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."

Objective

In lesson we were being told about a characters objective, (aka what is their aim in the play?).
Stanislavski is the person who came up with this idea, he did it to push actors into their characters shoes, and it also helps the actor/actress understand why their character is doing what they're doing.
Stanislavski also came up with the super objective, which is the main theme of the play. He also get the script and split it up into "units" and examine what a character was saying and how they would/could speak, and sees how they would/could move. This would help the actors get into their characters better because they understand everything about their character.

The first exercise we did today was obviously based on objectives. What we had to do was get into partners, I was with Andy, and we then assigned ourselves letters (A) and (B).
(A) was a school student trying to get out of lesson and (B) was the teacher trying to keep the student in lesson.
It was just the student trying to leave and be naughty though, they were coming up with excuses as to why they needed to leave the classroom and the teacher had to try and keep them in for as long as possible.

For the second exercise, we were picked at random and we got given an objective in secret that we need to try and achieve on stage.
We were given a scene to act but we had to stick to our individual objective still without making it too obvious.

This is to show how to do the objective exercises, you always use a verb when talking about your objective and then it leads to having an obstacle in the way, then it finally leads to having an amendment which is a minor change.

Why is it important that an actor works with: -Energy?

It's important for an actor/actress to have a lot of energy, so they capture the audience's attention and keeps their attention until the end of the show.
Also, when they have a lot of energy it shows that they're prepared to do whatever's put in front of them.
It also shows that they're enthusiasm.

-Focus?

It's ridiculously important that actors are always focussed.
They need to be focussed so that they can learn their lines quicker, so they don't distract the other actors around them.
Also, when an actor/actress or a group of actors/actresses focus, the outcome is much greater and they guaranteed to put on a great show just by shutting up and listening to the Director and the other actors/actresses.

-Complicity?

It's important to have complicity within a group of actors/actresses, because it helps the whole group get focussed quicker, and improves the work you all produce. If a group of actors don't have complicity the it's harder for them to work and concentrate in a group because they'll just be chatting about irrelevant subjects when they should be talking about the work.
Not only that, but when they have complicity within the group, the focus is so much better and it's easier to work with a bunch of focussed actor rather than mucking around actors.

-Trust?

Trust is one of the most important things to have within a bunch of actors because if they don't trust each other then they won't be as willing to put themselves out there because they're be scared of messing up. While if the actors trust each other, they don't need to worry about messing up because they can rely on the other actors to back them up and help them out. They also need to trust that the other actors/actresses don't laugh at them.

Today in lesson we were taught about a person's natural pace in life- tempo-rhythm.
Thinking about someone's natural tempo-rhythm helped me out a lot with my character, Doll, because it made me think of how she'd move around the stage and if she'd be really quick and direct. After a while of playing around with her tempo-rhythm, I ended up deciding she was quite slow, indirect, with quite a fast rhythm.

Describe the difference between the two shoe shop scenes;
 - How did the change in tempo - rhythm affect this?
One of the first exercises we did was walk around the room in different tempos, first one was slow, the second was just a natural medium pace and the last one was basically us power-walking. When we did these three paces, we then had to write on the board how it made us feel. We had to think about our characters while doing this, and we would have to hold our postures how we think our characters would, and think about where they hold their weight.

When we had done that, we then got went off into pairs and one three, we labelled ourselves (A), (B) and in the three's case (C),  and we had to do a little improvisation where (A) was a shop assistance and (B) and (C) were two shoppers. We were in a shoe shop.
With these characters, it gave us a lot to play around with, we could have the shop assistant really slow and laid back and the shopper really quick and in a hurry or we could have it the other way around. So this exercise gave us a lot to play with. After 5 minutes we then swapped roles.

I was working with Harry for this exercise, I was the shop assistance first and Harry was the shopper. I was moving around relatively fast, because I thought my was character student at a University and she wanted to work super hard so she earned more money to live off. I would say my character was vavace, so she was fast and enthusiastic but didn't seem like she was in a rush to leave the shop.
Harry's character on the other hand was quite slow and awkward which was tricky for my character to look like she was doing a great job. I would say Harry's character was comodo, so slow but not deathly slow.


At the end of the tasks we had learned about different tempo's which were;

• Grave (Very slow)
• Comodo (Bit faster)
• Animato (Medium)
• Vivace (Lively)
• Pretissimo (Very fast)

What do you think is your characters natural tempo - rhythm?

I personally think that Doll Common is mentally vivace but physically grave/comodo. The reason why I say that is because in her mind Doll is still a lively person and knows what she wants to do, but where she is ageless in the play; Playhouse Creatures, she quite slow when she moves around.

Sum up the power point and describe the two exercises.

The power-point was basically about Konstantin Stanislavski and he life/background.
In the power-point it told us that he was an actor, a director and a teacher.
It also said that Stanislavski was an amateur actor until he was in he mid 20s.
The power-point then told us that his family were wealthy, so when trying to become an actor, he had financial help from his parents.

After telling us about Stanislavski's background it then goes onto telling us about the theatre back then and how actors didn't have any training back in the late 1800s.


and it also talks about how actors would become star famous of one role. The power point then begins to talk about the people Stanislavski worked with he worked with Nemirovich Danchernko who was a theatre critic/teacher/director and then another person he worked with was Anton Chekhov and he was a writer. then it begins to talk about naturalism and that naturalism came from Realism this means seeks to represent human experience and society in a way that seems true to life. then it begins to talk about how naturalism adds to Darwin's idea of heredity and environment influence and this is the difference between Realism and Naturalism. then the power point begins to talk about naturalism in theatre considering what is allowed and what isn't. and there is three books he has written which is An Actor Prepares & Building A Character also Creating A role.

The first exercise we did was where Lucy lost her earrings and we believed that she actually did lose them, so we started looking around for her earrings, however, it turns out it was just a Stanislavski exercise. However, when we were told it was just an exercise, Andy then asked us to think about how we felt when we were looking for Lucy's earrings. Personally, I felt sad for her because her little sister who lives in Devon got them for her and she rarely sees her, so I felt a bit upset for her, I also felt determined to find them so I'd be the hero and get loads of praise :).

We then had to redo what we just did, same scenario same everything, but the only difference was that we knew that Lucy hadn't actually lost her earrings. This time I didn't feel any of the same emotions, so I found it really difficult to get into it again.


The second exercise we were given a certain circumstance. This is where we're obviously given a circumstance but we have to do it naturalistically. My given circumstance was a job interview.
I found this hard to do properly, because I wasn't acting it how I should have been-(naturalistically), instead I was demonstrating, which is where I was feeling nervous or whatever, I was showing what it's like to be like that.