'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.