Week Twelve: Jack and the Beanstalk Preparations

Preparation for the Pantomime

 

Being a part of the Level 2 BTEC Performing Arts (Acting) Diploma, one key part of our work in the College Theatre is to work back stage in the yearly Christmas Pantomime.  Whilst the Level 3 students would be working on stage and giving a perfromance to the audience, the Level 2's are to work back stage and assist in making the show a well paid for performance.  Near the beginning of the year we were introduced to the Level 3 students and sat with them through the read through of act one, then sooner we were given our job titles for the pantomime.  To begin with my job title was assistant stage manager, and in that job I was to be in charge of prop management.  However the jobs were given out to the twelve members of our tutor, so when two members of the tutor group left there was to be some rearranging in the job titles.  As one member of the group, who left for personal reasons, had the role of stage manager, therefore switching a few members of the group to another position.  Stage manager was given to another member of the group.  Whereas I was given the role of DSM (Deputy Stage Manager).  Now my role in the pantomime was to have a copy of the script and another sheet of paper in which I would use to prompt cast and crew members.  This is called a prompt script, in which I would have by my side backstage so I have to ensure every member of the cast and crew would be on time for their queues on the performance night.  For example, I would have a head set which I would use to tell the props manager that a certain prop is needed on stage at a certain time, for a particular character.  So for the main performance me and the stage manager and the pyrotechnic manager would be backstage to ensure all queue times go according to plan on the actual performance night.

     As for the rest of this week, our job as Level 2's was to assist in any way we could to set the stage for the performance.  This was helpful as it allowed us to get to know the Level 3 students a little more, and prepared us with our jobs as we took notes on what we needed to do individually, and I made my prompt script.

     As the week drew to a close we had the stage set up and our equipment at the ready for next week.  Next week would be our technical rehearsal as the Level 3 students would rehearse their lines, and us Level 2 students would work on our roles backstage, to ensure that the 'Jack and the Beanstalk' pantomime would be an entertaining performance. 

Week Eleven

The Next Assignment

 

After our successful performance and evaluation of our 'Scaramouche Jones' assignment, we concluded our first assignment, and this week we began our next assignment 'The Historical Development of Drama' presentation.  The week began on Monday 25th November, starting with an introduction to the assignment and our teacher began by giving us all a task.  After everybody in the tutor had been placed into pairs, our job was to do some research into the chosen subject for the assignment: the historical development of drama.  From previous research and knowledge we knew the historical origins of drama originated from Ancient Greece and developed with a new form of theatre known as Physical Theatre and learnt how it developed throughout history.

     The ancient Greek Theatre originated in 500 BC which introduced the three main theatre genres: Tragedy, which began in the late 6th century BC; Comedy, which began in 486 BC; and Satyr, which was a genre of plays where some of the theatrical forms to emerge into the world.  To begin with the purpose Greek Theatre was designed as a festival to honour their Gods.  Especially towards the Greek God Dionysus, the God of the grape harvest.  From recorded history we know that in 534 BC a contest was won by Thespis in Athens, resulting in him becoming the first recorded actor.  Greek Theatre also introduced the Chorus, which was a group of actors who described and commented upon the main actions of the play with song, dance and recitation.  Greek tragedy had it's beginnings in choral performances, in which a group of fifty men danced and sang dithyrambs; lyric hymns in praise of the God Dionysus.  In the 6th century BC Thespis engaged in dialogue with the chorus leader.  Choral performances continued to dominate the early plays until the time of Aeschylus, in the 5th century BC, who added a second actor and reduced the number of chorus performers to twelve.  Next came Sophocles, who added a third actor as well as increasing the number of chorus performers to fifteen.

     Theatrical presentation developed throughout history into creating Physical Theatre.  Physical Theatre is a cross between dance and drama where many forms of performance takes shape.  Many physical styles of theatre such as mime, Commedia dell'Arte, slap-stick clowning etc. can be categorised as Physical Theatre.  Any movement can also be called Physical Theatre.  The dictionary definition states: Physical Theatre is a term used to describe any mode of performance that pursues storytelling through primary physical means.  A prime example of Physical Theatre use is with Jacques LeCoq, who was born in Paris, 15th December 1921 - 19th January 1999, he was a French actor, mime and acting instructor.  He is most famous for his methods of Physical Theatre, movement and mime which he taught at his founded school L'Ecole Internationale De Theatre Jacques LeCoq in Paris.

     More information about both subjects shall be added for when it comes to the presentation day on 17th December.

 

Our 'Footloose' Dance Performance

Another essential part of the week was our Movement assignment.  For week as a group we worked on creating a dance performance which we would be showing at the College's Winter Sharing Show.  It was an assignment in which the whole group had to participate in a dance performance, dancing to the 'Footloose' musical number.  It was very successful and entertaining, we received positive reviews from audience members, other performers in the show and our Movement teacher, who reviewed our performance.

Week Ten: Evaluation

'Scaramouche Jones' Evaluation

Development

Progresses towards perfection in our performance lead to a number of developments in a number of actor’s performances, and chorus staging and movement.  When we began the assignment on Monday 30th September, reading through the script was difficult for many members of the group.  For reason concerning the fact that the character of ‘Scaramouche Jones’ uses very descriptive words in order to depict certain tragic events within his life, members of the group had trouble with those particular words.  In the sense of pronouncing them and understanding what they meant.  Not only were there struggles with the dialogue, but when reading it through understand the plot was quite tricky, however after having another read through independently and looking at it from others viewpoints we managed to understand the basics of the plot.

     In order ensure that the members of the group understand the dialogue they were to be saying aloud on stage we look deeper into the words and phrases of the script.  This resulted in us either looking up the words, on the internet, or seeing how we can break the syllables up and take notes on our own scripts.  Individually we managed to receive a decent understanding as to how we can pronounce Scaramouche’s dialogue.  Next was the concern of the use of accents.  When it came to Scaramouche describing other people, from abroad, accents were used to depict the fact he wasn’t describing himself but someone he met.  Again we looked up, on the internet, how to pronounce the accent based on real people from the country.  Although the actor’s version of the accent wasn’t perfect, in a way it sort of worked.  Because the script is written as one man onstage therefore Scaramouche the character is giving his own, imperfect, impression the character being described.  Therefore the actors impression was imperfect making it more convincing as being in character and the events actually happened to this character and how much of an impact it had on him and how much he remembers from his haunting past.

     After getting the pronunciation working a lot more improved than we did at the read through, the next step to work on was staging.  How were we to stage this?  To begin with we improvised our stage movement to see is it would work.  To begin with it didn’t work very well.

 

 

From the recording above as you can see there is very little movement in the performance.  To begin with a knew very little about how the character was going to move and present the dialogue, so to begin with I just read the lines out loud and improvised some movement.  Although the “Fear and Delight” actions, I borrowed from the actor Pete Porstlewaite’s portrayal of the character (from the movie adaptation of ‘Scaramouche Jones’).  Also our teacher suggested that I and the chorus should collapse on stage, on the line “God, what a day!” to show exhaustion after doing his last circus performance.  This worked well as the chorus represented Scaramouche’s past, therefore they know what he is feeling and thinking.  While this video may show what we started with in the end I developed towards making a slow walk towards the chair, then collapsing and standing in mid-sentence to get both the audiences and the chorus’ attention.  The chorus’ movement, in this scene was mostly improvised, especially with the use of hand gestures on the line “clucking round their kiddies”.  Hand gestures to show the clucking of a chicken.  However most of the chorus’ movements had a good purpose in other scenes such as interacting with the actor on stage to portray a prison cell, a gypsy camp or a court scene and many more.  The significance of all this was to see if we were capable to use our imagination to make the chorus and our own performances intriguing and entertain for a new audience.  Also with the development, from going to a very simple, rather boring, performance into an entertaining visual story told by this character.   

 

Character Study

The key strategy for the actor’s performance is to understand the character inside out.  Knowing the characters age, how the character would move and how the character would response to events and speeches.  This was another element of development in our performance as to begin with (as seen in the rehearsal video) the character is lifeless and boring.  Not giving the impression that this man on stage is ninety-nine years old, is a clown just came out of his last show, and has a really interesting story to tell the audience.  Therefore the development of the character began in our Physical Theatre lessons.

     In this lesson, we began with a meditation like session to get our brains in gear for our thoughts to wonder and spread for when our teacher would ask us question and tell us what we are and where we are.  Telling us how we are this character who has been in a lot of shows and is tired of a late night and how he has travelled far and wide.  Then once we opened our eyes we all stood up and began to walk around the class room showing our age, understanding how he would walk.  The way I thought it would have been the best way to portray Scaramouche’s walk was to have the top half of the body pointing partially to the flood, giving the impression he is old and tired of life.  Along with a walk that required the legs to be straight and the feet spread apart, to give an interpretation of a naive clown.  A naive clown is shy, awkward, cowardly, sensitive, cheerful and often happy.  This is how I felt it would be best to portray the clown of ‘Scaramouche Jones’ as he has been through all these tragic events and yet be able to make a clown to show that these events happened to him for a purpose.  Therefore a slow walk to show how long it took to end those events, a very tedious walk, along with a hint of sadness, shown in his negative facial expression and focusing the top half of the body towards the floor. 

     After getting a decent version of how the character would walk down the imaginary street, the next step was look at how you would react to objects and people.  Again this was all use of the imagination as our teacher was describing what scene the character was going through, and our job was to stay in character the whole time.  So our teacher described how our character was walking down the street and went into a shop and wanted to buy an object, this object we imagined ourselves, and wanted it desperately and unfortunately the character didn’t have enough money.  This was handy as we were to show how the character could facial express desperation and disappointment.  After this our teacher described how the character would react to an unexpected audience, as a group of people knew who he was and wanted to see him do a performance.  But all in all we improvised all these events in character; knowing full well all we needed to know about the characters thoughts and feelings to create our own portrayal.

     Once this lesson came to an end we knew how we would portray the character and when it came to another rehearsal we now knew most of the lines and how we would perform in character.

 

Performance Evaluation

The performance is over, but progression could be improved.  While the final performance from our own eyes was a success, after watching it from an audiences point of view (a video camera was placed at the back of the audience, recording the performance), we saw things a little differently.  While learning lines and staging wasn't a problem, there were many other problems that could have been improved in order to make the performance pitch perfect.

     So the story of the play titled ‘Scaramouche Jones’ is of an old man telling the story of his life, as it comes to an end.  Set back stage of his last performance at the circus, being the children clown entertainment, he breaks the forth wall in telling the audience of how he is only hours away from reaching one hundred years old.  Using very descriptive dialogue, he tells the story from the second he was born to the current moment where he is telling the tale.  Telling us all how becoming a clown was his destiny and a white clown mask would fuse onto his face in order to complete the incredible journey of his life.

     When reading through the script I thought it was well written and very interesting about this lonely and lost character.  Along with our teacher/directors plan to create our own interpretation of this play.   The idea was to have each member of the group to have at least two pages of dialogue to read aloud on stage, whilst having the rest of the group to be the characters chorus.  Presenting the characters thoughts and feeling throughout the play, which worked extremely well when the character describes the tragic events of his life.  While our version of the script had a number of scenes edited due to two members of the group leaving the course, we managed to get the basis of the plot down, so when each actor performs on stage they give important and relevant moments and events of the characters life.  My role in the play was to open the whole production and bring the play to an end.  The character that I was portraying was the old clown who just retired from his last show and begins to tell the story of his life.  Then transitioning to become a member of the chorus of clowns and having the next actor perform the next pages, I would sometimes interfere along with other members of the chorus to whisper key words or act out certain events and represent certain characters Scaramouche had met in his past.  Later returning to become a late fifty year old version of Scaramouche Jones and coming back to the ninety-nine year old version to conclude the story.  The way I used my character study was to give the obvious sense that this character if very old, but at the same time there was a hint of energy and enthusiasm as he is a professional entertainer.  As well as giving my own interpretation of my own clown, a naïve clown.  While the whole group had discovered their own clowns, performing them was used mainly in the chorus.  Because the chorus was of Scaramouche’s ghosts and thoughts, it was also representing an audience of clowns who knew exactly what he was going through; and are able to keep the audience entertained throughout this production.  I wanted to give a hint of my clown in my portrayal, with the walk as the clown was to be shy and happy, while Scaramouche himself was confident and positive about his current situation.  Combining all these elements and studies I managed to give a portrayal that was capable to open and close this production.

     Developing this play consisted of taking many Physical Theatre lessons in which we explored the characteristics of Scaramouche Jones and studied how we would present the origins within our individual characterisation.  Which linked into learning lines, because when an actor knows their lines and the plot they are capable to understand the characters origins and thoughts.  In a way this can assist the way they perform their own interpretation of the character.  Once I learnt my lines I understood what he is saying and why he was saying it, giving me a better chance to know how I would pronounce the lines on stage.

     Although if I was to evaluate my own performance skills, after watching the production on tape, I would note a few changes to be made.  When it came to vocal skills, I felt I needed to speak up at certain moments.  For example, the crossword moment, I was meant to thought track and question as to how to work out the answer.  The concern I had was to be a little louder for the audience, and I felt in the actual performance I wasn’t loud enough.  So that’s one target I’ll set for the next assignment.  This was one concern and also the timing for vocals was a key importance as it resulted in queues for the chorus to react with an action or repetition.  When it came to Physical skills I used up as much of the stage as I could, and had as much use of my own body to depict what I was saying in my dialogue.  Also interactions with other members of the group was important as we all had to know the script and know what transaction were to be put in place for us to switch roles.  As well as the group chorus scene.  Showing interaction with similar pronunciations to represent the same characters.  Therefore I felt the relationship between the other members of the group was a positive as we all work well and hard to get the whole storyline of the ‘Scaramouche Jones’ and understand our individual and group queues to give a decent performance.

     The mood and atmosphere of our production was to turn the stage into a back stage.  Dark coloured lighting was used to make it seem that there was a brighter light behind our curtains.  Set design consisted of a make-up stall for last minute preparations before Scaramouche went on stage for his last performance; as well as a mirror frame, which was used for transactions in changing actors onstage.  Sound effects were used to begin with to sound as if there was an audience, who had just watch Scaramouche perform, and announce when the play is set and who is onstage at the moment.  After the opening scene sound effects were used to support the chorus’ mimes of as ship at sea, a moving train and fireworks, giving the audience a better vision of what is happening in these descriptive flashbacks.  Although the key aspect that created the atmosphere was the fact that all our individual performances were linked.  Although the character of the old Scaramouche Jones was confident and positive, and each member of the group showed this within their performance, we also had to show and negative and sad emotion as he reflects on the tragic events of his life.  Creating a dark atmosphere, reflecting a haunting past, although the chorus made the play uplifting and kept the audience entertained, it was the actors who made the audience feel sorrow for this character and know what pain he has been through.

     The elements of the performance I thought were particularly successful were the chorus and the actor’s transactions.  The chorus because the audience could clearly see them on stage and understand that the character onstage couldn’t.  Also the chorus provided an entertaining role of providing a slight comedic interpretation of the events Scaramouche went through, all using the elements of a clown’s performance.  Along with the audience understanding that each member of the chorus was indeed an actor who was going to come onstage this is where the transactions come into the play.  The transactions in the audience’s point of view were when the actor changed with someone in the chorus, and they would take over the role of Scaramouche Jones.  These were very successful as there were different way in which they switched, the main one was the mirror frame used at least four times throughout the production, along with simply switched positions on stage, and even creating a position when one actor would move between a chorus members legs.  Showing the awkwardness of Scaramouche’s travels.  There were many successful elements in the production but these two stood out the most.

     Finally I would say if there were to be any final improvements to the next performance, I would say we would have to improve on timing for lines and chorus queues.  As well as improving on vocal work.  But all in all with some misfires I would say this performance of ‘Scaramouche Jones’ was quite successful in our group.

 

A Chorus of Clowns

Whilst the performance was well decorated and colourful, the main element on stage was the chorus.  The main purpose of the chorus was to present the characters, onstage, thoughts and feelings.  However our chorus blended many elements.  So the chorus was created with nine members of our tutor group whilst one was to be performing their part of the dialogue, therefore showing that the chorus was in fact a part of Scaramouche himself.  This was interesting because the chorus was representing a part of Scaramouche so that when the performer on stage shows emotion the chorus can react, knowing full well what he is feeling as they too have been through these emotions.  Another key feature of the chorus is to entertain the audience, because one worry about doing a performance of this play is the fact that there is only one man on stage, while we may of divided the script for our performance amongst ten people, there was the fear of the audience drifting away from the play and no longer being interested.  However that wasn’t the case.  Because the chorus was based around clowns we thought it would be best if we made the chorus entirely out of our own clowns.  By our own clowns I refer to the lesson which we discovered what type of clown we were.

     In a previous Physical Theatre lesson our teacher gave us a simple task to stand in front of the class and tell a joke.  Now when we told this joke our teacher looked carefully at how we would tell the joke and how we would stand, then afterwards our teacher would tell us what type of clown we are.  When it came to my joke I stood on stage and told the joke a number of times in which I got the words mixed up a couple of times a panicked a little by going silent.  This resulted in the teacher telling me that I was a naive clown.  This was because I went all quiet and shy when on stage showing what type of clown I was without even knowing the purpose of the exercise.  So after all of us knowing what type of clown we are it came in handy a lot because we used it in the chorus so that all of us would be representing a version of Scaramouche life and clown.  Combining all these elements to create a visionary group which are like the elephant in the room, the audience can see them but the character knows only them to be his thoughts and feelings, the ghosts of his past and ghost of many clowns like himself.  Keeping the audience entertained and interested throughout the whole performance.



Scaramouche Jones Week 6

Final Rehearsal & Showtime

The sixth and final week of our assignment of 'Scaramouche Jones' began with our final rehearsal before the main performance.  These rehearsals consisted of us having a full fun through, without any hesitation, and making any final tweaks towards our individual performances. 

     Monday 11th November began with our normal timetable, although our main focus was on the performance.  Preparing with costumes on and scripts to the side, we simply started with seeing how far we could go without any mistakes.  The day consisted of minor errors when a member of the cast would forget their lines, or chorus members would forget their queues, although the main concern was when certain members of the group failed to show up on time for rehearsals.  However our confidence didn't change.  The day resulted in each attended member remembering practically all their lines and staging movement.  The minor errors consisted of actors on stage having difficulty with remembering how to pronounce certain descriptive words, along with assisting the chorus with their queues.  The actor assisting the chorus’ queue consisted of the actor having to say a particular/strong word or a sentence which could lead to the chorus reacting to the word, repeating the word, or in case of a sentence the chorus could mime out the event being described.  All these errors were resolved by taking notes in our scripts and rehearsing them as equally as much as our own lines.

     Tuesday 12th November consisted of the whole day being near same as Monday, a full on rehearsal.  While yesterday we managed to succeed in running through the whole play the only problem consisted of members of the cast missing rehearsals.  However today we had a full attendance, a full cast.  Now we returned to the rehearsals.  Again in costume, in a big class room and no scripts.  We managed to go through the beginning to the end; but again there were some minor errors.  The main one consisted main on lines.  While we had a full cast the only problem was their hesitation in remembering certain key parts of their lines which lead to chorus queues, then resulting in some difficulties.  Our teacher/director was very helpful towards people who struggled with lines, prompting them with a script, along with the other members of the group, while being in the chorus, were able to remind them of what’s coming chorus movement wise.  The day ended with these errors being the main focus in the rehearsal and saw how we could fix them for when it came to the main performance. 

     Wednesday 13th November what was to be the end of the week, was now the final rehearsal day therefore spending the whole day in a bigger room used for performance space.  With full costume, and a video camera at the ready to record the rehearsal, so we could look back on our rehearsals and see the development of how we progressed to making this performance more intriguing and entertaining.  The result was not disappointing.  Although mistakes such as people forgetting lines and chorus queues were still amongst us and there were members of the group that couldn’t attend.  We managed to perform the basic story line of ‘Scaramouche Jones’’ life and show the plot to a teacher who could attend the main performance.  And the review from this rehearsal was a positive.  The day ended with all of us going through some notes and seeing what is the most important thing for us to remember for when we do the actual performance.  Such as pronunciation of certain words.  Along with our performance movement to act out the descriptive events.  But all in all the final rehearsal was a success.  

     Thursday 14th November the day of the performance began in the college theatre.  As each member of the group show up for the day, we started with preparing the stage for the show and getting props, costumes and make up together for the evening’s performance.  After a couple of hours preparing and having everything at the ready, we began the last minute rehearsal.  This one was by far the most successful rehearsal, for many reasons including the fact that we had a full cast attendance and with use of props and make up, it brought the story to life.  Although there were again errors including lines and timing but they were almost unnoticeable.  When it came nearer the hour of our main performance we had another run through but this time with an audience.  An audience of Level 3 students in Performing Arts and again there were some mistakes but once we finished that performance, the students and teachers gave their reviews and they were all positive.  They mentioned how we worked well in a group and how it was perfectly timed to create a great performance with a great and interesting story.  Once this rehearsal was very successful we rapped up and prepared for the main performance.  Then at 7pm it was Showtime.

     Friday 15th November, after a very successful first performance, the second performance had high hopes and didn’t disappoint.  The day began just as it did the day before, in preparing the stage for the afternoons show.  However, there was no rehearsal today.  As soon as we were all prepared in costume and make up, with our own props at the ready, our Physical Theatre teacher stepped in and gave us a few warm up exercises getting us prepared.  This was helpful to get ourselves in character again after a successful first performance, and getting us focused for when we begin.  Finally we had a conversation about certain moments in the play when people struggled with timing and we looked at how the chorus would move and react, and how the actor should pronounce/perform this line.  Giving the chorus time to think for when they have to move and when the actor has to say the line.  After notes were taking the audience entered and then we began the second and final performance of ‘Scaramouche Jones’. 

 

Scaramouche Jones Week 5

A Full Run Through

 

The beginning of this week lead to the second to last full on rehearsal of our 'Scaramouche Jones' assignment.  Monday's lesson began with us finishing incomplete monologues and focusing on them inparticularly.  Looking at how the actor was to present their lines and be positioned on stage, whilst the chorus was to analyse the script and if there was any way we could present this.  This took up the whole of the first lesson seeing how we could present the unfinished monologues, then knowing more or less the basic structure of the entire play, which would then lead to a full run through of the play the next day.  Lesson two on Monday was seeing the opening monologues and seeing how much we had remembered and how many notes we had taken in previous rehearsals.  Starting with my opening monologue and seeing how far we could go, and we managed to get through the first three monologues, however there were a few moments when actors on stage forgot their lines and certain people in the chorus forgot their movements.  So to an actor forgetting their lines, our teacher prompted us to keep the flow of the play.  Whereas resolving the chorus' issues we turn to each other and had a conversation to how much we could remember all together, then take notes in our scripts so we could be a step ahead of the game, for the full run through.  These lessons were pretty successful, in the sense that we were able to give each actor a decent amount of movement on stage for when it came to be their turn to present their lines, and get a decent understand of what the chorus was meant to do on stage for the first few monologues.  So to end Monday's lessons we had a final hour to decided what our costumes were going to be.  Our teacher took us into the costume department and we looked main at the bright coloured clothing to visually present our own clowns.  While in the motion picture version of 'Scaramouche Jones' Pete Postlethwaite portrayed the character with a more darker tone by giving the clown a very dark clown like costume.  With the use of a tailed jacket, big clown shoes, white shirt, white fingerless gloves and a bold patched wig.  Whereas I wanted something similar but with more use of colour.  So I went with a purple shirt, with braces and checkered trousers, converse shoes, white fingerless gloves and a top hat.  Showing a little reference to Pete Postlethwaite and having a little more uplifting colourful clown.  By the end of the day we all had our own clown costumes.

     Tuesday began with us having a full run through of the play in the theatre, giving us a better atmosphere to work in to ensure good concentration.  So we started working a little bit more on some monologues which needed a little work on, by after spending about half an hour on their monologue we began the full run through.  This session was mildly successful as we managed to go through as many as we could before we ran out of time.  We also had some disagreements about adding in new elements to mime out scenes, but in the end we managed to conclude on having the chorus mimes written down in our scripts and no longer changing them just altering them and adding in key position to end the play.  So in summary Tuesday was mild success and we were now prepared to have a full run through in our big rehearsal day.

     Wednesday was a very different day as we were off timetable and started from 11:30am and finished a 8:00pm having full on rehearsal.  This session was very successful.  We started back in the college theatre and dressed in costume starting from beginning to end and seeing how much we had learnt and remembered from both the dialogue and the chorus movement.  The first run through lead to a number of pauses for script prompting and chorus discussion but we managed to go from the beginning to the end.  Discussing with our teacher how certain people were to do their scripted mimes and movement out of the chorus, alongside our teacher suggesting how the conclusion of the play should be presented.  After a break we took notes on all of these movements and memorised as much a we could.  Going back into a full run through starting back at the beginning again our teacher took notes and gave us her feedback once we successfully went through the whole play.  Once again after another break we returned absorbing our teachers notes and took a few minutes to see how we could improve for when it came to yet another run through from the beginning to see how we had improved.  This final run through didn't last long as again, we ran out of time, but all in all the huge rehearsal was very successful and very handy to resolve our problems in our acting and our chorus presentation for when it comes to next week.

     Next week shall begin with final rehearsals until we have the main performances, on Thursday 14th at 7pm and Friday 15th at 1pm.

Scaramouche Jones Week 4

Editing and Rehearsals

 

The forth week in preparation towards our 'Scaramouche Jones' assignment, and this week began with a slight change.  Within mid rehearsal a unfortunate event occurred amongst our tutor group.  Unfortunately two members of the tutor group left the course, therefore leaving only ten members of the group and more editing to be made to the script.  With certain scenes and dialogue being cut, in order to have a fair amount of time in the performance and have each member of the group to have an equal amount of lines to learn.  As well as having to split two pieces of dialogue, which were to be said by the two members who left the course, amongst ourselves to ensure that the pieces were not cut entirely.  This resulted in certain members having to say more than one piece of dialogue, which is just like having to learn two monologues.  My part in 'Scaramouche Jones' remained to be the same, except my part to close the play was extended.

     Once the editing was complete we continued with rehearsals.  This weeks rehearsal was to simply focus on people who hadn't practised their parts, on stage, and explore the dialogue to see how we could present the chorus.  Alongside this was the members of the chorus focusing more deeper into the use of movement and speech.  After observing a chorus at work with a lot more use of speech and little movement, we decided to experiment on certain pieces of dialogue.  Where lines were said and we all would have a conversation on whether we should highlight this line through use of speech and whisper.  Also the use of movement was to used a lot more in certain dialogue, such as the use of physically changing the characters position on stage; moving him from front centre stage to back centre stage.

     In summary this whole week was taken over by a vast amount of editing the script and rehearsing to ensure each member of the group would be able to give the best performance possible.  Whether they are on stage representing the character or the chorus.  Along with looking at how to highlight their individual personality's to show the audience that the chorus is just like the characters inner clown and presents his thoughts and feelings.  As well as looking at how the characters dialogue is interesting and intriguing to the chorus, which will catch the audiences attention.  I think this week was helpful as the constant rehearsal will insure that we are all fully prepared and organised for our main performance; and half term ensure that we have full time to practise in our own spare time.  The performance shall take place on Thursday 14th November at 7pm and the second and final performance shall be on Friday 15th November at 1pm.

Scaramouche Jones Week 3

Dialogue and Staging Rehearsals

 

The third week of preparation for our 'Scaramouche Jones' assignment, and our main focus this week was on each tutor group members monologue and looking in more detail as to how we were to do the staging.  The dialogue rehearsals had each member of the tutor group looking at their lines in a little more detail, in the sense of understanding the meaning of certain words and the purpose of the character saying them.  As well as rehearsing and beginning to learn our individual lines, off by heart, so in upcoming lessons we would be able to speak aloud rather than read off a script with hesitation.  Whereas for the other members of the group we were to be rehearsing more on the staging of the chorus.  Focusing on how we were to react to certain words, the character was saying and thinking of how we could mime out the descriptive events in the actors dialogue.  Our first session on Monday 14th October began with a simple run through, as we had the actor read their lines and took notes in our own scripts as to how we could present the characters thoughts and feelings, or even mime out the event they're describing, in the chorus.  This was interesting as we all came up with different ideas that required many different use of speech repetition and staging for each member of the chorus, but in the end we came up with a good use of staging, in the actors part of the performance.
     The second lesson of the rehearsals was on Tuesday 15th and in this lesson we began with taking more notes, in our study book, and received a better understanding of the purpose of a chorus within a performance.  We also had a look at a chorus at work on screen.  Watching a chorus was interesting as they had more use of speech and they used the majority of the stage, which isn't how I pictured a chorus within a production.  My previous knowledge was the thought that the chorus was to use a minimum amount of speech and almost be like the elephant in the room, where the audience knows their presence and purpose, but their invisible in the characters eyes.  Whereas in the footage we watched the chorus consisted of about twelve people, similar to the amount we have in ours, and theirs used more speech, as if to represent a group of people summoning spirits, as they all spoke at the same time.  As well as the chorus we watched had less physicality with the character on stage and kept their distance.  This was all very helpful as we all had a different opinion of a chorus and came up with many different ideas as to how we were to portray our own chorus on stage to for fill their purpose.
     The next half of this lesson consisted of us rehearsing our group monologue.  The group monologue was added in by our teacher who thought it would be interesting to have every member of the group on stage performing one monologue, then returning to individual performances.  But this group performance can be found in the centre of the play, and was a scene where there was two characters being described on stage, and the handy technique of having the whole group perform this was to represent more than one person in the descriptive monologue.  Now as to how we were to stage this, I thought it would be better if we divided the group into two, where one represented Scaramouche and the other represented the extra characters being described by Scaramouche himself.  And how we were to stage this was to have the two groups on both halves of the stage but meet in back centre stage, so we made a 'V' shape on stage.  This was to show us staying in contact, just like a chorus should do.  This was our end result:

I think the end result was very well done, as each member of the group had a line to say and there was a fair amount of movement on stage and in the performance I think the audience shall recieve a good image of the described event.
     For our Physical Theatre lesson on Wednesday we started off looking a little more at our own lines and came up with a plan as to how we could learn them in time for the performance, as well as highlight certain words we didn't understand and had to look them up on the internet to find out their meaning and how to pronounce them.  This was handy for certain people as they did not know how to pronounce certain words and struggled to read aloud in rehearsals.  But this lesson allowed us to look in a little more detail for the next rehearsal lesson.
     We ended the lesson with a great use of Physical Theatre practical work to get a much better knowledge of our character.  So the method our teacher gave us was to close our eyes and look at the characters origins story, and think of how the character would walk and talk and breath.  Then we put the knowledge to the test and acted out an improvised scene, in which our teacher made up on the spot for us to act out the character of Scaramouche Jones.  This was incredibly helpful as we managed to get a physicality to this old man who has been through a lot and is still a performing, famous, clown.  We all came up with interesting methods of the characters physicality and they will all come in handy for when it comes to the rehearsals and the main performance, as we will all be able to portray the character in many different ways, but hopefully have a convincing performance of Scaramouche Jones. 

Scaramouche Jones Week 2

Chorus Preparation

The second week on our ‘Scaramouche Jones’ assignment began with us having a rehearsal of the dialogue and the chorus preparation.  As the play of ‘Scaramouche Jones’ consists of one man on stage telling the story of the main character, and there being twelve members of our tutor group, our teacher came up with a clever method of being able to divide the script amongst the twelve of us so we all have a part to play.  Having a least two pages to perform each.  However the big question was what were eleven people meant to do when one member of the group was to be acting?  The answer was a chorus.  As a group was learnt in last week’s Physical Theatre lesson what the purpose of a chorus is and how they were to be presented on stage.  Knowing that a chorus’ purpose is to present the main characters thoughts and feelings and their position on stage is to be the shadow of the character.  But this week we were to be having a proper rehearsal of how we were to pronounce the dialogue and how we were to present the chorus and receive feedback from our teacher as she was both giving advice and telling us what she thought from an audience’s perspective.  We began as simply as we could with giving a good layout of the stage.  Alongside me reading through my opening lines, with the chorus members analysed each word and discussed how they could present the characters thoughts and feelings as he was saying the dialogue; this was all to be presented through a series of mimes and quiet sounds.  For example, the opening line states: “God, what a day!  What a day,” which is to be delivered with the tone of exhaustion and tiredness.  This was to be the perfect starting point for both the actor and the chorus, as well as a good starting point for our rehearsal.  Because we ended up with presenting the character to walk on stage slowly followed by the chorus and delivers the lines and have the character rest himself down onto a stall, whilst the chorus was to present the feeling of exhaustion.  So their part was to simply collapse onto the stage flaw.  This was very handy as it was a good starting point for the chorus rehearsal and it gives the audience a good understanding of what age the character is.  The next step was to take a look at the very next line: “Good crowd, quite a good crowd, not bad for a swansong.”  This line is to show the characters comments on tonight’s circus audience, demonstrating that he has a long career of performing and has seen many crowds; but at the same time we wondered how we could present the characters thoughts and feelings.  But it was a couple of people in the chorus group who had suggested that they should nod in agreement and make silent comments about what the character has just said.  Again this was handy in the way that the chorus is his thoughts and feelings and at the same time the people acting the chorus would soon perform the same character from the past.  So the silent comments would represent what the younger Scaramouche would of thought about these comments, and how he would of responded.  The whole chorus in a way is to represent Scaramouche himself and almost in a way, they are the elephant in the room, because the audience can see them and the chorus assists Scaramouche on stage but he never really notices them.  Which think is very interesting, and very handy to have choruses in a play such as this one.

     As we went on we came up with many strategies as to present the chorus with the use of movement and whispers to echo to highlight important moments within the dialogue.  But once I had finished reading my part in the play, which was the first two pages, we had to come up with a strategy as to how we were to change actors on stage without it crossing the audiences mind.  This is where out teacher suggested the use of a mirror frame on stage.  A mirror frame is used in stage productions to represent a mirror, but have no glass in it, so the actor may look into the fame and act as though they are looking at their own reflection, and have the audience see what the actor sees.  So for our performance our teacher wanted me and Alicia, who was to perform the next two pages, stand opposite each other with the frame in between us as if to represent the character staring at his own reflection.  But in order for us to switch places we came up with a strategy, a strategy that required me to say my final line and Alicia was to say certain parts, which would give the audience the knowledge that we are playing the same person, alongside us reflecting each other’s actions.  Then we were to take each other’s hand and I was to pull her out of the frame onto centre stage.  Placing her as the next actor performing as Scaramouche Jones and I was to join the chorus and we were to begin performing the thoughts and feelings of her portrayal as Scaramouche Jones.

     The next day we began performing the same technique, but I was in the chorus and it was Alicia’s turn to deliver her lines as Scaramouche Jones.  This time we came up with more mimes and sounds to create an environment that the character is describing.  As this dialogue was more about telling the story of the characters birth, rather than my part, which was just opening the play and introducing the character.  Again this was all very helpful as we managed to create an ideal image as to how we are to present the play in both dialogue pronunciations and chorus presentation for when it comes to our main performance in November.

Scaramouche Jones Week 1

Character Analysis

For our first Performing Arts assignment we are to be performing the play 'Scaramouche Jones'.  The play consists of one man, dressed as a clown, giving the story of his one hundred years of living.  The character named Scaramouche Jones tells us, the audience, his life from the moment he was born and how the first half of his life was one huge tragedy.  Only the first half of his life, because as his childhood was dark and dull, and he describes through dialogue and mime how his mother had died and how he went through the Holocaust in World War II.  But then he describes how his life took a turn and he "experiences laughter for the first time" in his life, and then decided to become a clown for the next fifty years of his life.  The play begins and ends with Scaramouche backstage of a circus as he has just performed his last show and the audience visualises his life through his mimes and multiple voice changes.
     The assignment consists of the twelve of us, in the tutor group, performing at least two pages of the script each.  This is a clever technique in which each member of the group will be able to perform a piece of the script, and the audience will be able to see multiple personality and see how they portray the character.  As well as being able to see the different ages of the characters life, as he, and the audience, is transported to his childhood and early adulthood. 
    
     We began with a read through of the script on Monday 30th September.  A tradition introduction to a new script is for each cast member to have a read through of the whole play to receive a better understanding of the plot and any character details hidden within the script.  Each member of the group was to read their part within the play, and my part was to open and close the play; to introduce the character and close the play.  Once we had all finished reading our parts and concluded the read through we then turned to a discussion as to what our thought and feelings were on the play.  From what we read we had a pretty good understand about what the character had been through and how he came to be in these situations.  This would all be important information as it give an actor better knowledge as to how he/she is to perform their character, by knowing their origins story.  We also presented our initial idea as to why the character would reaction the situation he is describing, or even how he's feeling at the beginning and the end of the play.  Which also linked in with the initial idea as to how the character should be staged and how he should move, to make the performance more realistic and believable.
     At the end of the day we had a look at video showing a professional performance of 'Scaramouche Jones'.  There were two videos showing two extracts of the play, the first clip was to opening lines, and the second clip was an extract from half way through the play.  The video showed a talented performance of the character by actor Pete Postlethwaite.  Now I thought this was very interesting because it can be very handy to see another actors interpretation of the character.  Pete Postlethwaite's performance was very interesting as he was able to perform as sense of a board comedian, the sense of an old man who know what is about to happen to him, as well as the sense of a man who has been through a lot, a really troubled life and, in a way, he is almost happy to see his life come to an end.  Because the clown had a dark origins story and it had a deep impact on him and the audience see's how dark it really was through his description, it was interesting to know, and see another actor perform, the sense that when he is performing as the clown he is all cheery and happy, for the imaginary audience.  But when he is back stage he becomes himself as if to show his dark disagreement of life.  Just like it is delivering the moral message that he has seen the harsh reality of life and will ensure that no child will experience it just like he did, hence forth giving an entertaining clown performance to brighten up and entertain children.

     Finally on Wednesday 2nd October we had another Physical Theatre lesson, focusing on the characters chorus.  Because with there being twelve people on stage and there being moments when another member of the group would come and perform their part of the play, what would the others do on stage whilst the one actor would be delivering their lines?  Well in previous Physical Theatre lessons we were introduced to an actor chorus.  An actor chorus is where a few members of the group, but in this case all, would be on stage and physically present the characters thoughts and feeling as they presented their lines.  In this lesson we had a practise.  So I was to be delivering their first lines in the play, whilst everyone else was to be presenting the reaction to what I was saying and how I was saying it.  Each member of the chorus presented different ideas as to how they should present this, knowing how I was to say the lines, and offered multiple ideas and constantly changed it.  Another interesting method was to offer multiple personality's within the chorus, as in a way to show the different ages of his life.  How they did this was that one member of the group was to be performing a extract in which they were miming the age the character was in his childhood.  So in the chorus they were giving child like actions, whilst the rest just looked in disagreement.  The plan is to use similar reactions and mimes throughout the whole play, as actors would switch places with a member of the chorus and it would be their turn to deliver their lines and the others turn to be a member of the chorus.  The lesson was all interesting and helpful for when we come to do the actual performance in November.

Week Three: Mon 23 September – Weds 25 September 2013

At the beginning of this week we began with another set of monologue performances.  On our Acting Skills and Techniques lesson, last week, we were assigned homework, to learn a new monologue given to us by our teacher, and perform it to the class the following week.  My monologue was from the play ‘The Gods Weep’ written by Dennis Kelly, and my character was Colm.  Just like last week two students were being reviewed by another student and rate their positives and negatives.  The purpose of all this was the same as last week, to see a student’s performance skills and see the reviewers understanding of drama strategies.  Each performance was mostly successful.

After our break, we came to our third singing lesson and this lesson had us presenting a homework in which we can understand another useful technique for a singing performance.  The homework was to research into the five singing vowels.  The singing vowels are very similar to the literacy vowels: A, E, I, O, and U.  Except these type of vowels are similar in the sense that they sound the same but the method is to put more enthusiasm as you sing them in lyrics.  The purpose of this was to get a understanding as to how a singer would pronounce their strong words, and identify certain techniques, within their singing. 

Our third Art Industry lesson had us look at some important techniques, for drama.  Such as looking at character analysis and development, as well as taking notes for when it comes to our own performance.  Note such as knowing the time period of the play, the authors intentions and plot of the play.  All of these notes have a key importance for an actor, for when it comes to a big performance and an actor has to learn their character inside out in order to give the best performance.

 

The next day we began with a lesson of Development of Drama.  Now in this lesson we were looking at the development of physical theatre.  Looking at what it is and how it originated.  Like drama itself physical theatre came from ancient Greece and was expanded over time, but became very popular when the actor Jacques Lecoq became famous for his use of physical theatre, and then founded in Paris L’Ecole Internationale De Theatre Jacques Lecoq in 1951.  As well as its origins we were to look at its methods.  How the technique behind physical theatre was for an actor to perform a mime performance and make it believable for the audience.  This all came in handy for when it came to our Developing Physical Theatre lessons, understanding a little bit more about where it originated from and how the technique is use by an actor.

After the written work our teacher then gave us a more practical piece of work.  Our teacher gave us a task to see if we were capable of performing a monologue within a group.  Splitting the class into two groups, our teacher gave us a monologue from Greek theatre.  In our group we were to decide how to perform it and how to present our lines.  This was a technique to see how our team building had developed from week one and see each students understanding of drama strategies in order to present the monologue.

At the end of the day our last lesson was our third dance Movement lesson.  In this lesson we began with our warm up technique which we learn in the previous lessons.  Then we were introduced to some new dance moves which would come in handy for our next lesson.  But the key point of this lesson was to perform and understand our warm up technique.

 

The next day we had our third Developing Physical Theatre Performance lesson, and in this lesson we began with some different tasks.  The lesson began like our last two lessons with the warm up, focusing challenge then the teacher told us to think of a joke.  A simple joke which was to be told in front of the whole class.  Then the teacher called us up one by one and he asked us to tell our joke, and without showing us he made some note on our performance.  And without any explanation he told us to repeat our joke and he kept making notes.  Once every student had performed their joke we all sat in a half circle and our teacher revealed what he was taking notes on.  Beginning by telling us about the three types of clowns in theatre.  The first type is Naïve – a type of clown that is childlike, anxious and sorry when he tells a joke.  The second type is August – a clown which is a bit angry and arrogant after he tells a joke.  And the third type is Surreal – a type of clown that is off the wall crazy when he tell his joke.  Our teacher telling us these types of clowns lead to him introducing that he was taking notes on what type of clown we are.  The type of clown I am was a Naïve clown.  This seemed, at first irrelevant, until we were given our first assignment.

Our assignment was the task of preparing for a performance of a play called ‘Scaramouche Jones’.  Which tells the story of an old clown who is about to die and is reflecting on his life.  Therefore the purpose of the lesson was to see what type of clown we were in order for us to relate more to the character of Scaramouche Jones.  The assignment is designed for each student to become this one character and see how each of us is capable of portraying him.

Week Two: Mon 16 September – Weds 18 September 2013

Our second week, lead to our second Acting Skills and Techniques lesson, which was the date our first homework was due in.  Our homework was to learn a monologue.  But it wasn’t to be a random monologue; the main point of this was for each of us to perform a monologue where the character was to be similar to our own characters in reality.  My monologue was from the play ‘Man of the Moment’ written by Alan Aykbourne.  I chose this monologue as I had performed it twice already.  The first time was for my Bronze LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) award and the second time was for an audition to get into South Downs College Level 2 Performing Arts.  Plus I see a similarity between the character Douglas and I.  But when we were all performing, there was to be two other students who were to review your performance, just like I was to review two students.  The purpose of this was to show what the students’ performance was like through an audience member’s point of view; as well as give each student understands of performance techniques.

Our second lesson of singing had us handing in homework.  But this homework was to look at techniques of singing.  The purpose of this homework was for each student to come up with a technique in which allowed a singer’s vocals to be prepared for a singing performance.  For example, I came up with the phrase ‘The Tip of the Tongue and the Teeth and the Lips’ and the method was you were to sing it in rising octaves, so the first time you sing it, you sing it in a deep note, and the next time a bit higher, and increase as you repeat the phrase.  This brings your vocals up so their prepared for a performance and high notes.  Each student gave their techniques amongst themselves, and then they were to share it with the whole class and the teacher.

At the end of the day we had our second Art Industry lesson; these lessons allow us to take a look deeper into the industry of the art within drama.  In this lesson we were focusing on individual skill.  Skill which may come in handy when we come to taking a look at our understanding of ourselves, within this subject.  We listed many skills which we expanded and kept for when it comes to performances, we know what we are all capable of. 

The next day, we had our lesson of The Development of Drama, where we were looking at the history of drama and where and when it originated.  We had a look at a documentary of its origins in ancient Greece and how it became so popular and where the three main genres came from and how they expanded.  This was all useful as; again, it gave us all better knowledge of the history of drama and it may come in handy when it comes to future tasks.

Our final lesson of the day in Movement was quite simple as it was near the same as our first lesson.  The only difference was we were given the task of learning a warm up strategy, which was to be used at the beginning of every movement lesson.  After we went through all the basic dance moves we were introduced to last week, we finished up the day.

The next day, was our second lesson of Physical Theatre and we spent the day working on stage movements and techniques similar to the ones we learn last week.  It was pretty basic but the idea was to get a good understanding of an actor’s physicality on stage for when we get into different practical work next week.

Week One: Mon 9 September – Weds 11 September 2013

On our first day on Level 2 Performing Arts Btec, we began with some simple Drama games.  After a while we had a few moments to underline the purposes of the games.  These Drama games helped us work on certain strategies in which a Performing Arts student needs in order to work well with each other.  For example, team building was required in the game of muddled phrases; this helped us work together in order to make a phrase using separate words, I thought this was helpful in order for us to get to know each other a little bit better.  Alongside this were games which had us warming up and energizing, with observation to one another, and focus.  All these strategies were hidden amongst some simple drama games, leading to a good introduction to the students of the course.

After the first lesson came an introduction to our singing lessons.  Again this was a simple lesson in which the teacher quizzed us on our knowledge of singing productions and musicals in general.

 

On day two, it was our first Performing Arts Production Process, where we had a meeting with the Level 3 Performing Art’s students and we were to have a read through of our end of term project.  Our end of term project was to work with the Level 3 students as they were to be performing a pantomime version of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.   Our task as Level 2 students was to assist backstage.  We spent the lesson reading through the first written act of the productions script.  The purpose of this was to understand the basics of our end of term project and meet with the people we would be working with.

After the read through we went to our final lesson of the day, movement.  This lesson was focusing on our dance movement strategies.  This first lesson was a little bit different to the previous introductory lesson we had; as we were used to games and quizzed, then to focus on our knowledge of acting and singing.  Whereas with dance, the teacher  finished registering us and went to the front of the class room where we could all see him.  Then he began with some simple dance movements and we followed, creating a warm up technique.  This was all handy, because it introduced us to what the teacher had expected of us and it gave us an understanding of what was to come in upcoming movement lessons.

 

On day three, our day began with our first Developing Physical Theatre Performance lesson.  This lesson was interesting because the teacher indicated how an actor should stand on stage and become still, relaxed and focus eye sight dead ahead of us.  Then the teacher introduced certain character movements on stage, such as clown like characters moving in a tall comedic run, and an old curved back run.  This was, in a way, helpful to us because of our upcoming assignment focus on a clown character.  After the body movements, we then went onto taking a look at still images.  Now the purpose of this task was to take a look at all the students’ imagination, as the teacher created a scenario and we had to give a still image of a characters reaction of the scene.  This showed our use of imagination and creativity in improvised strategy games.

At the end of our first week we learnt many new strategies and received a better understanding of techniques and methods within the drama industry.