Yesterday I watched Blackout which was performed by the other class. I think the ensemble piece was truly touching and the effect of the short speeches were truly captivating for an audience to watch. Everybody acted in sync with one another and altogether it created such a moving piece.
The moment of the play when Fenton walked up three bodies to looks as if he was walking up stairs was really cleverly thought through. It went with the story and had a really abstract effect for the audience to watch as the idea of the piece wasn't to just have a simple story but to make physical theatre come into action.
I also really enjoyed when Toby was lifted up because it was a small microcosm of how everybody must support each other within an ensemble piece, especially this one. The idea was also very well thought through and went in sync with the idea of the performance. Although they had dropped him (he told me this after) they made it look as if it was supposed to happen. To do this they clearly worked together to make it look natural.
My final most enjoyed part was the ending where the heads of all the actors had dropped and the simple, effective word 'blackout' was said which fitted in with the entire story and was of course the play title. It was a very classic way to end something which left a rather emotional touch on the entire performance, leaving the audience to think more deeply into the plot.
For their future performance if they were to do it again they could make bolder character choices and make every single movement they did sharp and sustained as this would make it look like an even stronger performance than it already was.
I thought Fifi played her role really well as all the lines she said had truly emotionally captivated me into wanting to carry on watching. Nobody was given full long paragraphs to say which worked so much better because the idea was to use physical theatre more that speech.
A part of the play which could of been improved was when the characters could of spoken more emotionally rather than having to shout a lot. Although it was effective, I think it could of been more interesting if the characters had spoken more than shouting as this got a bit too much for the audience to watch.
Friday, 21 February 2014
Evaluation 13/02/14 Devil in Drag
The Devil in Drag is a comedy set in the Renaissance period (Italy). The idea of the play followed ideas from Commedia De L'arte which helped us produce different costume ideas, ways each character walked and spoke and all things physical about them. The aim of the performance to create a very fake, tricked play which humoured the audience. We did this by doing lines such as "We're not in a theatre... Or are we?".
Throughout the performance rehearsals, there was a doubt in my mind that we wouldn't be able to pull together such a difficult performance. However despite all the worry, the play had eventually come together to leave an audience laughing at each and everyone one of our outgoing characters.
During the day of the performance we managed to do a full dress rehearsal which ensured that we knew what we was doing, when, and how to do our costume changes all in full view of the audience. The Devil in Drag is a very crazy, outgoing comedy where all characters are required to be on stage the entire time. This meant it was very important that we never lost focus and kept within each scene as there were parts of the play where we had to jump up and do certain things. For example, the unscripted characters were told to jump up and sing 'it's getting hot in here, so take of all your clothes'.
The layout for the play was very simple. We had seats in a semi circle where each character would sit whilst there scene wasn't being done. In the centre stage was a wooden box and a bed shaped object. On stage right there was a table figure with flowers and a tray of drinks (this added to the effect of a more old fashioned scenery). As each scene changed areas the boxes were moved and adapted to fit into that scene. For example from a home to a court room the boxes were pushed aside by the Devils. The lighting was varied, the majority of the time every scene was performed with a scattered light effect where characters had to ensure that the light was above them. However in only a couple of scenes there were short blackouts. For example in my scene when i had to trick the audience that i was up Pizoccas bum and instead I was running back to my seat.
Costume for this performance was one of the aspects that created a lot of comedy. For example the balloons or blow up breasts often worn by boys. In this performance boys played female characters and visa versa. The boys playing female characters would wear dresses and pink scarves ect.. to show there femininity. The devils would be in cloaks, horns and red waist coats. The judge would be in a royal looking jacket to show his authority. Pillows were placed where the stomach is of the cardinal. All of the above costumes would ensure that our audience would find it funny how each character was extremely over exaggerated as this was the aim of the entire performance.
Despite the little time that we had to work on the play together as a class, we proved that we knew our characters wants and needs of each scene. This was done by when a character had forgotten a line they would improvise what they thought would fit in at that point. It was easy to do this because we all knew our characters so well and the aims of each scene. Although that wasn't our exact lines, the performance still made sense in a whole because of the amount of character work we had done in previous lessons.
Next time to improve the rehearsal process I think as a class we should make sure we rehearse out side of lesson time to insure that we all know our lines and actions. As this performance pushed our bodies to the limit I don't think we have a problem with making bolder sustained character choices however this play also made us struggle with learning our lines because there was so much to learn and such little time. Fortunately we pulled it off, of course.
Each character was required to prove who they are by the way they walk, talk and look. This was all simply done and perfected very early on in the performance rehearsal period because we had done a lot of work on this. For example, Pizocca walked very slouched with a nasal tone voice. The devils scurried about looking mischievous and spoke very excitedly. To help us with perfecting all of our characters actions we did many tasks within our lessons and also looked at Commedia De L'arte videos of people doing what we aimed to do.
I thought it worked really well when I had to perform the magic trick when really I hid into a box, this was an obvious magic trick that the audience would of seen which created more humour to the performance. I think it was really clever how the voice changed of my character and Hector mimicked how small I was by talking into his cupped hand and pretending I was sitting in it.
The scene where Jacoba was being sick (played by Brinley) was hilarious. This was because it was extremely over exaggerated by all of the characters within that scene. I think it worked really well because usually scenes with loads of characters in don't usually work that well, but they definitely pulled it off by showing the extreme humour that it should through physicality.
The final scene that I believe worked well was the court scene where the captain was shot. He didn't have any lines but the hustle and bustle of the crowd in the court made the death of the captain extremely mental and sudden which worked really well. Everybody had to work well together especially in this scene because it was vital that we knew when to murmur, say things to one another, stand up, scream, sit down and go back to our seats. Collectively we managed to pull a fully crowded scene with everybody from the cast in.
A scene that really worked that I was in was my court scene. This was because once again it was a fully crowded scene that had a lot of hustle and bustle in. I had to push my body to the limit and make sure my character choices were funny and bold. This was very hard because I had to remember that my character wasn't supposed to be played realistically. I think I managed to pull it off very well because my character choices made our audience laugh this helped by the use of props such a balloons and boobs.
An excellent character in the performance was of course Brinley. He is an outgoing person anyway so this play was 100% for him. He gave his character full energy and sass which was absolutely needed. The costume he was given was hilarious to see because he was a boy dressed up in a blonde wig, red lipstick, a leopard print corset, blow up boobs and a bright pink scarf. As you can probably imagine, the audience had found this hilarious to watch especially how he didn't let the props disturb his out going acting. I especially loved watching him lay on the table flicking his legs in the air because he was feeling sick. This worked really well because its a typical over exaggerated female thing to do.
In the first performance we did to the parents my court scene didn't go too well because I lost a couple of my lines however I did support myself by improvising which I suppose was good because I was able to do that as I knew my character Barlocco-Pizzoca really well and the aim of the scene. Also, my balloons were falling out my jumper to mimic tits which was a struggle for me to keep up, fortunately this added humour.
The scene where Becky was acting to be drunk didn't work too well because I don't believe it was sustained enough. So next time if she was more sustained it would work better.
Overall, I believe in the short amount of time we had and the difficulty of the play its self it all came together very well. We all have a week to perfect our lines and make sure that by Thursday our performance is top notch and enjoyed by the other class being our audience. There is still room for improvement within this play such as: clearer costume and set changes, perfecting of lines and more outgoing loud gestures to perform our characters as comedic within the play.
Throughout the performance rehearsals, there was a doubt in my mind that we wouldn't be able to pull together such a difficult performance. However despite all the worry, the play had eventually come together to leave an audience laughing at each and everyone one of our outgoing characters.
During the day of the performance we managed to do a full dress rehearsal which ensured that we knew what we was doing, when, and how to do our costume changes all in full view of the audience. The Devil in Drag is a very crazy, outgoing comedy where all characters are required to be on stage the entire time. This meant it was very important that we never lost focus and kept within each scene as there were parts of the play where we had to jump up and do certain things. For example, the unscripted characters were told to jump up and sing 'it's getting hot in here, so take of all your clothes'.
The layout for the play was very simple. We had seats in a semi circle where each character would sit whilst there scene wasn't being done. In the centre stage was a wooden box and a bed shaped object. On stage right there was a table figure with flowers and a tray of drinks (this added to the effect of a more old fashioned scenery). As each scene changed areas the boxes were moved and adapted to fit into that scene. For example from a home to a court room the boxes were pushed aside by the Devils. The lighting was varied, the majority of the time every scene was performed with a scattered light effect where characters had to ensure that the light was above them. However in only a couple of scenes there were short blackouts. For example in my scene when i had to trick the audience that i was up Pizoccas bum and instead I was running back to my seat.
Costume for this performance was one of the aspects that created a lot of comedy. For example the balloons or blow up breasts often worn by boys. In this performance boys played female characters and visa versa. The boys playing female characters would wear dresses and pink scarves ect.. to show there femininity. The devils would be in cloaks, horns and red waist coats. The judge would be in a royal looking jacket to show his authority. Pillows were placed where the stomach is of the cardinal. All of the above costumes would ensure that our audience would find it funny how each character was extremely over exaggerated as this was the aim of the entire performance.
Despite the little time that we had to work on the play together as a class, we proved that we knew our characters wants and needs of each scene. This was done by when a character had forgotten a line they would improvise what they thought would fit in at that point. It was easy to do this because we all knew our characters so well and the aims of each scene. Although that wasn't our exact lines, the performance still made sense in a whole because of the amount of character work we had done in previous lessons.
Next time to improve the rehearsal process I think as a class we should make sure we rehearse out side of lesson time to insure that we all know our lines and actions. As this performance pushed our bodies to the limit I don't think we have a problem with making bolder sustained character choices however this play also made us struggle with learning our lines because there was so much to learn and such little time. Fortunately we pulled it off, of course.
Each character was required to prove who they are by the way they walk, talk and look. This was all simply done and perfected very early on in the performance rehearsal period because we had done a lot of work on this. For example, Pizocca walked very slouched with a nasal tone voice. The devils scurried about looking mischievous and spoke very excitedly. To help us with perfecting all of our characters actions we did many tasks within our lessons and also looked at Commedia De L'arte videos of people doing what we aimed to do.
I thought it worked really well when I had to perform the magic trick when really I hid into a box, this was an obvious magic trick that the audience would of seen which created more humour to the performance. I think it was really clever how the voice changed of my character and Hector mimicked how small I was by talking into his cupped hand and pretending I was sitting in it.
The scene where Jacoba was being sick (played by Brinley) was hilarious. This was because it was extremely over exaggerated by all of the characters within that scene. I think it worked really well because usually scenes with loads of characters in don't usually work that well, but they definitely pulled it off by showing the extreme humour that it should through physicality.
The final scene that I believe worked well was the court scene where the captain was shot. He didn't have any lines but the hustle and bustle of the crowd in the court made the death of the captain extremely mental and sudden which worked really well. Everybody had to work well together especially in this scene because it was vital that we knew when to murmur, say things to one another, stand up, scream, sit down and go back to our seats. Collectively we managed to pull a fully crowded scene with everybody from the cast in.
A scene that really worked that I was in was my court scene. This was because once again it was a fully crowded scene that had a lot of hustle and bustle in. I had to push my body to the limit and make sure my character choices were funny and bold. This was very hard because I had to remember that my character wasn't supposed to be played realistically. I think I managed to pull it off very well because my character choices made our audience laugh this helped by the use of props such a balloons and boobs.
An excellent character in the performance was of course Brinley. He is an outgoing person anyway so this play was 100% for him. He gave his character full energy and sass which was absolutely needed. The costume he was given was hilarious to see because he was a boy dressed up in a blonde wig, red lipstick, a leopard print corset, blow up boobs and a bright pink scarf. As you can probably imagine, the audience had found this hilarious to watch especially how he didn't let the props disturb his out going acting. I especially loved watching him lay on the table flicking his legs in the air because he was feeling sick. This worked really well because its a typical over exaggerated female thing to do.
In the first performance we did to the parents my court scene didn't go too well because I lost a couple of my lines however I did support myself by improvising which I suppose was good because I was able to do that as I knew my character Barlocco-Pizzoca really well and the aim of the scene. Also, my balloons were falling out my jumper to mimic tits which was a struggle for me to keep up, fortunately this added humour.
The scene where Becky was acting to be drunk didn't work too well because I don't believe it was sustained enough. So next time if she was more sustained it would work better.
Overall, I believe in the short amount of time we had and the difficulty of the play its self it all came together very well. We all have a week to perfect our lines and make sure that by Thursday our performance is top notch and enjoyed by the other class being our audience. There is still room for improvement within this play such as: clearer costume and set changes, perfecting of lines and more outgoing loud gestures to perform our characters as comedic within the play.
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