Double - Dr Faustus - Blog 6 - 20/05/16

Today we decided to start from the beginning of the entire play and work through giving relevant notes when necessary.

We began with Ollie's opening monologue which he performed extremely well. To me, this opening monologue really connects his character to the audience and opens the play very nicely. The only issue I found with it was that he sometimes spoke very quickly which slurred his speech slightly. This wouldn't be too big of a deal in other areas of the play but the opening monologue is the first glimpse the audience has at Faustus and details his craving for knowledge and power. Besides this, Ollie's monologue was great with appropriate pauses, pace and tone.

When it came to Faustus and Murdock, Lorna and Ollie bounced off each other so well. They both clearly knew the intentions and motives of their characters and this was clear through their body language, tone of voice and interaction.

The scene between Valdes, Cornelius and Faustus was still quite static and boring just like last time and I feel this was because James and Rob weren't in the mindset of their characters. Where Valdes is quite compassionate and worries about how Faustus uses his new found power, James made the character seem very nonchalant. We gave notes on changing their tone of voice, their posture and positioning when standing and their interactions with each other and the conference phone they're using.

Next, we went on to the introduction of Mephistopheles and we planned to have a short physical theatre sequence to represent the pre-androgynous version of Meph. We also discussed having a sheet up on a wall for Ollie to draw a pentagram. This would be what summons the almighty Mephistopheles.

After being summoned, I will appear sitting on the desk rather nonchalantly. This displays the normality of this scenario to Meph and how used to dealing with mere mortals craving power. I have changed my direction entirely now to better suit my characters motives. Before I was playing the role too simplistic and sinister. This lacked depth and made my character seem like a minor pawn of Lucifer's minions. I have now given my character a comedic value and developed a narcissistic attitude.

We started discussing an idea for our introductory chorus part but nothing has been set in stone. Next lesson, we will start blocking our introduction properly.