Olga wanted us to take some of our classical monologues and look at the words and over physicalize them to get more of a feel for what the words mean. I chose the monologue of Emilia from Othello. I never showed it too the class but I feel like it loosened me up a bit because I personally do not understand most of the words in classical monologues because it's obviously not my language so sometimes I read it and think I have read it in a completely different context than what it was written in.
One of our class members showed his one, it came out really funny where he was over acting the words but hearing him doing it that time made me understand it more because he physicalized it so well with the words that it actually made sense for me to listen to and watch. It was also more fun to watch, I find it really hard to get into classical plays as it is not something I usually go for and listen to myself as I haven't grown up with it being my natural language even though of course that was the language used back in the day.
Wednesday 30 December 2015
Contrasting Monologues
Olga gave me a monologue to look at for contemporary, but when I spoke to Ella she mentioned that I use it for contrasting instead. This particular monologue is from the play 'A Doll's house'.
A Doll's House (Norwegian: Et dukkehjem; also translated as A Doll House) is a three-act play in prose by Henrik Ibsen. It premiered at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published earlier that month.
The play is significant for its critical attitude toward 19th-century marriage norms. It aroused great controversy at the time, as it concludes with the protagonist, Nora, leaving her husband and children because she wants to discover herself. Ibsen was inspired by the belief that "a woman cannot be herself in modern society," since it is "an exclusively male society, with laws made by men and with prosecutors and judges who assess feminine conduct from a masculine standpoint." Its ideas can also be seen as having a wider application: Michael Meyer argued that the play's theme is not women's rights, but rather "the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is and to strive to become that person." In a speech given to the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights in 1898, Ibsen insisted that he "must disclaim the honor of having consciously worked for the women's rights movement," since he wrote "without any conscious thought of making propaganda," his task having been "the description of humanity."
In 2006, the centennial of Ibsen's death, A Doll's House held the distinction of being the world's most performed play for that year. UNESCO has inscribed Ibsen's autographed manuscripts of A Doll's House on the Memory of the World Register in 2001, in recognition of their historical value.
Olga told me to particularly look at a monologue from the character 'Nora'.
And I found this:
Nora:
It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you—
It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you—
I mean that I was simply transferred from papa's hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you--or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which--I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other.
When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman--just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.
You neither think nor talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over--and it was not fear for what threatened me, but for what might happen to you--when the whole thing was past, as far as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened.
Exactly as before, I was your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it was so brittle and fragile. Torvald--it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children--. Oh! I can't bear to think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!
'In this definitive scene, the naïve yet often contriving Nora has a startling epiphany. She once believed that her husband was a proverbial knight in shining armor, and that she was an equally devoted wife.
Through a series of emotionally draining events, she realizes that their relationship and their feelings were more make believe than real.
In this monologue from Henrik Ibsen’s play, she opens up to her husband with stunning frankness as she realizes that she has been living in "A Doll’s House."'
Below, are videos posted on youtube of the play "A doll's house" performed by the students at The Balhaven University.
Below, are videos posted on youtube of the play "A doll's house" performed by the students at The Balhaven University.
And there is also an audiobook of the play available on YouTube:
VALERIE'S MONOLOGUE FROM THE WEIR
On 28th December I decided to read the monologue hand out that Olga gave me which is from the play called 'The Weir' by Connor McPherson in 1977. It was first produced at the Royal Court theatre upstairs in London on the 4th July 1997.
Plot Summary:
Source from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weir
The play opens in a rural Irish pub with Brendan, the publican and Jack, a car mechanic and garage owner. These two begin to discuss their respective days and are soon joined by Jim. The three then discuss Valerie, a pretty young woman from Dublin who has just rented an old house in the area.
Finbar, a businessman, arrives with Valerie, and the play revolves around reminiscence and the kind of banter which only comes about amongst men who have a shared upbringing. After a few drinks, the group begin telling stories with a supernatural slant, related to their own experience or those of others in the area, and which arise out of the popular preoccupations of Irish folklore: ghosts, fairies and mysterious happenings.
After each man (with the exception of Brendan) has told a story, Valerie tells her own: the reason why she has left Dublin. Valerie's story is melancholy and undoubtedly true, with a ghostly twist which echoes the earlier tales, and shocks the men who become softer, kinder, and more real. There is the hint that the story may lead to salvation and, eventually, a happy ending for two of the characters.
Finbar and Jim leave, and in the last part of the play, Jack's final monologue is a story of personal loss which, he comments, is at least not a ghostly tale but in some ways is nonetheless about a haunting.
The play is as much about lack of close relationships and missed connections as it is about anything else. The weir of the title is the name of the pub, named for a hydroelectric dam on a nearby waterway that is mentioned only in passing as Finbar describes the local attractions to Valerie. It anticipates and symbolises the flow of the stories into and around each other, and how they have all collected together in one place to be recounted together.
Reading the monologue myself:
Before I knew anything about the play I read the monologue out loud, whilst reading it, I noticed slang and it was slang that was used in an Irish accent. So after reading the monologue I decided to read up about it to find out that Valerie does indeed have an Irish accent. So I went on to YouTube and typed the play in to find loads of results including other people doing Valerie's monologue. This one girl I watched read it a lot different than I did but she also had the Irish accent and she did it very well. I watched another girl and she used her natural American accent but she was more reading it out rather than acting it in my opinion.
I thought I wouldn't like this monologue but turns out after reading it, I have grown an interest too it.
I like this monologue because:
Plot Summary:
Source from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weir
The play opens in a rural Irish pub with Brendan, the publican and Jack, a car mechanic and garage owner. These two begin to discuss their respective days and are soon joined by Jim. The three then discuss Valerie, a pretty young woman from Dublin who has just rented an old house in the area.
Finbar, a businessman, arrives with Valerie, and the play revolves around reminiscence and the kind of banter which only comes about amongst men who have a shared upbringing. After a few drinks, the group begin telling stories with a supernatural slant, related to their own experience or those of others in the area, and which arise out of the popular preoccupations of Irish folklore: ghosts, fairies and mysterious happenings.
After each man (with the exception of Brendan) has told a story, Valerie tells her own: the reason why she has left Dublin. Valerie's story is melancholy and undoubtedly true, with a ghostly twist which echoes the earlier tales, and shocks the men who become softer, kinder, and more real. There is the hint that the story may lead to salvation and, eventually, a happy ending for two of the characters.
Finbar and Jim leave, and in the last part of the play, Jack's final monologue is a story of personal loss which, he comments, is at least not a ghostly tale but in some ways is nonetheless about a haunting.
The play is as much about lack of close relationships and missed connections as it is about anything else. The weir of the title is the name of the pub, named for a hydroelectric dam on a nearby waterway that is mentioned only in passing as Finbar describes the local attractions to Valerie. It anticipates and symbolises the flow of the stories into and around each other, and how they have all collected together in one place to be recounted together.
Reading the monologue myself:
Before I knew anything about the play I read the monologue out loud, whilst reading it, I noticed slang and it was slang that was used in an Irish accent. So after reading the monologue I decided to read up about it to find out that Valerie does indeed have an Irish accent. So I went on to YouTube and typed the play in to find loads of results including other people doing Valerie's monologue. This one girl I watched read it a lot different than I did but she also had the Irish accent and she did it very well. I watched another girl and she used her natural American accent but she was more reading it out rather than acting it in my opinion.
I thought I wouldn't like this monologue but turns out after reading it, I have grown an interest too it.
I like this monologue because:
- I like the way Valerie speaks
- The story telling in the monologue is interesting
- It's a sad story
- I cannot do a fluent Irish accent
- I am worried doing it in an English accent would not make sense
- It is very long, I would have to find a good cut off point
Wednesday 18 November 2015
Classical Monologues
In class we all got given classical monologues too take a look at:
I picked all of them which included:
- Ophelia
- Isabella (Measure for measure)
- Portia (Julius Caesar)
- Emilia (Othello)
- Viola (Twelfth Night)
- Juliet
- Juliet / a different monologue from Juliet
When I read them all out in my own company, I liked 'Emilia' a lot. I do not really have much of an interest in classical theatre anyways, so I think I will find these monologues the hardest to connect with. I think I liked Emilia because it seems more neutral. I do not think it is necessarily 'easy' it is just the one I liked the most out of all the ones that Olga gave us.
The monologue of Emilia is from Othello: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello
Othello (The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in the year 1603, and based on the short story Un Capitano Moro ("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565. This tightly constructed work revolves around four central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army; his beloved wife, Desdemona; his loyal lieutenant, Cassio; and his trusted but unfaithful ensign, Iago. Because of its varied and current themes of racism, love, jealousy, betrayal, revenge and repentance, Othello is still often performed in professional and community theatre alike and has been the basis for numerous operatic, film, and literary adaptations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilia_(Othello)
Emilia is a character in the tragedy Othello by William Shakespeare. The character's origin is traced to the 1565 tale, "Un capitano Moro" from Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio's Gli Hecatommithi. There, the character is described as young and virtuous, is referred to simply as the ensign's wife, and becomes Desdemona's companion in Cyprus. In Shakespeare, she is named Emilia, is the wife of Othello's ensign, Iago, and is an attendant to Othello's wife,Desdemona. While considered a minor character in the drama, she has been portrayed by several notable actresses on film, with one receiving an Academy Award nomination for her performance.
Emilia is a comparatively minor character for much of the play; however, she serves to provide a strong contrast to the romantic and obedient Desdemona, demonstrating that she is both intelligent and distinctly cynical, especially on matters relating to men and marriage - her speech to Desdemona listing the faults and flaws of the male sex in 4.3 is a good example of this (though she does admit that women also have "frailty, as men have"). She also states in the same scene that she would be willing to commit adultery for a sufficiently high price - this shows her cynical and worldly nature in sharp contrast to Desdemona, who seems almost unable to believe that any woman could contemplate such an act.
Race:
There is no consensus over Othello's race. E.A.J. Honigmann, the editor of the Arden Shakespeare edition, concluded that Othello's race is ambiguous. "Renaissance representations of the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory. As critics have established, the term 'Moor' referred to dark-skinned people in general, used interchangeably with similarly ambiguous terms such as 'African', 'Ethiopian', 'Negro', 'Arab', 'Berber', and even 'Indian' to designate a figure from Africa (or beyond)." Various uses of the word 'black' (for example, "Haply for I am black") are insufficient evidence for any accurate racial classification, Honigmann argues, since 'black' could simply mean 'swarthy' to Elizabethans. Lago twice uses the word 'Barbary' or 'Barbarian' to refer to Othello, seemingly referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by Berbers. Roderigo calls Othello 'the thick lips', which seems to refer to European conceptions of Sub-Saharan African physiognomy, but Honigmann counters that, as these comments are all intended as insults by the characters, they need not be taken literally.
I went onto a website too look at classical monologues and found this one by William Shakespeare:
http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shakespeare_039.html
I picked all of them which included:
- Ophelia
- Isabella (Measure for measure)
- Portia (Julius Caesar)
- Emilia (Othello)
- Viola (Twelfth Night)
- Juliet
- Juliet / a different monologue from Juliet
When I read them all out in my own company, I liked 'Emilia' a lot. I do not really have much of an interest in classical theatre anyways, so I think I will find these monologues the hardest to connect with. I think I liked Emilia because it seems more neutral. I do not think it is necessarily 'easy' it is just the one I liked the most out of all the ones that Olga gave us.
The monologue of Emilia is from Othello: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello
Othello (The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in the year 1603, and based on the short story Un Capitano Moro ("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565. This tightly constructed work revolves around four central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army; his beloved wife, Desdemona; his loyal lieutenant, Cassio; and his trusted but unfaithful ensign, Iago. Because of its varied and current themes of racism, love, jealousy, betrayal, revenge and repentance, Othello is still often performed in professional and community theatre alike and has been the basis for numerous operatic, film, and literary adaptations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emilia_(Othello)
Emilia is a character in the tragedy Othello by William Shakespeare. The character's origin is traced to the 1565 tale, "Un capitano Moro" from Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio's Gli Hecatommithi. There, the character is described as young and virtuous, is referred to simply as the ensign's wife, and becomes Desdemona's companion in Cyprus. In Shakespeare, she is named Emilia, is the wife of Othello's ensign, Iago, and is an attendant to Othello's wife,Desdemona. While considered a minor character in the drama, she has been portrayed by several notable actresses on film, with one receiving an Academy Award nomination for her performance.
Emilia is a comparatively minor character for much of the play; however, she serves to provide a strong contrast to the romantic and obedient Desdemona, demonstrating that she is both intelligent and distinctly cynical, especially on matters relating to men and marriage - her speech to Desdemona listing the faults and flaws of the male sex in 4.3 is a good example of this (though she does admit that women also have "frailty, as men have"). She also states in the same scene that she would be willing to commit adultery for a sufficiently high price - this shows her cynical and worldly nature in sharp contrast to Desdemona, who seems almost unable to believe that any woman could contemplate such an act.
Race:
There is no consensus over Othello's race. E.A.J. Honigmann, the editor of the Arden Shakespeare edition, concluded that Othello's race is ambiguous. "Renaissance representations of the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory. As critics have established, the term 'Moor' referred to dark-skinned people in general, used interchangeably with similarly ambiguous terms such as 'African', 'Ethiopian', 'Negro', 'Arab', 'Berber', and even 'Indian' to designate a figure from Africa (or beyond)." Various uses of the word 'black' (for example, "Haply for I am black") are insufficient evidence for any accurate racial classification, Honigmann argues, since 'black' could simply mean 'swarthy' to Elizabethans. Lago twice uses the word 'Barbary' or 'Barbarian' to refer to Othello, seemingly referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by Berbers. Roderigo calls Othello 'the thick lips', which seems to refer to European conceptions of Sub-Saharan African physiognomy, but Honigmann counters that, as these comments are all intended as insults by the characters, they need not be taken literally.
I went onto a website too look at classical monologues and found this one by William Shakespeare:
http://www.monologuearchive.com/s/shakespeare_039.html
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
A monologue from the play by William Shakespeare
HELENA: I confess
Here on my knee before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son.
My friends were poor but honest; so's my love.
Be not offended, for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me. I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit,
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet in this captious and intensible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love
And lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun that looks upon his worshipper
But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love,
For loving where you do; but if yourself,
Whose agèd honor cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever in so true a flame of liking,
Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and Love, O, then give pity
To her whose state is such that cannot choose
But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies.
Here on my knee before high heaven and you,
That before you, and next unto high heaven,
I love your son.
My friends were poor but honest; so's my love.
Be not offended, for it hurts not him
That he is loved of me. I follow him not
By any token of presumptuous suit,
Nor would I have him till I do deserve him;
Yet never know how that desert should be.
I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet in this captious and intensible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love
And lack not to lose still. Thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun that looks upon his worshipper
But knows of him no more. My dearest madam,
Let not your hate encounter with my love,
For loving where you do; but if yourself,
Whose agèd honor cites a virtuous youth,
Did ever in so true a flame of liking,
Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian
Was both herself and Love, O, then give pity
To her whose state is such that cannot choose
But lend and give where she is sure to lose;
That seeks not to find that her search implies,
But, riddle-like, lives sweetly where she dies.
Monday 16 November 2015
Contemporary Monologues
Olga gave me Paulina :
I read threw it a few times, I didn't really like it that much and I am not exactly sure why. I think I didn't like it because:
- It feels a bit too old for me
- I felt awkward when reading it
- I didn't really understand it
Then Olga gave me a monologue from Rosaline from the play 'After Juliet'. I read it a few times, I wasn't really sure how to speak the words, I did like it but I wasn't sure how to speak it. I get really nervous reading monologues in front of loads of people, because I feel you constantly have to have the audience's attention, and you absolutely HAVE to stay in character.
The part of 'After Juliet' I got given was when Rosaline went to Juliet's grave and spoke to her about all the things Juliet did too Rosaline that made her upset or angry, I didn't really know how to act it out.
I liked this monologue because:
- There are many different ways to act this out
- There are many different ways to speak the words
- You can use different levels of voice and how the character is staged
- There are different moods in this speech
But I also don't like it because:
- It's a very long monologue
- It can be difficult to find out how to speak in certain sections
- It's hard to do facial expressions
When I read 'After Juliet' the notes I got given were:
- Bank it
- Possibly don't always talk to the grave / could be stronger
- It was too long / find a cut off point
- Heighten the emotion
That same day Olga gave us all loads of hand outs which included more monologues, mainly from DNA and one from Valerie in 'The Weir':
I haven't actually read Valerie's monologue, looking at it I know I would have to find a cut off point because it is so long and could drain people who are watching me perform the monologue.
With the first monologue from Leah in DNA, I don't like this one as much as the other one. I can tell her character is extremely chatty and just talks a load of rubbish. She seems very paranoid and that she over thinks everything.
I don't like it because :
- It's draining
- It's repetitive
I like it though because :
- She's funny with how she is an attention seeker
- She's very factual
- She doesn't stop talking
- Feel like I could play her age
With the second monologue of Leah :
I prefer this because :
- She's funny
- She realises she talks way too much
- She sounds like me in some situations
I don't like it because:
- It's long / needs a cut off point
- Sometimes it can be hard to know how to read it out
- I don't know whether to stand or sit etc...
So far out of these monologues I am struggling on which ones to use. I want the one that I am comfortable with and think I can act out well. But I know that you don't ever find the perfect one because nothing is perfect and I just need to look around and find some more.
And some monologues that Olga gave us last week:
I read threw it a few times, I didn't really like it that much and I am not exactly sure why. I think I didn't like it because:
- It feels a bit too old for me
- I felt awkward when reading it
- I didn't really understand it
Then Olga gave me a monologue from Rosaline from the play 'After Juliet'. I read it a few times, I wasn't really sure how to speak the words, I did like it but I wasn't sure how to speak it. I get really nervous reading monologues in front of loads of people, because I feel you constantly have to have the audience's attention, and you absolutely HAVE to stay in character.
The part of 'After Juliet' I got given was when Rosaline went to Juliet's grave and spoke to her about all the things Juliet did too Rosaline that made her upset or angry, I didn't really know how to act it out.
I liked this monologue because:
- There are many different ways to act this out
- There are many different ways to speak the words
- You can use different levels of voice and how the character is staged
- There are different moods in this speech
But I also don't like it because:
- It's a very long monologue
- It can be difficult to find out how to speak in certain sections
- It's hard to do facial expressions
When I read 'After Juliet' the notes I got given were:
- Bank it
- Possibly don't always talk to the grave / could be stronger
- It was too long / find a cut off point
- Heighten the emotion
That same day Olga gave us all loads of hand outs which included more monologues, mainly from DNA and one from Valerie in 'The Weir':
Valerie / The weir:
One of Leah's monologues in DNA:
And another one:
I haven't actually read Valerie's monologue, looking at it I know I would have to find a cut off point because it is so long and could drain people who are watching me perform the monologue.
With the first monologue from Leah in DNA, I don't like this one as much as the other one. I can tell her character is extremely chatty and just talks a load of rubbish. She seems very paranoid and that she over thinks everything.
I don't like it because :
- It's draining
- It's repetitive
I like it though because :
- She's funny with how she is an attention seeker
- She's very factual
- She doesn't stop talking
- Feel like I could play her age
With the second monologue of Leah :
I prefer this because :
- She's funny
- She realises she talks way too much
- She sounds like me in some situations
I don't like it because:
- It's long / needs a cut off point
- Sometimes it can be hard to know how to read it out
- I don't know whether to stand or sit etc...
So far out of these monologues I am struggling on which ones to use. I want the one that I am comfortable with and think I can act out well. But I know that you don't ever find the perfect one because nothing is perfect and I just need to look around and find some more.
And some monologues that Olga gave us last week:
Thursday 22 October 2015
Handouts
Olga gave us handouts of advise and questions that people ask drama schools about auditions to give us a rough idea of what questions people usually ask and if we have any similar questions and whether we would have the same questions so that we can get an answer from it:
This is from 'Birmingham school of acting' :
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