Week 1
In this week, with Rob and Sharon, we've been discussing a lot about what are we going to achieve in our second year. A Christmas Carol, a play we are going to perform just before the end of term one. It's just two months away, and this term will be the toughest term as beside a performance, we need to be done with another two units as well, which is our personal statement and an essay with 1500 words.
For the essay, we were to write about things that we're passionate that relate to acting. For that, I would like to do something with the Theatres in the UK and compare them with other countries, to see how different are the opportunities in and outside of the UK could give for the people who learned ACTING.
Things I'm going to research for my essay:
- The three places that contain much work opportunities for actors/actresses. China, America, England.
- Percentage of students in acting courses chose to work in the performing industry as well.
- Theatre and TV, which is more popular in few different countries.
- which requires fewer skills? acts behind a camera or on a stage?
On Wednesday, we watched "A Christmas Carol" film in class. This is to rewind our memory back to the story. Rewatching it makes me realize that I've forgotten some of the important events in the film. As we are going to perform this play, I put more focus in it throughout the film as I know I will not watch it at home myself after that. I've plotted the important parts in the play.
Why is listing down the important things from a play/film helpful?
Writing down all the points I got from the play as an audience shows what a real audience might also see when we perform it. In order to make our performance better than others, is to show more things to the audience and make them bring away the same old play but brimming with more emotions. I now know that large pieces from the play, so it's time to work on all the small but interesting details in there that will catch the audience more.
Week 2
After getting our script for "A Christmas Carol", we were asked to pick a character or two to audition for, the challenging part was this play contains lots of songs that are needed to sing out to the audience by certain characters, just like a musical play. The character I was going to audition for was Belle, Scrooge's ex-wife.
Why did I choose Belle? (reason)
When Belle shows up in the play, she falls in love with Scrooge right away just like Scrooge did. She loves him so much and she supports what Scrooge was doing to make a better life for themselves in the future. Slowly, when Scrooge's life became richer, he only cares about the money he's earning and forgot how much love and attention he used to give to Belle.
For me, Belle is a very elegant and understanding woman. The way she ended the relationship with Scrooge could show the pain she's in, she could be hurt so much the only reason was that she cared too much as well.
What will I need to do while playing Belle in the audition?
The scene I'm doing was where Belle was ending the engagement with Scrooge. For that, I actually watched some of the videos on the internet to see how other people did with their emotions. As I wanted to show more on Scrooge's fault, that he was the one ended our relationship with his greediness and cold-hearted. I need to show more hurtful so that the judges could see me trying my last chance holding Scrooge back by breaking the relationship, still believing in him that he might come back apologizing in any minute. But until the end, Scrooge never realized how much he had changed while he was pursuing the wealth he actually possessed long ago.
By saying "you fear the world too much", I am actually trying to let Scrooge know that he could let go of the fear and we could still be happy again without taking being wealthy so serious. I need to be persuasive when I was telling Scrooge how much he has changed after our engagement, the fascination with money covered his eyes for being a good husband.
On Thursday, we were divided into three groups representing Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas yet to come. Abe, Abdul, Georgine and I were in a group of Christmas Past. We need to improvise the scenes that happened in the past. Four of us came out with a few scenes,
including
- Abe as the ghost, he brought Abdul, as Scrooge travel to the past.
- Me as Fan, went to Scrooge's school to tell him that dad agreed to let him go back home during Christmas holiday.
- The dance party that Mr. Fezziwig host after a long day of work.
- Scrooge's proposal to Georgine, as Belle.
- Belle coming in to end their relationship.
What's about our improvisation?
I liked my group's improvisation quite well as we make use of every cast member in the group even though when one of us don't have to be in any character in a scene. In the very beginning, when Abe holds Abdul's hand, they traveled around the space like they're flying, whilst Georgine and I were standing straight putting our hands above our head to make a triangle at the back as buildings. Abe and Abdul used most of the space we got but not taking too long flying in the whole beginning, they stopped by jumping once on the ground together as they arrived at one of the scenes in the past. I personally like the jumping part, although it might not look so good, both of them took the effort to alter their pace for each other in order to jump at the same time.
Abdul was fascinated by the place in front of him, the school Scrooge used to go. In the meantime, Georgina and I became little kids running around happily because it's Christmas. Scrooge walked forward to sit on his desk as flashing back to all the memory while he's here, I ran to the back and walked into the scene as Fan telling Scrooge that he can go back home for Christmas. We hugged before the scene ended, Abdul deviated from my hug but I remain frozen until Abe and Abdul went flying again to another scene. I think everything ran smoothly here as we were having problems on how are we suppose to bring the young Scrooge out from there as we got only four people. And I think the changes when Fan enters the scene was really nice, as the audience might only think Scrooge is yearning at his desk from the past until Fan comes in, that's the moment Abdul change from old Scrooge to young Scrooge.
I went in again with Georgina, both were freezing in a dancing pose, Georgina raised both her arms like she was dancing with someone until Abdul came into the scene. We started to dance for a few seconds and Abdul began his proposal to Georgina. Both of them hugged each other and Georgina left with a blessed, but coming in again with a very upset face, she wanted to divorce with Abdul and said she has lost the "golden one" then ran out of the scene. This two scene was quite difficult as Georgina needs to carry both emotions with her, both very different expressions, one was the happiness Scrooge brought to her, another one was the disappointment to Scrooge.
Week 3
We watched a play called "King Lear" in Duke of York's Theatre. It was my first time watching it and that was a very wonderful show. I never read about the story before either as I always thought "King Lear" is a very boring story and it's all about kingdom, wars and fights among the people before reading its plot. After watching the whole play, I've changed my mind completely about the play. The play is full of many emotions and climaxes. I love it so much.
On Thursday, everyone got their role for A Christmas Carol. I got the role of one of the solicitors and also Fred's wife. The characters were not what I expected,
why? (refer week 2 for which character I wanted to play at first)
What I think of getting Solicitor one?
Solicitors visit Scrooge for fundraising to the poor but got rejected in a very ferocious way. I always believe that an exciting play/production often start their beginning with a big tension. Being the character that's going to be remembered throughout the whole play, I think this is a challenging one. To show how a horrible person is Scrooge, it's all from how he trying to be isolated from everyone else. Yelling to the solicitors, rejecting his nephew, Fred (in another scene). These are the details showing how cold-hearted is he especially when he talks about money or relates everything with money, while everyone was awaiting for Christmas day, he became more and more frustrated as he didn't know the happy of it and he doesn't understand why couldn't all these people use the time to earn more money instead of cheering around.
What I think of getting Fred's wife?
Personally, this is a character I didn't want to get, not being mean to this character but I think Fred's wife is a lady that listens to her husband most of the time as Fred in-charges everything throughout their marriage, playing this role is like being a side role's side role, she doesn't even have a name in the play. Fred definitely is a wealthy man, not as wealthy as Scrooge but at least hosting a Christmas party is not a problem for him. Fred's wife is probably a woman wanted to marry a rich man in order to live a better life than before. She probably knows that Fred got a very wealthy uncle as well, so she decided to get near Fred and wanted to be a part of this wealthy family, but she never knew how Scrooge protected his money since he started earning them. She wishes to get something from Scrooge but he has never acknowledged her at all, that is why she was feeling impatience.
By the end of this week, we've rehearsed a few scenes by knowing how are we going to enter the stage and where should we stand while speaking, we haven't yet focused on our expression. Also, I've got another role which is Mrs. Cratchit.
What I think of getting Mrs. Cratchit?
I think Mrs. Cratchit is a very loving and motherly woman. With her family's financial status, feeding four children is tough enough. The reason she dislike Scrooge so much is because her husband, Bob Cratchit, who works for him was downtrodden for working overtime and only getting very less wages. Her anger was triggered when Mr. Cratchit mentioned Scrooge's name during their Christmas dinner, but she's able to calm herself down and drink for Scrooge's health for her husband's sake. She is a very strong woman that she needs to take care of all the children also understanding his husband.
