Over the last week we have been working on "The Positive Hour" by April de Angelis, I am the character of Miranda hurst who is a social working in London in the 1990s and has just come back to work after a mental break down.
First Cassie researched the cultural, social and political context of the time the play was set, so the 1990s in London. I then took certain points that suited my character:
Cultural:
First Cassie researched the cultural, social and political context of the time the play was set, so the 1990s in London. I then took certain points that suited my character:
Cultural:
- The different cultures you could find in London in the 20th century are - Jewish, French, German, Caribbean, Chinese, Russian, Belgian, Italian, Serbian, Australian, Canadian and African Troops.
- Internet, email, home computers, mobile phones all became common in the 1990's.
- Younger Population compared to the rest of England
- Depending on where you lived also showed the type of class/status you were in society.
- Between 1991 and 2001 the population of Greater London increased by 492337 and it increased in Inner London by 261524.
- Employed more women and Ethnic people into work
- Changing status of women in society, have equal rights.
- Marie Stopes birth contraceptive - to help poor families
- Higher divorce rates, single parent families = smaller homes and more homes because everyone was living on their own.
- Birth outside of marriage - 35% in the 1990s
- Politicians also decided to try and make London slums into a cleaner environment. In the war they were destroyed, so they built public houses to accommodate the less fortunate.
From this research I concluded that Miranda had a mental break down because of the added stress of equalizing women because she didn't actually want to work. She also had to learn about many different cultures in order to understand all her clients who suddenly were from many different countries, she also had a lot more clients because the government were attempting to clean up the slums and so a lot of people were sent to counseling. There was a lot of births outside of marriage and so she had a lot more single mothers like Paula to deal with on top of the stress of learning how to use all the new technology they were expected to use.
We also got the setting of the play from the historical background, as mentioned London was very cramped at this time, and so we decided to have Miranda's office in a small cubicle with a very small table and chair to show how cramped everyone was living and to illustrate how Paula was trapped in her situation and couldn't get out.
Character profile sheet
By doing the character profile sheet i discovered that i imagined Miranda as a touchy, changeable, sober, unsociable, reserved, quiet, careful, reliable and controlled character.
I was then influenced by Emma Pillsbury from Glee, her character has OCD and is very insecure about herself. She wants to be professional but is lacking the confidence to appear professional.
Whilst reading through the script I wrote down her aim in each sentence i said, they were either: trying to be professional, trying not to break down, trying to calm Paula down. This helped me detect her change in objective as well as gaining a better understanding of her personality and developing a deeper character.
I tried to portray Miranda as both a very controlled and strict character as well as an insecure, weak character and by trying out both we found that the insecure, weak character creates a bigger contrast from Paula who is a very out-going and demanding character. This creates comedy because it gives more power to Paula who is the one who's life has completely fallen apart and should be the weaker character, and Miranda who is the upper class character with a job and good money is the one who portrayed as the weaker and more threatened link in the relationship.
In the rehearsal process we used Utah Hagen's Object Exercises, we asked ourself these questions :
1. Who am I?
Character.
2. What time is it?
century, year, season, day, minute.
3. Where am I?
country, city, neighborhood, house, room, area of room.
4. What surrounds me?
animate and inanimate objects.
5. What are the given circumstances?
past, present, future, and the events.
6. What is my relationship?
relation to total events, other characters, and to other things.
7. What do I want?
character, main and immediate objectives.
8. What's in my way?
obstacles
9. What do I do to get what I want?
The action: physical, verbal.
In order for this to work you have to be very personal, very descriptive and dig very deep. You have to be completely honest and overanalyze the situation so that you really realize how you act in real life and it'll then be easier for you to use it on stage. (check examples in portfolio).
Here are my answers for Miranda:
1. I am a 30 year old social worker who is scared of the empowerment of women as she feels inadequate to go into the workforce. i am very high maintenance and very afraid of germs after her recent collapse which I blame on a virus as I don't want to look weaker than my clients even though I am in most cases. I am very reserved and try to avoid personal conversations with clients and I try to stick to the books and what I have been taught. I am married but I have no kids because I am afraid of the responsibility as well as the pain from child birth. I grew up in an old fashioned family as an only child in a middle classed family.
2. It is the spring of 1997, a monday morning and I would say it's around noon. The sun is starting to warm up and people are coming in without jackets on.
3. I am in my office in Lewisham, London. I am in the far corner of the office in my cubicle, furthest away from the door and any windows.
4. I am surrounded by three walls, it is a very small cubicle and I can hear the writing on keyboards and phones ringing in all the cubicles around me. The room is quite dark because of all the extra walls set up and it creates a very grey atmosphere despite the golden sun outside. I only get the light the white lamps hung around the room. On my table there is a phone and a new PC which I am learning how to use because all my old paperwork has been taken away in the time I was on leave.
5. Since I last went to work there has been a lot more immigration and so I now have to get familiar with many more cultures and religions, I find it very difficult to understand anyone who cannot speak proper English and therefore very hard to communicate with them. Over the past 10 years there has been an increase in births outside marriage and so I have to deal with a lot of single mothers, most of whom are very inadequate of looking after a child. I am now expected to use all the new technology as this has become very fashionable.
6. I find it hard to deal with other nationalities because I don't understand what they are saying or where they are coming from. I find it hard to have respect for single mothers because I don't understand how they can be so irresponsible and have no fear at all, I think I am a little jealous of their independence because I am very dependent on my Father and Husband. I do not understand technology, I would rather use my old paperwork. I think Paula is very strange and rude, I don't understand why she thinks she is good enough to look after her child but I'm afraid of telling her she is inadequate to look after her child because she gets very scary when she is angry.
7. I want to get through the day without too much stress and recreate a professional image for myself because I want to fit into society as I don't like to be different and I don't like to disappoint people.
8. Paula's anger and my fear of having another collapse.
9. I talk her down when she has a blade in her hand and I convince her that I'm on her side so that I can go back to the script and do what I've been instructed to do.
http://alisontheatre.blogspot.com/2011/05/positive-hour-april-de-angelis.html
These are the pictures from our performance.
I think once we got started our energy was very high and the comedy came quite natural. I exaggerated my insecurities with the technology, I showed this by typing with one finger and hitting the table very hard. I also stuck my nose very close to the screen, as if i was trying to look "through" the screen whilst sticking my tongue out of my mouth to show I was concentrating. I exaggerated my facial expressions and kept emphasizing on my OCD by cleaning everything around me and pulling my hand away when Paula tried to touch it. When Paula lit a cigarette I started coughing into my hankie with very big eyes.
I think we had very good dynamics and once we started performing the comedy came quite natural because we had both studied our characters very well and so we both had very in-depth characters. This made the contrast between the characters very apparent without us having to try to make it clear, which is where the comedy came from.
Character profile sheet
I was then influenced by Emma Pillsbury from Glee, her character has OCD and is very insecure about herself. She wants to be professional but is lacking the confidence to appear professional.
Whilst reading through the script I wrote down her aim in each sentence i said, they were either: trying to be professional, trying not to break down, trying to calm Paula down. This helped me detect her change in objective as well as gaining a better understanding of her personality and developing a deeper character.
I tried to portray Miranda as both a very controlled and strict character as well as an insecure, weak character and by trying out both we found that the insecure, weak character creates a bigger contrast from Paula who is a very out-going and demanding character. This creates comedy because it gives more power to Paula who is the one who's life has completely fallen apart and should be the weaker character, and Miranda who is the upper class character with a job and good money is the one who portrayed as the weaker and more threatened link in the relationship.
In the rehearsal process we used Utah Hagen's Object Exercises, we asked ourself these questions :
1. Who am I?
Character.
2. What time is it?
century, year, season, day, minute.
3. Where am I?
country, city, neighborhood, house, room, area of room.
4. What surrounds me?
animate and inanimate objects.
5. What are the given circumstances?
past, present, future, and the events.
6. What is my relationship?
relation to total events, other characters, and to other things.
7. What do I want?
character, main and immediate objectives.
8. What's in my way?
obstacles
9. What do I do to get what I want?
The action: physical, verbal.
In order for this to work you have to be very personal, very descriptive and dig very deep. You have to be completely honest and overanalyze the situation so that you really realize how you act in real life and it'll then be easier for you to use it on stage. (check examples in portfolio).
Here are my answers for Miranda:
1. I am a 30 year old social worker who is scared of the empowerment of women as she feels inadequate to go into the workforce. i am very high maintenance and very afraid of germs after her recent collapse which I blame on a virus as I don't want to look weaker than my clients even though I am in most cases. I am very reserved and try to avoid personal conversations with clients and I try to stick to the books and what I have been taught. I am married but I have no kids because I am afraid of the responsibility as well as the pain from child birth. I grew up in an old fashioned family as an only child in a middle classed family.
2. It is the spring of 1997, a monday morning and I would say it's around noon. The sun is starting to warm up and people are coming in without jackets on.
3. I am in my office in Lewisham, London. I am in the far corner of the office in my cubicle, furthest away from the door and any windows.
4. I am surrounded by three walls, it is a very small cubicle and I can hear the writing on keyboards and phones ringing in all the cubicles around me. The room is quite dark because of all the extra walls set up and it creates a very grey atmosphere despite the golden sun outside. I only get the light the white lamps hung around the room. On my table there is a phone and a new PC which I am learning how to use because all my old paperwork has been taken away in the time I was on leave.
5. Since I last went to work there has been a lot more immigration and so I now have to get familiar with many more cultures and religions, I find it very difficult to understand anyone who cannot speak proper English and therefore very hard to communicate with them. Over the past 10 years there has been an increase in births outside marriage and so I have to deal with a lot of single mothers, most of whom are very inadequate of looking after a child. I am now expected to use all the new technology as this has become very fashionable.
6. I find it hard to deal with other nationalities because I don't understand what they are saying or where they are coming from. I find it hard to have respect for single mothers because I don't understand how they can be so irresponsible and have no fear at all, I think I am a little jealous of their independence because I am very dependent on my Father and Husband. I do not understand technology, I would rather use my old paperwork. I think Paula is very strange and rude, I don't understand why she thinks she is good enough to look after her child but I'm afraid of telling her she is inadequate to look after her child because she gets very scary when she is angry.
7. I want to get through the day without too much stress and recreate a professional image for myself because I want to fit into society as I don't like to be different and I don't like to disappoint people.
8. Paula's anger and my fear of having another collapse.
9. I talk her down when she has a blade in her hand and I convince her that I'm on her side so that I can go back to the script and do what I've been instructed to do.
http://alisontheatre.blogspot.com/2011/05/positive-hour-april-de-angelis.html
These are the pictures from our performance.
I think once we got started our energy was very high and the comedy came quite natural. I exaggerated my insecurities with the technology, I showed this by typing with one finger and hitting the table very hard. I also stuck my nose very close to the screen, as if i was trying to look "through" the screen whilst sticking my tongue out of my mouth to show I was concentrating. I exaggerated my facial expressions and kept emphasizing on my OCD by cleaning everything around me and pulling my hand away when Paula tried to touch it. When Paula lit a cigarette I started coughing into my hankie with very big eyes.
I think we had very good dynamics and once we started performing the comedy came quite natural because we had both studied our characters very well and so we both had very in-depth characters. This made the contrast between the characters very apparent without us having to try to make it clear, which is where the comedy came from.
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