4/12/14 - (late) Monologues

I apologise profusely for this late blog post!

So, last Thursday's lesson we focused on monologues, we chose our favourite characters. I chose the abused girlfriend. 

Monologue

We had about 20 minutes to come up with our monologues, by ourselves. We then worked in pairs to stage the pieces and I worked with Sherene. We were both really supportive of each other and we gave a few improvements so that our performances were to the best of our ability! Sherene said that my main focus was to make sure I keep the same emotion in my voice so it's not just everywhere, so it's planned and sounds planned too! When I performed my piece I used a light, cheerful and excited tone while delivering my lines because my character had a new boyfriend and so she didn't know how abusive the relationship would get, I was playing her when she was still completely oblivious. I tried to make my physicality comfortable because I felt that my character was content with her life at that moment, so she is relaxed in her body language.

The monologue task helped me to understand the play further because the situation and character I created can be quite common nowadays, especially as it was set in the east end, so I was able to imagine it clearer. It also helped me understand how difficult a situation like an abusive relationship can be and that it is very hard to get out of. 

Once we had all performed to each other we were given feedback from the cover teacher, Chris. One of the monologues that really stood out for me was Rory's because he didn't hold back in his acting. At one point he got really angry and knocked over the chair. You have to be careful when doing strong emotions because it can look over-exaggerated but Rory managed to make it look naturalistic and it let his character's emotions pour out of him. Rory had written about the abuser of the girlfriend, and his was set in the police station, answering questions about her death.

We didn't actually get onto the research task as we didn't have enough time and I didn't get another developing assessment sheet so I'll just write it here!

I think I worked at a merit level because I used some of the research I found out about relationships to help me with my monologue. I understood every task that was given to me and I stayed focused and ready all lesson.

- Matilda ^_^