Evaluation

After the assessment I have a very positive feeling towards my performance, I think it went very well and there were barley any mistakes during the performance, of which none where noticeable. The piece started out relaxed but I had a slight hiccup with my second line, this wasn't noticeable as I worked around the original line to make it sound natural and as if it should have been there. Also there was a mistake with the sound cue as it was late but this wasn't too bad as it  provided a nice dramatic pause in the piece which fit well with the style of the work anyway. Over all I think that lots went well during our performance as it kept pace and I though it was interesting throughout to the audience as it wasn't too stagnant and varied in vocal style throughout and it wavered through a range of emotions. During the rehearsal stage I received feed back on how I portrayed my character, this feedback was to reduce my vibrato in my emotional monologue and to make the piece less static, in my opinion both of these were achieved in the final piece, this was due to the group coming together in the last rehearsal to add movement and change the proxemics of the piece to vary the visual for the audience. Due to having Chloe back for today's and yesterdays rehearsal we were able to get an imminence amount of work done, we were able to create more of a character relationship within the rehearsals through experimenting with different styles of acting specific sections of the script and through talking about our characters and understanding fully how they feel about each other. My personal critique was due to my voice, I have a natural wobble when my emotions start to flow this is due to my experience in singing and expressing emotion through vocal inflections. This wasn't too easy to change but I eventually achieved it, I did this through slowing my monologue down and adding short breaths through out to gain control of my vocals, this added to the piece in my opinion as it added emotion without the need for the vocal acrobatics which were present before. After looking back to the start of our work, I can see a massive change in the way we performed the piece, this was a good change as our characters were more developed and there was a lot more truth in the piece where as to begin with it was a little theatrical and unnatural. This work is so different from out Wolves piece as it is so understated and any little facial movement makes a massive impact, also any little facial movement which isn't believable can completely ruin the piece and break the realistic aspect,  it is touchy ground when making decisions on how you are going to perform a character. I think being relaxed in a group has been a big aspect to improving my work because if I wasn't comfortable with the people I was working with I wouldn't be able to give a truthful performance as I would be stiff and not have drive to work on it. There has been ups and downs due to absences but this caused me and Ryan to bond making a more prominent bond between our characters which I though shone through during our final piece.

Comparrisons

Today we watched two videos of Look Back in Anger from different eras and performed in different styles. The first video was an extract containing Richard Burton who played Jimmy. This video started with a real sense of realism as it was set in an actual house with no artificial props and set which would have taken realism away from the extract. The aspect of naturalism was extremely diminished when the actors started the script as it was very theatrical and unrealistic; the character of cliff had an awful accent which wasn’t decipherable to me personally as it was clearly thrown together for the piece. The camera was used in a clever way showing specific bits of the scene giving a viewer’s perspective making the viewer feel like they are there rather than just watching it. The camera was also used to highlight the cramped conditions of the bed sit of which the scene is set. Through filming over characters shoulders it created a sense of closeness and a lack of space for the characters and the scene. The second video we watched was a more modern interpretation of the piece and included actors such as Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Gerard Horan, Siobhan Redmond and Edward Jewesbury. In my opinion Kenneth Branagh who played Jimmy in this video played the character very limp and wet, this really took away the tense mood of the piece, after research into the character I thought that he didn’t show any of the pain which Jimmy had been through in his past through his character. Also Jimmy was played very lively and energetic whereas he is described to embody slothfulness in the play; this contrasting quality really took away the believability for me and created a very simple and unnatural character. Looking at the character of Alison in this video I have noticed a lot of difference between Emma Thompson’s depiction and Mary Ure's depiction of the character. I preferred Mary's version of Alison as it had a tenderer and soft quality rather than Emma Thompson’s stern and mature characteristics when she played Alison. I personally aim for a kind of emotional instability when playing Alison as she fluctuates in her emotions throughout. The play does have the capability of being modernised through changing the acting style from the theatrical trained style of the 1950's to a modern realistic style of today. I think it is greatly improved through modernisation as it would make it more believable and would create more emotional connections with the viewers of the piece as it would fit with modern styles people are used to. I do think that every version of this play will be performed differently as actors will go with their initial interpretations of the text. When i was talking to Lauren I found that her interpretation was extensively different from my own and this supports my theory as she saw the relationship between Alison and Helena very differently than I did as I saw it as awkward and tense during my scene and she saw it as quite comfortable as Alison had excepted what had happened between her, Helena and Jimmy.

Rehearsal 5th of June

Today's rehearsals have been very miss match as one of our cast members hasn't been present; this has stopped the rehearsal process for the first section of our scene. Due to this we were forced to rehears the end of the work which is okay as practice allows us the opportunity to experiment and change our work for the better which we did. Through rehearsing with Jill for a short period of time we were able to inject a little more love and tenderness into the end of the piece. This was done through the suggestion of subtle eye contact and Ryan touching my cheek as he attempts to calm me down and sooth me. We spent most of the lesson adding pauses into the speech to slow it down and make it sound less robotic and like a script, this makes it more believable and realistic which is the aim for this play. Today we also talked about our characters ultimate objectives and I found that my objective was to be happy. I came to this conclusion through thinking about what Alison had gone through as a person and how horrible it was. I thought that if situations that horrific and heart breaking happened to me all I would want is for things to be okay again and to not feel sad or hurt any more, therefore I would want to be happy which is my supreme objective.          I have been thinking about the aesthetics of my character and after looking as fashion in the 1957 and found that women wore what is considered vintage clothing today. Clothing such as this would have been to Alison's taste as it is higher class clothing which she would have been accustomed to before she met Jimmy.

 Alison wouldn't be able to afford clothing top this quality so she would have a simpler outfit such as a shirt tucked into a pencil skirt or a flare buttoned skirt. She would wear simple shoes such as little heels and would have tied up hair in a vintage fashion. The scene I am doing is just after she has left Jimmy and gone home to her parents so when she returns to greet Helena she would be wearing the high quality clothes shown in the photo above. I aim to wear clothes like this with small heeled shoes to create a 50’s feel and to dress my character appropriately.

Rehursal notes 3rd of June

Today was a very productive rehearsal as we had the return of Chloe who plays Helena in our segment of 'Look Back in Anger.' Today we had the opportunity to go over the first half of our work and get a feel of the way the two female characters respond to one another and the way that they react to the situation they are both in. I think this went well and re achieved a high sense of believability and truth which was supported by Daniel who told us we were realistic and natural. After a long day of rehearsing and working out what to do with the script which we hadn't worked on yet we showed our work and received feedback. My feedback consisted of basic character notes telling me to be less stiff and relax more into the character, I think this will easily be achieved when we have proper set and I can follow through with movement which we had planned into the scene. It is a good thing that Daniel gave me this note as it gives me the opportunity to experience Stanislavski’s system and relax whilst I perform. Also we were told that the piece was static at times, this was due to the excessive amount of sitting which is unavoidable in the first half but will be changed for the second half as we will animate the character of Jimmy more giving him more things to do, this will bring the pace of the performance up and will make it more interesting to watch and perform as there will be more acting for me to feed off of as a character.

Research into Alisons background

To play my character truthfully and realistically I have to do research into her life and what would have led her to their life she is living during the play. She originally came from a privileged higher class background with a wealthy family in higher class social groups, she would have a high status in her world and in any social group she finds herself in. She is quickly detached from this world when she meets Jimmy who takes her away to live a lower class lifestyle doing tasks such as dishes and ironing which she wouldn't be accustomed to doing. This is highlighted when she says "I never know what you do with burns" this supports the idea that she is inexperienced and isn't accustomed to these mundane tasks. As Alison would have gone to a private/public schools which would have been an all-girls school, Alison wouldn't be widely exposed to boys never mind boys like Jimmy who when introduced to her world flips it upside down by upsetting the people around her. She would most likely see Jimmy as a bad boy and would be drawn to him through this fact. Jimmy is a massive influence on Alison’s loss of innocence as he basically rips her from security and money and drops her in a world facing post world war economics. All of this would completely affect Alison’s life as she did a theoretical you turn and moved her down into a worse and more difficult life, full of abuse and struggle. After looking up what private/public schools where like in the late 50s, schools were very different then due to there being a higher level of respect for teachers compared to schooling today, the education system was a lot more strict and brought children up to a social standard of which was social accepted by the higher class. This shows me that Alison would be prim and proper sitting up straight and would have excellent manners which would have been diminished by the influence of Jimmy and lower class people around her. I can apply all of this to my character through altering physicality and speech through using diction and speaking in a respectful manner. Also this will affect the way I sit and the way I dress as she would have been raised to wear conservative clothes and look respectable at all times in my opinion.

Style

The style of the piece is very clear following Stanislavsky's work in naturalism, naturalism is a style in theatre which developed in the late 19th century and moved up into the 20th. Naturalism refers to a form of theatre which aims to create the perfect illusion of reality. Naturalism was criticized in the twentieth century by a whole host of theatre practitioners one for example is Constantin Stanislavsky he used a form of it is a form of modernist realism. We use as much realism in our work as possible through using Stanislavsky's system and other techniques of which we are learning as we go along. I think that we do manage to achieve realism as we work but Lofty does find it difficult to convey emotion as he doesn't naturally show his feeling to others. But I do think that he has come along during the rehearsal proses and I think it will only get stronger with practice as today he showed real improvement of which I was able to feed off brilliantly and fully.

22nd of may rehursals

To kick off the morning we started with a conversation about the previous session on emotional memory, this obviously didn't go down well with the class as they all expressed their anger towards what Jill asked us to do. I personally found the experience enlightening and a useful experience but others found it too emotionally demanding and deep.      During the morning’s rehearsals with Jill we worked on concentration following Stanislavsky's system, Dan and Danielle were asked to simply pour and drink a cup of tea. Dan kicked off the exercise giving us a very theatrical performance which I personally didn't find very realistic, this was due to him being too aware of the audience, then Danielle did the same thing and was a lot more fluent and relaxed, this highlighted how realistic and believable acting is on a very fine line alongside unrealistic performance. I learnt through concentrating on what you are doing and for filling your characters super objective to drink a cop of water you create a believable and truthful performance without even knowing it.                          During Daniels lesson today we were left to our own devices to go through our script and add our own twist on the direction we were taking with it. I really feel like me and Lofty made a connection as actors today and were able to feed of off each other’s emotion, this made our run through very emotional and true. Due to the workshop of emotional memories we had with Jill the previous day, I was able to channel some of my emotions into the scene and this really helped me. Today we also planned some movement and proxemics into the section, we added some powerful stage directions such as Lofty hitting the table when Alison (me) tries to leave. This was put in by us to express Jimmy's anger towards her trying to leave the situation just when it gets hard. This is followed by the line "you never even sent any flowers to the funeral" this is a very important line in the scene as it highlights the point when Jimmy showed emotional turmoil over the death of Hughes mum. Hughes mum was a very important figure in Jimmy's life as she acted as his surrogate mother and the fact that the woman he loved didn't eve send flowers angers him as he thinks she doesn't care about the most important person in his life. This would affect my character Alison as she would notice the emotional pain Jimmy is feeling in that moment and it would make her feel bad for not showing she cared in some way.