Aaron Aitken Logbook 1
Content
Aaron
Aitken
Development –
Logbook 2
HNC Musical
Theatre
062755113
H1L134
Section 1 – Detailed Character Study
Monologue - Rumors – Neil Simon
Deputy Mayors house. In a suburban area of long island. Big, grand
looking house in a semi expensive area. It’s the mayor and his
wife’s 10th Wedding anniversary dinner party.
My monologue is set mid evening at around 0930-10pm. The
speech happens towards the end of the play giving an indication to
the time since the start of the part is the beginning of the play.
The environment at the time of my speech is a mix of multiple
feelings and emotions. The whole group are quite tense and
agitated about the whole situation. They are also quite scared of the
consequences leading to them hiding the truth from the police. They
are also very unsure of the accounts my character giving to the
police as he is making it up as he goes along, so they are also over
attentive by a natural state of fear and willingness to appear
natural.
The giving circumstances that I know to be real are :-
1. Myra, a Deputy Mayors wife has disappeared.
2. Charlie, The mayor shot himself in the head.
3. My character was in a car crash on the way to the party, and has a
stiff neck due to whiplash.
4. I’m pretending to be the mayor to the police and hid the fact that he
shot himself.
5. No one really knows what actually happened and why what
happened, happened.
6. None of the characters are the party are really close, expect the
couples that arrived together. So they has no real past history and
personal relationships.
In terms of my characters status, at the time of the scene I’m in
total control. I control how the others react as I’m the one making
up the story. During the play before this point, everyone has an
equal level of status, they are all guests to the home and are
guest to the party. The events that happen lead to the power
change in my characters direction.
The Super objective of my character in this scene is to make up a
convincing story that the police will believe and leave.
Song – Role of a lifetime – Bare
Dorm room at St Cecilia's Boarding School.
8pm after school and dinner and alone in dorm, reflecting on
the events that have happened and thinking over everything.
Very emotional state and very upset. He has been shot down
again by his ‘secret’ boyfriend and is unsure of the meaning
and future of their relationship.
The giving circumstances until this point are :-
1. Jason, Peter’s secret lover is also my roommate in the dorm.
2. Jason has tried to assure peter that keeping it secret is for the best.
3. Peter askes Jason to audition for the school show ‘Romeo and Juliet’,
Jason refuses.
My character Peter has a close, loving relationship with Jason, but it
is also kept secret so when there in public their relationship is the
opposite and they are quiet distant and closed off from each other.
My Status at this point is very low. He feels he has no control over
anything including his emotions and actions. He needs to abide by
Jason’s wants and needs if he wants to remain happy.
My super objective for the whole play is to tell my mother and close
friends that I’m gay. And the major obstacle is Jason doesn’t want
anyone to know yet.
Rehearsal notes – See Appendix 1
Beats and intentions – See appendix 2
For use of voice in both monologue and song I have decided to use a
standard American accent. I have chosen to use these as it allows
me to work on them more continuing on from class and bring a
deeper depth to the character as they are both from America.
Due to the small performance space when we perform these pieces I
have used this to my advantage. During my song it is a weak and
vulnerable and emotional time for my character and being in a small
space will allow me to play with the volume in a more dramatic way
without my voice having to carry across a theatre. In my monologue
as its set in the lounge area at a house the close proximity will allow
me to mimic the feel that creates and use the fact that others in the
room are close.
Development of Characters.
Song – Role of a life time.
Firstly I stated by reading the song as a monologue and working out what I
felt the song was about and what it meant to be. Put simply I worked it
was “a person not only struggling with his own feelings and issues but his
lovers as well”. I then went though and tried to work out what exactly
would be going on my characters head and trying to relate to it. In terms
of researching the area and digging deeper I used my own personal
experience to help. I have been in a very similar situation at a time in my
life so I have used my own experiences and feeling to help build my
character up. To help with this is have trying to in my head find meaning in
every word and relate it. This way I will hopefully build a performance that
is both realistic and truthful. The physicality of my character will remain
fairly natural and similar to my own. He is of similar age and grew up in a
similar time so we are not so indifferent. There will be little movement, as I
want the song to seem like a dear diary moment so I vision him just
standing there singing, baring his heart and surfacing everything he has to
hide every day.
For my monologue I struggled to build the character up as monologues is
an area I struggle with. As the play is also a farce, I found it difficult to be
able to create meaning and truthfulness in a story and scenario that is
heightened and over the top. To begin, I watched the play to help give an
understanding of the play and the role. I then cross referenced the same
seen done by different companies and actors to see the differences and
similarities. This helped to dig around and pick out the acting and
emotions in there raw and truthful beginnings and build around and start
growing it for it to become over the top and a tad unrealistic. The
physicality of the character is very hard to portray because I have the
character sitting down. So I will be adding an overused amount of gestures
to help show the over exaggerated version of the character I have created.
When I started work on the song I broke it down and read it like a
monologue so I wasn’t being conflicted with the tune and notes. I used this
to build the story and an understanding of the song. I then started from
the beginning and slowly started adding words to the music and piecing
the song together. I felt this help me to remain focused on the intentions I
had for the song and with acting through song which I struggle with. I ran
into problems at the key change (bar 51), I still struggle to get this right
and this is the main cause of concern at the moment, I feel as long as I
remain truthful and in the moment the rest of the song will naturally do
what I have worked on and want it to do. This small section be broken
down and I will use exercises I have learnt in class to help hit the notes
and stay in time. These include replacing the words with yeah. To help
create space and a more open and clear sound and will then start to add
the words and play around with the vowel sounds to find a way of making
it clear and manageable on the day.
See Appendix 3 for annotated score.
See appendix 4 for Dance Plan.
The Dance is another area I found difficult. This was due to, little time to fit
in rehearsals and a limited and lack of space to work in these free spots.
So in the beginning the dance planning as all done in my head and I
choreographed the whole dance in my head. This is a way I prefer to work
as I have always struggled with access to space act, so it’s a method I
have learnt to work with and now it’s my easiest method. Although it was
slow moving at first due to class work and rehearsals, the holidays and the
time leading to now I have managed to put the dance together and start
putting it on its feel. I will be devoting as much time as possible to this
dance and fixing any of the smaller problems (flow of dance and moves
into one another). I feel that the moves and style of dance I have chosen
fit the song well. During the dance show and the week after, I struggled to
focus and set time aside for dance. During rehearsals my sole focus was
the show and learning the dances being taught. And the week or so after
my body was physically and mentally drained and I was getting to
rehearsals of worth done. Since then though I have been progressing,
although at a slower rate than I had hoped, to completing my dance. And I
feel that when the time the performance comes I will be prepared and
comfortable in what I am doing.
The staging of both my song and monologue are fairly simple. The song
will just be standing on stage in my own thoughts and emotions with little
set movement or actions. I want the performance to be as natural and
truth as possible so I don’t want to take away from that by added
choreographed steps and movements. As the space I’m performing in also
is fairly small, this works best for that also. The staging of my monologue
is be sitting in a chair. As this is an over exaggeration of a natural act, I will
be fidgety and over use gestures but I don’t want my character leaving his
seat. He also has whiplash and is trying to hide this from the police so
movement will be kept to a minimum naturally.
Aitken
Development –
Logbook 2
HNC Musical
Theatre
062755113
H1L134
Section 1 – Detailed Character Study
Monologue - Rumors – Neil Simon
Deputy Mayors house. In a suburban area of long island. Big, grand
looking house in a semi expensive area. It’s the mayor and his
wife’s 10th Wedding anniversary dinner party.
My monologue is set mid evening at around 0930-10pm. The
speech happens towards the end of the play giving an indication to
the time since the start of the part is the beginning of the play.
The environment at the time of my speech is a mix of multiple
feelings and emotions. The whole group are quite tense and
agitated about the whole situation. They are also quite scared of the
consequences leading to them hiding the truth from the police. They
are also very unsure of the accounts my character giving to the
police as he is making it up as he goes along, so they are also over
attentive by a natural state of fear and willingness to appear
natural.
The giving circumstances that I know to be real are :-
1. Myra, a Deputy Mayors wife has disappeared.
2. Charlie, The mayor shot himself in the head.
3. My character was in a car crash on the way to the party, and has a
stiff neck due to whiplash.
4. I’m pretending to be the mayor to the police and hid the fact that he
shot himself.
5. No one really knows what actually happened and why what
happened, happened.
6. None of the characters are the party are really close, expect the
couples that arrived together. So they has no real past history and
personal relationships.
In terms of my characters status, at the time of the scene I’m in
total control. I control how the others react as I’m the one making
up the story. During the play before this point, everyone has an
equal level of status, they are all guests to the home and are
guest to the party. The events that happen lead to the power
change in my characters direction.
The Super objective of my character in this scene is to make up a
convincing story that the police will believe and leave.
Song – Role of a lifetime – Bare
Dorm room at St Cecilia's Boarding School.
8pm after school and dinner and alone in dorm, reflecting on
the events that have happened and thinking over everything.
Very emotional state and very upset. He has been shot down
again by his ‘secret’ boyfriend and is unsure of the meaning
and future of their relationship.
The giving circumstances until this point are :-
1. Jason, Peter’s secret lover is also my roommate in the dorm.
2. Jason has tried to assure peter that keeping it secret is for the best.
3. Peter askes Jason to audition for the school show ‘Romeo and Juliet’,
Jason refuses.
My character Peter has a close, loving relationship with Jason, but it
is also kept secret so when there in public their relationship is the
opposite and they are quiet distant and closed off from each other.
My Status at this point is very low. He feels he has no control over
anything including his emotions and actions. He needs to abide by
Jason’s wants and needs if he wants to remain happy.
My super objective for the whole play is to tell my mother and close
friends that I’m gay. And the major obstacle is Jason doesn’t want
anyone to know yet.
Rehearsal notes – See Appendix 1
Beats and intentions – See appendix 2
For use of voice in both monologue and song I have decided to use a
standard American accent. I have chosen to use these as it allows
me to work on them more continuing on from class and bring a
deeper depth to the character as they are both from America.
Due to the small performance space when we perform these pieces I
have used this to my advantage. During my song it is a weak and
vulnerable and emotional time for my character and being in a small
space will allow me to play with the volume in a more dramatic way
without my voice having to carry across a theatre. In my monologue
as its set in the lounge area at a house the close proximity will allow
me to mimic the feel that creates and use the fact that others in the
room are close.
Development of Characters.
Song – Role of a life time.
Firstly I stated by reading the song as a monologue and working out what I
felt the song was about and what it meant to be. Put simply I worked it
was “a person not only struggling with his own feelings and issues but his
lovers as well”. I then went though and tried to work out what exactly
would be going on my characters head and trying to relate to it. In terms
of researching the area and digging deeper I used my own personal
experience to help. I have been in a very similar situation at a time in my
life so I have used my own experiences and feeling to help build my
character up. To help with this is have trying to in my head find meaning in
every word and relate it. This way I will hopefully build a performance that
is both realistic and truthful. The physicality of my character will remain
fairly natural and similar to my own. He is of similar age and grew up in a
similar time so we are not so indifferent. There will be little movement, as I
want the song to seem like a dear diary moment so I vision him just
standing there singing, baring his heart and surfacing everything he has to
hide every day.
For my monologue I struggled to build the character up as monologues is
an area I struggle with. As the play is also a farce, I found it difficult to be
able to create meaning and truthfulness in a story and scenario that is
heightened and over the top. To begin, I watched the play to help give an
understanding of the play and the role. I then cross referenced the same
seen done by different companies and actors to see the differences and
similarities. This helped to dig around and pick out the acting and
emotions in there raw and truthful beginnings and build around and start
growing it for it to become over the top and a tad unrealistic. The
physicality of the character is very hard to portray because I have the
character sitting down. So I will be adding an overused amount of gestures
to help show the over exaggerated version of the character I have created.
When I started work on the song I broke it down and read it like a
monologue so I wasn’t being conflicted with the tune and notes. I used this
to build the story and an understanding of the song. I then started from
the beginning and slowly started adding words to the music and piecing
the song together. I felt this help me to remain focused on the intentions I
had for the song and with acting through song which I struggle with. I ran
into problems at the key change (bar 51), I still struggle to get this right
and this is the main cause of concern at the moment, I feel as long as I
remain truthful and in the moment the rest of the song will naturally do
what I have worked on and want it to do. This small section be broken
down and I will use exercises I have learnt in class to help hit the notes
and stay in time. These include replacing the words with yeah. To help
create space and a more open and clear sound and will then start to add
the words and play around with the vowel sounds to find a way of making
it clear and manageable on the day.
See Appendix 3 for annotated score.
See appendix 4 for Dance Plan.
The Dance is another area I found difficult. This was due to, little time to fit
in rehearsals and a limited and lack of space to work in these free spots.
So in the beginning the dance planning as all done in my head and I
choreographed the whole dance in my head. This is a way I prefer to work
as I have always struggled with access to space act, so it’s a method I
have learnt to work with and now it’s my easiest method. Although it was
slow moving at first due to class work and rehearsals, the holidays and the
time leading to now I have managed to put the dance together and start
putting it on its feel. I will be devoting as much time as possible to this
dance and fixing any of the smaller problems (flow of dance and moves
into one another). I feel that the moves and style of dance I have chosen
fit the song well. During the dance show and the week after, I struggled to
focus and set time aside for dance. During rehearsals my sole focus was
the show and learning the dances being taught. And the week or so after
my body was physically and mentally drained and I was getting to
rehearsals of worth done. Since then though I have been progressing,
although at a slower rate than I had hoped, to completing my dance. And I
feel that when the time the performance comes I will be prepared and
comfortable in what I am doing.
The staging of both my song and monologue are fairly simple. The song
will just be standing on stage in my own thoughts and emotions with little
set movement or actions. I want the performance to be as natural and
truth as possible so I don’t want to take away from that by added
choreographed steps and movements. As the space I’m performing in also
is fairly small, this works best for that also. The staging of my monologue
is be sitting in a chair. As this is an over exaggeration of a natural act, I will
be fidgety and over use gestures but I don’t want my character leaving his
seat. He also has whiplash and is trying to hide this from the police so
movement will be kept to a minimum naturally.
