Taxi Partners:

Today we continued to explore the text in a bit more depth and tried to get a better understanding of the East End.

Here are some of the exercises we did in class:

Working on the Prologue.

We created the prologue in pairs by adding in responses to the other character’s lines. I found this task a bit difficult as I was slightly confused and not too sue of what we were meant to be doing, and so that most likely reflected on the overall product. 
Also I didn't actually realise that the Prologue was a conversation between a Taxi driver and the passenger, which probably half explained my misunderstanding of the task. My partner and I first created the conversation between two friends just talking (and as we were asked not to have scene look like a static driver and passenger sat one behind the other,  the driver holding an imaginary steering wheel,we did it so that I was sitting down with my legs crossed whilst my partner had her head on my lap, responding to what I had to say).  
Then just before we were asked to perform we looked around the room at some of the other actors work and realized that we were doing the wrong task completely and so we started over. 
We decided that we were now going to have one of us (me) standing, facing one direction, and then the other one of us (Nina) to be sitting, facing the other direction so that we were both back to back. We did this so that we could incorporate levels into the piece and also to try and show status (there was hardly a difference in the status but it showed the audience that the driver didn't really have a choice, the driver had to reply to the passenger. And by having the passenger standing up it let the actor have a bit more freedom and leverage to move around the space. It also showed that the passenger was the character that had more to say whereas the driver was merely listening and only spoke occasionally).

What questions is the taxi driver asking and answering, what lines aren't in the text?

You needed to think about staging this with imagination (not sat one behind the other, with the driver holding an imaginary steering wheel).

We all got the chance to perform our pieces which was good as it gave us all the opportunity to see what the other actors took form the script and the decisions they made in order to portray a realistic piece.
My favourite pair were in fact not a pair but a three which I think it its self makes the task harder to complete but was taken on as a challenge and performed as a truly creative piece. The group (Ella, Sarah and Alex) managed to use levels, movement, improvisation,  characterisation and a high level of focus, this made the performance effective because it meant that the scene came to life. The East End accents used, truly giving the illusion of the setting, the actors all swayed and bounced ever so slightly to give the idea of a moving vehicle which also contributed to the setting. 

The group placed the taxi driver on a box in the middle and the two passengers on either side of the driver, I liked the staging as all actors where clearly seen, I also think the fact that the driver was in the middle and higher up was a good staging choice as the drive (Alex) has a lot to say and was the main focus point, having her own improvised monologue to perform.

We had time to create, rehearse and then share some of the pieces created before discussing what we liked about others scenes. 

Nina and I first created the scene as a normal conversation between two people, Nina was lying down with her head on my lap because we were told not to create just a boring conversation between a static taxi driver and  its passenger. However when we realized that we were doing the wrong thing with next to no time left to come up with a super creative scene, we settled for Nina standing up and me sitting down to create different levels and we added movement to make it look like the vehicle was moving by bopping ever so slightly and rocking from side to side when necessary. 

We also did a whole class hot-seat.

We continued to explore the taxi driver using a technique called hot seating, this involved putting the actor on the spot and asking them questions to which they answer as the taxi driver. This is an effective technique as it enables the actor to truly get an understanding of the character as well as help them build a realistic background story (this technique is especially useful for improvisation as you are forced to think on the spot creatively). For example I learned that the driver has 2 young daughters that attend Rosemarie Primary school Mel,aged 7 and Ria, age 9, his wife is called Savita and they all live in a 3 floor apartment flat at number 23 a. When I was the one asking the qustions I asked things such as: How old are you?  How much does it cost from Whitechapel Road,Shadwell,London,E1 1DB to the O2?  What times are your shifts?  Is there ever any commotion at night?  What's the worst/weirdest thing that has ever happened during a shirt.

Ensemble taxi driving:

The whole class explored being a taxi driver.

We all became taxi drivers and created some improvised movement and thought of some lines that the driver might say. 

As a taxi driver I leaned forward in my chair, had a bad posture, spoke in a deep cockney accent and constantly sat with my legs wide open, moving the steering wheel with not a care in the world. I made this choice because I decided to be a taxi driver that had had that job for a long time and so yes drove well but was quite relaxed and would quite happily multi task whilst driving. 

Other people chose to maybe not be the typical norm, they decided to sound slightly camp or had a habit of scratching their chin which I thought worked well as it was more realistic and thought out.

We worked as an ensemble by starting off just doing our own thing, what we thought a taxi driver to look/act. We then gradually were told to copy a certain persons taxi driver which included listening to their voice and then all repeating the same line back etc.

TALE 8 

In groups we read through TALE 8. 

We then underlined anything that suggested a location, weather, or atmosphere.

Here are some examples:

CREATE/REHEARSE

Once we'd done this we went through anything we'd underlined and created a series of sounds and some movement to develop the scene. 

we were asked to focus on creating the atmosphere and think about being the buildings, the weather, and the atmosphere.

We were allowed to use some of the lines from the text – however we might have decided to just use your sounds and movements to tell the tale.

We were then meant to shared our work with the class and reflected on it however we didn't get a chance to do this.

My group's rehearsal was a bit shaky at first but after a bit of encouragement we managed to work together as team. The sounds we used were effective because they created imagery for both the characters and the audience. My group decided to take a chunk of the script and use that as our script and use the rest as a stimulus for the soundscape. We used sounds such as, echoes, ghostly whistles, whispers, animal noises, rain drops, scratching, screeching, drumming and we also used animal movements. Everyone apart from me scattered themselves out and I, playing the role of 'Queen of the Concrete Jungle' went through, around and under the rest of the actors in my group whilst trying to stay dry from the rain (there was a constant soundscape throughout the performance). They then formed a sort of tunnel  and whilst making bird and spooky noises I sheltered myself from the rain. On the line 'Queen of the Concrete Jungle' our whole group became animals and Jamie took my hand and led me onto a chair where I was then fanned as if I were royalty.
I didn't really enjoy this task and found it difficult to work in a group whilst creating something that used next to no lines as I found it hard to work with something that held next to no substance. The piece made me feel empowered a bit but apart from that I didn't really enjoy this task. Our group could have developed a bit more of a physical theatre type of scene but I think overall our group didn't work to well together although we did try. I'm not sure if there were similarities in what groups did as we didn't share performances. Using a soundscape makes it easier to tell the story, it gives the piece an effect, makes it dramatic and creates an atmosphere, in our piece we created an eerie and intimidating soundscape as that is the kind of affect that 'The Queen of The Concrete Jungle' would have on the audience.

Mr Worden set us the following for homework:

He put us into groups and asked us to come to class next week with ideas, character research and drawings of the characters you are exploring. However the following week we didn't have Mr Worden and so we didn't share anything but here are some of the characters below: