Dan's AA&A R.A.P. Blog

This week saw us all finally perform our long-awaited assessment scenes. The scenes that were performed by the other groups set a very high standard indeed, however Mark, Tasha and I went into our performance nervous but with high hopes. In my opinion, I think that our scene went well. While I can't really speak for Mark's half of the piece with Tasha as I was outside of ANG.15 waiting for my section, I feel that the performance between Tasha and I went even better than we had rehearsed it.

My first unit went very smoothly, I felt. After kung-fu entering the room, I felt suitably silly and embarrassed thanks to utilising my parallel and also because quite frankly bursting into a room in such a fashion is a silly thing to do anyway! Additionally though of course, I had to play it off as 'coolly' as possible as this was what was required of the Davis character for this unit, which I feel went well also due to my parallel.

My second unit again went quite well, I think. I feel as if I effectively communicated my character's nonchalance and incorporated naturalistic elements well, such as clicking my fingers at times during my dialogue (a character trait which I tried to keep up throughout the piece) accompanied by auto-erotic vocalisations such as "uhh"s when delivering lines such as "Yeah, Christina. Matt fucked you." so as to effectively communicate Davis' nonchalance towards Christina with a bigger fixation on finding his phone.

I felt like I was perhaps at my weakest during Unit 4 during the dialogue with Tasha's Christina wherein I itch my groin with Mark's Matt's dishcloth. As I was doing the scratching and hearing the audience's amusement at it, I felt like I then subsequently played it up a little too heavily for laughs and was too aware of their presence when I should perhaps have instead done it more subtly and naturally instead of the exaggerated fashion in which I performed it in the moment. When utilising units and parallels in the future, I should probably be aware of this issue to avoid repeating it in the future.

I felt like the final confrontation unit between Tasha and I went well, however regretfully I felt like I got almost too caught up in the moment by the time to elbow/forearm Tasha in the face came around, as by that point I felt myself genuinely becoming quite aggravated in-character by Tasha's Christina. I found this strange, as in rehearsals we always tended to perform the final unit quite safely. However, in the heat of the moment I think I accidentally got too caught up and actually caught Tasha in the side of the head a bit too hard and genuinely. Ironically, when conversing with peers from the audience afterwards, some thought that it looked like I didn't hit Tasha at all. Safety is one of (if not the) highest priority when working with Method techniques and as such I feel like I faltered on such an important facet right at the end. Although Tasha assured me afterwards that I had not hit her hard and that she was fine, I still felt tremendously guilty and that I perhaps struck her harder than she was letting on. Obviously, in future performances wherein I utilise the parallel and units techniques I need to be far more conscious about the safety of other cast members I am working with and to keep my actions in check so that such an incident does not happen again.

All that said however, I feel like the three of us put on a strong performance. Based on the feedback we received from peers afterwards, we were told we had each portrayed convincing and very 'real' characters over the course of our scene. All that remains now is to see if these opinions will be verified with a good mark!

Considering we had a big dress run of our entire scene to perform on Monday, Saturday 11th May saw Mark, Tasha and I have a big rehearsal in preparation, primarily focussing on the units that we had not performed previously (namely Units 2, 3 and 4 in my case) so that we would be completely off-script for our dress run. It was during this rehearsal in which I came up with an idea: for the monologue in which Davis reads what he has written on Matt's laptop to Christina, I thought that if I typed up the speech and had it pre-written on the screen for the scene, the reading of it off the screen would provide a more authentic and naturalistic delivery of the lines. We rehearsed with all of our props at hand - such as tissues, pill bottles, laptop and drinking glasses to name but a few - so that we would know what we would do naturally in the scene when the time came to perform it and make it look spontaneous.

As such, when the time came for the dress run, we put this into effect, incorporating each physical action that we had not had an opportunity to show yet in our middle units, such as when I (Davis) squeeze ketchup into Matt's milk bottle whilst chatting with Christina to emphasise how much of a "macho dick" he is. As well as this, we got the chance to show Terri everything that we had included prop-wise into our first and final units (such as when I drop the ornament) that by now we had worked on and knew better than any other part of our scenes due to having focussed on those more in previous classes.

Terri was pleased with our performance, though naturally not without some beneficial constructive criticism. With particular relevance to me, Terri suggested that the monologue in which Davis reads from Matt's laptop to Christina be cut down due to its lack of importance in comparison to everything else. This came as welcome news, as we had been slightly concerned previously about the fact that our piece may have been slightly too long but without knowing where we could trim any more lines from. Also, I was asked to be more embarrassed when making my kung-fu entrance. Although I usually remained suitably embarrassed when rehearsing that sequence, for some reason in the dress run I didn't seem to do it in the moment, so before next week I'll have to make sure my head's fully committed to my parallel for that unit in particular. Additionally, Tasha was instructed to be more in my way when I'm searching for my phone during (my) Unit 2. This was so that my line "I don't have to have some like international Frog search warrant to get by, do I?" would make more sense due to Tasha's character deliberately trying to get in my way so that my character would notice and recognise her.

As a bank holiday meant that our regularly scheduled lesson on Monday was moved by Terri to a Wednesday evening so that we didn't miss out on class time. Before this class however, on the 7th of May, Mark, Tasha and I had our first real out-of-lesson rehearsal as a group. In this session, we went through the warm-up process that we had been taught by Terri - asking each other how we were feeling, what we had for breakfast/lunch etc .- and then attempted to run through and rehearse our units in preparation for Wednesday's session in which we would be performing and getting feedback on some of our units.Though we attempted to rehearse the entirety of our piece, we put a main focus on the units that we could perform off-script and knew the lines for as we felt these would be the most effective to show. As such, we rehearsed these scenes whilst experimenting with the use of crashing, repetition and auto-erotic vocalisation in order to make them sound as effective as possible. This went well, as it built upon the experimenting with techniques that we had already done with our units (primarily our individual opening and closing ones) in lessons previously as well as refreshing our memories.

In Wednesday's session the following day, we performed our rehearsed units with Mark and Tasha performing their opening units together and Tasha and I performing our closing units together. Though I thought the performance of the units of Tasha and I went well, there were points in which we overcompensated, with Tasha screaming her final line at me and some of my lines being somewhat stumbled and muddled, perhaps due to nerves in both cases (certainly in mine). This was picked up upon in feedback from Terri, which also included a key point of making sure that Tasha and I weren't too close together for the entire unit so that the emotional tension could build more effectively. We performed the unit again, this time with a lot more effectiveness due to the helpfulness of the advice given to us.

This lesson saw both our group of Mark, Tasha and myself take more of a back seat as far as class presentations was concerned and also saw a change of scenery - the University Theatre. However, we learnt some very insightful and helpful techniques to assist us in delivering a naturalistic and effective performance of our lines in rehearsals. The rehearsal techniques are/were as follows.

1. Repetition

The first rehearsal technique bequeathed upon us was one in which we had to repeat the end of the previous speaker's line in the form of a question before going into our own line delivery. In doing this, the idea was that this style of repetition of the line ending would help make the way that your own line sounded more appropriately emotional. For example:

Christina: You're not a cruel person.

Davis: [Oh, I'm not a cruel person?] Really.

Christina: [Really?] You are kind and I know this to be true.

I found that this technique was successful in its aim as it helped to make lines of mine that needed aid in sounding more convincing - such as when Davis launches into his tirade about how much of an idiot Christina is - sound more convincing! This one is definitely one that I will utilise when it comes to perfecting my lines at home.

2. Auto-erotic Vocalisation

This exercise was to do with utilising sounds that humans make in their day-to-day speech (e.g. groans, laughs, "err"s and "umm"s etc.) and incorporating them into your lines in order to make them sound more conversational and natural as opposed to lines mechanically learnt from a piece of paper. Again, I found that this was helpful in making the lines sound more naturalistic and handily it seemed to come to me quite quickly.

3. Crashing

Unit 1

WANT: To know where Matt is/to find his phone.

EMOTION: Mild embarrassment at having a stranger (initially, to him) witness his kung-fu entrance but trying to play it cool; impatience

PARALLEL: In Sixth Form, me and a couple of friends skipped out of half of a Media Studies due to a "rehearsal". This "rehearsal" was a front for sword-fighting with bamboo canes in an empty Drama room. We'd done our Media work, we assumed it'd be fine. Needless to say, the amount of noise we were making from the room aroused suspicion of (typically), Media Studies teachers who were nearby. Not only was I embarrassed when we were caught, but wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. I feel as if Davis would feel the same way in this first unit.

Unit 2

WANT: To find phone and have Christina stop bothering him.

EMOTION: Nonchalance

PARALLEL: There have been many times where I have wanted to be simply left alone and focus on what I'm doing when people are trying to talk to me about something I'm really not interested in. A good example to use as a parallel should be whenever I was being nagged to do housework by my mum whenever I was playing video games during my hormonal, stroppy teenage years. Such nonchalance will adapt to this unit perfectly.

Unit 3

WANT: To subtly find out why Christina is even there in the apartment - could he have caught something off of her in Amsterdam?

EMOTION: False nonchalance in order to extract information under a 'cool' façade.

PARALLEL: A few years ago I was certain that I would be getting a new laptop for my birthday. Naturally my mum wouldn't just surrender this information willingly, so I had to employ a similarly subtle method of deducing the truth without explicitly stating that was what I was after.

Unit 4

WANT: To portray Matt as an unstable mess; to get his own back at Matt for satirising him in his play script and have Christina bear witness to it.

EMOTION: Contempt; amusement/smug indulgence at his own mockings

PARALLEL: Again during my teenage years, someone posted something nasty about me on social media. Despite not referring to me by name, it was obviously about me due to previously transpired events. However, this school bully wasn't the brightest guy and many things were wrong in his "argument". Scoffing, I responded, analysing and breaking apart his points against me, to the amusement of many, including myself.

Unit 5

WANT: To deliver the hard truth about Christina's obsession and his feelings about her - he finds her pathetic.

EMOTION: Contemptuous pity, annoyance almost to the point of amusement at how deluded he finds Christina.

This week, in my group comprising of Mark, Tasha and I, we informed Terri of our choice to perform a scene from Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter for our final assessed scene. After undergoing a few script revisions and edits wherein we determined approximately where our first units ended (as they would be mostly comprising the lesson), the main focus of the class today was for groups to get some of their scenes on their feet and to learn how to effectively rehearse a scene which comprises of multiple actors with their own separate units and parallels happening at the same time.

When our group was called up, we split the scene up into the first unit between Tasha and Mark followed by the first unit between Tasha and I. This is because in the scene we have chosen to perform we aren't all on-stage together as a three at any one time, with the scene instead progressing from dialogue between Mark's character Matt and Tasha's character Christina to a scene between Christina and my character, Davis, once Matt (Mark) has left the scene.

As such, we were led through the process: first we were instructed to deliver our lines of the unit from the script with no added emotions. Then, once this was done, we improvised the scene off-script. This was so that we would deliver the essence of the scene through what dialogue we remembered, but also would include improvisations that would therefore make the scene look more natural - an important facet for these upcoming assessed performances. After this improvised run, we then ran it again but this time with scripts. However, this is where I personally struggled. Once I had the script back in my hand, I found myself using it as a crutch more and more as the scene progressed as I had not yet learnt my lines and as such some of my line deliveries felt forced and unnatural. Hopefully once I have learnt my lines and incorporated my parallels to each of my units this will no longer be an issue as then my performance will hopefully seem as naturalistic as possible and capture the essence of the improvised version.

In our first week back in class after the Easter break, it was time to perform our long-awaited monologues. Having not had the opportunity to perform my monologue before the Easter break due to to time constraints, I was quite nervous in the build-up to my eventual performance in front of the class. However, once the monologue got under way, I feel like it went quite well. The inclusion of Tasha in the scene to act as a Stella for my Stanley to react off of was an incredibly vital one as I feel like the presence of another character helped my line deliveries and units appear more believable to the audience. Additionally, I felt like having an actual set and the use of my hip flask as a prop helped to strengthen my performance as they helped me to get into the mindset of the Stanley character a lot easier. The hip flask in particular helped with this, as due to the slice of life activity we had previously done in the module it helped to make my line deliveries sound a lot more naturalistic once interspersed with drinking from the flask; it sounded more like a natural conversation one would have whilst drinking as opposed to someone just delivering lines on a stage for an audience. Therefore, I should perhaps consider utilising these techniques again for when I'm in my group for our final scenes in about a month's time.

Terri's feedback on my monologue was also most constructive. Commenting that my use of props (the hip flask) was good, she also however noted that my accent was very regionally Southern and perhaps not quite right for the Stanley character; however it was an "interesting interpretation." Additionally, Terri suggested that I should have build up the energy more towards the end of the monologue as Stanley talks about "the trouble with Dame Blanche" and I'm inclined to agree. The ending of the monologue not having quite enough energy meant that the monologue as a whole seemed quite 'one-tone', which is especially not good as I intended the final unit of the monologue to be where Stanley really puts the final nail in the coffin for Blanche's reputation. As such, should I be in the same situation for when I'm in my group scene, I'll need to make sure that the most appropriate levels of energy are produced and maintained for each unit to produce the most effective work possible.

For this film discussion edition, I watched two films - The Dark Knight (2008) and The Machinist (2004) - for the purpose of discussing whether or not I believe the acting approaches taken by Heath Ledger (in the former) and Christian Bale (in the latter) went too far or not.

By now, I have seen The Dark Knight about three times from start to finish and the absolute star performance in the film, in my opinion, is that of Heath Ledger's portrayal of classic Batman villain, the Joker. Every moment that Ledger's Joker is on-screen, you find yourself thoroughly captivated by the sheer gravitas and uneasy aura that Ledger brings to the role. It is established early on that Joker can (and will) do something fittingly sadistic in the blink of an eye, such as his 'disappearing pencil' trick. This, coupled with the physical mannerisms and the intriguing and unnervingly eccentric speech pattern that Ledger adorns the Joker with, means that whenever he is on screen you can't help but give him your full attention. The approaches that Ledger embraced in order to create such a mesmerising performance, however, are now almost infamous considering the fate that ultimately fell upon him, with many attributing his premature and accidental death from an overdose of prescription medications to the way that Ledger approached the Joker character.

When preparing for the Joker role, Ledger took to utilising Strasberg's Method, the famed acting approach that requires the actor to become their character in an extremely intimate way; developing their character's thoughts, memories, mannerisms etc. all within themselves usually by living their lives as their character. After Ledger landed the Joker part, he purportedly locked himself in a London hotel room for a month, forming a diary in character whilst experimenting with voices and laughs. In an interview with Empire magazine, Ledger stated that he "ended up landing more in the realm of a psychopath," with cast and crew on The Dark Knight backing up this statement, saying that Ledger refused to talk to anyone out of character on-set, was still in character on off-days "freaking everyone out" and that, "he was warned by people that he had gone too far, but it was almost like he couldn't connect with those who cared for him anymore." (Monsters & Critics, 2008) Ledger would then die from his accidental overdose before the film could premiere.

However, it's hard to argue with results. Not only was Ledger's performance a sensation hit with fans and film-goers, it earned him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. That said, due to the previous lack of success for superhero films when it came to primary acting awards at the Oscars, it could be argued that had Ledger not died he might not have received the award at all. While Ledger's performance was incredibly well-received, the media frenzy over his passing may have been the catalyst for his Oscar win. While I could selfishly say that Ledger's approach to the character was worth it due to the enjoyment that I and countless others get from his performance, as well as his Oscar win, ultimately his approach did seemingly heavily contribute towards his massively premature death. That can't be worth it in any case.

Christian Bale, in his performance as Trevor Reznik in 2004 film The Machinist (and coincidentally Heath Ledger's co-star as Batman in The Dark Knight), took a similarly radical approach to his character during preparation. The normally six foot tall and 185 pound Bale lost 63 pounds over the course of four months for the character of Reznik, who is a paranoid insomniac who hasn't slept for an entire year. In his attempt to achieve the appearance of such a character, Bale apparently consumed only one cup of coffee and an apple a day, which caused him to look almost skeletal in appearance. Indeed, when I was watching the film, for the first twenty minutes or so of the film I found myself almost recoiling at how withered and bony Bale had become, a view shared by legendary film critic Roger Ebert, who said in his review of the film that "[Bale] is so gaunt, his face so hollow, he looks nothing like the actor we're familiar with. There are moments when his appearance even distracts from his performance, because we worry about him." 

Once I had adjusted to the radical change in Bale's appearance, I found myself greatly enjoying his performance in the film. Had Bale been at his regular frame and build for the character, his performance as Reznik would not have been as effective despite his great acting ability because he wouldn't have looked anything like a person who hasn't slept in a year and believes there is a conspiracy against him. As such, because Bale deemed it necessary to lose all the weight necessary to make him look so haggard and like someone most people would seek to avoid being around, the performance becomes that much more captivating as a result. Amazingly, Bale would then put all of his original weight plus an extra 100 pounds back on for his role as Batman in the following year's Batman Begins (2005), signifying that unlike Ledger, Bale's radical approach to his character had not completely overtaken him and didn't leave any severe psychological issues upon him. While Bale's performance as Reznik didn't earn him any Academy Award nominations, he was nominated for other Best Actor awards at other ceremonies, even winning one such prize at the Catalonian International Film Festival in Spain.

To conclude, I believe that there isn't anything wrong with taking a hugely radical approach towards a role like Ledger and Bale did, as long as you ensure that you have full control over your body and mind and don't suffer severe consequences like Ledger did, no matter how great the resulting performance. As Bale handled his radical acting approach well and with no real long term detriment to his well-being, I would say that Bale did not go too far whereas Ledger only went too far because he ended up not being able to fully cope with the consequences of his approach.

Bibliography

Monstersandcritics.com (2008) Heath Ledger's method acting - Monsters and Critics. [online] Available at: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/news/article_1399940.php/Heath_Ledger_s_method_acting [Accessed: 11 Apr 2013].

empireonline.com (2006) The Making Of The Joker | Features | Empire. [online] Available at: http://www.empireonline.com/features/heath-ledger-joker [Accessed: 11 Apr 2013].

Elliott, J. (2006) Christian Bale's Weight Loss for The Machinist: This Dedicated Actor Lost a Whopping 63 Pounds to Play the Lead in This Movie. [online] Available at: http://voices.yahoo.com/christian-bales-weight-loss-machinist-this-66659.html [Accessed: 11 Apr 2013].

Mail Online (1997) Christian Bale: Boy from the circus who was a star at 13. [online] Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1037396/Christian-Bale-Boy-circus-star-13.html [Accessed: 11 Apr 2013].

In this lesson, we all geared up to give somewhat of 'workshop previews' of our monologues by performing the first couple of units. Unfortunately, due to time restraints some of us were unable to perform this week, myself included. However, despite not being able to pick up any personalised advice for my monologue, watching Terri analyse and suggest things for each monologue and characterisation proved interesting and informative. Most notably, Terri requested that if a monologue is derived from a scene wherein there is another character that the monologue is being addressed to, there should be someone else on-stage filling that role for you to act off of and react to. While this sounds like common sense, when put into practise it improved the delivery of just about every monologue in the class. As such, when rehearsing my own Stanley Kowalski monologue I should perhaps ask another person to act as Stella, his wife, to try and make the speech sound more authentic when coupled with my parallels/units.

I have also decided that I will try and commit to a Southern accent when performing my monologue. Terri said that we can use accents as long as we feel that it doesn't detract from our monologues and I think that I should hopefully be fine in this regard. I had to utilise a Southern accent last year in a performance piece and was praised for it, so I have some experience with the accent. I may have to look up any notable differences in pronunciations of words between a Texan accent and that of a person from New Orleans, however.

The primary task for this week was a hot-seating exercise, with the intent to test just how well we had researched and knew our characters for our upcoming Tennessee Williams monologues so that we could highlight which areas we need to improve on. We were divided into groups of three or four, with one of us being in-character in the hot seat whilst the other two asked questions.

When I was being hot-seated as A Streetcar Named Desire's Stanley Kowalski, my character for my monologue, I feel like I did quite well. I kept up my hot seat session for the longest in my group and felt like I answered in character adequately at minimum. There were a few areas in which I faltered, however. Most notably, when I was asked what my religion was and how I met Stella, Stanley's wife in Streetcar, I didn't know how to answer. Upon researching post-lesson, I couldn't find anything about Stanley's religion and all we know about when Stanley and Stella met is that it was in New Orleans post-WWII after Stanley had come back from the war. Stanley's past having served in the War is an interesting point however and could be a contributing factor towards his outbursts of violence and hot temper, perhaps even an undiagnosed form of PTSD. This could be something to keep in mind when portraying Stanley onstage as far as getting into character goes.

As required, I will now post the units for my Stanley monologue, as well as the parallels for each unit.

Unit 1:

WANT: Can't wait to tell Stella the truth about Blanche; also to portray her as a phony person.

EMOTION: Confident, self-satisfied, almost mocking

PARALLEL: When I was younger, I reached the finals of a back-garden "trampoline elimination" tournament between my friends and I. You had to simply knock your opponent off the trampoline to win. I was horribly outmatched in the final against my more athletic, muscled friend. I was inches from losing until he was distracted by another friend at "ringside." At this moment, I executed a sneaky dropkick from behind, booting him from the trampoline and declaring me the victor, at which point I was incredibly smug, self-satisfied and overly mocking despite my deficit in the actual contest. A moment of smug "assholery" that fits well as a parallel to use for this monologue unit.

  Unit 2:

WANT: To back up claims with evidence; to portray Blanche as a shamed woman.

EMOTION: Confident, derisively sarcastic.

PARALLEL: I have been sarcastic in this fashion almost countless times in my life. When I was Year 8, I mocked my friend in this way for weeks about his pronunciation of the word "colonel" in a class reading, to his great annoyance. I regret it now because I was acting like a complete tool, but it's a good parallel for me to use in this unit.

  Unit 3:

WANT: To attempt to manipulate Stella to his side of things by deliberately misinterpreting her shocked denial.

EMOTION: Falsely sympathetic.

PARALLEL: When in junior school, one of my old friends used to cry over the most trivial of things, lost playing cards etc. I sort of cared about the lost items but ultimately just wanted to carry on playing games as I was young and didn't understand social empathy yet, so I would have to pretend to care also about these lost possessions in an attempt to speed things up back to playing games.

  Unit 4:

WANT: To put the final nail in the coffin of Blanche's act; to portray her as 'damaged goods'.

EMOTION: A sense of mocking superiority over Blanche; contempt for her.

SOUND

EMOTION: Tenderness

MEMORY - The song "If There's a Rocket Tie Me To It by Snow Patrol reminds me of when I had to get my girlfriend a gift for our first year anniversary. I decided to use this song as the opener to the album of songs I made for her (I'm soppy like that) and as such I can't listen to the song without remembering my girlfriend's tears of happiness when listening to the album, which gives me the emotional recall/sense memory necessary for the emotion of tenderness.

TOUCH

EMOTION: Sadness

MEMORY: In 2004, my parents announced that they were breaking up. Naturally, I was devastated and inconsolable at that moment. However, this sense memory deals with a subdivision of that: the issue of my old dog, Toby. Toby was one hell of a dog. At that point in my life, he was probably my best friend, having grown up with him since I was about 8. Due to circumstances that were beyond my control and still anger me with their ridiculousness to this day (but I digress), Toby had to be given away. In a way, I found this more distressing than my parents splitting up. I would be able to see both of my parents again whatever happened, but not Toby. For a short while before Toby was gone from my life, he took up residence at my cousin's house. The final night where I saw him, I spent hours just holding him and resting alongside him. A cross-breed between a Doberman and a German Shepherd, Toby was somewhat of a large dog with a wiry coat. Remembering the feel of his coat on my hands and skin as I held him that day before we were separated for good gives me the sense memory necessary for the emotion of sadness, and perhaps even grief, as I can't stroke a dog with wiry fur like Toby's to this day without remembering that night and feeling sadness about him.

Pictured: Not Toby, but Toby looked a lot like this.

SIGHT

EMOTION: Excitement/Anticipation

MEMORY: In 2010, I went to see Muse live for the second time at Wembley Stadium for the second time. While it may seem strange for me to select the second time I saw them live for this instead of the first, the reason for this is simple. When I saw them in 2009, it was in the O2 Arena but I was way up in the stands. For Wembley Stadium in 2010, I was right down at the front, standing near the stage. Walking into the arena and seeing the huge, grandiose stage up close that had been set for the concert made me feel huge excitement and anticipation, hence why I have chosen that memory for this sense.

SMELL

EMOTION: FEAR

MEMORY: This memory is somewhat graphic at moments. When I was younger, approximately 9 or 10, I was playing football with my brother and dad in our local park whilst my mum was attempting to walk the previously mentioned Toby around the field. Toby was ridiculously loyal to Dad though, and this day was no exception. I gained possession of the ball before feeling a heavy collision with my legs and performing approximately two full rotations in the air before hitting the ground. Surprisingly, I felt okay considering my dog had literally knocked me for a loop, but then I noticed blood and fat oozing from a hole in my knee where Toby's tooth had punctured my leg upon collision with me. Needless to say, I freaked out a little bit. Dad drove us home, wrapped a makeshift bandage around my leg and swiftly took me to the hospital. After being forced to wait for SEVEN hours in the hospital waiting room, I was finally called through to a smaller waiting room to wait for another hour and a half. Then I was led into a small room where doctors produced a bottle of horrible strong smelling antiseptic. At this point, I was scared out of my wits; what were they going to do to me? As it turns out, the answer to this was applying the antiseptic to my knee before jabbing two or three numbing injections into my open wound. To this day, I have never been in as much pain, or screamed as much in it, as I was then. As such, the smell of antiseptic would be useful in accessing sense memory for the emotion of fear, should I need it, as I can't smell it now without remembering how absolutely terrified I was both before and after the doctor applied it to me that day.

TASTE

EMOTION: Fond nostalgia

MEMORY: As a child, I was a fussy eater. So much so that every school day for about 5 years, my lunchboxes would always contain (crustless) Dairylea cheese spread sandwiches as they were the only sandwiches I would really eat. For this simple reason, the taste of Dairylea evokes a strong feeling of nostalgia in me on the rare occasions where I taste it now, making it a good sense memory resource for this emotion.

In this week's lesson, we began to look into the use of memory recall in order to bring a convincing performance to the units of a monologue. First of all, we learnt what exactly units are. Units are what monologues can be broken up into in order to best identify how a monologue should be delivered; in each unit the speaking character's motivation (what they want in that particular moment) and emotion will likely be different from those of the preceding unit. For example, a unit wherein the deliverer says "I never meant to hurt you," would have the motivation of 'to try and ease the emotional pain of his lover' with an emotion of perhaps guilt or regret, whereas the next unit beginning after a pause with the phrase "It's all their fault!" would have the motivation of 'trying to shift the blame onto others' with an emotion of anger, desperation or perhaps both. As such, by breaking a monologue into units, an actor can easily interpret how a monologue should be delivered and portray their character appropriately whilst calling upon the correct emotional recall for each unit in order to put on a more convincing, natural performance.

Before we put these techniques into practise with text however, we first underwent an activity where we were put into pairs with one of us sitting down on a chair and the other standing up. We were then each given a motivation, a goal: the motivation of the one standing up was to get their partner out of the chair and the motivation of the sitting partner was to remain in the chair no matter what. The most interesting part of the exercise was seeing how different people went about trying to achieve their goals with their motivations behind them. This went for both standers and sitters, but whichever approach the standers took would often affect the reactions of their sitters, which led to natural and believable reactions from both. Some standers went for a more physical approach with their motivations, such as attempting to tickle their sitter or even lifting the sitter's chair with the sitter still on it in an attempt to achieve their goal, whereas others took a more psychological or emotional approach, trying to talk their partners into leaving the chair or attempting to manipulate them into doing so, for example by taking all of their sitter's things out of the room and dumping them there, for example. Those sitters that faced a physical approach from their stander would often grip tightly to their chair, trying their best to move away and stave off offensive maneuvers whilst those under pressure from psychological approaches would perhaps be more relaxed physically but more engaged in the conversations with their partners. Mark took a physical approach with me, trying to tickle me out of my chair which led me to grip tight on my chair and do my best to evade him. When it was my turn to stand and get Mark out of the chair, I took a mixed approach, utilising both physicality and a psychological approach, holding his head and stroking it whilst shushing at him, telling him to get out of the chair whilst also trying to bring him backwards and take him out of the chair that way. The end result was Mark flat on his back on the floor still gripping onto his chair whilst I was attempting to yank it upwards from his grasp. The exercise definitely shone a light on how important it is to utilise motivations and goals in understanding your characters, as well as how one thing on a page may mean one thing to one audience member and something completely different to another, so you must know fully what you're trying to get across to the audience in order to have them interpret your intended meaning.

After this exercise, we moved on to putting units into practise, utilising both wants and emotions whilst incorporating the skill of sense memory. We were given a list of emotions and asked to pick one, think of a song with which you have a memory associated with that emotion and then write a paragraph about that memory. These paragraphs would then become monologues for our partners, to be split into units identifying the emotions and wants in each. I received Mark's paragraph that to begin with detailed how he once ran a half marathon in which his iPod ran out of songs an hour in and made him tired and begin to lose interest. As such, I deduced this as the first unit of the monologue before the mood changed when he detailed how one particular song put on repeat began motivating him again. We all performed these first units to the class, with my unit of Mark's monologue using the want 'to give up' and the emotion of 'exasperation with some annoyance.' With each unit delivery, everyone's performance was suitably convincing with believable emotions attributed to each. As such, this lesson was highly informative and valuable in teaching us how important it is to know our own Williams monologues inside and out in this way.

In this week's lesson, we gave our presentations on our separate groups' assigned Tennessee Williams plays. As those of us in my group were assigned A Streetcar Named Desire, we will in the near future have to perform monologues from the play. With this in mind, it was informative and useful to hear what the other groups had to say about their plays and Tennessee Williams himself as we were able to gain some insight and perhaps context that could influence how we perform in our upcoming monologues.

A fact that was brought up in many of the presentations - the presentation on Night of the Iguana in particular - was that Tennessee Williams had problems with alcohol in some stages of his life and this could be very helpful when coming to portraying the character of Stanley in 'Streetcar', which I will most likely be doing for my monologue. Stanley is a heavy drinker in Streetcar, a trait that can also be traced to the research that I did into Polish immigration to the USA that I undertook for our presentation.

For this week’s film discussion, I watched two biographical films, Man on the Moon (1999) and My Left Foot (1989) in order to discuss the performances of both Jim Carrey as comedian Andy Kaufman and Daniel Day-Lewis as cerebral palsy-suffering Irish writer and painter Christy Brown, respectively.

Before I did so, I was somewhat looking forward to watching Man in the Moon. I’d heard and seen things about Andy Kaufman and his infamous stunts (such as his feud with professional wrestler Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler) previously and was very intrigued to see how Kaufman would be portrayed by Jim Carrey. As it turned out, by the end of the film I was really not surprised that Carrey had been so commended for his performance as Kaufman because I found it to be absolutely fantastic. As well as being an incredibly talented comic actor, which is naturally apparent in Man in the Moon with his absolutely dead-on impersonation and characterisation as Kaufman, it always surprises me when Carrey is able to pull off serious and dramatic scenes even though I know that he’s perfectly capable of doing so from his other films, such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004).  

As such, Carrey is a much more diverse and skilled actor than most people give him credit for and Man in the Moon is a great example of this. If I had to give examples in the film where Carrey shows off both his comedic abilities and his dramatic abilities there are two scenes in the film that immediately spring to mind. Firstly, the scene where Kaufman and Lawler have their wrestling showdown in front of a riled-up Memphis wrestling crowd is an excellent display of both Carrey’s comedic persona and Kaufman’s, who genuinely did do everything he could to antagonise the crowds (especially the women) during his stint as a “wrestling villain”. Secondly, the scene towards the end of the film where Carrey’s Kaufman is dying of lung cancer and travels to the Philippines for a “miracle” treatment only to discover that, ironically considering his long career of deceptive pranks and stunts, the treatment is all a mentally-based trick is an absolutely superb display of serious acting from Carrey. The moment where Carrey’s Kaufman recognises that the treatment is all one big illusion and breaks down into wheezing, pained laughter from the realisation that the last laugh is on him, only for the scene to fade into him in his open coffin at his funeral is extremely powerful and does well to bring the story of Kaufman full circle.

It was clear that Carrey clearly did a lot of research into Kaufman’s mannerisms and characterisation before the film was made as I also enjoyed the attention to detail that went into certain scenes depicting real televised events from Kaufman’s life. For example, the scene where Kaufman and Lawler are on the late night talk show and Lawler slaps an antagonising Kaufman straight out of his seat leading to Kaufman swearing and yelling at Lawler live on air is almost a mirror image of the real-life confrontation if you were to watch both the original footage and the scene from the film side-by-side. As such, I enjoyed the film greatly and it’s no wonder that Carrey was so well praised for his depiction of Andy Kaufman due to his huge attention to detail, his dead-on impersonation in both voice and mannerisms and his highly evident dramatic range.

Meanwhile, Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance as cerebral-palsy sufferer Christy Brown in 1989 biographical drama My Left Foot is nothing short of incredible. A notorious utilizer of The Method technique of getting into character for his film roles, Day-Lewis is immensely powerful in his role as Brown. If you were to start watching the film having never heard of Daniel Day-Lewis before, you would have genuinely thought that Day-Lewis had cerebral palsy in real life – that’s how convincing his portrayal of Christy Brown is. Day-Lewis’ role in My Left Foot was his breakout performance in film, earning him the Academy Award for Best Actor amongst a grand total of ten awards for Best Actor across various award ceremonies and thrusting him into the spotlight as one of the best actors in modern times.

Due to using his now-famous utilisation of The Method when working on My Left Foot, Day-Lewis would remain in character even when off-camera. For example, Day-Lewis would remain in his wheelchair and require crew members to both feed him and move him around over lighting and camera wires etc. While this was all so that Day-Lewis could experience all the aspects of Christy Brown’s life, especially his embarrassments brought about as a result of his paralysis, these actions caused many crew members to have great annoyance with Day-Lewis as a result. Considering the great results that these character immersions brought Day-Lewis however, they were arguably worth it.

In this week's lesson we primarily focused upon the 'Slice of Life' activity, an activity designed to help us come across as more natural in our actions and dialogue delivery on-stage.

To begin with, we were split into groups and asked to perform our two-minute slices of life for each other that was had previously observed from our own behaviour in the week. We did this three times in total: during the first time we told our group what we were doing as we performed it in step-by-step fashion whilst the last two times we performed it without speaking to the group/audience directly. Once we had these short sequences, we were instructed to combine our slices of life with another person's and given a few lines of generic dialogue to perform together during our scenes. Subsequently, these were then performed to the class at the end of the lesson.

Personally, I found the exercise beneficial, however I found it was more so to that effect once the dialogue had been given to us. When performing the slice of life without interacting with others, I found myself getting quite unnatural as I was firstly too self-aware that I was performing for people and secondly I became quite muddled and would forget how to make a cup of tea (which I was performing for my slice of life) without the props and such in front of me.

This week, I watched two films that showcased early American acting, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954). Importantly for me, seeing as I will have to write an essay about him in the near future, both films starred Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski and Terry Malloy in Streetcar and Waterfront respectively. For me, I found Brando’s acting to be very successful; he is superbly entertaining in both films. It was interesting to see the transition in terms of his characters’ personality traits between the two films – in fact they are almost negative images of one another. Stanley is arguably a predominantly violent character despite his flashes of tenderness whilst Terry is much more of a good-natured ‘hero’ character, despite his affiliations with the mob.

What don’t change though are Brando’s strong acting skills – he pulls off both characters in such a way that both feel like they could very easily be real people given how natural each and every movement comes to Brando onscreen. For example, there is a scene in Waterfront where Brando’s Terry Malloy is walking casually through a park conversing with Eva Marie Saint’s character Edie Doyle when suddenly Saint drops one of her gloves. To me this seemed like it wasn’t supposed to happen and was unscripted. Brando however picks up the glove, continuing the conversation and idly plays with it whilst strolling with Saint, eventually winding up wearing it until Saint snatches it back off of him towards the end of their walk. This small aspect transformed the scene for me in a positive way. What could have been a scene of just two people walking and talking without much else activity changed into something that felt all the more real and natural, as if we were watching two genuine everyday people spending time together in a park rather than just two actors going from A to B. It wouldn’t be surprising to me, therefore, if this spontaneity in the moment was aided by some sort of ‘slice of life’ exercise or similar practise that Brando partook in in his preparation for the role of Malloy prior to the film shoot. Despite abhorring the teachings of Lee Strasberg, Brando had previously studied the Stanislavski System under Stella Adler and had apparently wandered the New Jersey shorefront dressed as a dock worker whilst preparing for his role in On the Waterfront, so it’s arguable that perhaps these things did affect Brando’s performance for this film for the better.

One acting performance I did take umbrage with however was Vivien Leigh’s portrayal of Blanche DuBois in Streetcar. There were some moments from her that were effective, such as the final scene where Blanche is taken away to a mental institution as Leigh’s portrayal of instability and vulnerability is somewhat more believable considering what Stanley had done to her in the previous scene. However in many of the previous scenes, such as the one where Stanley is first introduced, I found Leigh’s portrayal of Blanche to be highly melodramatic and even annoying as she frequently clutches her head softly and stares into middle distance whilst floating over towards windows and gazing out of them with a pained facial expression. While I understand the events that had happened to Blanche’s character previously are traumatic, I just found the actions such as those above from Leigh somewhat too much. Had her portrayal of such emotions been somewhat more subtle and natural, such as Saint’s portrayal of Edie in Waterfront, I probably would have enjoyed her performance a lot more. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case.

  Bibliography

A Streetcar Named Desire (film - 1951)

On the Waterfront (film - 1954)

I love acting. I could easily leave it right there but I won't. Ever since I was a young boy who watched Disney's Aladdin one day and pointed at the screen saying "I want to do that!" (completely disregarding the fact Aladdin is a fictional, animated character), it's been the thing I enjoy doing above all else. I landed the role of Zazu in my youth theatre's version of The Lion King when I was about 7 or 8, which was again another pivotal moment in my decision that I wanted to be an actor. The laughter and positive reactions I got from the audience that day just left me craving more and more and to this day nothing gives me a buzz quite like the reactions of an audience to my efforts on-stage. Since then, I've been in a few productions (even if I wish I had been in more), notably as the lead role of Arthur Wicksteed in my Sixth Form's production of Habeas Corpus.

I just love the fact that acting allows you to explore personas and character traits that you would never get the chance to explore in other scenarios in life; there's something supremely enjoyable about that. As such, if I am ever lucky enough to become a successful actor, I'd probably end up a character actor. Though of course I'd like to think I'd go for roles outside of the realm of character actors too. Pipe dreams at the moment, but this is where the American Actors & Acting module comes in. I'm hoping that this module will greatly improve my acting abilities with its focus on how to get the most out of a role, looking at techniques such as The Method and so forth. I want to be the best actor that I can possibly be, so I've high hopes that this module will help me on my way down that road.

Thus far, the module has been greatly enjoyable and already beneficial I feel. The exercise wherein we "grab a cloud" and rush around the room in a frenzied chaos only to slam our hands to the ground and draw our energy from the ground to the steady beat of Terri's drum has been hugely beneficial to me. I've found that it gets me in an extreme state of focus and ready to head out onto a stage right then and there, so it's definitely a technique I'll utilise in the future if nerves threaten to get the better of me.