Unit 12 Proposal

Skill Audit

Throughout my first year on this course, experiences and skills that I possessed are way more interesting than I expected in the beginning. I picked up the essence of acting unwittingly, the improvements I never knew I have until others told me. From my very first performance, "Romeo and Juliet", I've experienced body movements like moving in slow motion and freeze frame. I learned to maintain the tension of my emotions while doing a freeze frame because the emotions tend to lay back a little when we are trying to freeze at one place for too long. Our class is lucky enough to be able to work with the Donmar theatre, during our sessions with Toby, one of the people from Donmar, I've learned not to be afraid for being different to other people because that's what makes me special. We did a lot of improvising on some specific sentences or words from the play "The York Realist", it is to stimulate our creativity in a more 'producing' way. I also performed "Three Sisters", as one of the sisters, Masha, I am the assertive one, which means the way I speak need to be confident enough, picking up all the ques improve the tension of my character in every scene I'm in. I played a part in "Fugee", I was cast as the refuge manager. The contrast between this character and the one in my previous performance is not much of a difference, just less confidence and more loving. It's repentant that our college couldn't get us a complete stage set of a children refuge, we will need to imagine most of the bigger set by ourselves, how I overcome looking around with no destination is I drew a rough map of where everything will be then I started to put myself into it.

Just before Christmas, we performed a classic play "A Christmas Carol", I was multi-rolling for a couple of characters, they were Solicitor, Mrs. Cratchits, Fred's wife, and random villager. It was a challenge for me as I need to come in and out of different characters, showing different ways of how each character walks or speaks to one another. Mrs. Cratchits and Fred's wife made the obvious difference throughout the play, a lower class housewife who raised six children, and an upper-class lady who is married to a rich man. My objectives in the play were to show the audience the unfairness in that society, yet not blaming god and ask for sympathy; and to show the cruelty side of it, about backstabbing, and fake personality of the upper-class people. My experiences have led me to the play "Waiting for Godot", instead of saying it 'led' me, it's more like I'm still willing to challenge on a theme I've never tried.

"Waiting for Godot" (a review after watching the film on youtube)

Likes

• Actors picking up ques naturally, like they've been living like this for their whole life. 
• Pozzo's attitude to Lucky is way more rude compare to Estragon and Vladimir, almost completely different. 
• There are a lot of awkward pauses throughout the play, but the silences seem really natural to watch.
• Lucky(the pig) was being expression-less the whole time, even when he's being touched or insulted by Pozzo. He amazed me by not even rolling his eyes for just once. 

Dislikes

• I got bored when only two of the actors in the beginning were speaking the whole time, as the contents they talked about were really random and unnecessary, I don't see the point of talking too much of that. 

Overall, I think the play is all about being awkward and lifeless. It was a special way of entertaining the audience, it does have many many funny bits in between to keep the audience awake. I think Waiting for Godot's main objective is to earn the confusion from the audience. 

Torn by Nathaniel Martello-White

This was the play our class decided to work on in the beginning. The setting of the play is modern day, all 9 characters from the play will sit in a circle in the middle of the stage, revealing each of their secrets, it's a similar concept like a support group. But instead, this is a family meeting hosted by one of the characters, Angel. She gathered all family members here wanting them to confront the truth about how and why they failed her.

What's in my mind when I first read about it?
The play started off intensively with the characters overlaying each other's line. I think it's because this play is not like any other play, it only had one scene, in order to keep the play fresh and interesting, pauses were reduced to its minimum. What happened before the meeting and what causes them hating each other is slowly told by their meeting. I get really confused about the characters at first, as they are all related to each other and have a different conflict with one another. One of the most difficulties about this play is the cues where each character speaks. If we were to pick this play, we will need to read through the scripts as many times as we can until we can smoothly pick up our cues. 

The reason we gave up on this play it's because some of us were not perfectly fitted due to our skin tone and races. Also, it's a big play that we couldn't get some member to guarantee that they will be in for rehearsals consistently. 

Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker

We read through this play for a bit and our class got into a massive discussion because this play requires 24 casts and our class only got 12 which is obviously not enough, we then try to make everyone multi-role it. But in my opinion, the attendance of my class is never complete, if we somehow ended up choosing this, a full attendance will be needed, but we're not taking the risk that when someone is not shown up and we need to stand in for more roles, this will make our rehearsals even harder.

Noise by Alex Jones

Becky and Dan, newly-weds and parents to be. Full of hope, they're about to start a new life in the housing association flat they've just moved into. The only blot is the constant techno music pounding through the walls next door. Fault lines are exposed as the strain starts to show on Becky and Dan's relationship, reaching a climax as neighbour Matt comes crashing into their lives. 

I personally think this play is quite interesting, I do love the concept of acting as a family. But Abdul said he had performed the role as a family man in our previous performance and he's willing to explore a whole new type of role.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Why do I choose this play?

This is a two-act-play that requires only 5 characters, the significance of each character could simply affect the whole play, which I find it challenging as I’ve never done any performance like that in the past, a two hours play with only a few characters? When I first heard of it, I thought it must be a very boring play with a lot of talking, but when I do more research about it, it did not only change my mind, it has brought up the determination in me that always wanted to prove myself, to prove the enhancement in my acting by accepting scripts with higher difficulty. 

The endless waiting of two tramps on a country road for the elusive Godot, their boredom, and the meaningless repetition were shown in the script, the comedy in this play is unfolded realistically like the men had lived their lives this way for the past few decades. For the character Lucky, that I got most interest in him, it seems easy to obey the orders from his master, Pozzo, but it is somehow interesting to watch at when he’s doing things repetitively after each order. 

About my character... 

By reading the play, I could tell Pozzo is a very lonely man who owns a land and a slave and nothing else. When he first meets with Vladimir and Estragon, he shows the cruel side of himself by abusing Lucky and pulling him around with a rope on his neck. Pozzo can be compared with Estragon who also has awful memory that they both need to rely on the one next to them, Lucky and Vladimir. “He can no longer endure my presence. I am perhaps not particularly human, but who cares?” said Pozzo in act one, he is careless of the society because he considers himself above humanity, he is the materialist which would not care for the pain and troubles of Lucky. 

In act 1, he is willing to sell Lucky for a considerable price, but in the second act, the play reduces Pozzo to nothingness. He is blind, and he is now dependent upon Lucky. However, Lucky still serves his master no matter how bad he was treated by the blind man. The high contrast of Pozzo between act one and act two symbolical of the deterioration and fall of man. The powerful, self-amusing Pozzo has completely changed. 

Project action plan and timetable:


Planned timetable

5th February - read through whole play together, discuss about cuts 
8th February - finalize cuts.
Before March - find someone to be Lucky(the pig)
5th March - learnt lines(off script)
20th March - discuss about props and set
2nd April - are able to do a full run through
20th April - discuss about costumes
13th May - tech rehearsal, dress rehearsal
14th May - performance day



Action

Week no	Tasks	Notes
Feb 5 - 8 week 1	read through the play discuss about the storyline	make time to understand my role
Feb 12 - 22 week 2 & 3 (mid-term holiday)	get our lines learned research on the play	watch Waiting for Godot film
Feb 26 - Mar 1 week 4	cut out 1 hour from our 2-hour play	go through the whole play again to see if everything fits
Mar 5 - 15 week 5 & 6	able to work on the first 10 minutes of Abdul and Abe (Estragon and Vladimir) focus on their entrance and Pozzo’s entrance without the pig (Lucky)	Get feedback from others from the beginning until my entrance, enhance our performance before we move on to the rest of the play
Mar 19 - 22 week 7	Focus on my every movement and blocking, and interactions with Lucky(n/a)	Stable my energy and performance before I get someone to be the pig
Mar 26 - 29 week 8	able to work through 5 more pages of the play (without Abdul’s absence) go through the beginning by reading in for Abdul so Abe could rehearse.	It’s our responsibility to be able to continue working even though we couldn’t get a full attendance
Apr 2 -5 week 9	slowly but progressively work through the script	make sure every changing bits in the play look natural
Apr 9 -19 week 10 & 11 (Easter break)	learn our lines again with all the notes we worked for discuss about lightings and costumes and props	receive feedback from tutors and make some final changes for the performance
Apr 23 - 26 week 12	able to do a full run without the pig get in touch with Vadim about our lighting and staging	rehearse as if we’re on stage
Apr 30 - May 3 week 13	focus on my bits with Chloe (the pig) take a few run through with only both of us	rehearing separately so we could all focus on what we want to work on
May 7 - 10 week14	finalise lighting and stage setting	dress and technical runs
May 14 week 15	PERFORMANCE DAY!!

Achievements

What skill do I need for a role like this?

As a grumpy old man, my body gesture and voice is what makes me believable. Even if I don't look like it, I need to sound like it, that is my primary objective on stage. It is hard picking up the slang because of the different language being spoken throughout my life. Stanislavski's System will be used during rehearsals to increase the spiritual realism in my acting.

A technique I've learned from Uta Hagen is to transfer our own memories into the experiences of our character, think of the similar experiences in our lives and use them in our acting, this is an easy way to understand my character in and out. I’m going to use my observation on the elderly's mannerisms, and portray them in my own way. 

My objectives as Pozzo? how do I achieve them?

The reason I treated Lucky in such way is to show how powerful am I and he should be proud of having a master like me. When I first met with Vladimir and Estragon, I did not say it directly but I really wanted them to stay because I’ve been lonely for years after Lucky stopped speaking, I even wanted them to be my slaves. I wander around the country road every day just like the tramps waiting for Godot, my life has been so dull and unproductive for long enough. Even though Pozzo is a very old man, I do not want to diminish the verve he brought to the play. To achieve a clear difference of class between Pozzo and the tramps, it is to perform this character in a wiser way. Estragon and Pozzo were facing the same problem which they both got short memory, this play shows the hopelessness of them both immediate. In order to make my character stands out, is to speak confidently like I know everything even if I don't, this makes a clear characterization of the upper and lower class. 

Rehearsals

There were several problems we faced during our rehearsals. The one that makes everyone stress out was when one of our actors decided not to show up in most of our rehearsals without giving any reason. This has brought so much trouble to two other members that are trying their best to rehearse. Without the actor, we could only make our rehearsals work with both of us taking turns to read in for him, this has caused us so much time. After a few times of parties incomplete for rehearsals, I really think everyone should be responsible enough for what you've chosen and should think of what trouble you might cause for others with your careless attitude. Less than one month before our show, we decided to speak up for ourselves and make things more serious to let that actor know that we see this show so important that we've worked so much on it, it's really the time for him to grow up and be responsible. We will not make it to the show if he keeps acting like this, without the team spirit. 

Things started to go smoothly after, we discussed on the lightings and music we want to use during our performance. 

lighting

We did not have many changes on lighting, all we did was to show time changes from morning until night and night until dawn. 

navy-purple as dark night. 

orangey red as the moment
of an evening sunset. 

Music

• You've got a friend in me by Robert Goulet. (beginning and the end of our show)

We think there's nothing more suitable for this song as this play represent both friendships between Vladimir and Estragon, also Pozzo and Lucky even though it's not obviously shown in the play, Pozzo relies on Lucky just like a person relying on his friend. 

Here are some pictures taken during dress and tech run.