Lesson 4 - 27.11.14

Lesson 4 - 27.11.12

We were asked to think about our favourite character that we have developed so far during our exploration of East End Tales. We were then asked to write a monologue by ourselves based on that character but in the same style as the play. I chose the character in Tale 5 who is a child who lives next door to a flat where there is an obvious issue of domestic violence.

This is my monologue typed up:

Fuckin' hell right
There's this woman
Was this women
Who lived next door
Had a boyfriend
Couple o' kids
Happy family type
Knowarramean?

Well
They were a happy family
It all happened one night
While Dad and I were cotched on the sofa
Watchin' weakest link
SMASH!
A plate
A pot?
Or a vase or somefing
Mum goes "Fuck me! What the bloody hell was that?"
Dad says
It's none of our business
And turns up the TV

The next night
Another smash
The night after
TWO smashes
Every time it 'appens
Dad just
turns up the TV
On the 10th night straight
There's a scream
Not a normal scream
A scream of 
Desperation
Distress
Anguish
Then silence
The slamming of the front door.
And then the sound of trainers
Running
Running
Running 
Down the stairwell
A few weeks went by before we realised something was REALLY WRONG 
He'd killed her
Fucking killed her
And the kids?
Dead too

Now Dad can watch the TV in peace
Must be nice
Relief I guess
It was none of our business anyway
I went to my room and closed my eyes
You are the weakest link
Goodbye

Staging My Monologue

I tried to keep my staging fairly simple and my movement moderately minimal. At the start I wanted to keep my voice in a sort of conversation tone, as if I was playing a story. I started my monologue centre stage, sitting down on a chair as I wanted my piece to start off quite simple. As I said the line "SMASH!" I changed the whole energy of the scene along with the emphasis on the line and leapt up and performed the next part of the monologue downstage left. I decided to play downstage left as that was an easy place to follow through to after I simulated the throwing of a plate. As I get to the line "He'd killed her." I slow my pace down and bring the volume down a small bit to fit with the sensitive subject,  and go and sit back down on the chair until the end of the piece. The energy doesn't really pick up much after that because I touched on the subject of death and I want the audience to feel as solemn as I do.

How did the monologue task help you understand the play further?

It helped me understand the play further because I was allowed freedom with what kind of character I could create because the script doesn't give away many characteristics.

We then performed and watched the rest of the class' work.

What monologue performed by a peer worked well and why? What had they written about? Who performed their monologue successfully and why?

I thought Eric's monologue was written and performed well because he really showed true emotion. He played the part of the "Hard Sly Man" I think this because the tone in his voice was very somber and solemn. He also had a sense of mystery in his scene so it helped leave a lot to the audience's imagination. There was another sense of mystery physically because he was wearing a hat throughout the scene. He also tipped his head down so it could also mean his character is hiding something. He had written about the struggles that he'd been through and what he was currently going through.

TASK 2

We did not get on to this part of the lesson so I cannot do this task.

I think I was working at D1 level today because I used the script of East End Tales to research about my character. I also used the high energy warm ups that we did with Chris, and converted that energy into my monologue to create an exciting atmosphere. I also kept my monologue in the same poetic, one liner style of the rest of the script. I feel I worked hard on this task.

Lesson 3 - 20.11.14

Lesson 3 - 20.11.14

Task 2

We didn't manage to do task 2 as Mr Worden was not teaching us on Thursday.  However here is my homework he set us:

Task 3

In groups of 5 or 6 we re-read Tale 6 and underlined all the people mentioned in the script. eg:

Individually we decided on a character and created a Role-On-The-Wall. This is the sheet we created it on: 

We then had to develop these characters and work in groups to devise a completely improvised pieces on how the character exists out of the play. My group developed scene 6 and because there were 4 of us who chose the "Hard Sly Man" as  our characters, we used that to our advantages and used our improvisation skills to create a piece where each of us would come downstage and individually talk briefly about the man's life and the troubles he goes through. The part that I said was: 

"Ever since I've come out of jail, I can't see my little girl. She means everything to me. My mum is terminally ill but no one really understands."

This helped me develop skills such as: decision of movement, improvisation, performing by myself and projection.

As my character I put on a typical East London accent, spoke a bit deeper and decided to push my chest out as he described as muscular, but I also walked with a bit of a slouch. I made these choices because the information on my role-on-the-wall was accurate from the script. It was also what I analysed from my own interpretation.
My group's piece consisted of a short monologue delivered by Roseby playing the Landlady. I also acted as a bed for the Landlady so we added in a bit of physical theatre. After Roseby's monlogue, Eric, Alabama, Jamie and I, who were playing the Hard Sly Man, all performed our short parts. After our group piece, Jed finished off with a monologue and he was playing the dying mother of the "Hard Sly Man". The actors then playing the Hard Sly Man all took it in turn to say something to the mother, but the it was as if there was a barrier between the mother and son.

I think these characters were effective characters because they all linked together in some way. I think our scene helped us feel more sympathy for the Hard Sly Man and the Landlady as we really got an insight on how both the characters are misunderstood. This is definitely going to help my understanding of these characters in the long wrong.

This is the criteria that we used to assess ourselves on the last task: