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

       

 

Saturday 12th March 2016. Review for Rob on Our Day Out.

 

 

 The acting skills and  communication skills etc we have developed over this assignment were making sure in dance and acting lessons we made everything from gestures to expressions and characters bigger when rehearsing and performing parts of it in our class. We also had make the energy level and movement quicker, more precise and and maintain those things throughout the play so it would keep the audience engaged and more into what we do pr sympathise with us rather than get bored and not watch us as they would everyday in the theatre. Another important thing whcih most of us struggled with in ''Road'' and ''Two'' was projecting our voices loud enough so the audience couldd hear what we were saying and pronouncing our words so that we are understood properly.

 

 

What have been the key aspects for you as performer?   Some of the key aspects for me as a performer our example such as move around alot to maintain the energy throughout, help others if they get stuck or forget what they do in rehersal time, maitain in role and stay focused throughout the entire play so you know your qeues and don't get distracted by others such as talking backstage to loud which distracts other performers around you and don't giggle or laugh which can put off performers acting live and lose the atmosphere and goodness of the play and speak clearly to be understood by other people watching you or project your voice and use intonation to keep the audience on track with what you say and don't mumble or rush your words but rather slow down and maintain your pace through the whole dialect or speech.

 

 

    How have you found linking the acting work with the dance/physical work with Mandy?  What has  worked ? what has challenged you ?

     How I found linking the acting, dancing and physical work with Mandy was really challenging but I still managed to try my very best especially some of the warm up excersises which I found challenging for me which obviously shows I need to start doing more running exercises again to build my physical strength which is my weak point at the moment in Dance. What I feel generally I am performing and doing my best in at the moment would probably be doing Dance and acting although I have some issue with body strength and feel what has really worked for me is most importantly Drama and Dance which I am progressing in a lot in lately much faster than excersises, which will also improve over the years in my stay at Westminster Kingsway College that is if I make it through to the next stage of the auditions next week in Level 3 Performing Arts.

  

   How have we/you explored the characterisation and approach to role to assist with the performing element?

     How I as an individual  have I explored characterisation and approach to my role and assisited it with performing elements is I constantly read through the script to understand what it is about or what my character is saying in the scripted part and so I found it easier when knowing and learning it off by heart, but for the improvised parts used the film as guidance to have an idea of my character in the castle scene and how she would react and behave and when improvising put myself in her shoes to understand the way she would behave and explore her a bit more whengoing over the play in class.

    How we explored the charcterisation and approach to our role/s and how we assisted it with performing elements was just explore how they would behave and react to things and constantly did role play and acting on the script so we understood the characters and knew the play more everytime inside out and to mak the play more familiar to us in a way as a whole class making sure we worked togethr as a team or cast so everything went smoothly the way the director and students wanted. But we also did warm up voice exercises and tounge twisters to warm up the vocals when saying the lines and so the voice naturally responds to what we say and we say it clearly rather than rushed, we also did a range of warm up and fun acting games on some days in between our Drama lessons to maintain the energy level and focus in the room throughout rehersals for Our Day Out especially.

 

What areas of research have been useful for you?

    The areas of research that have been useful for me are propbably in terms of the Play in Drama was talking about the play wright and play for example Willy Russel how he came about writing the play was being a teacher in Liverpool an area were kids were poor and had his own school which influenced and inspired him to write his own play Our Day Out which had been published around 1987.

     Another reason why we talked about the play was to understand the background of the play more doing it and also through reading the entrance dialouges we had an basic idea about the play and the roles we were playing.

     The areas of research that have been useful for me considering what we have discussed in terms of what aspects of movement have helped me in Mandy's classes is epecially the Pina Bausch dance which was useful as it helped us to make the Our Day Out play look more phyisical and professional so that we could use it in our play to make it look different and unique to the script. We also did warm ups and dances for the performance to help us with our timing issues and most importantly build our core to be at less risk of injury when walking on and off stage or around fast so we come in time for our qeues moving from one place to the next.

     The areas of research that have been useful, which also have helped me to inform my work were as I said above in both paragraphs as when we dicussed the Our Day Out background information and read through the dialouge more and more we became aware about the storyline and learnt things quicker and had a clearer idea the more we read them to make understand things better. Futhermore, for the Pin Bausch work we had an idea for the choreography and style in the play we did which we could build apon as a basis and develop into our own thing to create something to be a part of or go along side the work we did with Rob in Drama and we could rehearse more with Mandy to make it even more better before we show it in the show apart from Darcey and Me doing the other Dance qualification or certificate on Wednesday.





Pina Bausch





Dance called ''World Cities''



 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

Our Day Out film By Wlly Russel