16/11/14 - Prologue

We had Mr Worden again today, we didn't do a lot of acting because he wanted to know what we thought of the school so far so lots of questions were being thrown at us!

We started with two tiring warm-ups to get us energized, and then we moved onto the prologue.

We all had to get into pairs and add in another character's lines between the original lines, so it was a proper conversation. The prologue was simply about a taxi driver. Roseby and I used our imagination and quick thinking to come up with an interesting piece, it went a little something like this:

-Ever been hit?
Shit (both stagger back)
Jumped a light there
Woops, so you goin back to your bf?
-Well, actually I'd rather be anywhere BUT where he is right now.. so have you ever been      hit?
Nah
It don't bother me really
I mean sometimes I'll get a bit of a thump from the Mrs!
-No but I mean properly hit, like domestic violence? Does that stuff worry you?
Not really
Well it does a bit
I spose

We decided to link our scene to tale 5, with the domestic violence because it would make it different and stand out. We also chose to stage our scene standing up and walking around. We walked around as if we were driving in a taxi and every so often the woman would lag behind to show a sign of weakness. We had about 15 minute rehearsal time, we shared them to each other and then we all discussed. Everybody's mini performances were well created in the short amount of time and every group had different ideas of how they interpreted it. I really enjoyed Alex, Ella and Sarah's performance because theirs was the most realistic to a taxi journey, and also it wasn't boring to watch as the scene was staged interestingly.

We continued to explore the taxi driver by doing a whole class hot-seat. Hot-seating is an effective technique to use in a rehearsal because it prepares you for the unexpected and keeps you on your toes mentally. It is also a good way to help you with improvisation. I learnt that the taxi driver is comfortable with his job because he has been doing it for a long time and he likes to see the city during the day and at night. I asked one question: what do you do if someone has thrown up all over the place?

Ensemble taxi driving happened next. Everybody sat by the wall in a long line and we had to read out the prologue in our own unique way, we had to interpret the taxi driver to what we thought they were like. My taxi driver was a woman in her mid-30s and it was her first day working, so she was very bright, excited and bubbly. I made this choice because usually taxi drivers are male so I wanted to change it up a bit. I also made her bubbly because usually taxi drivers look bored and fed-up, so I wanted to see what it was like to be the opposite. Two examples of other taxi drivers that people did were Alex and Benji's. Benji's taxi driver was a young male who seemed very 'camp', he had his legs crossed and was very happy and did non-stop chatter. Alex' taxi driver was much different as it was a middle-aged man who was very 'laddy'. He sat slouched with his legs open wide and when he spoke his mouth didn't open very much. We all worked together as an ensemble by looking and listening, when we had to copy Alex, we all waited until we got used to her character's physical traits and accent, and then when we were ready we would join in.

- Matilda ^_^