Rehearsal Blog 1 (The Double Dealer)

So far throughout rehearsal we have completed a read through of the script and made cuts to it as well, as it is a very long play, the cuts we made we had to think whether they made sense to the story before we cut the language.

We then got our parts, I will be playing the part of Lord Froth, he is a very straight faced character, that when played with complete serious whilst delivering the lines can be a very funny character at times. His wife Lady Froth is having an affair with Mr Brisk the Fop of the play, the relationship between Lord and Lady Froth is one of difference to your average, when they are alone together they seem distant and argue, however when they are in public they come across as madly in love.

When looking for characters that would help me develop Lord Froth I looked into various characters such as Sam the Eagle, and also Professor Snape:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB-wmOYelnM (1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5qloszXpJw (1)

Both these characters have allowed me to create a voice, it is a deep straight tone with a slight grumble to the throat, I deliver my lines slowly for effect. As for my stance I always have one hand behind my back my chest pumped out and when I look at other characters I sneer down my nose. Many of his lines he laughs at others, to add to the straight cut style of this character I never laugh with my mouth.

We later worked through act one and two, a lot of my notes that I have written in my script are little pieces that I had experimented with during rehearsals and have worked for humour. Every time we block a scene we have always double checked that we understand not only what is happening in the scene but also the language, this has proved helpful to say the least as it gives you a more in depth insight into your character and the role they are playing in the scene.

In other lessons we have been looking at the contextual side of Restoration i.e. the social political and historical background to the time, this week we played a few exercises so that we could work out how much we knew about the time period, and after we looked at a brief Skelton in chronological order of what had happened through 1660 to the 1800s.

(1) + (2) Found on You Tube by me when researching.