Monologues Part 2

For the next 2 monologues I have chosen a dramatic  Morris from "Blood Knot" by Athol Fugard, and this is a contemporary piece, my second is a classical, its Benedict from "Much ado about nothing" by William Shakespeare.

Blood Knot:
This play has very resemblance to the social apartheid between white's and black's in south Africa's society, and I have also learnt that the writer Athol Fugard loathed the apartheid. Morris (White) shares a one room shack in the nonwhite slum of Korsten with he non illiterate and mentally slow brother Zachariah. Morris has been saving a small amount of Zach's pay in order to buy a small farm away from people in the future so they can live like normal people, however Zach concentrates more on the present than the future and resents his brother's strict attitude. Morris eventually gets Zach a pen pall in the newspaper to find him a woman, Zach tells his brother what to write to a lady called Ethel Lange, who they later find out is white.

Morris:
Is white and it is important as such, as it contrasts with his brother Zachariah who is black. Morris's age is unspecified through out the play, and there isn't a reference in the monologue i have chosen, however I would say he is older than his brother, this is because he feels guilty about his brother because he is black and so Morris feels as if he has to prove himself to his brother, he adopts a wiser and father like character in the play when talking to Zach, which is why I think he is older. Morris is determined to prove to Zach that they do indeed have a "Blood Knot". One of Morris's predominant characteristics is that he is driven through-out the play to become closer to his brother, he even takes on domestic house roles such as, cooking and preparing Zach's foot baths. Morris has a dream of owning a farm away from civilization where him and his brother can live as normal individuals.

Much ado about nothing:
"Leonato, a kindly, respectable nobleman, lives in the idyllic Italian town of Messina. Leonato shares his house with his lovely young daughter, Hero, his playful, clever niece, Beatrice, and his elderly brother, Antonio (who is Beatrice's father). As the play begins, Leonato prepares to welcome some friends home from a war. The friends include Don Pedro, a prince who is a close friend of Leonato, and two fellow soldiers: Claudio, a well-respected young nobleman, and Benedick, a clever man who constantly makes witty jokes, often at the expense of his friends. Don John, Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother, is part of the crowd as well. Don John is sullen and bitter, and makes trouble for the others.
When the soldiers arrive at Leonato’s home, Claudio quickly falls in love with Hero. Meanwhile, Benedick and Beatrice resume the war of witty insults that they have carried on with each other in the past. Claudio and Hero pledge their love to one another and decide to be married. To pass the time in the week before the wedding, the lovers and their friends decide to play a game. They want to get Beatrice and Benedick, who are clearly meant for each other, to stop arguing and fall in love. Their tricks prove successful, and Beatrice and Benedick soon fall secretly in love with each other.

But Don John has decided to disrupt everyone’s happiness. He has his companion Borachio make love to Margaret, Hero’s serving woman, at Hero’s window in the darkness of the night, and he brings Don Pedro and Claudio to watch. Believing that he has seen Hero being unfaithful to him, the enraged Claudio humiliates Hero by suddenly accusing her of lechery on the day of their wedding and abandoning her at the altar. Hero’s stricken family members decide to pretend that she died suddenly of shock and grief and to hide her away while they wait for the truth about her innocence to come to light. In the aftermath of the rejection, Benedick and Beatrice finally confess their love to one another. Fortunately, the night watchmen overhear Borachio bragging about his crime. Dogberry and Verges, the heads of the local police, ultimately arrest both Borachio and Conrad, another of Don John’s followers. Everyone learns that Hero is really innocent, and Claudio, who believes she is dead, grieves for her.

Leonato tells Claudio that, as punishment, he wants Claudio to tell everybody in the city how innocent Hero was. He also wants Claudio to marry Leonato’s “niece”—a girl who, he says, looks much like the dead Hero. Claudio goes to church with the others, preparing to marry the mysterious, masked woman he thinks is Hero’s cousin. When Hero reveals herself as the masked woman, Claudio is overwhelmed with joy. Benedick then asks Beatrice if she will marry him, and after some arguing they agree. The joyful lovers all have a merry dance before they celebrate their double wedding." (1)

Benedick:

Benedick is a young lord of Padua in service of Don Pedro. He is good friends with Claudio, and also a good solider. Most things are a joke to him, and he enjoys directing people, for instance he try to tell Don Pedro what he should say at the courting of Hero, this leads me to believe that, he caress not for peoples emotions. All though he says he is not for a relationship, he proves more that he isn't ready to be tied down, but that says his tune changes when he hears words that Beatrice loves him also. He leads me to believe he is a childish man and so I would says hes 30. When he speaks of love to begin with he loathes it and laughs at it, but he changes when he finds another loves him. He is a solider so I would say he's loyal in person, but can stab you in the back if necessary. He seems like a joker, and a bit of a jack the lad in-front of his friends, but is more stern and made be sexist in-front of women, but this is a decoy to show he doesn't love someone.

(1) Much ado about nothing synopsis- http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/muchado/summary.html 

Punk Rock (1)

In this blog I will be talking about the play and how certain scenes affect my character, I will also be talking about bits and pieces of the rehearsals and the skills I need to develop on and how i have tried to work on the problems.

Scene 1:

My scene objective in scene 1 is "to get to know Lilly" Lilly is the new girl and William, my character, has taken a liking to her and so I play him as if he is an excited puppy, quick firing questions and compliments, as well as being the first to introduce everyone to her and from time to time he tries to by funny by making jokes among-st the conversations, or saying knowledgeable things to make himself look smart in-front of Lilly. He also is very protective of her, by interrupting a conversation between Lilly and Nicholas as William feels threatened by how well they are getting on, and William sticks up for Lilly towards the end of the scene. But throughout this scene he is always trying to prove he is helpful as he is always trying to help Lilly. Later in the rehearsal stage we looked at the characters in the scene and what we see them as, kind of like objects, at the beginning William sees Lilly as a rare object and he acts like a excited puppy, but speaks to her as if she is delicate. He sees Bennett as an elastic band its fun to play with but when it snaps it hurts, he sees Nicholas as a tool its helpful, he feels that introducing him to Lilly will help William to make conversation with Lilly, he sees Tanya as a hurdle he has to get over, as she comes in and interrupts what he is saying to Lilly and this irritates him, and he sees Chadwick as a comfort blanket as he feels that Chadwick understands him.

Scene 2:

For scene two I have two scene objectives, but they both intertwine with one another. One of them is "to open up to Lilly," in this scene he tells Lilly a few things about himself and even lies about some things he says, but this is all to gain Lilly's sympathy. My second objective is "to ask Lilly out" I use this objective to help with my blocking and the way I say the lines, a play him almost like a nervous child who really wants to say something but he cant, this fits with the lines as he does tend to ramble on a lot especially when Lilly looks at him.

Scene 3:

Scene three William says he has lost 100 pounds, we decided that he was lying about this as well, just like when younger people ask someone out and when they are rejected they act out so that the other person can see them, basically getting more attention. So scene 3's objective is "to gain sympathy" or "to be the center of attention" I say this because even though he hardly speaks in this scene, he wants attention from Lilly and later lies to Chadwick about how much money he will inherit so he can get more attention.

Scene 4:

Scene 4 is when William becomes very distant from his friends his thoughts are very scattered and this makes it difficult to choose an objective, by this point William knows Lilly doesn't love him, Lloyd has had a heart attack, and now Bennett has mocked William and his dead brother. This is the predominant scene where William has snapped this is the scene that changes his through line completely.

Scene 5:

William's objective in this scene is "to warn Lilly" with everything that's happened William latches onto the only thing that makes him "happy" he tells Lilly to meet him, telling her what's going on with him, at this point i think he knows he is going to kill his friends. But as a class we did wonder if William does kill Lilly as in scene 6 he says that Lilly is dead, then says she is actually in  a lot of trouble.

Scene 6:

His objective in this scene is "to kill everyone", I play him quite distant from reality as if he thinks its just a game, but there are points where anger comes through, but by the end of the scene he is completely different than he was at the beginning. in this scene we do not know what happened to Lilly the night before, and so we looked through the text and found that he says she is dead at the end, and in one part he repeats the word rape, so we came to a conclusion that he had raped her and killed her as she isn't even mentioned by the doctor in scene 7 when William asks how Tanya is? Now although this may not be what actually happened to Lilly it gives me something to bounce off whenever he mentions Lilly in this scene.

Scene 7:

Throughout scene 7 we looked at the fact that most people who have committed a crime and are caught, feel that the only thing the now have is their crime, so they talk about it a lot and consider themselves celebrity's. So the way I play William in scene 7 is that he is looking for a reaction from Dr Rachel Harvey, and when he doesn't get one he acts out in order to get one e.g. there is a part where William asks "does it make you sick what I did?" he doesn't get a reaction from Dr Harvey and so repeats it again, but firmer when he gets an answer he immediately changes the subject

TO BE COMPLETED

Through out the blocking stage of rehearsals, I have been finding it difficult to understand how to play William in each scene, you see he isn't played exactly the same through the play he changes how he feels in each scene. To work on this I have been reading the play more and more in order to understand his lines as well as finding certain bits of subtext withing lines or scenes. However another problem picked up in class by Adam is that i play William on a level for each scene, we didn't know whether this was because i was reading the lines, but to make sure this doesn't happen i have been learning my lines and reading them in different ways until if feel comfortable.