Curious Incident: Day 14
Today, we carried on with act 1 from page 15 onwards. This all went smoothly and throughout we refined a few parts to our creative scenes. Such as adding more hustle to our London train station scene, which was successfully achieved.
In terms of developing my own skills as an actor, I am starting to think about how I can play my three different characters. By doing these creative scenes I am trying to play different people each time, however this is only physical, but helps me decide the body language of my real characters in the play.
My research this week is on a real London train station scene, to see if we can replicate such a situation and if we are giving an accurate representation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG-meaGqg-M&spfreload=10
I am aware that this video is a great deal busier than that of any London station, but to someone like Christopher, I can imagine it feeling as if all the people in the world are rushing past him, and he'd have to endure such a feeling of panic and anxiety all the time.
I believe today's lesson was very successful again. Every time we run through the play we are getting better and better. We will keep pushing onwards and refining as much as we can possibly refine. The whole play is making sense and running well.All we have to do is get the scripts down as soon as possible so we can carry out lifts without having to read or script or put it down, which will help the speed of the play, making it more encapsulating
To develop the play further I believe I have to play a wider range of characters, as does everybody who has more than one character. For example, Roger would behave differently to the Duty Sergeant. In my eyes the Duty Sergeant would be very kind and understanding as he is trained to deal with people. He would be very relaxed and easy to understand. However, Roger would not know how to deal with Christopher as he has no training or children to use his experiences from. I believe he would be very awkward and almost blunt and insensitive, perhaps just a little confused. I also believe accents will be very beneficial in showing contrasts between characters so my voice isn't the same throughout, however the accent has to be realistic, so I will not pretend to be Chinese as it would look ridiculous, and I also have to be able to convincingly put it on, failure to do so would make me look like a fool and damage the performance.
Tuesday, 28 October 2014
Tuesday, 21 October 2014
Curious Incident: Day Thirteen
Today we tried a run through of the first 15 pages without scripts, this went really successfully. After this we continued on with act 1 with our teacher giving us notes on where we could improve. Throughout our pieces where we created things with our bodies, we tried to think of ways of how we could make them run more smoothly and refine ideas, such as making our van a normal size compared to its original off scale size. We carried on running the parts with a physical piece, making sure we knew what our cue lines were and when to go off stage.
In terms of developing my own skills as an actor, I believe the notes our teacher gave us were very beneficial. Her notes are below.
Today we tried a run through of the first 15 pages without scripts, this went really successfully. After this we continued on with act 1 with our teacher giving us notes on where we could improve. Throughout our pieces where we created things with our bodies, we tried to think of ways of how we could make them run more smoothly and refine ideas, such as making our van a normal size compared to its original off scale size. We carried on running the parts with a physical piece, making sure we knew what our cue lines were and when to go off stage.
In terms of developing my own skills as an actor, I believe the notes our teacher gave us were very beneficial. Her notes are below.
Running the First Few Scenes – Tuesday 21st October
Company – need to decide whether to watch the action, neutrally or reacting, or to not look at anything. As you stand, move into your character. If it helps, take a moment once you’ve stood before entering the scene.
Do you want to freeze the action when narration is taking place? (eg Voices or Siobham reading). If you are going to keep acting, you need to think about reactions.
Neighbours – remember that they all know the history between the Shears and Christopher’s parents; except for
Think about props you could use to indicate the location/scenario of each scene – eg. Mr Gascoyne could have a file, the Police Officer a notebook, Ed a remote control at the start of the scene on p22.
The note I found most helpful was the fact that when watching the performance, that we all have to be doing the same thing, whether that be watching and reacting or staring at the floor. This is the most important note for me as I think it highlights the fact that we all have to be part of a functioning team, that everybody is important and that nobody is above anyone else. I think it helps me appreciate that a performance isnt made by one or two people, but a joint effort of everyone involved.
My research this week also helps put forward my recommendations for working on the play. I feel that in our train station scene we need to try and recreate as much hassle as possible and make sure our noise levels are load and fast, trying to show the audience exactly what Christopher is feeling, that sense of being overwhelmed and wanting to curl up into a ball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPqpIcCE9t0&spfreload=10%20Message%3A%20Unexpected%20end%20of%20input%20(url%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DiPqpIcCE9t0)
I think today's session was very successful. We refined ideas and started trying to make everything look practiced and almost perfected. As this was all we did in lesson there aren't really any weaknesses in today, perhaps the one weakness is that we aren't completely finalised on our physical pieces and they are yet to ll run smoothly, with the transitions still needing to be smoothed over as currently they look a little scruffy, but all the ideas are there.
Sunday, 19 October 2014
Curious Incident Day 12
The main focus of our lesson today was to try and create the noises and rush of a London street. So far, we have only focused on creating places or objects without focusing on sounds or movement to make it look more realistic. We split the class in half and each had around 20 minutes or so to try and replicate a busy London street. My group liked the idea of having our Christopher in the middle and we move around him, embodying various objects you would find in London. For example I pretended to be a taxi, we also had sirens, roadworks, street acts and so on. However, we were finding it hard to create the hassle as we didn't have enough people. However, we had the base of the idea and the beginning of a soundscape.
We watched the other groups performance and they had gone for a similar idea to us. They had a soundscape of shouting, quick moving and so on. But, they did have a nice idea when everyone slows down and goes quite with someone approaching Christopher and asking him a question, before speeding off again. We eventually fused out two ideas together, making noises, running around and so.
The main focus of our lesson today was to try and create the noises and rush of a London street. So far, we have only focused on creating places or objects without focusing on sounds or movement to make it look more realistic. We split the class in half and each had around 20 minutes or so to try and replicate a busy London street. My group liked the idea of having our Christopher in the middle and we move around him, embodying various objects you would find in London. For example I pretended to be a taxi, we also had sirens, roadworks, street acts and so on. However, we were finding it hard to create the hassle as we didn't have enough people. However, we had the base of the idea and the beginning of a soundscape.
We watched the other groups performance and they had gone for a similar idea to us. They had a soundscape of shouting, quick moving and so on. But, they did have a nice idea when everyone slows down and goes quite with someone approaching Christopher and asking him a question, before speeding off again. We eventually fused out two ideas together, making noises, running around and so.
Christopher in London - creating the street
In terms of developing my own skills I feel that the soundscape helped us identify weaknesses in our ability to convey realistic scenes and so on. By creating this I have managed to grasp the idea that not just acting goes into a performance, but thinking and believing objects are there, the sounds and sights, reactions to various scenes. As an actor, I have to be able to do all of this to make a scene as realistic as possible as our play requires no props.
I think our final scene was very successful, it looked original and embodied a London street scene perfectly. I believe I behaved professionally, I worked quickly, contributing ideas and helping out whilst listening to others. However, one weakness in the performance is that it isnt particularly revised much. We all know to be running around making noise, but there are no queues or timings for when we slow down or when we go to Christopher to push him over, which was evident when i had to rush over.
In terms of developing the production further I believe we have to give as much energy as we did in this soundscape into the other scenes in which we create things. For example, noises in Swindon or the train station, to not only capture the audience visually, but audibly as well, to bring our performance to life.
Tuesday, 14 October 2014
Curious Incident: Day Eleven
We began rehearsals today with an exercise. This exercise was to walk around the room, but re living our journey to school for that day, really paying attention to every detail we saw, like how many houses we saw, what was on the houses, how many cars were there or what was the weather like. Trying to remember every detail was particularly difficult as we later discussed that everything we tend to remember normally affects us, and the things our brain doesn't absorb is normally information we do not need nor does it affect us, like how many cars past me this morning, it simply isn't needed. This task was in aid of us being able to understand the details Christopher would take in, for example, he would know how many cars past him, maybe even their colour in order. Where we would give a rough time of leaving our house, he would know the time precisely. This exercise was useful, as when acting out scenes with hardly any props and creating specific places or objects using our bodies, we really need to pay attention to detail to make our performance encapsulate the audience, so that they know exactly what we are creating, whether that be a train station or a car or just acting out a scene in say, a garden or house, we need to make it obvious to the audience where we are. After this, one person was selected to re tell their journey in as much detail as possible. We all sat and listened, trying to picture the journey. This helped us gain a stronger understanding of the detail we should have thought of, but again, shows how much information we miss and how hard it is to remember such detail.
Our second task, again, was focusing on Christopher's logical thinking process. In the play, he admits he has problems understanding metaphors. So, in groups we had to think of a metaphor and explain it in a way Christopher would understand. My group decided on the metaphor, "You're like a bull in a china shop." We found explaining this was very difficult as it was hard to dumb down, we got the base of it, but when explaining it to someone like Christopher, who would always ask why it became difficult. He would ask questions like "Why is there a bull in a china shop?" or "Why is it not a glass shop?" which helped us understand that he simply cannot grasp anything that isn't logical, which we can incorporate into scenes with Christopher, which will affect our tone and actions around him.
Our final task was, in the groups we were already in, to devise a short piece based on the line Ed says... "If you don't tell the truth now, it'll hurt even more when it comes out." We decided to go for a piece based on one of our members previous experiences in a relationship were passionate feelings were said and felt but only felt one way. The relevance to the line was that they both went along with it and one our member found it harder to leave as he felt he had got himself trapped and felt bad when their relationship eventually ended as he went along with it so long. We are due to perform it next lesson. Although, we do not think it is the best piece, we have had to construct it in fifteen minutes, but feel as if it holds relevance and shows a clear message.
We began rehearsals today with an exercise. This exercise was to walk around the room, but re living our journey to school for that day, really paying attention to every detail we saw, like how many houses we saw, what was on the houses, how many cars were there or what was the weather like. Trying to remember every detail was particularly difficult as we later discussed that everything we tend to remember normally affects us, and the things our brain doesn't absorb is normally information we do not need nor does it affect us, like how many cars past me this morning, it simply isn't needed. This task was in aid of us being able to understand the details Christopher would take in, for example, he would know how many cars past him, maybe even their colour in order. Where we would give a rough time of leaving our house, he would know the time precisely. This exercise was useful, as when acting out scenes with hardly any props and creating specific places or objects using our bodies, we really need to pay attention to detail to make our performance encapsulate the audience, so that they know exactly what we are creating, whether that be a train station or a car or just acting out a scene in say, a garden or house, we need to make it obvious to the audience where we are. After this, one person was selected to re tell their journey in as much detail as possible. We all sat and listened, trying to picture the journey. This helped us gain a stronger understanding of the detail we should have thought of, but again, shows how much information we miss and how hard it is to remember such detail.
Our second task, again, was focusing on Christopher's logical thinking process. In the play, he admits he has problems understanding metaphors. So, in groups we had to think of a metaphor and explain it in a way Christopher would understand. My group decided on the metaphor, "You're like a bull in a china shop." We found explaining this was very difficult as it was hard to dumb down, we got the base of it, but when explaining it to someone like Christopher, who would always ask why it became difficult. He would ask questions like "Why is there a bull in a china shop?" or "Why is it not a glass shop?" which helped us understand that he simply cannot grasp anything that isn't logical, which we can incorporate into scenes with Christopher, which will affect our tone and actions around him.
Our final task was, in the groups we were already in, to devise a short piece based on the line Ed says... "If you don't tell the truth now, it'll hurt even more when it comes out." We decided to go for a piece based on one of our members previous experiences in a relationship were passionate feelings were said and felt but only felt one way. The relevance to the line was that they both went along with it and one our member found it harder to leave as he felt he had got himself trapped and felt bad when their relationship eventually ended as he went along with it so long. We are due to perform it next lesson. Although, we do not think it is the best piece, we have had to construct it in fifteen minutes, but feel as if it holds relevance and shows a clear message.
Monday, 13 October 2014
Curious Incident: Day 10
Today, we took a break from the script and were placed into groups based on our characters. In these groups we were to devise a scene based on our views on Christopher. I, playing the Duty Sergeant, was placed in the policeman group, discussing our impressions on Christopher. We wanted to divert away from the policeman discussing Christopher professionally and sensitively, and instead, decided to base the scene around what the policeman really thought, without holding back
revolutionarts2016: Improvising off-script - The Police Officers
Afterwards, we carried on with the final part of act 2 before stopping. Our final task was to write a monologue for one of our characters about somebody else. As we had already done Christopher we had to pick someone else close and with a link. As I play Roger, I decided to write about Mrs Shears.
Today, we took a break from the script and were placed into groups based on our characters. In these groups we were to devise a scene based on our views on Christopher. I, playing the Duty Sergeant, was placed in the policeman group, discussing our impressions on Christopher. We wanted to divert away from the policeman discussing Christopher professionally and sensitively, and instead, decided to base the scene around what the policeman really thought, without holding back
revolutionarts2016: Improvising off-script - The Police Officers
Curious Incident: Day 9
Today was a fairly routine day. We picked up where we left off in act 2 and carried on as normal. Every now and again, we discussed how a particular scene should be staged and how relationships between characters may be portrayed. For example, Christopher and Judy or Roger and Ed. So we could get an idea of the emotions felt in particular scenes.
Today was a fairly routine day. We picked up where we left off in act 2 and carried on as normal. Every now and again, we discussed how a particular scene should be staged and how relationships between characters may be portrayed. For example, Christopher and Judy or Roger and Ed. So we could get an idea of the emotions felt in particular scenes.
Tuesday, 7 October 2014
Curious Incident Day Seven/Eight
Today in rehearsals we worked on more physical theatre. We began to go though act 2, again contributing with ideas of how we could stage certain scenes. One particular scene required us creating Swindon. I suggested to create a roundabout, as there are many roundabouts in Swindon and should anyone from Swindon read this blog, feel free to post a picture of one on here. We made this roundabout by pacing 5 people as a core with other people acting as traffic around the roundabout. We then dispersed into a train station, creating lampposts and clocks by lifting people on shoulders and so on. Then, created a scene on a train where we created a rhythm during the course of the journey to represent the logical thinking of Christopher, before finishing in our London train station created a few days back. We then moved onto considering how characters are portrayed and seen as from the classes perspective. We brainstormed ideas on Christopher, Mr Alexander, Siobhan and Roger, considering their characters and relationships with other characters.
On day eight we began a group discussion on why we felt particular ways about certain characters and really dug deep into possible meanings for characters personalities and why they behave the way they are and relationships they have with others as well as how they would react in certain situations. We then decided to start from where we left off from the day before. This time our main creation was the tube station, where we lined up horizontally, acting as casual as possible, before reacting when Christopher decides to get onto the tacks. To make the scene realistic, we all had to react in a shocked way to bring the scene to life. Before carrying on with the act, making sure we knew what we wee doing and at what time.
Today in rehearsals we worked on more physical theatre. We began to go though act 2, again contributing with ideas of how we could stage certain scenes. One particular scene required us creating Swindon. I suggested to create a roundabout, as there are many roundabouts in Swindon and should anyone from Swindon read this blog, feel free to post a picture of one on here. We made this roundabout by pacing 5 people as a core with other people acting as traffic around the roundabout. We then dispersed into a train station, creating lampposts and clocks by lifting people on shoulders and so on. Then, created a scene on a train where we created a rhythm during the course of the journey to represent the logical thinking of Christopher, before finishing in our London train station created a few days back. We then moved onto considering how characters are portrayed and seen as from the classes perspective. We brainstormed ideas on Christopher, Mr Alexander, Siobhan and Roger, considering their characters and relationships with other characters.
On day eight we began a group discussion on why we felt particular ways about certain characters and really dug deep into possible meanings for characters personalities and why they behave the way they are and relationships they have with others as well as how they would react in certain situations. We then decided to start from where we left off from the day before. This time our main creation was the tube station, where we lined up horizontally, acting as casual as possible, before reacting when Christopher decides to get onto the tacks. To make the scene realistic, we all had to react in a shocked way to bring the scene to life. Before carrying on with the act, making sure we knew what we wee doing and at what time.
Thursday, 2 October 2014
Curious Incident: Day Six
Today we took a break from all the strenuous lifting and went on to creating another physical piece for when Christopher searches his house. For example, to create bins we had people leaning down with another persons arms over there shoulders to act as the lid. To create his dads van we had people on their knees to create chairs, people using arms as seatbelts, gear sticks. We had people curled up to act as wheels and people embodying doors. In addition, we had people doing sound effects, such as engine noises and doors slamming. To create the house we had two people being lifted to form the roof, with another as a chimney, and again, people acting as doors. Finally, we created the bedroom, with people on knees with hands out to resemble draws, we also had people crouching to act as support for people to lay on. However, my favourite part happens when we create stairs. We have four people crouching to form stairs and the rest as bannisters to help Christopher up them. Our narrator comes on and pretends to shoot our Christopher so he falls back, before we catch him.
We then ran act 1 through completely, implementing the ideas we have thought of over the last week or so.
Today we took a break from all the strenuous lifting and went on to creating another physical piece for when Christopher searches his house. For example, to create bins we had people leaning down with another persons arms over there shoulders to act as the lid. To create his dads van we had people on their knees to create chairs, people using arms as seatbelts, gear sticks. We had people curled up to act as wheels and people embodying doors. In addition, we had people doing sound effects, such as engine noises and doors slamming. To create the house we had two people being lifted to form the roof, with another as a chimney, and again, people acting as doors. Finally, we created the bedroom, with people on knees with hands out to resemble draws, we also had people crouching to act as support for people to lay on. However, my favourite part happens when we create stairs. We have four people crouching to form stairs and the rest as bannisters to help Christopher up them. Our narrator comes on and pretends to shoot our Christopher so he falls back, before we catch him.
We then ran act 1 through completely, implementing the ideas we have thought of over the last week or so.
Curious Incident: Day Five
Today we carried on with our physical theatre. We wanted to create the panic of a train station scene but also wanted to show it from Christopher's perspective. To do this we all ran around the room, mimicking actions we would see people do at a train station, such as running around, making phone calls and so on. However every so often our Christopher would call a number, indicating we were going to do a lift. My lift was to allow him to run at me and my partner and catch him sidewards. The video can be seen below, eventually, we hope to get it running perfectly.
Today we carried on with our physical theatre. We wanted to create the panic of a train station scene but also wanted to show it from Christopher's perspective. To do this we all ran around the room, mimicking actions we would see people do at a train station, such as running around, making phone calls and so on. However every so often our Christopher would call a number, indicating we were going to do a lift. My lift was to allow him to run at me and my partner and catch him sidewards. The video can be seen below, eventually, we hope to get it running perfectly.
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