Doll Common;

Doll Common is a fictional character who came for Ben Johnson's play "The Alchemist".
Her name means say a lot about her, "Common", obviously suggesting that she is common and in some ways, quite rough. "Doll" meaning "prostitute" or "whore", even though in Playhouse Creatures she is not a either of those, her name shows that she isn't wealthy and low in status.

In Playhouse Creatures, Doll is one of the underdogs, however I think a lot of people there look up to her as she's had plenty of experience and she's very knowledgeable about getting by in life in the 1660s as a lower class woman.
In Playhouse Creatures she talks a lot about her childhood, for instance she was brought up in a bear-pit.
I don't think she enjoyed her childhood at all, however when she looks back she misses it as it was easier than the life she lives now.

 

Super Objective;

A super objective is what the whole play is working towards.
I think the super objective for the whole performance was woman's rights.
I think this is because it's based on loads of different woman, from all different backgrounds working in a theatre, trying to get a voice.

Dress rehearsals;

In our first dress rehearsal, I found it a lot better to get into my character, Doll, because I could then begin to think of ways I could hold my body, for example;
I could hunch over a little bit and hold my rag up so it didn't keep tripping me up.
Also wearing the long skirt restricted ways I could hold my back, because of the pins at the back, so when I was hunched over I could only do it with the top half of my back and my shoulders.

Our first dress rehearsal didn't go so well, because people were not focussed and listening out for audience cues etc.
We were all talking backstage, instead of properly preparing ourselves to get onto stage as if it was the actual show. I think people were not paying that much attention in the first dress rehearsal because it wasn't the actual show, however, after the first run though Andy told us to get our acts together and the second run through went a lot better.

Before our second dress rehearsal, Andy gave us notes on how to improve, apart from shutting up backstage, one of the notes he gave me was emphasise the line "Acts at a push" because I was losing the line. I didn't really understand why I was saying it, up until that moment, Dolls just mocking Otway's play and agreeing with Mrs Betterton's opinion; the plays too long!
So in our run through right after that, I put more emphasise on the line and it made it a lot funnier and it gave Mrs Farley and Nell something to laugh at because Doll was being rude.

Our second dress rehearsal made massive improvements, I think. Because everyone stayed quiet and they were listening out for their cues to come and stand at the sides to be the audience.
Also everyone was a lot more prepared for it, the first group on stage were a lot more confident with their lines and "it felt so much better performing with everyone quiet backstage"- Liam.

I feel like the dress rehearsals are so much better than normal rehearsals, because everyone feels more like their character, and they stop feeling like a teenage girl/boy.

Playhouse Creatures by April De Angelis ALL RESEARCH MUST BE IN YOUR OWN WORDS. ANYTHING COPIED MUST BE PUT IN QUOTATION MARKS AND YOU MUST SAY WHERE IT HAS COME FROM.

Roughly what years is the play set in? This period is called the Restoration. What is the Restoration? What was being restored and where had it been?

The play is set in 1663. The Restoration began when the English, Scottish and the Irish didn’t have any Monarchs-(Monarchy is where there isn’t any Kings/Queen to take charge.) and the Restoration restored when Charles ll was invited back after living in France for a few years. “The term Restoration is used to describe both the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and the period of several years afterwards in which a new political settlement was established. It is very often used to cover the whole reign of Charles II (1660–1685) and often the brief reign of his younger brother James II (1685-1688). In certain contexts it may be used to cover the whole period of the later Stuart monarchs as far as the death of Queen Anne and the accession of the Hanoverian George I in 1714; for example Restoration comedy typically encompasses works written as late as 1710.”

Actresses in Restoration theatre. Why was this new? What had happened? How were actresses treated?

“Womanizing King Charles II bans boys from playing female parts, deciding it's much more pleasant to watch beautiful women like Margaret Hughes.” It was new for woman to be on stage because before Charles ll  made a change to English Theatre-(allowing woman to be on stage), woman were not seen “fit” for the job- “Acting was considered an immodest occupation, and not fit for women.” Woman in Restoration theatre were not treated as equals to men, men still got paid a lot more, and woman were mainly there to show their breasts and legs. Woman didn’t get much say in what they did either, they had to do what the men wanted them to do.

All the characters are taken from history apart from Doll Common.  Although De Angelis does not restrict herself to historical accuracy in the play. What is your character’s real life history? Doll Common is a Ben Johnson character (The Alchemist) – if you are playing her, you can research her!

“Doll Common Doll Common’s name is perfect for her profession, prostitution. While Doll is short for Dorothy, it also means a whore. She is, however, very clever, able to join in and improvise with Face and Subtle to fleece their victims. She plays the Fairy Queen for Dapper and an unnamed lady who is half mad from studying theology for Mammon. She prepares to serve as a regular prostitute for the supposed Spanish count (Surly in disguise). She befriends the stupid Dame Pliant to get money out of her. In the first scene she speaks of the “venture tripartite” where the three crooks are equal, but it is clear that she is subservient to the men. She seems to be running a prostitution business with Face on the side, for he is her pimp. The men draw straws each night to see who will have her company. She names Subtle as the “Sovereign” of their group, and Face as the “General,” and she calls herself their “republic,” the public property. She does not seem to be in on the planning of their venture. She is however a peacemaker, trying to get the rival men to work together.” About The Alchemist; “The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature. The play's clever fulfilment of the classical unities and vivid depiction of human folly have made it one of the few Renaissance plays (except the works of Shakespeare) with a continuing life on stage (except for a period of neglect during the Victorian era).”

What was Restoration acting like?

There was a lot of comedy in restoration acting. They had loads of comedy acting because life was really low as the country was being led by the puritans who closed down all the theatres for 18 years.

List here all your research sources. Full titles of books and authors. Full addresses of web pages.

http://suite101.com/a/women-take-to-the-stage-in-restoration-theatre-a390593 http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/restoration_1660_why.htm http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080328164428AAmgnOr http://www.cwu.edu/~robinsos/ppages/resources/Theatre_History/Theahis_10.htm The Script

Second Scene;

What went well, why?

Today we started on our second scene, I was working with Jenny, who was playing Mrs Marshall, I was also working with Izzy who was playing Mrs Farley and Greta who was playing Mrs Betterton.
Greta wasn't here today, so we were just working on the scene after Greta's long monologue.
Today we started trying to block our scene and work out where we'd be stood for it and deciding what we could be doing in the scene.
We decided Mrs Farley would be sat down and Mrs Marshall is sat down for Mrs Betterton's speech and I'm by the clothes rail hanging clothes up. However, after Mrs Betterton's speech


I was very unsure on what to do with my character as I didn't really understand her, so I was basically acting like a b**chy teenage girl towards Mrs Marshall, and I was just standing around not doing anything. When we showed Andy what we've done I told him that I wasn't too sure on what I could be doing and when he explained that she was an older woman, with plenty of life experience and was a maid that then gave me a million and one ideas that I could play around with.

First scene and how we've improved it over the couple of months....

When we did this I hadn't really established who my character, Doll was. In fact, I thought she was the complete opposite to what she was. I was acting her like she was young, laid back and bit of a flirt, when in actual fact she's "ageless"- (60+), she's constantly on the go-(cleaning, running around for other people etc) and she most certainly is not a flirt- "Not me, I ain't taken nothing off for ten years".
So when we first started the first scene, I was acting like the complete opposite to what Doll is really like.

Anyway, apart from me, everyone else understood their characters pretty well and made character decisions really quick, like right at the end of the scene Lucy's character; Mrs Farley still tries to stay strong and proud in front of the other woman.
However, even though that was good,

Given Circumstances

A given circumstance is where you are given a scenario, for instance we were told to act like we were in a church so we had to act like how we would act in a church. For this to really work, you have to really be able to think what it's like to be in a church, you have to be able to smell it, hear your footsteps echo in the large space, you have to be able to see the stained-glass windows. All those little things make you act completely differently to how you normally would.
When we started walking around the room but pretending it's a church, I started to feel really small and shy/uncomfortable, because I never ever go to church and you forget just how large they are inside and it made me feel slightly uncomfortable. After a while though, I began to feel a bit more relaxed, so I slowly paced myself looking around at the stained-glass windows.
When Andy saw that we were all imagining ourselves being in a church he then changed the scenario slightly to a wedding inside the church, but we were not meant to be there.
When Andy said this, I felt really awkward and out of place, and also trespassing a bit. I then started holding tension in my arms and shoulders and I felt like just leaving.

The second scenario was we were in Brighton town and it was absolutely packed. When Andy said this, straight away I thought of Summer because everyones always out in summer. So I was taking my time, walking around quite slowly, enjoying the sun. The scenario changed slightly again to we're meant to be seeing our mum, and we're really late and she's going to be angry. When Andy said this, straight away I was running, making my way around people, after a little while I started to get really annoyed with anyone who got in my way.

What 'if'

The next exercise we did was the What "if" exercise, which is where you're put in a certain situation, and you have to think "what if..." then think of something that could happen and then think to yourself "how would I react?", "what would I do?" etc.

In this game we were all in a little farm house in the middle of fields for a New Years Eve party, you had some people sitting down by the fire not doing much, then in the kitchen you had loads of people partying, drinking and doing drugs- we had to act how we would actually act. We were all waiting for the countdown when a news flash came up on the radio saying that a murderer had escaped from a very nearby prison, and they have no idea where he has gone too.
After that little new flash, a lot of people started panicking- including me-(practically all of the drunk/drugged up people were panicking because we weren't thinking straight).
When we calmed down a little, people started locking all of the doors and windows. However, after a little while all of the lights went off and we all started going crazy again and freaking out like mad, then Max went missing, then we started hearing bangs which scared the life out of me!
In this exercise I did actually start to freak out and get scared, so it went from me acting, to me actually being scared and not knowing what's going t happen next.

 Stanislavski's idea of the magic 'if' he said "transforms the character's aim into the actor's. It is a strong stimulus to inner and physical actions. If carries the actor into the imaginary circumstances."