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.
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.
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