Friday, March 25, 2011
3/24/11 Journal
Hayley
-Love your point of focus
-You could tell a story with your eyes!
-A little more volume
-Transition a little more smoothly into the piece from the slate (someone elses note) I personally liked the transition
-Could see the emotion in your eyes
-Seemed a little short, but great presence on stage!
Sean
-Nerves seemed apparent; more diction!
-Clean up the speed of the piece
-Good character choice; good physical choices
-Say the slate more clearly
Kailee
-Good attitude in beginning , but focus up
-Good physicality but go FURTHER (arm was dangling too much by your side)
-Keep focus on the convo saw your eyes dart to the side when you were trying to think of a line
-Nice hold on moment but motivate it more! But funny.
-Good timing with the piece
Gabriel
-Nice volume, nice movement (but too long of a pause)
-Too many breathes in beats
-Keep focus up!
-More volume like in beginning
-Good commitment to the character
-Some pauses are awkward; took way to long in pauses because it made me think that you were forgetting your lines
-Too much eyebrows
Morgan
-Look too angry in slate
-Hand gestures are awkward
-Stance is awkward
-Backed down too soon on some lines
-Hands onhips was weird (too super hero looking)
-Good volume
Jeremy
-Don't look down too much
-Really nice vocal quality
-Volume is good
-Don't trap your hand gestures; explore physicality
-Nice outfit!
-Great for film (the piece)
-Very genuine, nicely done
V
-Slower slate! (Could not understand you!)
-Weird stance in the beginning
-More volume; DICTION
-Gestures are too repetitive (hands down)
-Nice mimic of guy
Ari
-Nice physical choices in beginning
-Keep focus up!
-Nice attitude
-Kept doing same hand gesture repetitively
-Nice vocal variety; LOVED yelling bit in the monologue
-Maybe do a dramatic piece next time ;)
Ariel
-A bit awkward sitting position
-A little more volume
-Great physicality
-A little too many breathes between lines
-Nice usage of prop
Nadia
-Nice presence in beginning
-Pull hair back because its hard to see your eyes
-Don't look down
-Good vocal variety; good volume
-Great physical choices; maybe don't move as much?
-Overall good work
Everyone did a great job on their monologues. My two favorite monologues were Ari and Jeremy's pieces. Overall I was really impressed with all of the monologue work.
-Love your point of focus
-You could tell a story with your eyes!
-A little more volume
-Transition a little more smoothly into the piece from the slate (someone elses note) I personally liked the transition
-Could see the emotion in your eyes
-Seemed a little short, but great presence on stage!
Sean
-Nerves seemed apparent; more diction!
-Clean up the speed of the piece
-Good character choice; good physical choices
-Say the slate more clearly
Kailee
-Good attitude in beginning , but focus up
-Good physicality but go FURTHER (arm was dangling too much by your side)
-Keep focus on the convo saw your eyes dart to the side when you were trying to think of a line
-Nice hold on moment but motivate it more! But funny.
-Good timing with the piece
Gabriel
-Nice volume, nice movement (but too long of a pause)
-Too many breathes in beats
-Keep focus up!
-More volume like in beginning
-Good commitment to the character
-Some pauses are awkward; took way to long in pauses because it made me think that you were forgetting your lines
-Too much eyebrows
Morgan
-Look too angry in slate
-Hand gestures are awkward
-Stance is awkward
-Backed down too soon on some lines
-Hands onhips was weird (too super hero looking)
-Good volume
Jeremy
-Don't look down too much
-Really nice vocal quality
-Volume is good
-Don't trap your hand gestures; explore physicality
-Nice outfit!
-Great for film (the piece)
-Very genuine, nicely done
V
-Slower slate! (Could not understand you!)
-Weird stance in the beginning
-More volume; DICTION
-Gestures are too repetitive (hands down)
-Nice mimic of guy
Ari
-Nice physical choices in beginning
-Keep focus up!
-Nice attitude
-Kept doing same hand gesture repetitively
-Nice vocal variety; LOVED yelling bit in the monologue
-Maybe do a dramatic piece next time ;)
Ariel
-A bit awkward sitting position
-A little more volume
-Great physicality
-A little too many breathes between lines
-Nice usage of prop
Nadia
-Nice presence in beginning
-Pull hair back because its hard to see your eyes
-Don't look down
-Good vocal variety; good volume
-Great physical choices; maybe don't move as much?
-Overall good work
Everyone did a great job on their monologues. My two favorite monologues were Ari and Jeremy's pieces. Overall I was really impressed with all of the monologue work.
3/22/11 Journal
Today in class my peers performed their final performance for their monologues. Sammie and I already performed our final monologues before this class meeting so we did not have to present on this day.
Jessica: Pheiffers People
-Good transitions between characters within the monologue
-Rafi said that you don't necessarily need to go on the ground. He wasn't sure it necessarily worked for the monologue, but he liked the levels.
-I had a hard time understanding what was said when fell to the floor.
-Overall enjoyed the piece. great work.
Shane: Savage and Limbo
-Making same gestures several times
-Liked his point of focus (he really saw Linda)
-Physicality was more like Shane instead of Tom
Rafi wanted his slate a bit more professional
-Natural quality showed itself a little more, but ending needs to be shaped and molded more
Danny: Ron from Search and Destroy
-Need different vocal levels
-Really liked the movement with the piece because the gestures gave it life
-Get the chair before introduction/slate
-Overall a funny piece and loved the choices that were made
Brante: Miss Warren's Profession
-Good physicality
-Good voice levels
-Really liked the facials that she used
-Push lower register of voice
-Really great piece for you and loved the moment when you turned around and really saw that other person
Anna
-Transition in beginning should be a little more fluid
-Try not to repeat the same motion over and over
-Very diverse actress proved that you can do comedy and drama; great work!
I enjoyed all of the monologues that were shown today. Everyone did really great on their pieces and I was impressed overall.
Jessica: Pheiffers People
-Good transitions between characters within the monologue
-Rafi said that you don't necessarily need to go on the ground. He wasn't sure it necessarily worked for the monologue, but he liked the levels.
-I had a hard time understanding what was said when fell to the floor.
-Overall enjoyed the piece. great work.
Shane: Savage and Limbo
-Making same gestures several times
-Liked his point of focus (he really saw Linda)
-Physicality was more like Shane instead of Tom
Rafi wanted his slate a bit more professional
-Natural quality showed itself a little more, but ending needs to be shaped and molded more
Danny: Ron from Search and Destroy
-Need different vocal levels
-Really liked the movement with the piece because the gestures gave it life
-Get the chair before introduction/slate
-Overall a funny piece and loved the choices that were made
Brante: Miss Warren's Profession
-Good physicality
-Good voice levels
-Really liked the facials that she used
-Push lower register of voice
-Really great piece for you and loved the moment when you turned around and really saw that other person
Anna
-Transition in beginning should be a little more fluid
-Try not to repeat the same motion over and over
-Very diverse actress proved that you can do comedy and drama; great work!
I enjoyed all of the monologues that were shown today. Everyone did really great on their pieces and I was impressed overall.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
My Resume
Allison Boettcher
619.933.9312
boeallison@gmail.com
Height: 5’3” Weight: 125lbs Hair: Blonde Eyes: Blue
Theatre
Joseph…Dreamcoat Narrator Valhalla high school
Wish: A Musical Revue Snow White SDSU
Pirates of Penzance Mabel Valhalla high school
Training
SDSU BA in Theatre Performance expected graduation in 2013
Voice- Mary MaKenzie, Tommy Vendafreddo, Audrey Rountree
Acting- Peter Cirino, C.J. Keith
Dance- APA, Touch of Class Dance Studio, Dance Express
(Jazz, Ballet, Tap, Hip-Hop, Dance Team experience) 15 years of dance
Special Skills or Experience
Impersonations and Noises: Golem from Lord of the Rings and Terridactal
Scholarship Pageants: Miss El Cajon Teen 2007; Miss Teen San Diego County 2008-09;
Miss Valhalla 2008-09; Miss Rancho San Diego 2010
Enrolled in Personal Training Courses at 24 Hour Fitness
Drivers License, Current Passport
619.933.9312
boeallison@gmail.com
Height: 5’3” Weight: 125lbs Hair: Blonde Eyes: Blue
Theatre
Joseph…Dreamcoat Narrator Valhalla high school
Wish: A Musical Revue Snow White SDSU
Pirates of Penzance Mabel Valhalla high school
Training
SDSU BA in Theatre Performance expected graduation in 2013
Voice- Mary MaKenzie, Tommy Vendafreddo, Audrey Rountree
Acting- Peter Cirino, C.J. Keith
Dance- APA, Touch of Class Dance Studio, Dance Express
(Jazz, Ballet, Tap, Hip-Hop, Dance Team experience) 15 years of dance
Special Skills or Experience
Impersonations and Noises: Golem from Lord of the Rings and Terridactal
Scholarship Pageants: Miss El Cajon Teen 2007; Miss Teen San Diego County 2008-09;
Miss Valhalla 2008-09; Miss Rancho San Diego 2010
Enrolled in Personal Training Courses at 24 Hour Fitness
Drivers License, Current Passport
First Half of Midterm: Freeing the Natural Voice by Kristin Linklater
First Part of Midterm: Freeing the Natural Voice: Blurbs about what spoke out the most within the text
This book is intended for use by professional actors, student actors, teachers of acting, teachers of voice and speech, singers, singing teachers, and interested lay people. Its aims are to provide a series of exercises to free, develop, and strengthen the voice as a human instrument and to present a lucid view of the voice both in the general context of human communication and as a performer’s instrument.
The basic assumption of the work is that everyone possesses a voice capable of expressing, through a two-to-four-octave natural pitch range, whatever gamut of emotion, complexity of mood, and subtlety of thought he or she experiences.
The result of the work will be a voice that is in direct contact with emotional impulses, shaped by the intellect but not inhibited by it….The natural voice is transparent, it reveals, not describes, inner impulses of emotion and thought, directly and spontaneously. The person is heard, not the person’s voice.
The paradox is that actors must train their voices so that they can sacrifice them. Actors’ voices must learn to be dissolved by the impulses of thought and feeling….their voices must be wide and long and strong and tender enough to reveal the length and breadth of the imagination.
From Workday Three The Touch of Sound: Initial Vibrations…pool of water
Picture: A deep, calm forest pool with a surface roughly level with your diaphragm and its depths in your pelvic region…
Gravity loves to feed off your excess tensions. When you lie on the floor, gravity will happily suck tension out of you. When you stand up , gravity will happily play games with you to se how you can compete with his pull. Gravity is constantly challenging us in the game of life…
Picture that a great reservoir of the vibrations of sound preexists in the pelvic basin…
From Workday Five Jaw Awareness…prison gate or open door
One of the strongest and most universal muscular defense systems is in the jaw hinges.
From Workday Seven Freeing the Channel: The soft palate…
…the soft palate is all flesh and muscle. For working purposes you can regard it as either the doorway from the throat to the mouth or as the trapdoor leading up into the middle and upper resonators.
Do you yawn vertically or horizontally?
Communication is the by-product of desire and freedom.
From Workday Ten Developing and Strengthening: Chest, Mouth, Teeth resonators
Each part of the voice has its own rung on the resonating ladder, and the ladder is the body from the chest to the mouth, teeth, sinuses, nose and skull. You will be directing your voice to move up and down the resonating ladder until every part of it is available, familiar and safe. Weak rungs can be strengthened and gaps in the ladder can be filled in ways that are palpable. Your vocal range of three to four octaves can be mapped clearly and your use of it can become physically familiar through regular travel.
From Workdays Twelve and Thirteen Breathing Power
As we continue the exploration of breathing capacity the challenge is again to ask your Self: “What is my capacity for imagination, for emotion, for desire? What could I say through these large spaces I find within myself?” Let your developing breathing capacity suggest the development of your creative capacity.
Once you have found enough freedom in the solar plexus/diaphragm area to induce fast, even panting on breath alone and with sound, you can practice the panting on double triads….
The essential attributes of the actor’s voice are range, variety, beauty, clarity, power and volume, but sensitivity is the quality that will validate all the others, for they are dull attributes unless they are reflecting inner energy…Energies that fuel the voice muscles need to be attuned with great sensitivity to the still finer energies of psychological creation if the communication from inside to outside is going to be transparently true. When the energy of the content is powerful, the economy of its transmission will preserve the truth of the content.
Words…imagery
Language began instinctually, physically, primitively.
Awareness of the sensory nature of words must come before that of their informational purpose…
About Texts…art
The etymological root of the word text is the Latin texere, which means “to weave” or “to fabricate”. A text is a tapestry of ideas woven with words.
A word or a phrase or a sentence is like a pebble that, when thrown into the pool of the body-mind, sets up ripples that disturb the waters. The waters? Physical, sensory, sensual and emotional energies.When you are first learning lines, do not use the word memorize. …The old-fashioned term “learn by heart” tells you what you need to be doing when you learn. You need to be breathing the words in so that the underlying thoughts become feelings and the cellular make-up of your body starts to rearrange itself in response.
Listening in to classical texts we can hear how free and wide-ranging the classical voice was…Well-nourished by a diet of songs, poems and stories still rooted in a thousand-year-old oral tradition, all classes of society exercised the full range of voice for practical purposes. In the fields and cottages, women and men called, cajoled, wailed and wassailed. In the streets of the cities, they hawked their wares at full volume. In schools and universities, men and boys recited their lessons in stately Latin according to the rules of rhetoric. Ship captains threw their voices up with the wind into the sails where ship-boys tugged at ropes; armies were lashed into battle by the tongues of their leaders; kings and queens, noblemen and women harangued their subjects with a forceful eloquence that made good use of the melodious range of their voices exercised daily by singing motets and madrigals and canons and cantonets.
Tuning into the Text…imagination
You must be able to experience emotional imagination in your body. You must be able to express the incarnated emotional imagination in words if you are to speak classical texts and poetic texts truthfully.
This book is intended for use by professional actors, student actors, teachers of acting, teachers of voice and speech, singers, singing teachers, and interested lay people. Its aims are to provide a series of exercises to free, develop, and strengthen the voice as a human instrument and to present a lucid view of the voice both in the general context of human communication and as a performer’s instrument.
The basic assumption of the work is that everyone possesses a voice capable of expressing, through a two-to-four-octave natural pitch range, whatever gamut of emotion, complexity of mood, and subtlety of thought he or she experiences.
The result of the work will be a voice that is in direct contact with emotional impulses, shaped by the intellect but not inhibited by it….The natural voice is transparent, it reveals, not describes, inner impulses of emotion and thought, directly and spontaneously. The person is heard, not the person’s voice.
The paradox is that actors must train their voices so that they can sacrifice them. Actors’ voices must learn to be dissolved by the impulses of thought and feeling….their voices must be wide and long and strong and tender enough to reveal the length and breadth of the imagination.
From Workday Three The Touch of Sound: Initial Vibrations…pool of water
Picture: A deep, calm forest pool with a surface roughly level with your diaphragm and its depths in your pelvic region…
Gravity loves to feed off your excess tensions. When you lie on the floor, gravity will happily suck tension out of you. When you stand up , gravity will happily play games with you to se how you can compete with his pull. Gravity is constantly challenging us in the game of life…
Picture that a great reservoir of the vibrations of sound preexists in the pelvic basin…
From Workday Five Jaw Awareness…prison gate or open door
One of the strongest and most universal muscular defense systems is in the jaw hinges.
From Workday Seven Freeing the Channel: The soft palate…
…the soft palate is all flesh and muscle. For working purposes you can regard it as either the doorway from the throat to the mouth or as the trapdoor leading up into the middle and upper resonators.
Do you yawn vertically or horizontally?
Communication is the by-product of desire and freedom.
From Workday Ten Developing and Strengthening: Chest, Mouth, Teeth resonators
Each part of the voice has its own rung on the resonating ladder, and the ladder is the body from the chest to the mouth, teeth, sinuses, nose and skull. You will be directing your voice to move up and down the resonating ladder until every part of it is available, familiar and safe. Weak rungs can be strengthened and gaps in the ladder can be filled in ways that are palpable. Your vocal range of three to four octaves can be mapped clearly and your use of it can become physically familiar through regular travel.
From Workdays Twelve and Thirteen Breathing Power
As we continue the exploration of breathing capacity the challenge is again to ask your Self: “What is my capacity for imagination, for emotion, for desire? What could I say through these large spaces I find within myself?” Let your developing breathing capacity suggest the development of your creative capacity.
Once you have found enough freedom in the solar plexus/diaphragm area to induce fast, even panting on breath alone and with sound, you can practice the panting on double triads….
The essential attributes of the actor’s voice are range, variety, beauty, clarity, power and volume, but sensitivity is the quality that will validate all the others, for they are dull attributes unless they are reflecting inner energy…Energies that fuel the voice muscles need to be attuned with great sensitivity to the still finer energies of psychological creation if the communication from inside to outside is going to be transparently true. When the energy of the content is powerful, the economy of its transmission will preserve the truth of the content.
Words…imagery
Language began instinctually, physically, primitively.
Awareness of the sensory nature of words must come before that of their informational purpose…
About Texts…art
The etymological root of the word text is the Latin texere, which means “to weave” or “to fabricate”. A text is a tapestry of ideas woven with words.
A word or a phrase or a sentence is like a pebble that, when thrown into the pool of the body-mind, sets up ripples that disturb the waters. The waters? Physical, sensory, sensual and emotional energies.When you are first learning lines, do not use the word memorize. …The old-fashioned term “learn by heart” tells you what you need to be doing when you learn. You need to be breathing the words in so that the underlying thoughts become feelings and the cellular make-up of your body starts to rearrange itself in response.
Listening in to classical texts we can hear how free and wide-ranging the classical voice was…Well-nourished by a diet of songs, poems and stories still rooted in a thousand-year-old oral tradition, all classes of society exercised the full range of voice for practical purposes. In the fields and cottages, women and men called, cajoled, wailed and wassailed. In the streets of the cities, they hawked their wares at full volume. In schools and universities, men and boys recited their lessons in stately Latin according to the rules of rhetoric. Ship captains threw their voices up with the wind into the sails where ship-boys tugged at ropes; armies were lashed into battle by the tongues of their leaders; kings and queens, noblemen and women harangued their subjects with a forceful eloquence that made good use of the melodious range of their voices exercised daily by singing motets and madrigals and canons and cantonets.
Tuning into the Text…imagination
You must be able to experience emotional imagination in your body. You must be able to express the incarnated emotional imagination in words if you are to speak classical texts and poetic texts truthfully.
The Glass Menagerie: Tennesse Williams
OVERVIEW
"TENNESSEE WILLIAMS' COLORFUL GENIUS HAS BEEN GLORIOUSLY REDEEMED..."
- Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times"GO! JUDITH IVEY IS NOTHING SHORT OF A TRIUMPH."
- Bill Raden, LA Weekly"A STUNNING AND ORIGINAL TAKE ON AN AMERICAN CLASSIC... This might be the funniest "Menagerie" you'll ever see... my hunch is Williams would be knocked out be the transformation…Judith Ivey's Amanda is a fascinating creation."
- Jay Reiner, The Hollywood Reporter"SEAMLESS AND CAPTIVATING... This 'Menagerie' is filled with humor. Gordon Edelstein has come up with a brilliant way of handling Tom's monologues..."
- Paul Hodgins, The Orange County Register
"Gordon Edelstein's SPLENDID, UNMISSABLE "The Glass Menagerie" brings out all manner of the hitherto-unseen insights, stage business and laughs."
- Bob Verini, Variety
One of the greatest American plays finds new light in this critically-lauded re-imagining of the classic story of a fragile family hanging its hopes on the arrival of a “gentleman caller.”
Two-time Tony Award®-winner Judith Ivey features in director Gordon Edelstein’s sparkling new production that makes this Menagerie as fresh and vital and sadly magical as its original 1944 debut.
Returning to the roles they played at the Long Wharf Theatre and in the subsequent Roundabout presentation are Patch Darragh as Tom, the son who works in a shoe factory and is torn between his role as the family breadwinner and his desire to lead a life of his own and Keira Keeley as Laura, his frail sister who has retreated to an imaginary world caring for her collection of glass animals.
“The quicksilver Darragh is a revelation …[He] is giving the kind of performance that lingers in the mind for life.”
- Erik Haagensen, Back Stage
“…there’s subtle craft in Keeley’s take on Laura’s fragility, and her performance grows weightier and more complex as the story culminates in a candle-lit kiss with her oblivious gentleman caller,”
- Jeff Labrecque, Entertainment Weekly
Ben McKenzie, who is best known for his roles on “Southland” and “The O.C.,” and in the films “Johnny Got His Gun” and “Junebug” joins the company as Jim, the Gentleman Caller.
Caryl Churchill Biography
Caryl Churchill
Caryl Churchill
Back | Genres | Bibliography | Prizes and awards | Critical perspective
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Contact details | Printer-friendly version
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Biography
Playwright Caryl Churchill was born on 3 September 1938 in London and grew up in the Lake District and in Montreal. She was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she read English. Downstairs, her first play, was written while she was still at university, was first staged in 1958 and won an award at the Sunday Times National Union of Students Drama Festival. She wrote a number of plays for BBC radio including The Ants (1962), Lovesick (1967) and Abortive (1971). The Judge's Wife was televised by the BBC in 1972 and Owners, her first professional stage production, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in London in the same year.She was Resident Dramatist at the Royal Court (1974-5) and spent much of the 1970s and 1980s working with the theatre groups 'Joint Stock' and 'Monstrous Regiment'. Her work during this period includes Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976), Cloud Nine (1979), Fen (1983) and A Mouthful of Birds (1986), written with David Lan. Three More Sleepless Nights was first produced at the Soho Poly, London, in 1980.
Top Girls brings together five historical female characters at a dinner party in a London restaurant given by Marlene, the new managing director of 'Top Girls' employment agency. The play was first staged at the Royal Court in 1982, directed by Max Stafford-Clark. It transferred to Joseph Papp's Public Theatre in New York later that year. Serious Money was first produced at the Royal Court in 1987 and won the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy of the Year and the Laurence Olivier/BBC Award for Best New Play. More recent plays include Mad Forest (1990), written after a visit to Romania, and The Skriker (1994). Her plays for television include The After Dinner Joke (1978) and Crimes (1982). Far Away premiered at the Royal Court in 2000, directed by Stephen Daldry. She has also published a new translation of Seneca's Thyestes (2001), and A Number (2002), which addresses the subject of human cloning. Her new version of August Strindberg's A Dream Play (2005), premiered at the National Theatre in 2005.
Caryl Churchill lives in London. Her latest play is Drunk Enough to say I Love You? (2006), which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in Winter 2006.
Christopher Durang Full Length Plays The Marriage of Bette & Boo
Christopher Durang
Full Length Plays
The Marriage of Bette & Boo
 The Marriage of Bette & Boo was first presented by the New York Shakespeare Festival (Joseph Papp, President) at the Public/Newman Theatre in New York City on May 16, 1985. It was directed by Jerry Zaks; scenery was by Loren Sherman, costumes were by William Ivey Long, lighting by Paul Gallo, original music by Richard Peaslee, hair designed by Ron Frederick. The associate producer was Jason Steven Cohen. The production stage manager was James Harker, the stage manager was Pamela Singer. Understudies were Dalton Dearborn, Patrick Garner, Lizbeth MacKay, Rose Arrick, Ann Hilliary. The cast was:
 photo: (l to r) Ruehl, Grody, Allen, Falkenhain, McCutcheon The Marriage of Bette and Boo is considered by many to be Durang’s best play to date. Admittedly biographical, the play is based on his parents’ marriage. Though it is a funny play told in 33 (mostly) quick scenes, the play is known for the mixture of seriousness and comedy in its tone. Shortly after its 1985 opening at Joe Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival, the play won a large number of Obie awards – for Durang for playwriting, for Jerry Zaks for directing, for Loren Sherman for set design, and an Ensemble Acting Obie for the entire 10 person cast. Later that year the play also won the prestigeous Dramatists Guild Hull Warriner Award. The Hull Warriner award is for the best play of the year “dealing with social, religious or political issues”, and it is particularly meaningful among playwrights since it is voted not by critics but by the 30 to 40 distinguished playwright members who make up the Dramatists Guild Council. Some reviews included:
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| Matt introduces and narrates the story of his parents’ marriage. As the play begins Bette and Boo are being united in matrimony, surrounded by their beaming families. But as the further progress of their marriage is chronicled it becomes increasingly clear that things are not working out quite as hoped for. The birth of their son is followed by a succession of stillborns; Boo takes to drink; and their respective families are odd lots to say the least: H  is father Karl is a sadistic tyrant, who refers to his wife Soot as the “dumbest white woman alive”. “How did you get the name Soot?” Bette wonders. No one knows. Then Bette’s family includes a cheerful dominating mother who refuses to let anybody talk about anything, and a super-sensitive sister Emily who apologizes all the time, and a bitter sister Joan with whom Bette is competitive. Her father seems probably sweet, but due to a stroke nothing he says can be understood. “Paul, I’ve asked you not to speak,” the mother says disapprovingly. For solace and counsel Bette drags Boo and other family members to see Father Donnally, a Roman Catholic priest who dodges their questions by impersonating (hilariously) a strip of frying bacon. Conveyed in a series of dazzlingly inventive interconnected scenes, the play moves on through three decades of divorce, alcoholism, madness and fatal illness— while Matt grows up and tries, without much success, to make sense of it all. In the final scene Bette is in the hospital, dying, while Matt assures her God is not punishing her a second marriage outside the church. “I don’t think God punishes people for specific things,” Matt says. “I think He punishes them in general for no reason.” “You always had a good sense of humor,” Bette says. Boo arrives and joins this visit. Although long divorced, Boo has continued to care for Bette. And, with lowered expectations from both of them, Bette and Boo have an ease and pleasantness between them during this hospital visit. As Matt prepares to leave, Bette slips into death. Boo and Emily kneel to pray, and Matt offers an epitaph for his mother. From Durang: The production of this play was one of my happiest theatrical experiences, and I thought the director Jerry Zaks, all the designers, and the entire cast all worked with one vision, and that the final product was a highly distinctive and successful “artistic marriage” of comic directing and acting, but rooted in a very strong, truthful psychological base.  It was only Joan Allen’s second acting job in New York City (after many standout performances at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago), and it was exciting to watch her in the subsequent years win a Tony for Lanford Wilson’s Burn This, and be nominated several times for an oscar. And cast members Mercedes Ruhel and Olympia Dukakis both won oscars in the years following, Mercedes for The Fisher King, and Olympia for Moonstruck. Then Mercedes won a Tony for Neil Simon’s Lost in Yonkers. And Bill McCutcheon won a Tony award a couple of years later for Jerry Zaks’ revival of Anything Goes. The entire cast of this production gave wonderful performances, the sort that makes authors grateful. So I thank them warmly, and for the way also they accepted me into their ranks for this production. In 1989 there was a notable production of Bette and Boo in Los Angeles, directed by Dennis Erdman at the L.A. Theatre Center. The excellent cast included Christine Ebersole and Guy Boyd as Bette and Boo, and included Bryan Clarke, Angela Patton, Stefan Gierasch, Stephen Tobolowsky, Lynn Milgrim, Lela Ivey, Jane Galloway, and David Marshall Grant as Matt (followed by Mitchell Lichtenstein). In the late 90s both Juilliard School and NYU Drama Division put on notable student productions. And Marcus Stern, the director of the NYU one, went on to direct a memorable revival of the play in 1998 at Robert Brustein’s American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. The A.R.T. production of Bette and Boo, in conjunction with a New York revival of John Guare’s Marco Polo Sings a Solo, triggered an interesting article by Steve Vinberg in a publication called The Threepenny Review, discussing my and Guare’s careers. I hadn’t seen it when John Guare nicely sent it to me; it’s complimentary to both of us, and makes comments how Guare and I do and do not fit in among contemporary dramatists. I will include a link to this article soon. note on name: By the way, the name Bette is pronounced like Bette Midler – that is, it’s one syllable, Bet. It is not Betty, like Betty Hutton or Betty Davis. I can’t solve it because it’s entered popular culture… but Bette Davis’ name was Bet, one syllable, Davis. She chose it rather than Betty, I read, because the one syllable name sounded more mature and sophisticated. However, her friends all called her Betty. This fact became so known that on TV and radio and in interviews, everyone would refer to her as Betty Davis – as if she was our good friend, and we were in the know. By the time I wrote my play, because of Bette Davis’ nickname of Betty, most people came to believe that one of the ways to spell “Betty” is Bette, or Bett-e. This is not correct. (Gosh, I sound like Sister Mary Ignatius explaining the Immaculate Conception.) The name “Bette” is not pronounced “Betty.” You don’t, luckily for my play, look at Bette Midler’s name and say “Betty” Midler. So if you would, the pronunciation of Bette in my play is but one syllable: Bet. Marriage of Bet and Boo, spelled Bette and Boo. By the way, Lauren Bacall’s nickname is also Betty. Please pronounce Lauren as Lauren, and not as Betty (haha). Cast size: 5 male, 5 femaleRights: Dramatists Play Service | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The New Yorker: Sarah Ruhl
TweetWhen the playwright Sarah Ruhl works at home, she sits at a desk in her young daughter Anna’s bedroom, beside a window overlooking a paddletennis court amid a red brick apartment maze on the East Side of Manhattan. A white gate, like a picket fence, stretches across the width of the small room, dividing the toddler’s play area from her mother’s. Ruhl, who is thirty-four and has already won a half-million-dollar MacArthur Fellowship for her plays (which include “The Clean House,” a comedy that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005), writes in a poised, crystalline style about things that are irrational and invisible. Ruhl is a fabulist. Her plays celebrate what she calls “the pleasure of heightened things.” In them, fish walk and caper (“Passion Play”), stones talk and weep (“Eurydice”), a dog is a witness to and the narrator of a family tragedy (“Dog Play”), a woman turns into an almond (“Melancholy Play”). Ruhl’s characters occupy, she has said, “the real world and also a suspended state.” Her new play, “Dead Man’s Cell Phone,” now at Playwrights Horizons, is a meditation on death, love, and disconnection in the digital age; like her other works, it inhabits a dramatic netherworld between personal suspense and suspended time. “Cell phones, iPods, wireless computers will change people in ways we don’t even understand,” Ruhl told me. “We’re less connected to the present. No one is where they are. There’s absolutely no reason to talk to a stranger anymore—you connect to people you already know. But how well do you know them? Because you never see them—you just talk to them. I find that terrifying.”
Looming over Ruhl’s writing table is a poster of a photograph from Walker Evans’s late-nineteen-thirties series of New York City subway riders, a gift from her husband, Tony Charuvastra, a child psychiatrist. (They married in 2005, after a seven-year courtship.) The juxtaposition of photographer and playwright—both entrepreneurs of tone and atmosphere—is one of those unconscious visual provocations that Ruhl’s plays relish. “I like to see people speaking ordinary words in strange places, or people speaking extraordinary words in ordinary places,” Ruhl has said. Evans wanted to project, he wrote, the “delights of seeing”; Ruhl wants to project the delights of pretense, “the interplay between the actual and the magical.” Evans once wrote about the “dream of making photographs like poems.” Ruhl began her career as a poet—her first book, “Death in Another Country,” a collection of verse, was published when she was twenty—and she sees her plays as “three-dimensional poems.” Evans’s subway photos were taken at furtive angles, with his lens hidden in the buttonhole of his coat and an operating cable up his sleeve; Ruhl’s narrative strategy is similarly oblique and cunning, and she aspires to a kind of reportorial anonymity. “If one is unseen, one has the liberty to observe and make things up,” she told me. “It’s very difficult to overhear a conversation if one is speaking loudly.” One night, at the Lincoln Center production of “The Clean House”—a tale about an unhappy Brazilian maid looking for the perfect joke in the midst of her employer’s family ructions—Ruhl sat unrecognized behind an elderly couple. “I didn’t not like it,” the woman said after the houselights came up. “I didn’t not like it,” her gentleman friend chimed in. “They turned to me,” Ruhl recalled, and asked, “ ‘What did you think?’ I said, ‘I didn’t not like it, either.’ ” But if Ruhl’s demeanor is unassuming, her plays are bold. Her nonlinear form of realism—full of astonishments, surprises, and mysteries—is low on exposition and psychology. “I try to interpret how people subjectively experience life,” she has said. “Everyone has a great, horrible opera inside him. I feel that my plays, in a way, are very old-fashioned. They’re pre-Freudian in the sense that the Greeks and Shakespeare worked with similar assumptions. Catharsis isn’t a wound being excavated from childhood.”
Lightness—the distillation of things into a quick, terse, almost innocent directness—is a value on which Ruhl puts much weight. “Italo Calvino has an essay that I think is profound,” she told me, scouting a floor-length living-room bookshelf until she found Calvino’s “Six Memos for the Next Millennium,” a series of posthumously published lectures on the imaginative qualities that the new millennium should call into play. Of his defining categories—among them quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity—lightness is foremost. “In the even more congested times that await us, literature must aim at the maximum concentration of poetry and of thought,” he writes. Ruhl, in her plays, contends with the pressing existential issues; her stoical comic posture is a means of killing gravity, of taking the heaviness out of her words in order to better contend with life. “Lightness isn’t stupidity,” she said. “It’s actually a philosophical and aesthetic viewpoint, deeply serious, and has a kind of wisdom—stepping back to be able to laugh at horrible things even as you’re experiencing them.” In “Melancholy Play” (2002), a farce about suffering, Ruhl dramatized the point. Among a group of sad sacks, who are gourmands of grief—they fight over “a vial of tears”—a bank teller named Tilly causes havoc when she pronounces herself happy. “I feel lighter and lighter,” Tilly says. “I am trying to cultivate—a sensation of—gravity. But nothing helps.”
8th Play: The Passion Play
How the Story goes: The three Passion plays under examination take place in disparate milieus, although Ms. Ruhl’s language freely mixes period syntax with contemporary slang and her own timeless lyricism. The simple costumes (by Gabriel Berry and Antonia Ford-Roberts) are a jumbled mixture of now and then. The first section is set in an English village in 1575, during one of Queen Elizabeth’s attempts to stamp out Roman Catholicism; the second at Oberammergau in Germany in 1934, three centuries after the first performance of the Passion play there, as National Socialism is on the rise; the third in Spearfish, S.D., beginning in 1969 and continuing to the present day, with a detour through the Reagan ’80s.
All three sections are, fundamentally, backstage soap operas accented with comedy and a little bit of mysticism, as biblical imagery bleeds from the stage into life and vice versa. For the actors who play key roles in the pageant in all three time periods — Jesus (Hale Appleman), Pontius Pilate (Mr. Fumusa), the Virgin Mary (Kate Turnbull) and Mary Magdalene (Nicole Wiesner) — impersonating these symbols of human suffering and purity and sin is an honor and a burden. And maybe something of an aphrodisiac.
In old England the Virgin Mary finds herself peculiarly bewitched by the slender, sinuous form of Mr. Appleman’s John the fisherman as he languishes on the cross in his role in the pageant. “Oh! His loincloth’s slipping!” she cries out with obvious relish. “It’s sinful to covet your own son, Mary,” replies the other Mary. The grouchy response: “I didn’t ask to play his mother.”
But John seems to take his role more seriously, and the Virgin Mother ends up turning to his cousin, Mr. Fumusa’s hungry-eyed fish gutter, for consolation. The unfortunate results have the unmarried Mary claiming another miracle has taken place, to much village suspicion. Enter Queen Elizabeth, played with chilly imperiousness by Mr. Smith (looking strikingly like Diana Vreeland, but never mind), who puts an end to the play, which she sees as inculcating Catholic subversion.
http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/theater/reviews/13passion.html
I am going to be working on this play for my Script Analysis class. Professor Orr recommended that i do this play for my final project since I ejoy Sarah Ruhl's play so much. I look forward to reading the play and working on it!
Here is my project proposal for the Play:
For my final project the play I have chosen to do is Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play. I really enjoy Ruhl’s plays, especially Eurydice, which is the most recent play that I read. Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play was suggested to me by my professor and I am willingly taking that suggestion. Unfortunately, I have not read the Passion Play yet since I am in the process of ordering it, but I am anxiously looking forward to reading the play. I hope that this play will move me as Eurydice did. Upon researching the play I have come to find that the play consists of three acts. Out of those three acts I will choose to analyze one of them. The overall background of what the Passion Play encompasses is, “The ways faith and art interact with politics and personalities, as re-enactments of Christ's Passion change the destinies of the performers” (Sheward). This quotation I came across in my research of the play is a tease, a sample of the delicious playwriting that I am soon to indulge in. I am eagerly looking forward to analyzing Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play.
All three sections are, fundamentally, backstage soap operas accented with comedy and a little bit of mysticism, as biblical imagery bleeds from the stage into life and vice versa. For the actors who play key roles in the pageant in all three time periods — Jesus (Hale Appleman), Pontius Pilate (Mr. Fumusa), the Virgin Mary (Kate Turnbull) and Mary Magdalene (Nicole Wiesner) — impersonating these symbols of human suffering and purity and sin is an honor and a burden. And maybe something of an aphrodisiac.
In old England the Virgin Mary finds herself peculiarly bewitched by the slender, sinuous form of Mr. Appleman’s John the fisherman as he languishes on the cross in his role in the pageant. “Oh! His loincloth’s slipping!” she cries out with obvious relish. “It’s sinful to covet your own son, Mary,” replies the other Mary. The grouchy response: “I didn’t ask to play his mother.”
But John seems to take his role more seriously, and the Virgin Mother ends up turning to his cousin, Mr. Fumusa’s hungry-eyed fish gutter, for consolation. The unfortunate results have the unmarried Mary claiming another miracle has taken place, to much village suspicion. Enter Queen Elizabeth, played with chilly imperiousness by Mr. Smith (looking strikingly like Diana Vreeland, but never mind), who puts an end to the play, which she sees as inculcating Catholic subversion.
http://theater.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/theater/reviews/13passion.html
I am going to be working on this play for my Script Analysis class. Professor Orr recommended that i do this play for my final project since I ejoy Sarah Ruhl's play so much. I look forward to reading the play and working on it!
Here is my project proposal for the Play:
For my final project the play I have chosen to do is Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play. I really enjoy Ruhl’s plays, especially Eurydice, which is the most recent play that I read. Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play was suggested to me by my professor and I am willingly taking that suggestion. Unfortunately, I have not read the Passion Play yet since I am in the process of ordering it, but I am anxiously looking forward to reading the play. I hope that this play will move me as Eurydice did. Upon researching the play I have come to find that the play consists of three acts. Out of those three acts I will choose to analyze one of them. The overall background of what the Passion Play encompasses is, “The ways faith and art interact with politics and personalities, as re-enactments of Christ's Passion change the destinies of the performers” (Sheward). This quotation I came across in my research of the play is a tease, a sample of the delicious playwriting that I am soon to indulge in. I am eagerly looking forward to analyzing Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play.
7th Play: Beyond Therapy
Christopher Durang's play Beyond Therapy is histerical because the characters say things that people would normally think and not say out loud. His play can almost be considered non-realistic at certain points.
The Story: The characters Bruce and Prudence meet through a personals ad, but their date doesn’t go so well. He expresses emotions and likes to cry. Prudence doesn’t think men should cry “unless something falls on them.” He has a male lover. “I’m bisexual,” he tells her. She’s not sure; they talk at cross purposes some more, and then end up throwing water in each others’ faces. We then see them talk about their meeting with their respective psychiatrists. Hers is a macho pig who once seduced her and keeps talking about his prowess. He refuses to say much, but occasionally bursts into inappropriate anger. His is a warm, encouraging woman who embraces her patients, talks through her Snoopy doll and believes in expressing all feelings no matter what. She encourages Bruce to cry, and on hearing he threw water at Prudence she cries out “Good for you! Ruff, ruff, ruff!” The “ruff ruff” is her barking for Snoopy.
Somehow Bruce and Prudence meet a second time, surprisingly overcome their initial loathing, and start to maybe like one another. But then she has to meet the male lover Bob; and listen to Bob’s crazy mother on the phone. And the whole thing comes to a chaotic end in a mad restaurant scene where screaming and shootings take place, and Bruce and Prudence almost get together, but don’t quite. They do like one another though, and end by humming softly together their favorite song, Someone to Watch Over Me.
I ended up using the scene where Bruse and prudence meet for my Directing 1 class. Sammie Davis played Prudence and Robert Roeloff played Bruce. Although I made some cuts to the scene to keep it within a certain time frame the scene did not lose its meat. At the end of the scene I had Sammie throw two glasses of water at Robert. With the first throw she actually accidentally missed which added a lot of comedy to the piece. I made some of my own blocking here and there but it was really exciting to watch the scene I chose be filmed and I am excited to retrieve the link for the scene from my director from the film department so that I can post it on my blog!
Monday, March 21, 2011
6th Play: The Glass of Water
Blongbroke, wants to gain political power and end the war because he wants to be wealthy and withold status and pull England out of its costly war with France. Bolingbroke manipulates the Queen and moves up politically, but the Duchess, wants to remain in control over the Queen and continue the war because that way she can continue to be the secret protector of Masham, be the dominatrix, and keep her husband, the Duke, away at war. The Duchess identifies that the Queen also loves Masham because she asks for a glass of water, which results in an argument between the Duchess amd the Queen. The Queen fires the Duchess, Bolingbroke succeeds in getting rid of the Duchess. Bolingbroke is promoted; he manipulates the Queen into blessing the marriage between Masham and Abigail, and ultimately takes action to cease the war.
I thoroughly enjoyed this play. At first I felt intimidated by its heightened language but once I allowed myself to submerge myself into the story the language grew easier to understand and the story became that much more intriguing.
I thoroughly enjoyed this play. At first I felt intimidated by its heightened language but once I allowed myself to submerge myself into the story the language grew easier to understand and the story became that much more intriguing.
5th Play: Dying Light
Synopsis:
"A dying climber fights demons, real and imagined, on the icy flanks of a dangerous Alaskan Mountain. This play
explores issues of responsibility and commitment, using the world of mountaineering as a complex metaphor.
The piece is highly theatrical in nature and an extremely engaging ride."
http://www.dramaticwriter.com/oneact.html
This brief synopsis that I found about Dying Light I did not feel gave the play complete justice. To me Dying Light connected to me on a more personal level. A few years ago my father battled and survived level four lymphoma cancer. Jenny's character reminded me of my father's attitude throughout his battle with cancer. Both Jenny and my father made light of their situation through humor. I remember visiting my dad in the City of Hope, which is a prestigious cancer treatment facility. He was all smiles though to see me even though he was undergoing intense treatment. He kept cracking jokes at himself and being silly, it was almost impossible to believe that he was actually sick.
This monologue, this play ultimately, called out to me through a personal level and that is why I chose it/enjoyed reading it.
"A dying climber fights demons, real and imagined, on the icy flanks of a dangerous Alaskan Mountain. This play
explores issues of responsibility and commitment, using the world of mountaineering as a complex metaphor.
The piece is highly theatrical in nature and an extremely engaging ride."
http://www.dramaticwriter.com/oneact.html
This brief synopsis that I found about Dying Light I did not feel gave the play complete justice. To me Dying Light connected to me on a more personal level. A few years ago my father battled and survived level four lymphoma cancer. Jenny's character reminded me of my father's attitude throughout his battle with cancer. Both Jenny and my father made light of their situation through humor. I remember visiting my dad in the City of Hope, which is a prestigious cancer treatment facility. He was all smiles though to see me even though he was undergoing intense treatment. He kept cracking jokes at himself and being silly, it was almost impossible to believe that he was actually sick.
This monologue, this play ultimately, called out to me through a personal level and that is why I chose it/enjoyed reading it.
My Best Friend's Wedding Scene
I performed in a scene for my Directing 1 class. The scene was from the movie My Best Friend's Wedding. I portrayed the role of Jules, whom is in love with her best friend Micheal who is getting married to a young woman named Kimmie. The scene is set with Jules and Micheal having coffe together where Micheal breaks the news to Jules that he is getting married. This news shocks Jules and crushes her because she realizes that she is in love with her best friend and was hoping that this meeting would be the perfect time to tell him.
I really enjoyed doing this scene not only because it is from one of my favorite movies, but also because I enjoyed doing the scene. This scene was different from any other scene that I have done before and I really appreciated that aspect of it.
I was recently asked to be in a scene by another peer of mine in that class; Ryan. He wrote his own script and developed a scene. The scene is very clever and serves as a metaphor. I am excited to being work on this scene.
As far as the 500 Days of Summer scene I played in and my own scene I am still waiting to hear back from the director's from the film department in order to retrieve the link for the scenes so that I can post them on my blogging site. I hope to post them very soon!
I really enjoyed doing this scene not only because it is from one of my favorite movies, but also because I enjoyed doing the scene. This scene was different from any other scene that I have done before and I really appreciated that aspect of it.
I was recently asked to be in a scene by another peer of mine in that class; Ryan. He wrote his own script and developed a scene. The scene is very clever and serves as a metaphor. I am excited to being work on this scene.
As far as the 500 Days of Summer scene I played in and my own scene I am still waiting to hear back from the director's from the film department in order to retrieve the link for the scenes so that I can post them on my blogging site. I hope to post them very soon!
Composite Paper : Monologue
Allie Boettcher
3/20/11
Acting 2
Component Paper
Character Analysis: Monologue
Dying Light
A. Play Analysis
1) The Situation:
The character that I was portraying was from Jason D. Morgan’s Dying Light. Jenny, the character, is a nineteen-year old young woman that has Glioblastoma cancer, which in the play is a cancer that has a track record for being deadly. Jenny is a charismatic young woman that accepts the fate she knows soon awaits her; her death. Although she knows that she will die she doesn’t focus on that but on the more positive things within her life. Cancer has affected her life, and she is aware of these affects, “You wouldn’t believe how hard it was in high school to deal with all that crap. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was for the girl with no hair to find a date for the prom. Nobody asked me. Nobody wanted to take the bald chick out. No big deal. Ended up just hiring someone to go with me…Just kidding.” This quote is directly from Jenny’s monologue. In the quote she expresses the affect that her condition has had on her, but she knows how to deal with it or make light of her situation. Ultimately, cancer has become part of her day-to-day life and although she has learned to live with it she strongly resents it at the same time.
2) The Objective:
This character’s objective, within the monologue is to portray that she is a strong young woman. Although she is scared, she is willing to face her ultimate fate. Also, he objective is to explain this new person that has entered her life; Tom is his name. She met him at the cancer ward. They both understand each other’s situation and both share the same light-hearted charismatic outlook. Ultimately Jenny’s objective is to explain that she is falling for this young man named Tom.
3) The Obstacle:
Jenny is excited to be falling in love but her obstacle is that she doesn’t have
much time with Tom. Her obstacle is the limited time that they both have. This is what contributes towards her resentment for her condition; she is falling in love for the first time and it frustrates her that her condition is putting a limit on the time that she has with Tom.
B. Change of Character in the Monologue
1) Character arc:
Originally the monologue is approximately three minutes long but Rafi helped me cut it down to about one minute and forty-five seconds to two minutes. Jenny’s character tries to make light of her situation by being comical in the beginning of the monologue. But, we removed that part of the monologue because we wanted to get straight to the core of what she is saying while being able to keep the piece to about two minutes. There are two changes in the monologue for the character. First, she is talking about how a doctor told her she should consider putting her estate in order; that is the first change, Then, later in the monologue after she talks about her struggles in high school she transitions into talking about meeting Tom. This is the biggest change for the character. Her whole physicality and emotion changes when she begins to explain this young man that has changed her life in a sense. Tom is the character that motivates a change within the character that I am playing. Tom has given Jenny a valid reason to want more time to live because she wants to fully experience the feelings that she has for him.
C. Monologue break down
It's strange the way people treat you when you're dying. My Mom try's to pretend nothings wrong... Maybe that's for the best. (quick beat) Recently a doctor told me I should consider putting my estate in order. Estate in order! What's that? Some clothing, make-up, and a beat up bicycle. I'm not going to be leaving a whole lot behind to prove I was here. (It is with this previous line that the character’s emotions start to build, to escalate.)
Cancer! (Cancer is what she resents because it has affected her life to a great extent.)
Brain surgeries! (Its not the actual condition she has, the cancer, that scares her but all of the operations she had to endure.) You wouldn't believe how hard it was in high school to deal with all that crap. (Character is very frustrated at this moment remembering the struggles she went through in her past.) You wouldn't believe how hard it was for a girl with no hair to find a date to the prom. (quick beat) (Connecting my personal narrative to this aspect of the novel; the character is no longer the cute little girl that got stuck in the snow in the morning.) Nobody asked me. (beat) Nobody wanted to take the bald chick out. No big deal. Ended up having to hire someone to go with me... (quick beat) Just kidding. (beat) (Shaking it off, making light of the circumstances.) Well, I'm still alive. (After all that she is still here AND she has met a great guy.) And I have Tom. (Complete emotional transition when she is picturing Tom; the entire mood and physicality of the character changes.) He took me out again last night and we had a blast. We've been gong out every night for a week now. It wouldn't surprise me if this becomes very serious,very fast. (quick beat) Last night we rented a really stupid Shwartznegger sequel. Usually I would have been annoyed to have wasted my time on such a lame flick; but Tom made it funny. (Running away in thought about Tom; he can make her laugh. He has taught her how to laugh again.) He kept talking to the screen. When the hero said, "I'll be back;" Tom responded by saying, (Imitates accent.) "Don't bother, we won't be here." (beat) When he brought me home last night...(Transition after this line, she is thinking about her first REAL kiss.) He gave me a kiss I'll never forget. It was so romantic. I've never felt this way about a guy before. (beat) (Excited and scared at the same time because its her first love.) Well, when you're nineteen years old, and you know you're going to... There's no time to waste. (Scared of the limited time she has with Tom; wants more time.) And Tom is such a good guy. I think I might be... (quick beat) (The idea is coming to her right there.) I think I might be falling in love. (She admits that she is falling for this great guy Tom; the only scary realization in her life that she is happy about.)
1) Objectives: Action Verbs:
First line: Attitude Second Line: Awareness, confessing Third Line: Annoyed Fourth Line: Irritated Fifth Line: Angry Sixth Line: Resentment Seventh Line: Afraid, scared of Eighth Line: Accusing Ninth Line: Frustrated, yet white flag moment in a sense Tenth Line: Resentment Eleventh Line: Ashamed, hurt Twelfth Line: Who cares attitude, I don’t care attitude Thirteenth Line: Joking Fourteenth Line: Made it through all that AND met a great guy attitude Fifteenth Line: Reminiscing Sixteenth Line: Admitting Seventeenth Line: Reminiscing Eighteenth Line: Reminiscing on Tom’s humor Nineteenth Line: Melting Twentieth Line: Twinge of worry, scared Twenty-first Line: Realization
D. Rehearsal Analysis
1) Statue Work:
This is thorough instructions of how my statue should look; I created my statue during class time in an exercise. Legs slightly more then shoulder width a part. On releve, or balls of feet. Legs are locked and the core should be tight. Head is looking to the left at a forty-five degree angle and left arm is crossed over the right, making an “x.” Body/torso is twisted towards , or over, left shoulder. Hands are not tense but relaxed. Good posture should be maintained. Finally, feet are parallel, not turned out.
2) Meetings:
I Met with Rafi for a total of three times and met with professor Cirino one time in office hours. In my meetings with Rafi we were able to cut down my monologue from approximately three minutes to about two minutes. We found that are cut was perfect because it still kept the meet of the monologue; we didn’t lose too much. I had some breakthroughs in my meetings with Rafi; ultimately I found that meeting with him was very beneficial. Also, meeting with professor Cirino enabled me to find a connection between my narrative and my statue to my character within the monologue.
3) Narrative:
MY NARRATIVE: A story that I thought of actually happened in my life a long time ago. When I was younger my grandparents would always take my cousin brother, and I up to Big Bear. We have a cabin up there and they would always take us whenever it snowed. One of my first trips up to Big Bear I was about 3 or 4 years old, so I don't really remember this incident. Anyway, my grandfather managed to get our car stuck in the snow and ironically enough we were on the same street as our cabin. When I was little I didn't really have much to say besides saying the word "no," in response to anything anyone would say to me. Well, supposedly I made quite the cute little remark, and it was an actual sentence. With the chaos of being stuck in the snow and with my grandparents bickering I just blurted out, "Uh oh, stuck in the snow in the morning!" From that day on my grandfather has never failed to mention that to me. He says to me, even now, "What happened to the cute little girl that said, 'Stuck in the snow in the morning!' " It has followed me my entire life, and has become my trade mark within our family. I'm the little girl that said 'stuck in the snow in the morning.' My grandpa still sees me as that little girl in his eyes and I think that he always will.
E. Performance Analysis
1) Overall reaction:
I was proud of the work that I did on stage. Although I am still developing as an actress I felt that I made leaps from my performances in the past. I felt well prepared, connected, and like I had a very good understanding for the choice that I made with my monologue. Unfortunately I was not comfortable with the comment that was made by one of my peers in the class, but I am not going to let that uneducated critique get me down. Although I do realize that I have room for improvement I am proud of the work that I did and am thankful to have been able to work with Rafi. I Look forward to performing a second piece for the class.
F. Short Evaluation
Overall, I feel that I was successful in my monologue performance. Although I was not completely satisfied with the critiques I was given I will not let that hinder me from performing a second piece for the class.
G. Bibliographies
Jason D. Martin’s Dying Light
3/20/11
Acting 2
Component Paper
Character Analysis: Monologue
Dying Light
A. Play Analysis
1) The Situation:
The character that I was portraying was from Jason D. Morgan’s Dying Light. Jenny, the character, is a nineteen-year old young woman that has Glioblastoma cancer, which in the play is a cancer that has a track record for being deadly. Jenny is a charismatic young woman that accepts the fate she knows soon awaits her; her death. Although she knows that she will die she doesn’t focus on that but on the more positive things within her life. Cancer has affected her life, and she is aware of these affects, “You wouldn’t believe how hard it was in high school to deal with all that crap. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was for the girl with no hair to find a date for the prom. Nobody asked me. Nobody wanted to take the bald chick out. No big deal. Ended up just hiring someone to go with me…Just kidding.” This quote is directly from Jenny’s monologue. In the quote she expresses the affect that her condition has had on her, but she knows how to deal with it or make light of her situation. Ultimately, cancer has become part of her day-to-day life and although she has learned to live with it she strongly resents it at the same time.
2) The Objective:
This character’s objective, within the monologue is to portray that she is a strong young woman. Although she is scared, she is willing to face her ultimate fate. Also, he objective is to explain this new person that has entered her life; Tom is his name. She met him at the cancer ward. They both understand each other’s situation and both share the same light-hearted charismatic outlook. Ultimately Jenny’s objective is to explain that she is falling for this young man named Tom.
3) The Obstacle:
Jenny is excited to be falling in love but her obstacle is that she doesn’t have
much time with Tom. Her obstacle is the limited time that they both have. This is what contributes towards her resentment for her condition; she is falling in love for the first time and it frustrates her that her condition is putting a limit on the time that she has with Tom.
B. Change of Character in the Monologue
1) Character arc:
Originally the monologue is approximately three minutes long but Rafi helped me cut it down to about one minute and forty-five seconds to two minutes. Jenny’s character tries to make light of her situation by being comical in the beginning of the monologue. But, we removed that part of the monologue because we wanted to get straight to the core of what she is saying while being able to keep the piece to about two minutes. There are two changes in the monologue for the character. First, she is talking about how a doctor told her she should consider putting her estate in order; that is the first change, Then, later in the monologue after she talks about her struggles in high school she transitions into talking about meeting Tom. This is the biggest change for the character. Her whole physicality and emotion changes when she begins to explain this young man that has changed her life in a sense. Tom is the character that motivates a change within the character that I am playing. Tom has given Jenny a valid reason to want more time to live because she wants to fully experience the feelings that she has for him.
C. Monologue break down
It's strange the way people treat you when you're dying. My Mom try's to pretend nothings wrong... Maybe that's for the best. (quick beat) Recently a doctor told me I should consider putting my estate in order. Estate in order! What's that? Some clothing, make-up, and a beat up bicycle. I'm not going to be leaving a whole lot behind to prove I was here. (It is with this previous line that the character’s emotions start to build, to escalate.)
Cancer! (Cancer is what she resents because it has affected her life to a great extent.)
Brain surgeries! (Its not the actual condition she has, the cancer, that scares her but all of the operations she had to endure.) You wouldn't believe how hard it was in high school to deal with all that crap. (Character is very frustrated at this moment remembering the struggles she went through in her past.) You wouldn't believe how hard it was for a girl with no hair to find a date to the prom. (quick beat) (Connecting my personal narrative to this aspect of the novel; the character is no longer the cute little girl that got stuck in the snow in the morning.) Nobody asked me. (beat) Nobody wanted to take the bald chick out. No big deal. Ended up having to hire someone to go with me... (quick beat) Just kidding. (beat) (Shaking it off, making light of the circumstances.) Well, I'm still alive. (After all that she is still here AND she has met a great guy.) And I have Tom. (Complete emotional transition when she is picturing Tom; the entire mood and physicality of the character changes.) He took me out again last night and we had a blast. We've been gong out every night for a week now. It wouldn't surprise me if this becomes very serious,very fast. (quick beat) Last night we rented a really stupid Shwartznegger sequel. Usually I would have been annoyed to have wasted my time on such a lame flick; but Tom made it funny. (Running away in thought about Tom; he can make her laugh. He has taught her how to laugh again.) He kept talking to the screen. When the hero said, "I'll be back;" Tom responded by saying, (Imitates accent.) "Don't bother, we won't be here." (beat) When he brought me home last night...(Transition after this line, she is thinking about her first REAL kiss.) He gave me a kiss I'll never forget. It was so romantic. I've never felt this way about a guy before. (beat) (Excited and scared at the same time because its her first love.) Well, when you're nineteen years old, and you know you're going to... There's no time to waste. (Scared of the limited time she has with Tom; wants more time.) And Tom is such a good guy. I think I might be... (quick beat) (The idea is coming to her right there.) I think I might be falling in love. (She admits that she is falling for this great guy Tom; the only scary realization in her life that she is happy about.)
1) Objectives: Action Verbs:
First line: Attitude Second Line: Awareness, confessing Third Line: Annoyed Fourth Line: Irritated Fifth Line: Angry Sixth Line: Resentment Seventh Line: Afraid, scared of Eighth Line: Accusing Ninth Line: Frustrated, yet white flag moment in a sense Tenth Line: Resentment Eleventh Line: Ashamed, hurt Twelfth Line: Who cares attitude, I don’t care attitude Thirteenth Line: Joking Fourteenth Line: Made it through all that AND met a great guy attitude Fifteenth Line: Reminiscing Sixteenth Line: Admitting Seventeenth Line: Reminiscing Eighteenth Line: Reminiscing on Tom’s humor Nineteenth Line: Melting Twentieth Line: Twinge of worry, scared Twenty-first Line: Realization
D. Rehearsal Analysis
1) Statue Work:
This is thorough instructions of how my statue should look; I created my statue during class time in an exercise. Legs slightly more then shoulder width a part. On releve, or balls of feet. Legs are locked and the core should be tight. Head is looking to the left at a forty-five degree angle and left arm is crossed over the right, making an “x.” Body/torso is twisted towards , or over, left shoulder. Hands are not tense but relaxed. Good posture should be maintained. Finally, feet are parallel, not turned out.
2) Meetings:
I Met with Rafi for a total of three times and met with professor Cirino one time in office hours. In my meetings with Rafi we were able to cut down my monologue from approximately three minutes to about two minutes. We found that are cut was perfect because it still kept the meet of the monologue; we didn’t lose too much. I had some breakthroughs in my meetings with Rafi; ultimately I found that meeting with him was very beneficial. Also, meeting with professor Cirino enabled me to find a connection between my narrative and my statue to my character within the monologue.
3) Narrative:
MY NARRATIVE: A story that I thought of actually happened in my life a long time ago. When I was younger my grandparents would always take my cousin brother, and I up to Big Bear. We have a cabin up there and they would always take us whenever it snowed. One of my first trips up to Big Bear I was about 3 or 4 years old, so I don't really remember this incident. Anyway, my grandfather managed to get our car stuck in the snow and ironically enough we were on the same street as our cabin. When I was little I didn't really have much to say besides saying the word "no," in response to anything anyone would say to me. Well, supposedly I made quite the cute little remark, and it was an actual sentence. With the chaos of being stuck in the snow and with my grandparents bickering I just blurted out, "Uh oh, stuck in the snow in the morning!" From that day on my grandfather has never failed to mention that to me. He says to me, even now, "What happened to the cute little girl that said, 'Stuck in the snow in the morning!' " It has followed me my entire life, and has become my trade mark within our family. I'm the little girl that said 'stuck in the snow in the morning.' My grandpa still sees me as that little girl in his eyes and I think that he always will.
E. Performance Analysis
1) Overall reaction:
I was proud of the work that I did on stage. Although I am still developing as an actress I felt that I made leaps from my performances in the past. I felt well prepared, connected, and like I had a very good understanding for the choice that I made with my monologue. Unfortunately I was not comfortable with the comment that was made by one of my peers in the class, but I am not going to let that uneducated critique get me down. Although I do realize that I have room for improvement I am proud of the work that I did and am thankful to have been able to work with Rafi. I Look forward to performing a second piece for the class.
F. Short Evaluation
Overall, I feel that I was successful in my monologue performance. Although I was not completely satisfied with the critiques I was given I will not let that hinder me from performing a second piece for the class.
G. Bibliographies
Jason D. Martin’s Dying Light
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