'ROAD' - Post 06 (Blog No. 100)

Rehearsals and Areas of Development

Monday 27^th, Wednesday 29^th and Thursday 30^th April 2015

Early Observational Feedback

     Beginning this week of rehearsals, the early plan was to continue our focus of the pre-show structure and construct a non-repetitive feeling to our performance.  Two areas of focus that I drew to particularly were:

1)      ‘Scullery’ and ‘the Professor’s’ interactions with the characters.

2)      and ‘Eddie’s’ dads entrance calls.

     Our director wanted specific stage movements and styles that did give off a repeating theatrical pattern.  In other words, she wanted it to be less obvious to the audience what was going to happen next.  I personally liked this idea.  This could give our performance of ‘ROAD’ a unique twist on its theatre elements.

     Firstly we looked to the pre-show scene where ‘the Professor’ wonders around amongst the characters on stage and the entering audience.  This was supported with ‘Scullery’, whom welcomes the audience as well, but interacts with the characters on stage to show off his own character traits.  But how was the scene directed?  While it does sound as if the pre-show is going to be repetitive, the idea of introducing each character makes each interaction unique and begins the play.  Plus with both ‘Scullery’ and ‘the Professor’ interacting with each other, it would enthral the audience as to where this play is set, why are the characters like this, and where is this play going to take them?

     Secondly we looked to the theatrical style of ‘Eddie’s’ introduction.  For my second performance role (of ‘Eddie’s Dad’), my part in this scene in nothing more than an extra in the background.  Therefore I didn’t feel the need to create a character profile/study for this character.  But it was the entrance call that I found interesting, when it came to inserting a new theatrical element.  The plan was to have both me and the performer of ‘Eddie’, enter half way through the scene before.  Thereby indicating to the audience this play is forever flowing in pace, and showing them how large this road is in population.  All highlighted through the various interrelating characters.

     Another theatrical element that we developed was the dance segment involving ‘Eddie’, ‘Carol’, ‘Louise’, and ‘Brink’.  As the play draws to an end, the last (long) scene shows these four characters interacting.  The scene is to show the stereotypical youth generation of their time (sexually and alcoholically energised).  The scene also brings mixed emotions and thoughts, from an audience member’s perspective, as it brings a hint of romance, awkwardness, tension, and drama.  But mid-way through the scene, the characters lose their mind to the alcohol and take the time to dance.  While we’re in the early stages of the rehearsals, the dancing naturally came of across as awkward and meaningless.  Therefore we initiated that the whole class should join in a really “let ourselves go”.  Through this it made the dancing vibe really come alive on stage, and make it seem that the characters were having the time of their lives in this brief, but thought provoking moment.

Vocal Feedback

     Taking a quick break from physical stage rehearsals, it was now our chance to see how we have improved with our Northern Accents.  I personally noticed a huge improvement amongst the entire class.  The Accent has become a more recognisable vocal trait to our ears, and most of us had active gold in physically mastering the Accent.  But what was my personal feedback like?

     In full swing the Accent came across clearly and I succeeded in my articulation.  However my feedback did constantly refer back to my articulation being of a Southern Accent.  Picking apart many words within my monologue, I set goals to achieve these vocal traits and master the Northern Accent. 

     Here is the list of letters and words that I need focus on, in order to achieve accurate pronunciation:

·         Aye – Need to be projected as: Ay/ee

·         Can’t – Caan’t

·         Stand – Staaand

·         Past – Pah/st (remember that the is no “r” sound in “Past” and “Bath”)

·         Remember to drop the “h” in How (“‘ow it was”)

·         Remember to drop the “o” sound sharply, particularly on words like “love” and “lay”.

·         One may be projected as Won

·         and Remember to keep a deeper vocal tone and forget nasal breathing to perfect the mouthy Northern Accent.

2 Stars, 1 Wish

     Going back to another observational feedback session, we had each monologue performer present their monologue and character study to the rest of the class, while we took down notes (two positive points and one point of improvement).  We came to this final session of the week presented our monologues again to see how far we have improved. 

     I was the first to perform as this was the best feedback I received:

Star 1 – Good physicality of the character (while some movements were unintentionally seen as slapstick, the movements did project an aggressive state of the character).  

Star 2 – Good understanding of the characters state and mind of certain subjects (this was strongly shown in my vocal delivery and facial expressions on ‘Jerry’s’ spoken subjects of “girls” and “sex”).

Wish 1 – I did lose the accent half way through the monologue (this was due to my experiment to taking my vocal projection to a deeper and darker tone, hence losing the accent, therefore take in the vocal actions plans to make every word appear Northern not Southern).

     All in all this entire rehearsal week was extremely efficient and helpful.  Efficient because we took to taking a new and unique turn on our performance of ‘ROAD’.  Helpful because I have received great feedback stating that what I’ve got so far is good, the only improvement I need to do is my vocal projection in the Northern Accent.  So with these actions points taken into account, I feel I can succeed in bring ‘Jerry’ to life physically and vocally, and make ‘ROAD’ a unique and one of a kind performance.