week 1,2,3
what are your initial responses to the commedia stock characters ?
My first impression of the stock characters was not the best in my mind i thought 'what the hell is this', this was because off the different shapes they were standing in and how we first walked round the room; i gave it my best shot and try to put myself into the character, when trying round the room i quite enjoyed trying pantelone out as i imagined some disney character such as cinderella step mother from the cartoon and reality films by the way she treat others as dirt and was always trying to get the younger princes to become her lover, she was always about the money. when you start looking into the different character more you really start to see them around in streets or work places example off this is when i was in a shop an i saw the women back bent over with a not very nice attitude towards the stuff and she was moan at everything, as it sounds already like stock character that is more mounding Punch.
During some improvisations of some issues that we were given to us, i started to feel that a female lover would be great for me as i can play the up straight character; but they tend to remind me of characters i already play such a Helen, whilst doing some off the improvisations i felt that had a comedy bound with certain people more then others, as when me and joe played Mrs Punch and Mr Punch, the scenarios was very small but some reason no matter what we said the two character bounced off each other. i felt that when i tried punch that i could shape the character i already could relate to this character as i already had seen this character outside in the real world so managed to take the shape and make in my own.
i also found when trying a improvisation with Bradly later on in the process i felt that lines where just falling out and we managed to come up with speech that was funny; such as 'oh little painty' this was never shown back to group in which i think is shame; overall i found that Commedia dell'arte that was first made within 16th century on streets i thought i would be something that may take my time to warm into. As i believe that I'm not the type of actress that is funny.
which creative ideas have you and the group had for the setting and scenarios in you own play?
well at first i couldn't really see where the setting could be in my head, after discussing it my head started to exploded with ideas of where we could set it such as theme parks and house of parliament; ill just expand on this idea of House of Parliament as i know that some people didnt quite get where i was coming from; so every day people such as MP's are making laws in which we have to live by the different parties are voted in by how many seats they have, but who says it is plesent when it comes to the commit stage; this stage is where the discuss and debate the different rules i though that we could take this and make it to a big issue. i also found that people would found it funny as they tend to agree with most of society but no-one has ever though of standing up to them.
overall we had to narrow it down to two settings we done this by trying them out with improvisation; i first tired the bank with Abbie and Paige was the bank yeah we were coming up with ideas, such we are all in love with the same person as when 3 girls tend to be in the same scene it tends to be something along the lines, after spending the whole time discussing are character and the is that was the bank has lost all its money so we had planed a fake robbery, we didn't have time to practice so we had to get up and try i found it really hard to work with Abbie and paige as they tend to block ideas and start to try something then stop after a word as they think its not going to work, when doing this scene i played a Arlecchino in which i really enjoyed but couldnt see myself playing it all away through.
The other setting was the prison that as a group of 7 we came up with an escape plan, in which i played a punch again; i enjoyed the idea but i felt that it could have devloped if people were positive and just trusted themselves with it as i felt that they were some depending on me to give feed them in which they should do.
The big weakness i found by the end off the week everyone wanted to be in the buckingham place setting as it seemed that has so much scenarios and small stories which could happen with in it; they were not trying hard enough to bring out the positive and scenarios of the others in which we could do.
How were the chosen scenario, plot and stock character finalised and developed?
well after the group had split into two different group one being the buckingham place and the other naming them 'freashmeat' we had to start all over again from the top as some people in group didnt like the idea or the bank or Jail i personally thought that they could have been great ideas that could have developed into something short and funny in which the audience would have enjoyed; but it was back to the start even though we all had a character that wanted play this made things slightly easer for us, two main ideas in which we really wanted to try was a dating agency; which i loved an saw many ideas for haw it would be set in a office and problems kept happening and i though it would have been a great way to show the different characters, i also thought off the line of take me out the t.v show; how each boy member would come out and pick there perfect date.
whilst improving the dating agency it really helped me to come to my character as a first it was really doctor based from some of the early improv in which we had done but because i had to run the dating agency i become more of a Brighella with it with some off the Doctor berates by thinking i know it all and how they would need to improve themselves, once again this really worked well with joe. even though i thought that this could have developed it to something the rest of the group thought that a beaut shop idea was the way to go by the comedy that could have been funny by the idea; this became an weakness as we kept looking for stuff to be funny by the words instead off visual which was hard, so as we had decide on this a s group we tried 3x times to being it to life that was not happening.
this meant that we had to talk back to the group to being it back to the dating agency; in which we began to struggle with as the group started to lose force as even thought they said they was fine of not being in the bucking place one, you could tell that they weren't as they didn't wanted to try and would easily go off subject; after 2 days we had slowly managed to make it an whole class performance of the Buckingham place, yes so some character are the same but it tends to work.
This really made me more think about how i would have to develop my character so it wasn't a doctor and more of Brighella i am slowly starting struggle with this but now i have done Shakespeare i feel that i can do anything, as it has given me the confindce to do so, i have started to do film and video research into it more to help with ideas in how i can play the head of grounds more. also when being put in public to look out for some habit of always touching face or moving nose like rabbit to being to my character, the over all scenario and plot was a whole group decision; as we could have small links such as Quinine would always moan at me for something, Servants always wounding me up and P.A of the Queen also ends up giving me gossip. so even though there is an overall plot of the jawless going missing, the small habits and the unseen parts are the most funniest.
so even though im not to sure in how my final charactar is going to look like and sound like i am working to bring her alive to make her stand out to the audince, i think that it will come together an be strong peace if we just keep working hard in which we can do it.
