Friday 10th June 2016. Level 2 performing arts unit 6 project: Our Day Out

Please describe below the character you are playing and what they do?

The character I am playing in the piece Our Day Out written by Willy Russell is Carol. The significance or important thing about Carol is she knows what her life is like but there is nothing much she can do about it, "Sir if you'd been my old feller I would have been aright".
She thinks if someone like Mr Briggs had given her a chance in life
she would have succeeded. The audience realises that Carol has tried
and is trying to make the best of her life, unlike some of the other
pupils with her. Willy Russell has used Carol in the play to influence
the audience. The irony is that Carol won't progress, the sad thing is
that Carol knows this.

 

Also what she does in the piece highlights or tells the audience what their life is really like in those times and how they felt with not having a good education and coming from a bad society and neighbourhood were they are not recognised as much but rather are the outsiders and isolated ones by thinking they have nothing at all to look forward to in the future and no future ahead of them.

But rather it is recognised as a celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up and being footloose, fourteen and free from school. But this is more than a romp - it points up the
depressing present and empty future for these comprehensive no-hopers
from the backstreets of Liverpool.

 

Rehearsals Dynamic: What's working, what's not

 

 

What worked during the rehearsals of Our Day Out was our comittment to the play and the energy and amount of times we went over it until it stuck in our minds on the day of the performance were we felt very confident and determined to do well although we were nervous and exhausted from all the hard work of rehearsing over which was part of the coarse challenges and ups and downs of studying Drama which is a subject you can enjoy but also remain patient with as well.

What did not work as well is at some lessons we would start to swith or feel less focused as we were tired and had to spend alot of time going over scenes to remember when to come in and say our lines and to practise speaking clearly and projecting our voices to be heard enough by the audience.

Who wrote the play? What else have they written?How has the research helped with your comprehensionof the role/play? 

 

 

The playwright or person who wrote the play ''Our Day Out'' was a man named Willy Russell. Other plays that he wrote himself that were also well known and familiar especially in his area or birth place Liverpool included: Blood Brothers, Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, Stags and Hens and last but not least John,Paul, George,Ringo and Bert. which was based on the story of the Beatles in 1974 as a Musical.

 

How the research helped me with my comprehension of the role was by watching the movie of the play and researching her character I have found out she can be firm and is also keeping herself isolated and spaced out from the others. Additionally, when she talks to Mr Briggs is firm with him telling him the truth about Less the lollipop man saying the kids have no hope and are all backward In liverpool as they are poor suggesting they are not getting a proper good education and he is being harsh on them but the only way it will change for them having a good future is if Mr Briggs helps them get abetter future and makes them feels safe and happy by changing his personality. In a way you could argue or stress that Carol and Mrs Kay are the symbols of hope where as Mr Briggs is first the symbol of sadness and anger, but then changes his mind by also becoming a beacon of hope for the future of the children. How the research has helped me/us with the background of the play is by reading the scenes and highlighting the lines and extra peices of information and detail has made us more aware and made it more clear what time it was set in shall I say period and what the place looked like in that moment in time and how you would presesnt it on stage to make it look like a proper school and bring us back to the the 19's century also thinking about the types of clothes style they would have to make it suite the character and style of the production and time or setting/ location.

 

How do you feel the performance went and what would you do differently in order to achieve the performance you strongly wished for?

 

How I felt the performance went on the day was pretty fantastic as the amount of energy and enthusiasm we put into the show was really impressive especially the individual characters and set up and blocking all those tiny peices of detailed summed it up into to one good show and made it look good on video, we also remebered all the lines and rather were concentrating on getting the character to look strong and the though process or inner monolouge to look believeable wether on stage or entering and exiting the staging. What I particularly thought went well was the staging and layout of the set on stage as we had simple staging layout and formats to focus more on the characters rather than the staging and made as a whole and individually look more the centre of attention to the audience and make us rely on our ourselves rather than getting distracted by other things on stage which is not particulary necessary and was not an issue also the level of focus and listening skills was also very good and the attention to detail. What we would have done differently is set up the staging maybe to look more like a cafe and beach if we had the props and set for that and feeding back to acting skills maybe project our voices a touch louder to be heard better by the audience on stage but mostly the speaking clearly was not much of an issue on stage.

Our Day Out scene from film