Curious Incident: Day 22/23

Curious Incident is now, sadly, finished. It was a great production to work on and I think it went really well on the night.

We started the week rehearsing as much as we could without our scripts and organising props and making sure we were creating the right scenes at the right time. On Tuesday, we tried a full run through of the play, which went very well, with only a few minor errors of forgotten lines and tiny mistimings of entrances and exits. On the Wednesday, we ran through the whole play, trying to work out our lighting, so we knew where to stand at what time. This was highly beneficial as we got an idea that we actually knew the play very well and could do it all without scripts, which also aided our confidence. There isn't much to say about rehearsals this week, only that we  kept on running the play as much as we could. We didn't change or work on anything else, we concentrated solely on running the play.

Evaluation of Performance

Overall, I think the final performance went amazingly well. We covered up errors effectively, so well that even I did not  notice that a scene was missing, thankfully it was only a small scene. One of the biggest mistakes was that we forgot to create the roundabout in Act 2, we all just wandered around until we realised and managed to slowly, one by one, create our roundabout, we did not panic and simply carried on accordingly. Which I think is a great skill, to be able to remain calm and carry on, convincing the audience that nothing went wrong. Individually, I forgot that we remained standing for a scene and I went to sit down. Fortunately, it was a scene where people were standing still, so I could conceal my mistake by freezing, then slowly making my way back into the scene. If I could change one thing it would certainly be the fact that we had little time to decide where our props went. We had to keep our props under our chairs and as we rehearsed with one more chair than we actually had on the night, we had to do a last minute shuffle around, resulting in me forgetting my sunglasses for a scene and us having to mime a train instead of using the one we had.

Aside from these minor details, I believe we performed very well considering we had to construct the whole play in 4 weeks and create so much with hardly any stage directions, so I think we done incredibly well.

In terms of developing my own skills as an actor, this was the first performance when I have actually messed up a little bit, but I was surprised at the fact that I didn't panic or lose concentration or break character, which I worried I would do. I have shown to myself that I can remain composed in that situation. I feel as if my experience in contributing to ideas will serve me well in the future should I have to create anything again.

Curious Incident: Day 20/21

We are now really close to the performance, with only two rehearsals left after today. These past two days we have been running through Act 1 and 2 and refining out as much as we can to make sure it is as good as it can be. We have tried to do as much as we can without scripts and have found it has ran a lot more easily without them and at the same time helps us get used to thye fact that thgere is no longer the security of a script in front of us.

One thing we have focused on is the very tiny nitty gritty aspects, like making sure that our ensemble pieces have everyone standing in the right position, that everyone knows the lines for lifts to go into slow motion, that we are giving as much energy as possible, that we eneter and exit in the right places and we know our scripts of by heart. Again, we have been running our ensemble pieces, making sure they are as good if not better as the last time we done them. It is really close to looking like a complete and finished article, we need to just keep learing our lines and cues.

My research this week looks into the characteristics of someone with severe autism, like Christopher, possesses, which coincides with my targets as an actor. This will help me give accurate and realsitic portrayals of my characters with Christopher and shows that I am able to research effectively and incorporate my research into my performance.

Very little or no eye contact.

Resistance to being held or touched

Difficulty understanding jokes, figures of speech or sarcasm.

Difficulty reading facial expressions and body language.

Difficulty understanding the rules of conversation.

Difficulty understanding group interactions.

Gives spontaneous comments which seem to have no connection to the current conversation.

Makes honest, but inappropriate observations.

Seems unable to understand another’s feelings.

Prefers to be alone, aloft or overly-friendly.

Finds it easier to socialize with people that are older or younger, rather than peers of their own age. 

Talks excessively about one or two topics (dinosaurs, movies, etc.). 

Minimal acknowledgement of others.

As, Roger, I believe I need to know some of these characteristics such as being unable to understand others feelings, hence why Roger gets angry with Christoper. I believe Roger knows that Christopher has trouble understanding figures of speech and facial expressions, but uses that to his advantage in the fact Roger doesn't care what he says as he passes Christopher off as stupid and knows he won't undertsand him.

As the Duty Sergeant I need to know all of these and perhaps try to gain his eye contact throughout my conversation with him and try to ignore the honest but inappropriate remarks such as "But it was'nt an accident." When he is being questioned. I think the Duty Sergeant would have to use the least amount of facial expressions as he can as he knows Christopher will not understand, therefore has to be as blunt as possible.

Another individual target I have set myslef is to go back through my script, annotating as much as I can, that being subtext or cue lines or reasons, addressing my tone, accents. body language and diction to make sure my annotated script is detailed and to a good standard, whilst giving the best variety in my characters and making them as convincing as possible.

In terms of setting a target that the group needs to do, I would say a run through of everyhtinh without the scripts would bge very beneficial. It would highlight areas that need last minute work and areas we still need to learn. It will help expose our weakest parts in the performance so we can work on refining them the most, leading to the play becoming more solid and interesting as a result.

Curious Incident: Day 17/18/19

Over the last week, we have been running the scenes that we feel weakest on, whilst remembering what walks our characters have and remembering the subtext we wrote about our characters.

The London train station is still the weakest scene in the play. The lines do not come when they should be and the structure is all over the place. We decided to work on this scene over the last week. We added music which helped create an atmosphere and really worked on getting the lines out at the right time to show how overwhelmed Christopher is. In addition, we added music to our opening sequence and completely changed our beginning to fit the music. We were split into 3 groups and each had about twenty minutes to create a piece. We then came together and tried to incorporate all groups ideas into our piece which was done very successfully. We also worked on a new and imporived London train station scene. I think this one really captures the hustle and bustle in a station such as Paddington, but also, helps exaggerate it as much as possible to emphasise Christopher's shock and complete dimay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntaO4litwiI

We also worked on making our London street scene look stronger, we added a street soundscape to our one to make the volume sound louder, we also tried to give as much noise, energy and movement to our scene to make it stand out a little more. In addition, we watched clips from the national theatre online exploring how comedy is used in the play. I thought this was very beneficial as it helped us understand that the play does have elements of comedy and that it wasn't intended to be a sad and depressing play. It helped is liven the play up and make it more interesting and intreaging. 

My research this week looks at the relationship between Judy and Christopher. By watching this clip it is evident that there is a lot of history between the two. As Roger, I watched how their relationship is portrayed and can see how much love and almost worry there is form Judy's point of view. However, through watching Roger, I can see that he is distant from the scenes. He is present but is cast away and not involved, there is a sense of detachment and I need to be able to replicate this myself.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jyt2w

In terms of developing my own skills I think I need to be able to make sure my characters are as convincing as possible. I need to do this by learning my lines and cues so I am not bogged down by thinking about my lines and I can say them without pressure and as relaxed as possible.

For the future I think we need to try and pull the play together. I think it would be a good idea to try and run the play from the beginning without our scripts and try and maintain our performance quality throughout, making sure we know exactly what we are doing and when.

Curious Incident: Day 15/16

Over the last two days we have been running the show from the beginning, without our scripts for as much as possible. We have also been making sure our annotations are all in place and help us know what we are doing and when. This has been beneficial as it shows what areas we need to work on and helps bring the play together.

Yesterday we focused on how our characters would walk, for some people this was easy as they only had one character. I went for my Duty Sergeant walk and decided as him being very upright, with his hands behind his back with a relaxed stroll of authority and confidence, without seeming too casual. We then looked at how other people walked as their character and tried to replicate them. This helped me understand how everybody's walk is different and that our walks determine our character and that they need to be different to show a variety of personalities just in our walk. We also worked on how we would sit in our seats from a neutral perspective, but making sure we were in character as soon as we stood up.

Today, we looked into subtext of our characters and were asked to pick one scene and annotate how our characters really felt, as this would effect our body language and tone, even though our lines may have said otherwise. For example, as Roger, I focused on how he would feel about Christopher arriving and staying, seemingly resulting in him being placed on the back burner with Judy's attention focused on Christopher and Ed. Judy seems to snap at Roger a lot and I feel he is constantly switching from being frustrated and Christopher and Judy to hating Ed and then defending Judy, so it was really quite confusing for me.

In terms of developing my own skills as an actor I think both activities will greatly help as it will allow me to think like my character, to get a deeper understanding of how they would behave and act, this will help to make my characters more believable and hopefully get me a better grade ! I could also use these techniques in future to make my characters as believable as possible.

I think today's lesson was extremely beneficial as we got through the whole play, in the hall, helping us get used to the space we have available. We have identified the areas we need to work on as the areas where we stopped or did not look good and know what we are good at allowing us to focus our efforts into one particular area.

For the future couple of lessons I think I really need to focus on how I am playing my character through body language, walking, thinking about subtext and tone. As does everyone, to get into the habit of playing our characters and getting used to them. Also, we need to work on the London train station scene, as currently it is very slow and quiet, with the lines all over the place. We need to speed this up to make it seem more believable and erradicate our current weakness, if we focus on that, the play will begin to look very strong.