Accents

Today we had a professional accent coach come in as in Our Country’s Good there is a variety of characters from all around the world. Our Country’s Good doesn’t have extravagant set and is highly focused around the strength of the actors acting. As a result of this I think that it was important to have these accent master classes to not only work on our voices but to also connect to the character more.

For my character I had to work on my RP accent as I am playing a high ranking officer. Although the accent was one that I was most comfortable with we found that making small changes to our mouths had a large effect on our voices. For example we did an exercise where we said all our lines with our lips rounded, although the sound became a very stereotypical RP it allowed us to get the sound at the front of our mouths. This was really useful as with RP the sounds had to come from the front of the mouth so that it is sharper and more articulate. We also found that certain letters were pronounced differently, for example when saying plurals the “s” turns to a “z”. Small changes like this seemed to make a huge difference to my characters accent and it really highlighted the status of the character.

 
I found the accent work really useful for my character work as it emphasised the status of my character. The accent shows that my character has been highly educated which contextually is a sign of wealth. This is supported as my characters profession is legal and is very book smart, I feel that the accent emphasises his intelligence and his power and status.

Scene Improvisation

In today’s rehearsal we used improvisation to develop and learn more about our character. We had to choose a scene to improvise from our characters past, something that wasn’t mentioned in the play, so that we could use our imaginations to start to create the backgrounds and histories of our characters. I think that this is really important as so often the past effect how people act in the present and could impact on how I act on stage, in certain situations.

The scene that I chose to improvise was the dinner with my wife, where I tell her that I am moving to Australia. I found this exercise really helpful to individualize my character and to get to know the personal background of him and start to fill in the details of his characterisation as it through up many discoveries for me. The first thing discovered was to do with my characters routine, when we sat down to eat the actor playing my wife started to say grace, I hadn’t even considered this however on reflection, contextually saying grace would be a common part of the dinner routine. This made me think about the environment that my character was brought up in and how important and prominent religion was in his society. I thought that this could be an element of home and English society that Collins takes to Australia to remind him of home. I think that this would put an even greater importance on the religious routine of saying grace as it hold such fond members of home, that could give him hope of once returning. Another part of the dinner routine that I thought was really interesting was how his wife made the dinner for him and the gender roles that were brought up in the improvisation. Over dinner we discussed our children and I found that my characters interest was in the situation of our son and his progression rather than the daughters. Also I think that the emphasis put on the sons in this society could create worry for Collins in Australia as he could worry about the lack of male influence for him in England. This reflects the social norms of the dominate male and that I could take this into the physicality of my character as the alpha male. I also thought that this dinner routine, combined with the home comforts that came with living in England could lead into Collins life in Australia as it is the time that highlights his loneliness and isolation in Australia. I think that dinner would be the hardest time for my character as it was the time where he found out about his family and spend time with his wife.

I also discovered another part of Collins of where he has to consider his families position in England compared to his in Australia and the future plans for his life. For example with the colonisation in Australia and how they are trying to create a society there as well as moving the convicts, I think that this could impact on how he thinks about his future and whether Australia could be the new home for him and his family. This impacts heavily on certain lines such as “England”, when he is remembering home, and I think that this could make him really consider whether he will ever make it home. As a result of this in the improvisation I found that my character was defending and argue the positives or Australia and living there rather than always hating it. This is so that he can convince his wife to want to come with her and give up her life of comfort and status. This really made me look at the good sides to Australia and the new world that he is going to live in.

Scene Work

In today’s rehearsal we started to block the scenes, although this isn’t a detailed exploration of the scene but a chance to work out what is happening in the scenes and to get the core of the scenes solid so that later we can go into further detail.

Conventionally we started at the top of the play with the opening and how we can set the mood of the play and draw the audience in straight away. I think that it is really important to have a strong, gripping opening of a play as this is the first impression the audience get off the play and immediately the either really gage in or out of the story. Also the opening sets the energy of the play for the actors and the drive of the scenes, so it’s hugely important to set a really strong energy and pace for the play so that each following scene can ride off of that energy and continue to build throughout the play.

The opening of the play is based on the previously mentioned improvisation that we did with the convicts on the ship and them being contained. However we developed this so that each convict was brought on from different exits and put into the containing area with the guards walking around and working with this improvisation of suppressing and controlling them. I thought that this preset is really effective as it sets the upcoming scene and gives the audience background to the play. I feel that bringing the convicts on from all different areas metaphorically shows how they have come from different backgrounds, parts of different and done different crimes but all are forced together in another world in Australia. Combining this with the guards in a square around the convicts could show their entrapment and how they have been put into prison.

The small movements from the guards like prodding the convicts or pushing their heads down and how the convicts react with fear to that, I think shows the potential violence that face the convicts and the power and status that the guards hold over the convicts. It could also make the audience question whether the guards enjoy this power and whether they go too far with inflicting this pain on them. I think that this is really important to have because immediately we are making the audience think and engage with what we are presenting to them and making them question the morality of it all.

Scene 3 – My Personal Notes

• Outside à have to think about the given circumstances constantly. We are setting the scene and telling the audience where we are and what we are doing through our physicality and movement. à Have to consider the Australian environment, the climate and heat of the place – believe in the place and given circumstances.
• Out shooting for the birds à effects the way that we are moving – slowly and quietly as not to scare the birds. – Always looking around and searching the sky for the birds.
• When talking/saying lines turn your head to include all of audience (3 sides) and to make sure that the other characters are listening à power and status and making sure that your opinions are being heard.
• Always be considering status à don’t leave stage until Molly has leave – how we talk and walk as status is so important to the characters and society
• Work and explore the Laban efforts in the scene to get to feel what works and feels natural for the character within the context of the scene
• Remember that large decisions are being made – the words that we are saying have a huge impact on other people lives – hanging - explore whether we care or understand the impact or force of out words.
• Moment of humanity when we see the kankaroo à show a softer side to the characters and makes audience question whether they are able to understand what they are doing and whether they feel regret or guilt over the deaths that they are allowing to happen.

My Scenes - Blocking

These images show the initial blocking that we created and explored for my scenes. I found that this was really useful as it starts to bring the scenes and the language to life and off the page. Also for an actor it starts to explore how the physical and vocal elements of your character start to come together. This is a really good bases to be able to develop characters and understanding them as through the blocking you have created the core of the character. Furthermore this blocking has allowed me as an actor to have somewhere to start in the scene but also to be able to start to make my own choices and experiment on stage. 

RESEARCH

How Aboriginal people lived before colonisation

·         Aboriginal people lived according to efficient laws and ways of interacting with the environment to meet their needs.

·         Aboriginal peoples were lived in tribes and were nomadic.

·         They moved from place to place in search of food and water. For food, Aboriginal people caught fish and shellfish from the sea and rivers, hunted kangaroos, possums and birds, collected plants or caught lizards. They used wood, bone and shells to make tools and weapons. à thought of as behind the world, or uncivilized but really it was a completely different way of living that they hadn’t encountered before.  à the english would have seen them as animalistic and this is why they might have thought it okay to take over their land because they saw them as sub-human.

·         When the natural resources of an area began to run low, Aboriginal people moved on to the next place. They did not farm the land, plant or harvest crops or herd animalsà these were completely different ways of living than what the British knew and wasn’t the way that the British approached making a living.

Effects of the British

·          1788 - 1900, the Aboriginal population was reduced by 90%. Three main reasons for this were the introduction of new diseases, loss of land and loss of people through direct fighting with the colonisers.

·         Diseases- immediateà  epidemic diseases such as chickenpox, smallpox, influenza and measles. à Aboriginies never encountered before so had no idea what they were or how to deal with them so it was able to kill them instantly. Also they didn’t have the modern medicine that the british did at the time so had no way of curing.  As these diseases were infectious, they spread very quickly and killed many people. In large Aboriginal communities, the diseases spread even more quickly.

·         Loss of land à  reduction of access to land and water resources.-  The settlers took the view that Aboriginal people, with a nomadic lifestyle, could easily be driven away from their lands. àessential resources such as food and water posed great danger to Aboriginal people who were left with no place to live and nowhere to hunt food, Aboriginal people had dramatically reduced chances for survival.

·         Europeans started raising stock in ranches, several changes took place. Many Aboriginal people lost their land. The spread of European livestock over vast areas also restricted the nomadic lifestyle of Aboriginal people.

·         From these ranches, Aboriginal people had a new supply of fresh meat, which changed their nutrition, their eating habits and ways of finding food. As a consequence, Aboriginal people started to depend on European settlers for their food and livelihood. à because their way of surviving had been destroyed with the loss of land and nowhere to hunt, so had to adapt to the European lifestyle

·         The British settlers also introduced alcohol to Aboriginal people which affected them very badly.

·         1850s, gold was found in south-eastern Australia. Many white pastoral workers left their stock farms or ranches to search for gold. Many Aboriginal men, women and children were hired to work in cattle stations and in other less popular industries, such as diving for pearls. à becoming more socialized into the european norms ect.  Instead of being paid, Aboriginal people received food, clothing and other basic necessities.

·         Christian missions often provided food and clothing for Aboriginal communities and opened schools and orphanages for Aboriginal children. In some places, colonial governments also provided some resources. à Aboriginys were being subliminally socialized and the british thought that they were saving the people but really they were destroying their society and way of life.

Australia 

·         In 1650 transportation started and felons were sent to America à over 125yrs, 50,000 men, women and children were sent to the 13 colonies

·         BUT ended in the American Civil war for independence à Britain needed another place to ship off the criminals so picked Australia!!

·         1786-1865 160,000 criminals were sent to Australia

·         Unlike USA – Australia was a lot more expensive and inconvenient and the prisoners upkeep proved a financial burden on the government

London 18^th Century

• 1760 – 750,000 people à 1815 – 1.4 mil people
• Higher morality rate
• Horrible living conditions – fertility rate reduced
• 1820’s age expectance – 35 and 29
• Huge class gap – u/c rich and grand but w/c extended families all in one house – no water or space
• More and more buildings à houses would crumble
• U/C area’s had new lighting, pavement, water but w/c mud roads and waste buckets

Crime

• London was jail capital
• No established police force – street runners and thief takers – like bounty hunters, privately employed – corruption e.g Johnathan Worn would turn own guys in for money
• Industrial revolution – new values/wealth and land à so new there was loop holes in the system – back streets riddled with crime.
• Woodland areas would have highway men and thieves’ à new transport meant they could attack and take material things.
• Bloody code – 200 offences were punishable by death/hanging – minor crimes as well – act as a deterrent to warn others. à From stealing – murder. à hangings were celebrated – a family day out.
• More people formed east, west and south London

Politics

• George 3^rd on throne – 1760-1820
• Conservative – lord North was PM
• American Civil war – 1783 ended and USA had independence but UK dept of 250mil result in higher taxes.
• Sailors in Anerican civil war – 124,000 killed
• Gordon riots à resistance of Catholics – trying to reduce their power à freed catholic’s from taking an oath when they enter the army

Theatre

• Opera – 18^th century die out – Theatre Royal built for it
• Shakespeare – but plays were rewritten to be relatable by David Garrick – Romeo + Juliet rewrite to be more relatable
• Shakespeare celebrate work more often
• David Garrick à famous actor – constantly sell-out and created the “star” idea in the theatre industry
• u/c appreciated à political/entertainment – but was out ruled by PM as satire wasn’t wanted 
• Melodrama came à elaborate costumes, stock characters, good triumph over evil ect.

Punishment

• Attempted assault/ aosdomy – hung
• Treason against gov – fine £10 or whipped publically – humiliation
• 1817 – abolished women being whipped
• Stocks à throw rocks ect – some were spinning
• Treason à women – burn on the stake but nice executioners would kill them first. à hung/drawn+ quartered – hanged but still alive brought down and dissected alive
•  Women – advantage in Australia as they could use sexuality to get food and a roof à many would marry guards à women be lined up and guards would drop a hankie in front of the one they wanted to marry – if the woman wanted to she would pick up the hankie and would get married immediately.
• Men who were caught in women camp said: “Whore camp…more sin in that place than any other” à Clark
• Factories were set up – with sowing and stereotypical work  à encouraged men to marry convicts so that when they would be released they would settle in Australia and create a community
• Leg irons + hard labor - chains – restrict movements – heavier weight worst crime.
• Solidarity confinement – if tried to escape – get flogged and put in for 1-6 months à dark cell – loss of understanding of time and disorientated
• Flog – public to warn convicts – fear à have a surgeon and a drummer to count lashes 
• Cato 9 tails – leather strands – whipped with à only way to get better is to urinate on the ground and lay in it.

Diseases

• Smallpox, Malaria, Yellow Fever, Influenza
• Scarlet Fever – 4-8yrs old and kill them à spots, rashes, pale lips
• Typhoid fever - would spread and not immune à 4 stages – exhaustion, mental confusion – slow heart beat – weight loss, no apatite, mental loss – body give up.

In Australia – 1788 England flag raised – Aborigines became citizens and had to follow BRIT laws – 1793 – 1^st free settlers

Navy

• Needed in 16^th Century – threat of Spain – needed Empire to match France and Spain à Navy to defend Empire from rivals à tax anyone by sea – was only way to travel
• Imprisonment à steal sailors from USA/France to expand fleet and downsize enemies
• South Africa training for BRIT empire
• Sailing – diseases – scurvy – eat lemon to avoid
• Higher level on ship the better accommodation
• Uniforms – Lieutenant – over faced blue jackets – white waistcoats, Captains -  gold lace buttons, Marines – red coats, below midshipman – no uniform just white coats
• Tactic’s – colonizing à giving small pox to aborigines was intentional to kill them off 

Actioning

Actioning is when you go through your scenes and you look at your lines and movements and what is the driving force behind them. For each scene you have to work out your super objective – what you are trying to get from the scene and then break down the scene into sections and lines and what your objective’s are for those and what you want to get from saying those lines. Also it show’s the internal thought of the character and the sub-text within their lines and what they are really trying to communicate to the other characters that isn’t being said in the dialogue. Then you have to work our your action – what you have to do to achieve your objective for example, “I flatter you” could be an action if your objective is to get someone to do something for you. Alongside the action there is normally an obstacle – something that is making you have to apply the action to gain your objective. This is really good and helpful as an actor to do to your script because it puts a solid meaning and intention behind the line and it gives you something to work with physically and connect with emotionally. Also many line can be said in different ways with different intentions behind them, each relevant to the character, by actioning you are establishing you character and the techniques that they would use to get something for example some people might go in harder with “I threaten you” where as weaker characters may play “ I plead to you”. These all help to create, develop and shape you character and allows you as an actor to create an individual interpretation of a character.

By actioning you are also engaging with a more naturalistic style of acting and being more natural and instinctual on stage rather than faking you character and not being invested in them or their situation or relationships. Actioning also allows you to subliminally communicate to the audience or another character and builds these relationships, sending a message to them.

Journey

England to Australia  Journey -->

       A similar ship that the convicts would have travelled on, the grandness of it shows the power of the British and their dominance over the world and their colonisation.

Improvisation

In today’s session we explored improvisation and how this brought us into the world of the play and further our understanding of the given circumstances. The improvisation that we did explored the ship that the convicts had to travel for 8 months to Australia on and the conditions that they were subject to. 8 or 9 people were put into a 1.5x2m square as convicts and about 7 people being the officers. The officers had the power to do whatever they wanted to the convicts up to sending them out to be flogged. I felt that this was a really beneficial exercise as it really got me into the feel of the play and to gain a greater understanding of a faction of what the convicts would have gone through.

I was playing a convict and I found that after a while I really got into the character and the situation and I felt the pain, fear and frustration that so many convicts must have suffered on a much larger scale. The exercise lasted for around 30 mins and I found that after 5 my neck began to ache from having to look downwards and all I wanted to do was move; however when I did the guards immediately told me to stop moving. After experiencing the discomfort for just a short while I began to sympathise with the convicts because they would have been in the same position for 8 months without the ability to move and I thought about the constrain pain that you would be in and how this could mentally affect you and your stability and how you may lash out as I got so frustrated by not being allowed to move and so they must have had to much built up anger and frustration and it made me think about if they had any outlet. This links with how bored I got from not being able to talk or move and consequently I started to take my anger and frustration out on the guards by moving slightly and looking at them trying to provoke a reaction to make something happen. Equally when people got taken out the room and they put up a fight and there was screaming all around I had really mixed emotions as I was scared because of the pain being inflicted but also excited as something was happening. This made me think about how convicts might have tried to push or test the guards when they had nothing to do and how this effected the relationships between the guards and the convicts and the convicts themselves.

Interestingly I wasn’t overly scared of the guards and their threats because I felt that they were just having to say that and really being put in pain was unwanted but had become a norm on the boat that a mental resistance was being put up against it. I thought that this showed a lot about the convict’s psychological state and how they developed a mental strength and consequently became harder, scarier, more ruthless characters. However the moments that I was really scared when one of the guards ran their finger down my neck or touched my hand and when I had two of them whispering in my ear. I think that this had more of an impact on me as the tenderness in the touch has a much sinister edge and for once I was unsure what they wanted from me or what they were going to do. It also made me think of rape and how some of the women would be taken for sex and although this could have given me a better life on the boat it scared me more than physical pain as I felt that the intimacy was hurting my psychologically and emotional state rather than just physical. However a lot of women could have used this as a good opportunity to gain a better life but for young girls I think this could have been a really frightful prospect.

One thing that we picked up on with the guards is how the power went to their heads and how a lot of them really enjoyed being able to control us and make us do what the want. I think that this is something that we can explore with the guards further because no doubt there would have been men that would take it too far and humiliated the convicts in a horrific way as a form of entertainment as they were also bored. I think that it would be really interesting to look into their mentality and how the religious men justify this to them selves.

One of the main things that really opened me to the exercise was that once I got into it I really began to believe in the environment that I was in and the smell and heat and taste of it and how that effected me as a convict. One of the prominent smells was of piss and shit being covered and suffocating us as it was such a small space so the smell just compressed into us and had no way to get out, however because of the length of time the smell had almost become part of me and I couldn’t separate what was me and the waste smelling. This was repulsive but at the same time I had become so used to it that part of me didn’t even care anymore what I smelt like and that their was bigger issues for me to deal with, like being flogged. However when a dead body was brought in and the smell of blood and gas and decaying was added to the mix this really heightened the disgusting smell and almost pushed me over the edge as I began to gag and could feel my stomach churning up because of the smell, yet there was nothing to throw up because I was so hungry that there was no food in my body just acid so I was just retching. As a result of my hunger it felt as if my stomach was folding in on itself and trying to eat my body’s fat or anything to get some food. Along side the hunger was an immense thirst from the lack of water and my mouth became like sandpaper and my throat began to hurt and their was no spit or anything to wet my pallet so not only was I in pain on the outside but my insides were aching and churning as well. On top of the pain the amount of people in such a small place created a huge amount of uncomfortable heat and touching people was horrible because of the stickiness but it was necessary to all fit and moving to take off layers was not allowed. So we were all just dripping and without water people would have got dehydrated and could have gone insane.

DAY IN THE LIFE OF ...

As part of our first work related to the play we did a “Day in the Life of” exercise, this is an improvisational, imaginative character exercise to get to grips with the norms of our characters and to be able to explore them in their natural setting. It was really interesting doing the exercise so early on in the rehearsal process as we had only just done a read through of the play so this exercise was dependant on our imaginations and commitment to the character, situation and the exercise and not on researched facts and already made choices. I think that it was a really good idea to do the exercise so early on as it allowed us to make more inspiring and interesting discoveries about our characters as we knew so little about them. It also meant that when we were working we had to make more instinctual and natural choices rather than ones that are dependant on research resulting in a more honest connection between us and the characters.

For me I think that this exercise was a particularly useful one as I feel that as I am playing a character far from myself, a middle-aged, upper-class, man, I could have been tempted to create a grotesque, stereotypical, caricature, however as the exercise was so naturalistic and focused on the everyday I felt that I was able to just be my character rather than having to create a false persona for him. Consequently I was able to make really interesting discoveries about my character and my relationships with other characters and the surroundings which I can transfer into my performance and character development.  

I found that along side my characters status was a grand sense of pride within themselves. This resulted in a lot of time spent on my appearance and care taken how I treat myself, especially comparative to the convicts. I think that the more disgusting and vile the convicts get the more pristine my character feels he needs to counterbalance the dirt. I also feel that it could verge on the side of obsession and the more contact he has with anyone or anything dirty or smelly he has to clean himself to get rid of the germs. At the same time I think that there is a religious element to it as well and that he needs to wash away the sins of the convicts and others to keep a clean soul.

I also discovered that the relationship between Collins, my character, and Philips is a strong one as they are both very high status and within the play they both support the idea of the play to help the convicts and to save Liz. I feel like this support within each other creates a strong, through professional relationship of which there is mutual respect. As a result of the development in this relationship I feel that proximity-wise on stage I would feel better and more secure closer to Philip on stage. Also I feel that my physicality would be more open to him than others and we would have a physical communicate to each other on stage.

Lastly I found out the reality of my status within the camp. During the exercise I found myself taking a stroll around the prisoners and checking that everything was okay however when I did this I realised that because of my status I wouldn’t really be mingling with the convicts and that was more of a guards job and I would me a lot more in the admin, running of the place. I thought that this would really affect how I would act if I had to come across any of the convicts and that I might be a bit awkward in dealing with them as I haven’t had much communication or interaction with them. On top of this I think that my character would be slightly intimidated by the convicts because although socially he is of a higher status, I think their “brutality”, confidence and “sin” would make him feel a bit weaker. 

Initial Reactions To “Our Country’s Good”

After our first reading of “Our Country’s Good” I was intrigued as to the undertone and sub-plot of which the political idea of punishment and retribution is questioned. I found this really quite encouraging as personally I am very interested in politics and how theatre can be used to raise questions to our audiences and this is something that I can explore and develop more as I research my character and the political arguments displayed. I thought that this argument regarding prisons and how convicts are treated and what’s best to do with them is still prominent in our society today and whether death is really the best way to deal with prisoners.

I thought that the development of the characters throughout the play is really strong and really allows the audience to connect with the characters and become invested in their relationships and the situations. I also think that this is really good because it proves the worth of theatre to our audience and it show how it can be used to bring people together and how the arts can be used to benefit people in their lives. I also think that the characters relationships hold the play together. I think that the morals of the characters being questions is a really interesting themes in the play and that those of higher status may actually have worst morals than some of the convicts and how that affects our society. 

The thing that I like the most about the play is the comedy within it. I wasn’t expecting the play to be as funny as it is and I think that the period dress could make people think that it is going to be a serious, dull play. However I really like that the play has a lot of potential to be really funny and to engage with the audience on a humorous level that still conveys a message. I think it also adds more to the characters, which is something that can be worked with and developed in rehearsals.