Unit 8-Final prroject

 When recieving the scipt my first initial thoughts were on hown we would show the story of the play,whilst reading i realised the script has no given settings,no given characteristics,this was exciting because i knew we could make it our own,to show the story of James(the main character of the play)in our own way.
I realised the script was a platform for us,so my firrst goal was how was i going to tell the story of james to an audience.
We got into our group and together we gave our first initial thoughts on the play.
One student describes the play as "Awful" and was not excited to begin the final project from just reading the scipt
Another student described the play as "Interesting" and he was excited to develop the play into our own.
After reading the whole sript i picked up upon the main themes of the play which are:
Pain-James shows a lot of pain from his Grandfathers death which then leads to the next theame of:
Anger-The death of his grandfather was the rooot of his anger but another theme has encouraged his anger which is:
Bullying:Throughout the play James is constantly bullied by his classmates and  the effect it has on james is very obious when reading through the script.
Status-The bullies show a high status in the play as james shows hes frightened of them



Rehurrsals:
 The day after we recieved our scipts we decided to start creating the piece
For the first scene e had a bit of confusion on what we wee going to do.
Our first idea was to have Juan as james basically reading all the scene one,telling the story to the audience.
We then put ourselfs in the position of an audience member and we realised how unsatisfying it wouldbe to have someone on stage narrating all of scene one.
As a group to overcome this we then read over scene one analysing the text we decided to create a simple prrison cell with four people surrounding Juan,who at this moment is playing the role of James.We wearnt fussed about creating transitions onto the stage in the beggining as that wasnt our main focus.
The four people who created the jail cell where me,Leonie,Ruby and Georgia and for scene one we decided to split the script lines leonie had the firrst lines then rruby then me then Georia
With my given lines i realised there was a character involved(The policeman).Whilst reading through me and my group realised it wouldnt make sence if i were tto play the role of a narrator and a policeman,so i took the role of the policeman adn Ruby took my otherlines.
For my role as the policeman i had to reasearch how a policeman would act,to do this i looked upon many interviews with policemen and criminals.I noticed that they have a very dominant physicallity to show this i kept my back straight and held my hands behind my back.
In the first rehursals  i took advantage of these actions but i knew it wasnt enough.
I wanted to make obious to the audience that i was acting then role of a policeman so i decided to play around with different accents,It worked very well with my character.
We worked over this scene and our goal for this particular scene was to make it as abstract as we could,breaking the forth wall and interacting with the audience.
We didnt want to create a solid jailcell so we decided to add movement to the words "Metal Door".

After our first scene we wanted to still keep the abstract atmosphere we created in the firrst scene.
We decided to create a splite stage for ourr seconde scene showing the main characer of james int he present andmpat.
We decided to keep the present character of James as Juanso the audience will undestand our idea clearly.We involved both past James as it would be easyto show the story of James' abusive father whilst the Present James character accts as a narrator looking back at the story.
For this scene we wanted to focus on stanivslakis idea of Naturalism as abuse is a very touchy subject.
Initially we had the idea of Pele(who acted as abusive father) to hit jess to the floor.We then thought that would be too cliche and it wouldnt really suprise the audience.We also didnt want to involve too much physicality inour poject as we wanted the adudience to think about the story,we thought that too much physicallity would takeover the project.
So to create tension between both characters we desided to have Pele walking around frightened jess
who is looking at her bruses in the mirrror.

Our next scene was the scene where james' Grandpa is introduced
we had the idea of everyone prresent on stage in a "Vshape"
whilst creating this scene we had too many ideas coming together,we had to stick with a few and this caused a few arguments to ocour.
i noticed that as a group certain individuals aspire the role of dominance in the group which makes it hard for other people to get on with work.

The scene after that is whereby we gotto show the audience James' struggles from being bullied
by his classmates,
Dijarn introduced the storyline by describing how fake the bullies were and how they pretended to befriend him.
In this scene the main goal wa to show power and dominance.
To do this we wanted to showthe bullies walking  through the classmates to james.
We then desided on a transition from dijarn as james to Cheif as james.
To do this,after the confrontation from the bullies Dijarn will walk through everyone whilst narrating and chief will staying character as a bully follows him.
We then all pull him down and circle him.,as we circled him we used movement to represent the battering of James,they were very effecive or example as Dijarn was narrating upstage he would readout what the bullies done to him one example is "Kick him in the chest"n for this line we all stompped on the floor whist maintaining the circle we created around the cheif.

In the beggining of the play we created a jailcell this is something my group always go back on when Juan is narrating the piece.My group done this because we wanted to show James in present telling the story of how he got in that position,
In this scene physical theatre is involved i.e when describing people taking away James' laces and belt me and Leonie physically went down and created that action making it more believable to the audience.


The next scene(Scene 8) is a scene i have narrated.
The video below shows the scene and how we have adapted it.
This scene starts of with me narrating the piece and it then leads to the bullies creating noise backstage.

When the bullies enter the stage the most obious emotion to portray would be to be frightened but my tutor told me to show James' character as prepared and used to the bullies and the battering i was about to encounter,i use Stanford Mieseners idea of the actor to "Get out of there head"
so i can really relate to James' character.
This scene for our group is a very iconic as it shows what james had to go through whilst at school.
There are many moments when we are able to create forth wall in this scene i.e when me and Dijarn Look at the audience as james looking in a mirror and repeat the words in sync "Im not a gimp",This was really effective and it helped the characters understand that we are both playing James.
Another key moment in theplay was when Dijarn and Pele switched places on the lines "Cut yourr hair pure short" we done this because we wanted to show the transition of james after cutting his hair and as ppele has shorter hair than Dijarn this was very effective.
(video)
 Scene Ten introduces the theme of Extremisim.
This iswhere James does the Nazi salute infrnt of hisclass mates.
Georgia had the tough role of playing both teacher and narrator she had to change her pitch in voice when playing the techer,
I remeber after rehursig thhissceneour tutor Rob gave her the solution of solving things physically.

in scene 12 we had James who is played by Yasmine centre stage,this is where James shows his thoughts on a horror film hes watching,he seems to enjoy it.
Me,Leonie,Ruby and Georgia played James's mum and we all stood in a line behind yasmine whilst having a conversation with James.
We split these lines like most scenes
And we had a call and response flow.
We all turned our back at the same time on the lines "see you later" then faced back to yasmine when she explains that she puts on a horror film
Next we involve physicality on the lines "slash,chop,rip and stab"
We came up with four easy movements for these words which we all done in unison.
We all then got out of character and acted as James's classmates
To do this transition we had to be realistic to the audience,to help me I used
Uta hagens idea of
Knowing WHO you are to  find your own sense of identity in a character
This helped me switch from James' mother to classmate.
When rehursing this scene some students where still on scene and acted as a "blocker" stopping the actor from acting realistically and also stopping the other actors from acting as well as they could do.
Over the past 6 months I have learnt that it is important to learn lines as my tutor won't be able to give us constructive feedback as the actor wouldn't be acting trithfully on script.

The performance is coming up soon and we are all very excited we ran over particular scenes perfecting them and made sure we knew what we were doing.
The scene we focuses on today was scene 3 which is where James' grandpa is introduced.Me and Georgia introduced to actions on the words "ulsa flag" creating new movements for our piece.
We also focuses on transitions and staging
Although we haven't had out technical run through so it was hard to perfect the staging.


Our technical run through went better than expected
Everyone got a chance to perfect there cues and it allowed us to imagine ourself on stage.
It was unusual having such a wide performance space to practice on.
I was excited to see what the transitions would look like with the lights and it was all coming together very welll
The focus in our group was very good
And no one was "blocking" this helped our group have a quick run though before our final performance.
Colours like red and blue were used in the more Intense scenes and other colours like white were used when the main focus was on the character of James.


 

Research and character development

After reading https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/aug/25/blackout-underbelly-davey-anderson
before the creating the piece I got a clear synopsis of the play 
the first thing that stood out to me was 
"a young Glasgow boy wakes up in a prison cell one morning and can't remember how he got there"
this instantly caught my attention as it got me curious to how the boy got into the prison cell.
 It gave a grief description of the play and it gave another persons perspective
It's interesting to read about the play after reading the script and how people have different opinions from me,after reading this i knew all my classmates would have different opinions of the play and it would be interest when creating our final project



Another Link http://www.samuelfrench.co.uk/p/12241/blackout-anderson
Which gave me another synopsis or overview of the play.
Both links have no characterisation reviews so I knew we had to make this our own

The difference between this source and the one before is that this gave us out target audience age group

Another spires of research I got from "The actors thesaurus"
Is a quote:"Actioning energises rehearsal and revitalises performance."
This links back to Robs idea of solving thing physically,when I volcano physicality the performance and rehursals become more up lifting.

Performance evaluation:
The final day has arrived!
Most of us wearnt as nervous as we expected as we knew the audience wouldn't be large and we were performing in front  of coming faces.
My first thought before the performance were "I wonder if anything will go wrong".
I had my concerns about the transitions from scene to scene.
Our group performed Very well and the transitions worked,it was clear to the audience that we rehearsed for a few months on this performance.
I stayed in role as the character of the policeman and because of rehursals it came naturally to me
I didn't feel as I needed to force that character on stage.
My groups energy levels and enthusiasm were high and we're all in tune with eachother .
Throughout the year I have stifled with confidence as an actor but in the final project I didn't feel as I was nervous in anyway,this really shows my growth and how much I have learnt in this course.

The staging didn't work as well as I thought and in some scenes it was quite disorganised.
Some people forgot their cues and entered the stage at a wrong time
But the audience didn't seem to notice and it ran smoothly
The main areas to improve on are cues and staging.
My classmates allowed me as an actor to feel confident on stage and act trithfully

his is the individual and group feedback we recieved
Cues-All cues during the transitions need to be quick so the play can flow easily
React to the Bullies-Don't hesitate when the bullies arrive,make sure you show bravery and courage
Speak up-It is a large audience so quiet voices won't be heard
No blocking - have to be off script 2 weeks before the performance
Show the action of "laces" - Leonie and I had to over exadurate  the laces being taken off so it's obvious for the audience to see
Be enthusiastic- it's the final project
Final time to show your talent
 

 
referencing:
Gardner,Lyn.Blackout,Theguardian,25th august 2010
Available at : https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/aug/25/blackout-underbelly-davey-anderson




Blackout context and research:

The play blackout is written by Davey Anderson and is a true story based on a young Glasgow boy who's anger destroys his life.
Davey Anderson himself interviews the boy who is currently Eighteen,in the interview he describes himself from a younger age (15) and the crime he committed.
At the time of the interview he was on probation.

The original play was very simplistic
It only consisted of four chairs and an audience who surrounded the stage by sitting in front and on each side,so people got different angles of the play.
The play has been redone many different times,it has been more w
Elaborate and features like props are added to different characters and lighting is added for effect.

Who is Davey Anderson?

Davey Anderson is described as a Dorector musician and a writer from Glasgow.
He won the arches theatre new directors award which gave him a platform allowing him to stage debuts his play-SNUFF.
David Andersons plays include
Blackout,Snuff,wired,Clutter keeps company,The static,rupture,the static and scavengers.

Romperstomper-
Romper stomper is an Australian film written by Geoffrey write.
The film is similarly themed to The "American history's X",both films play a key part in James' anger outburst.
Romper stomper is about  aggressive
Neo Nazi skinhead gangs opening in Britain.
One person ends up in prison and tries to stop his brother from heading in the same direction.
The theatre similar in both films are
Anger,Violence,andExtremism.

James' Outbrurst

In the story "blackout"
I do believe that the main causes of James' aggressive out burst was:
-His grandfathers illness
-The bullies
When producing the scene were James' grandfather was introduced we wanted to show his character as brave but also very caring for James.
To show this we had many ideas
I.e on the line "and then he got his cancer"
Everyone in. The line at that time would hit there chest and then me (who played the grandad at that moment) would react to the firsts and act as I've felt it on my chest.
Initially we had the idea of hitting our chests with no sound
But we figured the sound was more effective and it went with the movement.
Initially for that scene we wanted to keep the split scene we had in the previous scene somehow ending up in a semi circle,in the Demi circle who every plays grandad would go up on stage.
This idea was directed by shena and inspired by a play she saw but we then discussed and came to a conclusion that it would be too long to figure out the transition between the split scene and semi circle,so we agreed on two straight lines facing the audience.
We disgusted the balance between physicality and voice and throughout the play struggled on which we would focus on more but after rewatching the play
On YouTube I do think that we go used more on the voice and presentation rather than movement.
To help me understand James as a person
I have done research on who the actual person is As the play is based on a true story.
The person who was interviewed was 18 but describes his former 15 year old self,to me this could mean not everything may be 100% correct this helps me allow myself when playing James to "over exadurate" my personality.

Another thing that I believe caused James outburst was the bullies.
In the play they were shown as fake and malicious.
We wanted to show there fake side in there actions and voice for example
In one scene the bullies come up to James each saying a line and patting his shoulder.
We initially had the bullies saying their lines like normal acting to James pretending their friends but we realised that didn't quite show their true feelings towards James to the audience.
We then thought as a group on how to elaborate this.
I came up with all the bullies having a fake tone when walking towards him and saying there lines.
By this i mean a more high pitched sarcastic tone,this helped us show T the audience the malicious side of the bullies.
We also had the idea of Leonie and Jess saying the line "can we come and sit for a while" in sync,this shows that it was planned for James.