The Time Period of The Play
The time period that the play was written in was influential as to how the play was written. Samuel Beckett wrote 'Waiting For Godot' in the year 1948 in France. He used a foreign language to portray his story when writing. This would explain how sometimes in the play the speech is very strange in terms of the placement of certain verbs and nouns. It was because during his time in France his work was translated from that foreign language to french so some of the script must've been interpreted the wrong way. This was important to keep in mind when learning lines as some lines wouldn't make sense to me so I'd had to try and understand it so I could say the line with the right context so that it made sense otherwise for some lines I would be saying them without a certainty that I knew what I was communicating.
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Unit 12 Proposal
Proposal
Skills Audit
Over the course I have made a lot of progress. In terms of as a performer, and also as a person. In this skills audit I shall be including the skills I have gained through the progression of this course. Throughout this course I have developed skills I already had and also learnt new skills that will help me in the future. Some of the skills I have learnt is being able to have a dynamic stage presence, being able to adapt to a stage mistake and also being able to stage a production in the first steps before performing it. Firstly with staging a production you have to think about how it will look for the audience, if at any time in the performance there is an unbalance in the stage then you need to make it so that it doesn't happen because it can effect the aesthetics of the production, so that is one of the new skills that I learnt. Another new skill that I learnt is dynamic stage presence. This skill helps when it comes to claiming the stage when in character and being able to not be lost on stage.
Project concept
With this project I want to perform the play 'Waiting For Godot'. I am going to make sure that I complete research that helps me with the context of the play for example with the time period of when Samuel Beckett wrote this play was very influential in the style it was wrote so I would include that in my research and it will also help me understand certain things that I maybe didn't understand at first. In terms of the production I'm hoping to make sure that even when cutting down the production to a suitable length I still make sure that the key elements of the story are still included and make sure the true meaning of the play isn't lost. I'm also going to research the play in terms of costume and character development to see how my character; Estragon, is portrayed by a different actor and also the costume choices in different production will evidently effect the choices that I make when choosing how to dress my character. This will effect the performance as it will show to the audience our representation of these characters and also making sure that they go well together otherwise the satisfaction of watching a culturally correct production goes away as the audience will be asking questions that don't link to the acting but to the costumes and production value.
Evaluate
- To help evaluate my performance I will make sure to self reflect at every chance I get.
- Make sure that I ask my peers what I can do better to make the experience better for them
- A Diary will help make sure I keep all the steps of the process noted down so that I will remember them for later use
- A Self evaluation will help me figure out what I need to improve on personally to make me a better performer.
- An audience survey also helps me to widen the range of my peer assessment stretching to friends and family but also making sure that the assessment is not bias.
Bibliography
Background:Waiting For Godot, 2014, Theatre 271
https://pages.stolaf.edu/th271-spring2014/background-waiting-for-godot/
Director: Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 2001, Blue Angels Films
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izX5dIzI2RE
Demmer Dewan, 2014, Off the Wall Plays
https://offthewallplays.com/2014/06/12/baggage-claim-british-drama-plays/
Waiting For Godot Analysis, 2019, Schmoop University
https://www.shmoop.com/waiting-for-godot/duality-symbol.html
Surrealism: From France to the World at Princeton University, 2017, International society for the study of surrealism
https://surrealismstudies.wordpress.com/2017/06/09/blog-post-title/
Time Line
Week no
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Task
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Notes
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| Choose A Play |
Make sure the play is engaging and fun and you perhaps play a character you haven't played before.
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| Perform to peers to see progress and see what kind of peer assessment you can get to help you with you performance. | ||
Rehearsal Diary
This post will contain everything that I discuss and do to do with my final major project performance. The play we are doing is called 'Waiting For Godot'. We've picked this play after going through a number of other plays and ideas changing because of either opinions on the play or the play not fitting us as a group. Here are the plays we looked at. I will be explaining the pros and cons of picking that play and why we didn't pick it but also why we picked the play we eventually picked.
The first play we looked at was Torn. Torn was written by Nathaniel Martello-White. It's a play about generations of secrets in a family and how the secrets broke them apart. The play shows a very disfunctional family and very hectic throughout, spotlighting their problems and also showing how hard it is for them to find a resolution. Themes that are contained in the play are; Family, Growing up, Abuse and Loss. I liked this play because the unique way it is staged and how nobody goes off stage at no point in time and because of the structure of the play it was very intense and enjoyable. The reason we didn't pick this play is because we were restricted by the fact that the play had to be type cast for it to make sense and be effective. Another reason why we didn't pick this play is because of the fact that we had some people that had to play a certain role and were not reliable in terms of attendance we couldn't pick this one.
The next play we looked at was 'Our Country's Good' written by Timberlake Wertenbaker. The play is a highly rated play and had the interesting story of convicts putting on a play for the guards and other convicts with the theme of redemption. In my opinion Our Country's Good was the best play out of all the options but the reason we couldn't do it is because of how big the cast is. For us to do this play as a class we need every single student to be in all the time and have a very high attendance, even then it would still be a massive challenge as an ensemble so we definitely couldn't do it.
The first play we looked at was Torn. Torn was written by Nathaniel Martello-White. It's a play about generations of secrets in a family and how the secrets broke them apart. The play shows a very disfunctional family and very hectic throughout, spotlighting their problems and also showing how hard it is for them to find a resolution. Themes that are contained in the play are; Family, Growing up, Abuse and Loss. I liked this play because the unique way it is staged and how nobody goes off stage at no point in time and because of the structure of the play it was very intense and enjoyable. The reason we didn't pick this play is because we were restricted by the fact that the play had to be type cast for it to make sense and be effective. Another reason why we didn't pick this play is because of the fact that we had some people that had to play a certain role and were not reliable in terms of attendance we couldn't pick this one.
The next play we looked at was 'Our Country's Good' written by Timberlake Wertenbaker. The play is a highly rated play and had the interesting story of convicts putting on a play for the guards and other convicts with the theme of redemption. In my opinion Our Country's Good was the best play out of all the options but the reason we couldn't do it is because of how big the cast is. For us to do this play as a class we need every single student to be in all the time and have a very high attendance, even then it would still be a massive challenge as an ensemble so we definitely couldn't do it.
The last play we looked at before we finally picked our play was Baggage Claim. Baggage Claim was a production set in an apocalyptic era. The plot of the production was that unknown people were placing duffel bags around the country. They would place 50 duffel bags, 25 of them would contain 100 thousand pounds in cash and the other 25 would contain lethal bombs. One of the characters found one of these bags and brought one home to his best friend and his girlfriend. They then have to decide whether they want to open it and risk their lives along with the baby that they're expecting. Themes that are featured in the play are; Family, Sacrifice and Relationships. The reason we didn't do this play is because of how there wasn't many in depth research points that we could explore. It helps for our play to have detailed points to talk about when researching it so that these research points can help us when it comes to the context of the play helping us understand our characters more.
The play we picked to do was 'Waiting for Godot'. The reason we picked this play is because unlike any other play we looked at the play had a very weird and unique concept which was two old men waiting for nothing. When looking at this play we found it very entertaining and intriguing that helped make the choice to perform it easier. The play is written by Samuel Beckett.
After picking our play we had to read through it and realise which characters we were playing after reading through it once and discussing it to make sure we all had an understanding of what the play was about we chose our characters. I chose Estragon because I felt that out of the two main characters him and Vladimir Estragon is less dominating of the conversation and I feel it will be widening my range of character when playing this character. He is more of a character that sits back and goes with the flow of whatever happens. Then we read through the play but as our characters. realising it was too long we took a few days to cut it down to a suitable length and also making sure that the story wasn't lost or not piecing together otherwise it would make no sense.
Cutting it down and then reading it through we made sure it made sense and then went onto learning lines while simultaneously staging and just line reading over the course of 3-4 weeks. We had to perform to our peers to show our progress and also see what we could improve on in terms of the performance value. While performing our peers had informed to us that they lost touch with the piece as we were missing a character that we hadn't cast yet and it made that section of the play a bit weird. Apart from that they said that the chemistry between the two main characters and their relationship was very clear but they thought that we could make that relationship clear consistently throughout.
So now we were faced with a problem of not having a Lucky which is the character we were missing, if he was not there then the play would like the person we were addressing isn't there. So we had to find a Lucky and quickly get to rehearsing with them so that those scenes were as good as the others as they weren't rehearsed with a Lucky before. Luckily a student in another acting class volunteered to help us and we now had filled the role of that character. After getting the role filled we quickly started rehearsing with them letting them now specific cues and trying to make sure that they knew where they had to be and who they were. The role was easy for the student as Lucky didn't have much lines because of how out of the ordinary he was he didn't speak at all throughout the production.
We were mostly ready for performance apart from a few scenes that were slightly slacking in terms of smoothness in delivery of lines and the stage awareness when it comes to those parts. So while rehearsing those parts we were coming up to the technical rehearsal where we would have to implement our ideas onto our stage production and make sure that the stage looked aesthetically pleasing and also fit with the play's context. We decided that we should have rocks and boulders all over the stage to show that this place isn't elegant or clean or somewhere very nice. We also had a little bench towards the front corner of the stage which came from inspiration from the official production of the play where they had a small mound where Estragon sat at points during the performance. Also making sure that a main talking point in the play, a tree, was involved by making sure that two projections were made on the back wall to show clearly to the audience the tree we were referencing.
Whilst going through the technical rehearsal we were picking the light colours to help depict the mood of the play or even the time of day during that moment. We decided that during the first 30-35 minutes of the play we should have a early morning kind of feel so we had a orange/white kind of colour to create that feel. Something to improve on next time would be to add sound effects to help immerse the audience even more into the story and the production. Next lighting cue we added was at a time during the play there was a sense of night time falling upon us so we decided to add a kind blue midnight look to add to the feeling of that scene. For the audience entry and bowing we chose the song 'You've Got A Friend in Me' by Randy Newman. The reason we chose this is because I was familiar with the song and knew that the lyrics had contained content about friendship which I feel is one of the main themes of this play because of how important Vladimir and Estragon are to each other.
Finally before the performance I was choosing my costume keeping in mind the inspiration i used which was from the 2001 production of Waiting For Godot, I decided that I should go with a more rough and poor. I tried to find a raggedy kind of jacket that he had and managed to find one quiet similar. I think this is what helped me fully embody the character as initially I wasn't comfortable in it but as I rehearsed with it I could see it on my character and that very much helped. After all of these rehearsals we had done our performance.
Final Evaluation
When it comes to the performance overall it went very well. There were a few mistakes that were brushed over using improvisation. Out of the two performances that we done on the day I feel that the second performance in the evening was better. The reason for this I personally think that I put a bit more energy and effort into it, that's not to say that I didn't put effort or energy into the first performance but because of me being more personally attached to the second performance because of family and friends of mine in the audience. Something that I done well was making sure that the stage was well balanced. If during the performance I felt that the stage was unbalanced or heavy on a particular side then I would make sure that it's re balanced. This may have been done for example by going in character to a fellow cast member and pulling them aside in character but also making sure that it wasn't too off putting or didn't make any sense as that would've been very distracting. Something that I could've improved on is keeping the same level of energy in my dialogue throughout the whole performance. A habit of mine is that I tend to lower the projection of my voice subconsciously and it causes me to go quite quiet which doesn't help the performance as the audience will not be able to hear what I'm saying. After the performance I asked 3 members of the audience who had come to watch and asked if my voice projection was good or if there was at any point they couldn't hear me and they said that there wasn't many but towards the middle of the play where I was sitting and the energy from the start had kind of gone. This was encouraging as it showed to me that I am recognisably getting better at keeping my projection of voice loud.
Another thing that I did well was my interaction with other character making sure that my position on stage was helping showing the interaction and reaction between me and whatever character I was interacting with. This helps the audience gauge the kind of relationships they can see between the characters on stage and the more will help them do that the quicker they figure them out and the more of the story they understand. So not only does it help me to get into the habit of positioning myself on stage to make sure the audience can see everything but it also helps the audience to understand the play a lot quicker if the communication between the actors and the audience is very good.
Personally I took too long to learn my lines. Having planned to learn lines on a certain date and not to learn them then puts the whole schedule at risk as it moves everything backwards and delays certain things you can do, for example if you don't learn lines then you can't do a full no script run and if you can't do a full no script run then you can't move on from the acting side of things and focus on the production side of things like programmes and costumes and set. So in the future it would be beneficial to not just me but the whole cast for me to learn my lines as quick as possible so that we can progress quicker and get things done efficiently.
Another thing that I did well was my interaction with other character making sure that my position on stage was helping showing the interaction and reaction between me and whatever character I was interacting with. This helps the audience gauge the kind of relationships they can see between the characters on stage and the more will help them do that the quicker they figure them out and the more of the story they understand. So not only does it help me to get into the habit of positioning myself on stage to make sure the audience can see everything but it also helps the audience to understand the play a lot quicker if the communication between the actors and the audience is very good.
Personally I took too long to learn my lines. Having planned to learn lines on a certain date and not to learn them then puts the whole schedule at risk as it moves everything backwards and delays certain things you can do, for example if you don't learn lines then you can't do a full no script run and if you can't do a full no script run then you can't move on from the acting side of things and focus on the production side of things like programmes and costumes and set. So in the future it would be beneficial to not just me but the whole cast for me to learn my lines as quick as possible so that we can progress quicker and get things done efficiently.
Overall in terms of the whole process including rehearsals, research and performance the process was very enlightening to certain things helping me realise what works and what doesn't work very quickly and working efficiently as a group. Something that I would change about the process and what we done is select a play quicker because of how we selected 'Waiting For Godot', in a rush, we picked the play but didn't think about any research points initially so when choosing research points we found it hard to look for them where as if we had chosen a play with substantial amounts of research points and also with us having the same amount of interest then we would've done a better job on the research side in terms of the process.
Tuesday, January 15, 2019
My Higher Education Plans.
My Plans For Higher Education.
For my future career plans I plan on being an actor
For Higher Education I plan on applying to both universities and drama schools.
The universities that I plan to apply for are The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and UAL Drama Centre.
The Drama schools I plan to apply for are RADA and LAMDA.
I chose to apply for both Drama schools and Universities because I feel that applying for both will fully widen my range of opportunity and rather choosing one over the other I decided that doing both is better for me.This is proof of my application on UCAS track. This is a print screen of my Personal Statements.
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