'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.
