Ollie, Rhiannon and I begun the lesson by moving to the other room and performing our scene which we began devising last lesson so that Rhiannon could give us notes on how to improve. After performing the scene, Rhiannon gave us the following notes:
- Face the audience more often. Commedia builds a great relationship between the characters and the audience so facing the audience more often will bond them a lot better.
- Be sure to keep our characters posture constant throughout the whole piece.
Following this, we decided to devise a new scene between Doctor, Pantalone and Columbina. Rhiannon said that she wanted to show the perverted side of Doctor and Pantalone which works exceedingly well with Columbina's flirtatious and manipulative persona. Below is what he devised before showing the piece to the rest of the class (the characters are shortened to their initials):
- D and P are sitting at a table, waiting for the waitress, C, to request their order.
- D gestures to C as she approaches telling P that she's the new employee he has hired. P says that he doesn't "care how much she costs," suggestively. (This links with P's love for money.)
- C asks the pair what they would like, P pokes D and says, "I definitely know what I want," suggesting he wants a bit of C.
- D attempts to appear rather sophisticated and asks for the rump steak which insinuates that he is wanting a bit of C too. C comes over to P and asks what he would like to order.
This was all we had got so far as we were struggling to come up with innuendos. Throughout the entire scene, Columbina is always smiling and flirting with Doctor and Pantalone as she wants to manipulate them.
We presented this scene to the rest of the group and this is the feedback we received:
- Have Rhiannon enter first and flirt with the audience to grab their attention. Columbina is a character who always wants attention so she'd make sure everyone is looking at her before starting the scene.
- Ollie and I need to be more creepy and perverted with everything we say and when we're not saying anything, we should grunt. Doctor and Pantalone are supposed to be creepy old flirts so when a female enters, they should react as obsessed as possible.
- Before Ollie orders, "rump steak," Rhiannon should drop her pen, react to the audience ("Ooops! I seem to have dropped my pen!") then bend over in front of Ollie to provoke that reaction from Ollie.
- They suggested a way for the scene to end also:
- Columbina walks around the table to Pantalone, bends over so that her chest is near his face and asks what he would like. Pantalone looks back and forth between her chest and the audience and orders her, "most supreme chicken breasts," (emphasis on breasts.)
- She giggles and says, "I'll make sure they're perfect for you," and he replies with, "Oh I bet you will."
- She sticks her head between the pair and asks would they like anything else.
- Doctor asks, "for dessert, may I have a slice of your finest cherry pie. (Pause) with plenty of thick cream."
- Columbina exits
After performing the scene a couple of times with the renditions made we devised a whole new scene as a class between Columbina, Captain and Harlequin. Below is an outline of the scene (the characters are shortened to their initials):
- C enters and hands Cp the order from D and P on a piece of paper and asks if he can make it quickly for her. Holding the order away and fixating his eyes on her, Cp says he will do anything for her.
- While Cp compliments C ("You're looking very professional today Columbina"), H enters, slowly walks towards Cp, and eats the order on the paper. Cp is not aware of this yet.
- After C exits, Cp looks back at the order that was in his hand and realises it is missing. He looks over to H whom is still standing next to him, back at the note, back at H, and H gulps and runs away.
- Cp paces asking himself what can he do, then decides to cook his dish which everyone will love (everyone loves my spicy meatballs!)
- Whilst he is cooking, H enters, says that D and P are waiting, and exits. Within seconds, H enters and repeats.
- Cp hands H the food for D and P, and C enters to give Cp another order. While Cp rushes around trying to prepare the next dish, H brings D and P's dish back saying that they sent it back. Cp asks why and H replies it's half gone (because he's eaten it) and exits.
We then performed both scenes one after the other as Columbina can walk from one into the other.
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