MTH4C004R~001 25101520 Performance Project 1

by

Fin Harrison 25101520

Introduction

In performance project, we looked over a number of scripts, monologues and songs, as well as different techniques which helped advance our understanding of acting with text. We looked at different practitioners’ methods, whether it was a technique they used to understand how to perform literature they did not write, or a technique in which they wrote their piece of theatre. We either worked in groups, supplying each other with ideas and giving each other feedback after performances, or we worked on our own, where we either left to do our own research to understand the context and who our characters were, or to analyse texts to appreciate how pieces were written and what the intention behind even the littlest things were.

In this portfolio, I will look at techniques/ methods such as “Walking The Text” created by Cicely Berry, “World Building” and “Given Circumstances” inspired/ invented by Stanislavsky and how to perform text in the style of musical theatre compared naturalistic theatre, with the extract we used being from the musical “Me And My Girl” with music by Noel Gay and book and lyrics written by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose.

Techniques, Scripts and Exercises

The first exercise I’m going to discuss is walking the text, which is a technique we used when exploring Shakespeare’s work. I hadn’t much experience in Shakespeare prior to this exercise and had little understanding on how to approach it, read it and perform it. “Walking The Text” is a technique created by our Director but was inspired by Cicely Berry (1973), which looks at how dialogue by Shakespeare was written. For instance, if I were to read out some lines and walk around the room. Every time I came there was a full stop in what I was saying, I would momentarily come to a stop physically, standing in place and holding my words until it felt natural to resume speaking through the text. Every time there was a comma, I had to change my direction in which way I was walking. A question mark meant that I had to turn around and and exclamation mark meant I had to jump.

As soon as I had completed reading the text and executing the exercise, it clicked. I realized why Shakespeare had put his punctuation where he did. To me, his full stops signified a new thought/ realization from the character and it allowed me to interpret what that thought could be in my own way to allow me as a performer to have a trace of myself in the character. With the changing of direction for commas, I believed, at the time, that it was a new mini objective every time. With that I felt that the deliverance of my lines felt very unique when compared to one another, as the tone changed due to the little objectives of each phrase and it was not just one long thought throughout the entire extract. With question marks, it gave me a sense of disorientation and confusion, which really helped me get into character. I felt as though I was physically feeling what the character was mentally feeling, which then immersed me even more into the text I was performing. Finally, the exclamation mark and jumping helped me put energy into what I was saying, as the focus and little boost of adrenaline assisted me in further embodying the character, as again, it translated to what they were possibly feeling in the extract.

This really opened my eyes when it came to understanding Shakespeare, as not only was I able to get into character more and understand what I was reading, but I was allowed to explore and perform what I was saying. I could explore with every single piece of punctuation and see what felt more natural to do and what didn’t after doing the exercise with a new piece of text, for instance having a long pause after a full stop but not always having a new thought after every comma implemented into the text. I felt like I could properly embody the character I was portraying and had a connection to the text when, later in the session I looked at an extract from “Romeo And Juliet”, where I took on the role of Sampson. I had previous experience of analyzing this scene and felt comfortable returning to it after being able to perform Shakespeare more confidently. In my group, I was able to understand my objective and then embed it into my lines, which then when performed with others, I was able to bounce off of those on stage and piece together a small performance which felt quite natural and true to the text.

https://leedsconservatoire.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=b11af900-f06c-4cfb-a53e-b3cb00e2f0b1

The next exercise I looked at was “World Building”, a technique influenced and derived by “Constantine Stanislavsky” (2013) as well as “Given Circumstances” which was also invented by “Constantine Stanislavsky” (2008). I chose to talk about both of these as I felt as though I gained the same benefit by using both to help me advance my understanding of evolution of character when it comes to solo development. These techniques focus on exploring the context of the piece of theatre you are delving into on a deeper level. Our director instructed us to look at four aspects of the world of the text we were looking at when it came to “World Building” and those four were:

  • Politics
  • Fashion
  • Music
  • Money

We looked at a play called “Serious Money” written by “Caryl Churchill”(1987) and I decided it best to use “World Building” as I believe it was very suited to understanding this play compared to others. The Play is set in the 1980’s, thus I was able to properly research the state of England due to how much documentation of political events there was. I was able to also look at the fashion and music back then, which helped me understand how those of financial power were to have dressed back then and let the music immerse me in a different era. As for money, I realized how much it did help, as I was able to understand the economy and the state it was in during the 80’s, and implement that understanding into a character I was playing. I was playing a character of very high power, and money felt more important than ever after researching the economy during this time. All of this research allowed me to immerse myself into the extract of the show we were performing in groups and allowed me to build a character from it too. Of course, I had the rundown given to me by my Director of what my character, but this exercise allowed me to further add onto that brief and mold it into something a lot more developed and established.

As for “Given Circumstances”, I used this in a lot of the pieces of theatre that we explored. For example, one show that I used it in was “Me And My Girl” (1955) which is actually a musical, and I will go into further detail about this later. I was playing the character of Bill, and so I asked myself as a performer some questions that were supplied to me by my director. The questions were:

  • “Who Are They?”
  • “Where Are They?”
  • “What Has Happened?”
  • “Relationships?”

I found each one to be very helpful, as I had the script of the production so already had an understanding of the basis of the show. However, these questions really helped look closer into the character I was playing, as I knew who they were and where they were, but didn’t actually think about it in detail until instructed to. With that, I went away with my underdeveloped character and thought about my character to myself. After sometime, I came back with a character that I knew much more about; I knew his objective of the scene we were given and I knew the super objective that he had too. I have played character in the past that i have just run into without stopping to think about, so I found it very beneficial to sit down and think about them in such detail. I was able to let these objectives drive the scene forward whenever I had used this exercise, and it fully helped me develop my characters, but more importantly myself and my understanding of how I can develop a performance and its impact on the audience.

The final exercise I looked at was less of an exercise and more of an experiment yet I still found it very valuable. Going back to the text of “Me And My Girl”, when coming to actually perform it, our Director told us to perform it in the style of Musical Theatre at first, where everything is just a little more over the top, such as expressions facially and vocally, the pace of the scene, body language and how characters use the space. After performing the scene once, we were given feedback on our performances, and I was directed on performing it more naturalistic. I had looked at “Naturalism” in my contextual studies module, and looked at “Miss Julie” written by “August Strindberg”. My character said the word “Bally” a lot, which, to me, is the posh version of the word “Bloody”. With that, the second time round, my Director instructed me to say the actual word instead of its stand in and to perform it more held back. In the videos, they showcase me performing the text in these two different ways.

https://leedsconservatoire.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=a7f078c5-0282-43f4-ae84-b3cb00e2f0af

https://leedsconservatoire.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=a7f078c5-0282-43f4-ae84-b3cb00e2f0af

After coming away and thinking about how I performed the text both times, I realized how different naturalism is compared to Musical Theatre. Throughout performing the extract, I was very aware of how I used my face, body and voice the entire time whilst staying in the scene, and it felt very different. The first time round, I was over emphasizing all of these aspects, which suited the style of the performance and added to the energy of it all. However, the second time around, I did the exact opposite. I made myself less aware of my face, body and voice and instead of marking through it, I did what came naturally. It felt so different to execute yet the scene still achieved the same objectives as done prior.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I believe that I really developed as a performer over those weeks in taking part in such unique exercises. I was already quite a confident actor prior to doing the Actor And Text Module, but after, I have become aware of many new techniques and exercises that I can use to help improve any characters that I take on in my career. With “Walking The Text”, I could never really understand Shakespeare before it, and after, I could understand it to a very good level, which boosted my confidence when it came to performing any extracts I was told to either perform or go away and look at. With the two exercises derived from “Stanislavsky”, I am now a lot more aware of what character development is. I now know what I need to do when I want to make a character my own, by getting the foundations of it and then implementing my research, thoughts, awareness and myself into that character to fill in the gaps and have a very established being that I can take on stage and be happy to embody. Finally, I have been made more aware of the difference between Musical Theatre’s style of acting and Naturalism, with when acting in a more realistic way, I have learned to not be so aware of what I’m doing and just let myself be immersed in the scene I am performing. I believe I was that focused when performing the scene for the first time that I didn’t do what I thought I had to as my character, but I did what my character wanted, as I was fully in their mindset. Overall, I have learned how to understand many genres of theatre and how to perform them and how to develop my performance just by myself.

Bibliography