Unit 1 - Principles of Performance Task 3

 Task 3:

Within our immersive Halloween tour at Stockton Globe, we learnt how to act as a whole group without breaking character and ruining the story we led our audience to follow along with us. However, this project was also very independent for each of us when it came to fully investing ourselves into the characters we became for a few nights. It meant we had to build on top of our lines and our given circumstances, a deeper personality and give the audience an insight into our characters life. For me, I had the fortunate chance of playing two very differing characters yet they both shared a sense of frustration within their scenes, so to me it was important to highlight both of my character's portrayals of frustration that makes it different to the other. In addition, both of the character's I played were from different eras, so I had to think a lot about what they perhaps would have seen in their lives, who have they met, and how do they live on a day-to-day basis. There was certainly lots to think about, but I made sure to attach emotions to my characters so that the audience would either love them, feel awful for them, or even dislike them a lot and could themselves invest into my character's journey.

 My first character I played was Stage Door Keeper Polly from the 50s/60s. Looking at the lines when I was first given it, I sensed she was a short-tempered yet understanding woman in a sense, and when she wanted to be nice, she would. She had spoken a line at one point saying, "Don't you start with your this is our theatre rubbish ...." and then later said in reference to the theatre "They are wonderful, aren't they?" I picked up on this, as to me it showed she was strong-minded and liked when she could show off what was hers, so when speaking the second line, I made sure to stand proud and look up from time to time to highlight how significant the theatre really was to Polly. My first piece of dialogue was "And where do you think you're going?" which speaks volume on the type of character I am playing. The first line of speech needs to make an impact since it's the first time the audience meet her. Alongside this, it needs to showcase to the audience who the character is, and how she thinks of herself and the world around her. When I spoke this line, I made sure to over-exaggerate my voice by heightening my volume and speak in a slow pace to highlight that I was agitated by the presence of uninvited people, and I didn't want to repeat myself hence the slow speech. This entrance and introduction to my take on Polly, meant that the audience knew she wasn't one to be blasé about things, and liked things to be simple and orderly. 

When it came to talking about Olive Thomas and her horrible end to life, I made sure to keep to my Polly attributes especially in my body language by crossing my arms and to show that I wanted to be telling the whole story, I'd roll my eyes at Laura, who played a fellow stage door keeper Elizabeth who too was telling the events of Olive's life. Staging was crucial in this part of the scene, as since we both wanted to up each other as we had disagreed about whose stage door it was in front of the audience, we wanted in a way to prove to them who was in charge, so on the stairs after a few lines of my own, I would stand in front of her to block her view and the same would happen to me. Whenever she would stride past me to get to the stairs, I'd follow on behind her and continue to stand tall in front like I was oblivious to what I was doing. 

The staging that took place when we were stood still on a floor, and not on stairs was also effective as during that time, we would continue to talk about Olive. It was important we got across what happened to her, but also kept true to our characters so we both focused on our stance, body language and vocal skills when we weren't on stairs. I would be side by side with Laura's character and use my arms a lot and give my foot the occasional tap on the floor to show impatience, for example, I would point at some audience members and cross my arms when it wasn't my time to speak. This all allowed staging within our scene to be significant since it portrayed all in one that we constantly were hating each other, but we both had one thing in common; we both loved the wonderful theatre.

Within my character, facial expressions were vital to portray my distain for the audience that dared to come through my door, and I did this by constantly glaring at random members of the audience, subtly flaring my nostrils when someone said something I didn't necessarily like and looking people up and down and turning my lips up to highlight perhaps my dislike for those not a part of my era. 

A key scene that allowed me to combine both my facial expressions, body language and my vocal skills, was when the audience would pass me and Olive's picture on the stairs, and I would have to shout at them to greet her in any way possible. I would exclaim to those who walked past and in a way that wasn't out of order, I would make them say something, and if they didn't, I'd say something like "Well, it's your fault if she's causing mischief tonight!" It was a fun part of the scene, as it allowed you to see my character from an improvised standpoint, because everything I would say was all be thought of from my own mind.

So that the audience could understand my character's journey, and connect to who Polly really was, I made sure to make my own outfit standout and look like how I envisioned her to be. I wasn't given much direction on my outfit, just to look quite stereotypical 60's flares in which was perfect as I knew I already owned a dark blue pair. This meant a lot of my outfit was my own self direction and I was able to be imaginative and creative when it came to planning it. Luckily, I had been gifted a lot of my nannie's auntie's clothes since it was all vintage and I love vintage clothes anyway. Given to me, was a beautiful hand-crocheted sleeveless cardigan made by my nan's auntie which fitted so well to the 60's look I was trying to secure. I had also just bought a deep red baker hat that did also fit what I envisioned in my mind. To bring it all into one outfit, I paired a high neck grey top, my green vans and a long circle necklace as well. I loved so much being Polly and being able to showcase my own take on how I thought she looked, acted and was in general to those around her. For me, she was my favourite character I played during all four shows as each time I was getting more confident, and my character's personality was shining through more and more.

The second role I took on was the Nurse who in her scene looks after an ill girl who because of screaming so hard at a Beatles concert, she ruptures her stomach. The role of Nurse only had three key lines, but alongside that there was lots of body language and vocal expressions I needed to exaggerate and make perfect. The Nurse is quite similar to the character of Polly since they are both strong minded and opinionated people; Polly wants others to understand that it's her door and not theirs, and the Nurse wants to get everyone out of the room and help the girl from dying. They are both also from around the same decade of the 60's, which allows them to share events of history like when the Beatles performed at the Globe.

In the room where our scene takes place, which is in a bar underground, there are photos around on the walls, one of those photos is of the real-life Nurse and girl in the situation I'm about to act out. This was such a huge inspiration to me because it gave me a glimpse into what really happened and allowed me to look and sense how she felt in that moment and try to channel it into my acting. This was also a sense of direction in how I took the role of Nurse and made it into my own. 

My entrance line was "Help, me get her a chair" which I shout towards the bartender Jack. In this line, I used my vocal expressions clearly by increasing my volume and speaking fast to highlight the urgency of the situation. Since my line and character came out of nowhere, my loud voice should have given the audience a little fright and make them question what's about to happen. My final line was "Can I get some privacy here?" which I said again loud so that everyone heard me, as well as saying it with an underlying emotion of panic in that the worst was yet to come, in a way to further scare the audience. Throughout their leave, I was improvising other lines like asking Jack "Water now!" and saying to the audience "Leave, Leave now!" All of my lines shared a feeling of worry as when asked if it's fainting, I say "No, not this time..." which possibly highlighted that I hadn't dealt with something like this before. When people tend to panic, they are loud as they try to voice everything in their head so that they aren't forgetting something which I tried to get through in my lines due to the fast pace. My lines also gave a lot of insight into the Nurse as a character that she's possibly tired, if she's dealing with 'fainters' a lot in her job.

Body language was key in my role as Nurse, as if my character was panicky and stressed, she'd need to be moving around a lot and trying to find a shimmer of help from anywhere. When I first introduced myself to the audience, I walked swiftly with purpose towards Jack at the bar to highlight the urgency of the situation. I continue to stay standing, but now and again going from rubbing my forehead, resting my hand on my hip and looking up to bending down near to the girl, looking at her to see for any physical pain and rubbing her back to stop her from crying out for Paul. The subtle switch of positions now and then was done when others were speaking, and when Keira who played an usherette was pushing the girl back into her seat. For example, when the girl was screaming for help, then I would be reassuring her and trying to ease her worries instead of stressing to myself. On my final line, I remember standing up swiftly and using my arms to point at the audience when I'd keep my eye contact with Mrs. Chadwick to scare her a tad, this highlighted further the urgency of the situation and how my character does not like having her job and her patients' lives on the line. Staging was kept quite minimal in the scene as we were staying stuck to one corner, since myself and the usherette were stood standing whilst the girl was sat down which is why we depended on our body language and movement within our corner to be strong and clear.

The Nurse's outfit was a simple stereotypical blue nurse costume which allowed for my character to be even creepier as unlike my Stage Door Keeper, we come face to face with nurses a lot of the time making the character too real. Since the costume was plain, it meant the makeup team could be creative when it came to hair and makeup. My makeup was ghost like and very pale, with dark blue bags under my eyes to highlight the tiredness. There were also small veins on my forehead to add to that old effect. My hair was a tight pony since my hair is short anyway, which was chosen to do like that since it on the other hand showed my character's respect and pride for her job and looks. How I looked for the Nurse was amazing, and I felt like my character had come together really well.