Task 1.

On Thursday lesson (20.11.14) we worked on developing our understanding of different character. In the first half of the lesson, in small groups, we discussed our research about the character in tale 3. This was useful as listening to other people’s interpretation of the character helped me understand the character better as I feel I knew more information and details about the character.

Then in the second half of the lesson, in groups of 5-6, we worked on tale 6. This helped with my understanding of the play as it made me realized that all of the characters in the play live quite hard lives or they are going through a difficult time. This made me think about what different themes that appear in the play, so far, I think struggle is definatly one of the recurring themes in the play.

Task 2.

1.       What did you develop and create?

In my group we studied tale 3, we decided we would set it in an overcrowded pub and a fight would arise between two punters. We decided, that as in the tale 3, it talks about a fight in a pub where one of the men dies. Then as a group, we decided that all the witnesses would react very differently, some were scared, others were encouraging it and the rest didn’t take much notice. We did this as we feel that the main character has split personalities and we would portray that through the witness of the fight as each person would react in a certain way based on the main character’s personalities.

How?

We did this by having the witnesses to the fight miming different action, as if they were in a pub and having some people mime talking to each other, to give across the atmosphere of a busy pub.  Then to draw attention to the people how we’re going to have the fight, we decided that they would be the only people that did not mime. To make each personality clear we over exaggerated each person’s character and used our body and voices to help portray each personality. Then to perform the fight we decided that one of the men would be drunk and spill his drink down the other man and that is how the fight would start.

2.       How did your homework help you develop the tale practically?

My homework helped me develop the tale practically as it helped me understand my character and interpret more about them. For example, from doing my homework, I came to the conclusion that the character is a man, in his late 30’s and has always lived in the east end. This, helped me practically, as I already knew how my character would stand and what they would sound like, because of my research.   

3.       Explain what you did as your character. Why did you make these choices?

As my character, I chose to portray the rude and bad influence trait, so I was very loud, over the top, and encouraged the fight. Therefore, I decided that when I was encouraging the two men to fight I would really project my voice so I sounded over powering. I also put on an ‘east end’ accent. I did this, as in my opinion, I think my character is in his late 30’s would have lived in the east end all this life so therefore has a strong accent.

When I was performing, as my character, I was standing with a hunched back, legs a bit wider then hip width and with a pint glass in my hand. I did this as I wanted to over exaggerate my character because I wanted to make my character’s manly and impolite personality to be clear to the audience.

Task 3.

1.       What did you underline in the text?

In the text I underlined:

. I’m

. Landlords

. Brother

. Mother

.Son

.warm tired women

.sly man

.people

.daughter

.dad

2.        What scene did you develop?

In my group we had 4 sly men, one of them being me, a landlord and the sly man’s mother. We decided, that in our scene, we would all perform a monolog and that the sly men would share their monologs. We also wanted to include some interaction between the characters as well the monologs, so in between the monologs, we would have short conversation between two people. The scene stated with one of the sly men asking for a drink at the bar, this led onto the landlord’s monolog, next it was the joint monologs of the sly men, then it was the mother’s monolog which was performed in a hospital bed. Then finally it ended with another short monolog from the sly men.

3.        What drama skills did you use to do so?

When doing this, we had to use improvisation skills. This was because, even though we knew the basis of what we were doing in the scene, we hadn’t run it through as a whole. So when performing it, most of it was improvisation because there weren’t official lines or spacing.

Another acting skill I used was staying in role, I used this skill as in the performance, the other characters were frozen when someone’s monolog was being performed. Therefore I had to stay in role when frozen as I had to make sure I was standing like my character when frozen.

4.       Explain what you did as your character. Why did you make those choices?

When playing my character I decided to look down a lot and fiddle with my hands. I did this as I think my character (sly man) is quite a closed person, doesn’t like to share how he is feeling.  I also tried to make my voice intimidating but not shouting as I think that most people get the impression from talking to him that he can be quite aggressive.  

5.       What was effective about the characters they had decide to explore?

When looking at everyone else’s scene I found it effective, as they all gave their character a rather in detailed back story. This was effective as it helped you become more connected with the characters and made you sympathise with them more as you felt you knew them more as a person, not a fictional character. It was also effective because everyone got in to their character, therefore, I felt more involved with the scene and it made it easier to understand each character.

6.       Did the scene help you understand anything new about the play or another character?

When looking at other group’s scene it made me understand new things about the warm tired women. This is because in the tale it doesn’t talk much about her back story but from watching the scene, I understood that she missed her daughter more than is made out in the tale. Also we learnt that her daughter is purposely not talking to her mum as she feels that she has better things to do. From this I can interpret that warm tired women feels lonely and possibly unloved.