Unit 12

Gogol was born on March 31, 1809 in Sorochintsy now Ukraine and had been known as the Russian Empire.  He spent two years at the Poltava District College and then began his studies at the Nizhyn Pedagogical University. Making him very educated and seem as he is from a well of background, probably middle or upper class this suggests he probably knew a lot about the political issues; surrounding his time and the class difference was very clear to him. In 1836, Gogol published one particular work, The Government Inspector, (which we are studying) which caused quite uproar. Additionally, the work criticized the government under the kingship at the time and many people didn't like it. This left Gogol no choice but to leave Russia and settle in Italy, Rome for a short period of time. 

I did my research on the play to understand the elements and the themes of the play to be able to get a full understanding about my charecter Waiter and the korobkin.
In the begining I roughly knew how to portray the waiter because I read the script and found out that the waiter speaks a lot about Jesus so I knew that the waiter is very religious. The other character Korobkin was given to me because the original person playing it rarely came in so I was the understudy for him. I did my research on the character and based on the research I decided to portray him as middle class. 

We looked at practitioners that we would be able to use in The Government Inspector. The first practitioner  we looked at was Steven Berkoff. Steven Berkoff's work is described as 'The use of mime, stylized movement, exaggerated vocal work, direct asides and improvisations within an ensemble environment'. We used this in our piece, especially within characters such as Dobchinksy and Bobchinksy who are very slapstick comedy. The use of stylised movement enables us to create a fast-paced environment in our production as well as individual characters. The more we heighten the characters and make them less naturalistic, the more entertaining and comical the play will be. We also said we could use more Stanislavski techniques to create, naturalistic sections of our play, for this, we can use Actions, Thought Processes and Through Lines. This can help us get to our character with a mental approach rather than physical. The final practitioner we thought we could use was Brecht. Our show is political theatre, portraying corrupt government and even though the play was written in 1836, can still apply now. Brecht used political theatre to create performances, his main technique was alienation and breaking the barrier between the audience and the actors to acknowledge that they are watching a play that is. not real life. 

In rehearsals I didn’t find any problems with my characters. The advice Rob and Sharon gave me was to play the characters big and play off more with the other characters in the scene. I also had a backstage role and was the marketing side of the play and came up with this:

                                     

We handed out leaflets to library’s and theatre companies such as the old vic, Roundhouse etc


In conclusion I say that it was a very succesfull performance and all actors were doing a very good team work which helped all charecters to develope their roles and play around with them during the performances and we all had good energy . Every one was really focused and had a good commitment to what they want to achieve.


Bibliography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Government_Inspector

OCR, 2015. Practitioners: Berkoff. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/281664-practitioners-berkoff-topic-exploration-pack.pdf. [Accessed 14th May 2018]

Unit 12 Characters Journey

Today we looked at our characters journeys throughout the play and before we get on stage. We also did and brief rehearsal but without any words and just when we got on and off stage and we thought about what our characters would wear. The clothes I thought to wear was Black leggings, black top, a white apron, black shoes and a crucifix necklace. The reason why I chose to wear these clothes because I wanted to keep it simple and I thought about what kind of  clothes would waiters wear and I took my own interpretation of it. I chose to wear a crucifix necklace because my character speaks a lot about Jesus so she's very religious. We also looked at the themes of the play and written them down on sheets of paper and put down all the characters and what class they would come under to get a rough idea on how to play out character.


                                                     

Unit 9 Research

Cyber Bullying




Cyber bullying is any form of bullying which takes place online or through smartphones and tablets. Social networking sites, messaging apps, gaming sites and chat rooms such as Facebook, XBox Live, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and other chat rooms can be great fun and a positive experience. Cyber bullying is rife on the internet and most young people will experience it or see it at some time. In our recent national bullying survey, 56% of young people said they have seen others be bullied online and 42% have felt unsafe online. Cyber bullying can happen 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and it can go viral very fast.







The Effects of Cyber Bullying




For many cyber bullying affects their everyday lives and is a constant source of distress and worry.  With mobile technology being so freely available it is an ongoing issue and one that is relentless.  Not only does it go on after school, college or work has finished, but it then carries through into the next day and the cycle continues.  It has been well documented that cyber bullying has resulted in tragic events including suicide, and self-harm and clearly, more needs to be done in order to protect vulnerable children and adults from online bullying.

Unit 12

On Thursday we worked on our characters. At first we were walking around the space in neutral 

and we had to think of one word that would describe our character and I chose outgoing, the reason why I chose the word outgoing is from the way the waiter speaks in the play sounds a bit straight forward and I wanted to make the character more cheerful to make it more interesting and to challenge myself. We next had to think of two gestures to go with the word and one could be totally different to each other I chose for my first one was jumping in with jazz hands and the second on was praying. I chose these because I remember whilst reading the script that my character mentions Jesus a lot so I thought maybe to incorporated something to do with Jesus and praying was the first thing that came to my head. Next we got into groups of three and we had our characters meet each other by using only the gestures, sounds and two lines from the script and created a mini scene. We then joined up with another group using the same gestures and words and we tried to make a scene. By doing this helped me understand my character more and how I may want to play it for the show. 

 

Unit 9 Cupcakes and Knives

Unit 9 Cupcakes and Knives








During the first week of rehearsals, we had to produce a trailer as a to get a rough idea of what theme we wanted put across.


The second week we got into our groups and we had to create a time line for the rehearsal process and writing down the concept of the play for instance the characters, a quick idea of a plot, location of the play. As well as writing down scene by scene the sequences of event.

 The third week we finalised the scenes and started bringing the performance to our feet by rehearsing it and the hot seating of the characters to get a background understanding of where each of them came from. We also thought about how we would stage it and the props needed and sound effects as well to help create a certain atmosphere and mood for the audience.

The forth week we had challenges as one person did not agree to the role she was assigned and so, we had to adjust to the needs of the actor so that she felt comfortable with performing the role. Then we rehearsed a bit more until we thought it was up to standard and ready for the technical rehearsal. Overall, the day was successful.

Week five was the technical rehearsal. We went through the piece as though we were performing it making sure that everything was in the right place and we felt confident with what we were doing and the entrances and exits on stage. At first out concentration was all over the place, however, once we got into the piece, we felt that it went quite well. Also, during rehearsal and performance, the translations between scenes and characters were very clear and the message of the play as well. What needs to be developed to make it even better would  be the party scenes energy, commitment and transition from the start to the end of the scene.