One More Week
Tuesday 13th May 2014
It is only one more week before our main
performance of ‘Junk’ comes to the college theatre. With a timetable of only three days at college,
our aim for this week was to complete blocking every scene in the play, and
rehearse those, in which we haven’t blocked recently. Since Monday we have looked at several scenes
in which we needed to block and continued rehearsing as much as possible to add/create the precise
amount of detail in which would make the play convincing and entertaining for
next week’s audience. Today was the next
day in rehearsing; however we began in the usual formation of completing our ‘hot
seating’ exercise.
In my previous blogs I have stated about
our tutor group working individually in creating their characters using the
script and their own originality, then testing their knowledge in the ‘hot
seating’ exercise. The way the exercise
works is the individual sits in the centre of the room and they would have to
answer questions from other members of the group. The questions have to be answered in
character and they can be either something simple, whether it is about their
hobbies or interests, or if it is something more personal, such as their
origins or relationships or thoughts and feelings.
I found this exercise helpful as, when I
took the seat in the centre of the room, it helped me to understand more about
my characters origins and areas in which I hadn’t focused on in my character’s profile. But during today’s lesson it was increasingly
helpful as it helped others look at their characters in more details and it
backed up my characters relationship with their characters. It also helped me as I was able to get a rough
idea of how I could show, my characters, facial expressions around these
characters in the main performance.
Giving a physical meaning about how ‘Vonny’, my character, felt about
certain characters at certain moments in the play.
During our rehearsal process of ‘Junk’ it
helpful to two formations. The first
formation being it helped us as actors to show how much effort we had put into
creating these characters and how we will be able to portray them on
stage. Along with proving whether the
character choices were suitable for the actors performing them; in seeing
whether the actor was capable of taking on such a role. The second formation being of how the exercise
helped us as students, this way it showed our commitment to the course and how
much research we did in order to exceed expectations. Thus making an overall view of the exercise as
a positive and essential part of the production process, as we would show full
commitment and extend our stage work skills to a new level of creating
characters for a production.
While the ‘hot seating’ exercise was huge
positive outcome in the production process, as it helped us create our
characters and show our commitment to the course, there are also certain
requirements needed for the production process.
The first worth noting, as mentioned previously, is commitment to the
job roles given to you. For example
having an acting role is very important and requires the individual to learn
lines, create their characters, and memorise staging movement for their main
performance. Although there may be other
job roles in a production which require as equal amount of commitment as the
acting role. For example, the lighting
manager has to create a plan of how to create the lighting for all scenes in
the play. The list goes on with the
amount of job roles in a production and all require commitment and focus for
every rehearsal session, as their main goal is to achieve in making a
successful and all round entertaining performance.
Although in our rehearsal process for ‘Junk’
we have focused in these areas, but one area in particular that featured a lot
in our rehearsals was our individual personal management. Meaning that it all comes to our
responsibility, in ensuring we have all that is required and that all work is
met at the deadlines. For example it is
the individual’s responsibility to have their script, a pencil and rubber at
hand, in case of script editing. As well
as knowing their lines, so when they stage the play they won’t need a script at
hand and won’t need to be prompted, and when it comes to the main performance
they will be fully prepared. But when it
comes to the homework side of it, they would need to understand their task
inside out, so they can meet the deadlines and show progression in their
commitment to the course. Plus it backs
up the ‘hot seating’ exercise as it presents how much they know about their
performing role, and how much more they can learn from each rehearsal session.
Summarising what is required of you in a production
rehearsal, it is important to remember your equipment (script, pencil, rubber,
spare paper), your set work (if there is extra work set on the course), and
finally it is worth mentioning that an individual in the performing arts should
also keep a positive attitude. The
reason being is that if every session had a group member who was always down
and in a mood then that might be reflected on every member of the group leading
to a negative group, which could reflect on the production. So if the negative attitude became visible to
an audience, then the production team’s main goal in creating an entertaining
performance would have failed. Therefore
if each member of the group came into every rehearsal session with a positive
attitude then they can achieve the best.
Throughout this production process, we, as
a tutor group, have achieve many great areas in which have led to positive
outcomes, such as us developing our understanding of all the characters in the
play, with help from the ‘hot seating’ exercise, and we have proceeded well in
achieving what is required of us for each session. But what is the most interesting thing about
our rehearsal style is our structure of rehearsing to be in the position we are
now.
In the beginning of this assignment we
were given the script and given our performing roles, and just like every
production rehearsal session, it begins with a full read through of the script. Having a read through of the script gave us
the introduction of the plot and characters as well as giving us all a decent
idea of how we were to present this play on stage. As the sessions went on we looked into more
detail as to how we could make this play more original, therefore we create a
new stage layout of the stage. Our stage
layout was different compared to what had previously used in other
assignments. Previously we used the
traditional staging in front of the audience, giving them a full view of the
stage. So for this assignment our
teacher wanted to go in a different direction.
For this production we were to create a new layout of the audience to be
around the stage in a rectangular position, in a way this would have two
reflective meanings. The first meaning
was that it would be a similar staging structure to Shakespeare’s Globe
Theatre. But the second and most
important meaning was that it was to represent a street style and give the
moral message that this whole play was an incredible journey for ‘Junk’s’
leading characters, a journey of events that go from bad to worse. It was later decided that the characters events
were to be shown through the use of props as the staging would contain messy
props, as the characters are squatters, and the stage would get worse and worse
as it would have loads of props all over the place.
Once our staging plan was complete we then
moved onto our visual imagination of the written world in the script and
novel. In the script it is very detailed
of what the setting looks like, but each member of the group had their own idea
of how they could present it and visualise it, therefore our teacher came up
with another strategy, mood boards. The
use of mood boards was to present photographs of similar settings, as described
in the script, and we would categorise them so we could look at the boards for guidance
as to how we could get a better idea of how to visualise the play. We created mood boards with images of the
setting, other similar locations, squatters (to get an idea of what costumes we
could come up with) and images of drugs.
I felt the drugs images was an important part of the rehearsal process
as it was always at our side and, in a way, it would be the most enthralling
part of the production. As the use drugs
is the main themes of the play, and the images energised us as in a way it
presented a moral message to the whole group.
The moral message was simple “drugs are bad”, but it would also give our
group the mission to present this play to deliver the message to audiences in a
dramatic style to show them the negative side of life and how bad one can get
in life. So I would say the mood boards
were extremely helpful at our side during the rehearsals.
While rehearsing a play in chronological order
seems the way forward for many productions, we had a different approach as to
how we could structure the rehearsal plan, in time for the main performance. Instead of beginning the rehearsing at the
top of the script we rehearsed slightly in the style of a motion pictures
filming. We started with a scene taking
place near the end of act one and worked our way through randomly selected
scenes in both acts. The reason why we
took this approach was the amount of cast members we had. There are many characters in the play and
only ten cast members, therefore there are few scenes in which certain actor
are not needed on stage. For example my
character, ‘Vonny’, is only in the play for the majority of act one and is only
in the last scene of act two (truthfully Vonny was in more than one scene in
act two, but we cut those scenes for time).
Therefore we rehearsed using as many of actors as possible, with none of
them doing nothing of the entire rehearsal.
Using this structure, I think, was again very helpful as we were able to
explore many of the scenes, separately and then work on the whole acts going in
chronological order at the end of the rehearsal process, in time for the main performance.
Throughout the assignment we have explored
many areas, in which helped us with many issues we might have in presenting
this performance. Such as exploring how
we could develop our characters, with use of profiles and hot seating. As well as how we could develop our
understanding of rehearsal processes, for future assignments. But all in all I feel like this assignment has
had the most impact on us as the story of ‘Junk’ has a very deep and strong
purpose to it, and gives a very strong impact on us, the cast members. Therefore I feel grateful to take part in
these assignments as they extend my education in the performing arts industry’s
and have given me opportunities to act in great plays which deliver moral
messages. ‘Scaramouche Jones’ there is
more to an individual than meets the eye.
‘Shakespeare’s House Party’ comedy is more than laughter; there is a
lesson to be learnt. ‘Junk’ be careful
which road you go down.
BTEC
Level Two Performing Arts – Presents Their Final Major Project
Junk
Performing
at the South Downs College Theatre
Wednesday
21st May 3:00pm 7:00pm
Thursday
22nd May 1:00pm
Entry
£2.00
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