Why I chose the speech:
I chose to do this speech for a few reasons. First of all being that it's a speech I've done before and I'm very familiar with the source material as well the role Atticus has with in it. Like I said about Gerald showing off my potential as a comedic actor, I believe that this shows off my skills as a dramatic actor. The speech deals with a character that shows a lot of restrained anger so to show the subtle emotions in my facial expressions and body language would be a useful skill to show off. Due to feedback from fellow actors saying that I show a lot of control especially in my face I have confidence in my ability to show that.
Since a lot of drama schools ask for a contemporary piece to be shown I felt doing this would be ideal. A lot of cut off points to consider a speech contemporary vary from school to school. RADA says anything past 1960 and Lamda just says anything from the 20th century onwards. I decided to go with the 1960 option since that period is a frequent cut off point. Initially I thought this would affect me choosing this speech however the source material came out on the exact cut off year so it's fine as well as the stage adaptation happening in 1990
For this task I had to generalise and create a range of time based on the varying time limits from
different drama schools.
different drama schools.
List of drama schools and speech time limits in minutes
- East 15: 1:30 - 2:00
- RADA: 2:00 - 3:00
- Lamda : 1:00 - 3:00
- Bristol Old Vic Theatre school: 1:00 - 2:00
The first read through of the speech took me around 3 minutes and 20 seconds so it's on the lengthy side but I felt that If I trimmed it down it be fine so that's what I did since I felt I could lose some of it but still maintain the spirit and tone of the scene and character and with the same impact.
One problem I had was that Atticus is around 40 years which is not strictly suitable for me in an audition although I decided still go with him for this reason. During this speech, neither the script or any version I've seen of the character suggests anything that could define his age, it is no way the focus of the scene. The focus in terms of Atticus is him making his belief clear as he displays an extremely mature attitude towards the situation which is what will be on display, it's the emotional and dignified side that I'm showing I can do, not that I can play an older man which I know more or less all drama schools don't care about. I've always played it with restraint in mind so regardless of age that would come across in this situation
It's the one I feel displays my sincerity and ability to show some conviction, restraint and firmness of belief. Even though they recommend going with characters who are close to your own age, I feel it's appropriate since I'm not trying to show off anything in terms of versatility of age since it's ultimately irrelevant and drama schools don't like that intention. I'm only trying to show dramatic skill and because of that I feel I don't play him like the 40 year old man he is I just put emphasis on what he's feeling and since it's coming from me it may seem more like he's in his mid 20's. That would be a flaw but since I'm focusing on a truthful dramatic delivery I think it will be a good choice. I'm confident in that so I should show them what I can do instead of prioritising something that I might be able to do since they'd want to know my real skills for a real consideration.
Context of the speech:
The speech is the closing argument in the case against Tom Robinson who Atticus is acting as a defence lawyer. The man has been accused of beating a white woman and the jury are citizens of a town that's quite racist. It's extremely obvious to anyone who thinks about it that Tom didn't beat her and it was the woman's father who had beaten her but the blame was rather easily shifted to Tom. Atticus tries to make this blatantly clear to the jury and seems to scorn them since he knows of their racist intentions but has to hold back his anger so he gets taken as seriously as possible to maintain his professional status.
Development of the speech:
- I decided to refresh myself on my "To Kill a Mockingbird" since I had done it on a previous assignment. I have known the context of the speech for some time before choosing it having seen the 1962 film adaptation and of course the stage production which this monologue is from. The speech had already been developed but I'll use this blog to show my choices and how I got there as well as any potential changes.
- The play takes place in America so I thought it would be appropriate to go with an American accent for the character since I'm fairly good at doing one. When originally trying out the speech I tried it with an English accent and I felt (Along with others) it didn't work or at least not as well. This was at a point where I knew the lines and that was not a distraction. While I have seen videos of drama school auditions say they don't like accents since it's not a subject they immediately care about. I only use it because I feel when I do it feels more truthful to me so the intended emotions come out in the naturalistic manner they're supposed to when I use my English accent for this speech it doesn't feel right. I could get it to work if I had more time but it's not my preference and I don't think they'd mind since it brings out the truth more which is what they want to see.
- One thing I had to change about the speech was it's length. When I did a timed run of the speech off script it came to about 3 minutes and 15 seconds which is way too long for a drama school audition since they see hundreds/thousands of applicant and prefer that the speech be (in general) a maximum of three minutes and that's being generous. They will just cut you off if you go on for too long. So I cut out the last and biggest paragraph of the speech which reduced it's length although I made sure to end the speech on a the best note possible even though it may end a little abruptly or in a way that has no resolution.
- In terms of the staging I had limited ideas at the start. The scene takes place in a courtroom so my first instinct was to act like I'm stood in front of the jury although until I showed it for the first time I never knew that that decision was fairly limiting since I imagined the jury to be quite small of about 10 people. This meant I didn't walk around that much and didn't look anywhere other than mainly straight ahead. After being told it was static I remembered that the courtroom in the source material is very large and filled with people and that Atticus is not only convincing the jury but the whole town since the are the racist community. Realising this made me improve my spacial awareness I looked all around the room with the cut off point being just before the front audience see my profile. To look around the room evenly and not stay in an area for too long I had to run the speech quite a few times but keep that thought in mind which took a few attempts but I got there. This gave the piece a bigger sense of scope and added to the realism which in turn helped with my vocal delivery and projection since I had to act as if there were many more people to convince.
- As I've stated the speech deals with a lot of restraint and the way I went about implementing this was to first of all know what moments would make him the angriest in the dialogue. For example when he says "Tom Robinson, a human being" or "To begin with this case should've never come to trial." They're moments where he is trying to remind them how stupid all this is and how the colour of his skin doesn't matter, he's still a person with a right to a fair trial free of prejudice. After singling out these moments I added slight movements and facial expression so that he may lean forward to emphasis and have the ever so smallest of grins on his face to give off a patronising vibe but still have a strong confident presence to maintain professionalism. So the combination of those elements with his posture as well as the vocal tones having a hint of anger and a patronising tone to them it should come across effectively and judging from the previous performance of it, it does.
- Even though I have already done "To Kill a Mockingbird" before I thought this time I'd see if it had a performance style and see if I am being faithful to it. It wasn't hard to work out that the plays style is naturalism since when comparing the acting to any Chekhov play I've seen it's been very similar and with the source material aiming for realistic/believable characters. I feel I did and still am sticking to the style very well, I'm realistically portraying conviction, restraint and anger in a way that isn't over the top. The only exaggeration it has (If you can even call it that) is the volume at which I have to speech it for the theatre. It's very subdued and I've used methods of Stanislavsky's system to help discover the portrayal. I considered his objective as I've said already and feel I've made his point very clear in the plainest most natural way with nothing stylised.
- The only change I'm thinking of making to the speech is to possibly add the ending line of the speech back on that says "In the name of God, do you duty. In the name of God, believe Tom Robinson". The main reason is because I think it's the line that best shows the restraint that Atticus has and the moment where he could possibly break. It's possibly the most dramatically intense line in the speech and the fact I cut it out originally makes me think it was a mistake. Even though it was very good last time I did it, I didn't get to end it with a dramatic beat it just cut off abruptly. this would mean still leaving a significant chunk of it out for time and you could argue the line comes out of nowhere but I think I can make the lines flow and the added drama at the end will be great to show off the portrayed emotion. I know the line so adding it on wouldn't be difficult at all so I think when I have to show the speech next I'll put it on and see if I can do it. I would prefer to have it there for the aforementioned reasons but if it doesn't work then I'll still have a very solid speech for auditions.
- With the exercises I listed before, I of course used them for this speech when initially doing it. The two biggest improvements it gave to the performance were that it made my voice able to be much louder but retain the natural/restrained yet angry tone with out losing anything. This small effect helped to indicate the size of the courtroom and help with the sense of scope. The other is that the muscles in my mouth are stretched properly so my articulation restriction doesn't affect my accent. I noticed before being warmed up it sounds a little off with some of the R's being too hard and the inflections of the accent being slightly wrong since I'm trying to do it with a slow, tightened jaw/mouth. An important thing to focus on is breath capacity so that means "In for 4, out for 4" is the exercise to focus on and allow me to project my voice more to again, convey that scale.
Character profile:
- WHO AM I?
The character's name is Atticus Finch, he is 40 years old, has two children named Jean and Jeremy (Referred to as Scout and Jem respectively). He is a very honest man and is firm in his beliefs. He is very balanced and firmly believes in the law since he is a lawyer and is always exposed the worst of people which has formed his balanced view. He even states to his children you shouldn't judge anyone "Until you consider things from his point of view". He is strict but wants to genuinely see his children become good people although he doesn't want them to be exposed to the bad side of society just yet. He's a very well respected man in his community.
- WHAT TIME IS IT?
It's Friday, the 19th of July, 1935. It's 3 pm. The time period is significant to the story and character because it's a time where racist bias was still considered the norm but the time when it was starting to be challenged but unfortunately in a very very limited way.
- WHERE AM I?
The speech takes place in Maycomb, Alabama (Which is a fictional town) in a courtroom.
- WHAT SURROUNDS ME?
The room is filled with people/witnesses watching the case and even his own children watching the case without him noticing. The jury and possibly the judge are judging harshly due to the racist beliefs of the community which does put pressure on him since they literally surround him in this big courtroom.
- WHAT IS MY RELATIONSHIP?
He loves his children and has to look after them on his own due to the mother dying so he feels he has to put all the more effort into bringing them up to be good people. He isn't always around for them since he's very busy with being a lawyer so he has a housekeeper who he trusts to take care of them. He wouldn't want them to see the case in the courtroom since he feels they aren't ready to see that just yet.
- WHAT DO I WANT?
He wants to convince the racist jury that the black man (Named Tom Robinson) he's defending is innocent of beating a white woman and that the real abuser is the woman's father.
- WHAT IS IN MY WAY?
The firm belief of the jury that all black people are evil or below white people and that a white persons word is automatically more trustworthy. So a stubborn belief which is always tough to challenge. Also the fact he has to maintain a professional status means he cannot be as blunt as he wants to with them.
- WHAT DO I DO TO GET WHAT I WANT?
Despite that, he will still make his point explicitly clear and he will stick to his belief even though he knows he could get some very harsh backlash for it. He'll defend the man because he genuinely believe he's right and that his skin colour shouldn't matter at all. He'd even show restraint to get it across he's putting his all into it and almost breaks towards the end but stays professional even though he doesn't like it.
Links:
https://www.rada.ac.uk/courses/acting-and-performance/ba-hons-in-acting/applications
https://www.lamda.org.uk/drama-school/auditions-interviews/audition-and-interview-requirements
http://www.oldvic.ac.uk/faq.htmla
http://www.east15.ac.uk/auditions/
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