Director's Notes

I found it helpful to practice performing my monologues today because I was given some feedback which will enable me to make final tweaks to the pieces before assessment.

• be louder for Agnes monologue particularly
• lead up and action when Valerie mentions her hair
• so that the 3 characters contrast more, make sure Emilia is more of a strong, feisty wise character

Practical Session #4 | Classmates Feedback

I spent this practical session today with Jess and Amy showing each other our three monologues each so that we could prepare for our performances and practice being watched and under a bit more pressure than on our own. They suggested that I could be even louder at certain moments to show a range. I then realised that when being louder it almost forces the emotions to be exaggerated which just presents a better more watchable performance overall so I will aim to focus on projection.

I also realised that adding sporadic changes in tones of voice for Valerie's monologue will not only show a range of tones but its a good way to show vulnerability, feistiness, despair, sadness, reflection etc. all in one monologue.

Practical Session #3 | Emilia Classical Monologue

Because Beth and I were doing the same classical monologue we decided to go through our lines and make sure we knew them well enough. We wanted to be at a stage where we could quickly say them without consciously trying to remember so we did a few exercises;

• saying the whole monologue over and over as quickly as we could
• saying it with alternate lines each, then swapping whilst trying to keep the rhythm

I feel this really helped me and we also talked about some of the definitions and inflections of the words;

• we clarified how we would pronounce "is't" through the principles of iambic pentameter we had learnt
• we discussed how we would apply inflection to "it is so too" aswell as other lines
• The beginning few lines were listed as different points so we wanted to both show this

Valerie Monologue

Because my classical monologue had a more assured and collected character, I wanted to contrast that with Valerie's character. I wanted to alter my tone of voice throughout to show range whilst being frantic throughout the whole piece.

One quite obvious change of tone and emotion happen early on in the monologue as Valerie goes from angrily shouting 'throws nothing my way except his fat hard hands in bed at night' to contemplating more and becoming more despairing as she mentions her hair.

I also wanted her to seem disgusted and ashamed when describing how she has to borrow money and lots of these emotions will depend on me creating mannerisms, nuances and small expressions which show a very naturalistic style for the monologue, as the play Road intended to be.

Drama School Research- Vocalization

Recently I researched some drama schools and came across a student profile on CSSD's website. Central had recently posted Student Profiles of their current students which I've linked here.

https://www.cssd.ac.uk/course/acting-ba

The female actors' profiles I found particularly helpful and insightful as to the real power and talent these students have over their voice and through their recordings that are posted on the page I realized how diverse these actors need to be for this standard of training. Of course, these particular students have been trained for three years so will be of a very high standard by now but it made me want to alter how I've been approaching my vocalization in this unit. Although I have decided not to apply and audition for drama schools straight away this year, I intend to over the next couple of years. therefore I want to take the time I have to really practice and prepare my audition monologues to the best of my ability, and if I am going to do certain things for my auditions it makes sense to try to do them now for this unit's assessment pieces too.

I was so impressed by the way the females in particular completely altered their voice which had such an impact of the character and tone of the monologues they had recorded and posted in the sound-cloud clips. I noticed Serena Jennings and Edith Poor had exceptional ability to shift a character  using just their vocalization.

All the females' classical monologues made it clear to me the level of articulation and how I want to improve my ability to have an RP accent over the next year in preparation.

From this research, I aim to intensify the RP and tone of my classical monologue as Emilia so that I can adapt to it, as that is a monologue I would consider for my actual auditions.

Character Development on Agnes

After the exercise on character objectives I decided to really consider the scene that Agnes' monologue is in and re-read that to find inspiration for how I portray that. I think that observing the tone of Agnes' dialogue just before and after the monologue I've highlighted can help me depict the true objective of her in this moment.

Agnes' speech before the monologue is a direct example of her innocence and child-like quality which is shown throughout the play as well. It also shows how she has her own theories and when she outwardly speaks about them she isn't speculating, she truly believes in what she is saying without needing to convince other people so much. I think I can apply this to the way she describes the Lady in my monologue and the child-like tone she would have is something I want to experiment with in my portrayal, vocally.

Practical Session #2 | Class Exercise: Finding Character's Objective

12.01.15

In today's lesson we did an exercise which helped me a lot to learn about the intentions and motivations that my character would have at the moment of the monologue.

The four things about my character that I picked for the 1st part of the exercise were;

• She loves her Mother unconditionally
• God, Jesus and her religion is the most important thing to her
• She has never seen ant TV, film or read a book other than the Bible
• She is very sure of herself

Her objective in the monologue is to explain what she sees that nobody else can.

In the 2nd part of the exercise we explored an improvisation in which I portrayed quite an awkward, uncomfortable and difficult character which we coupled up for. Beth and I noticed that both of our characters mention the death of a loved one in our monologues so we thought we could set this short scene in a grieving support group which  would also set the form of the conversation.

In that we both found it a bit challenging to come up with a rough idea of the dialogue but also found it rewarding having to accurately portray our characters' personalities in that scenario.

 After that Beth and I discussed a lot about our characters' real motivation and objective could be in the moment of our monologue as well as what they could be overall in the whole play itself. Here are some ideas I had for Agnes' character:

• Does she find comfort in this woman so want to confide? (who's essentially an outsider from the nunnery who Agnes may feel less judged by)
• Is Anges confessing to get attention?
• Does she want her visions to stop so seeking help?

Thoughts After Reading | Agnes of God

After learning about Agnes' character in more depth by reading the play, I thought about her life story, the type of character she is through the way she interacts with others and how I can make those traits transfer through the mannerisms and physicality in my performance.

"... Agnes an almost childlike young woman singing happily,

looking out the
        window. Then Agnes hears a slight sound and stops abruptly."

I feel she should be quite agitated, and sensitive when discussing her Mother and the Lady, for example. I have ideas of how I might direct myself through the progression of Agnes' monologue which I have annotated on my script;

'and I... I'm never sure if it'd her, or the Lady who tells me things!' At this pause I could sharply glance to the corner being slightly afraid and hesitant of sharing her vision and exposing herself, still with a child-like quality


I also thought about the tone and vocalization I should try to adopt when performing this monologue, I feel I could try to differ it from my classical monologue which is more confident and assured in its tone. Something which I want to really consider is that Agnes' character has had no influences from the world outside of her court where she lives. Which would mean her tone being quite raw and organic, and it shouldn't reflect the tone of a typical teenage girl or young woman.



Online script: http://nldslab.soe.ucsc.edu/charactercreator/film_corpus/film_2012xxxx/imsdb.com/Agnes-of-God.html

Practical Session #1

06/01/15

Today I spent most of my time becoming more familiar with the lines for my classical monologue- I explored more of the meanings behind Emilia's language and thought about her motivations throughout the speech.

I realize that the line beginning with 'say that they slack...' is Emilia proposing a wife's situation to Desdemona and how it could lead to a wife's adultery, and how that may not be such a betrayal rather than a 'fair wrong-doing' in a marriage that is so unfair to begin with. Emilia here defends a woman's adultery if her position in a marriage was full of mistreatment;

• 'pour our treasures into foreign laps' - innuendo for a husband giving women the time with other women that he should only give to his wife.
• 'break out in peevish jealousies' - outrage at wife for showing innocent attention towards others
• 'scant our former having in despite' - punish wife by taking away possessions she once had

After working on making sense of each line, I considered how that would create a change in tone at several parts of the monologue. Here are examples of how it changes and what directions I have given myself to portray this;

• 'if wives do fall; // say that they slack' - this shift in tone is because Emilia is goes from making statement to proposing a situation to Desdemona who she directs this to in Othello in this scene
• 'as husbands have. // What is it that they do' - this shift in tone becomes less stern as she begins to ponder and ask a question
• 'and frailty, as men have? // then let them use us well' - this shift goes from a playful and amused to more exposed emotion as Emilia almost pleas men to treat their wives well - Then I aim to change her tone again to a smug, slightly threatening and arrogant on the line 'else let them know, the ills we do, their ills instruct us so' as the monologue ends

After doing my first rough performance (still with lines in front of me) the feedback I was given was as well as a few points alteration I want to make;

1. Evoke more reaction on the line 'strike us' - maybe its a touchy subject so research character
2. Emilia is a witty, articulate and animated character so add those qualities to the performance
3. Stress the word 'peevish'
4. Gall means bitterness/ being fiesty
5. Change context of 'use them well' - we see that word as a synonym for mistreatment but here it is written to mean literally treat wives well

My Decided Monologues

Here are the 3 monologues I have decided to use for this Audition Speeches Unit;

Classical:

Play:               Othello by William Shakespeare
Scene:            Act 4, Scene 3
Character:      Emilia
Style:              Iambic Pentameter

Contemporary:

1) Play:            Agnes of God by John Pielmeier
    Scene:         
    Character:   Agnes
     Style:          Naturalistic

2) Play:           Road by Jim Cartwright 

    Scene:        Act 2, Scene 1

    Character:   Valerie 

    Style:          Naturalistic   I decided to choose Emilia's monologue because I liked that it a bold statement, especially for a female character in Elizabethan times which fitted well with the courageous type of role I wanted to explore with my classical monologue. I feel that if I had a strong character for that I could show more emotional expression and vocal range through iambic pentameter whereas my contemporary piece would then differ because I want to portray a character that is more vulnerable; or at least in a moment of vulnerability.

Agnes' character in her monologue shows her in a state of complete disarray which I feel I could really apply myself to in a naturalistic style. After reading the play I realized she is an innocent character who has been completely isolated from the real world, growing up under catholic influences with Nuns as her only form of human interaction after her Mother died when she was very young.

Although I already have two contrasting monologues I still wanted to challenge myself to explore a different character again for my third speech and character exploration. I think Valerie's state in this kitchen sink type drama enables me to play with vocalization (through a potential northern accent) and physicality (as I feel she would have a less composed presents leading me to experiment with more organic, raw human behaviors, especially like Valerie's as she goes through this state of fear, stress and intense exposed emotion). I also liked that the monologue is written is a very 'stop-start' way which differs from the classical one, and allows her character to be very fidgety, agitated whereas Agnes' character should appear more ghost-like I feel.