I found this scene similar to the Rabid Dog one, as it was quite complicated working with the lights and how they would be most effective and the fact we were reading from scripts made the acting stiffer. Scenes of Jem and Ms Dubose: Here we did a few short scenes where first two young children get their father unfairly insulted by an old woman, instead of ignoring it, one of the children gets mad and attacks the woman’s porch by throwing over all her potted plants and wrecking the whole place. Later he was told by his Dad to say sorry, then we had to do a scene where he went to the old woman to apologise. The scenes where he wrecks the porch and has to apologise are not written in the book so were improvised.
These were some of my favourite scenes as it involved giving us a free reign to do acting. The Drama Skills used, were Improvisation, mime and Thought Tracking. When the boy was destroying the porch we used one actor to play the part of the boy in mime, and another to do the thought tracking of the boy saying what he would be saying or thinking at the time. This was very fun and interesting as we looked closely at how the boy would feel and then acted it. The scene where he had to apologise was a very interesting scene as again we were given a free reign in what we could do. Here we tried to convey status by making the woman seem in total control of the boy who had to apologise.
Interpretations: Here we acted out different peoples interpretations or viewings of the same scene. The drama skills used were, Script Work, and Improvisation. Here we based our plays on the script but did not use the script during the scenes as they were very short. I didn’t like this exercise as I found it rather tedious and not very helpful as we could have just read through it as a class and have had the same understanding. Conclusion Overall I enjoyed reading the play and acting the scenes. Most of the scenes were beneficial to my understanding of the play and helped my acting skills. The Skills that helped me the most were:
Thought-tracking – Helped me the most as it helped me really get involved and get a good understanding of the character and why they were doing what they were doing. Staging – Although rather complicated this helped immensely as it was the first time I looked hard at staging and how it effects a play. Script Work – Without this I would not have had much of an idea of what was going on even though it did get a bit boring. Skills that may have helped me if we had done more of them would have been:
Improvisation – This is my favourite type of acting and it really helps you get a good understanding of what is happening and why, more of this would have enriched my understanding of the play further. Mime – I found what we did of this very good as it concentrated on your facial expressions which are one of the most important parts of acting, more of this would have again helped me understand the play better. I think we covered all the skills that we could have done.
