Friday 9 March 2018

Term 2 unit 5&6 THE YORK REALIST

The beginning of The York Realist

"I live here. I live here. You can't see that though. You can't see it. This is where I live. Here."

We start the play by knowing this quote first, we were asked to say what we thought of the quote when we first hear it. What I thought of the quote was 

The person might be having something different with the others and got bullied or isolated from everyone else. So, at last, he screamed out this quote feeling hurt trying to maintain his rightfulness. 


After having a little base of understanding the quote, people get into pairs or small groups. They are going to perform a devising short scene involving that quote.

Examples of some groups...

Abdul's group
Abe will be a kid got bullied by his two elder brothers. He ran away from the house after being bullied again. Unfortunately, their mother called and told Abdul the eldest, she will be home very soon, in order to not get into trouble, they need to find Abe back. 

When they managed to find him in a forest, Abe was playing with his imaginary friends, and not willing to follow his brothers back home. After a short while of arguing, Abe said out the quote. 

my point of view...
They presented it in a childish way, the repetition words in the quote do sound a bit like what a kid will say. They are very simple words but all have strong meanings, especially from a kid, it shows more of desperation.  

Molly's group
The scene started with Molly wandering in a cabin. When she heard someone coming back, she started to get panic. So, that's actually Brad's cabin and Molly was just a homeless lady that wasn't meant to be in there. Molly tried very hard to explain that she doesn't even know someone is living in there. Brad took his part very well too, he was shocked finding out someone has been living in his cabin for quite awhile. When Brad was about to call the police, Molly finds no other way so she said the quote out.

my point of view...
They did a nice work presenting the quote. I can see how Molly was trying really hard to keep her opportunity/chance to continue staying in that cabin. It seemed like she's going to face something worse if she got kicked out by Brad. 


What did we achieve?...
we read through the first two scenes of the play and after few pages of reading, we would stop to discuss how far the story we understand. We tried to act it out for a few times, the awkwardness between George and John bugs us a lot because we were sure that they're a gay couple but we're still very confused on how can we show it.

We are able to be clear with all the setting in our acting space (not a stage). We've gotten more and more smoothly to go in and out of the space and space like kitchen or the stairs that actually still belong in the scene.

As this play is more like a family-friendly play, the relationships in between must be on point in order to convince the audience with it. We've been working hard on the characters' personalities and the relationship between each one of them. 


The full story of The York Realist

We finished reading the rest of the scenes and the quote we learned from at the beginning was actually from George's monologue. We then pair up with a person to work on the monologue and see how well we could understand it.

We were asked to be A and B, one will be the desire that wanted to go to London with John and another one will be the one that wanted to stay in York. Each pair read out the whole monologue in their own way.

Those with underlines will be the negative thoughts from George. 
I was the negative one in my pair, whilst Shamsul was the positive one. He started with the monologue first and when the negative thoughts from George came out, I stood in front of Shamsul and said my worries out then went to his back again.

What do I understand from that monologue?...
We were doing this because that's what George's mind was going on with. He does not know which to decide. Anyways, I believe deep in his heart he would really want to go to London, but he couldn't imagine if there is something happen after he decided to live a new life there. He still not able to face it because of that many years of living under his mother. He is still not very strong to handle any big problem.



6th February (Tuesday) 1st WORKSHOP AT DONMAR 

We were having a workshop in Donmar for the first time!! We met with Toby, he's going to be our instructor leading us on The York Realist for weeks after this workshop. We started off with a game called 'WA', it was to warm up our response capability.


How did the game(WA) work
  • everyone needs to put both hands together like a pointer. 
  • step your right feet forward and shout 'WA' directly to the person you are pointing with both of your handsit can be anyone in the circle, even the person next to you. 
  • if I've been shouted by someone, I need to point to the air with my hands and shout 'WA'
  • after I shouted 'WA', both people next to me need to chop me with their hands and shout 'WA'
  • then, I will put my right feet out and point to the next person, and so on. 

Why do we need warm-ups ?...
In order to work well in rehearsal or during the performance, actors need to do three types of warm-ups, Physical, vocal and mental. It is a simple strategy that will improve all of your work. Warming up before every performance or rehearsal is also being a responsible actor.

Actors should also gently prepare the body for exercises by gradually increasing the heart rate and circulation, this will loosen the joints and increase blood flow to the muscles. Stretching the muscles prepares them for physical activity and prevents injuries.

For a play to work, it requires a collective effort. Actors need to come together to tell a story. Doing a thorough group warm-up helps get the most out of each actor and is definitely worth 5 or 10 minutes investment.


Toby then asked two of our classmates to stand at each end to represent a straight line with agree and disagree. Then he continued to ask us few questions for example, "Do we have to be far away from our home to be successful?" I stood on the disagree side, I think it's not the area or environment that matters, it's about our attitude that matters. If I'm not a hardworking person, no matter which place I chose to stay, I won't be successful without putting in any effort.

After that, we went on to another exercise. It was about places. and in the center of the room represented London.

First Question: Where do we come from?

Most people stood around the center, but I tend to stand way more distance from the circle. Because I'm from Malaysia.

Second Question: Where do our parents come from? 

I went a little bit further than the first round, I was standing at another spot representing Indonesia, where my mom from.

Third Question : Where do our grandparents come from?

I stood back to Malaysia, that's where my grandparents from my Dad's side from.

Fourth Question: Where do we most likely wanted to live in the future?

I was actually struggling between the UK and Malaysia, unlike others, they chose a country/city they love, I do love many other places like NewYork and LA in the USA or some other romantic Europe countries.
But I'm a very homesick person, for London, it's a place where I study and maybe a place where I will find my job in the future; for Malaysia, a country where I was born, my hometown is there, my friends are there and most of the memories were made there.
After a few minutes of thinking, I chose Malaysia, it doesn't mean that I do not love to try something new or be adventurous. It's just that I would prefer to stay in the place where I get to connect with my family.

Fifth Question: Where do we feel more comfortable to stay?

I stayed at the same spot as before, Malaysia without any thinking. Specifically, I was actually standing in the area where I live, Kuala Lumpur but not in my house. Although I love my family that much, but I don't really show them all my sides, usually i will be more myself when I'm with friends, because I can just do whatever I want and they will enjoy it with me, but family, they will try to control me from doing something crazy. But I still love them.
I've also got a reason for not choosing London, even though I've been living here for awhile. Somehow I just don't feel secure being with the people here and all that unfamiliar places. I couldn't get rid of that lonely feeling, or maybe is just me that's not trying an effort to fit in, I don't know. 

Overall from above...
As I can see myself, I stayed in the corner all the time, I'm not an anywhere(feel comfortable anywhere) person, I tend to find it difficult when I wanted things to change while I'm already used to what I always do.

Pros: I do not get affected by other people outside my area, and will keep my own culture for long. I wouldn't change my habits even when I was in another place or treating people differently because they're different from me. 


Cons: It'll be very difficult for me to get along with a group of people from different places. Not just that, if any reason when I need to move to another place like now, I moved from my country to another country just to continue with my education, this is going to be really hard if I'm still how I used to be in Malaysia. Things will get harder because the difference between two places is very different.


We then all went into a room with another instructor. We were asked to create a short story depends on a picture we chose. I was in a group with Brad and Molly. We picked a picture showing two girls lying on the ground full of grass with half of their body in the lake, they were holding hands. We then had to pick a scenario and a scene for the characters in the picture. We've gotten 'B tells A that she wanted a child' & 'on a hill'.

It was quite easy for us as the picture was already showing a background like a hill, so we do not need to add in that on purpose. After deciding who's A and B we discussed roughly the whole story.

Here's the outline of the story before we go into adding dialogues. 

A and B were lesbian, A cheated on B with a guy earlier, trying to find excuses to get rid of B, but B was so in love with A and accepting all the things optimism, even when A told her that she's pregnant(obviously showing that she's hooking up with another guy) but actually she's not. She then continues to use many other excuses to change B's mind. 


After writing the whole story out, the instructor wanted us to only pick four most important lines of the play and act it out. It was fun watching other people playing a gay or lesbian character, some are comedic and some of them are serious. 


How I feel about this workshop?...
For the exercises we did with Toby earlier, it's related to how George feel when John wanted him to move to London with him. This exercise is to let us find out how will we feel about different places and our comfort zone. 
And the second session, we did something related to relationships between people with the same gender. This also leads us to understand more about George and John.


21st February (Wednesday) 2nd WORKSHOP AT DONMAR

We listened to different kinds of music and were asked to move our body by letting them lead our body, and need to write the feeling down on a piece of paper after each music. There is music that makes me feel lonely, strange, joyful, freedom, creepy. We then got into small groups of three and to pick only 6 most interesting words from each group. 

Kenya, Georgina and I were in a group. We decided to take Anxious, Mischievous, Isolated, Distraught, Freedom and Joyful. Then, we need to build up our dance movements that are related to these 6 words and fit them into a music beat. 

What did I learn from this exercise?...
Music can lead us to a different motion. It can also be the main thing to lead every actor on stage to feel the same in a certain situation. For example, a birthday party, there will always be some people that are living out of their mind and doesn't know what to do. If there's a happy background music, it would be different, everyone will definitely be in their character immediately as soon as they heard the music. 

In the afternoon, we were divided into two groups and took our turns to play grandma's footstep. Another group will need to give feedback after each game by saying who they think is the most interesting player and how they make the entire game interesting. 

I found Brad interesting in the first game because he kept trying to be at the front but always being sent to the beginning due to his big movements, he tried really hard each time when the "grandma" turned her head to the front. As an audience, I got panic for the game because of him as I wanted to see more from him but was so scared that he will be sent back to the beginning again. 

Before the third game, Toby put a block, a wooden rack and his scarf to the space. In order to touch "grandma's" shoulder, everyone needs to step on to the block with both legs, pick up the scarf and put it back on the floor and also need to climb through the rack. We could do that in a different order. 

During the game I was observing, I found Abdul funny as he failed every time in the same section which was to pick up the scarf. And for Kenya, she's been working really careful all the time but when she was finally going to the third section, she got caught by not freezing her body properly, so unfortunate. 

After that, Toby asked us to play without the "grandma", we need to imagine it ourselves and stop at the same time as a group. For this round, I can see everyone is losing their tension towards the game, as some people were still moving even though most of them stopped, and with those that were still moving they did not get themselves back to the beginning. 

What did I learn from above?...
If we relate the game to our performance, the audience would find some cheating is interesting but when all characters are doing the same thing, there are no more different objectives from each character, all of them just wanting to win the game, it would be really boring to watch. I think if all characters have their own objectives or achievements, the audience will get to see more and find it more fun to watch. 

We then went to another room, it was to let us understand more on the history of gay people. We also learned Polari, which is a language that only gay man speaks because being gay is a serious crime back in those days. They need to speak in a different way to evade from the police. 

How I feel about this workshop?..
After knowing the history of gay people, I can somehow relate them to George and John. For examples like why are they being so awkward and why did they hide their true identity from other people.   

During the game of grandma's footstep, I learned a lot by knowing what kind of performance does the audience want to see. What do we need to do in order to make our show interesting. We need to avoid doing boring things by doing the same thing or overly trying to make our performance fun, it looks like we did everything on purpose. 


7th March (Wednesday) Rehearsal day

Click and watch our rehearsal videos








Important information!!
Evaluation for the York Realist performance in Donmar Theatre will be in another blog.

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