1.       Working on the Prologue.

The first exercise we did was in pairs, each pair was given a section from the prologues, and we created it by adding in another character’s lines. Me and my pair made a short conversation based around the taxi driver’s life. We made the conversation natural and I feel we made it flow well. We did this because we wanted the additional lines to make sense with the lines that were originally in the prologue and we wanted the audience to understand what was going on in our short scene.

After we decided on the lines, we then had to stage it, we did not want it to look as you would expect a scene inside a taxi would look so we tried to ‘think outside the box’. We decided that the taxi driver would stand on a chair, centre stage and deliver all of her lines facing out to the audience. Then we decided that the passenger I played, would walk on stage when I say my first line and stand quite far in front of my partner who was standing on the chair. I also delivered all my lines facing the audience. We decided to stage it like this as we wanted to show who had the most power in the scene, that is why the taxi driver was on the chair. We also wanted the staging to look interesting and intriguing to the audience, so we were not facing each other but facing the audience.

Something, that another pair did, which I found effective was even though they did not set the staging as if it was in a taxi, they still made movements as if they were, for example, when they turned a corner they all lent to the side. I found this effective because it made you believe, as an audience member, that you were in the scene, it also made it more realistic as they acted as if they were really inside a taxi.

2.        

       Hot-seating

The second exercise we did was hot-seating; this is an effective technique to use in rehearsals as it makes you think about character development. Character development is important as it enables you to use characterisation as you will know more about your character so you can connect with them more. Therefore hot-seating is effective, it helps you develop your character which will make you performance more realistic.

When doing the exercise, I learnt a lot about the taxi driver. I learnt that the driver is a male, and is not much of a family man so therefore has no children. He also seemed like quite an intimidating man as he said that if he gets any ‘abuse’ from passengers he said he ‘just sorts them out and they never trouble him again’. Finally I learnt that to clear his head he likes to play golf.

When doing the hot-seating exercise, I asked the taxi driver what type of conversation he makes with the passengers. By doing this I learnt about the taxi driver’s personality, he said he normally asked how the day is and why they are going where they are going. This leads me to think he is quite a talkative person and is an average nice taxi driver.

3.

Ensemble taxi driving

We also did an ensemble taxi driving exercise, this is where, as a group, we all became taxi drivers and we had to create some improvised movements and say some lines from the prologue. When doing this, I decided that I wanted my character to be quite chilled out and slouched over. I did this as I wanted my character to look comfortable in his surroundings because I wanted it to seem as if he had been a taxi driver for most of his working career.

I also decided to make the driver, be a man so I deepened my voice; I did this, because when I was reading the prologue I thought the lines sounded more as if it would of come from a man’s mouth not a women’s as in my head I instantly thought of a man. I also tried to make my voice sound mature and in the age range of 35-50.

As far as I know everyone in the class decided the driver would be a man. Mostly everyone positioned them self in a ‘manly’ way and were all quite slouched over. Also everyone put on an East End accent. However there was one person in our class who took a totally different approach to it. He decided he wanted his taxi driver to be quite camp. So he had his legs crossed and sat up straight and he put on a more feminine voice. I thought that his interpretation of the driver was really good because it was different to everyone else’s so it stood out compared to the rest of us.

 In this exercise, we had to work as an ensemble group because we had to say lines at the same time.  At the beginning we found this challenging as everyone was saying their lines at different times, and from an audience point of view it would have been hard to understand. Then finally, on the last time we did it, we all said the lines in the exact same time with one another. When we did this it sound really cool and even though the lines weren’t dramatic, saying it as a ensemble made the lines sound powerful and meaningful.