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