Epsom Downs Rehearsal: Blog 5

4/4/17:

Today was a session where we continued to block both physical theatre sequences. We had Adam in to help with process and it went quite well. I was helped with the quick developed of my character in this scene, who is now refereed to as "Smoking man ". I was asked to try out making my body more tight and to wrap my arm and leg around myself. I was also told how to hold the cigarette I'm using, now i'm holding it with my index finger and my thumb rather than my index finger and middle finger. These few small additions have actually changed this lineless side character quite drastically and now he seems to stand out more and probably even more when we pick a costume for him.

A great piece of advise was to treat the rehearsal period as a time for experimentation. As mentioned in my feedback from the group I'm often too critical of my own ideas. This fits in with what I was told about myself last week. Thankfully I seem to be taking this on board already to some capacity so it's pretty good so far.

A key point for today was working on the transitions of the racing sequence. I have to hold the pole and move with it, keeping it at my waist while everyone else moves differently. This took many tries to get right and looked a tad messy at the beginning.

This was a pretty relaxed yet still productive session. I feel that i was very focused throughout and was able to quickly understand and pull of most tasks required such as the shuffling with Georgia or moving through most transitions. I was pretty quick at doing what I was asked and me and everyone else were fairly professional with having to do certain moments many times. The only real issue with today was that at a few points I forgot my lines in the racing sequence and this affected the pace which was a shame since it would go from a really nice transition to absolute silence. So even though it's only three lines I have to refresh myself on the cues.



5/4/17:


Today was quite a productive day. We have more or less finished the physical theatre racing scenes but incorporated Becky into them properly now. They went very well when running through them and I didn't forget any of my lines at all, they just came naturally which is a very good thing. Also the transitions seem very smooth now, the one with me and Georgia shuffling across the stage with Logan to get a sense of speed being my personal favorite. You can see the amount of time we've poured into these scenes because we've ran through them a lot of times and I'm glad it's showing.

Me and Chloe got to rehearse our final scene. The part of that we rehearsed thoroughly was the moments where she hits me with the sign and the moments where we slap each other. It was decided that we would use no stage trickery or stage combat, we'd actually just hit each other. The part where I get hit with the sign was pretty difficult to do because I was anticipating the hit, meaning you could see me getting ready to get hit by her. This took a few tries but I got there and feel it looks pretty good since the hit wasn't as hard as I was expecting. It's just the first one we had to improve since the rest of the hits my character is obviously aware and I'm allowed to see coming when she goes to swing it.

Something I need to bring across in this scene is that regret I've done before. The point where he tells her that he's sold his train ticket is the moment where he confesses that he lost to his urges. This would be a great place to use a dramatic pause and let the moment just play out. If hesitation is shown then it'll be all the more impactful.

The moment after that where I stop her slapping me again we had to do a fair bit. Now I have to catch the hand and comfort her when she calms downs. There is an aspect of this moment I have to keep in mind, the fact that she's still angry and could hit me at any moment because I just stopped her from relapsing. I think I'm going to have a look of anticipation on my face and the trust in her to not hit me comes back gradually over the course over about 20 seconds. This whole scene is brilliant in the sense that she's been the one keeping me on track so now he has to help her in return. It's a nice way narratively to end their story arc. and keeping all this in mid should make for a really nice moment.

I'd say I was very well focused especially during the rehearsal of the last scene, both me and Chloe had to reset very quickly several times in order to get hit even more times and I think we both took it very well. We didn't mind being hit over and over again and I even got cut by the sign but wee both just kept going. I did help Chloe with figuring out how she should stop hitting me and throw the sign to the floor. I basically said and showed her that it needs to be a bit slower and to throw the sign as if she's just given up and that whatever they were trying to do is over.




Conclusion:

Today we had our first real run in the theatre and I'm playing up Mr Tillotson overall. Other than seeming a tad too quiet at points I feel that the tragedy of this man is coming through fairly well. Doing all the research I did on how his mind would work gave me several moments throughout the process where I just knew exactly how he would react to a situation. I feel the backstory I gave him really fleshed him out and gave me far more perspective on him as a person that it would have otherwise.

I feel the same way with Hugh and the Jockey as well. I'm glad I looked the union/labour related information to give Hugh a rather complex and understandable motivation. If I had not looked into the dispute I would've been very bland and nothing in terms of a aggression or frustration would've come across.

In terms of the performance style which is naturalism, epic theatre and physical theatre (well, this version anyway) and I think we've incorporated all these elements fairly well and they flow pretty smoothly. I think that during moments of naturalism (such as Mr Tillotson) and moments of epic theatre (Jockey) I made an effort to make them different from one-another, they both had different energy levels an different reactions from the audience. As I said, I may be a bit quieter when being naturalistic but that's something I can fix with in the next run.

So overall, there has been quite a few very useful developments throughout this rehearsal and I feel my time spent practicing and research has gone to good use, this is looking to be a great show and I can't wait to show off what we've all worked hard to achieve.

Epsom Downs Rehearsal: Blog 4

22/3/17:

Today there were two interesting developments for me, one being in the rehearsal itself and one in the session afterwards where we had to critique each other on how we are in rehearsals.

During the rehearsal, we were working on a scene we're devising which incorporates some light physical theatre and we had to think of some idiosyncrasies and I couldn't really think of any in the short time we were given, I was making some up as we went along and I came up with 2 movements. The first being movement where I point at the ground when we stop walking as if I'm saying "Shall we preach here?". The second is where I rub my hand across my head as if I'm releasing a little bit of tension. I felt this was fitting since he's in an environment that he knows he's weak to, he's only not betting at that moment because Miss Motrom is with him and he has to resist the urge to gamble so showing that aspect of him through gestures seemed ideal.

After doing this I felt that I really that the character needs to be given a nervous energy. As I said he is on edge a fair bit and is resisting a big urge and may have an element of withdrawal or a visual indicator that he's trying to repress it all. This is quite important to his character especially with the backstory I've created for him. An idea I have is that he may look around a lot and almost be shifty or that he's trying not to notice certain things that he loved before. He could be looking away from the bookies and the track itself. This all applies to the everything before he loses Miss Motrom.


The other part of today was having a session in which we gave construction feedback on each others rehearsal attitudes. Overall my feedback was fairly positive saying that I'm never late, I'm generally enthusiastic, I show a lot of research and analysis of both my character and background of the play. I'm generally quite committed, I have a confident presence on stage, I'm pretty good at applying my findings to my characters and I show some good variation with those characters. Those notes made me quite happy but there were some faults I was given.

- The first and most obvious is that I can lose focus sometimes and talk to people when I could be doing other things such as line running or when a scene is being rehearsed by others.

- One is that I tend to either over think or over work myself. I do agree with this to an extent, meaning that when I have to make up an aspect of my character, I often find it difficult to improvise and have to think about it instead of just going with the flow. I'm definitely more of a planner rather than an improviser. Such as when I thought of how to act aggressive as Hugh a couple of week ago, I had the idea but held back anyway and didn't try it out properly since I subconsciously thought I would go too far.

- One note I had for myself was that I don't contribute enough. I often have ideas but just don't want to say them for various reason. I had an idea for a scene transition with Miss Mortrom involving when we go off and come back on for our preaching scene but I didn't want to suggest it just in case it was rubbish.


Looking back at myself over the rehearsal period, I would say that I agrre with most of these claims, both good and bad. There are a few things for me to do to improve in the future when it comes to rehearsing:

- Try not talking to people unless it is to do with the work.If someone tries to start a conversation with me about anything other than the work, try to wrap it up quickly.

- Try to improvise more and suggest any ideas that come to mind. Any idea is worth hearing just in case it can affect the production positively

- Try not to worry about anything to do with my character and only focus on the things that can help me with the performance such as the research I've done and anything to develop my character.

Those are some simple goals I want to try out. As for the session before, I think I was OK but with the idea example I mentioned, I definitely need to improve a tad.



23/3/17:

Today we ran act one from start to finish and it went pretty well in a few ways:

When rehearsing I didn't go on stage with my script at all and required almost no prompting, that was only for one or two sentences that I needed the beginning of, I knew my lines very well and feel I have reached my target for learning act one, however something that I'm not all there with yet is my cues, there's still a couple that I get mixed up but that just means I need to go over it more.

I felt that I was a little more focused today as well, there were quite few point where I had to stop myself saying something and generally listened a little more. I'm not saying I was terrible before but today I was definitely better today

I wanted to do some additional research into compulsive gambling so I read an article which contained a story about a woman who had a compulsive gambling addiction and it had very similar qualities to my backstory for Mr Tillotson, especially in regards to the escalation the addiction, requiring more and more money to get full satisfaction out of it. reading the research into how these people act has really made me want to portray him as sympathetic. I've said before there is tragedy to him but the fall from grace needs to be more apparent although I do not want to take away the light hearted moments from him.

A note I was given was to think about what is at stake for any character I have, particularly Hugh. The thing that Immediately came to mind was his job. He mentions, "If we don't fight, we'll get kicked out of the yard" implying he's scared of losing his job if it isn't settled. This also fits with what I thought before about him not wanting Jocks around in case a strike was called on. He disagrees with Jocks so he has to fight him other wise he loses his job and can't find work anywhere else because of Pearce's influence but if a strike is called on and he doesn't participate, he'll lose it anyway so he's in a difficult situation but all he wants is for Jocks to be gone. Trying this out seems to give him more of a sense of urgency and like what he's talking about actually matters. Trying it out the second time did improve it quite a bit.



24/317:


Something I'm happy I got to try out was my nervous energy for Mr Tillotson. I put it in the scene where I frantically ask Katrina "Have you seen a religious lady go in that toilet?". That really influenced the rest of the scene, I paced up and down holding and nervously tapping my scene thinking that I could relapse at any moment since she's not her to help me. It really added to the moment for me and when I actually asked her it was kind of funny, it showed a real moment of desperation and the beginning of his weak side.

I did use my script a few times today for some act 2 scenes, it's not very well memorised yet although I'm getting there. I've still got a couple days to go to reach my target date to memorise it, so this will be my focus for the next couple of days. I am happy to say though I'm making progress with the fast list reading, I managed to do the first two thirds of it just from memory. The recording idea really is helping to get it done faster.

I did notice I need to mark my script a little more thoroughly since I forgot some of my exits or I had to keep checking to see where they were. Other than that though I feel today I was very well focused and am showing some progress with my characters in a good way.



27/3/17:

I had a small idea I really want to try out. When I've finished doing my round off of the horses names, I could do an action to show I'm enjoying it like some kind of high. A comparison I can think of is a scene from "Breaking Bad" where Walter has just confronted some drug dealers, goes back to his car and releases his high by hitting his steering wheel. I could do a similar action like punching the air and saying "YES!" something to show for a brief moment that I've relapsed and I love it. I could also act as though it's a moment where I've shown what I feel but then I have to hide it, I've noticed how I'm, acting so I stop although probably still have a little smirk on my face.



29/3/17:

Today was an attempt to run through the first act although we kept stopping to try and improve certain aspects of it. Today I did have quite a few ideas for small moments in my scenes and today I actually suggest them:

The first was to tap Jocks on the head in an aggressive manner when calling him Kemosabe. Since he feels he may lose his job he wants to get across the seriousness of the situation and also fulfill his urge to hit jocks to some capacity. It also makes him seem more imposing and serious than he did before. The idea worked when we tried it out and now there's more tension and aggression in the scene than there was before.

I suggested that Max doesn't hit my head when he does, every time he does it, he does it so hard I forget my next line. I suggested that he do it after I say "Can't have reds in the yard" and then as he says shut up, he can hit me. It doesn't say he slaps me in the script so changing it to this seems more fitting and actually gives him more reason to slap me since I keep talking. Before the slap seemed a bit more random.

Also we had to block a moment Chloe and I forgot about, where I go to grab her hand after hearing about what happened to her. I have to grab her hand but it's meant to be very awkward. I thought we were doing it too fast and that it should linger a bit however it seems as though it should be a very natural grab of the hand followed by a quick rejection from her. After the session I thought that I could be just trying to comfort her and maybe gesture towards her suggesting that it's OK and I'll help her. I do have to rehearse with Chloe some more since its awkward and doesn't feel right. It feels pretty forced if anything.

Sally said we have to go through the scenes (especially monologues) and visualise the things we're describing. It may help to externalise it. Also i'm thinking of setting a goal to go through my script and consider my goal and motivation for almost everything I do, I already have my detailed back story so it might not be difficult. I thought about doing this after the next thing i'll talk about. It again, might help to externalise.

Today I feel I was actually pretty productive since, I didn't really speak to anyone outside of the scene, I was overall pretty focused, displayed patience and I suggested my ideas and they did benefit the flow of the scene and helped to bring out the intended emotions a little better. There were a couple issues though, I did forget a couple of my cues despite knowing the lines themselves so I need to practice them a little more. The other was that the scene was very slow paced although this may have been due to the aforementioned cue forgetting. This scene is supposed to have a slightly tense feel to it since it's about and argument and it feels too slow to represent that.

31/3/17:


We also ran through the most of act 2 and I thought about how the Jockey and how he should act. His dialogue is just him explaining the feeling he gets when he walks out to start the day. I feel that the way he's explaining this may sound like he wants to impress them.

The way I've decided to play him for now is a little like Jim Carrey from "Ace Ventura". Someone who's very full of themselves and wants to be better off than he is. I get the feeling he really doesn't like his horse since he calls it a bastard when it interrupts his short speech about the joys of going over the downs. The fact he says "You wade through the bullshit" implies he really doesn't like where he is. When I talk about my diaphragm, I'm going to hit it to show how hard it is, or at least what he thinks it is. Doing this is really a way to differentiate him from the other two as well as give him a more comedic personality which is what his dialogue seems to be implying. It also adds a sense of energy to my performance. Trying it out went pretty well and I intend to keep him like this.

Today's run of act 1 (Which was a speed run for blocking and line learning) went very well, I didn't forget any lines although there were one or two moments I stuttered for a second due to that we were going quite fast. Other than that I was pretty focused and we all got the act done fairly quickly and efficiently.




2/4/17:

While rehearsing the script today, I wondered if, during their last scene, Mr Tillotson and Miss Motrom actually give up their faith or if they've given up staying away from their addictions. I say "That's no good, religion" and "I tried to get it in me, the manger and the tomb. I've just ended up punctured all over" This seems to heavily imply that he never really believed it at all and that he just uses it as a means to help himself. Initially the wording of everything in this scene felt like there was some ambiguity to it, however trying it again it seems pretty clear that they (or at the very least Mr Tillotson) have given up with believing in god or just stopped pretending. They both seemed to clearly renounce their faith. This fits in with what I had speculated before about him really only using it for help and needing the assistance of someone who would be strict enough to keep him on the right path. He even tries to keep her from giving in, which when you add that bit of information onto everything, gives him more motivation for wanting her to stop and stay on the right path. If she gives up then he has no one to help him.

The other angle is if they still give into their addictions. This is something that is never answered, so my guess is that they did give in eventually. Mr Tillotson gave in as soon as he was alone and Miss Motrom gave into her urge to drink although she did get to because I knock the drink out of her hand. The ending as a whole seems a tad lighthearted and suggests that they may be OK but since they gave in so easily I feel they would go through cycles of giving in and relapse at least a few times. They may have hope when they leave Epsom but I feel they may have given in and maybe tried stopping again at some point down the line.

I wanted to see if this was actually plausible so I looked up what can cause a relapse from addiction and it confirmed that people who are in environments that remind them of using or the reasons why they got addicted are likely to be tempted. The two of them openly admit that they will be tempted when they try and get back home. For example Mr Tillotson says "I don't know if I'll make it, they'll be crap games spilling out from the fair all over there." This is in reference to the ways he would be able to gamble with the people that hang out around the area. The fact he admits he's doubtful, he just had a relapse as well the fact he has and will be surrounded by opportunities to gamble doesn't imply that he would be able to resist for very long. So going by some psychological evidence, he is likely to give up.

Thinking about this has made the character a little more fleshed out and gives more purpose to the moment in question. When he says to Miss Motrom "Let's have a prayer", I'm going to play it as though it's a desperate attempt to help himself by helping her. I do still believe that he cares for her as a person and as someone who has gone through bad times, he does sympathise with her a lot and wants her to get better. Doing this is his best chance to keep himself away from it all and he's messed it up by giving in and potentially ruining it forever. He certainly regrets doing it and tries to make it right for that brief moment.



Links:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-brain-gets-addicted-to-gambling/

https://www.promises.com/articles/addiction/common-relapse-triggers/

https://counsellorsam1.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/632/

https://www.theguardian.com/observer/osm/story/0,,482474,00.html

Epsom Downs Rehearsal: Blog 3

14/3/17:

Today I thought it would be a good time to get started on creating the background for Mr Tilliotson. I will be working with the information given in the text and form my backstory around that in order to make him more three dimensional and make his motivations in scenes clearer to me. Something we were meant to make up was an object that our character holds dear. An idea I had was that of a letter. The letter is from Jim's wife explaining the reasons why she has left. There were a few reasons something like this came to mind as an idea:

- Mr Tillotson sells anything he can that's worth any money so it only made sense to give him an item that is worth nothing except in sentimental value. I was thinking of giving him an item worth something but it's so dear he can't sell it such as a necklace belonging to his wife or something along those lines, but that didn't really make much sense to me since he has sold everything else, including things that aren't his.

- He comments to Miss Motrom that he sold his children. I initially didn't know if he was speaking literally or if he meant something else by it. After a while and when I thought up the letter, I decided that he didn't and that he lost them by some other means. My idea is that his addiction got so bad to the point where he was selling his children's possessions or vital items in the house just to get a bit of money to gamble with. He was caught and then his wife left soon after but left him a letter explaining why. He uses the term "sold/sell" since it was his greed and lust for money that led to him losing them.

After thinking that up I thought it may not make sense since he says the incident with the rolls Royce is where he decided to stop gambling and seek help with religion. However there was a simple solution tot that after thinking about it for a minutes. I can just place that after his wife leaving him and make the incident at Roberto's derby the final straw which pushes him to stop and seek help. If anything that fits and just confirms how severe his addiction is, it solidifies everything he says in his monologue near the beginning.

I still haven't decided what kind of background he's come from yet, whether he was well off financially or not. My thoughts are that either way,m the tragedy of the situation is still there although if he was on the slightly more wealthy side of the spectrum then it may create a bigger contrast for him and a greater motivation for wanting to change.



15/3/17:

Today I continued trying to develop Mr. Tillotson and decided on a few specific elements of his background.

Firstly, how old he is? His age is never stated in the play but I feel he has to be old enough to have this addiction slowly escalate over a long time but young enough to believably still be learning how to cope with that, so it can give him a slight degree of inexperience and as if he's still weak and isn't making much progress. If he was older it may seem as though he would've have already gone through this which I wouldn't really believe and I just find the idea of a younger, slightly more naive man going through this to be more interesting and possibly relatable. So I've come to the conclusion that he is 34 and was born on the 26th of may 1943, 34 years before the date of this play which is June 3rd, 1977.

I decided on where he grew up. He lived with his family at 2 Orchard drive, Ashtead in surrey and went to the primary school there. The main reason I chose this kind of area is because it seems as though it's an area where he'd be financially well off and it's not that far from Epsom downs so it's a place he would realistically go to at some point to spark the initial craving for gambling. Also the fact he goes from growing up financially secure to what he ends up as would create more tragedy for me to portray in that first speech.

He first went to Epsom downs when he was 18 for a friends birthday and he put a small bet on even though it didn't thrill him all that much, it was only when he went back a couple more times it started to feel exciting to him.

He moved to a cheap flat in Lensbury way after losing his house to pay off the incident at Roberto's derby and that flat is only a couple miles from St Augustine's church of England church so it would be very likely that he'd be aware of and could have easy access to. The fact he could walk to it quite easily provides some convenience to help him get on the right track. These addresses/places are real and geographically correlate with the location of Epsom. The area is also close to where Miss Motrom Lives so they could easily see each-other if they wished.



16/3/17:

Today I developed my character's back story a little more adding by a few more specifics to him but also researched the psychology of compulsive gambling. I feel that may help me get into his head a little more, see if it backs up any assumptions I've made or can give me new ideas for how he should act.


I made up a few additional details such as:

- He was close to his parents and older sister, his dad was around since he was never drafted into world war II since he was considered too old and out of shape to be even considered. This meant he had a full family growing up and had a relativly good life. His father was an accountant so they were reasonably wealthy

- He has two favorite songs, one quality and the other he remembers fondly. The former is "I'm into Something Good" by Herman's hermits. This is a song that he just finds very catchy and memorable. it came out when he was about 21 and he's loved it ever since they heard it. The other song is "Roses are Red" by Bobby Vinton. This is a song that they both loved when they were dating and I even thought of them having a rendition of it playing at their wedding.


I was thinking if whether or not I could incorporate the letter into a scene such as when I scramble to get some money or betting slips out, I could find it and look at it briefly to give him a moment of conflict. I'm not overall familiar with those later scenes yet but I want to see if I can or just think if it would even work because while it would be very good for me, it may be too ambiguous and out of place for the audience.



Research:

Today I also did some research into the psychology of compulsive gambling or addiction in general. I had made assumptions about gambling addiction before because of the way it's depicted in media. What I found seems to back up my claims. I found an article from Psychology Today detailing the condition.

The basic psychology of the the addiction (as well as others such as drugs and alcohol of which the effects are very similar) is as follows. A chemical called dopamine is the chemical released whenever you do anything pleasurable or exciting, that could mean anything such as eating, sex or even gambling and drugs. It is released and if enough of it is released it can create a craving for more of it. However if you do something that releases a lot of dopamine, you have to wait a a long time for it to replenish, otherwise the next high time you do that activity, it won't be as satisfying or fulfilling. It may even just intentionally give out less since you've experienced it so much. This explains why so many gamblers make bigger and bigger bets as time goes on. They want to recapture the first time they did it. This makes perfect sense for Mr Tillotson. My initial thought was that he probably always puts generally the same amount of money on the races and that he only started getting really serious not too long before everything went down. However with this in mind the most logical decision for his addicted mind to make is to to just slowly up his bets every time.


The fact that his wife left him due to the addiction reaching dangerous levels is a very common occurrence, it can also result in people losing their jobs or their homes, which does happen to him in his backstory, both in the script and what I've made up.

The fact he also doesn't stop until it almost kills him is fairly realistic too, the article says "Unfortunately this realization normally only surfaces when a problem gambler hits rock bottom". People like this generally stay in a state of denial before reaching the bottom and finally trying to stop. That's how I feel it went down with Mr Tillotson and it's even confirmed in the script.

The article claims that for most male addicts, the addiction begging in adolescence, so me thinking that he got started around 18 or 19 was a fairly accurate estimate. This again means that by the time he's 30 or so that's when the addiction reaches it's peek and results in something horrible happening, if he were any older it would seem as though his escalation to that point takes too long.

A major symptom is that of becoming irritable when not gambling but thinking about it and I've definitely considered that for when he's with Miss Motrom, he's certainly uncomfortable while at the tracks since he knows he isn't allowed to bet and if he does it could end badly.

it explains why he would steal other peoples things to get more money to bet with. It's a very common thing that quite a few people have ended up in prison for.


17/3/17:

Today I took part in a hot seating exercise in which I had to explain the story of the letter Mr. Tillotson has and answer some questions about my character. I explained my backstory pretty well and it seemed to get a good reaction. I had thought up the backstory thoroughly, or so I thought. There were a couple of questions that hadn't occurred to me before and they were:

- Why did I get into religion? - The answer was simple, religion is often a place to turn to for recovering addicts since it has strict rules to follow for whatever their promised reward by although most people like this seem to follow it for self betterment.

- Why do I preach? - The most natural and logical thing that came to me was the idea of him wanting to help people. He knows how addictive it can be to weak minded people. His preaching scene with Miss Motrom is his attempt to stop other people making the same mistakes he did, whether or not using religion is the right thing is something he, himself is unsure about but it can get the job done.

- What is my relationship with Miss Motrom? - My relationship with her late in the play isn't too hard since we seem to get along and I show that I care for her but I didn't know how they were when initially meeting. I don't get the impression that they ever disliked each-other since they had a similar goal and working together would be ideal for them so I felt they've always had respect for each-other. I don't see anything romantic between them but they certainly are close in some capacity.

We rehearsed the Hugh and Jocks scene again and I still feel he isn't confrontational or angry enough. It's certainly more so than last time but I think while performing it, I was scared of being a tad over the top and unintentionally dialed back on the anger which didn't work that well. It's weird, I feel I'm starting to understand Hugh but I just need to experiment with how he acts a bit more. I have an emotional state for his as I've mentioned before but I just haven't performed it properly yet, it's still fairly downplayed and bland.

I was confused while performing because I had no idea what the line "Say you, bad, little Indian" meant. This made me think that Jocks is supposed to actually be Indian since Hugh also calls him Kemosabe. I looked up what that meant and apparently it's what Tonto calls the ranger in "The Lone Ranger". The only conclusion that I can come to is that he's saying it to assert some dominance in this scene since I believe in "The Lone Ranger" Tonto calls him this when explaining something or talking down to him, so from that perspective it would make sense.

A small development to my first scene with Miss Motrom scene is that I now put the sign down to give my monologue. Trying this out definitely allowed me to be more expressive. I noticed that through my body language I conveyed the sense of frustration and regret I had mentioned before, certainly better than I had previously. I'm able to show the moments where I'm remembering money by acting as if I'm holding it and then other moments where I can show my tragedy and frustration with my situation. So overall the speech went pretty well today with what I could remember and added quite a bit of passion to it.




18/3/17:

Today I  had the idea of recording my Mr tillostson fast speech to memorise it faster. I usually find I learn things faster when listening to them rather than reading them. It certainly took a while to record since I was reading it into the microphone and kept messing up but when it was done, I started listening to it over and over. I'm more or less certain this will help me learn it faster but we'll see.

Also, Chloe and I rang each-other to see if our backstories didn't have any glaring contradictions between them. Thankfully our stories seem to intertwine very well and the only things that really needed to be changed were the addresses of the churches and and make our houses closer together. I was surprised they synced up as well as they did.

Thinking about incorporating the letter again, I've come to the conclusion that to show it to the audience wouldn't make any sense since it's never mentioned and would be too vague for them to piece together what it is. I'm still keeping that back story element since I feel it really does suit him and adds some really relatable motivation to him, that's what's helping me be more expressive with him but showing it in the play wouldn't work unfortunately



Links:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/gambling-disorder-compulsive-gambling-pathological-gambling

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200411/addiction-pay-attention

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/the-psychology-of-gambling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BTGgCEFuQw

Epsom Downs Rehearsal: Blog 2

I have been given the parts of Mr. Tillotson, Hugh, Jockey, Drunk 2 and a Lester Piggott fan in this play.


1/3/17:

Today I got to do my first scene scene as Hugh. He is a stable lad who is having a big disagreement with Jocks and going by the stables rules they have to have a boxing match to settle the dispute. This was my first day of trying out playing him and when doing it I really didn't know how he should be played, as in if he is aggressive or worried. It became clear very quickly that I am the aggressor.

A note I was given was to make him like a private school boy with a lot of aggression, so very well spoken and sneering or conniving. I tried it out but it honestly didn't feel right to me. I pointed out that the script even suggests he is isn't like that. For example the text says "You really are a little red, in't you" which suggests he's more common. When I tried it, it did add to the contrast but it made it seem as though it was a clash of social classes rather than two people of the same class disagreeing on something which is also just more interesting to me. Also saying "In't you" in a posh voice sounds very off. Trying him out as common seemed a bit more natural, even though I don't exactly understand the character yet. Something I need to do is look into what his motivation is and what the dispute is actually about. The only thing I'm certain of as of now is that their political ideologies are involved in some way since he calls him a "Red" as an insult, which refers to anyone with a labour/socialist view point. After asking. it seems as though Hugh is a blue/conservative which would definitely explain the clash since they're two parties that have generally had heavily contrasting policies.  This will help to make his aggression more understandable and easier to bring out. As of now it's not coming across very well and I seem a tad too calm for the situation so it needs some work. I'm glad I got to try him out.


2/3/17:

I got to try out my first scene as Mr Tillotson. He is a compulsive gambler who has turned to religion in what I assume is an attempt to change his life style. The scene is with Miss Motrom, and I deliver my monologue detailing the tipping point where I went from being a compulsive gambling addict to turning to religion.

My first impression is that he isn't a bad person, he's just a man who got too addicted to something and it back fired on him. He has no intent to hurt anyone, his addiction just gets the better of him. So I feel there's potentially a lot of tragedy to him, With that in mind though I didn't bring it across today, mainly due to the paragraphs being quite long and hard to read at points. Today as a first try was bland as usual so this means I have to try and bring across a man who's got almost nothing left, someone who's not what he used to be. Something else I'm thinking of is giving him a strong tone of regret throughout his speech, as if he's looking back in retrospect and thinking it was incredibly stupid despite the fact he liked doing it and would probably do it again.

We ran through that a couple of times and it was very slow paced when trying it. Something I will have to do is pick up the pace a fair bit to maintain the audiences interest because the events outlined in the speech are quite tragic and the fact that it's seemingly self inflicted makes it all the more worse. I do see a lot of potential in him as a character and from the first read we did, he's definitely the most prominent and developed of the characters I have. He is the character I will look into the most. I want to look into what he may be thinking in these scenes. For example when he's gone through these moments of reckless gambling, what is going through his head? I find the psychology of it quite interesting so I will research what people in his situation often go through in order to understand him a bit more.


Research: 

I looked more into the political dispute between Hugh and jocks to try and contexualise it. Something I found out was that the Labour government were in power from 1974-1979, meaning they were in power for both the stable lads strike mentioned in the play and during the play itself.

Something I found was that there was a dramatic increase in worker's strikes during the 1970's, especially when Labour was in power. Worker's unions were becoming more a common practice and they were given more power than they had before. This lead to the unions sometimes abusing their power and going on strike fairly often. During the time this play takes place, the unions were in negotiations to have more freedom to make demands to their employers rather than the government. This was done so it would put less strain on the Labour party themselves. Things got so bad at points that a period of the 1970's was named the "Winter of Discontent" were strikes were so rampant.

This is a matter that was heavily satirised in the 1971 film "Carry On at Your Convenience", in which the workers of a factory are constantly forced to strike by their union leader who keeps making very petty and unreasonable complaints/demands. The strikes did have some people who didn't want to get involved or thought they were too frequent and petty but were forced to strike or lose there jobs otherwise. This is where I think Hugh fits in, he mentions to Mr Pierce "(Jocks) Thinks all the horses should go on strike" and that "We can't have red's in the yard". This seems to heavily imply that Hugh isn't in favour of going on strike and that having someone who supports the Labour government would be a bad influence to everyone else.  I get the feeling Hugh might not think his job is perfect, but is good enough and he can't give it up and waste time doing something he doesn't agree with. Looking up and clarifying what the dispute could be about was actually quite interesting and gives him a bit more motivation for what he's doing. With this perspective in mind I feel I may add in some moments of him looking fed up since Jocks may have talked about the strike or mentioned his political beliefs and Hugh made an assumption and got annoyed. It something I will try and get in unless it gets overshadowed by the aggression but I'll give it a go.




7/3/17:


We did a basic blocking of the preaching scene for Miss Motrom and I. I have to stand on a box and deliver the speech in a way that sounds off. This is specified in the script. I'm certainly not experienced with preaching so I feel the unnatural delivery was ironically natural. It came across as though I was inexperienced and like I was emulating a typical reverend or religious stereotype. This is a good thing. I feel I could probably go a bit further with it and add little moments and movements to it, since I feel it's fairly dull and doesn't bring across any small comedic potential. I was thinking that during the part where she takes over doing the preaching I can do something other than just stand there. If I did that, it would look flat and it would be a visual bore to the audience. I'm not sure what I'd do because I have the potential to go overboard and take attention away from her, which isn't good since she's the one who's talking.

My first impression of the jockey is that he seems to be a fairly comedic character, especially with how I'm supposed to walk on my knees while playing him. That idea alone is probably enough to get a laugh but since he's got so little time on stage, that I feel he needs to make an impression on the audience with the 5 or 6 lines that he has. In the first scene he just comes out on his knees, tells the audience about his routine in detail and then rides off.

A point of confusion for me today was that when playing the Jockey, I didn't know whether or not he was talking to the audience, himself or the others in the scene. I found it jarring at first that he spoke to the audience since I thought no one else did it. I remembered though that Lord Rack does it and then the derby stakes and the derby course do it later on so I came to the conclusion that when he starts with his "I walk out into the ring speech", he's talking to the audience although there are one or two points where he does address the others in the scene. In retrospect of today, the performance I gave seemed a bit confused since I was going back and forth on whether or not to speak to the audience or to myself/the other characters. I know what I'm doing now but I seemed directionless earlier although I still feel I can play it up more.

Something I have to keep in mind though is the actual style of the play which as far as I was aware was naturalism. I looked up what style the play is to try and figure out it's key elements. The page I found says that it's "an epic version of a naturalistic slice-of-life play" so it seems to imply that it is a mixture of both epic theatre and naturalism. Mainly naturalism because in most dialogue scenes people aren't really doing anything to Brechtian. They often engage in what seems to be a fairly naturalistic conversation, they don't constantly look forward when talking and seem as if it's intention is to show actual emotion. The play certainly has some strange elements such as the horses being played by people and the fact some people do talk to the audience. So the description I found is very fitting. It's a combination of the two styles, the acting in conversations is generally slightly heightened naturalism and there are scenes of epic theatre such as the Jockey's scenes. Since it's a play showing how several different people and social classes interact with the same event, it would probably want to get the differences and contrasts across in a fairly easy manner. Epic theatre is doesn't want people to be immersed in the story or world, it wants the audience to be aware it's watching a play and get it's message across by presenting it and making them think about it. I will admit I'm a tad skeptical at this point about it being this style. It's interesting and certainly possible but I'm just not sure if it's the plays intention. With certain moments such as characters giving tragic monologues, it seems like it could go either way to be honest. My guess as of now is probably more towards that it wants you to sympathise and feel for these characters but as I go along I could discover I was wrong.

There are a few aspects of my performance I feel I need to work on for everyone:

- Pace, since when I rehearse I can slow the pace of a scene down and we can't get a good feel of what it would be like. So try and be faster when possible.
- Delivery - This is basically paying attention to every aspect of how my lines are coming across such as whether or not the emotional intention is there or if I can critique it to make it better.
- Characterization - This is where I make sure all the distinctions between my characters are there and they don't blend together at all.



8/3/17:

For me, today was mainly spent on the blocking of the derby racing sequence. This scene basically involves about 7 of us behind a bar/rail, which moves with us around the stage since we're holding it. This shows a progression of time and how many races have occurred throughout the day. We have a pole that splits into 3 segments to use as the barrier. This was quite an issue since anytime we'd move, the pole would come apart. This is mainly because of the fact that Becky brings the pole out during her speech as the derby course and unfolds. I'm not sure if we're going to keep that or figure out another way to get the pole on but for now it seems a tad inconvenient to properly use although to be fair, it was the first time doing it so we can just try again and see what happens.

Something we were told and I kept in mind throughout the whole session was to keep the rail on us and act as if were leaning over it. A good way to do this is to try and keep it pinned to certain point on your body, for example I kept the pole pinned against my belly button and it remained level throughout the latter half of the day, during the first half it kept dipping and just looked like we were holding it.

I play Mr Tillotson throughout this sequence where as everyone else alternates. For my character, it shows what he's really like, and he's doing it because he's getting a kick out of it and it really gives him a thrill. Even though he's using other peoples money, he's having fun and from what I can tell, he seems genuinely hopeful and optimistic about his chances. It seems as though he's overly optimistic though and my assumption is that's a common trait of compulsive gamblers and their psychology. That is something I will research very soon.



9/3/17:

I read some reviews of the play and it reminded me that the play is trying to get across some social commentary with each of the several story arcs. The play does not stick to showing one type of individual throughout the play, it shows more or less all types of classes to see how they cope and/or are affected by this. It shows the richer more wealthier side and how they're arrogant and happy with how they profit from it and it shows the lower classes and how they can benefit or be at a detriment when gambling is involved, so it shows a wide spectrum of the types of people this affects.

One theme that came up is that of freedom. Quite a few people such as Mr Tillotson, Miss Motrom, Sandy and Margaret are stuck in a life style or situation they don't want to be in so their aspiration is to escape that. This made me think (Despite that the play may have a cynical view on everything) that there may be a theme of hope in there as well whether it be real or false hope. That fits well with the central event of gambling. While I'm not really sure if Mr Tillotson represents a social class in particular, I feel he does represent the dangerous side of all this, how it can be very addicting and how it can potentially ruin peoples lives. He shows the tragedy of something like this where as others show the benefits of being wealthy or being an owner.


I got to perform my Hugh and Jocks scene again with Jack. It had the same issues as last time such as lacking any real anger or aggression. I was told to look at the character Daryl from "The Walking Dead" to get an idea. He's a character I'm familiar with and keeping him in mind, it seems as though he won't be full on shouting or anything. It could be more of a subtle anger like it's being restrained to intimidate, kind of like he can snap at any second. Something I did think was that he might have a slight smirk on his face. He does mention that hitting Jocks would be a "Pleasure drooled over" so my impression is that he is enjoying it.

Something I need to do is make him more confrontation and get more up in Jocks face. As of now I feel I'm playing him in a relaxed yet annoyed manor like I suggested when looking up his possible political belief. Other than the accent, he doesn't feel that different from how I'm playing Mr Tillotson so far. That's not a good thing. I really need to make him seem different so soon I want to try out being more angry and giving off the impression that I want to fight to resolve the issue. Even the intended sense of irritation didn't come across so I'm still underplaying everything really


Links:

http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16703

http://www.historyandpolicy.org/trade-union-forum/meeting/the-labour-party-and-the-trade-unions

https://libcom.org/history/1978-1979-winter-of-discontent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H04y-SKwhBg

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/alevelstudies/1960-radicalisation.htm

http://www.whatsonstage.com/bath-theatre/reviews/05-2012/epsom-downs-salisbury_4416.html

http://www.grahamstevenson.me.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=690&Itemid=52

Epsom Downs Rehearsal: Blog 1

Introduction:

This blog will detail my rehearsal process for our production of "Epsom Downs" by Howard Brenton. I have been given a few characters and this will show how I develop and cope with developing them to get the do a performance standard.



Rehearsal Action Plan:

I have a list of goals that I need to achieve throughout this process. This list will prioritise my objectives showing which order I plan to do them in and show the target dates for when I wish to achieve them:

Objectives (Highest priority listed first)


 - Being prepared - This means the basic yet important demands of a being in a rehearsal situation; This includes, being on time so I don't miss anything, remaining focused on my work so I shouldn't talk while I'm not supposed to and have all my equipment such as, my script, pen, pencil. This is so I don't waste any time not rehearsing and everything moves along faster so the final result will be more prepared as a result, it may not sound like much but messing around preparing when you're already supposed to be ready for a scene wastes a lot of time. This also includes any jobs I am given and responsibilities. This will be for the entire rehearsal period.

- Research - Addiction and the extremes people go to - Something I feel I need to look up is the mind set of compulsive gamblers and the psychology of their addiction. My main character, Mr Tilliotson, is a compulsive gambler and he lists some pretty extreme circumstances in the script as to what his addictions has lead him to do, so I'm going to look up any material to do with addiction to try and see if it helps me get in to his mind set. - My goal to achieve this will be at the latest, 25th of March.

- Research - Turning to God - Something my character and the person he's with does is convert to religion after going through horrible things such as traumatic moments in life, bad decisions or just poor life styles. This is a very common occurrence especially with prisoners or drug addicts, so it seems, the worse the crime, the more likely it may happen. I want to look into why this  happens and in some cases why it works and why it doesn't. This will give me a greater idea of where he's coming from and whether or not his faith is genuine. - My goal to achieve this will be at the latest, 26th of March.

- Research - The Era - The play is set in 1977 (The year it was first shown) and I feel that looking into things such as betting culture, peoples views on it and views on gambling back then. I want to research the derby itself and see if I can find out anything about it or any tidbits of the time period that could help me understand the context of my character - My goal to achieve this will be at the latest, 26th of March however with all three of those research points, I mean to have a decent amount of it, if I come across anymore afterwards that can help me develop it further that's fine but by that date I want to have a good enough amount to achieve my goal of getting into his mind set or at least understanding it.

- Understand the performance style - This means looking over the text and researching it to get an idea of how it should be performed just so my interpration meshes well with what's intended.

- Create a detailed backstory - After I have done research of the era and subject matter relating to the character, I'm going to create a backstory for him around the events listed in the play. For example I want to know how he got introduced to gambling or what the line about selling his children actually meant. I want this backstory to a have it's key elements filled in by the 31st of March, after all the research is done and I have had time to think it over.

- Line learning - This one is self explanatory really although I will have to prioritise certain moments in the script. The part where I have to list 22 betting options very fast in one breath will be very difficult to learn although I know I can do it. I will still have to split up the scenes and give them dates to be learnt by at the latest.

    - Mr Tillotson act 1 lines to be learnt by the 21st of March
    - Hugh lines learnt by the 21st of March
    - Mr Tillotson fast betting options list learnt by the 28th of March
    - Mr Tillotson act 2 lines to be learnt by the 28th of March
    - Jockey Lines to be learnt by the 28th of March

Again these dates are at the latest so I will try and get them done beforehand if possible. I am putting these lower than research since I feel that will help provide greater context to my lines and I get a better feel of the characters arc in the scene, it also means that the sooner I start researching, the more fleshed out my characters can be.

- Character distinction - How the characters/performance differ - I need to experiment with how all the characters act and how I can differentiate them, be it with an accent, mannerisms or any other details. This isn't something I have set a target for since it's something I plan to do through the entire process up until it finishes. I could say that I should have clear distinctions and a good idea of how to play them by the end of the month but I still want to experiment after that and constantly develop.

- Blocking - This is so I can remember all my entrances and exits as well as my positioning and actions on stage to make the play (and the rehearsal development of it) smoother and more efficient, so I will be marking everything down when I can and make sure to be in position a few minutes before my scene to practice a transition so everything gets up to a good standard as soon as possible. I hope to have the blocking down by the 31st of March.

- Horse riding - This is where I have to ride on James's shoulders. When Initially trying this out I was surprised that it worked so well and was fairly easy to remain balanced, however I had to change my leg position when on him to more like an actual jockey would have it and not be so obviously trying to balance. Since I'm perfectly comfortable with being on his shoulders and we've rehearsed it a few times this on shouldn't take long at all and I should have this down by the 17th of March.

I will be writing about my progress on these targets throughout my rehearsal blog.