Original Monologue

Monologue

First attempt

In this weeks session, we focused on performing our monologues for the first time and how we can get feedback on it to make it even better.

In order to begin the first attempt of my monologue, I had to get into character and think about what happened the moment before this monologue begun so that I can prevent unwanted consequences throughout the rest of the monologue, which is very helpful in making me realize that I may want to say certain words in a different tone or make them come across in a certain way, trather than acting without thinking. This was very beneficial with making my performance very naturalistic and raw as I could easily show my emotions behind every word that I was saying.

Furthermore, I have worked collaboratively with others during this task by helping each other come up with times in our lives where we felt relatable to the monologue that we were performing so that we could feel more connected to the scene and feel closer to our characters. Working collaboratively doing this was also beneficial as we could make a believable character that we can also relate to the audience and make the viewers feel like they are in the scene with them and experiencing everything they are going through which helps entice the watchers into the performance and keep them on the edge of their seat.

An individual action that I came up with was that I suggested we hot seat our characters so that could find out more about our characters and how they relate to us in some ways rather than having to relive situations in our personal lives that could bring up any trauma. By finding out common interests with our characters through hot seating this would also make us feel more cloer to our characters and perform the scene in the way that I would in my real life, rather than searching for that same situation that you may have gone through in your life.

However, during the collaborative task, I felt that at times it did become very difficult as it made people relive times in thieir life that they buried away, and having to thing about it made this process very difficult. So moving forward, I am going to recommmend that we use different techniques such as hot seating and character profiles instead.

Hot seating my character

In todays workshop for our monologue, we focused on hot seating our characters.

In order to begin hot seating my character I wanted to make sure my intentions are clear on what I want to achieve during this hot seating exercise. For example, I decided to focus on what my motivations are for my character and how I can find out more about why and how they are going to achieve their motivations. Focusing on this during my hot seating allowed me to understand the emotions and reasons behind their goals and motivations.

I worked collaboratively with others during this task by discussing with each other on a focus for the questioning. During this task, we all shared our knowledge on the type of character we will be questioning so that when we ask the questions they will develop exsisting knowledge, rather than asking things they already know about their character. This allowed everyone to understand their characters and find any similaraties they have with them so that their is a deeper connection between the character and yourself.

Moreover, an individual action that I recommended during the hot seating exercise was to make sure that we all had a line of enquirey to follow up on the question that we just asked so that we can gather an either deeper understanding for the characters reasons and actions. I also suggested that we make notes on all the things the character has answered so that we can use them to help when rehearsing and performing the monologue.

However, during the collaborative task, I felt that it did become a very slow process in the beginning as we all struggled on what questions we should ask or what area we should focus on to ask during the hot seating exercise, so moving forward I am going to suggest that we all come up with questions before the lesson starts so that we are not wasting any time and can quicken the process up.

Week 1 and 2 of rehearsals

During these two weeks, we majorly focused on the rehearsals for our monologues and how we can improve on them.

Firstly, throughout the rehearsal process for my monologue, I had to make sure that I had all of my lines memorised so that I was fully prepared during every session and would not have to worry about messing up my lines. A technique that I used to remember my lines was to write out all of lines on a different sheet of paper so that it would stay in my head whilst Im constantly writing them all out. This was very helpful as it helped me to remember every single word in each sentence very quickly by writing them out, allowing me to focus on the acting side of my monologue now.

Moreover, I worked collaboratively with others during the rehearsal process by giving and recieveing feedback on each other performances so that when it comes to our final performance we feel confident and stable with the monologue we have written. Recieving feedback on my performance from my peers was very helpful in helping my performance progress as it allowed me to get an insight into my performance from on outsiders perspective on how I can change my vocal speech and make it alot more impactful when speaking by using a different range of tones. It also allowed me to help any other performers struggling on how they can improve their performances, for example an individual sugesstion that I gave to one of my peers was to use more of their physicality in their performances so that it helps entice the audience rather than standing still the entire time and the viewers loosing interest.

However, during the collaborative task, I did feel that it became very indicisive at times when there was more that one piece of feedback on a certain area in the performance which therefore became difficult what to decide on. So moving forward, I am going to suggest that the performer should use both of their feedbacks into their performance and see which one is more effective and helpful.

Improvisation with my character

During this weeks session, I majorly focused on improvising with my character to make my monologue much better and more interesting.

For example, during my monologue, I improvised halfway into it when my character begins to get very angry and start shouting at her dad. During this part, I used any memories that I had experienced in my own life that linked or related to this scene which I could use to feel more connected to the anger that my character was feeling and make it as raw and natural as possible. This was very helpful as it allowed me to react in a way that is realistic and therefore allow the audience to relate to how the character was feeling.

Moreover, I worked collaboratively with others during this task doing exercises together to help us when improvising our character. For example, we all threw around a ball each to another person, and when we would catch it we would have to say a breif monologue in our character and see what we produce. This helped expand our imagination of our characters and look into different perspectives of what our character could be going through or feeling. However, during this collaborative task, it did become very slow at times as everyone struggled with a mental block and could not figure out what to say, slowing down the process. SO moving forward, I am going to suggest that we look into different acting exercises that are more easier and can get our concentration on our characters higher.

An individual action that I recommended was that when we throw the ball to someone, we also give them an emotion so that they cood look into different emotions the character could be going through and once again, expand the imagination of our monologues.

Final rehearsal

During our last session before we perform our monologues, we focused on our final rehearsals for our monologues and see what we can improve.

During our final rehearsal, I performed my monologue in front of my acting teacher so that I could get any last feednack or suggestions to add into my monologue to make it even better. For example, a piece of feedback that my teacher reterned to my monologue, was that it lacked pauses and different tones of my voice. This allowed me to indentify any parts of my monologue where I can add any pauses where my thought changes or if I want to have an impact on the audience with what I have just said. This allowed my monologue to show different varies of emotions throughout, giving different perspectives for my audience.

Moreover, I worked collaboratively during this task by using other peoples ideas as well as suggesting my own ideas with deciding how I can use my physicality more throughout our performances. As a result of this, we all collaboratively decided to look into different techniques that we have learnt in the past and add any movements into our monologues where it feels necessary and realstic. For example, in the beginning of my monologue, it is very thrilling, so we decided to add the suspense walk, which was one of John Wrights methodologies.

An inidividual action that I suggested when going through my final rehearsal for my monologue, was to make sure that I had all of lines memorized so that when I was performing my monologue, I would not constantly be thinking what my next line is or getting worried I would forget a line, when instead I should be thinking about the way my character is feeling in that moment. So during this times, I majorly focused on memorizing my lines so that I had them fixed in my head and was prepared to perform to my best ability.

However, during the collaborative task, it did become very time consuming as it took us a long time to remeber all of the acting techniques and methodologies that we had learnt about over the past year which wasted a lot of rehearsal time, so moving forward, I am going to suggest that we do research on this when writing our inital notes in the beginning so that we can quickly look back on it.