'Road' - Week 3

Introduction

In this week we went through blocking and I looked through my character in more depth. 

Blocking 

Constantin Stanislavski. The mastermind
behind the Method. 

We started blocking from after the interval which is the start of act 2, which first features Bistos second scene. I once again didn't get much critical comments, this was good but I felt my acting wasn't at its best, I did the scene again in my spare time and tried using Stanislavski's 'emotional memory'. I found this difficult though as Bisto is such an ordinary character that his lines and the way he is makes it difficult to compare it to myself. I also got to see the blocking of other scenes, I particularly enjoyed the blocking of Issie and Jake. I liked this scene between Louise and her brother as its the first scene in the show and it really sets the mood of 'Road', the way that Jake wipes his dirty hands over Issie's face I think is brilliant, I love Issie's shocked reaction but she won't do anything because her brother is dominant. I like Nathan's Scene as well as he portrays Skin-Lad. A skin head who is into keeping fit and looking after his body, he's seen by the rest of Road as a bit of a 'nutter'. There were some things that I would've tweaked in Nathan's performance but overall I felt he did well. Thankfully after we had finished blocking I got to work with Nathan and we both got to say how we could improve each of our performances. 

Working With Nathan

Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden

The 'pads' in Road

As said before, I was happy to work with Nathan as I felt he could really help my work and I could help his. We both started by showing each other our scenes, I showed mine first and got feedback from Nathan. He said about making my key catchphrase 'you'll get used to me, you'd better', different each time so it doesn't get boring. I said about how considering this is a catchphrase it needs to be quite repetitive and not so different each time, we both agreed to make each one different but only subtly. Nathan also requested that I say the line in quite an angry way and then joke with the audience. This shows an aggressive side to Bisto, that we see later on when he talks about a girl he used to like 'you know who you are... ya bitch!'. This line shows a different side to Bisto which makes the audience question Bisto's other side. After I had gotten this feedback we looked at Nathan's work. I told Nathan to really think about visioning the skin heads on the wall that Skin-lad remembers seeing, this is an integral part of Nathan's monologue. I also told Nathan to look at Fight Club as an inspiration to his character, I see him as the Brad Pitt Tyler Durden, when saying the rules of Fight Club, this can be related to when Skin-Lad is talking about Targets. I also asked Nathan to say the 'pads' slower to make it more intense for the audience. I felt that Nathan should have kept all his lines getting faster until the 'KIYAA!' with the pads being slow. I felt this would built the intensity of the scene and the mystic of Skin Lad.

Skin heads in the 1980s

I was interested in Nathan's character so I decided to research more into Skin Lad's character and Skin Heads in the 1980s. I found out that after the second world war many young people had a lot of money, they would spend this money on clothing and fashionable looks, they would often imitate actors musicians and other icons. Many people started to shave their heads in a effort to look different, this caught on in the 1960s and went on for many years. I think Skin Lad followed this trend in as he also wanted to look different, it is also said in his part of the script how he once saw Skin Lads sitting on a wall, I believe that he is so into the skin head lifestyle that he saw these other skin heads as imposters. He may have seen them as bootboys, suedeheads or smoothies, which were new categories that were much like the skin head look. The skinhead look was so popular that the band Slade adopted the look in order to get more sales. Skin heads would wear Doc Martens 'the pad and fall of the doc martins'. and button up shirts or polo shirts. 

Paddy McGuiness

After we had examined each others pieces, Deborah gave me the advice of searching for action lines, to make Bisto seem even more cheesy. She also suggested that I make up 4 stock  movements, this would help my character to become more over the top and also create cheesy repetition. I was told to look up Paddy McGuiness as inspiration, as he is a lot like Bisto, with his dad like movements and punctual jokes.


To conclue another week I felt I did well as I learnt more bout my character and got to view more scenes being blocked.

'Road' - Week 2

In this week of Road we started to block the play. I'm excited to see what 'Road' will develop into.

While the blocking was happening I started to think bout my character Bisto. I looked firstly at what his appearance would be like and personality. I started to think that Bisto would look a lot like John Travolta from Grease. This appearance firstly came to mind as I knew that back in the 80s this look was very popular with John Travolta being a hit icon. I also thought about my characters personality and James Buckley from The Inbetweeners, Buckley plays a character called Jay Cartwright who is a loud mouth teen who is fuelled by Sex and vulgar language much like that of Bisto.




I then went on to ask question about Bisto's first scene.

V-Sign

The first scene my character is in is on page 31 and the stage directions read as so: "Bisto, the pub DJ, enters with a pack of leaflets. (On them is something like 'Bisto and his Beatoven Disco. Tonight at the Millstone Pub'.) He throws these out to the audience as he speaks. He wears a hat with two stuffed fingers on top in the V- Sign."

Who is Present in this scene?

No other characters, Bisto and Audience.

When is it happening?

'Road' is set at night however this scene I think is set around 5pm as he is handing out leaflets for the disco later on starting at 8pm. 

How does he behave?

Bisto behaves like he is the bee knees, he thinks he's really cool, but in reality apart from the Road he is an outcast. He acts very energetic as he thinks this is the way to attract people to his Disco. He may even flirt with some of the girls to attract them, as he thinks he is gods gift to all women.

What was the scene before and after?

My scene needs to be really energetic as the scenes before and after are really sad about a couple not eating. It will be difficult for me to get the energy levels of the audience high again but I'm ready for a challenge.

Where is the scene happening?

Outdoors, he doesn't have any boundaries to approach someone. Bisto is very annoying, which makes him unpopular.

What might happen next?

I think that Bisto may get punched considering he may flirt with someone's wife or girlfriend and because he is annoying.

Rehearsals

I did my long scene for the first time in this rehearsal, I felt it went really well, as I got comments like 'I was born for this Role', this was followed up with no critical comments on how to improve, this gave me a major confidence boost. I felt really good about myself but I would have liked some critic so I can make this character the best of my ability. Hannah gave the comment that this character is a lot like Peter Kay, Kay is a comedian who is very cheesy like Bisto and often uses foul language. The accents are also the same and I will use Peter Kay as an influence when looking at accents for Road. 

1980s music and before

Michael Jackson

Road is set in the 1980s and my character Bisto is the DJ of the local pub on the Road. Bisto loves music. I thought I'd research more into this era of Music to help with my character development and also for my own interest. The 1980s started to produce songs from the pop genre, Disco was also very popular in this era. In the 80s artists like Michael Jackson had a huge influence on music with songs such as Billie Jean and Thriller, the album thriller was so monumental that t won a record breaking 8 Grammy awards, including the award best album of the year. Other artists such as Donna Summer had a huge impact on the 1980s and before, Summer was known as the 'Queen of Disco' because of her contribution to the art. In the 1950s 60s and 70s, Elvis was a massive sensation. He was know as 'The King of Rock n' Roll' and rightfully so. Elvis' charisma and persona made him so a likeable and relateable person to the youth of that generation. Elvis was disliked very much by the parents and elderly of that generation, saying how Elvis was too sexual. Many cameras that filmed Elvis' tours would only film Elvis above the waist because of his sexual nature. I think Elvis is a massive inspiration to the character Bisto. This is shown as Bisto is very sexual like Elvis was. The 'King' died in 1977, some years before Road was set, I think this had a huge impact on Bisto, because Elvis was such an inspiration to him. Bisto was also upset as he never got to see 'The King' live as he only came to the UK once and that was to stop off in Scotland. Bisto always plays Elvis as a way to remember his music and to remember the great time he had growing up to this wonderful music. 

Elvis Presley  'The King of Rock n' Roll'

This week of Road has been good for me as I got to delve into my character and start to piece together how I see him.

Greek Theatre Homework

The Greeks gave many things to theatre. They were the first people to use a chorus, the chorus were a group of people who back then represented societies views and in most Greek plays they had the same view on political themes. The chorus is still used today in contemporary theatre, but in a much different way, most contemporary pieces will allow the chorus to interact with the main actors and to compile their own view on the subject at hand. The Greeks also gave theatre the actor Thespis who is believed to have been the first actor ever, and is why Actors today are also referred to as Thespians.

Greeks had quite a unique way of staging their theatre. They staged all their plays in the round which meant that they would perform on a stage and have the audience to their left, right and in from of them in a semi circle type formation. This is much like the Laurence Olivier Theatre, as that is in the round derived from the Greeks. The Greeks also most of the time put the Theatres so that they had a lovely scene behind. For example the festival of Dionysus was built into a rock so there could be a nice scene for the audience to see as the backdrop.

The function of the chorus is to show the feelings and views of the society on different issues and subjects at the time. Most of the time the chorus would all have one view on the subject at hand but there were few cases where they split off to show two different views or even more.

The function of the mask was to hide the identity of the actors as they would sometimes mock the government and they wouldn't want to get in trouble. They also had masks so 1 actor could play several different characters.

Greek Theatre is quite different from modern theatre, as the chorus who were regularly used in Ancient Greece aren't used that much any more. There is also many more actors on stage where as in Ancient Greece there were only a few. Theatre in Greece was also quite a big thing, people from all over the world would come see the Theatre of Dionysus whereas nowadays not as many people are as interested.

The reason I think so many people attended the theatre was because it was a tradition to attend and there wasn't much entertainment. It was also heavily sponsored by the government and people who were rich so people would find out about it that way.

There are many stereotypical themes in Ancient Greece and fate is the biggest one of them all. Most performances have this theme in them as the hero would be stuck with an irreversible hindrance. For example in Oedipus his fate is that he will marry and have kids with his mother. Oedipus' father is told this and disowns his son. Fate plays a massive theme in most Greek plays.