Today me and Georgia had a run through of the scene and the have been a few developments:
I went over the script and questioned it's structure. I was right in thinking the script I had was marked incorrectly because the "aside" and regular moments were mixed up when labelled so it lead to me be quite confused on how to say my lines and it seemed very unnatural. For example "Sheartlakins, sweet soul, I am not used to compliment" is meant to be said to Lucetta but is labelled aside. We changed and remarked it so everything made more sense. Now I've got a greater idea of what I'm saying especially with the ending since there was no stage directions or anything to differentiate the individual moments.
One thing I can say is although my reading of the dialogue got better, throughout the whole scene I had very little idea of what to do in terms of movement since I'm not entirely sure what the full layout of the stage will be. This made the moments where I'm fumbling around a little awkward to perform and I seemed very directionless in a bad way. The scene is supposed to be funny but it just looked terrible and easily needs some work. I feel that moment will have to be focused on a t some point.
An element that really needs some work is the interactions/physical contact between me and Georgia. It's meant to be so she's trying to seduce me in order to lure me to her her house so she can rob me. With that in mind I think she'd make a fair amount of contact in order to entice me and I'd probably try to make contact with her as well, such as holding her hand or arms or trying my best to get as close as possible, just trying to embrace the whole situation.
Due to the initial misunderstandings of the text we didn't know that aside moments can't have any additional interactions. For example when I say "I'll show her husband a Spanish trick" we blocked it so that I grab her by the waist and pull her towards me but we now have to re-block that slightly since aside moments can only be speaking to/looking at the audience and the other characters either have to get on with what they're doing or stay completely still. For this she'll be staying still since there is no one else for her to interact with.
One thing we still need to block is the undressing moment towards the end. This might be something I'll have to rehearse quite a few times since I've got a feeling the timing may have to be precise since if I get undressed too late then I'll miss a cue and if I'm too early then I might just stand there looking very awkward and directionless. It's something we'll have to get to soon although it won't be able to be done until costume is decided on a fitted which hasn't been talked about as of yet.
One note I have is that with the practice today and the research into some of the lines, especially Georgia with her line "Put out the light, it may betray us else". The sinister nature of the scene is coming through and showing some good potential, hopefully that line will be said in a way that really brings out her seductive/manipulate nature in contrast to Blunts more naive/stupid and optimistic approach to everything.
Blocking:
A detail I forgot to mention about the last session where we did a bit of blocking was where we put the bed. We staged it so that it was on stage-right and it was blocked so that I'm sat on it during the scene where I'm calling to her. We thought about that today and realised that it looked pretty bad, it was so awkward to just have me sitting on the bed, saying this fairly lengthy line. I can see why we made this error though, since in the the script it says I actually go over to the bed and that a whole trap is activated and that the bed even descends into the set. So we were pretty confused and just tried it out although now we know it didn't work at all. In fact that is going to have to be changed due to that it would be impossible for us to have it as it is in the script since we don't have a stage you can descend into. So instead it now goes like this; I now put out a light and fumble around in the dark trying to find her and don't actually get on the bed which for now is still on stage. When I go to the screen she gets changed behind, I get jumped by two men and taken off stage comically yelling. I'm glad this changed has been made because it does open up more potential to be funny. Since a feature of this style is seemingly is to be funny and for the characters to over act, then allowing me to move around means I could be funny and further set up the moment I get kidnapped in a more humorous manner. I don't know how we'll do it yet, I'll have to think about it soon but as long as we can be funny then that will be ideal.
Research:
Today I looked up more information on the play and the character of Blunt since I felt all my information was still rather limited Now I feel I have more of an idea what the scene is about and what my character is like. Some things I found out were things I already knew about him such as being naive, arrogant and easily manipulated but I found that he is someone who does seek attention especially since he's in another country than his own, he's an Englishman in Italy. He's out of his usual environemtn and that is what gets exploited about him but his other personality faults do help towards his down fall.
Something I read in the plot (Act 4, scene 5) was blunts reaction to all of it. He intends to get revenge but not on Lucetta since he may never find her again, instead he will take it out on all women and when Florinda unintentionally finds blunt after he has been robbed, he attempts to rape and beat her. This did come as a surprise to me since it did takes quite a dark direction and I'm assuming it wouldn't be played for comedy. When I read this I initially thought I should re-imagine Blunt as a darker more bitter character for my scene but after thinking about that for a minute, even if this is a drastic tone tonal shift, Blunt was still a much more out going and positive person before this happened, he may have been bitter internally and just longed for attention but this was the straw that broke the camels back, he's not just acting anymore, if he wants something, he'll take it and if he wants to prove something he'll do it. So for now I will still stick with the more uplifting, up himself, out going although still internally arrogant version. The change was considered but I don't think I can implement it yet but still feel glad I looked it up since it's revealed a more bitter side to him.
26/1/17:
Today we had a session in which we practiced reading a poem similar to which you may hear at the beginning of a play during the restoration era. The actors/characters would all recite a poem to the audience as a prologue, giving them an idea of what their about to see. We read "A Ramble in St. James's Park". We were split into groups and asked to read out certain sections of the poem. This was a basic and fun exercise to help us get to grips with bringing out specific words and using emphasis. It was not to help coping with the structure since the poem is rhyming and the play script is not and as far as I'm aware we aren't actually doing a prologue of any kind. I found it as a good reminder to keep your clear so they don't blend together and bring out important words in the text. For example my first line of that poem was, "Much wine had passed, with grave discourse" and the two words I put the most emphasis on were "Much" and "Grave" since they were the ones describing the scenario. If you hear the word grave emphasised in a speech it makes you think of something potentially dangerous which may help in getting and keeping an audience members attention. That's just one example but it just showed me I'll have to keep that in mind and just try to give a varied performance in order to engage or communicate everything properly.
Research:
Something I wanted to look at was the structure of the dialogue for example is it in any structured verse, like blank rhyming or prose. From reading the text with this is mind it doesn't contain any kind of concrete rhythmic structure to suggest the first two. There are no Iambic pentameters in it and none of the words rhyme or at least this is the case with my scene. I did think maybe like Shakespeare plays, the dialogue structure depends on the scene and the characters saying it but upon further research that isn't the case. So it seems as though the dialogue is written in Prose. Prose is language that follows no consistent structure but is written to have a natural flow like in a regular conversation. Even though this obviously uses a much older version of English, it's still written in the more casual manor of the time and doesn't big anyone up by making them speak in a more fancy structured verse type. It reflects the attitude that everyone is equal in these types of plays and isn't bigged up to more than they really are, these are real people and they're being mocked so that's what is portrayed and keeping the dialogue more down to earth and realistic is a good thing in order to do that.
A term that came up a couple times when reading up on the style was "Witty Prose". This is where it retains the prose structure but has the addition of focusing on trying to be funny and spontaneous
so the addition isn't with the structure, it's on the timing and manor of which it's delivered, how they're written. The characters with in the play are always trying to be on top of every thing and seem as though they are as important or the same status as everyone else and a way they go about this is being portrayed with a sense of humour/wit. Almost all the scenes seem to be a battle of wits. If you're someone who finds it difficult to understand this type of dialogue making it sound spontaneous may be quite a challenge although for now, it doesn't seem as though my scene has any focus on this with the exception of a couple lines like when I say "And though shalt see what haste I'll make to quit scores." That is a line with a heavy implication that he will do everything he can to her and is rather suggestive. It's a innuendo almost and it's said rather quickly after says her line. That again is just an example there are more like it and it's something to keep in mind, vocal variation is key to helping all of this become clear I don't think that can be stressed enough. There is nothing more boring than watching a Shakespeare or restoration play being performed in a bland manor and you have no idea what's going on so you have no idea what's going on and it's just a bunch of lavishly dressed people talking gibberish. If it's performed well though and everything is made clear then it can be legitimately entertaining and it's clearly a good style since it was so popular back in the day. A note we all got was to try and embrace the language, the last thing we should do is rush through it all. We should take our time with it, make everything clear and make it seem playful and fun. The point of these plays was to have fun so we must bring that across into our performance.
I will admit than at least initially, Restoration era dialogue seems harder to learn. Shakespeare dialogue when, we studied it had the advantage of mostly being structured so there was almost a rhythm to help with remembering them seemingly faster. This doesn't have that and the words still have the focused but the way they're arranged doesn't have much. This isn't a bad thing at all, if anything it can make it sound more down to earth which can be quite important to comedy and can make it more believable when portraying something funny. This simply means I'll have to try and get a greater understanding of my dialogue so it'll come to me more easily.
27/1/17:
Today was another rehearsal session in which we were meant to go through it detail, however we didn't get to due to problems with the cast but while it was quite an unproductive day, I still did get something out of it. When I got home I felt I hadn't done much during the day so I did a fair bit of research on the style to see if there was anything I missed. Overall I'm very glad I did since there a quite a few details that change the way I thought this was going to play out.
I found the name for the style very popular during the restoration era and the genre this play falls into. It's called "A comedy of manners" and is basically a style that focuses on satirising everyone it can through mockery of attitudes, the way they acted and the ridiculousness of everything. They did this to just be funny, it wasn't really ever seen as two harsh or discriminative since the rule was that everyone got mocked at some point and they were portrayed as uncaring, arrogant and easily manipulated morons. Everyone loved it and went to have fun. Since the era was everyone just indulging in what ever they wanted this seemed ideal to appeal to audiences, a good mockery of everyone. King Charles II even apparently loved the theatre and preferred it to be more fun rather than on the darker side. I have mentioned a couple of the features here since I'm aware of a couple but I needed to look it up further and here's what I found.
Features of the style:
- Huge amounts of innuendo or double-entendre filled dialogue. An example of this is in the second scene of our scene order in which Willmore says "Wou'd you give me leave to gather at your bush this idle month". He's flirting with a woman at this point and clearly making a reference to the fact he wants to have sex with her. That's just one example and there are a couple things that need be made clear. One thing is that the innuendos are never said explicitly, meaning they aren't spelled out and do retain their double meaning. An innuendo is rather pointless if it doesn't have an air of ambiguity to it. So it has to be said with a hint of another meaning and then most people will get it but there's still potential for some people to miss it. They're never said in a way that it's a punchline of a joke so that's it's impossible to miss and you could argue are reasonably subtle. This is something I quite like since it treats the audience intelligently while mocking them at the same time throughout the play and figuring it out for yourself adds to the fun of the experience and if it was spelled out it wouldn't be very entertaining.
- Very heightened characters. This means if a character is posh or a poor commoner then you will have no trouble working that out just from the way they act or talk. Most of the characters which are upper class express themselves by holding out one arm (usually their right) and holding the other behind their back which can suggest their status and their current feeling. The one I just listed would suggest being comfortable and generally in control where as if they had both or neither of their arms out it may seem like they are the lesser people of the situation trying to get attention or they are the people who aren't in control or of higher status, possibly even uncomfortable.
- Everyone is a target and made to look a fool. Everyone has at least one aspect to them that is flawed about them in order to bring out the comedy, whether it be how they look, talk, act or how manipulated or manipulative they can be. So my character Blunt is certainly a character that embodies a few of these qualities since the scene focuses on him being manipulated and made to look a fool for his naivety and not just his general attitude, which is still portrayed as rather up himself and attention seeking.
- Everyone is lavishly dressed and generally heavily made up. Everyone is made to look great but also some characters are overly dressed such as my character archetype, the fop. Typical men would wear clothes on the darker side of the spectrum but fops generally wear much brighter clothes in order for them to stand out and indicate their personality subconsciously.
- A feature that is common to restoration comedies, is the use of "Asides" or "Converse" as it's often called. Asides are where the character will directly talk to the audience to deliver their inner thoughts. It's like an internal soliloquy although it is actually directed at someone, in this case, whoever is watching. Whenever someone is having an aside moment, it is never so that the audience can directly answer. If a question is asked it's usually rhetorical or they're asking themselves but the audience doesn't answer despite it being directed at them. They do often contrast, an example I can think of is suspicion; the character will act casually in front of whoever they are suspicious of and then turn to the audience during an aside and then explain why and how they came to feel that way, possibly with some humorous comment about it.
- The characters often speak with overly articulated accents. This is done in an attempt to make the characters seem ridiculous/pompous. The way I see blunt as of now is like that, he sees himself as a high ranking member of society so he would make his voice sound the best he possibly could, he may give it a more masculine tone to try and impress the ladies (Although that doesn't work for him) .
A way I've tried to make this come across in my scene during this session was to make my body as big as possible, not in height but in width, so that he looked broader or at the very least having a very confident posture. When I walk in with Georgia I made sure my right arm was stretched out and that my left arm was behind my back so that blunt would look as though he's comfortable even though he isn't internally. This should help contrast with an aside when I work on those.
Something that came to mind when thinking about how the audience's loved everyone to be mocked was "schadenfreude" which means basically means finding joy in other peoples misfortune/failure, which most believe is the root of all comedy in some regard. When you some it up it can sound sadistic but really it can apply to people getting a comeuppance which is partially the case here since he just wants to sleep with this woman to better his ego and when he finally thinks he'll get what he wants, it doesn't go his way and it's surprise and disappointment that is funny. I bring this up because I feel that is an element I really need to bring across because the scene does need a consistent and fun tone throughout it to stick close to the style and that is how it's written.
I feel that if I don't big him up so that he's so naive and so confident in himself, his downfall maybe won't contrast or be a surprise to him to be funny. So making the comeuppance seem all the more deserved for blunt may be a greater pay off in a more entertaining way because if we saw a really boring man get manipulated it may come across as more sympathetic than funny so to give him that arrogant stupid side will help improve the comedy. I'll just have to make it look like he loves himself or at the very least wants to make it look like he does.
Since I found out it's more to express the secretive side of them rather than their confident side, this means the initial plan I had for my asides doesn't really work. I for some reason assumed the asides would be more loud and vibrant than the external version. This isn't right since the exterior character is basically putting on an act to make everyone think he's better than them, it doesn't work but it's still his intention. So I may have to make it so that he is acting towards her but then showing how much more pathetic or naive he can be in his asides, possibly by lowering the energy level or changing the vocal tones, I'm not to sure yet I feel I still need to experiment with that.
Links:
http://www.ealasaid.com/fan/rochester/ramble.html
http://www.gradesaver.com/the-rover/study-guide/character-list#blunt
https://prezi.com/kqk23b1pfm-y/restorationcomedy-of-manners-the-rover/
http://www.thedramateacher.com/comedy-of-manners/
http://www.backstage.com/news/acting-in-restoration-comedy/
http://johnhbartlett.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/restoration-and-18th-century-acting.html
http://www.participations.org/volume%203/issue%201/3_01_lewcock.htm
http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/caustic
http://www.gradesaver.com/the-rover/study-guide/summary
http://www.gradesaver.com/the-rover/study-guide/summary-act-iii-scene-ii
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