Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 20 - 08/11/16

Today, we continued to perform our scene from People, Places and Things. As my character, Paul, is only in the scene for the first minute, I have a lot of time to either watch the rest of the scene and offer constructive criticism. But after doing this once, we feel that the scene doesn't need much changing. So I decided that for the remainder of the lesson, I would search for the next scene I would perform for my graded performance. I wanted to find a play/scene which had two males as I really wanted to work with Rob. This is because I feel that Rob and I have great chemistry when we work together and our ability to effectively perform a conflicting scene together would suit us very well.

However, when looking for male dualogues, I couldn't find one which would suit us. This was until I remebered Advice For The Young At Heart by Roy Williams. I am quite familiar with this play as I studied it for GCSE. I recall there being a very pivotal moment in the play where the brothers, Sam and Kenny, argue about Sam's lover and end up fighting. This ends with Kenny leaving Sam on the floor and the pair never meet again. I believe that Rob and I would do extremely well at portraying the broken brotherly bond. 

Unfortunately, this scene is far too short and won't be long enough for us to be graded on. I read through the sections before and after the scene I liked and I feel that the scenes before would be brilliant to add in as they set the scene very well for the relationship between the brothers. The section between also shows a conversation between Sam and his granddaughter. As I already knew this play very well, I understood how this was portrayed onstage but to others it may seem confusing as Sam and Kenny are dead. Below is an outline of the plot after I looked online to remind myself of the story:

• It's 2011, midway through the London riots and Candice, mixed race 17 year old, is in a sticky situation where her gang leading boyfriend wants her to lead her childhood friend, Clint, into a trap where he will get assaulted by the gang.
• She starts having visions of her late grandfather, Sam, in his 18 year old form. He tries to warn her of the mistakes she'll be making but she has full control of these memory visions.
• She begins to remember things which Sam had told her about his past and these memories appear in visions also. These visions are of her late uncle Kenny, Sam's brother, in his 21 year old form.
• Her visions show how Sam beat up black people in the 50s after being told to by Kenny. Later the brothers argue and fight over the fact that Sam has a black girlfriend, which leads to Sam being exiled from the family.
• Soon after this and after frequent conversations with Clint who enters and exits throughout the story, Candice sticks it to her controlling boyfriend and threatens him to leave both her and Clint alone or she will tell the police about when he had her raped by the entire gang.
• At the end Candice is leaving town and has one last memory to share with her grandfather.

The scenes we're doing are in the centre of the play where Kenny finds out about Sam's lover and below is the order of events through the section we'll be performing:

• Kenny enters with Sam and says that the "old bill" will be coming to enquire about the black beatings and he tells Sam what to say and what not to say.
• Sam then asks Kenny to leave as he reluctantly tells him he's meeting a girl. After much banter between the pair, Kenny leaves.
• Sam converses with Candice about the past but this leads to the pair arguing over who was there for who and the issue of Sam's betrayal upon his family.
• Kenny enters shouting towards the audience as if they were a black man, chanting obscenities such as "Keep Britain White!" Sam attempts to join in but Kenny pushes him away; he knows that Sam's new girlfriend is black. The pair argue about the woman which lead to them fighting. The fight ends with Kenny on top of Sam on the floor and he leaves his brother beaten and exiled. The brothers never see each other again.

I then thought about who would play the role of Candice. I felt that the obvious choice was Kat as I believed she would be able to find the right voice for lower class Londoner. However, with more thought on the subject of the play, I felt that Hope would be the best for the role as not only does her style of acting suit the character of Candice exceedingly well but she is also black which suits the whole issue of race within the play.

Next lesson, I will possibly start working on this scene or help Rob and James with their first scene as I have a minor role within their scene from Merchant of Venice.