Monologues - "The Importance of Being Earnest"

In this lesson, everybody had to perform a monologue that they had found. I decided to perform a monologue from the "Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde. The character who performs this monologue in the play is Lady Bracknell. The monologue I performed is as follows:

"Well, I must say that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice . . . as far as any improvement in his ailment goes. Well, of course if you are obliged to be beside the bedside of Mr. Bunbury, I have nothing more to say. But I would be much obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me. It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when everyone has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much."

I performed this monologue with a very upright and stern posture. I held my hands clasped in with my elbows out to the side, presenting my characters authority. I had to speak with Received Pronunciation to show the time period of the piece and to show the social circle my character falls within. My facial expressions throughout the piece presented Lady Bracknell's disapproving nature and her feeling of superiority to everybody else.

Although, the class were complimentary of the way I performed the role, Miss Cordell decided to challenge me to perform the monologue again but this time in a common accent. I struggled with this challenge due to certain words that are not normally (if ever!) used by common people - for example: "shilly-shallying", "absurd" and "obliged". However, despite finding this challenge difficult, I rose to it! I achieved this task not only by altering my tone of voice, but through my body language, facial expressions and what words I put emphasis on.  In this version, I decided to sit down on a chair, with hunched shoulders and my legs extended in front of me and slightly parted. My eyebrows were furrowed and my nose scrunched up, with my head hung slightly lower than normal.

Script work - "Ten Tiny Fingers, Nine Tiny Toes"

11/09/15
Today, we were put into small groups and given a script each. I was put in a group of three with Rhiannon and Ollie; we were given a scene from "Ten Tiny Fingers, Nine Tiny Toes". Ollie performed the role of Orderly (a nurse with no sympathy and no morals), Rhiannon performed the part Lucinda (a pregnant class three lady) and I played the character Dot (a pregnant class five woman).

During this scene, Orderly injects both Lucinda and Dot and briefs them on childbirth. Dot is not allowed to keep her child as she is a class five woman, but Lucinda is also not allowed to keep her child as it is missing a toe. The women support each other through their terrible ordeal. Lucinda explains how she wants to live with Dot, whilst Dot describes how she wishes to be a higher class.

At first we began by just picking our parts and reading through the script together. We then added a different voice for our characters than our own. Once we had established our characters, we began staging our piece. Our decision was to have Rhiannon and I on two chairs each, positioned to make a bed each. Ollie walked around us and between us throughout the piece, to present his characters authority and lack of care for his patients.

15/09/15

This lesson, each group performed their scenes to the rest of the group. After each performance we used Forum Theatre to alter their piece to how we thought it should be performed. As more time was spent on other groups than expected, there wasn't much time to alter my groups piece, so we didn't get to go through the whole piece. However, we did manage to make a huge difference to our piece. Originally, Ollie performed the role of Orderly very robotically and inhumanely, to show his characters lack of understanding and care. After the workshopping, Ollie's characterisation completely changed. This time, Ollie performed the role "too happy" that it was even creepier than before! This made mine and Rhiannon's responses more natural as we were generally a bit frightened!