In this scene my character is Eeyore, a depressive, pessimistic creature who lives in his 'gloomy place' in 100 acre woods. As I said before, Eeyore was my favorite Winnie The Pooh character so naturally going into this role I already had a lot of knowledge and idea's about how I wanted to play him. I found the voice easy to grasp but my biggest concern and improvement was making sure it never dropped in energy, otherwise the children would get bored and not connect to my character.
After seeing my costume design (a grey coat, black suit trousers, white shirt and grey tie with a black hat) I decided that my character would be a classy, slightly jazzier version of Eeyore, still keeping to his natural lack of enthusiasm but fitting into my costume. When I first come on I have my hands in my pockets and all throughout the pooh sticks dance/song, I dance how I take this Eeyore to dance. He enjoys the jazzier parts but during the highly energetic parts I decided to stop dancing and sigh a lot. My costume defiantly helped me find my characteristics for Eeyore and I discovered after a few practices my voice was fitting the requirements needed for a young audience. Tim also suggested that some parts of my dialogue I heighten my tone and then bring it down again, symbolizing Eeyore trying to cheer himself up but obviously failing. My objectives where: to cheer up, to correct, to inform and to observe.
Part of the story in Pooh Sticks is Eeyore falling into the river when the others are playing pooh sticks. We are doing the section where Eeyore falls in and Tim came up with an idea that the stream will be a sassy stream which will carry me to the bridge (or the stairs to the attic) and then I'll push myself through the hatch. we tried various ways of carrying me to the bridge and then I remembered back to our first physical theatre term where Will, as part of a team trusting exercise, got some of us the roll on the floor as another rolled over us. we tried this and it worked, looking the most effective and being the easiest way. Upon testing the stream, Tim came up with an ingenious idea, that Emily (who was part of the sassy stream) be my mirror, as my monologue is me talking about my reflection in the stream. We tested it out and it felt really good and looked effective too. I love how physical theatre this scene is becoming, because I also think that will appeal to our target audience as they love physical and visual things.
To make my scene more realistic, I thought about where Eeyore had been before and why he decided to join in with the song. So, before this scene Eeyore had been in 'his gloomy place' eating his thistles but not enjoying them because he ad to just pin his tail back on. He then heard the music from the bridge and decided to walk along. Hearing the music he then couldn't help but dance a little before looking at his reflection and feeling upset again. Tigger then jumped behind him and thus he fell into the river. I read Pooh Sticks and discovered that Eeyore is unusually good at the game, so when I leave the stage I feel even more upset because the group didn't ask my to join in.
During these rehearsals I noticed Harvey and Seamus had good characterisations and understanding of their character and who they were. I helped India find her character a bit more because she was, at first, slightly nervous and unsure of how to play Rabbit.I enjoyed helping her because it made me think more about my character but also it felt more like a community project somehow during rehearsals when I helped someone. Lucy had great vocal choices for her character of Piglet which helped me push my choices even further.
 |
| My Eeyore costume. |
Alice in Wonderland
In this scene I am part of the jurors. To help us find our characters, Tim made us do an exercise where we had to lead with one part of our body. I lead from my nose and discovered a character who was quite young and interested in the human body. After more character work I found my character. She is a young aspiring potion maker and is interested in the court scene because she likes looking at the head chopping's and using the left over body parts for ingredients for her potions. The court room scene she is in at the moment is her second time there so is still nervous. After her first experience she regretted voluntarily signing up to by part of the jury because she didn't quite realise how bad the queen was.
My character is called Zanny Fair Cloud and is quite short compared to others. She has brown ratty hair which is often scrunched up into mouse ears because she doesn't have any animal ears of her own and desperately wants a pair to fit in. She wears a white shirt and black skirt for jury duty and is always worried that she doesn't look neat enough. Her normal attire is a black dress with an apron covered in liquids. She still has her hair in mouse ears but wears a scarf around her head. During the court scene she stands next to her friend.
Before this scene she had just been reading more about potions in the food garden near the palace. This made her slightly late so when she came into the court room her nerves were even more heightened. Zanny is a slightly mixed character, on one hand she hates the court and is incredibly nervous, but on the other she loves it because it means executions and therefore more things for her to experiment with, but of course when her head is at risk she goes back to hating the court. During this court session she is incredibly nervous because the queen is in one of her moods which means she could cut off anyone's head if they day something which irritates her. As soon as the white rabbit accuses Alice, she relaxes slightly but still scuttles off just to make sure.
Finding Zanny really helped me bring the energy alive to the song 'Guilty' and I started dancing like my character which helped the energy of the piece. I found my character by using the exercise Tim made us do and by thinking about who a character in Alice in Wonderland would be. I wanted to contrast my previous character of Eeyore but slightly link it to my pirate one (both liking a good killing). The songs, acting and dance movements came easier and more enjoyable once I had found Zanny because it enabled me to give something more to the scene and give authority to Emily, who plays the red queen.
During these rehearsals I noticed how focused everyone was and I think this was because a) we all wanted to be as clean and perfected for the kids as possible and b) that we were having fun and enjoying the process of mixing with teachers and students. Emily and Lauren had great characterisations and Peter managed to find the character of the guard really well even though it was a small part. Jess was really helpful for going over the dance routines which at some points I found challenging to remember the lyrics to the song. I enjoyed piecing together this scene and I feel as if it will have great energy and atmosphere.
Peter Pan
This was the scene I was most looking forward to finding my character for. This scene required high levels of energy and pace, so I felt as if my character needed to be bold and vicious. Again my costume affected my characterisation. I had yellow stained ripped cut off trousers and a beige pirate top with a thick belt. I discovered my character had a slightly vicious side to him. He was fairly young and had just recently joined Captain Hook's crew but had always been a fan of Hook. He aspire's to be like him when he is older and is in awe of every movement Hook takes. He is insanely jealous of Smee as he is Hook's favorite. One day he would love to have a ship of his own and sail around being the worst pirate the sea has ever seen. I decided to make my character bold and defined because I thought it was be easier to add onto the song and dance movements and make the characterisation strong.
I called my character Gory Guts Gill, because he loves violence. He has sandy wavy hair which is slicked back with grease. His eyebrows are exceptionally dark and his eyes reflect the ocean. His skin has been tanned from the sun but is always covered in mud and scars from being too eager in battles. Even though he claims to be violent and courageous, he is petrified by Pan and by the Crock. His family didn't want to be a pirate but he rebelled and ran away to Hook's ship. He thinks that if he kills enough people or is happy about people being killed that Hook will like him. When Bill walks the plank my character is very excited because he loves a good plank walking.
Before this scene my character had been having a few ales and sharpening his sword. When he heard the song happening he ran towards the deck to join in as he loves signing. Gill doesn't like anyone on the ship apart form his mate who shares the same interest in blood and gore. Gill isn't too afraid of Peggy Belch but still fears his masculine idea's and therefore stays away from her. Gill is quite black and white, either he likes you or he doesn't. Secretly he is plotting to destroy Smee and take over his position, but this gets squandered when Pan kills Hook. With the pirate scene, I tried not too plan everything my character would do and instead just live in the moment every time, as this piece is very awake and bold.
Finding Gill helped me bring my energy to life and it was defiantly noticeable once I had my costume on and we all looked like pirates. I linked my court room scene character to Gill and decided to make Gill quite a stereotypical pirate because I wanted him to be dynamic and stand out in the numbers. It helped spending time finding Gill early because I could then focus on making the routine as sharp as possible while adding my character over the top. The choreography for this scene is fantastic and very quick paced, so I had to always be alert and focused. India was very supportive when I didn't understand or pick up the routine and would go over a few moves before the rehearsal started. I really appreciated this because it meant during the rehearsal I could focus on my character and the scene and not constantly worry about which move came next. I found as the weeks passed I was helping people with the routine and occasionally the song. I'm proud of this because when I started I don't think I would've had the confidence or knowledge too. At first Gill wasn't coming through in rehearsals and that was my main personal note, so I went home again and really thought about him. It worked because the nest rehearsal Corin was really impressed with my characterisation and with everyone else's too.
I noticed that Pete had excellent characterisation and had found the physicality and voice of his character. Everyone focused hard on this scene and worked together very well. The dance and song was a massive ensemble piece and everyone was extremely caring and friendly whenever someone didn't understand or missed a session so had to catch up. I thought Saskia and Shivon were very good and convincing as the lost boys, considering they got their script after most of us. Both of them lived in the moment and brought the 'net capturing' to life. Dylan was undoubtedly perfect for Peter Pan and his energy and tricks brought the scene to life.
No comments:
Post a Comment