Approaching your script- Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (VIOLA)

Facts about Viola

·         She has a twin brother called Sebastian

·         She is ship wrecked and separated from her brother

·         She’s swept away onto the Illyrian shore

·         She meets a sea captain who tells her Orsino’s in love with Olivia

·         She pretends to be a man and goes under the name Cesario

·         She works in the household of Duke Orsino

·         She’s in love with Orsino

·         Her twin, Sebastian, is still alive.

·         Sir Andrew challenges her to a dual

Other characters opinion on Viola

·         She’s Orsino’s favourite (as Cesario)

·         Olivia is in love with her

·         Sebastian thinks she is dead

·         Antonio (Sebastian’s protector) thinks she is dead

·         Olivia thinks she agreed to marry her

·         Orsino is in love with her by the end

Violas personal opinions

·         She wishes she could go to work in Olivia’s home at the beginning

·         She thinks her brother is dead

·         She hopes her brother Is alive

·         She believes Olivia is crazy for not accepting Orsino’s love

·         she doesn't care about status as much as her brother

·         she thinks women are weak when it comes to love

What has just happened?

Viola (Cesario) has just been stopped by annoyed Malvolio who says she needs to take a ring back to Duke Orsino and tell him Olivia does not love him and doesn't accept his proposal for marriage and says not to come back as a messenger for Orsino unless Viola wants to tell Olivia about Orsino’s reaction, he exits. I believe this is just an excuse from Olivia to make Viola (Cesario) come back. Viola (Cesario) is confused at this point as she didn't throw a ring at Olivia, she snatched it of her! In the monologue she’s coming to the realisation that Olivia may be in love with her.’ Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her!’

Where am I?

I have seemed to have left Olivia’s house a while ago but I am walking slowly. I'm on my way to Duke Orsino’s house having just sent a message to Olivia from him. I'm on an island so it’s probably quite windy from the sea.

Costume

I would be wearing men’s clothes as I am pretending to be a man. I am probably in quite smart clothes as I am the Dukes messenger to the women he loves.  I’d probably be wearing kind of blazer, and trousers tucked into boots.

Sources:

http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/twelfthnight/summ http://nfs.sparknotes.com/twelfthnight/page_64.htmlary.html

Justification for choosing Twelfth Night (Viola) for my Shakespeare piece

I chose to do a monologue from ‘Twelfth Night’ because I found it hilarious. I loved the love triangle my character (Viola) was wrapped up in. In addition I liked the way the theme of confusion, discovery and love came up in my monologue as it meant I could have many physical objectives to play around with. Also I thought it would be fun to play a character pretending to be a man. It would mean I could play around with my physicality and perhaps modulate my voice if need be. Although I know it’s quite a confusing play but by breaking it down, reading summaries and finding translations I now have a very good understanding of the play and my character’s part in it. I have never done a Shakespeare monologue before so this is a new, challenging but exciting task for me.

3 version of Cockroach by Sam Holcroft (Mmoma

I have create 3 version of my monologue. The first has many different ideas for physical objectives and themes of the play. It's also separated into beats, however, it's quite inaccurate as some of the objectives I wrote without even performing it and I found some I them didn't work.

The second version is the correct physical objectives I want to work with, they may still change if Sir has better suggestions when I perform it. I took out the beats and themes as I know them now .

The third version is a clean copy for the examiner. I have highlighted it as I cute some parts of Mmoma's speech out as I felt it flowed better without it.

Approaching your script - Cockroach by Sam Holcroft (Mmoma)

Facts about Mmoma

•         She’s African, Nigerian.
•          She was born in England
•          She’s a school student
•          Her science teacher is Beth
•          Lee cheated on Lea with her
•          She has a fight with Lea ‘Leah goes for her... biting and             scratching and kicking...’ ...‘with the help of Danielle Leah         pins Mmoma to a desk and pulls a clump of hair extension         out her head.’
•         She was given a long term detention with Leah, Danielle,           Davey and Lee ‘ You are all in detention for he foreseeable       future’
•          She sits alone ‘Mmoma sits alone’
•          She’s the only one who bothers to take her book home
•          She speaks to an army costume and pretends it’s her                  boyfriend
•          She tries to kiss Davey ‘She moves to kiss him’
•          Her inspiration is Shirley Bassey
•          She wants to be a singer when she’s older ‘deep, right deep down in me is a singer’
•          She had a doll as a child and took her everywhere
•          She wants a boyfriend
•          She gets strangled by Davey ‘Davey encircles Mmoma’s throat with his hands...' 'Mmoma begins       to slowly suffocate’
•          Danielle saves her from being strangled to death.

Opinions from other characters about Mmoma

·         Lee: Nothing to me. Less than nothing: nobody. She is dead to me, Leah. Dead.

·         Leah: Mmoma! Bitch!

·         Leah: You bitch-whore get back here!

·         Leah: Skank

·         Leah: You are a liar

·         Leah: You are a boyfriend-stealing, lying little whore.

·         Leah: Fucking monkey

·         Beth (their teacher): You’ll do well Mmoma

·         Beth: You’re intelligent. You have an inquisitive mind.

·         Beth: You could be a scientist

·         Davey: You’ve got to find your own boyfriend

Mmoma’s personal opinions

•         She couldn’t sign up for the war ‘I couldn’t do     that miss sign up’
•         She thinks the wars like cockroaches ‘It’s the       biggest and strongest that going to get                   squashed’
•          She thinks this is a weak man war
•          She thinks Danielle’s beautiful
•          She thought she would die because she didn’t think Danielle would have it in her to save her
•          She thinks it’s nice that Beth has a fiancé to look after her
•     She thinks she stands out in a crowd
•     she thinks Shirley Bassey is the greatest singer of all time

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What has just happened?

Before my monologue everyone has just left the detention class to go home after being lectured about exams and told to stop talking about boys being sent off to the war. ‘The light Narrows on BETH. She takes of her comfortable shoes and puts on her high heels. She takes out a bottle and sprays herself with perfume.’ Then the light extends to Mmoma. I explain how I forgot my books and then I ask ‘Your boyfriend miss... will he go?’I then talk about how I could never sign up for the war if I was a boy and wonder why others do in my monologue.

Where am I?

I am currently at school. I am in my teacher (Beth’s) classroom. ‘The stage is bare but for desks, a door and a window.’ But the window is broken by this point due to mine and Leah’s fight. Beth is sitting at her desk slumped in her chair and I have entered through the door and walked over to my desk to get my books.

Costume

As I'm a school student and I am talking to a teacher just after detention has finished I would most likely be in school uniform. This would be a sh

irt, skater/pleated skirt, tights and shoes.

Extra research

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/oct/28/theatre

http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/content/default.asp?page=s460

Releasing instincts through physical objectives

Working with physical objectives is crucial as it’s an effective way to link dialogue and action together so that your character has a purpose for every decision he/she makes. Having a physical objective also stops you from over acting and instead enables us to use our instincts. Releasing instincts will help your piece come to life, it makes you live in the given circumstances of the piece/your character.

• Feel the breath when saying a line and remember your breath should come from your stomach.

• I find sometimes I restrict myself to using just one body part to get energy from and to build tension, but it’s important to experiment with the whole body and even the space around you to make the words you’re saying mean something.

• I believe a really good technique is to get to an explosive high energy level and allow the lines to burst out of you and then go back and normalise it to suit the given circumstances. By reaching this unnatural high energy level you have the flexibility to hit that tension level if you need to and you can feel which state to go to in specific parts of your monologue.

• You can have a simple objective “The text rides on the action.” When the line comes the objective feeds the line so it’s important not to just give up the objective when you say your line. Sometimes I begin to look unrealistic as I let the body become disconnected with the voice as i am focusing on my physical objectives, but when I just play the physical objective without worrying too much i am able to connect them.

3 justifications for my choices of monologues

 ‘Cockroach’ by Sam Holcroft – (Mmoma)

 I chose a monologue from this play as I thought I

really connected with it emotionally. The play is set in a secondary school and the characters are roughly the same age as me, which meant it was quite a familiar setting to me and immediately intrigued me. However war is a huge theme of the play which also engaged me as that’s not something I could sympathise with luckily. This gave me a challenge as I had to imagine what it would be like for your close class mates or even partner to be called up to fight in the war any day. The character that I play is called Mmoma, she’s a young Black girl who feels like an
outcast the entire play and strives for a boyfriend, she has many questions about the world and is always questioning her normality and kindness. ‘Does that mak
e me a coward, miss?’ She’s a strange character which I thought would be interesting to play as she has many thought changes and objectives in her speech, I think it’s quite a challenging piece as it doesn’t have many clear physical objectives but this means I can fully analyse the text and it gives me freedom to come up with multiple objectives and gear changes for the piece.

The neighbour by Meredith oaks- (Liz)

I chose this monologue because I thought it gave room for lots of physicality as she is talking to mice in a cage which she has to move around and mime, so unlike cockroach it had very clear physical objectives through the stage directions ‘Liz takes the roof of the cage.’ Liz is unemployed and tends to stay at home and according to the other characters she needs help  throughout the play and is slightly delusional as she seems to think she’s sane but is going mad at home all day. She uses her mice as an escape goat from the harsh realities and sometimes as an excuse to talk to herself. I liked the way the piece played with the space as she moves around a lot. The monologue is also filled with many emotions and gear changes which i thought would be fun to play. However the only problem with this piece is that it’s out of my age range and may have been very hard to play without pretending so I didn't choose it.

Our day out by Willy Russell- (Carol)

I worked on this monologue for LAMDA so I knew it quite well and had knowledge about it.I liked the way the scene was set on a cliff top in Wales so I could really use my imagination and picture what i was saying.  However after realising what was required of me for this unit about working with physical objectives and instincts I realised I didn't want to face myself with another challenge which was mastering a Liverpool accent. Although I am quite confident with this accent there’s still lots of room for improvement and I didn't want the accent to distract me from concentrating on other thing to make me a better actor. So I didn't choose this monologue in the end.

Casting notes

Casting = based on how you look

Cast ability= based on your talent

When going for auditions you are able to change your casting by simply changing the way dress to suit your character. You can also adopt certain physical characteristics of your character for example; dying your hair, putting in contacts, building muscle in particular area/ losing weight etc. You can also change the way you speak by modulating your voice or speaking with certain regional accents to commit to a low/high status of your characters personality according to the given circumstances.

My casting:

·         Female

·         Black ethnicity

·         Good/sweet girl look

·         Slender figure which could make me: a dancer (ballet?) or young model.

·         Age 11-15

·         Athletic character

·         School girl

One thing that i am going to try and work on to broaden my cast ability is work on certain regional accents. I am able to do a believable scouse accent as I did it for a LAMDA exam as passed with a distinction grade. However I want to work on an American accent to I’m not restricted to just playing British roles in the future.

Skills Audit- Personal Profesional Development in the Performing Arts Industry

So far in the BTEC course I have developed a range of skills as a performer that I believe will be useful tools to carry with me when going on to study higher theatre education and/or pursuing an acting career.  

Rehearsal skills (working with texts): Researching historical, cultural and political contexts of the piece helps me to understand the main themes. Splitting up your text in gear changes is also important so you can analyse why your character has these changes.                                

Characterisation: I have the ability to analyse and understand text. I am able to do this by looking at the given circumstances to work out my character.     

Discovering the characters objectives; what does the character want? How and why do they want it?

Movement/physical skills:I’ve learnt how to spend emotion through the body and voice by opening your body physically and allowing your instincts to take over. To do this I have learnt you need to be willing to be ugly and beautiful- by this i mean be free to experiment finding new body position and facial expressions without being afraid of looking ‘weird.’

I've also learnt that when working with your physicality it’s important to work with the breath.

Voice: The voice is a very important part of acting and I've learnt to not restrict yourself to the norm and to experiment by modulating your voice. Doing this can engage your audience and help you play a more believable character.

The voice should work with the body, exercises like ‘Slimy Frog’ when your repeat ‘I am a Slimy frog’ using different parts of your voice and body helps to make them work together as one.

Evaluation skills: I now know how to critically evaluate myself and others. It’s important to give opinions and back them up with evidence.

Working in an ensemble: I understand working in an ensemble in this course helped me understand how to sustain energy on the stage. Feeling the energy drop and picking up again.

I've learnt how important it is to keep focused in transitions as in an ensemble transitions are crucial as everyone is on the stage at once and they can get messy.

I also learnt the meaning of ‘sight specific’ as we created a piece using a stimulus and our sight for our performances suited the description in the text (the given circumstances)

Different styles of acting: We did a unit on children’s entertainment. During this unit I learnt how to perform to a specific audience (younger children). I looked at how their concentration span differed from ours and adults and how modulating the voice and making interesting shapes with the body and facial expression could engage them. This meant our performance was quite comedic.

We did a performance of a play called ‘Blackout’ this was quite an emotional play as it was about a boy going through a time of discovery in his life which faced him with many emotions in which we had to adopt. I enjoyed doing this as i got to experiment with different emotions.

Understanding different theatrical configurations

Understanding special awareness:  We have looked at spacial procsemics during this course so far and I have learnt that every scene is a chase scene. Being too close to another actor can kill the scene and drop the tension on the stage.

Have you gained any skills elsewhere?

I have had dance training since a very young age in tap and ballet up to intermediate grades in ISTD alongside jazz dance at Italia Conti Associates School which has helped enhance my physicality when acting. Also because of my dance background I have the flexibility and strength needed to take with me when doing physical theatre units. I have also done LAMDA up to a silver medal so I understand how to choose monologues best suited for you and the researching that goes into it. I am also a top grade student in English so I’m able to evaluate performances by digging into particular things and analysing them. I’m also good at analysing the text and characters by looking into the deeper meaning of the lines.