For this assignment we had to look at quite a few speeches to choose from and this blog will cover all the speeches that I considered but ultimately didn't go with.
Ralph from "Frozen" by Bryony Lavery:
Why I considered the speech:
I watched my classmate James do it and was extremely intrigued by the performance style. While it's mostly naturalism the thing that stuck out to me was how he wasn't played as undeniably insane, it was with in his head as an internal monologue so everything he was talking about seemed justified to him although from our perspective it very unsettling. The self justification and the causality of the speech mixed with it's quite disturbing subject matter seemed very effective and I really wanted to try it out to see what skills it could potentially show off.
The speech was fairly lengthy from memory and was probably a little over three minutes although that may have just been a poor first reading so I knew that with practice and possibly a little trimming I could get it to an appropriate length for most drama schools.
Ralph's age is never defined with in the speech and any character profiles I found of him didn't list it either. They just stated he was a serial killer so I made an assumption that he was in his mid 20's since that seems a believable age for someone to be physically fit enough to put a woman in their van but that also puts him relatively close to my age. So I think it was a suitable chose in that regard.
Speech context:
The character Ralph is telling us his thoughts and what's happening when he spots a young girl and intends to kidnap her. He's explaining the whole encounter and his perception of it for example he says "I could tell she liked me" despite the fact she's been ignoring him so it gives off a feeling of uneasiness and delusion since we know the girl is ignoring him because she's disturbed by him and because he's a stranger but Ralph's mind is justifying it and making it seem like he's going to look after her for a while so to him it's completely innocent.
Development and why I chose not to go with it:
- As I said the thing that appealed to me was that he wasn't played like a creep and more like someone thinking he's doing good. Keeping that in mind I still leaned a little more towards a creep on my first reading which was not good and it immediately felt wrong. So to start with I changed it so that he's got an attitude that seems like he's justifying it to himself, that there's nothing wrong with what he's doing. If I play it straight the dialogue with the casual tone could be fairly disturbing since an implication is more effective than just spelling something out.
- Initially I believed the character he was talking to to be a woman not small girl. I found this out when I decided to check out some of the script to see if it provided any context and thankfully it did. This changed the way I would try and talk to the girl. I tried to make it a little more obvious that I'm talking to a child so act a little more comforting or patronising especially when I say "It's bad manners if you don't" and " It's rude to ignore people". It'll be comparing to a tone when a parent is talking to their own child.
- I did consider the staging however there wasn't much I could do with him. Whenever I imagined the speech the most I would see him do is pace up and down the stage but that is a fairly bland thing to do so I tried to think of something. An idea I wanted to implement was that I start at one side of the stage and walk towards the other side but as if I'm following the girl. So it isn't just up and down pacing, it's one continuous motion that could possibly provide a sense of pacing since you could maybe tell how far I am through the speech by seeing how far I've got to the other side.
- After the practice with the speech I didn't get to show Karen for some feedback but I showed James, the other person doing it to get his opinion. He said that it was pretty good and was even a little different from how he'd do it. I didn't get to show the planned movement I wanted to try out which is a shame since I honestly did want some feed back on that.
- I kept the speech as an option due to the progress I had made, some of the ideas I had and with how it was different in a few ways to how James performed it. However when considering my other options I just thought that of all of them then this would either show off the least interesting abilities or just not being very interesting when compared. I saw more potential in my other speeches or just knew they would work more so I unfortunately had to not go with this one.
Mickey from "Blood Brothers" by Willy Russell:
Why I considered the speech:
I had seen the play this speech is from and forgotten about it until I was reminded of it during a rehearsal session and immediately thought it would be suitable considering my other options. At that point I had "A Woman of no Importance" as a definite and "To Kill a Mockingbird" was just an option so I felt one that shows the level of energy of a child and could also portray a sense of innocence with a bit of mischief and the determination to achieve something or go further than you're allowed.
The age for Mickey wasn't an an issue since even the character is seven he's played by an adult actor for all stages of his life. This is along the lines of characters such as Mum from"East" who have a defined gender or age but are intentionally meant to be played by someone that doesn't match be it for comedic affect like with "East" or Mum from "Monty Python's Life of Brian" or if it's just for the sake of not having to use multiple actors for a productions which probably played into that choice. However the character seems written and directed to accommodate this choice and the productions I've seen back this up since there's nothing wrong with the performances and characters, they mesh perfectly in my opinion.
The speech is a good length, it's only about a minute and a half long so it fits perfectly into my generalised range for my list. No edits would be necessary.
Speech context:
The speech follows a 7 year old boy called mickey talking about how he's restricted due to his age where as his older brother Sammy can do more things such as go out further and do more things on his own. Mickey is saying he wants to be Sammy and how it would be so much better if he could do the things Sammy does and how Sammy in general gets up to more mischief and somehow gets away with it or it's at least easier for him.
Development and why I chose not to go with it:
- First thing I knew I had to work on was the intro. Mickey is playing on his own so I wanted to show a way of getting onto the stage in a way that shows he's playing a game. Whenever I've seen the speech they have the character come on shooting a gun and he's making the sound effects.
- I had several run throughs with a focus on the child's body language and posture. Firstly I knew that I would have to act out the things he says such as knock and put my head to the ground and act as if I'm try to urinate through a letter box.
- Next I worked on his voice. Since the character is from Liverpool I thought it would be good to keep his Liverpudlian accent although a main focus is the youth in his voice. The main contrast between the child and adult Mickey is that the voice is softer and slightly higher although still very similar. Something I have tried to make clear with it is that a child's speech is fairly disorganised an unstructured and points change fairly quickly. To try and accomplish this I ran through it a few times trying it with different pacing of the sentences and it made all the more sense to use very few transitions between sentences so it gets across the fast and impatient mind of the child that Mickey is but keep a couple of pauses in so for the audience the speech isn't exhaustingly fast paced.
- The child and his family are very poor so the fact that one of the very few toys he has is now broken would frustrate him so if feel that in that line I wanna stress the sibling rivalry in his voice. It's an item that's precious and it's gone so when he's explaining the damage of the toy I'm going to say it in a tone that implies "Yeah he actually did that and there's nothing I can do cause he's the favourite of the family" so the jealousy there has to come across with the vague angry tone with in certain lines and in the brief few run throughs I had it seemed to work quite well.
- The play is a musical so it's acting isn't exactly naturalism. I've seen the play twice and from remembering what I can of the acting style (During sections that don't involve singing) it's fairly close but there are more heightened moments in the piece and any emotions seem ever so slightly played up so overall I'd say it's naturalistic but just a little more played up with some more energy most likely to play up the humour of the show. This is something I did put into the rehearsals of the piece mostly with in his movement so there's two level of energy, that of the child and that of the added on layer for the style.
- Although I found it to be quite promising and even very fun, I ultimately felt that the abilities it would show off would be fairly similar to that of the Gerald speech. Meaning it would show a good degree of vocal and physical control, with strong facial expressions and a heightened vocal delivery. When comparing it with the Gerald speech however the other just seems stronger to me and to show this wouldn't achieve much. It's also a comedy piece so that means since I have decided to go with the Gerald speech it still means that feature wouldn't be unique for then audition.
Benedick from "Much Ado About Nothing" by William Shakespeare:
Why I considered the speech:
I considered the speech because besides needing a Shakespeare due to drama school demand I really enjoyed the idea of someone renouncing love in a way that he's having fun with it and seeing almost shallow about it.
In terms of how it fits with the drama school auditions it fits the criteria most of them request with using a Shakespeare. The speech was with in my time limit of 3 minutes so would not require much editing at all if any.
The character is a fairly young man probably around 25 years old so it's reasonable to think I could be cast as him. But the main skills to show off are showing the shallow side of a man but also remain likebale. That seems a tough thing to do so to take that on would be a interesting to me.
Speech context:
The character Benedick is in a garden talking to himself about how his friend Claudio who has changed ever since he claims to have fallen in love. He is scorning him for it and vows never to do the same until he finds a woman who embodies all the qualities he desires in a scene that shows a character who is being likeable yet very shallow in attitude towards women and love itself.
Development and why I chose not to go with it:
- From what I can tell this is a fairly light hearted speech considering the play it's in is a comedy. Although from the scene synopsis and the initial read it came out fairly bitter although the intent turned out to be lighter when reading a direct translation of the scene to modern English. My first impression of what the character is like from the more light hearted read came off as quite immature but confident in what he's saying. As I said before it seems shallow although he seems to be having a little bit of fun with it. That's something I feel I need to bring across at points during it, a sense of enjoyment in the latter parts where he's talking about the perfect woman. In the beginning parts where he's talking about how Claudio has changed I think I should put a bit of regret and possibly some mockery in there since he seems to massively disapprove of what has happened but it's shown in a humorous manner. So at this point I thought it was a pretty great option although I was still trying to properly figure out the character and it was the only Shakespeare speech I had at the time.
- I had to perform my Shakespeare monologue to the class, and it went quite well. The reaction was that it did suit me and I was going for the right tone although I could still play up certain aspects and parts of it. The opening of it was apparently very strong but it trailed off and this was definitely because the opening is the only part that I memorised properly, I am still learning it and needed to read it on stage so it was affected. I really need to add a little more energy, not just to my physicality but to my voice and emphasise certain parts of the speech and even add some variation into what I'm saying. The example given was when I repeat "Yet I am well." and I apparently said it in a somewhat similar tone which I need to change up slightly. I will say that since it was my first time performing it I did get some of it right such as I seemed to give a good understanding of what my character is talking about with most of the right vocal inflections and was overall well timed but definitely needs some fine tuning. After that session it was definitely one I wanted to stick with since I did think it suited me and did contrast with my other options. It is a comedic piece but not in the same way as "A Woman of no Importance". This one as of now seems to have more of a focus on the voice rather than movement for it's comedy even though both aspects assist each other.
- I'm still not quite there with my Shakespeare piece yet although I have gone over it quite a few times and changed the way I say certain words such as when I say "Mild, or come not near me" and "Fair, or I'll never look on her". I've decided to make them a lot more indulgent so that he's almost laughing and proud of what he's saying. I feel that almost everything after the line "One woman shall not come in my grace" it turns into a sort of fantasy about what that woman would or is his mind WILL be like but he is having a laugh with it despite most likely meaning it. I added in some small mannerisms as well such as when saying those lines I will look away and say my lines with a patronising or big headed tone and put my hand out keeping my high status of the moment in tact. After trying that out in my practice today I felt like that brought out the playful arrogance of him a little more and I think if I do that with the right degree of energy I could do the humorous nature of it justice. I just need to up my energy and keep going the the speech to develop it further as well as look at the performance style.
- I showed it off one more time and discovered I had a few issues with the performance. Mainly that I was struggling with the verse form. Now I know it's in blank verse although didn't when I first found it so I didn't say the lines properly and they all seemed to blend together with little cohesion and nothing to distinguish them. It was suggested to go through the script and mark the verbs and punctuation as well as age him a bit and add more confidence to him. It worked very well and the direction did improve it a fair bit actually. I was rather happy with it.
- Despite development going well and showing some promise, the main reason I decided not to go with this was due to an aspect of the feedback. It was a little too similar in terms of performance to my Gerald speech. Even though the characters are very different and act fairly differently, the performance skills they show off (Such as heightened body language and both being fairly comedic) would largely be the same so if I showed them back to back it would make the latter of the two rather redundant. So I had to pick one of the two and in my opinion the Gerald speech shows off my abilities better, is more suited to me and is just funnier so even though I liked this speech I had to go with the other. After realising this I decided to find another Shakespeare and look for something far more dramatic to add some more variation.
Links:
http://am774.com/12zt/images/Frozen_script.pdf
https://www.dailyinfo.co.uk/reviews/theatre/bloodbrothers.htm
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