Unit 9
Context
In today's class we watched an Irish company's version of Ubu which
gave us an idea of how we are going to execute the performance in the future.
We began by watching it in segments and watched how the actors moved around the
stage and used the state space accordingly.
I thought it was a very good interpretation and it highlighted heavily
at the fact that it was a satirical piece of drama which appealed to me as I am
a big fan of comedic drama such as mime. However, it did come across very
eccentric which I found to be an interesting take on things.
Afterwards we were assigned roles and I got the part of Dogpile who was
a very malleable character with a lot of different attributes and perspectives
which made it a an impeccable character to work with the way that I could easily
manipulate the character to suit my abilities and make it interesting when it
came to be executing my performance on stage. Ubu Roi
Due to what I have previously learnt reading the play Macbeth which this
play is based on afterwards I then took on the project of understanding Dogpile
and what he brought to the table in this performance. The character of Banquo,
which Dogpile is based on this was very interesting, therefore it made it easy
to do a great performance. I used a lot of different techniques to improve my stage performance such as my ability to fall when I fell back behind the curtains as a way of me exiting the stage secretively. On stage me and Pa ubu wore bandanas
to show that they were on the same side, but we later found out that jealousy
and greed made their friendship erode over time. This had a lasting effect on
the production because in the story of Macbeth after Banquo’ I played on this a
lot when mapping out my character because I had a lot to work with because this
story is a comedic tragedy, so I took all the tragic acting forms and mixed it
with different comedic styles to try and get the best out of my role and performance.
Rehearsals
Throughout
rehearsals we had many ups and downs. These ups and downs meant that it did not
run as smoothly as I would’ve liked it too this included lack of attendance,
lack of punctuality and a completely unmotivated group at some points. This in
turn meant that it was hard for the play to get moving because all of these
reasons meant things such as people not knowing their lines and their stage
space usage was lack luster to say the least. We came to find out that these
were major issues that we had to overcome and with the help of our teachers we
managed to pull it off. Throughout rehearsals apart from a few demotivated moments
I believe that I was good at learning my lines and I was good at understanding
the point of the play which was a satirical parody of the play Macbeth where I
played the role of Dogpile who was equivalent to the Banquo in the story of
Macbeth.This role entailed being very loyal and acting like a soldier which I
did a lot of research about. Rehearsals as a whole were bad the level of
mediocrity from some people was astonishing but it was those who were committed
that managed to get them all to be motivated and realise the fact they were
gonna fail. The fear of failing created a good motivation among the group
making people want to work harder. We also choreographed different sword fight scenes where I was fighting against Billikins we worked on different things such as length we had to stand apart and different postures and strides in the different movements using the lines as cues into the next move. In the different fighting scenes I had to keep a good posture to make it more realistic.
Research
As Dogpile I had the role of a soldier, so I did a lot of research such
as going down to the Tower of London and watching how the beefeaters moved
around the area constantly having a stern look on their face constantly walking
up and down making sure that security was in tip top shape and they were often
full of knowledge and always of assistance. I can link this back to Dogpile
because he is also a soldier therefore, I adopted the stern look on my face and
learnt how to make myself serious but also funny when it came to the scripted
comedic lines. This in turn meant that I had to also play the role of royalty
as I was Pa Ubu the soon to be king’s right-hand man. Therefore, I had to be
constantly full of energy and constantly in support of Pa Ubu which was easy to
balance when I finally got my lines in order which took me about 6-8 weeks with
everyday rehearsals assisting me in this task. Dogpile was a great character to
interpret because I was very diverse. The diversity I brought into the
character was being able to have the tragic and the comedic sides working together to create absurdity. I researched the different types of ways to play this role. Such as looking at different versions of Macbeth to watch how Banquo acted because my character is the equivalent of Banquo. I then watched different performances of Ubu Roi to see how the different actors interpreted the role of Dogpile. This educated me on the different levels of absurdity an actor could reach whilst on stage. It was impressive to watch them as they were in a sort of trance as they played the role whilst, all having their own sense of individuality throughout the different performances.
Production
In this production I had the role of sound where I had to choose certain songs to go with different scenes. This was part of actioning working out which music had to come on in which scenes we picked out different music such as medieval music which was appropriate for a king. After that we were called outside for a meeting and told basically our group were incompetent and the staff put me and Altin in charge which meant that we had power over the group to get most of the things in order which made it easier to conduct the group as a whole. The music was a key aspect of this because it helped to solidify the different scenes it improved people's cues and added more authenticity to the performance. Production as a whole went well throughout the performance. The sound definitely had a lasting impact on the performance. We had blackouts at the end of scene in the Ubu play this gave us time to change the set. The props were easy such as chairs and tables and different things such as wine bottles which we moved in and out.
Evaluation
To conclude, throughout these different aspects of the play it was sometimes very challenging but the role of production eg lighting, sound and costume helped us develop the play by giving us ideas about how we could use those elements to enhance our performance and ensure the play ran smoothly from the start. Sorting out costumes was initially challenging because each of us had an idea of what we should look like and that had to be adapted to what we had available. Motivation was difficult to consistently maintain but we were given tools to enable us to build our confidence eg giving us more rehearsal time which helped foster the relationships between us which then motivated us to improve. We were given time to rehearse without scripts which focused our minds and meant we had to make sure we knew our lines.The amount of effort invested was reflected in the final performance which was much more polished that our initial attempts. My performance was described as "dead pan" which provided an appropriate contrast to the performance of Pa Ubu. Pa Ubu was the main character therefore it emphasized his character improving the performance as whole. Overall my performance was good. I remembered all of my lines and all my different cues meaning that the show ran smoothly when it came to what I had to do which gave me a sense of happiness. After the amount of effort I put into it I deserved that return because of the sheer stress it put me through.
Production
In this production I had the role of sound where I had to choose certain songs to go with different scenes. This was part of actioning working out which music had to come on in which scenes we picked out different music such as medieval music which was appropriate for a king. After that we were called outside for a meeting and told basically our group were incompetent and the staff put me and Altin in charge which meant that we had power over the group to get most of the things in order which made it easier to conduct the group as a whole. The music was a key aspect of this because it helped to solidify the different scenes it improved people's cues and added more authenticity to the performance. Production as a whole went well throughout the performance. The sound definitely had a lasting impact on the performance. We had blackouts at the end of scene in the Ubu play this gave us time to change the set. The props were easy such as chairs and tables and different things such as wine bottles which we moved in and out.
Evaluation
To conclude, throughout these different aspects of the play it was sometimes very challenging but the role of production eg lighting, sound and costume helped us develop the play by giving us ideas about how we could use those elements to enhance our performance and ensure the play ran smoothly from the start. Sorting out costumes was initially challenging because each of us had an idea of what we should look like and that had to be adapted to what we had available. Motivation was difficult to consistently maintain but we were given tools to enable us to build our confidence eg giving us more rehearsal time which helped foster the relationships between us which then motivated us to improve. We were given time to rehearse without scripts which focused our minds and meant we had to make sure we knew our lines.The amount of effort invested was reflected in the final performance which was much more polished that our initial attempts. My performance was described as "dead pan" which provided an appropriate contrast to the performance of Pa Ubu. Pa Ubu was the main character therefore it emphasized his character improving the performance as whole. Overall my performance was good. I remembered all of my lines and all my different cues meaning that the show ran smoothly when it came to what I had to do which gave me a sense of happiness. After the amount of effort I put into it I deserved that return because of the sheer stress it put me through.