Thursday 11th December 2014

Thursday 11^th December 2014

My monologue I performed in class was the one in my other blog:

“So I was born in Bangladesh. Me nan and that still live out there. Moved ‘ere when I was what 18? 19? Sum’ink like that. Became a cab driver- driving ‘ere and there, round and about. I travel round the ‘ole of East End you’know. I love my job. Sorry, sory, you see people fink I wtalk too much. Can’t help it, its how ive always been. Got a baby on the way. Wanna call her Lilly, wanna know why?

I once ‘ad this old lady about 80 odd. She wan’ned a lift somewhere. Poor woman I could tell she was really desperate she was scared- bless her. She ‘ad some young boys behind her absolutely pissed outta their brains swing bottles round their heads lke hoolagoons. (impression of the boys) So you’know done her a favour, and gave her a lift back ‘ome.

You see this lady was so, so, so inspiring to me.  She taught me a lot about life that I never knew in my 38 years of livin’. She helped me control my anger. I have anger problems youknowwarimean?? But it’s not my fault- I swear and I apologise deeply if anyone ever has to witness my anger.

The problem is that when I was a child my dad was abusive. He used to hit my mother badly, he used to smash (stand up and throw chair across room) her against the wall and pound her until she was bleeding from every paw. He was a drunk. An abusive drunk. And as soon as my mum had to go into hospital, it was my turn. He did the same to me. That’s what the scars are from. Him. You see, I’m just a broken child. A scared, broken, little child.”

 

Question 1
What choices did you make when staging your monologue?  Think about how you used your voice and physicality.

When staging my monologue I made sure my character was quite cut off from everyone. I made sure my character was in a corner alone. This helped show that he didn’t feel involved with everyone, he felt like he was different. This staging I used helped the audience understand that my character wasn’t very confident and wasn’t in charge as a main role in the East End society. My voice had an average tone which showed he was a typical east end man and my physicality was mainly casual which showed he didn’t have a lot of authority and wasn’t a main man around town.

 

Question 2 How did the monologue task help you to understand the play further?
The monologue helped me understand the play further because it helped me get a background to the man I was playing. Having a story behind his character helped me to create a basic understanding of the role. It also helped me develop my acting skills of being an East Londoner. Studying and practising my body language and voice helped me to develop a better and wider understanding of the East End and how people talk and act around there.

 

Question 3 You performed and watched your peers' work:
What monologue performed by a peer worked well and why?  What had they written about?
My peer, Max, had written about the lady that had been abused by her partner. His monologue was really good and he used a range of voice and projection. This was great because he could be heard by the whole class and his tone of voice showed his emotion. However to improve he could have added more body language to make us feel his characters pain. Also he could have learnt his monologue off by heart so it made it more realistic to his audience, because most of the time he was looking at his paper.

Question 4 Who performed their monologue successfully and why?
My favourite monologue performed was by Frankie. Her piece was amazing! And I was always engaged in what she was saying and doing. Although she was only standing still in one spot and just shuffling on her feet for the whole of her monologue, it was extremely effective because she made sure her tone of voice, body language and hand gestures were effective, and she succeeded. Her monologue was about the lady whose partner died (the woman who bought cigarettes from the corner shop). She created an amazing background story on this woman and her ideas for it were fantastic. I found myself with my mouth open quite a few times during her performance, not because I was shocked or surprised but because I was effected and moved by her performance.

 

Question 5, 6 & 7

You then continued to work on your tale in your groups.
What was effective about how you brought the characters, atmosphere and location of your tale to life? How did you use the Physical Theatre style? What ideas do you have for staging the rest of the tale?
We bought our atmosphere to life be showing levels our piece showed that the woman was upset because not only our facial expressions were sad but our heights were lowered to show her sadness. This is because in everyday when someone is low and isn’t tall it is usually because they are in a bad mood and this was an easy way for the audience to tell the mood and atmosphere of our scene.

Like always my group like to include a lot of physical theatre into our scenes. This time we focused on making the shape of an eye, as the text was about a woman’s eye and how she was so upset. We tried to bring the eye to life and make it as abstract and physical as possible by using our bodies to try and create an eye. Although our piece didn’t go as we planned, it was still a very unique and individual idea and we might change our idea a tiny bit to make the piece look more believable and understandable, however we shall try and incorporate as much physical theatre as possible not only because we enjoy it but because we want to try and train ourselves to be better at physical theatre.
I am looking forward to continuing our East End Tales because I want to include more abstract and physical theatre to our tale. Next week I hope to include a range of theatre skills to make my piece as effective as possible.