Evaluation

Our group performed the chosen extract of “Look back in anger” yesterday, I believe the performance over all was a success and we were able to perform the scripted naturalistic piece in the way it was intended. One thing we did particularly well as a group was acting natural and not over act the extract witch, this was an intended feature to the performance and contributed greatly to the extracts overall success. Even though the performance was a success in my opinion, one thing that went particularly wrong was the over pace of the performance, the extract appeared to be slightly rushed throughout witch affected different elements such as stage presence and pronunciation. I believe that interaction with each other and relationship between characters could have been improved because I don’t think the characters involved had I clear enough rapport. One thing I believe I did particularly well was conveying Jimmy’s build up in emotion throughout the extract slowly, which had shown my clear understanding of my character and the Stanislavski techniques used, I also believe that my presence on stage was strong conveying Jimmy’s arrogance and power in the performance, again these elements contributed to the overall success of the performance. Unfortunately one thing that went wrong in my performance was my pronunciation of particular words witch did not help me to covey that Jimmy was educated. Also I believe I could have improved on my contrast from calm to aggressive movement, even though the build-up of irritation I believe that I could use my body to make this clearer. Performing “Look back in anger” has taught me how to apply naturalistic acting and Stanislavski techniques to my performance and I have found the experience to be challenging and useful for future performances with this course.

Relaxation, Concentration and Imagineation

Motivation is another technique Stanislavski created to be part of the system, this technique requires actors to ask themselves their characters reason for behaving a certain way or doing certain things, in other words what motivates a character to perform the actions shown. Stanislavski believed that “an actor was influenced by either there mind or their emotion to stimulate their actions and the actor's motivation was their subconscious will to perform those actions” Motivation has also described as looking into the past of a character to find out way a character has carried out a physical action. In a session on this particular technique my tutor used me in a demonstration, in this demonstration he placed a letter on the ground in an envelope, then he turned to me and said "I want you to imagine that this letter says that I have been accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic art and I want you to leave with the same emotion", as I opened the letter I smiled with extreme joy placing left hand around my month area with shock, I then ran off stage to express my characters excitement, My characters motivation during this exercise was his acceptance into a Drama school. 
  

      

  

charecter development 4

So far every element I have added to my character has been successful, in the final stages of my rehearsal process I worked to find out characters objectives, In this extract my take is that my characters main objective is to gain a reaction of Alison and therefor  showing her who is in charge to gain control of the situation. Other objectives in the scene include dropping a jacket on the floor, when I do this my goal is achieved, my character also intentionally harms Alison by throwing cliff into her which the scripted confirms he carried out this action deliberately, when I do this another of my goals has been achieved. By achieving these goals not only do they convey Jimmy’s arrogant personality, but they also enable me to physically do what my character wants to do. In my extract my character is able to complete his objective with makes his offensive and angry and leads to him having an outburst.

There is a part in the extract where jimmy hits his peak of irritation and starts to scream at church bells, this shows us just how much Jimmy can be wound up by the noise around him, the church bells also convey jimmy’s lack of control not only in this situation but in his own life because like the church bells Jimmy had no control over the death over the death of his father or his working class background and so in this part of the background jimmy tries fight a battle that can’t be won as he tries to silence the church bells, to portray this I plan use I pained and frustrated expression on my face by widening my eyes and clenching my jaw as well as clenching my fists when I say the line “Wrap it up, will you” stop ringing those bells! There’s somebody going crazy in here I don’t want to hear them!”

At the beginning when my co performer Danielle turns off my characters music, my character must deliver a look to convey his irritation regarding his wife’s action, this look consists of me rolling my eyes and me sighing because my character would expect this from a woman. Also when Alison says “well, Im very sorry, but I can’t just stop everything because you want to listen to music” to witch my character replies with the line “why not?” as I say this line I shrug my shoulders and I say it casually to suggest that so should be able to stop everything she’s doing to benefit my character, this conveys Jimmy’s disrespect for his wife and also for anybody he lives with.    

By using completed units during my performance I found it easier to understand and follow the step by step development process of my character. For example one of my units included me gently dropping my prop newspaper on the floor and by doing this it lead me on to my main objective which was to gain a reaction because when I drop this newspaper it is to show that my character was ready to start his offensive rant and to show that my character at this particular moment is unable to hold back his opinions. Also my character at the end of my performance drops a prop jacket on the floor with leads my character on to his last objective witch was to leave the stage, by doing this Jimmy is attempting to show a lack of interest because his wife Alison rejects his apology, jimmy at this moments hide his how he really feels which is disappoint in himself and regret for his actions.

Objectives and units

“Objectives” is another Stanislavski technique that is part of the system, an objective is a goal that an actor’s character wants to achieve, to use this technique an actor must ask him/herself the question of what does my character want?. Actor’s objectives depend on the script which means different actors have different objectives, Units and bits are the separation of the script into smaller objectives, objectives can at times can be hindered, for example if an actor’s objective is to sit on a chair and there are no chairs on set then that actors objective has been hindered however techniques and methods can be used to prevent an objective being hindered such as physical theatre or improvisation.  

“Units” are another part of the technique; “units” are what an actor has done during a performance for example if an actor has moved an object during a performance such as an ashtray then that has become a unit he has completed, this means that a units are completed objectives.

The decition on costume, set and props

“Look back in anger” is set in a small rented apartment, in this plat their Alison specifically uses an iron while my character and the character of cliff specifically use newspapers so we did the same, he where able to get an iron from croton colleges art department and we were able to get newspapers from our houses, with a woman ironing and two men sitting down reading the set as a whole conveys male dominance. We decided to have Alison ironing behind my character and cliffs character to convey my character as uninterested in her and her to unimportant. For my costume I decided on wearing a formal shirt with trousers to show how Jimmy’s character is an educated man of business however I decided to wear this shirt informally to show Jimmy’s working class background.

(Themes) Sloth in british culture, The rise and fall of the british empire and Masculinity in art

The first theme I am going to discuss is “sloth in British culture”, in “Look back in anger” Jimmy desires a more vibrant and emotional life instead of the slothfulness of others in the world around him, Jimmy sees the world as being asleep in some kind of fundamental way. Jimmy’s anger is his attempt of awaking others from this cultural sleep, he sees an slothfulness in British culture that other characters in the play don’t. An example of slothfulness in the play is the relationship between Alison and Cliff, this is because they both show a large amount of physical and emotional affection towards each other however they both would rather not take their passion to a higher level of intimacy, and because of this their relationship can be described as lazy. They are not able to create enough passion to have an affair, subconsciously Jimmy realizes this which is the reason he isn’t jealous of the affection they show towards each other. The second theme I am going to discuss is “The rise and fall of the British empire”, In “Look back in anger” the character of Colonel Redfern represents the decline of and nostalgia for the British Empire. Colonel Redfern had been stationed in India or many years, this was a symbol conveying Britain’s Imperial reach into the world. Colonel Redfern had the happiest days of his life at the same time as the Edwardian age which was Britain’s height of power and the colonel then talks about how Britain cannot understand why they are no longer the world’s greatest power and that the world has moved into an American age, the colonels nostalgia is representative of the denial that Osborne sees in the psyche of the British people. The third theme I am going to discuss is “Masculinity in art”, John Osborne has been accused of having misogynistic views in his plays by critics, “Look back in anger” can be used as a prime example of this. These critics accuse John Osborne of glorifying young male violence towards Homosexuals and women. This is shown by Jimmy as he emotionally distresses Alison throughout the play as well as delivering a monologue about how he wishes Alison’s mother was dead. Osborne claims that by including this he is in fact trying to restore a vision of true masculinity into a twentieth century culture which he believes is becoming gradually more feminized. John Osborne believes that this feminization in a method of showing an "indifference to anything but immediate, personal suffering", Jimmy’s anger and masculine emotion is a retaliation against this.

charecter deveopment 3

So far the elements I have added to my character have helped define Jimmy porters character, in rehearsals I worked to find my characters motivation to why he acts the way he does, my take of Jimmy’s motivation is that his hatred for upper class British people that don’t work hard in life to get through it is channelled into his own marriage meaning that even though he cares for Alison at the same time he despises her upper class background so when Alison’s character says the line “Really, Jimmy your like a child” It motivates Jimmy to try and offend her in greater way and motivates him to gain a reaction from Alison because he is greatly offended that someone from a higher class is patronising him, to him it is the same patronisation he feels in his everyday life with English society, Jimmy, unable to gain a reaction Jimmy then has a violent outburst where he throws Cliff into Alison, this is because he feels beaten, he is unable to let what Alison said go because he is unable to allow anybody who has had a wealthy background make him look foolish. Understanding my characters motivation has helped me so far in the development of Jimmy. In the extract there is also a part where Jimmy tries to disgust the other characters in the play by describing something discussing and then he compares it to his wife in an attempt to gain a reaction, I have decided to add more to this to really convey how far Jimmy will go to gain the reaction he desires, I also saw this as an opportunity also show Jimmy’s lack of general social limits, I do this by flaring my nostrils, using expressive hand gestures which included rubbing my thumb on my fingers with my hands facing up and in front of me and also by using an expressive voice tone which included me deepening my voice with a gritty sound texture all when I said the line “Did you ever see some dirty old Arab sticking his fingers in into some mess of lamb fat and gristle? Well, she’s just like that. Thank god they don’t have many women surgeons! Those primitive hands would have your guts out in no time. Due to Jimmy’s lack of respect for people in general I believe he is unlikely to respect people’s property, also Jimmy disrespecting people’s property helps portray him as the arrogant character he, for example when my co performer Danielle says the line clear out of my sight she throws a jacket in my face, I plan to then take this jacket and drop it as I making eye contact with Danielle to show not only my lack of respect for the item of clothing but the lack my character has for Alison (Danielle’s character). I also convey this by throwing a newspaper on the floor in frustration when I say the line “Don’t try and patronise me”

Motivation

Motivation is another technique Stanislavski created to be part of the system, this technique requires actors to ask themselves their characters reason for behaving a certain way or doing certain things, in other words what motivates a character to perform the actions shown. Stanislavski believed that “an actor was influenced by either there mind or their emotion to stimulate their actions and the actor's motivation was their subconscious will to perform those actions” Motivation has also described as looking into the past of a character to find out way a character has carried out a physical action. In a session on this particular technique my tutor used me in a demonstration, in this demonstration he placed a letter on the ground in an envelope, then he turned to me and said "I want you to imagine that this letter says that I have been accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic art and I want you to leave with the same emotion", as I opened the letter I smiled with extreme joy placing left hand around my month area with shock, I then ran off stage to express my characters excitement, My characters motivation during this exercise was his acceptance into a Drama school. 

(Themes) Loss of childhood and Real life

The first theme I am going to discuss is “Loss of childhood” this is a theme that effects the my character and the character of Alison, John Osborne uses specific examples such the death of jimmy’s father when Jimmy was ten years old and how Jimmy had to watch to physical and mental demise of his father, this shows Jimmy was forced to deal with suffering from an early age witch unable him to have proper childhood. Another way that the theme is expressed is through Alison due to the way she was forced to grow up to fast by marrying jimmy, in the years of Alison’s youth she receives large amount of abuse and torment instead of being able to live her life freely which means her youth was wasted. John Osborne suggests that a generation of young British people have experienced an identical loss of childhood innocence; John Osborne also uses examples such as world war, the development of the atom bomb and the decline of the British Empire to that England’s culture at the time was completely desensitised unlike others. The second theme I am going to discuss is “Real life”, in “Look back in anger” Jimmy is consumed with the desire to be able to live a more real and full life, he compares this desire to the empty actions and attitudes of others at the beginning of the play he shows this by criticising the writing in the newspaper but as the play goes on jimmy proceeds to do the same to the people around him in an angry, offensive and at times aggressive way, Jimmy’s character believes that this anger is a way of him really living.

Themes

“Look back in anger” contains many different themes, these themes include
  • Loss of childhood
  • Real life
  • Sloth in British culture
  • The rise and fall of the British empire
  • Masculinity in art
  • Kitchen sink drama
  • Angry young men

Kitchen sink realism

Kitchen sink realism or kitchen sink drama is a term that was created to describe a British cultural movement grew in the in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Art, Theatre, Novels, Film, Television play, kitchen sink dramas where made popular by the angry young men and have developed over time to be popular television shows today such as coronation street and EastEnders. Kitchen sink dramas used a social realism style witch meant they usually included domestic situations of working class British people, kitchen sink dramas typically consisted of working class British people living in cramped rented accommodation and in their free time drinking in grimy pubs to explore social issues and political controversies. Kitchen sink dramas commonly set in poorer industrial areas in the north of England and use “Roughhewn” accents and slang, “Look back in anger” is a kitchen sink drama.

Character development 2

During our BTEC level three rehearsals I have witnessed the development in my characters arrogant personality and argumentative nature; also I have found that the elements added to my character so far have helped achieve this. Our tutor offered again to watch our performance and to give feedback; after we had performed the extract with the added page he helps helped with a particular part of the performance we were struggling with, in this part of the performance I am meant through my co performer “Ryan” into to my other co performer “Danielle”, in order to convey my characters and cliffs characters comical relationship my tutor suggested I lifted “Ryan” up an swung him around before throwing him. In our rehearsals I worked on this element and other ways I could show a clear connection with “Ryan” I plan to add physical friend touches such as placing my hand on his shoulder and reacting with a smile to what he says. In rehearsals I also used Stanislavsky’s “magic if” technique to draw believable emotion, I imagined how I would react if I was in Jimmy Porters position and used it with particularly emotional parts of our extract, for example I imagined what it would be like to be in a lifeless marriage with a woman I loved but could not show it and what it would be like loose her and be with someone else. I also asked myself similar questions during the scene such as how would I react if somebody had turned my music off, how would I react if I was fishing for a reaction and how I would act if I had harmed somebody I loved, by asking myself these questions and performing how I would respond in real life I am able to produce identical reactions during the performance. For Example If I had harmed someone that I love I would feel an undeniable disappointment in myself so when I channelled this emotion into the character of jimmy porter my reactions became more believable, I performed actions that I would do in real life such as taking a step back in shock and when my co performer Danielle throws a jacket at my character I throw it at the floor with anger. My character needs to have the highest status at all times during this performance, to make sure that this is achieved I will use my proxemics awareness to covey this by standing in the middle and front of the stage with a strong presence and standing over or intimidatingly close to my co actors for example when I say the line “I had a flat underneath a couple of girls once, you heard every dam word those bastards did” I stood in the middle of the stage glaring at cliff and Alison’s characters to covey frustration towards people that don’t respect his right to peace and quiet. Jimmy Porter is an educated individual that is massively over qualified for his job witch is to be the owner of a sweet shop, to convey this I have decided to portray Jimmy with good diction and correct pronunciation of words.

The magic If

Another Stanislavski technique that is part of the system is the “Magic If”, the “Magic If” technique was created by Stanislavsti to draw believable emotion from actors simply by having actors ask a “what if” question to themselves and their characters. This question is “What if I were in the same situation as my character”, or "What would I do if I found myself in this (the character's) circumstance?” by using this technique and asking these questions the theatrical actions of the actors would be believable and therefore 'truthful. Our BTEC level three drama class learned this technique and practiced it, our tutor put us in groups of three where we performed devised scenes until a certain point and then the rest scenes where improvised realistically to show how you would react to that particular situation, our tutor gave each group the same scenario which consisted of a male walking into a home and the reactions of people there. This exercise requires an actor to think about what they would do if this had happened to them. For example when my co performer “Ryan” walked on stage I raised my voice and shouted “What are you doing” and as the scene developed I said “I don’t care, listen you need to leave or I’m going to call the police” and then I grabbed his collar because these actions are identical to what I would do in real life and these elements helped me convey an emotional performance. Stanislavski believed that the truth shown on stage and the truth that of real lifer were different but however by using this technique a “scenic truth” could be achieved.  

John Osborne

John Osborne, The author of “look back in anger” was born December 12th 1929 and died December 24th 1994. John Osborne was an English playwright actor, screenwriter and critic who specialised in genera’s such as “social realism” and” Kitchen sink dramas”. John Osborne was one of the first writers in the imperial age to address Britain’s purpose, John Osborne helped make Contempt an acceptable and now a desired emotion for the stage and he also the first to question the point of monarchy on a prominent public stage. John Osborne’s work includes

• The Devil Inside Him, 1950, Theatre
• The Great Bear, 1951, Theatre
• Personal Enemy, 1955, Theatre
• Look Back In Anger, 1956, Theatre
• The Entertainer, 1957, Theatre
• Epitaph For George Dillon, 1958, Theatre
• A Subject Of Scandal And Concern, 1960, Television
• Luther, 1961, Theatre
• Plays For England, 1962, Theatre
• The blood Of The Bambergs, 1962, Theatre
• Under Plain Cover
• Toms James, 1963, Screenplay
• Inadmissible Evidence, 1964, Theatre
• A Patriot For Me, 1965, Theatre
• A Bond Honoured, 1966, Theatre
• The Hotel in Amsterdam, 1968, Theatre
• Time Present, 1968, Theatre
• The Charge Of The Light Brigade, 1958, Screenplay
• The parachute,1968, Television
• The Right Prospectus, 1970, Television
• West Of Suez, 1971, Theatre
• A Sense Of Detachment, 1972, Theatre
• A Gift Of Friendship, 1972, Television
• Hedder Gabler, 1972, theatre
• A Place Calling Itself Rome, 1973, Theatre
• Ms, or Jill And Jack, 1971, Television
• The End Of Me Old Cigar, 1975, Theatre
• The Picture Of Dorian Grey, 1975, Theatre
• Almost a vision, 1975, Theatre
• Watch It Come Down, 1976, Theatre
• Try A Little Tenderness, 1978, Theatre
• Very Like A Whale, 1980, Television
• You’re Not Watching Me Mummy, 1980, Television
• A Better Class Of Person 1981, Book (autobiography volume 1)
• A better class of person 1985, Television
• God Rot Tunbridge Walls, 1985, Television
• The Father, 1989, Theatre
• Almost a Gentlemen, 1991, Book ( autobiography volume 2)
• Déjàvu , 1992, Theatre

Charecter development 1

In the first stages of my rehearsal project I found it difficult to adopt realism when playing my character and I also found that my approach to jimmy’s character was very aggressive witch was not my objective, jimmy’s character is more patronising and annoying, in an attempt to convey this in my character I got close to me co actors invading their personal space showing jimmy’s arrogant nature I also tried making my voice louder than my co actors to also show this. Realism requires the reactions of an actor to be identical to reactions in real life, in an attempt to adopt this style I used an “emotion memory” technique and thought back to a time where my little sister was being particularly irritating and I related this to my characters relationship with his “Alison” to convey his irritation of the variety of noises “Alison” makes and tried to cut out any grotesque or theatre styled movement gestures or speech. I have made progress but there is still room for improvement. In rehearsal time we were asked to perform in front of our tutor and we received feedback as a group and a little personal feedback. Our extract unfortunately only lasted seven minutes so in an attempt to add at least three more minutes we are performing an extra page of the play, he also said the performance over well as making progress and that it was strong. I was pulled up on my pronunciation of certain words and my line learning. To practice my pronunciation and line learning a plan to read over the script slowly and pronounce every word correctly multiple times until I have remembered I to pronounce certain words and remembered my lines. My co actor “Ryan” advised me on looking into the distance while I say certain lines to convey jimmy’s arrogance, for example when my character says the line “when you see a women in front of a mirror you see what a refined kind of butcher she is” and “shed have your guts out like hair clips” I lean standing against the back of a chair to show that jimmy cares only for what he asked to say. In this scene there is to be a clear build-up of irritation until my character goes to for and ends up injuring his wife, this build up is triggered from the start of the extract when my co actor Danielle says the line “seriously jimmy your acting like a child” my character then feels patronised and offended an proceeds to try and get a reaction from her in revenge, I convey this build up in a variety of ways, firstly I change the tone and volume of my voice starting with a calmer and more friendlier approach at the beginning with lines such as “don’t patronise me” and “have you ever noticed how noisy women are” and then this progresses into a more offensive and unfriendly approach as recite lines such as “you’ve got to be fundamentally insensitive to be as noisy and as clumsy as that” and “the eternal flaming racket of a female”. Secondly I used my body and stage presence to covey the build-up of irritation by throughout the scene by at first saying the same lines while sitting calmly and then towards standing and invading peoples personal space. For example for the start of the scene I decided to sit slouched starring at Danielle (Alison) intensely and pointing her to show my characters general lack of respect for his wife and towards the end I express this by getting close and standing tall while getting in her face and not losing eye contact. By experimenting with these elements I see a clear development in the extract, so far the have been helpful in conveying jimmy’s argumentative and offensive nature.

Emotion memory

In rehearsal our BTEC level three drama class studied "emotion memory"; "emotion memory" is a technique that an actor can use to display real emotion while performing, emotional memory is where an actor thinks of a memory that makes them feel a certain way in order to make a performance believable. For example if an actor needed to convey anger the can think back to a time in their life where they were particularly angry to generate real emotion on stage, this technique when performed can generate more believable reactions, line deliverance and facial/body expression. In this rehearsal session we sat in a circle and individual members of the class where picked to tell the group about something in there life that had happened and made them feel emotional, a variety of emotions where expressed such as anger, sadness, fear and happiness. After a member of the class was picked to share a memory they then told to perform basic tasks given to us by our tutor, tasks included reciting children’s stories and directed scenes while imagining telling the story we shared Imagine this technique to be helpful in my scene because becomes extremely irritated so in order to convey I shall try and think back to a time in my life where I was particularly irritated and I shall use this in my performance. In order to use “Emotion memory” effectively memories that are used must have really happened in order to use this technique effectively and to generate real emotion. Stanislavski in an attempt to find a way of creating real emotion on stage formed this technique to be part of his system.

Stanislavski and Naturlistic acting

Our performance must be naturalistic because this was how the play was meant to be performed and what the exam criteria request. Actors performing naturalism must create a perfect illusion of reality through a range of dramatic and theatrical strategies and the overall objective of naturalism is to show an audience how the play would look in real life. Our BTEC level three drama class will be learning about Stanislavski naturalistic techniques to add them into our extracts in an attempt to enhance our emotional reactions and to improve our overall performance, Stanislavsky was a famous Russian actor and director that revolutionised theatre, Stanislavski believed that actors should be their characters and should be able to relate their mind-set. In the same session we discussed method acting, method acting is where an actor applies his/her characters features to real life and in body the character fully, Stanislavski was born in 1863 and died in 1938. He created something called “Stanislavski's system” containing techniques that can be used to draw believable emotion from actors, these techniques include

·         Emotional memory

·         The magic what if

·         Motivation

·         Objectives

I will be learning about what these techniques consist of and how I can apply them to my character in order to achieve a successful naturalistic performance.

Angry young men and john osborne

“Look back in anger” premiered in 1956, the play was written by john Osborne. “Look back in anger” grew to become a success on stages of London and created the term “angry young men”, this term was created to describe John Osborne and others like him who employ realism onto the stage. The “angry young men” where a group of mostly working class and middle class British novelists and playwrights who built a reputation for themselves in the 1950s by writing to highlight flaws with the English society and class system in there plays and novels. This group of writers where unhappy with how the higher classes believed they were a better type of people due to an inheritance of wealth and power and believed that their class made no difference an that social class was not a measurement of a human being. These writers where highly talented and educated, the leading members of this group included John Osborne and Kingsley Amis, the phrase “angry young men” was originally formed by the Royal court theatres press officer to promote John Osborne’s play “look back in anger” it was thought to be derived from Leslie Pauls Autobiography called “whose angry young men”, Leslie was the founder of the woodcraft folk which was a UK based educational movement for children and young people that was founded in 1925 and it has been a registered charity since 1965.