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.  

    

Characterisation 29/09/14 MG

Characterization

 

In today's lesson we looked further into the characterization of Stanley, Blanch and Stella from 'A streetcar named Desire'. We first did a frantic assembly warm up to get us up and moving ready to do some improvisation. We then created still images from scene 3 in the play where we see Stanley calling for Stella to come back after he had violently hit her, Michael and Hannah did a really good example of the idea that Stanley stood for his dominance and masculinity however still relied on Stella's presence to calm him and almost that he feels he would be destroyed without Stella being there with his and possibly feeling slightly dependent on Stanley much like a child is on their mother. Michael and Hannah's interpretation of this was Stella stood with her back towards Stanley while Stanley grabbed her hand looking hopeless. Me and James created a still images of Stella standing up while Stanley was on his knees with his head resting on Stella's stomach, this was our attempt to show the child like image of Stanley and Stella's relationship to hit on Stanley's childlike dependence on Stella like a mother and her son.

 

After doing this we continued on to pursue in doing some improvisation using the idea of Stanley and Stella's marriage. We looked at the scene 4 where Stella first brings up their marriage and how Stanley smashed light bulbs with the heel of her slipper. We were then asked to improvise Stella first telling Blanche that she was getting married. Personally James and I felt that we were to set this before Blanche had ever met Stanley in order to rid of tension and upset from the improvisation but to show the "sisterly love" between the two characters and show Blanches reaction to marriage on a whole and not just to Stanley being the groom. This is because we wanted to hit on Blanches past marriage to show her sorrow of marriage and show hoe her experiences have affected her overlook on marriage.  





Dysart Objective. What he says about himself

• I'm lost 
• I'm wearing that horse's head myself
• I can't see it because my educated, average head is being held at the wrong angle 
• I'm desperate 
• I can't jump because the bit forbids me 
• I handle children's heads 
• I must presume to be more complicated at least in the area of my chief concern
• I'm sorry. I'm not making much sense 
• I can take no more patients at the moment. I can't even cope with the ones I have
• I share this room with two highly competent psychiatrists
• My names Martin Dysart. I'm please to meet you (meeting Alan's parents) 
• I like it better than the other two (talking about Alan's advert jingles)
• I was wrong I really do think that one's better (again talking about Alan's advert jingles)
• I had this very explicit dream. In it I'm a chief priest in Homeric Greece I'm wrestling wide gold mask 
• I've started to feel distinctly nauseous
• I redoubled my efforts to look professional
• I'd like to spend the next ten years wandering very slowly around the real Greece
• I gave him the right answer 
• I tried to discover none too successfully 
• I shall find out on Sunday 
• I want to have a look at his house so invited myself over 
• I understood Mr. Strang doesn't approve( with Alan's mothers teaching of the Christian belief)  
• I'm fascinated by the fact that Alan wouldn't ride 
• I said the truth 
• I've never been on a horse in my life 
• I felt real alarm
• I'm delighted to see you 
• I don't quite understand 
• I'd have thought he'd have wanted you to work with him 
• I told you I'm married 
• Antiseptic proficiency. I was like that in those dogs 
• I see us in our wedding photo 
• I sit opposite, turning the pages of art books on Ancient Greece. I still trial a faint scent of my enthusiasm across her path 
• I wish there was one person I could take to Greece, and stand in front of certain Shrines... and say "Look!" life is only comprehensible through a thousand local Gods 
• If I had a son, I bet you he'd come out exactly like his mother
• I'm sorry about our row yesterday
• God then leave me behind
• I can hear the creature's voice. It's calling me out of the black cave
• I can trace them. I can even, with time, pull them apart again.
• What am I doing here? I don't mean clinically doing or socially doing. I mean fundamentally
• I haven't seen him, I cancelled his appointment this morning. 
• I am almost tempted to play the real trick on him 
• I shrank my own life 
• I settled for being pallid and provincial, out of my own eternal timidity. 
• I need her sympathy mixed with resentment... I tell everyone Margaret's the puritan, I'm the pagan. 
• I say "What instinctual truths were lost with it"
• I sit looking at pages of centaurs trampling the soil of Argos. 
• I watch that woman knitting, night after night - a woman I haven't kissed in six years- and he stands in the dark for an hour, sucking the sweat off his God's hairy cheek.
• Can I make it up to you now? 
• There's a sea - a great sea - I love... It's where the Gods used to go to bathe 
• There's a village I spent one night in, where I'd like to live. It's all white
• I don't actually enjoy being a Nosey Parker you know
• I'll take it away 
• I need more 
• I cannot call it ordained of God I can't get that far

Character Objectives 24/09/14 MG

Today in class we create montages in groups from the lines in which the character Stanley used throughout the play. These lines were 2 things he said about other people, 1 thing he said about himself and 1 that other people had said about him. We took the lines and acted as the characters using out knowledge of Stanley after reading the whole text and also thinking about the way in which other characters acted and perceived Stanley to be. We then examined carefully at two scenes in "A streetcar named Desire". These were from different times in the play, one extract from the beginning when Stanley and Blanche first meet, and then other from towards the end just before Stanley rapes Blanche. These scenes were chosen so far apart because we wanted to really see the contrast between how we first perceived Blanche to how we do now and broaden our understanding of how Blanches "madness" developed over the time of staying with Stan. However most importantly we wanted to see the way in which our characters objectives have changed throughout the play. 

We then established a partner in which we were to perform this extract with. I worked with Fionna we were given the early extract. We first determined our characters objectives (this is what they character is trying to gain or do). As Stanley I was very set on being nice to Blanche and told her to "take it easy" asking her numerous questions and being friendly. However Stanley also wanted very much to impress Blanche and show his masculinity he did so but taking of his shirt after asking to "get comfortable" and then seemed to indulge himself in Blanches personal space almost forcing her to touch him to show his strength.

How does Williams explore the idea of a tortured condition in the text

Williams explores the idea of torture through the text via the tension that he builds through climax of the text for example when we are continuously fed information about the characters, such as Blanche.


Blanche faces alcoholism, faded beauty, and lost status; she tries to cover up past both as a teacher and in her marriage, all while desperately trying to keep up the appearance and her own delusion that she’s still attractive to men. This shows a tortured soul where she is constantly lying to herself and attempting to convince herself that she still lives in her youth and beauty but is constantly reminded that she is no longer a youthful, beautiful girl anymore, this connotes depression and self concision. This mentally tortures Blanche.


The same is to say for Stanley. He also suffers with alcoholism as well as gambling problems and a very short temper. This shows elements of torture because after infesting his body with alcohol, Stanley's mind is in a poor state and he is blind from knowing what is acceptable and therefore isn't in control of his body therefore says some things he doesn't mean. However his temper isn't because of the alcohol all the time, but is because of his tortured mind.


Stella seems to me personally, as the character that is most tortured in the play, not because she is personally effected by her own choices like Blanch and Stanley, but is tortured by both characters while trying to juggle the two of them and calm the scene however is always effected because they fight over her for example Stanley's alcoholism and gambling problems led him to beat Stella during a game of poker where Stella felt very vulnerable and upset due to this. Also Blanche caused torture upon Stella in a slightly sneakier way. This is because she acts like she wants to be around Stella because she is tortured herself after the loss of the plantation however is causing Stella to be sad because she wants to be there for Blanche however with Blanche's selfish acts she feels again vulnerable and very controlled by how Blanche is feeling.