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”