Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 29 - 19/12/16

Below is my evaluation for how each scene went:

People, Places and Things

• My entrance was loud, impactful and noticeable catching the audience's attention immediately.
• Throughout my entire section, I got most of my lines right. The parts where I didn't were because I couldn't remember them but I did very well to improvise and say something that matches what my character, Paul, is already saying.
• When standing on the table my movement was very good as it wasn't very controlled and I threw pens at Ollie as the script indicates.
• When I wasn't onstage as Paul, all of the scene changes went smoothly as I organised everyone beforehand in the other room while the rest of the scene was carrying on.

Advice For The Young At Heart

• My first part with Rob took a while to start as Rob took a while to enter but besides this the scene went somewhat well. Our characterisation was good and but again we jumped around the script a bit. Luckily our audience wouldn't know this unless they knew the script.
• My next section with Hope went very well, we displayed our characters' relationships very well and we both had great chemistry onstage bouncing off of each other.
• The next section between Rob and I didn't go as well as we'd hoped or rehearsed as Rob had forgotten a line which resulted in us going back a bit and re-doing a tiny bit which not only confused us but I feel that this would've confused the audience too. With this confusion, we skipped forward to the fight scene which actually went very well.
• To finish, I got my line wrong which ended the piece there as I said the ending line. This confused Hope a lot and meant we skipped 3-4 lines. Although this wasn't major, it's still not how the scene is mean to go.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 28 - 16/12/16

As this is our final lesson before our performance date, we decided to focus on our Advice For The Young At Heart scene as this needs a lot more work than People Places and Things. Rob, Hope and I decided that we should just runthrough the entire scene and pick out what we need to fix. Of course with Rob's injury, we couldn't risk choreographing stage combat in case Rob were to actually get hurt during rehearsals or the actual performance so we came up with a method to show the fight scene but remaining very Brecht:

• We'd perform the dialogue before the fight and I would lunge towards Rob. He would turn and grab me by my throat just in time.
• We would then have a blackout and by the time the lights turn back on (about 2 seconds max) I would be lying on my back on the floor and Rob would be on top of me holding me down. Hope would be to the side of us and the dialogue would continue.

This method not only ensures Rob and I don't get hurt through error, but it reinforces our focus on Epic Theatre.

These are the notes we covered on our runthrough:

• For the first section, Rob needs to be more sure on his lines but besides this the beginning section between Rob and I has a lot of energy and expresses the relationship between the pair.
• The section between Hope and I went very well, probably the best it's ever gone but we still need to work on our movement a bit more, ensuring we still show a troubled relationship but also keeping in mind how Brecht wouldn't want the audience to become attached to our characters.
• With the second section between Rob and I, we really need to make sure we know what order each talking point is in as we got all of our lines right but we jumped around the script a bit. Besides this, we performed this scene very well. The fight section was also very believable too and I reckon the audience will be very chilled the way it's been done.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 27 - 06/12/16

Today, I worked a considerable amount with Rob on our sections from Advice For The Young At Heart, especially on the fight scene. Rob wanted to make sure that although we want to establish the key relationship between Sam and Kenny, we didn't want the audience to become too attached to this as we're playing this scene in the style of Epic Theatre. 

Despite us performing this scene with Brecht in mind, I'd feel it's fair to say that Hope, Rob and I are very naturalistic actors which makes this scene very difficult to keep Brecht. However, to make our acting more Brechtian, we'll be more distant from each other to show a contrast to some of the heated discussions we have, speak out to the audience a great deal to further enforce the Verfremdungseffekt (defamiliarisation) and use placards within the performance.

With mine and Rob's sections, I feel for our very first few runthroughs we were quite good but these are the things I want to work on next lesson:

• I feel that, although I want our scene to remain Brechtian, mine and Rob's characters' relationship needs to be established better in the beginning for the fight scene at the end to be all that more impactful.
• We could either approach this note in two different ways:
• Make sure our acting in this scene is very Brechtian macthes the style of acting we're wishing to portray.
• Or, we don't worry too much about how Brechtian/Nauralistic/Absurd etc our actual acting and focus more on the stagecraft to fully showcase the conventions of Brecht.

Although it would be simpler to rely on stagecraft, I felt that this wouldn't do the style of Epic Theatre any justice so I feel we should stay traditional to the styles of Brecht and display Epic Theatre fully.

To be sure of what acting and characterisation techniques Brecht favoured, I referred back to my research from my Special Subject Investigation and looked at the techniques I studied (http://lewisfisherra.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/triple-special-subject-investigation_6.html) ; these included:

• Mix of forceful and graceful movement
• Over exaggerative gestures
• Simplified and stereotyped characters (including accents)
• Direct audience address
• Representational props/placards

Reviewing these different conventions will aid me in my task to make our scene more Brechtian.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 26 - 01/12/16

Today, Hope and I continued with our scene and focused on our movement, working towards making it more Brecht! We did this by looking at the audience more and we changed some of our lines to be aimed at the audience (e.g. "you never listened" went to "she never listened").

We preformed this scene to the rest of the class and received the following notes:

• Very good dialect suiting the setting.
• Make sure the movement suits the brecht style you're going for.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 25 - 25/11/16

Today, we focused on how we'd be implementing our acting styles into our performances and making sure everything we've blocked followed our acting style (E.g. avoid breaking the fourth wall unless it's used in the chosen acting style).

With Hope, Rob's and my scene from Advice For The Young At Heart, we needed to decide how we would certify that our blocking matched that of our chosen acting style: Epic Theatre.

We created a mind map for our piece where we listed all of the Epic Theatre conventions which we're using in our performance and explain how we use them. Below is the mindmap in bullet point form:

• Fourth Wall Breaks
• On certain lines, Hope, Rob and I will speak our lines to the audience. For example, when Sam talks about the times where he was there for Candice, I deliver this all to the audience; to tell them about my frustration.
• Placards
• For the box of phones, we'll have a box with a placard on it with a phrase like, "box of phones," written across it.
• Projection
• We'll have an image of a lock up garage projected onto the background to represent where the play is set.
• During the scenes where Candice is "remembering" conversations between Sam and Kenny, when she shouts over the pair, her words will appear across the already present projection backdrop.
• Minimal Costume
• We'd all start in blacks and we'd walk onstage to where our representational costume would be in place ready. Hope would be wearing a hoodie and Rob and I would be wearing suit jackets.
• Conveying a message
• Brecht's plays were always didatic which is the same case for our piece. The basic messages of our scene are:
• "Listen to advice given"
• "Be your own person"
• "Racism is terrible"
• Verfremdungseffekt
• Sadly, due to Rob having stitches at the time of the performance, we're unable to perform the high energy fight scene we were hoping to perform. However, this isn't an issue as we now have the opportunity to perform it in a more Epic Theatre style. Besides just running at each other and fighting, the fight will now begin with me lunging at Rob (to stop him from talking to Gloria) to which he throws me back and then grabs my throat. We freeze. Blackout. Rob exits. Lights up and I'm left on the floor crippled. I feel this is much better in terms of using Epic Theatre techniques as it takes something as simple as an alleyway brawl and turns it into something stranger.
• When Candice is, "remembering," conversations between Sam and Kenny, she shouts at Sam which doesn't affect the pair as they're merely a vision from the past. This takes the thought of memories to a whole new level.
• Episodic Storyline
• Throughout the play, Candice constantly remembers different memories involving conversations between Sam and Kenny. Each memory seems to follow a second storyline and the story progresses further and further after each memory in an episodic fashion. This was very popular with Brecht.
• Representational lighting
• Brecht was a big fan of representational lighting which we're using to make the change from memory to reality very distinguishable. For reality (scenes between Sam and Candice) we're having a white wash lighting but for memory scenes (scenes between Sam and Kenny) we're having a warmer sepia tone to the lighting to show that the scene is in the past. Additionally to represent this, we're having a sound effect alongside the lighting change.
• Proscenium Arch
• We'll be having our piece performed proscenium arch as this was the typical favourite for Brecht performances.
• Stereotypes
• In Epic Theatre plays, most characters were big stereotypes based on where they come from or their occupation etc. For our scene, Rob and I are using 50's "Londoner" accents and Hope is using more modern and common "chavvy" accent.
• Historical Context
• Brecht aimed to link his plays to real events in history ranging from wars to topics like racism. This play features strong opinions on racism from the 50's and takes place during the London Riots of 2011.

We repeated this exercise for our naturalistic scene from People, Places and Things. Below is my conversion of our mindmap:

• Realistic setting:
• Our play is set in present day which is always better for naturalism as the audience can relate to it much easier. It's also set in a more realistic setting for our era: a hospital. This has the same effect as having our play set in modern day.
• Relatable characters
• Our character are very believable as they are not only set in familiar environments for the audience. Most, if not, all characters have rich backstories which allow the audience to get connected them easier.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 24 - 24/11/16

Today, Hope and I, went through our scene once again where we focused on working on our movement to help represent the relationship between our characters and the meaning of each line.

We split our section in half and focused on each one separately in order to to focus on each one in more depth. There were some lines where the movement was very obvious and didn't need much thought put into them. Whereas, there were some sections such as where Candice questions Sam about how he stood up to Uncle Kenny where we could've done different things in terms of movement. We could've had Sam go to exit and Candice call him back and he comes back to her or we could have Sam sit on the wall away from Candice and them Candice come to him. We chose the latter as it represents that Candice still does care about her grandfather despite spending the most part of the play shouting at him.

We also spent this lesson as a class looking at exercises to help us use our diaphragm more when performing. This is very helpful, not just in terms of projection but when trying to shout above another character but not wrecking our throats. This is also very helpful for me in triple with my musical theatre unit as I struggle to use my diaphragm when singing too. By the end of this exercise I was able to project my voice much easier without needing to strain my vocal chords. I'll practice this outside of lesson in order to make it more natural as opposed to being forced.

Next lesson, Hope and I will perform our scene to the rest of the class as well as looking into costume.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 23 - 22/11/16

Today, me and Hope went over our scene a couple of times and then focused more on developing our characters in order to make our performance more believable. I spent the rest of the lesson annotating my script, searching for the meanings behind each word and how I would say them.

Next lesson, we will look into our costumes and then continue going over our scene.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 22 - 15/11/16

Paul blocking script, helping with prompt, watched advice scene with notes

Today I continued to work on our scene from People, Places & Things as Rob won't be in for the next few weeks due to outside circumstances. I performed my opening section a couple of times in order to find the correct volume. Although at the start, I need to be very loud, when Ollie and Lorna start talking, I need to make sure I'm not too loud or they won't be heard over my hollering. Luckily, I think we were able to achieve this. I then wrote down on my script all of my movement. I spent the rest of the beginning of the lesson aiding the others throughout the scene by practising my set changes and prompting the others as they attempted to perform without scripts.

I then went on to watch a performance of our section Advice For The Young At Heart online and make notes on parts that I liked or found interesting. The version I watched was the 2013/14 tour version by Theatre Centre. Below are the parts I thought we should include in our version:

• Kenny is very calm and collected in the opening while Sam is very frantic and panicked.
• When Kenny wants to continue "hunting", Sam turns away at the thought and distances himself.
• The section where Kenny teases Sam for meeting a girl is very fast paced and childlike which works very well to portray the brotherly bond.
• However, when Kenny discovers it's been going on for 3 months, he becomes very stern and betrayed that Sam had kept it from him for so long.
• When the scene switches from Kenny and Sam to Candice and Sam, the lighting changes and a sound effect plays.
• Whenever Sam walks towards Candice, she walks away again to keep her distance.
• Sam is always very jokey with Candice until he mentions how ungrateful she is.
• When Candice tells Sam to leave, he goes to walk away but she then calls him back asking why he let Kenny push him around.
• When things get more heated, Candice stands more and gets more in Sam's face.
• When he calls her pudding, he does it intentionally to irritate her as a joke.
• During the part where Ryan texts Candice, the two actors use their pauses very effectively.
• When Kenny next comes on, Sam stands to the side facing away the front and Kenny explodes onto the stage with energy and anger.
• When accusing Sam of having a black girlfriend, Kenny is very loud and angry but when Sam admits it, Kenny turns away in disgust and embarrassment.
• Throughout the section before the fight, Kenny keeps on lunging towards Sam to suggest that he's going to hurt him.
• When they're not in each others faces, the brothers are very distant and are on different sides of the stage.
• When saying "I'm brain-dead because what you think of me matters", Sam sounds more sad and disappointed in himself rather than sarcastic.
• The fight scene was very energetic and frantic but last quite a while.

Next lesson, I will work on the Sam and Candice scenes with Hope.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 21 - 11/11/16

Today, we progressed more with our scene from People, Places and Things and I managed to perform some of Advice For The Young At Heart with Rob. I'm also now involved in a major way with Rob and James' scene from Merchant of Venice.

I began the lesson by working on my section as Paul from People Places and Things and focused a great deal on using my diaphragm so that I don't ruin my voice.

I then went to work with James and Rob whom invited me to perform in their scene from Merchant of Venice as Bassanio, an ineffectual businessman who is close friends to Antonio (Rob). In this scene, Bassanio tries to convince Shylock (James) to loan him money with Antonio being his guarantor. We spent the lesson reading the script through together and grasping the meanings of our lines. As James had the vast majority of the script where lines are concerned, we left him to continue analysing his script while I introduced Rob to Advice For The Young At Heart.

We read through the beginning section of our scene and I explained to Rob the difficult plot of the play. When reading through, I explained to him the relationship between the brothers and how Kenny is the controlling elder brother where Sam does as he's told until later in the scene...

To strengthen my character, I added an accent suitable for the working class Londoner of the 50's and varied my range for when Kenny is telling me what to do and when I'm standing up for myself. I feel that this makes my character more relatable.

We then worked on our movement and went through the beginning scene but were then stopped so we can showcase to the class what we've all achieved. Below are the notes we received:

• Lewis, your accent is very good and suits the style.
• The scene choice is very good for you two as it reflects the chemistry between you.
• Your body language needs some improvement to suit your characters and situation but you didn't get much time to work on this so it's understandable.
• You two bounce off each other very well conversationally which works very well for this scene.

Next lesson, I hope to continue to working on this scene.

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.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 19 - 03/11/16

Today we began our first scenes for our acting styles performance. We were put in the following groups and placed into scenes from various plays:

People, Places and Things: Lorna (Emma), Hope (Doctor), Ollie K (Foster), Lewis (Paul) Kat & Ollie (Nurses)
Waiting for Godot: Kat, Ollie M
Undecided: Rob, James

We began by arranging some of the set such as the desks for the reception, the bed for the patient room and the chest of drawers of drugs. We have two tables forming the reception desk which then get replaced into two separate tables, one for Doctor's desk and the other for a medical bed which sits on. When Emma blacks out, we have a black out and her medical bed and chest of drawers of pills are turned over. When Emma awakens, she is on the floor centre stage covered in fake blood.

I feel that this is a very emotive few scenes as this showcases Emma's introduction to rehab. We then started to go more in depth with the analysis of our characters. We began by discussing our characters and our interpretations from when we went to see the play and then discussed the journeys they go on throughout the plot. We made a note of this on mindmaps relevant to each character. We not only wrote what we thought of each character but what our characters think of each other; this is all linked by the colours. Below are the opinions of each character on the other:

Emma:
Given facts: Wants to go back to work as soon as possible; was previously an actress, Has multiple aliases throughout the play (Nina, Emma, Sarah, Lucy) (as result of her acting career?), has a dependency on drugs, has a poor relationship with her parents (because of her addiction or what she's put them through?), in denial about needing help, very complicated character.
Paul's thoughts: Afraid to reach out to God, "Another one", Coward
Foster's thoughts: He cares about her but doesn't want to become attached to her, has follow procedure with her
Doctor's thoughts: Doesn't understand Emma very well, poser, feels that she's trying to escape reality

Paul:
Given facts: Homosexual who lost his partner of 18 years to heroin usage, unstable mentally (possibly schizophrenic)
Emma's thoughts: Unusual, needs a lot of help, thinks he might have a point
Foster's thoughts: wants him to do well, empathetic, wants to help him
Doctor's thoughts: problematic patient, clever, very loud

Foster:
Given facts: works at the institution, an ex-patient, nothing surprised him
Emma's thoughts: angered that he took her cigarette, he's going to help not hurt
Paul's thoughts: unfair, soulless
Doctor's thoughts: good listener, free spirit, best patient she's ever had, middle man

Doctor:
Given facts: Works at the institution, confident, cracks a joke here and there to relieve some tension, nothing surprises her
Emma's thoughts: Confusing, looks like her mum, doesn't know how to act around her
Paul's thoughts: unfair, soulless
Foster's thoughts: saviour, friend, boss

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 18 - 21/10/16

Today, we added to our piece and rehearsed ready to perform to the class and film.

We decided after rehearsing that the piece was too short just on its own so we added a short news reporter section to the beginning to give the piece some context to the audience.

We started now with me in my seat and Kat and Hope entering from each side as news reporters, speaking to an audience on the TV/radio. These weren't legitimate news reports but using the info on the case online, we created our own report speeches.

We rehearsed the scene multiple times and performed it to an audience. Below is the video:

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 17 - 20/10/16

Today, we moved on to our final acting style: The Theatre of Cruelty.

We began by presenting our research on the practitioner, Antonin Artaud, and his famous approach to theatre. Doing this exercise was very helpful as all of or research collated together ensured that no details were missed and we were all able to contribute something to our knowledge on The Theatre of Cruelty.

Following this, we were given a stimulus for us to devise a short Artaudian piece around in groups (Lorna, James, Ollie M, Ollie K, Charlie/Rob, Kat, Hope, Me) (keeping in mind that we wouldn't have Rob or Ollie M next lesson). Our stimulus was a painting by Salvador Dali pictured below:

My first idea was inspired by the authoritative figure in the top right corner of the photo holding a spear. Upon seeing this figure, I envisioned our piece clearly in my head: we'd have a clock ticking noise throughout and it would be set in a classroom. The class would be in a sort of detention scenario (due to not having enough people in our class to represent a whole class) and we would have a teacher. Upon a student dropping a pen or making too much noise tapping on their desk etc. the teacher would take a step towards the and blackout. When the lights come back on, that student would be gone. We'd repeat this until every student was gone, with the class looking more and more frightened after each disappearance. As great as it would've been to perform this piece, we believed that it wouldn't work out due to us only having two people as students.

From this idea, we continued on with the theme of murder and this led to us researching different murderers including Mick Phillpot, Robert Black and Mary Bell. But our attention led to the story of fourtenn-year-old, Joshua Phillips of Jacksonville, Florida. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole after he murdered his neighbour, Maddie Clifton, 8. His attempt at hiding the body was the most gruesome part of the story: he hid the body with his water bed and was only found when his mother recognised a peculiar leak.

We found this story very horrifying which was perfect for an Artaudian styled performance! We wanted the audience to feel just as horrified as we were. We decided that we wanted to put a huge emphasis on the waterbed but not make it obvious. We looked for sound effects for dripping noises to represent this but felt that this wasn't very relevant to a water, but more just water dripping. We then looked for water sloshing noises as this noise is much more relatable to a waterbed. However, we couldn't find any sound effects that worked very well so we drifted our focus away from technicalities and focused more on the piece itself. We wanted to have our murderer in the centre with their conscience telling them why they should (not) have committed their crime. We had Hope play the evil conscience while Kat played the good conscience.

When it came to deciding who would play the murderer, obvious choice was me as I was the only person left but we wanted to go outside the box. We wanted to give our audience the full Artaud experience of leaving a theatre feeling enriched by their experience; experience being the key word. So with this we decided that we'd have the audience extremely close to the action and one of them seated as the murderer. In this position, we'd have the consciences sat either side of the "murderer" and they'd argue their cases across him/her. I'd be sat behind the "murderer" giving the illusion that I was the murderer; but I was. The people in the audience would recognise that I was the murderer, but our "murderer" would think that he was while his consciences argue through him. When he/she least expects it, I come from behind him/her and hold them ready to choke them sharply followed by a blackout. We feel this would be very effective at spooking the audience.

As a solution to the sloshing sound issue, we decided that the consciences would both have a water bottle which they would slosh throughout, starting of soft but getting more vigorous through the piece.

Next lesson we will perform our Artaudian pieces.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 16 - 18/10/16

Today, we performed our new physical theatre piece after a quick rehearsal. However, I was unable to be there due to outside circumstances so when the piece was performed, James took my place for all movement in the piece. Below is the recording of the final performance:

We then shortly looked at our new acting style, Artuadian. For next lesson, we've been asked to produce a presentation on Artuadian theatre. Below is my presentation:

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 15 - 14/10/16

Today we were given a stimulus to create a physical theatre piece. Our stimulus was a poem by Stevie Smith and we had to incorporate the poem into our piece somehow by either choral speaking, whispers, repetition, chanting key words, projection etc. The poem is as follows:

Nobody heard him, the dead man,   
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought   
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,   
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always   
(Still the dead one lay moaning)   
I was much too far out all my life   

And not waving but drowning.

We began the lesson by reading the poem and coming up with ideas for a story to portray. We decided that from the phrases, "Nobody heard him, the dead man" and "not waving but drowning," we would base it on a late teen who suffers from bullying. We wanted to show that in all aspects of his life he is mistreated which led to his inevitable suicide. We wanted to show all these aspects in shorter scenes and demonstrate on each scene what effect that has on our troubled character.

We decided to lay out our cast as characters and they are as follows:
Charlie - The Bullied child
Lorna and Ollie K - The parents
Hope - The Girlfriend
Ollie M - The Boss
Everyone else - Multi role

We decided to use to create an outline for our story so that we have an idea on what we want to do with the piece. Below is the outline we went with:

• Opening Death Scene
• Childhood Bullying
• Child Abuse
• Work Issues
• Death

We decided to show the Bullied Child's death scene to begin with to foreshadow what's to come later. The blocking for this scene is as follows:

• Charlie starts atop two stage blocks facing the back. Ollie K and Lorna start on the floor downstage and start reading the opening line. Whilst they read the opening line, Ollie M, Kat, Hope, Rob and I support and lift Charlie as he falls backwards off the blocks.
• We carry Charlie to centre stage and lay him to rest, Ollie K and Lorna stand and watch as he's lowered down. The next scene begins.

We wanted to show how The Bullied Child suffers immensely in all aspects of life, that he's slowly "drowning." We wanted this to start off at a younger age where he would get bullied as a child and then move on to Child Abuse and followed by issues at work. Below is the blocking for the bullying/girlfriend scene:

• Charlie rises from being dead and walks slows downstage centre. Kat, Ollie M, Hope, Rob and I all stand behind him in a line. Kat leans in to hug him and in a chain we all link and hug the person infront of us. This is the idea of the bullies being deceptive and giving The Bullied Child a sense of false security.
• Kat releases from the hug slyly and stabs Charlie, holds him and leans back. As she leans back, the person behind her leans back and this results in us all leaning back and then throwing Charlie forward onto the floor; this represents the act of betrayal.
• Kat, Hope and Rob exit, while Ollie M and I remain. I kick Charlie and lift him up. Once Charlie is standing, Ollie M and I grab his arms, (Ollie grabs left with left, I grab right with right), we turn over our opposite shoulder to our active hands (Ollie rolls over his right, I roll over my left) so that we have our backs to him, We then lift him up by leaning forward due to shift in body weight and then we let go and drop him down. Ollie M and I exit.
• Hope then runs in and offers to help Charlie. This then leads to a short hymn hands sequence which leads to Charlie being pushed away and left alone.

We though after this scene it would be very effective to show the progression of The Bullied Child and their gradual breaking down. We decided to showcase this in three short sequences, all very similar but each more intense. Below is our blocking for the scenes:

• After whichever scene comes before, Charlie staggers and sits at centre stage. Ollie M, Kat, Hope, Rob and I would surround Charlie like walls (Hope and I stage right, Kat and Ollie stage left, Rob at the back.) One hand would be flat as if it were pressed against an invisible wall, the other would be a fist banging on the wall.
• After the first scene (bullying) we pound rather slowly and throughout Charlie looks confused at this new pressure.
• After the second scene (child abuse) we would pound the imaginary wall at double speed, resembling a heartbeat. Charlie would seem more freaked out by it this time after being surrounded by this for quite a while now; he would even be twitching too.
• After the third scene (work scene) we would pound very fast on the imaginary wall, Charlie begins twitching a lot which leads to him lashing out. He runs at each of us at the wall and aims to hit us through the wall. Every time Charlie tries to hit us, we press both of our hands flat and once all of us have our hands flat, Charlie walls to the floor.

We feel this scene is very effective for portraying the gradual emotional break down of The Bullied Child.

For the work scene we wanted to incorporate some Round-By-Through, something different to the rest of the movement we've been using throughout the piece. Below is the blocking for this scene:

• We start the scene from the second imaginary walls section and Charlie begins walking towards me. He goes to shake my hand, I grab it and turn under his arm and walk towards Kat and I stand where she was and she walks towards Charlie.
• Charlie gestures for a hug but Kat places her left shoulder underneath Charlie's left arm and lifts him out of the way using the distribution of her body weight. She moves towards Hope and stands where she is and Hope walks towards Charlie.
• Charlie walks towards Hope smiling but she spins around him seamlessly and walks towards Ollie M. She stands in his place and he walks towards Charlie furiously.
• Ollie M approaches Charlie very angry and pointing at him, accusing him of not doing what he was supposed to and throws him to the ground to show that Charlie's been fired. Ollie stands where I stood at the beginning.

We decided for the end we wanted to repeat the beginning because it brings the entire piece full circle and shows that bullying is a never ending topic and will continue to repeat itself.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 14 - 13/10/16 ***ADD VIDEO***

Today we focused on Physical Theatre, our new acting style. We looked at a couple of scenes from a previous Year 13 groups from their production of Let The Right One In. This was the play we were aiming to create a scene for. The way the previous students performed their scenes was very effective as they used a great deal of repetition. After watching their performance, we decided that we wanted to something very similar to produce a similar effect. We were also given a short dialogue scene which would follow on from our physical theatre scene. We read through this scene and we all found it very horrific and we all wanted to reflect this in our performance.

When searching for a song we had lots of different options in our head such as:

• The Scientist - Coldplay
• Young Sinatra - Logic
• Tilted - Christine and the Queens
• Lost Boy - Ruth B

However with all of these songs, we didn't feel that it changed much at all and we really needed a turning point in the music to vocalise the ideas we had. We then turned to Afire Love by Ed Sheeran and we feel that it works perfectly for our piece but we decided to use an instrumental version as the lyrics of the song didn't fit the mood of our piece.

When devising movement we wanted to show how our character of Oskar is left out of everything and express his sorrow through depressing repetitive movements. Ollie M, thought it would be good to show him doing very tedious chore such as shovelling snow off of his driveway as it not only shows him uncomfortable and depressed but it also makes it clear that it's set in a snowy environment which works well for the following scene.

We then had everyone else performing happier motions behind me to show the contrast between Oskar and everyone else. Our aim was to then have everyone pretend to accept Oskar and then shun him away.

Below is our movement:

• I start from the back and slowly start walking downstage, shivering and blowing on my hands to keep warm. At the right point in the song, I started miming shovelling snow then warming up my hands. While I did this, everyone else behind me performed a routine where they slide, pick up snow and throw it towards the audience.
• Once Rob gets to me, he gestures towards everyone else smiling, suggesting I join in. Excited by this, at the next point in the music, I repeat their routine and turn around for approval but they all have their back to me. I turn back to my shovel and hand warming routine. Whilst I'm doing this, everyone arranges themselves in a circle and turn to show a formulation of a scheme to hurt me. 
• When Rob is facing towards me, the circle disperses into a line and Rob gestures to me to come join them. I run over to Rob, excited at the prospect of friendship, but when I get there, Rob lifts me up and chokeslams me down with my assistance.
• After falling to the floor, Lorna and Ollie K, come over offering help. They lift me up but Kat and Ollie M push me back down to the ground and the group exits leaving me on the floor ready for the dialogue scene.

I feel that the dialogue scene went very well and I think finishes up or short piece rather nicely.

Below is the recording of our performance:

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 13 - 11/10/16

Today we performed our scene from He's Talking and focused a lot on our voice.

As our characters all grew up in Chelsea, they are clearly from a more upper class background so we made our voices more posh for our performance. We also focused on our pronunciation of some words such as "Apartheid."

We then performed the scene and recorded it linked below (Miss Cordell stood in as Miles because Charlie was absent) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znPMdC_a6fc   /   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4djZcFtGVFI):

Notes:

• My tone of voice was very good at most points but at others it was lost.
• I feel that the entire piece was very static and we all could've used more gestures to liven up the scene more; this would've made the scene a lot more Naturalistic.
• We all weren't prepared for Miles' line so when it came we all didn't know what to do. We should've planned ahead for this and worked out a solution. (Hence the two video clips)
• I feel that we all had a good understanding of our characters and this showed in the performance. This is extremely important in Naturalism.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 12 - 07/10/16

Today we continued on from last lesson running through our scene for He's Talking and working more on how we say our lines and our movement when saying them.

We looked more into who our characters were from the given descriptions of them at the beginning of the play. I already knew that my character, Luke, was very supportive of the bombings and that only Rosie really supported him in this. However, I learnt that Luke was the only one who knew about Deon and Tanya's relationship.

Before when playing Luke, I played him as a more quiet strategic man, but after performing it again today, on the second run, I was more violent and more willing to shout. I performed more as a leader of the group rather than someone who was just there to support. I showed this by having a stronger tone of voice and having a deeper voice which suggests power.

Next lesson, we will continue working on this scene and finally record our final performance of it.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 11 - 04/10/16

Today, we ran through our scene from He's Talking. With James as Director he sat on the side and offered constructive criticism on how we can improve based on our voice, movement and positioning. When it came to where we were seated, we based this on relationships and the order our character discussed where they were now. For example, we had Deon and Tanya (Rob & Kat) sat next to each other because they were dating, Luke and Deon (Lewis & Rob) were sat opposite ends of the room because it's later revealed that they had an argument recently. Skeets (Ollie M) would be next to Deon but further away due to being quite distant to the group and everyone else inbetween would go from Luke to Deon in the same order they tell their stories; Oscar, Rosie, Sal, Tanya (Ollie K, Lorna, Hope, Kat).

After this we read through and rehearsed Scene 1 (replay 1) where I was now the director as James had to step in to be Miles to make up for the absence of Charlie.

Single - Applying Acting Styles - Blog 10 - 30/09/16

Today we began work on our new acting style: Naturalism.

We started off by watching a powerpoint outlining the key conventions of Naturalism and they are as follows:

• Emotional memory - linking a characters emotions to a time when they felt the same.
• Method of physical actions - changes in the way you act based on the context of the scene and the feelings of the character.
• Subtext - searching for hidden meanings behind what a character is saying; it's not what they're saying, but how they say it.
• Given circumstances - the facts that the play give.
• "If" - Searching through the subtext, and making assumptions on the characters, always thinking "What if..."
• Objective - What the intention of your character is for every line.
• Super-objective - What the intention of your character is throughout the entire scene.
• Through line - the actions which link each objective together.

We then went on to read through the script in our characters and then made annotations on our script, listing all of the Given Circumstances. Below are the given circumstances we found:

• Tanya and Deon are dating
• Tanya and Miles are siblings and are the only British out of the group of South Africans
• Luke and Rosie are the only ones in the group who are 100% supportive of the bombings
• Rosie is the only one who knows Skeets
• Sal lost her accent South African accent