Evaluation

Waiting for Godot 
Waiting for Godot was a brilliant performance and was a success for both of us. We both knew our lines and acting our characters through the piece very well I think we understood the acting style of absurdism and we did use techniques from this to show in our performance so the audience may have understood what type of piece we were doing. I think we used our characters really well and we played up to the audience really well making them laugh throughout the whole piece which was the reaction we wanted. The piece is absurdism so we understood we could mix our lines up and the script had a lot of different parts too so we just had to go with the part that was first to last but could make it random at times. Kat and I found it difficult to keep remember our lines and in the rehearsal stage we would keep trying not to use scripts all the time and keep going with the performance to see where it took us but we needed to make sure our body language and movement was still strong. Our accents as southern people worked really well and costumes as old men who can't afford a lot made us look funny and finished the part of well. Overall Kat and I worked really hard to get this performance the best it could be to show the audience and from the comments and feedback we got from everyone it was successful and the audience were laughing throughout some of the parts was about hanging ourselves and giving us an erections and when I took my boot of and fell over when I finally got it off my foot. I think if we were going to perform it again we should spent more time learning our lines and doing a dress run so we felt more comfortable and knew maybe we were going to use more props like some rope for the hanging part.

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
The physical theatre piece went really well all the lifts and movements ran smoothly and looked really effective. Playing this character was a challenge for me planning it but I think the audience understood what I was trying portray a lot of the group had to change their character but I had to keep the same character I think it looked a lot better that we had lots of the lines recorded and then I said all of mine live it worked very well. If I did it again I would do more research into playing this character and looking at different voices I could use. Our group worked really well together and came up with ideas but I think we should have tried out more to see if that would have worked better.

Curious Incident Working Progress

At this point we had decided who is going to say what and decided that a lot of the lines were going to be recorded all mine were going to be live we have decided for costumes that everyone was going to be wearing black a part from so I stand out we are going to have a box or some sort of case to have Toby the pet rat in but you don't get to see the rat we decided to have a platform at the back of the room so when I jump onto the train tracks the audience will have more of an idea that I am trying to find my rat and looking for him on the tracks this means when I get lifted back up it will look like I am getting back onto the platform.

We have come up with a whole performance over the few weeks it has come together really well we are going to make sure the lifts are safe and easy to get up and out of so that I feel safe and the people lifting feel like they can do it simple when preforming this we have recorded all the lines by I will be having gaps for when I speak so I am not mining it we are going to go over different parts of the movement so when we do bits like the train coming train going we all do it together so the audience can get the idea that they are all trying to be me. The part when I am talking to Ed I shall be saying all my lines looking out like he is talking to me but you don't get to see him. Within doing my actions I really wanted to think of a voice I was thinking of sounded a bit more child like and very to the point and state facts because I don't like people touching me that I don't know and London is a brand new place to me so I really need to show the audience I am confused so it could shock them when I jump on the tracks and everyone starts shouting because I don't know I am doing anything wrong.

Physical Theatre - Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

We found out today we were going to be doing a performance of Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time this play is about mental health issue and about a boy called Christopher who has autism. This was going to be a physical theatre piece which I think really suits me well and I found out I was going to be playing the character off Christopher which I think is a challenge for me and would consider me to research more how I am going to play it because I still have lines to talk and want to think of what it is like in his own world.

We watched a clip from the National Theatre to get an idea of it and then we would all know what the story was like and how everyone is dealing with Christopher.



We did some research learning how to do frantic assembly so we can put some of these lift in out piece I found this really help us and gave us an idea of how we were going to start. We decided that we wanted to record a lot of the lines so when we are in the train station we can move and not have to worry about saying the words this could create a more of a hassle so we can do bigger movements.

Within in the movement we used different techniques we put slow motions and having everyone change different roles of what they do in the train station so it looks more bussle we wanted to show the lifts like no one was there so Christopher was like he is in his own world.

With my character I have to act confused like I am in my own world it's my first time going into London so I had to show this by facial expressions and the actions I was doing. Within the lifts we had to think about how we were going to get the lift up smoothly and when the lift comes down that we can go into the next move everyone one had different actions to do so it looked liked he morning rush in London everyone trying to get to where they want to be.

Waiting For Godot

Waiting For Godot is a Absurdism play here are some techniques that we think we use within our performance.




















Repetitive Dialogue we do repeat some of the lines in the play for example we are talking about Godot throughout the performance asking where he is, what we asked him for and if we are in the right place waiting for him.

Anti realistic the conversations we have between each other our very random and unrealistic hopefully this will make our audience laugh and get a good reaction so we can play up to the audience.

All the movement in our performance is repetitive when I am taking off my boot when we both go and sit on the bench we can show how we are together and that the pair our inescapable because we don't have hope only waiting for Godot and hoping he will save us.

Slow pace we want it to run smoothly but also have some slow pace parts when it work well for example the hanging ourselves part would come across funny if we go towards the tree and say our lines slowly so the audience understand that neither one of us want to go first.

We want to try and include different silent moments and pauses so it can look affective as possible and then the audience will understand what we are trying to say or what we are planning on doing.

We are out of harmony and out of sync with the world because the scene and settings is just the two of us waiting and having a chat I feel that we annoy each other we don't have anything better to do but at the same time we are the best of friends and we only have each other to talk too that't one reason both of them think it is a good ideas not to hang themselves because it safer.

Costumes are going to be tramp style we are going to wear big coats, over sized tops and tracksuit bottoms and our boots so when I take them off I can make a massive drama out of it. We are also going to dirty ourselves up to really get in the character.

Settings and our props we are planning on having a beach to sit on and pretend in a part of it that we are looking at a tree we want the layout to be basic because we don't have much and we may have some rope for the hanging ourselves part.

Our main task that Kat and I have been working on is our accents so we don't keep going in and out of it that we can stay in it and also include movement when we are practising we are always using our accents and trying to do it in our free time this really helps us remember to keep doing it and get in to the flow so when we begin our scene again we know how to walk and talk.

Waiting For Godot

Waiting For Godot is an absurdist play which means I need to use some of these techniques to make it successful as possible we have both done some research so we could find out more about Absurdism and how it links with our piece and coming up with ideas of how we could use it. We found this research from the internet which gave us more of an idea of what we were going to use in our performance.

We are both really focusing on our voices so we can get across the funny side of the play and people will understand the comedy side. Waiting For Godot is a a different play because some of the lines our characters say our very random we have put our own twist on the whole performance by showing that we can use our voices to change our accent which is a lot different from how other people play it this is how we want it to come across.

Waiting For Godot

We are performing a scene from Waiting For Godot I decided to do some research we decided that we wanted to have farmer accents I had a look at a TV program called Doc Martin to get the idea of the accent then we could study how they talk and practice over and over again to improve. When looking over it I need to make improvements on my actions and body language and whole movement this will help my character become more to life once I have learned all my lines and got the hang of the accent I can start putting more acting into it.


















I feel that this is how we should play our characters but more over the top so we can get the comedy side across to the audience. We also wanted to make decisions about the story line and decide who were we waiting for and who is Godot.




















We both worked together to try and work out who Godot was and we came up with some ideas we said that it could be both of us dreaming that we want this person to come and save us because we are poor and homeless we are looking for someone to make our dreams come true that is when we came up with the genie in the lamp idea that he could make all our dreams come true. We came up with different ideas like a close family member or friend who passed away that we could never forget and we think that they are still alive and we are waiting for him or her. We decided that we wanted to go down the fantasy idea a fictional character that we believe they save us that he is like our God he is all knowing. Kat and I felt sorry for the our characters Vladimir and Estragon because it is sad that they don't really have anything a part from each other. Kat and I are making our scene comical because some of the lines like 'why don't we hang ourselves' and 'an erection' are random lines that we say within the performance and we want these to be funny because Kat and I are close friends we can bounce off each other well and come up with new and different ideas how we want to show this when we perform.

Applying Acting Styles

The last acting style we looked at was Artaud the aim of this style is to make your audience walking out going that was amazing and that they want to watch it again like you just been on a roller coaster that you want to go on it again. I really enjoyed this piece because again you get to move around a lot which is like physical theatre and get to explore different ideas which is fun.

These are some of the techniques that Artaud that he used some of them are in your theatre, openly use emotions, masks, movement is the key and leaving an image in the audience minds so they remember what you did and think about it. He wanted you to feel emotion so the audience would have some feeling for all the characters.



When we performed our piece I think it did leave a feeling on the audience and surprised the audience I don't think they knew we were going to have loud nightclub music it looked effective with the light and sounds but does not show up very well on the camera it is designed to watch in real life I think we need a smaller room which is totally black with louder music and different lighting then the audience will feel more like they are a part of the performance. We did not have any dialogue in the piece so we need to make sure we are always using are facial expressions and our body language.

Applying Acting Styles

We learned about physical theatre this is acting through your movement some of the techniques that you use within physical theatre are gestures, movement, stance, mask, mime, status, proximity, motif, dance and non movement. All these will show you facial exceptions and emotions then you can think of your thoughts as that character you will have to use your body language so people will understand the type of character you are and what you are doing with each move that it has a meaning to it.

We were given a poem to come up with a physical theatre piece we came with up a whole story and wanted to use gestures to show the different characters and the different places we all were. We showed all of our emotions though body language and facial expressions when multi rolling different characters when I was the boss we told the story a lot with the gestures we did for example we were banging on the wall like we were trying to break free. I think it was a successful piece and I liked the different actions we all worked together and came up with different choreography which was so much fun I enjoy physical theatre because I love dancing and it means I can get up and move about more I think its a challenge and makes you think outside the box coming up with different ideas. I need to remember to keep acting throughout and remember facial expressions and body language so the audience will know what type of character I am. Overall if we did it again we could have made it longer and used more techniques maybe some dance if we had more time.

We also looked at a scene from 'Let the right one in' and we came up with a physical theatre piece to start it off we came with the idea of having a snow ball fight and leaving one of the characters out so they feel alone and that we were all were having a fun game together and they were scooping the snow up then we used gestures for them to join in and pushed them down to show we were all bulling him and did not want him to play as well.

Applying Acting Styles

We found out about the style Naturalism which was created by Stanislavski who created this type of theatre so people could get away from the real world, I found out that this type of acting is being real and creating realistic characters in real life situations its meant to be dramatic and not have anything that is fake.

It can be difficult to act natural sometimes because you over think how you are meant to act and try and be someone different but sometimes it is a challenge to be someone else. It helps me out a lot if you have felt that emotion before then you can think back to that time and try and feel like that again.

I found this difficult because my character is completely different to me and was very to himself so did not talk to anyone a lot. When I was acting I had to make sure I tried acting throughout because I feel my character does not do a lot but it was very difficult what to act like because I was not sure what actions to do and trying to sound normal and not sounding like a robot. I feel I need to remember to keep acting and not go out of my role I am going to keep practicing and try different acting styles so I can challenge myself and improve as much as possible.

Applying Acting Styles

We looked at epic theatre which was created by Bertolt Brecht. We looked at different quotes that we thought linked to theatre the most. We found out a lot about Brecht in this lesson and looked back at the history we found out that he used to be a medic in the world war and then deciding to go into theatre and is the most well known practitioners of all this time.  We did a task who we thought were communism and fascism this was interesting and made me think a lot about each person and I learned a lot of Brecht and found out different techniques he created and used.



Lorna and I did some research and we found out a lot about what Brecht came up with.

• Verfremdungseffekt = Distancing

• Wanted the audience to think

• Theatre for the brain, not for the heart

•  Didn't want the audience to become emotionally attached

• Breaking the fourth wall - directly addresses the audience

• Narration

• Third-person narration (normally takes place within a freeze-frame)

• Speaking the stage directions

• Using placards

• Multi-rolling

• Minimal set / costume / props

• Symbolic props

• Bright whit lights / visible scene changes

• Song & dance - style of the music and lyrics don't seem to fit together

• Montage (a rapid sequence of cross-faded or straight-cut segments)

Applying Acting Styles

Today we looked the timeline of theatre and analysed how did all began and the different changes it had over the years. This is the notes that we wrote down of the time line explaining all the different times of theatre and how much it changed over the years.

 

Most of the west end theatre in Victorian times was build in that time for example some of the key play-writers were Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, J.B. Priestly most of their shoes were very popular these including magicians, acrobats. We split into two groups and we were asked to prepare a scene from An Inspector Calls we were given the opening scene and we had to think about how we going to play our roles because we had to be posh we read the scene with our parts and had a talk about where we were going to sit because we were at a dinner party.

Ancient Greek

Today we blocked the scene we did last lesson I had a few lines which I said to Kat we looked at each section so we knew what we were saying and not just speaking it but we knew the meaning of it and what we were going to sound like to the audience my lines where explaining about the new king is coming we did a task where we translated our lines that would make sense to us some of the lines I said where what it said on the tin but some of what the others said was very confusing we ran the scene with our new lines and it made more sense to everyone so people knew what they were saying and the meaning of it we then did the scene again with the original lines and it made more sense and everyone got how it was meant to sound.

Ancient Greek

Today was the first day back at drama today we studied theatre of Ancient Greek this is when theatre began and we found out the facts and how it came about so it was very interesting. We found out that the most important part of the theatre is the chorus back in the Greeks time. I found this lesson really intriguing and interesting because I never knew how it all came about in Ancient Greek. Personally I think this style is to serious for me because I enjoy comedy and not being serious I find roles easier when they suit my personality for example being a child is fun because you get to silly and have fun.
















We split all our roles into different characters so each of had part and a personality and status. We did a task where we stood in line and decided where we should be in line for power and leadership when each of us said a line a lot of us moved up the line to show we were controlling the group more. I want to find out more research by watching videos with people showing the Ancient Greek theatre we watched this video in the lesson to understand what the chorus means when you do an Ancient Greek.

Evaluation for 1984 Performance 13/07/16

Today was that we would perform 1984 to a live audience. I think it went extremely well it was the best it could have gone and I was really proud of how it turned out. I think this was much different to Flint Street because we were playing different characters but I was playing a child so I had some skills and techniques from Flint Street but it was a older child not as young as I played in Flint Street. I think Goldstein was a interesting and challenging character to play I only had to film the section that  he says when everyone is shouting at the screen I feel when I filmed this character well so people would hate me thats why they were shouting at the screen you could not really hear me when everyone was shouting but it still looked effective when filming this I had to think about how I was going to come across to the audience and how I would act.

When I spoke to my mum who came to see it she said it went really well she said she did not notice any mistakes that I made which was good because I don't think we made any mistakes.

I think I have improved a lot with my child character during rehearsals at first I found it difficult to understand who the child was and how I was going to present my lines. When discussing child we understand that he is Winston as a child and he did not have a good relationship with his mother or sister because he was horrible and always wanted to eat all of the chocolate. Also during rehearsals I understood how I was going to say my lines I had to be a cruel and spoilt towards my mother thats why she left me as a child, at first I found it very difficult because I could not say 'criminal' this would lose the scare factor of my character so I had to go over it a lot so I got it right. On the night of the performance I said it all right which I was really proud of because it took me a while to get it right.

Everyone got all of their lines right and remembered what scenes come after the other we had some troubles in rehearsals with remembering what lines we all had and what came after each scene but we got it all right and it looked amazing.

The physical theatre pieces were fantastic and went smoothly we remembered it all and nothing went wrong and we had no accidents. I think all of our characterisation, body language and facial expressions were amazing and we showed the audience our abilities and strengths. The set and costumes looked really good and they portrayed the dystopian world that we wanted our audience to see. However, the posters that we did put up for the performance started to fall but we over came this as we tried not to take notice. Also some of us didn't put our coats on with in book club so it may have looked quite strange as we looked modern where as everyone else looked different. We only started using our props on the day as well so I think that we could have done with some more practise with them so we knew when to use them and not to use them because sometimes I was a bit confused but managed to get the props and the taking of the coat right.

I think if we did it again we should pin all the posters up and not use tape because when we ripped them down it got stuck it my feet and I had to keep taking them off. I think we need to make sure the video protection is louder because we could not hear some of the speeches for example when I am Goldstein I am speaking a speech but you could not hear me because everyone is shouted this was not a big problem because I think it added a good effect because everyone had to shout and hate on me. I think we need to practise more with props because some we did not have but some worked really well because the whole piece is unnatural and not real.

1984 05/07/16

Today we created another movement piece that shows the audience us going to room 101 to Winston's paradise we show the audience the pain Winston is having and that he is getting put into room 101 we don't know if Winston does get unnpersoned I think that none of it is real we are just reading from book club about the book and talking about Winston I don't think that Winston is real I think everyone is normal in book club everyone else's thoughts have got to be 1984 but Winston is different that is why he gets to tortured. We then started to run through the beginning of the performance and going over lines. I feel that I knew all my lines and feel confident with them I now need to focus on my acting now so people understand my character.

1984 01/07/16

Today we ran everything that we done so far we all need to look at our scripts more so we can remember everything from the performance including what we do in the movement pieces. We need to polish the movement as well to ensure it looks amazing and can be the best performance we are going to be polishing scenes and going to practise as much as we can and run the whole play again so we know it 100% hopefully we get the hang of it.

1984 28/06/16

Today we staged the end of the play we talked about where Winston is sat under the pink umbrella we talked about if we thought this was real life or fake. I think the section where Winston gets tortured is fake and the whole play is not real we are just reading the book in bookclub and it is being performed around us we are just talking about the book and it is coning to life but its not really happening we don't see it.

1984 23/06/16

Today we were working on the scene with Winston and O'Brien and the section with between Winston, Waitress and Julia which then goes back into book club where I finish by singing the whole oranges and lemons song and Winston says thank you at the end.

1984 21/06/16

Today we ran everything that we had blocked we found problems with the scene on page 24 when Winston faints we wanted to change it because we think it would look more effective if we all joined in with it instead of Winston just falling over. We changed this and made improvements we all came on a different times and made a circle round Winston to show him getting more confused we made the lights flicker and then the lights go off and we are back in book club we all come on singing oranges and lemons so Winston is very confused at this point and is thinking this is happening but its in his head.

We looked at our characters when I do my child bit before I go on I remind myself how I am going to act and make sure I can say the word criminal right.

1984 17/06/16

Todays lesson we created a movement piece for the line where it says "suddenly there is an almighty crash and countless men in uniform flood into the room and set about dismantling it. It is terrifying and completely disorientating; the whole world changes" we all agreed that this is the complete opposite of the book club and the safe area has been destroyed we wanted the audience to think book club was real but its not and we shock them and mess it all up. 

We stated thinking of different moves which we thought looked like we were destroying the book club I came up with a move where we bang are hands on the floor and one where we do a action like we are ripping are heart out Kat and I came up with these moves together and we also said about walking into different places each time after we had finished a move. We also decided to throw chairs to each other to show that the book club was being taken away and it was never real. We used a song called Mudvayne's Dig which is loud which will make the audience feel the piece more. I feel that it had a really nice flow but we need to make sure that we remember it and that it is not messy after we practiced lots it looks a lot better. 

Character Profile for Child

Character Profile - Child




















Writing in a Role - the scene with Winton, Child, Mother.
I want to kill mother she never lets me watch the executions. I HATE HER. I love the executions. Just as much as I like chocolate she never lets me have chocolate. NEVER. All I want is to have my sisters chocolate its the only thing I want. AND THE TV. AND EVERYTHING. It should all be mine its not fair my sister gets to have all the chocolate why does she get to have all the chocolate I am the one growing. I am the better child I am going to get further than her. She's horrible I'm not. I just hate them both so much. Mother always tells me to stop I never do anything wrong. I want to be in the thought police I would be a better thought police than she will ever be.

1984 14/06/16

Today we took part in a vocal exercise to help with our voices we are starting the scene where we do two minutes of hate because it is very vocal so we thought we should do a vocal exercise so we can shout with our diaphragm. I feel that I need to practice this more because I usually shout using my throat but I need to use my diaphragm so I don't damage my voice and if I do vocal exercises it will help me be more relaxed and confident when producing my lines especially when I am shouting as child.

I am going to be filming my Goldstein speech because everyone is shouting at the screen this represents the two minutes. When filming this projection I feel like I need to deliver my lines with confidence which I should be able to do easily because I have learnt my lines for this point I just need to remember them when we film I feel that Goldstein is very malicious and he is enjoying everyone shouting at him he loves the pain and people hating him the speech he is explaining is brain washing the others to encourage them for the two minutes of hate. I need to make sure when I film this I sound like I am enjoying them shouting at me and have to be clear and believable so all the audience can understand what I am saying. Goldstein is a symbol of hate everyone should look down on him and if he says something that he likes everyone else hates it because he likes it. 

1984 10/06/16

Today we started talking about the performance we saw yesterday which was People, Things and Places and thought of ideas that we could use in 1984 I liked the sounds effects they used when they did their movement so I would like to add some of that in to 1984 we are going to have different sounds and lighting which shows the scene changing we added music to sections of our piece to show the scene changing so have more movement sections not all dialogue.

1984 07/06/16

Today we run everything we had done so far, we also staged the scene between Charrington and Winston because they have not done that scene yet.

When I do my child scene I need to make sure I am horrible so the mother is scared of me when I enter I am blowing a whistle and then I start shouting at Winston and then I stop shouting and talk to him but I need to make sure that the audience understand the mother is scared of me so everything I say has to be rude and I need to sound spoilt because I demand things to my mum. A target for the child is to know all the lines and when I say them they have a feeling to them I want the audience thinking to themselves that I am mean and they don't like.

1984 27/05/16

Today we decided to re-stage everything that we had done and came up with a common ground which was book club. This is when are all talking in a group about the book we wanted it to be a book cub like we are talking about the book this made everything so much easier and it will help us know what and who is the real characters in Winston's life. We know want the audience to understand what we are talking about and come along with the story with us so they understand it the same as we do. I think this helped us all with saying are lines because we understand what we are saying and we are not just saying are lines we have a meaning for them. We understand all the characters more now and we know how it links within the book club when we come back from the half term we will develop more of what we have done I feel more confident now of what I am talking about and know the story more now I think I would like to go through more of the story so we know what is real and what is not.

1984 26/05/16

Today we sat down as a group and talked about what was real in the play and what was reality here are some pictures of what characters we think are involved in the Winston's memories or his real life.

1984 24/05/16

Today we carried on with the script and starting staging another part of the play. When I played my child in my scene I found this challenging because I could not say "criminal" so I had to practice a lot in the scene to make sure I could get it right the child is horrible and has to shout a lot in the scene saying that Winston is a thought-criminal but the child is Winston when he was younger. I tried saying the lines slower so I could pronounce them correct and that the audience would understand what I say I want my character to sound creepy and horrible and when he enters and starts shouting the audience will be scared. We all talked about if we thought Julia was real or just a made up person from Winston or if Julia is working with big brother we all thought about if big brother was real as well. In my opinion I think lot of it is made up and we keep have flash backs and memories from Winston but I believe big brother is real and Julia is a real person.

1984 20/05/16

Todays lesson we started the script work for 1984 I think this was a successful lesson because we got the first look of what 1984 was going to look like. I had my first look of my child scene and I discovered that with this character I need to be horrible and mean and that the child is Winston as a child but we don't know if his child memories are real or if he is thinking that is what had happened. We have finished our prologue which is looking great it shows that we are all together as one and then someone will break out of big brother controlling us and try to escape but then they don't in the end. We decided when we are not on stage we are going to be at the side seating on chairs to show how the government are over watching the public.

1984 Play 17/05/16 and 19/05/16

Today we did some vocal exercises we started the lesson by doing some breathing exercises because we need to be able to control our breathing and speaking we want to speak from our diaphragm then we won't hurt are vocal cords. We did different exercises like feeling our diaphragm while we were breathing in and out and making different sounds with our mouth. We also stood up and did this I found it easier when we stretched out and stood up and did our vocal exercises we also did some tongue twisters I found some of them harder than others because you do lose your words when you keep repeating the same words. We then sat down and had a chat about our prologue. We all gave some ideas of what we thought we could put into the prologue we wanted to show the control of big brother and the rebellion with Goldstein. In the prologue we start off in a cinema looking up at a screen then we show the whole chaos of someone getting controlled by big brother different times we do some moves in the same way and then someone breaks out because Goldstein who is me is going to be shown on the screen and then they will break out and try to get away from it. It is showing people getting controlled from big brother and how it can affect everyone I think this worked really well because we want to get our point across to the audience to show that big brother are the evil ones. I came up with some of the movement we could do in the piece when we were all in formation and said about using the cloth to put are hands up too this showing that big brother are taking over us. All of us worked well together to come up with a fantastic opening to the performance. We worked on the prologue for two lessons overall I need to get into the character of the performance so it is fully believable for the audience.

1984 Play 13/05/16

Todays lesson we had to create an audit of what we thought we needed to improve on and things we thought we were good at. We were given a list of these breath control, projection, diction/articulation, effective use of paces and pauses and the quality of the tone.

We also found out the cast list for 1984:

• CHARLIE:   Charrington   /   Speakwrite
• HOPE:   Mrs Parsons   /   Waitress
• JAMES:   Parsons   /   Father
• KATYA:   Host   /   Martin   /   Thoughtcriminal
• LEWIS:   Syme   /   Man
• LORNA:   Voice   /   Mother   /   Woman
• OLIVER K:   O'Brien
• OLLIE M:   Child   /   Goldstein   /   Woman's voice
• RHIANNON:   Julia
• ROBERT:   Winston

1984 Play 12/05/16

Today we were all given a script and was in pairs and we had to perform a scene together as Winston and Julia. I was in a pair with Kat we started reading the section to see what it was about and what we had to do within the scene we found out that they are in a room together that is a secret room just them two and Julia is giving Winston different foods that she has collected we decided to set it that we were laying down on the bed then we get up at the same and start talking about food and then I get up when Kat starts to talk about rats because he does not like them we had to show a lot of body language because our mood does change a lot in this scene. Kat and I did find this scene challegeing because they are adults so we had to act older so we did find it difficult next time we need to think about the way we talk and sit down when we are talking to each other because sometimes it looks like we are chilren trying to play adults.

The next scene I was given was with Charlie I played Winston again and Charlie was Charrington he is an old man who has an antique shop and offers Winston a place to stay to get away from all of the noise and the cameras I played this the same as I did with the scene with Kat but I still need to make sure I am using a different voice because I use my own voice for most of the characters I play.

1984 10/05/16

Todays lesson we were given the script for 1984 we all read a part out each and went through the whole script I found it very interesting and wanted to know more about what is in the play. We all agreed that we need to work on our voices and articulation because some of us don't pronounce words correct so we are going to spent a lesson working on our diction.

1984 06/05/16

Today we decided to created another prologue but for 1984 so we split into groups and starting working on a different one but we had the same music. We talked about technology and wanted to include some of the things we had in our last prologue because we really enjoyed that last time. I was in a group with Kat, Rhiannon, Rob and James we showed the technology, robot and controlling side and we wanted to show that big brother were taking over us all from the mind and in real life physically. We decided to have everyone get taken over and then just have one person who still has the individuality of them and has to be tormented to be taken over by big brother. You used lots of movement in this and tried to include some lifts but I think next time we need to come out of our comfort zones to try some new things. The other group had the same sort of idea trying to get someone to join their side but they showed it different that lots of people did the same things.

After Troy 05/05/16

Today we were split into groups and were given a section from the script. The girls and the boys were split into different groups our one was that all the men were in a cave it was a piece between Mester, Kratos, Talthybuis and Agamemnon. I took the direct role in the creation for the scene so I was the director and made sure that everyone know where they were going to be standing and made sure the facial expressions and movement was used well in the scene for example when Mester walks in some of the others have to grab him because they think he is going mad so I had to make sure they showed this in the right way.

After both groups performed their piece we had a chat about what we thought about After Troy and if we wanted to try another play out because we don't think it was working for us and we were not understanding the language of the play. Our teacher said about another play called 1984 which is about big brother is watching you we had a chat about how we thought it was and watched a couple of clips and decided to have a look on it next lesson because we think it would work more for us.

After Troy 29/04/16

Todays lesson we decided where we wanted After Troy to be set we all said it would be a good idea to have it in modern day in an abandoned underground station I think modern day is a good to have it set in because then the audience know what is going on and feel that they are apart of it. After we had a chat about where it was going to be and what sort of time we would have it in we started working on the first piece for After Troy the prologue which is physical theatre.

The prologue tells the audience what it was like back in the days and explains the difference between how the woman and the men were treated it also gives the audience some background and gives them the atmosphere of how scary some of it is.

We started with Kat, Hope and Lorna coming on looking like they were holding babies but it was a sheet on each of the drums the boys come in a take the sheet this shows that their children were murdered after we have all done the run we do a small movement with the sheet we all have a small routine showing that the boys don't give respect. We all do a small lift showing the woman getting treated horrible and gives the audience the idea that the men are mean and want the woman to suffer in pain.

After Troy 28/04/16

Todays lesson we had to find pictures this would help us make decisions on what we wanted After Troy to look like. We did this so we knew what our set was going to look like and it would help us when we start working on After Troy we know where it is set and how we should act. Katya, Rhiannon and I were in a group. Rhiannon came up with the idea of a parallel video game kind of universe and gave us the idea of Alice in Wonderland which brought up creative ideas that we could use within our performance. Katya came up with the idea of dystopian VS the utopian world. I came up with the idea of an abandoned house or a tube station I thought about the isolation and how sadistic that play would be. We created a move board which showed the interpretation of the plot. We also wanted to find some materials we could use in are piece but did not have lots of time.

Here are all of the pictures we found that we thought could work for our piece:

After Troy 26/04/16

Todays lesson we did some research we got split into two groups we had to research a play each which was complied together to create After Troy the plays that we had to research were Hecuba and Trojan Women here is some of research we found out on the internet:

Looking at all the information we found out I find it very confusing their are a lot of characters in both plays but they do link with After Troy I think we are going to do more research so we understand more about After Troy and then we can get the basic story line together so I know what goes on within the play.

After Troy 22/04/16

Todays lesson we tried a new play we did the government inspector this is a funny play, this is about members of the council and they are expecting an government inspector to come in and check what they are doing and see if they have any problems. I played actor 6 I found this scene very funny and enjoyable to perform because we all have to be fast paced and have lots of energy in the end of the scene we find out that a random person came in and we gave them lots of money to bribe them to give us a good report but in the end they get a phone call saying the government inspector was going to be late so we are shocked and confused because we thought that the random person was the inspector. I think all of us gave lots of energy and had great movements with are acting because we have to be fast with the scene we need to make sure we pronounce all our words clearly and make sure the audience can understand what we are saying we are going to have to work on reading the script carefully and making sure we pronounce all our lines so people understand what we are saying this will help improve after troy because they talk properly and talk in the time of geek.

After Troy 21/04/16

Today's lesson we were given another scene from after Troy. We were split into groups and each got a section from Troy which went in order of the scene I was in a group with Lorna and Kat our scene was about when Polyxena thinks she is going to married to the king but she is actually going to get killed. I had the same character as last time I was Talthybius who is the scribe who passes on messages to people. I find this character different to I am because he is very boring and always wants to go by the rules. Hecuba is the mum of Polyxena and Cassandra she is ill and in scene I tell her that her daughter is going to get killed because I am the messenger she is shocked by this and is always thinking about her song who is dead but she does not know that. My character was shocked and was feeling sorry for Polyxena because he knew that she was about to get slaughtered and did not know that the mum didn't know.

We staged it by having me standing up Lorna laying on chairs like she was on a bed and Kat standing and kneeling when talking to us both. We focused more on are voices and facial expressions next time we will need to look at movement to make sure we are doing all of them we are acting.

After Troy 19/04/16

Today we found out what we were going to be doing as our new unit which is after troy this is about the after effects of Troy for the men and women.

We were given some scenes from it to try out the girls were split into one group and all the boy were in parters I was parters with Charlie we decided to start off by reading through the scene and seeing what character we wanted to play I was reading the part as Talthybius I found this role different because he is a boring character and looks like he does not want people to be messing around and does not look like he has fun but it was a fun character to try out I found it hard reading some of the names in the script because I don't know the play that well and not sure on the story of Troy so I think I would need to research more about the story and play.

When setting this we found out from the script their was lots of people in beds so we had to make sure we were pointing at beds when we explaining who they were. I think Charlie and I worked really well together and acted well as a pair because we influenced each other and Charlie helped me a lot with reading some of the names and making sure I understood what it was.

I decided to find some images on places that we could set our performance and create some scenes. The first place I decided to find images for an alleyway and an underground because we wanted to have modern places to set our performance.

Evaluation of Chasing Pavements Devising

We have now performed our devised piece of chasing pavements overall the performance was fantastic and my whole group are happy how it turned out.

Response to Stimuli

When we were given our title for chasing pavements we started thinking of different ideas that we thought would link to chasing pavements. We all sat down as a group and began brainstorming ideas that would link to chasing pavements. One of the ideas I thought about was the boy buried in pavement, when I did research for this here is some of the information about it: “Tom’s brother is dead. He was killed by a broken bottle to the neck this has upset a lot of people but it hasn’t upset Tom. Or, rather, it has upset him, but in ways he can’t explain. Tom really didn’t like Luke, but without him… This is a play about grief, and looking at someone that little bit more closely.” I thought this was a good idea because it links with chasing pavements and I had the idea of using some of the script. We also looked at ideas like domestic violence and things that we thought would make people react. We wanted to make our audience feel what we were feeling so if the scenes were sad then the audience would feel the same.

Another idea I thought about was technology/trends in the world. I thought we could use this in our piece demonstrating that some people copy the trend and when a product comes out it can get popular so everyone can end up buying it. We all thought of many ideas like different pathways and options and decisions that would allow us to show the ending of the story in two different ways. If something different happened in the story it could change the whole storyline. Some of the other ideas we thought would work for chasing pavements were relationships/love, poverty/suffering, abortion/miscarriage/still born, alcohol abuse, rejection/ageism, domestic/violence, chase/hunt/race, time running out/ time jumps, refugees/religion and running away. These were all of the ideas that we thought could work.

Development of Ideas

We decided to cut down some of the ideas. We decided as a group some of the best ideas we could use for our piece. The ideas that we wanted to develop and try out were domestic violence, children soldiers/war and the abortion.

The first idea we started working on was abortion. We all had a chat of how we wanted to start this off. We all agreed that we wanted to start off by creating a movement piece, this would portray a couple making love to each other it shows that the couple get pregnant this links with the relationships.

The next idea we decided to experiment was the domestic violence. We wanted to start it off like time was running out, to show it can be too late if you don’t get help from someone. We started off the scene with a clock sound scape moving into Kat and Rob’s narration telling us how domestic violence happens and how to prevent it. At the same time Lorna and I doing a movement piece showing the real side of domestic violence with us doing the actions and them talking about it.  

The last idea we wanted to develop was the child soldiers/war. We came up with the idea of using natural things and moving into non naturalistic. I came up with the idea of being children as the naturalistic, then for the non-naturalistic we became adults in the war. We decided to include lots of techniques these were slow motion, freeze frames, abstract and when changing freeze frames into the next part we did a click noise to show the change. This showed cross cutting between scenes and lots of different movements with the characters we were playing because we went from adults into children.

After we explored the ideas we wanted to try all three of them out. We sat down as a group and had to make a decision on the main idea we wanted to choose for our whole piece. We all agreed that we wanted to go down the abortion line. We liked the first idea the best, we also liked the idea of a relationship, and we thought we could include many techniques for this.

Collaboration as a Group

Overall I think we worked fantastic as a team our collaboration as a whole group was perfect. Everyone got involved as a team and had there say, so all of us got to include our ideas that we had thought of in the performance. We always tried everyone’s ideas out and if some of them did not work we would make changes. We worked hard as a group and got everything completed, we all shared out tasks fairly. All of us had a fair amount of work to do and we all got to follow it through in the performance. All our ideas were included such as movement and everyone had a fair amount of lines. We did not wasted time in lessons and always set a target of what we wanted to complete for that lesson. When it was closer to the performance we had a rehearsal schedule that we followed and completed those tasks each lesson .I think we should have had this sooner, then we could have made a plan to focus on each lesson. All of us did individual work outside of school such as researching and coming up with different staging ideas and anything we wanted to change or add to our performance.

Developing Performance through Rehearsal

When developing our performance during rehearsals we had to make sure we did not waste time sitting around .We always planned what we wanted to do in the lesson and made sure we achieved it. We all had to work hard as a team to come up with different ideas that we could include. When coming up with lines we would all sit down together and go though what we were all going to say if we were in that scene.  Everyone’s views were taken into account when we planned the scenes to see if we needed any more improvements to them. This was the same with movement when we were writing the choreography we would always discuss what moves we wanted to perform. We made sure when doing run through to make ourselves notes on anything we had change or if we needed to add anything.  

Performance

What went well during the performance?

Overall I think the whole performance was a success. All of the scene transitions were smooth and everyone remained professional during the performance. We all remembered our lines and stayed in character. Everyone had great movements to match their character, to enable the audience to clearly see they were playing different people. Everyone did the same with their voice. We all changed our voices depending on whom we were playing. We wanted the audience to see we were serious at sometimes, but wanted them to laugh at a couple of things in the dialogue as well. For example in the game show the audience were shocked at some of the things we were saying and did not know how to react because they felt uncomfortable. At other times when Kat and I were having a conversation as friends, we were talking about the party and how she had sex; the audience did have a few laughs at some of the comedy jokes we made.  The whole performance made the audience feel different emotions, this is what we wanted to achieve and make them think about what was going on throughout the whole performance.

What could you have done better?

I don’t think we made many mistakes in our performance the only things that could have been better was the sound .We should have planned more rehearsals to practice the whole performance with someone not in the group playing the music, because when practicing for our piece we played the music ourselves, as we knew when we wanted to play and stop it. Next time I think we would have all of our music and sounds on one phone; this would stop people getting confused when changing the track. It would ensure all of the music would be in the right order and we would not need to go through with anyone when they should play the music.

What would you have done different next time?

I think next time we would make sure we focused more on the dialogue of the performance, as we felt that it was to movement based. Some members of my group agree that we should have included more scenes in it that involved more talking. I think we could have included a short scene from a script that was based on our topic and questioned some of the topics that we had discussed. I also think that in the future we need to make more notes on our work. This would help us to make improvements .We should also ask for opinions from a variety of people and see what they think of certain scenes and decide if we need to improve on anything.

Why were certain aspects successful and others not?

I think the strong aspects for the group was our game show scene it was really effective and had a good impact on the audience, because it made them feel and think about what was going on. I think some aspects could be improved such as more dialogue explaining the narrative. I think at the end, during the scene were Rob and I pick up the book, we should have finished with a story telling section to the audience explaining what happened at the end.

Here is some of the feedback I got from the audience:

• I could see that a lot of time and effort had been put into the choreography of the movement pieces, paid of well.

• You had an interesting concept for your piece, the game show scene made the audience feel very uncomfortable. This was the aim of the scene.

• Your characterisation of The Terminator was good; you used a good variety of facial expressions and body language to channel the character. However I could have exaggerated the voice of my character more, as it would have been even more disturbing.

• The dialogue between every character should have been longer, as what you had worked wonderfully but it was just a shame that there wasn’t as much dialogue as there was movement.