17 JANUARY
We had a look at an online script for Zoo story. It starts off with a man named Peter who is sitting on a bench reading the paper. As he is reading the paper another man named Jerry approaches him and initiates a conversation between them. Over time, Jerry begins to get all sorts of information out of Peter like his life at home, his job, and even where he lives. At the end, Peter is driven mad and even trying to fight Jerry for the bench which leads to Jerry's death. I really liked the build up over time and seeing the characters go from acting civilized to acting like savages as they get more comfortable with one another. In my opinion the development over time is really good because it can keep the audience interested in what could happen next. It is a shame that there were times when Jerry would speak very long monologues near the beginning as I feel like it can be a bore for the audience, as it did bore some of the students we presented the piece to. If we don't perform this play then at least we have some guidance as to what to go for next, which may be another piece written by the same author Edward Albee, or something completely different as we continue to experiment on different scripts. I will try to complete the script and see if it's something I would like to perform with another person or if it would be better if we went for a play with more cast members.
18 January
We had a look at a different play named Torn. It is a play which was about two men and one woman. It's based around a couple who are living together in a hotel and they are talking about their future and other romantic speech until they hear loud sounds. It turns out that it's their psychotic neighbor who is out to scare them and also interrogate them. After reading through the play, Abdul and I both discussed who we would like to be and we both really wanted to be the psychotic neighbor to challenge ourselves, though the teacher felt like this play would be great as a production, which we agreed that it would wouldn't be as great if we both weren't enthusiastic about our roles. We continued looking around for different scripts and came across Baggage Claim which was a story based in a world where there are crater drops all around the world and half of them contain explains, whereas the other half have heaps of money. This is about a situation where a couple are really indecisive about opening the package whereas the guy who isn't part of the couple is desperate to open it as he doesn't have any loved ones who he is attached to, therefore his life being lost isn't as risky. We discussed the pros and cons and the topic of it being an unknown play by a writer nobody knows about and we came to the realization that it would be hard to research or even watch and that this would limit our research. Knowing this we had another play in mind which did have lots of research done on it, along with being well known and it was named 'Waiting for Godot'. After watching a version on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izX5dIzI2RE&t=13s), we had decided that we wanted to perform this play. A couple of reasons was that it was quite lengthy (45 mins-1 1/2 hours), and that would mean we had a lot of material to work with and research. One other reason which relates to my proposal, is that I really wanted to act in a play where I was a main character who had a lot of stage time. This was partly because I had never been a main role before, and I felt like if I was going to go into the acting industry that it should be important that I have experience with a large role. This would give me confidence to do something as big again in the future.
19
We have done research on our characters and have written our in character synopsis: ( Estragon or Gogo as I call him, we have been friends since forever, I remember growing up and I always went to his house which was a 30 second walk opposite my house and we always used to play and eventually we began to become dependent on one another. I depend on him being there to listen to my philosophical lectures on epistemology and my views on religion such as Christianity. We both have rapidly declining health due to living a life based on our nihilistic views that life is pointless and we are so unstimulated physically and mentally by the world that we both have dementia. Why am I even talking to you? Who are you? Who am I?). We then performed our in character synopsis to everyone else in the room. This was quite a fun exercise to do and it helped us to visualize what our characters would be like and act like in certain situations. This brings them to life. We then did improvisations with other groups and interacted with different characters from different plays. This exercise also helped us to bring our characters to life as we see them in different situations that have to help us establish the illusion of their existence. We also started cutting out lines that we felt didn't have any relevance within the play, and were not referenced later on. The reason we did this was because our performances needed to be between forty to sixty minutes long. We cut parts in the script where it felt like the play was not only not progressing, but also were not entertaining. This was so that our audience don't get too bored throughout the play, as the plot doesn't encourage much development in the story from the beginning.
We began memorizing our scripts at home. This will be quite a challenge as I have never before learnt as many lines as I will learn for Waiting for Godot. One great opportunity we have been given is that we can decide how we portray our characters and also our use of props. There is also a lot of research material on the internet because this play is quite famous and well known. This means I can discuss topics such as existentialism, homelessness, and memory loss as these are prevalent themes within the play within my research. I have also decided that when I go outside I will keep an eye out for the elderly and see how they move and interact with other people. This should help me understand the energy that I should portray Vladimir having and his posture and mannerisms.
TIMELINE:
We created a timetable that we hope to stick to throughout the process. We did this so that our time could be organised, so that we don't sometimes come into college and have no clear goals or objectives for the end of that day or week.
February 25: Learn first act
Between march 10-20 Learn second act
April: Run through the play various times, block the acts. Research relevant themes to characters I.E. Homelessness. Research props and costumes.
May 1st-7th: Buy/Pick up props, costumes, and do a technical rehearsal
May 14: Perform in the morning and evening. Write a structured evaluation
We spent the whole lesson acting through the first 11 pages of the play. In the first section of the act Vladimir and Estragon are introduced. The audience is given an understanding of the dynamics between the two characters and see who leads the two of them. Vladimir is the leader and generally has the spotlight on him as he consistently tells Estragon that they are not allowed to leave the land they dwell in as they are waiting for Godot. Estragon never seems to be happy about having to wait for him and would rather go home, and so he sometimes tries to challenge Vladimir. In order to make these interactions interesting we decided that we would mark all the parts of the scene that need to be blocked.We had learnt earlier on in this course that blocking is quite important. If you don't pay attentdion to the small changes in attitude between the characters or emotional differences which in turn change the way a character acts or talks then it can make the scene very bland. Which the audience will not be entertained by. So we decided to look for all the small parts where jokes are made or there is an argument between the two characters and to highlight them and then play around with that part. Using different methods such as changing our postures or tones in these parts are ways that we can emphasize the joke or change in atmosphere. On the first page, Vladimir questions Estragon and asks him if he was beaten up by locals at the place he slept. As I have never experienced homelessness I wasn't quite sure how I shall ask the question so I make it a goal to do some homework and learn more about the pains and struggles of homeless people.
I did research on homelessness and decided to apply my conclusion of the evidence and how I could apply it to my character to the play. Playing Vladimir with a more positive presence has definitely been successful to an extent. It didn't always work because Vladimir is the one out of the pair that is the thinker and the person whose always looking to argue with Estragon about philosophy and religion to pass the time. On the parts where he isn't trying to stimulate his mind, i.e. the beginning of the play when Estragon and he are discussing whether they should repent, those are the times and points in the play when he should have a more positive demeanor. It has definitely been quite interesting to see the dynamic between Estragon and Vladimir as they seem to be polar opposites yet there are some element about them that are the same, almost like Ying and Yang. This is something else I will research and try to understand the dynamic between the two, and what the author Samuel Beckett tried to achieve. This will help further my understanding of the characters to play them better.
We continued to work through the first 11 pages by marking changes in tone where we had beats and also rerunning it all over again after we were done. This not only helped us better memorise lines but it also helped us react quickly to cues in the script. Eventually we got to Pozzo's entrance which was where the challenge began. We not only had to work around Pozzo but we also had to make sure we weren't being blocked by the pig Lucky. At this point we still hadn't assigned anyone to play the roll of luck so we had to imagine where he would stand for the meantime. It was difficult because we are doing this production within an FE college and at the time of working on the parts Pozzo was introduced in we had to work around the absences. To successfully help the person playing Pozzo get on top of their lines and cues, and vice versa for me, what we did was one person would go off script and play their character and the other people would read in for the other two. This meant that the person off script could be prompted and could remember and get on top of cues and the person reading could also learn the lines by photographic memory. This method was very successful and within three days I had already learnt all my lines for the other three quarters of part one.
We began working on objectives. This was to add variation to the emotion portrayed to the audience behind the lines to create an immersive play that will keep the on their toes throughout. We did this by going to parts where a characters emotion changed or when their objective (what they are trying to get out of other characters or their time) changes too. One example of a point where there's a beat is in the first page when Vladimir asks Estragon to get up and embrace him, to which Estragon refuses. Then Vladimir asks him where he spent the night. There is a change in tone and objective here and the idea of hugging because they have reunited is left behind. One technique I used here when acting is that after he refuses I show Vladimir feeling let down by not saying and sighing. This fills the gap between beats. This is important as if Vladimir jumps from one topic to another without a single thought between or reaction to an action that a character does to him, the scene would simply look unrealistic and boring, and making characters seem robotic.
We had performed the play to the rest of the year 2 as a follow up from our prior performance. In the end they were quite happy and had no more advice to give us and that it was so much more interesting now we had added in our use of beats. With my own reflections on how I performed, I felt like was now becoming a character and not just reading lines on a page with no deeper meaning or stance. One piece of advice we were given was to find someone to play lucky as our time was running out and that it is crucial that we get someone to play him, unless we were to work out a way around this problem by interpreting lucky as an imaginary friend.
Thankfully, in the last couple of weeks before the final performance, the other actor in our group finally started turning up to lessons. This meant that we could now as a group work on the first act where all three of our characters are present. We continued blocking several parts but we still didn't have anyone to play Lucky the pig and time was running out. Thankfully we later looked around for people in the other departments of the level 3 acting and we found a girl in the first year who was quite reliable. We acted through the second part of the first act as usual and we started experimented with where our characters would stand relative to one other and we recorded the formations. We had also asked other students who happened to be watching us to walk around the rooms that we performed in and to tell us where and when we were standing in front of each other, or if we weren't balancing the stage enough.
We had gone down and spent a day choosing props from the props store to wear, and we decided on wearing classic 1960's suits/attire as the play was meant to be based on that time period based on our interpretation We came to this conclusion as the play was published first in the late 1950's and published once again in the 60's Unfortunately we couldn't find a pipe, or a beard, which is what I wanted Vladimir to wear and so we decided on ordering those online. I decided I wanted Vladimir to wear a beard because he is the wiser of the duo and the wise old man archetype is always presented with a long grey beard to show wisdom and knowledge.
TECH
We spent around four hours working on the tech side of the play also figuring out what props that we were to use. We decided on having a tree in the background which would be a Willow tree as Vladimir guessed that the tree might've been one, that isn't to say that using an oak tree wouldn't be as appropriate either. We also decided that we were to have the curtains that usually make the stage half it's size to slightly come into the stage so that we could walk in, and out behind the curtain. The area of the stage behind the curtain wasn't going to be used for the most part except from when Vladimir requests to have his seat saved for when he got back from using the toilet. We had him pee behind the curtain to keep him on stage, yet not directly taking the attention from the other two characters as he did this.
We also worked on lighting and we told the tech team to make the stage an reddish-amber colour in the beginning to signify to the audience that it was sun rise. Later on through when Pozzo and lucky enter the stage is now a strong amber colour to signify day time to the audience. Later on when Vladimir says "Nice day we're having" we change the colour to the same reddish-amber with a hint of dark blue to tell the audience that it's now getting later in the day. We had a final change to a dark blue as it is night in the second act evidently told to us through Vladimir who says "Now it's night". We also decided on using a bench which is where the characters would communicate to one another on throughout the play, we decided that the bench was an item for which the characters can sit on to release anger or frustration that they gain throughout the play. We also decided on this because a bench is where you can sit down and reflect rather than move forward or gain and so we felt that we were to use the symbol in that way. We had decided on one of the cast members helping the technical team with all of these changes. That same person had also informed them that the song "'You've got a friend in me" plays at the beginning of the performance and at the end. This was fine as it represents the friendships in the play. He had also instructed that in the end of the play, when the song plays that we should slowly walk off stage. Which I didn't agree with because the characters don't actually leave in the end of the play. He had insisted on it, and one thing I have learnt in the level 3 course is that when someone is insisting on something and they are being arrogant it is better to let them have their way, so as to avoid arguing and anger between the cast members.
One problem we did run into during the process was how we were to give the impression to the audience that there was barely any life around us apart from the tree behind the mound. We decided that to tackle this problem we would find or make various boulder/stones to place on random parts of the stage in a random order and also with no colour. This was to bring the lifelessness of the stage to life. To our luck, we did find many small boulders made of plastic within the college. We placed them in random spaces, along side placing the bench and having the technical team project a tree into the background. The results were astounding, and I felt like the stage space was no longer a plain space but the world of 'Waiting for Godot'. If we had a high budget, I would have loved to have a real tree in the space and real boulders, but with the budget we did have I feel like we made the most of it.
Evaluation And Reflection
On the day of our final performance we all came into college for 10:45 and spent the first hour doing a final dress rehearsal. We had asked the technical team after this whether they liked it and what advice they could give on improving it and they had told us that it was perfect the way it is and it felt like nothing was really happening the entire time, with no true plot. This is great advice as the play isn't meant to show a plot and it doesn't follow the usual formation of what's commonly known as 'The Heroes journey". Which is generally seen as a 12 step journey that in most myths is showing the main character go through. Yet they still saw the entertainment in forgetting what had happened, and constantly remember that they have to wait for Godot. During the run through there were a couple of times that the technical director of our play was late on cues so we spent some time brushing up on the small errors that were made. We were then ready to perform.
In the minutes before performing I felt quite confident and had high energy which started happening recently, as a pose to when I began on the course and I felt more anxious. Having a clear mind and not over thinking about what could go wrong in the play is a very important lesson I have learnt doing the level 3 course, and it's a great life lesson too. When we performed the technical team had done a great job in synchronising the light changes with the parts of the play they were instructed to do them on. Unfortunately the member of the cast who hadn't come in for several weeks at a time had forgotten one of their lines in the final page of the play when he says "what if Godot does come?" to which Vladimir would reply "Then we are saved". What he said instead was "What if Godot doesn't come" which caught me off guard I admit, and so I replied "Then we are screwed". I felt like in that moment it was appropriate to say screwed as it wasn't a swear word and that it is also something I feel like Vladimir would have said in that moment as he had full belief in Godot appearing. We had received praise from the audience and many saying that it was funny and great, and thinking that it was one of the best productions they had ever seen. Of course this praise was also coupled up with criticism. One person had told us that we should have been much louder and that it was unclear as to what we were talking about at some points and that we shouldn't have walked away in the end. I had to explain the situation that one of the cast had insisted on it and then the person who had insisted on it realised their mistake, and we decided as a collective not to make the same mistake the second time we perform, which was in the evening. If I felt like anything could have improved, then it would have been blocking, this was because in the moment of performing the cast were thinking more about being on top of cues rather than communicating with their surroundings, and this caused people to stand in front of one another and even forget lines. We had performed again in the evening, taking on the advice we were given in the afternoon to make the production be in it's best form. Unfortunately in the end of the performance, the other member of the cast had started walking off stage again which we were advised not to do, however I tried to stay on stage but they grabbed my arm and tried to pull me off stage with them. I complied and did walk off so as to not stir drama between me and the other actors.
[LINK TO FINAL PERFORMANCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=167&v=3c6rrVy3aQI]
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