'ROAD' - Character Study Plan

Character Study (So Far)

What have I achieved so far?

     As we draw nearer to the main rehearsal and performance process, I have now taken the first steps into devising my character study for ‘Jerry’ from Jim Cartwright’s ‘ROAD’.  Through my blocking sessions, line earning, and character analysis session, I achieved a decent understanding of the character:

Name:                                    Jerry

Age:                            58

Status:                        Single

Occupation:              Retired

Origins:                      WWII Veteran

Hobbies:                    (from my current understanding of the character) Spending time alone in his local (nearest) pub.

Dislikes:                     His past (he drinks away his memories of the war and losing his friends).

     Where we are currently in this assignment’s process I am pleased with what I know and understand about ‘Jerry’.  While this is basic information and definitely a story worth telling, I hope to expand in greater detail, for my character profile.  I personally see many dark and misery within this character.  Obviously in the monologue he describes how he is haunted by his past and how he feels he has no purpose in life.  But I also see possibilities and hints to there being more meaning to his misery.  With his constant references to “girls” and “girlfriends”, there may be the possibility of him losing someone he loved.  Plus with the production’s theme of change, I see hints that he does not like how society has changed (a female Prime Minister, the youth generation becoming more sexually active, and economy falling) all not to his liking and bringing him further downwards.

Have I achieved anything new?

     I a previous session a concern within the character study was the character’s wardrobe.  Again through current analysis and understanding of the character, I believed his wardrobe to be something like this:

 

     I found with a wardrobe like this, it shows the following: Effort, Laziness, and Old Age.  Effort, because there could be a glimmer of hope within his reasons going to the pub so he could perhaps make more friends.  Laziness, because I want to add a sense that he only has these clothes and can’t be bothered to change.  Plus it reflects Old Age, because of it mature presence and possible reflect a war veteran.

     Although this is a first draft and having a plan to research into actual war veterans wardrobe.   I may come up with an alternative to peruse perfection with ‘Jerry’s’ wardrobe.

Do I have any plans/goals for future concerning the character study?

     Yes!  For future reference I will continue to analyse my monologue and reflect the details, whether hidden or completely visual, and truly bring this character to life.  Plus, as I mentioned in the previous blog, that my line learning technique interrelating with learning the Northern Accent, this may also support my development into the character’s basis, objectives, origins, development, and meaning to both the play and the real world.

'ROAD' - Post 03

Blocking Character Study and Development

Monday 23^rd, Wednesday 25^th and Thursday 26^th March 2015

What did we do this week?

     This week’s main focus was our own character study plans and how we have developed in both our portrayal and understanding of the characters.  In previous blocking sessions I gained a rough idea of the following:

·         My character’s origins,

·         His objectives,

·         His age range,

·         and his status.

     It was in this week that I managed to enhance on these certain areas and develop for my main performance and for my character study/profile.

What new points did I learn?

     In a working session we proceeded to work in small groups, or pairs, and work closely towards showing our portrayals and understandings of our characters, so far.  In my pair I went first.  I expressed my understanding of my character ‘Jerry’, so far, to my partner telling them:

·         ‘Jerry’ has had quite the history, having served in the RAF and possibly indications towards losing his friends and loved ones.  At first I believed ‘Jerry’ to be a middle aged character, which seems young but has seen many things.  In his scene we find ‘Jerry’ at his home preparing for a night out.

·         When looking for ‘Jerry’s’ objective, I came to slight pause and thought track.  I personally found ‘Jerry’ to be home sick in his own house.  Initially thinking he would have no objectives what so ever, I now see his objective in his scene to leave his house, but to not see some friends or relatives, but just to go to a pub to, attempt to, drink his memories away.

·         Through my first read through of the script, I personally pictured ‘Jerry’ to be aged between the ages of 25 and 35 years old.  I thought that this would be convenient and would work, because I could show the vast amount of deadly history has had an impact on him.  Such as serving in the RAF, and with the setting in the 1980s and the theme of change being indicated, I thought these elements could strongly be reflected through his structure and basis.  But when analysing both the script and my performance my partner and I agreed that having the ‘Jerry’ at an older age, 50 years old, this would make the reflection of the elements and themes all the more realistic and pitiful for the audience to behold.

·         Going back to our first week into ‘ROAD’ when taking exercises and games focusing on the many character statuses.  Such as, standing tall with pride and majesty, or barely standing at all showing the depression and lifestyle of the character.  I wanted to use those status exercises and games, to reflect ‘Jerry’s’ status.  I pictured ‘Jerry’ as a fighter, so I would say he was capable of standing, but because of his dark origins and concern of his future going nowhere I wanted to show that through having his hands nearly crossed at the upper half of his rib cage and twitching and turning his fingers.  Hopefully I would be able to project two elements: firstly the impact of his past and how he cannot hide from it, and secondly how the constant change in his society is not to his liking.

     Once our session in pairs had completed I took all these points into account, saved them for two occasions.  Firstly for all blocking and rehearsal sessions, to succeed in projecting the layers details and really engage the audience into this character.  Secondly in my character study/profile I want to strongly reflect and detail in the following:

·         ‘Jerry’s’ Intentions – By taking my performance pace to a slower level, I may succeed in showing his emotional cocoon and being trapped in the past.  Thereby reflecting his sorrow and depression.

·         ‘Jerry’s’ Language – A personal goal of mine is to master the ‘Northern English Accent’.  I personally aim to take my previous line learning method and alter it to repetitively speak my lines in the accent.  Thereby making my lines/script a muscle memory.  In learning the accent I will use the techniques we used last week, plus I will use this video (Accent Tag – Emily Bland) for inspiration and support so I may truly master the ‘Northern Accent’:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OktDllQvXIY

·         ‘Jerry’s’ Imagery – When developing and planning my character study/profile I shall use real imagery or how I pictured ‘Jerry’ pre-blocking and post-blocking the monologue to show my development as an actor.  Plus imagery depicting ‘Jerry’s’ views on his society might help me to embrace how he thinks and views the world, to really enhance on his objectives.

·         and the Thematic Awareness ‘Jerry’ brings to ‘ROAD’ – In summarising the entirety of ‘ROAD’, I would say it offers various depictions and interpretations of the changes within a society and how people’s views and opinions really matter towards the future.  But to go into more detail I will reflect the awareness ‘Jerry’ had to offer for this production.  Particularly when there is a historical involvement referencing Margaret Thatcher’s rise to Prime Minister, and the change in currency all reflecting people’s opinions and arguments towards these subjects all concerning their society.  More info I will find and research into from this article: “Let's call them the long 1980s.” - http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/apr/19/1980s-cultural-history.  All in all I will show how I feel a character like this can have a huge impact on modern theatre and society.

What feedback did I give to my partner?

     My partner’s character, ‘Valarie’, is a character that similarly to ‘Jerry’ is trapped with emotions and thoughts that all came from a haunting past.  I watched her performance knowing very little info about the character, and focused particularly on her performance and reflection of any elements I could deduce.  This was the feedback I gave her:

·         Good posture to show: anger and disappointment, with a hint of sadness.

·         Perhaps a little improvement in the accent (brief moments when the accent disappeared).

·         Really good timing, particularly in the moments of bursting out rage and anger in the speech.

·         and Really convincing performance showing the journey of the character’s though tracking.

     I found her performance to be really entertaining and intriguing, especially as it built up and up to its conclusion.  I particularly liked her development towards realism, as it captivated what I feel is essential to our performances. 

     By having realism and an impacting flow we can truly involve the audience into these characters and plot line.  Of course the majority of us, including me, had steps to take to progress and develop to an exceptional performance standard, but I found these sessions extremely handy as it brought me to a good stepping stone point of development.  Plus with my goals set I will be able to develop and improve for future session, and hopefully other members of my tutor/cast have done the same and are in a better place of understanding their character as I have.

'ROAD' - Post 02

The First Blocking and Rehearsing Week

Monday 16^th, Wednesday 18^th and Thursday 19^th March 2015

What did we achieve on stage?

     Beginning the blocking and rehearsing of ‘ROAD’ the initial plan was to bring a rough idea of what our movement would be and what our portrayals were to be.  When blocking the staging, we took to rehearse/block in a normal stage space structure with the audience directly in front of the stage.  This structure, however, may not be our official stage structure for our main performance. 

     In previous sessions we looked to how we would stage this production and why.  In a shared group discussion there were many shared thoughts and suggestions to how we could/ought stage ‘ROAD’.  Here is a photo showing a select few of the suggestions made by my class/performance team mates:

 

 

     I personally found these suggestions and plans for a stage structure really interesting.  I really liked the plans they made for how they could use more than just one room, and give the audience a physical journey into this road.  Plus their ideas towards lighting, sound and props really elevated their own visions to what the road looks like.

     But what did I suggest the stage structure should be?  When looking to other professional stage structures for inspiration, I looked to ‘Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre’ and ‘the Nuffield Theatre’:

 

 

     What particularly struck me about these stage structures was their structure of bringing their audiences “in the round”.  I felt this would be a perfect stage structure for our performance of ‘ROAD’; as it would give the audience visual chance to see the journey of the ensemble of characters.  Therefore I constructed this stage structure plan:

     I found that having this “in the round” structure will also embrace the audience into the productions characters, as I did notice a pattern within ensemble of characters.  While all different and unique in the character’s personalities, there is a link that they all suffer and struggle within their society.  Whether struggling socially or economically all of the characters are under stress and/or concern about their, non-productive, future.  Therefore I felt an “in the round” structure would be able to help the audience embrace their struggles and reflect the time of society.  Plus in my plan, I labelled several messy props and pieces of furniture placed randomly on stage, thereby giving a visual interpretation of how far these characters have fallen.  As well as a singular lighting plan (to reflect a street lamp) and show the dark atmosphere that is within this productions plot line.

     Our main performance’s stage structure plan hasn’t been confirmed, but the session proved to be a success as we all gave a constructive understanding of the themes and meaning within the play and showed our liking to the play by constructing many unique and outstanding stage structure plans.

What did I achieve ‘character study/development’ wise?

     When blocking my character’s scene in rehearsals I did achieve a better understanding of the character.  Previously from little glances and read through of ‘Jerry’s’ monologue I felt this character was socially awkward.  Plus with his mentions and references of him doing time in the ‘RAF’, I found that the character was “home sick in his own house”.

     However when blocking ‘Jerry’s’ monologue scene we all found his mentions of a possible girlfriend: “And you’d go to your girlfriend’s factory.  And they’d send someone up for her”.  We found that this could be an indication that he has lost a loved one.  This gives me a strong starting point of understanding my character’s origins.  Plus we found it reflected the feeling that he also struggles economically with his rent money, and is either in dept. or losing the will to live constructively.

     All in all I feel that this was a successful blocking session.  I managed to get a better understanding of my character’s basis and how I could portray him.  However it was a concern that I haven’t learnt my lines yet.  While we are still in the early process of the production process, this has given me the eagerness to learn my lines so I can strongly focus on other production elements in time for the main performance.

Actor’s Log:

     What did we achieve as a production performance ensemble?  We achieved a better understanding of the following:

·         How we could adapt the stage structure to enhance on all the production elements.

·         How we could reflect the dark and gloomy style/atmosphere of the play on stage.

·         What theatrical aesthetics stand out the most for us performers, such as looks, smells and feels (very dark and gloomy, greasy and unhealthy, and horrendous).

     What did I personally achieve in this blocking week of the production process?  I achieved the following:

·         A better understanding of the progression of the plays storyline and how the characters evolve/develop.

·         A better understanding of my character and how I can, and should, portray him on stage.

·         and How to perform in a Northern Accent.

     How did I learn how to perform in a Northern Accent?  In a voice session we began to learn and understand how to perform and adapt vocally into a Northern Accent.  I a series of drama games we learnt how to turn ordinary phrases/sentences and project in a different (in this case) a Northern Accent.  The process was entertaining and interesting, as speaking in this particular accent requires the loss of certain letters in order to achieve a decent realism effect vocally.  These loss of letters consisted of:



     When projecting these words and sentences I did find it difficult at first to achieve a perfected Northern Accent, confusing the accent with further northern accents such as Scottish.  But I feel with a little time and practice I feel I can achieve this accent.  Plus once I learn my lines off by heart I will be able to express true emotion while upholding the accent.  Another fun little exercise we did focused on how distinctive the vowels can be projected through a Northern Accent:



     We projected the vowels in the way a child would when learning the alphabet, it gave us a better understanding of how to truly project the little details within a Northern Accent speech/vocation.  Therefore, for future reference I aim to learn my lines, and once I’ve accomplished that, I will use these exercises to adapt my lines into a Northern Accent to add a sense of realism and bring my character to life with true intention.

 

'ROAD' - Post 01

‘ROAD’ by Jim Cartwright

Monday 9^th, Wednesday 11^th and Thursday 12^th March 2015

What is ‘ROAD’?

     “1987.  An unpopular leader is re-elected, the country lives in fear of terrorist attacks and is still reeling from the effects of recession.  But for the inhabitants of a Lancashire street, there's a party to go to.  The vagrant Scullery is your tour guide, introducing you to an array of characters all trying to find some kind of escape from their squalid existence.  Jim Cartwright's play is an arresting mix of humour and pathos, transporting the audience with energy, passion and poetry, leaving you uplifted and reminded of the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit.” – Quote from: http://www.benchtheatre.org.uk/plays00s/road.php

     After a brief introduction, and a read through of the first act, I personally found this play interesting.  One element that fascinated me with Jim Cartwright’s play was its unusual structure and lack of a fixed plot.  I admired the ensemble cast of characters and the way their stories were told through monologues and dialogue.  As well as how they all interrelated through this narrative “tour guide” character ‘Scullery’.  I for one was interested and liked the look of this play, and was eager and interested to see where the play goes, where we were to go with it as our assigned performance, and particularly who I was to play.

What could I deduce from this play from the read through?

     When reflecting on what possible themes we could see within the plays script I, myself, could only deduce one powerful theme: change.  Particularly:

·         Change within society – as the play is set in the late 1980s when politics (Margaret Thatcher becoming PM), money (Pounds becoming the currency) and peoples attitude (towards sex, alcohol, Punk Rock) changed and had a huge impact on the world.

·         I could also see change within characters – whether simply in character development or in slight emotion traits, the characters within the play have a huge impact on each other and reflect the change within society.

     All in all I felt there was more than just one theme to this play, that I couldn’t see at first read, but when collaborating and sharing thoughts and opinions on this play, we, as a class, constructed this spider-diagram and wrote all possible themes and traits that have an impact on the unusually structured story within ‘ROAD’.  Here is our spider-diagram:

 



     I think this was a good introduction to understanding the themes and meaning behind the play.  Plus over-time and once we received a better understanding of ‘ROAD’ we could possibly expand on them and reflect them in future rehearsals and performance sessions.

Who was I cast as?

     What casting for ‘ROAD’ was completed by our lecturer, I had been cast as two supporting characters.  These characters were: ‘Jerry’, and ‘Eddie’s dad’.

     I personally was pleased to receive these two supporting roles, because this would offer me the first time experience in handling two characters in a professional manner and produce layers of information and detail which I could project in my future performances.  What staggers me the most about these roles, when light reading the script, I noticed their lack of stage presence.  ‘Jerry’ has a long and powerful monologue which I look forward to learning and performing, whereas ‘Eddie’s dad’ gave more a daunting physical presence.  But all in all I was pleased to receive these roles and was up for the challenge to bring them to life for the main performance.

What have I done towards learning and bringing my character to life, so far?

     When reading through ‘Jerry’s’ monologue I deduced several thoughts towards this character, and these thoughts were:

·         He struggles with the changes in his lifestyle – his monologue reveals that he served in the forces for some time and is now suddenly home where politics and money have changed vastly, and I see it as not to his liking.

·         He finds himself homesick in his own house – with the fact that he states that he served in the forces; his sudden return to home really wasn’t/isn’t to his liking.

·         I see a sense of social awkwardness – we don’t see ‘Jerry’ interact with other characters much throughout the rest of the play, and I’d like to think there is a reason for this, therefore I will set a goal to devise, or research, into an origins story for ‘Jerry’ giving reason and purpose to the character.

     Another group of exercises that we did towards this assignment was, questioning how we can present our characters, in both the main performance and in our character profiles.  It was these exercises that helped us to perform and understand the details that go into a performance and project reason, emotions, character traits and layers of detail.  These exercises listed from:

·         Pictures of Characters Statuses – This helped us to understand where our characters would/could stand if we were to physically show their statuses.  The pictures helped us to understand what the different statuses would look like and a physical exercise helped us to bring forth our understanding of the different statuses.  As we paced around the room assigned to project that statuses categorised between the numbers 1 to 12 (1 being the poorest and 12 being the richest) and a smaller group had to guess that status there were from their physicality.  This proved to be a fun and enervating exercise to get us physically prepared to adapt to our character’s statuses.

·         Reflecting on Animal Character Traits – For this exercise we were all given an animal, I was given an elephant, and from only looking at the image of our animal we had to deduce what character traits were in their physicality/well-being.  I deduced that the elephant was a character that was observant, strong and over-protective.  Then we had to project these traits physically and bring the animal to life.  Again this was another entertaining and energising exercise that helped us to project character traits, with little to no info on the character itself.  This is something I think will come in handy for our main performances to project character traits/emotions physically to give better understanding to the audience.

·         Projecting Emotions Physically and Verbally – In this exercise we were put into pairs, with one performer and another holding cue cards with emotions written on them.  Examples of the emotions: proud, aggressive, determined, etc.  In  my performance we had to improvise a scenario (like a group of friends camping and they’ve lost their tent) and bring forth these emotions physically and verbally.  I really liked this task because it helped us to project different emotions, yet keep a similar, if not, the same character alive just expressing different emotions.

     In conclusion, our introduction to ‘ROAD’ was entertaining and interesting, plus receiving a decent understanding of how to present our characters became an interesting and entertaining experience.  I hope to get a better understanding of the play through more and more research in reflecting on the time period and the theme of change and how it has had an impact on the play, the author, the characters and history.  But, more importantly, I aim to produce an excellent character profile reflecting all the exercises that we used to reflect emotions, character traits and performance strategy and bring it to life in a detailed and effect manner. 

Devising Assignment - Evaluation

Devising Physical Theatre: Evaluation

‘Ode to Billy Joe’

Artistic Effectiveness

     When breaking down our stimulus (‘Ode to Billy Joe’ written and performed by Bobbie Gentry, lyrics - http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/gentry-bobbie/ode-to-billie-joe-13490.html), our first response was confusion and interest.  But we firstly wanted to find any performance themes, that we could deduce and bring to life on stage to refer back to the stimulus.  Our deduced themes were:

•                  Suicide – Deduced from: ‘And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge’.

•                  Abuse – Deduced from: cruel visionary description of “Mama” and “Papa”, particularly when referring to the main character as “Child”.

•                  Acceptance – Deduced from: lead constant lonely visits to “Choctaw Ridge” and little appetite during family meals ‘And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?"’ showing concern and struggle with character’s acceptance.

•                  Relationships – Deduced from: questioning many things, like what is the lead character’s relationship with this ‘Billy Joe’, and what does he represent?  Plus struggles with family relationships, and why are they with this ‘Brother Taylor’, and do the lead character love him? 

•                  Secrecy – Deduced from: this line here – “And she and Billie Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge” – suggested to us that the lead character and ‘Billy Joe’ had a secret to share, whether a physical or metaphorical object thrown off the bridge, it indicated to us a sense of secrecy within the character’s motivations.

•                  and Emotional Battles – Deduced from: liking the deduced themes of acceptance and relationships to develop any possible characters to a better standard as they battle against their irritating and forceful emotions.

     I personally found this to be a good start.  We had a rough/basic idea of what kind of performance we were going for.  But secondly, we looked to famous/professional physical theatre practitioners for inspiration, and had a good thought track to see which performance style would prove to be a positive and/or negative during both the devising and performance process.

Our Positive Inspiration:

1)      Frantic Assembly – I was particularly inspired by their works within their plays ‘Lovesong’ and ‘Stockholm’.  I admired the way they incorporated choreographed dance montages and routines all reflecting characters, thoughts and feelings, and even foreshadowing future events within each play.  All the while experimenting with the actor’s performances and their set and prop facilities and equipment.  Not only that but we wanted to reflect the quote that started their company in the first place: “to do something different” (quote from - http://www.franticassembly.co.uk/media/media/downloads/Frantic_Assembly_Resource_Pack.pdf).

     I found we successfully reflected their style within both the devising and main performance process.  When devising we practically improvised our segments, yet gave depth and meaning to our movements in order to reflect our characters actions/purposes/meanings and our deduced themes.  Plus in the main performance, it proved to be extremely effective, especially when we succeeded in transferring all our character details to the audience and gave the entire performance a natural and realistic vibe and time run.

2)      DV8 – When developing our characters we looked to ore inspiration in order to devise, or improvise, a scene involving a manikin.  We then turned to ‘DV8’ for inspiration, because in their performance of ‘Enter Achillies’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PFR2OXf9iQ) the opening scene has the usage of a manikin to intrigue the audience into their first character seen.  We wanted to make reference to this by having a scene where a supporting character shows she has more significance and will have a vast impact on other characters and the storyline.

     This proved to be an extreme positive as the scene became a success and the performer projected brilliant and precise detail physically.

3)      Steven Berkoff – I personally wanted to use ‘Steven Berkoff’s’ performance style because I was extremely fascinated by his dark, gloomy, clockwork paced performances.  This is something I felt we could bring to life in our performance as we could reflect the dark and mysterious atmosphere that came within our visionary plan of our performance.  Plus it would help us to enhance on the pacing of the entire performance.  Plus in our main performance I felt we succeeded in reflecting a quote from ‘Steven Berkoff’ which read: “it’s an open world” (quote from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/10237651/Steven-Berkoff-trolling-victims-have-left-their-front-door-open.html) and how all the characters interrelate and all bring a sense of realism and good quality.

     This proved to be an extreme positive as it helped to give us a faster pace to the entire performance, and reflect the dark themes and mysterious atmosphere that we wanted to project.

Our Negative Inspirations and Devising Sessions:

1)      Jaques Le-Coq – At first we were inspired by this historical physical theatre practitioner, particularly with his performance styles usage of masks.  We felt that we could incorporate the usage of masks to help us, as performers, to develop our physical abilities to show our characters without the usage of dialogue.  Plus it would have backed-up our main performance with the usage of the manikin as it makes the inanimate animate.

     However this proved to be a negative as the structure we were going for had little to no usage of masks.  But it was a goof plan, just a shame to not use in the main performance.

2)      Our Constant Change of Plans – I personally found this to be a strong negative as it did become something of concern and stress amongst me and some of my fellow group members.  Although I could argue that it is a positive as well, as it helped us to develop our attitude towards our work, and brought us towards the final steps of our main performance. 

     But all in all I do still see it as a negative as decent plans for storylines and stage structures that consisted of: ‘A Crime Scene Interview’, ‘An Office Romance Affair’, to a ‘Love Triangle Drama’; all of which were dropped.  Therefore the majority of our time was used in planning, useful time that I felt the need to use for practical work and development of our performance’s story.

Professional Effectiveness

     With my professional effectiveness I see this breaking into two, one being my professional attitude within the ensemble, and two being my professional attitude within my own performance.  All of these effects I feel interrelate to our ensemble manifesto and reflect my group and independent working attitude.  Our manifesto listed from:

1)                  As well as inspiring others, inspire yourself first.

2)                  Accepting and declining ideas as we progress.

3)                  It’s not wrong until you’ve tried it.

4)                  Everybody’s input matters.

Positives in Working in an Ensemble:

1)                  We had a good collaborative feel to our devising; everybody had an idea to share, everybody’s input was heard, and the final performance was to all of our liking.

2)                  We “took risks” with our devising and experimented in combining our physical theatre styles of inspiration and brought our visions to life.

3)                  There was good communication, whether as a group or individually, on how we could progress and truly make this performance piece a success.

4)                  Working together practically, particularly when it came to our improvisation we successfully managed to produce movement segments that we would later incorporate into our main performance.  This proved to be a particularly strong positive as it really helped us to progress to a good point in the devising process, and reflected our professional attitude, as well as our performing attitude towards reflecting the themes through character actions, and our improvisation helped us to achieve these elements.

5)                  One exercise that I felt was extremely useful in the devising/creative process, was our interview exercise, as this helped us to begin planning a storyline and creating the basis for our characters.  All of which was produced through improvised interrogation questions concerning ‘Billy Joe’.  

Negatives in Working in an Ensemble:

1)                  There were times/moments when our manifesto became a mere subconscious memory, which resulted in lack of focus, communication and commitment to the devising and performance process.

2)                  As mentioned earlier, when it came to our constant change of plans this came to be a negative as it slowed the process down and increased the lack of focus within the ensemble.

3)                  During some of the rehearsal sessions, and perhaps one of the performances, I felt I and some of the group lacked energy within our performances.  Resulting in some movement montages dragging, from my perspective, and projecting the image I had pictured.  But this is something I feel could have been improved with more rehearsal time.

Positives when Working Independently:

1)                  I personally feel I succeeded when creating and devising my character.  Although, like our performance planning, changes were made throughout, but eventually I feel I succeeded in projecting an equal physical and verbal performance that expressed my wish to take risks in physical theatre performance as well as reflect the themes and dark tone of the story we devised together.

2)                  Linking back to the previous point, I also feel positive about my adaption to working in three different performance styles, yet projecting the same character, themes and tones that I/we wanted to achieve.

3)                  But how do I feel about my professionalism within the ensemble?  I feel that I managed to keep a positive and professional attitude throughout the devising and performance process.  I did, at times, have our manifesto in mind and entered each session with a positive attitude to bring our performance to life.

Negatives when Working Independently:

1)                  I do feel at some points I did find frustration towards our constant change of plans and structures.  But this is something I learnt to accept and take on board as a chance to develop and improve for our main performance.

2)                  Plus when working in the ensemble I did find sometimes working in an equal ensemble there was no team leader, and I did find that hard to cope with at first, but, once again, learnt and took on board as the process came to an end.

3)                  Performance wise, I feel I needed to project more vocally.  Having focused too much onto my physicalized performance, I lacked projection in the voice work.  But I feel this is something I could improve through more time in rehearsals.

4)                  Another negative in my performance, I feel I could have projected more physical energy and give a stronger sense of fluency within my main performance.

Vocational Effectiveness

     If I was to truly break apart our performance I would see the storyline and the presentation of the performance, as being more of an amateur dramatic production, rather than a devising physical theatre performance.  Plus I do see three areas of concern when it comes to how I would have improved this performance if I could do so.  The three areas of concern consist of:

What is the target audience?

     A mature audience – I personally would invite further drama education students to come and see our performance, so we could share and educate with them the creative detail that went into the devising of this performance, and the layers of detail within the main performance.  Also with a mature audience we would hopefully succeed in projecting to them the themes and tones we discovered within the stimulus.

How could we further develop the performance?

     I feel if we were to develop our current performance, I would enhance on these four production elements:

·         Bigger stage space

·         A larger ensemble cast

·         More lighting and sound facilities/equipment

·         and A longer better organised rehearsal plan.

     I feel if another production company was to take on and present our performance, I would personally ask that they’d enhance on these production features.  Only then can a stronger sense of professionalism be placed into the main performance only then can our layers of detail and information from the stimulus come to life.

What would be the market and economic viability of our company?

     I personally feel a perfect venue for this performance would be ‘The Nuffield Theatre’ and their theatre facilities reflect a dark, mysterious and intriguing vibe, and this is something that could back-up our performance.  Plus if the company was to enhance on the four areas of development, with a decent budget (minimum of £1000) I feel it would be a success in bringing our vision of the story behind ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ to a mature amateur dramatic production vibe.