Identity
Identity Unit 1
Content (Verbatim Theatre)
Verbatim theatre is when real life events get devised into a theatre performance. This could include documentaries, interviews, newspaper articles etc. Verbatim theatre is also known as "Documented Theatre". The word "Verbatim" literally means word to word. Verbatim theatre has been around for quite long.
A good example for the root of verbatim theatre is a play called One-Third Of A Nation which was performed in the early 20th century, 1938, written by Arther Arent and produced by the Federal Theatre Project. This play focused on the issues of housing in the United States and how the population of slums kept rising specifically in New York City. One Third Of A Nation came out as one of the biggest successes of the New York City Federal Theatre Project. More than 217,000 people watched it, and that's the amount of people that watched it in one city, New York.
Acting skills.
When I first started the course, the first thing that came to my head was to socialise with everyone inside the class, including the teachers. The reason for this is because I wanted to be comfortable and interactive with everyone as we are going to be together for a year. At first, I thought this was going to be a tough step to go up as I'm very shy. However, it wasn't as hard as I thought it was. The reason for this is because mostly everyone in the group was already socializing with each other, which made me more confident. Working as an ensemble has really been a level up for me. This made me more confident and motivated to do more in class. The reason for this is because of the motivating and friendly pupils and teachers in the class. I honestly can say that without this group, there would've been lack of motivation and trust. Rob and Shenagh have been the pillar and base for everyone. They have been very supportive and helpful towards every student in the class, which includes me. Rob would motivate everyone with his sense of humour, and Shenagh would make everyone wake everyone up from monday mornings with her exercises and games.
Planning
During the rehearsal periods, everyone had the chance to contribute something on the table, this included the monologues. I wanted to surprise everyone with the slapstick comedy, so I didn't tell anyone what I was planning. In addition, I did this so I could get see if the genuine response would be what I expected. The response I had received was satisfying. Not only that, but it made me more confident in doing it in for the performance. In order to be concerted, we all had to listen to each others ideas and try combine them with everyone else's ideas, which which went incredibly well. The reason why it went incredibly is because everyone was supportive and respectful, which is how we were able to work collaboratively.
Research
Content (Verbatim Theatre)
Verbatim theatre is when real life events get devised into a theatre performance. This could include documentaries, interviews, newspaper articles etc. Verbatim theatre is also known as "Documented Theatre". The word "Verbatim" literally means word to word. Verbatim theatre has been around for quite long.
A good example for the root of verbatim theatre is a play called One-Third Of A Nation which was performed in the early 20th century, 1938, written by Arther Arent and produced by the Federal Theatre Project. This play focused on the issues of housing in the United States and how the population of slums kept rising specifically in New York City. One Third Of A Nation came out as one of the biggest successes of the New York City Federal Theatre Project. More than 217,000 people watched it, and that's the amount of people that watched it in one city, New York.
The Jungle is a great example of one of the latest works of verbatim/documented theatre. The Jungle was performed and previewed on the 7th December 2017. It was written by Joe Robertson and Joe Murphy, who are the founders of the Good Chance Theatre Company. This play was focusing on what life is like inside a refugee camp, more specifically the Calais Jungle migrant camp.
The theme we are going to do our devised performance on is Identity. So far we are adding themes such as religion, name, culture, ethnicity, nationality, likes/dislikes, hobbies, status, background. The reason for this is because all of these themes link to identity. The technique we going to use is devising. The reason for this is because devising keeps an ensemble cast collaborative, which benefits everyone equally.
Acting skills.
So far, the acting skills that I picked up are
-Group works
-Improvisation
-warm ups
-games
-posture
-project voice
-being open
-good eye
-contact
-supporting each other
-stay in character
-expressions
-attitude
-positive mindset
-motivation
-devising, research
-punctuality
-articulation
-respect
-projection (voice)
-Group works
-Improvisation
-games
-posture
-project voice
-being open
-good eye
-contact
-supporting each other
-stay in character
-expressions
-attitude
-positive mindset
-motivation
-devising, research
-punctuality
-articulation
-respect
-projection (voice)
-devising
-verbatim
-verbatim
When I first started the course, the first thing that came to my head was to socialise with everyone inside the class, including the teachers. The reason for this is because I wanted to be comfortable and interactive with everyone as we are going to be together for a year. At first, I thought this was going to be a tough step to go up as I'm very shy. However, it wasn't as hard as I thought it was. The reason for this is because mostly everyone in the group was already socializing with each other, which made me more confident. Working as an ensemble has really been a level up for me. This made me more confident and motivated to do more in class. The reason for this is because of the motivating and friendly pupils and teachers in the class. I honestly can say that without this group, there would've been lack of motivation and trust. Rob and Shenagh have been the pillar and base for everyone. They have been very supportive and helpful towards every student in the class, which includes me. Rob would motivate everyone with his sense of humour, and Shenagh would make everyone wake everyone up from monday mornings with her exercises and games.
Planning
During the rehearsal periods, everyone had the chance to contribute something on the table, this included the monologues. I wanted to surprise everyone with the slapstick comedy, so I didn't tell anyone what I was planning. In addition, I did this so I could get see if the genuine response would be what I expected. The response I had received was satisfying. Not only that, but it made me more confident in doing it in for the performance. In order to be concerted, we all had to listen to each others ideas and try combine them with everyone else's ideas, which which went incredibly well. The reason why it went incredibly is because everyone was supportive and respectful, which is how we were able to work collaboratively.
Research
For the research, we had to take an interview of one person who is a family member or someone who is very close to us, a friend perhaps. The interview would include questions like
-What does identity mean to you?
-Where did you grow up?
-What did you do as a young person?
-Happy times?
-Challenging times?
-What do you think has changed in your lifetime?
-What is important to you?
-What do you think about your future?
I interviewed my cousin, who was quite young for these questions but I still decided to ask him. Everyone else in the group interviewed their parents, siblings and grandparents, which was very profound and interesting. The reason for this is because of the different responses that everyone received. Another thing that was very interesting was the comparison of responses from different generations. I got a to know what the elders thought of the youth now days and what the youth thought about the older generations. This included a lot of discussions about the advanced technology in this generation and the advantages and disadvantages of social media. This gave everyone ideas for the base of the performance. In addition for the interviews, we had to pair up in 2s with a classmate and share our interviews to each other. We had to try mimicking each others recordings while listening to them with headphones and perform it one by one in front of the whole class. We also had to devise and improvise small scenes in class that would relate to identity. This would include topics such as friendship, family and life. We were also told to pick a topic related to identity and create a short monologue based on it and perform it in front of the class. The monologue could be about anything, whether its just a standing monologue about life or a physical monologue about smiling, which is exactly what Idid. My monologue was about smiling. I wanted to tell everyone that no matter how life treats you, you should never stop smiling. Because you smiling could motivate someone else to smile. I also wrote down how you should never be stingy with your smiles, spread them with others, even if it means to be silly or funny with people you don't know. However, I didn't perform that monologue, I changed it around. Instead of verbally performing my monologue, I turned it into a Charlie Chaplin inspired slapstick comedy scene, which included being physical, which went very well.
Problem Solving
One of the difficulties I had to face while rehearsing was to keep my body intact while performing the slapstick comedy. The reason for this is because during the sequence, there was a part where I had to jump on the floor and grab my hat and another part where I had to sneeze while doing a front flip. The first time I did the flip and jump, I didn't face any injuries, but when performing it the second time, I landed on my hand when doing the flip and hit my knee on the floor when doing the jump. It wasn't that critical but i did feel quite weak after it. However, the third time when i did it, my back clicked and I started to feel pain on my lower back for a couple of days. I was going to tell Rob if I can take a break from doing the flip and jump, but I felt if I didn't do it, I wouldn't be used to it while performing, so I just kept on doing it until the performance, which paid off at the end very well for me and everyone.
Evaluation
The performance in my opinion went over what I expected, which I'm extremely satisfied and happy with. There was a point where i thought that something actually might go wrong when we had one missing person from the group. Not only me but everyone else in the group was worried. However, they turned up minutes before our performance. I guess the suspense level that day was at its peak, which tormented us in a good way. What went well was the fact that everyone had memorized their lines to perfection, in addition, everyone projected their voice with a clear and loud voice. The level of confidence, articulation and enthusiasm that everyone showed that day was outstanding. This made everyone shine brighter in the performance. What could've been better was staying in character. There were some people in the group that started laughing during the performance, but they somehow managed to get back into character immediately, which I don't blame anyone for because we had some technical issues during the final dance piece. But it would've had much more impact if we all stayed in character. The acting skills that I felt had improved for me were confidence, staying in character and projection of voice. The moment when we were facing the technical issues during the final dance piece, I tried to stay in character for as long as I could, in which I feel I accomplished. The scene where I had to flip while sneezing and my glasses would fly off, I actually wasn't able to locate my glasses as the lighting made it harder for me to see, but I managed to stay in character and found my glasses. Something that I learned and will take with me into the next project is motivating others and keep a smile on your face and spread the positivity around with the others, because that is exactly what's going to build the confidence in you and your ensemble cast.
-What does identity mean to you?
-Where did you grow up?
-What did you do as a young person?
-Happy times?
-Challenging times?
-What do you think has changed in your lifetime?
-What is important to you?
-What do you think about your future?
I interviewed my cousin, who was quite young for these questions but I still decided to ask him. Everyone else in the group interviewed their parents, siblings and grandparents, which was very profound and interesting. The reason for this is because of the different responses that everyone received. Another thing that was very interesting was the comparison of responses from different generations. I got a to know what the elders thought of the youth now days and what the youth thought about the older generations. This included a lot of discussions about the advanced technology in this generation and the advantages and disadvantages of social media. This gave everyone ideas for the base of the performance. In addition for the interviews, we had to pair up in 2s with a classmate and share our interviews to each other. We had to try mimicking each others recordings while listening to them with headphones and perform it one by one in front of the whole class. We also had to devise and improvise small scenes in class that would relate to identity. This would include topics such as friendship, family and life. We were also told to pick a topic related to identity and create a short monologue based on it and perform it in front of the class. The monologue could be about anything, whether its just a standing monologue about life or a physical monologue about smiling, which is exactly what Idid. My monologue was about smiling. I wanted to tell everyone that no matter how life treats you, you should never stop smiling. Because you smiling could motivate someone else to smile. I also wrote down how you should never be stingy with your smiles, spread them with others, even if it means to be silly or funny with people you don't know. However, I didn't perform that monologue, I changed it around. Instead of verbally performing my monologue, I turned it into a Charlie Chaplin inspired slapstick comedy scene, which included being physical, which went very well.
Problem Solving
One of the difficulties I had to face while rehearsing was to keep my body intact while performing the slapstick comedy. The reason for this is because during the sequence, there was a part where I had to jump on the floor and grab my hat and another part where I had to sneeze while doing a front flip. The first time I did the flip and jump, I didn't face any injuries, but when performing it the second time, I landed on my hand when doing the flip and hit my knee on the floor when doing the jump. It wasn't that critical but i did feel quite weak after it. However, the third time when i did it, my back clicked and I started to feel pain on my lower back for a couple of days. I was going to tell Rob if I can take a break from doing the flip and jump, but I felt if I didn't do it, I wouldn't be used to it while performing, so I just kept on doing it until the performance, which paid off at the end very well for me and everyone.
Evaluation
The performance in my opinion went over what I expected, which I'm extremely satisfied and happy with. There was a point where i thought that something actually might go wrong when we had one missing person from the group. Not only me but everyone else in the group was worried. However, they turned up minutes before our performance. I guess the suspense level that day was at its peak, which tormented us in a good way. What went well was the fact that everyone had memorized their lines to perfection, in addition, everyone projected their voice with a clear and loud voice. The level of confidence, articulation and enthusiasm that everyone showed that day was outstanding. This made everyone shine brighter in the performance. What could've been better was staying in character. There were some people in the group that started laughing during the performance, but they somehow managed to get back into character immediately, which I don't blame anyone for because we had some technical issues during the final dance piece. But it would've had much more impact if we all stayed in character. The acting skills that I felt had improved for me were confidence, staying in character and projection of voice. The moment when we were facing the technical issues during the final dance piece, I tried to stay in character for as long as I could, in which I feel I accomplished. The scene where I had to flip while sneezing and my glasses would fly off, I actually wasn't able to locate my glasses as the lighting made it harder for me to see, but I managed to stay in character and found my glasses. Something that I learned and will take with me into the next project is motivating others and keep a smile on your face and spread the positivity around with the others, because that is exactly what's going to build the confidence in you and your ensemble cast.
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