During our 6 hour workshop we explored the play Bouncers by John Godber. The play was discussed briefly; we talked about how Bouncers is similar to the world we live in today and what lessons we can be taught from Bouncers and Godber. Still images/narration – An effective still image or narration is one that is very clear to your audience. Your audience needs to understand what is going on without you as an actor doing or saying a lot.
During our performance we used certain dramatic techniques such as, subtext, levels and space. Subtext from the actor/actress is a way of giving the audience a better understanding of the image, not through physical action, but through subliminal messages. For example – thoughts and facial expressions. The use of levels in an image is also important they are used to show different characteristic authority. Also there is the aspect of space which is essential in a still image, because the correct use of space just simply make the image a simpler more successful piece of Drama. In the examination we had to make three still images.
The scenario of the images was given to us by our teacher. The first name we were given was called the job of a bouncer. We had to show a still image of the typical bouncer’s job. My group showed the bouncers kicking a drunken hooligan out of pub. The use of levels was used effectively here as we had two bouncers by the door, and two of us bouncers at a lower level trying to pick the man up from the floor. This helped the bouncers by the doors presence in the image, showing them as a higher authority.
For the second scenario we were given the name “trouble in the club”. It was different this time because my teacher included the use of narration after the audience evaluated the still image each person in the still image at a time had to come out and narrate to the audience what was going on in the image from their point of view. I felt this was particularly difficult because I had to think on the spot. My interpretation of it importance is that being able to narrate the image successfully showed that you understood the image and the cultural background that you were portraying (in this case working class).
Cross cutting and editing was a test of our skills in terms of pace and academic ability of editing successfully within the group. We were given the task of choosing three scenes from bouncers then cutting and editing them into one five minute piece of Drama. We had an hour to make a 5 minute piece of Drama. These tasks made us cut out key moments in the play and bring them together to give a shortened version of Bouncers.
For this is to be executed successfully, you need to pick out the key moments and link them together very well without too many pauses or stop-starts. They key is to make it flow smoothly. This keeps the audience watching at all times and stop them from switching off. I feel it mainly helped me understand the importance of the speedy pace bouncers needs to be played in. I found that the more creative you were with the cutting and editing the better the performance was as whole, my groups performance was not very good as a whole not because of the editing but we were so focused on getting that, it caused our tempo and flow to slow down.
Thought tracking was a small section of the exam which came after we performed the monologues. We were asked to say out loud how the character was feeling at the instant we were told to pause. This was difficult because you had to stay in character and try to make it as natural as possible. However do not get it mixed up with naturalism. I had memorised what I was going to say, however I improvised and said what was on my mind. This helped my performance become a lot more natural and not too thought out.
That would get in the way and distract me from performing it in the required manner. It helped me to understand that thought tracking is a good way of seeing what mind frame the actor is in, it shows weather the actor is just acting or seriously understand the character and the situation that the character is in, in this case a young girl getting raped. Because of the scenario the actor should be able to tell what kind of emotion that character is feeling.
For an effective role-play you need to be able to devise and plan it well. This means you need to work out who is saying what and the stage positions etc. Anything too cluttered or unorganised is not appealing to your audience and can make your performance suffer. We were given 20 minutes to devise a 2 minute from a given stimulus; it was called bouncers getting ready. Although we were given a lot of time to perform a short piece, I felt that we concentrated too much on a certain scene and that affected my groups performance. I learnt work quickly and efficiently in order to give each part of the performance the attention and time it’s needed.
