also individualised the performance so that it was like 8 separate performance for each member of the audience. Blindfolding the audience create fear on the audience by removing a sense the felt more hopeless and had no idea what to expect.

150 words on Non Verbal Communication for Equus

In Equus we rehearsed the cinema scene, using stylised and synchronised movements, we also hit on guttural sounds to create a sound collage. When creating this sound collage each individual had a different sound these were then layered over one and other and increasingly became louder and fast, this was to create tension. Each actor in the chorus had different movements. I was Frank and used exaggerated movement in order to create an abstract and stylised character using nothing but movement and sounds. After the tension had been built to cause a climax I as Frank had realised that Alan was present in the Cinema and used the short, sudden sound of my foot banging at which point everyone stopped Alan's face drop almost exactly the same as Franks showing that we were both is sudden shock and embarrassment to be seen by one and other watching this Lurid screening.  

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.  

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.

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.