'Road' - Week 6

In this week we looked back over the whole performance and looked at if anything could be changed and how well everyone was progressing.

Blocking and Feedback

We started blocking, I watched many scenes but what stood out to me was Frank's scene, I felt his accent was coming along really well from where it was at, I think he still has work to do before the show but its a lot better than it was. Frank had also stated to move around a lot more, he wasn't just stationary in his chair, I liked this a lot as it kept me enthralled and showed his status throughout different moments in the scene. Frank's character Jerry is very nostalgic, he seems to have a good memory of the olden days and he gives strong hints that he was in the war. Frank shows this very well and I believe uses emotional memory to recreate Jerry's nostalgic moments, emotional memory is a part of Stanislavski's System which makes the actor think back to a time much like the script to make a more real looking emotion. I thought this of Frank because I truly believed he was Jerry and not himself. I also feel that Frank's use of pause was superb, with pauses it is very easy to lose the audiences attention, but Frank I felt got them timed perfectly. 

I then watched Sophie's monologue, Sophie plays Valerie, I felt Sophie did a good job with the accent and the ending, I always believed that to deliver a good monologue the beginning and ending have to be the best parts as this is what's going to be remembered. I felt at points she was over acting, the piece is very sad and at points very low key, I felt that at points Sophie was adding movements to parts that didn't need it, this made the piece at points seem fake and not believable. I suggest that she make its more naturalistic and looked into Stanislavski's system like Nathan has.

After this I evaluated Nyakeh, I knew before watching this that it would be good, Nyakeh is a fantastic actor in my opinion and he didn't disappoint in this scene, he didn't move around a lot but I was still enthralled, this was because he was so believable as his character that I couldn't keep my eyes off him. I felt as if I forgot who Nyakeh was and I was watching his character. I feel he still has work to do with his accent but its definitely coming along, I think if he can nail the accent this will be one of the best scenes in the show. 

I then did my scene and got relatively good feedback, overall the my scene was good with only one slip up in my lines, I got once again good feedback but I also got some constructive criticism, for example when I was thinking about my next line I would look down, for my confident character it was shown how when thinking about the next line to keep my head up so I still seem like a confident and arrogant DJ. I also was told how I didn't really have an objective of what my next movement was, this I felt myself when performing but didn't know how to change it mid-scene, for the future I'm going to work on my scenes and make sure every movement has a purpose as it will make my character more believable as a cheesy outcast. I was also told to slow down ever more at the end, I find this part difficult to do as I have to go from quick movement and voice to slow movement and voice, I'm dedicated to getting this ending right as it will be the last time the audience see Bisto talking. 

Music With Joe

In this week I also worked with Joe on getting the music right for my piece, I went through my scene and he would play the songs according to the script, last week (week 5) I talked about changing the music, I'm happy to say that most of what I proposed was accepted, however instead of Boogie Wonderland, I will now be using Let's Dance by David Bowie, which in retrospect is better, as it works with the final lines before this song plays which are 'Lets Dance'. This song fades into the Bee Gees song, however both of these songs are very different and merging them will sound weird, both me and Joe thought the same, and I suggested that a sound effect be added in between the sounds, like a cheesy 'woopie doopie dooo!', Joe liked the idea and told me he would see what he could do.

War in 1980s

A British War Crematorium, showing
those who have fallen fighting for
their country.

As Road has progressed I have noticed that many characters have been involved in the army, for example Curt, Jerry and some more. I decided to research the Falklands War as this is the war that's being referenced to, considering the time period and place. The war went on for ten weeks, and was between the UK and Argentina, the fight was over land, in the south Atlantic ocean. The war was mostly fought in the air and on sea. Many soldiers including the ones in Road miss the war, because it gave them something to do and they were with their friends while doing it. I feel that many of the people on Road don't have many qualifications and went to war as they had nothing else, they were accepted by the army as they were just another number. As seen by Curt's character the war had deeply affected him, and uses alcohol as an anti depressant to what he saw over seas and to hid the sadness of some of his best friends dieing fighting for their country. I think that in some ways Curt wishes he did die in the war because he now has nothing. 

Overall I felt I made good progress in this week with getting the music right and helping people with there scenes, by next week I hope to have made progress on the feedback I was given.