'Road' - Week 7

Quick Run Through

On Wednesday, we ran through Road, to see what props where needed for each scene. I also started to learn my cues for when I come on stage. For my first scene I didn't need any props as I am just talking to the audience. However this was helpful as I found my cue to come on was when Clare says "I'd rather get in bed". This is the cue for my first scene, and I knew that I had to come on stage very upbeat and high energy to quickly change the mood of the piece from the sad scene with Joey and Clare. For my second scene I come on when the song Don't know much about History by Sam Cooke comes on, I like this cue as its easy to listen out for as sometimes I may not hear my cue line but if its a song it will be much easier. For this scene I will need headphones, to give the impression I'm a DJ however, I don't need them for my first scene as I don't play any records. I may also need some records in the second scene.

Proper Run Through

John Travolta Point

After this we did a proper run through, I did my second scene in which I do many different dance moves, I felt my dance moves were all really good and this was my best run to date. The first song I dance to is Let's Dance, I felt like I should add a movement to start the song, I felt like moving my arm slowly from side to side to show that I want every audience member to get up and dance. The second song I dance to is the Bee Gee's Saturday Night Fever, for this I'm going to do some different spins, as they work with the rhythm of the music, I will then do the John Travolta point, as its quite iconic to this song. The next song I dance to is Jerry Lee Lewis' Great Balls of Fire, for this song I do the twist dance move, this was an iconic dance move back in the 50s, and even has a song named after it called Let's Twist Again which came out in the same era. The next song is Barry White's Can't Get Enough of Your Love, in which I pretend to kiss an imaginary girl, I think this is great because it shows how Bisto is thinking about a certain girl which works with the text 'well you know who you are, darling'. I then for the first time this week started to strip, I think that this was brilliant as it was very memorable, I think it propels my scene to another level of Comedy and it describes Bisto perfectly. Luckily for me we decided that as soon as my shirt gets to the lowest button to stop the music, and I get a bit flustered. this is the last song that I properly dance to so I wanted to make it as memorable as I could and I felt I did. The last song was Je' taime which I don't fully dance to but leave to, I didn't know what to do for this, I was recommended to close my eyes and walk out with my DJ set. I felt this was good as it was the last we see of Bisto and is quite symbolic and shows how he loves what he does because he is fully embracing it by closing his eyes. I feel by reading the script and Bisto's character people take Bisto as this aggressive DJ who only loves sex and alcohol, my objective through Road was to change peoples view on Bisto, I felt in order to make sure his scenes were the comic relief of the play he had to connect with the audience and I felt I did this in the last bit of the second scene where I'm telling the people how much I love them and then walk out slowly to Je' taime. 

I felt in this run through I was stuttering a bit, I know that was because I still wasn't 100% confident with my lines so I will go away going through all my lines before performance week. I got some other feedback over my scene, I was told to stay in character as there was a point where I came out of character and laughed as myself. This was because this was the first time I got really good reactions for my scene, and I didn't know how to control myself and stay in character, this annoyed me as I thought I was a better actor than this and it won't happen again. There were also parts where I was quite rushed with my lines, I felt this was because I was so energetic that I wanted to rush the lines. I got good feedback though as I was confident and I had great dance moves. 

Next week is performance week so I will be focusing on my role for the character. I'm confident going into next week I just need to go over my lines.