Peter Pan Evaluation

On Thursday 13th December, Cast 2 performed our production of Peter Pan, and now it has been completed, below I will address the pros and cons of the performance, and how I can address the mistakes I made on stage to better myself as an actor.

When looking at certain factors of acting, such as voice, I believe my use of voice for Peter Pan was used well in terms of dialogue, as I projected my lines well so the audience could hear and upheld a strong accent to make my lines clear and consistent throughout most of the performance. However, one thing I must work on is my singing ability as looking back, I felt that when performing my solo verse in Scene eight for the musical number "It's Goin Down", my singing voice was stressed and awkwardly pitched and later received feedback from audience members to work on my singing ability. Knowing this, in the future, I will work on all factors required to sing well, such as solidifying a tone of voice whilst singing and broadening the pitches achievable for me, which henceforth I will link to voice as a whole once the skill of singing is worked more on. 

Additionally, when exploring my use of characterisation, I must consider how much depth I gave the role and how I distinguished myself or conformed myself to other Peter Pan's in the past. I will argue that my role as Peter Pan both confirmed and subverted the trope of Peter Pan's characterisation. The tropes of Peter Pan as a character are that he is a boastful, heroic like the boy who refuses to grow up, and I believe that I demonstrated this concept well through my use of voice and movement. A key example I feel was in Scene Four where I argued with Mermaid 1 about Hook as a threat and the phrase "Nonsense! That swashbuckling idiot has nothing on me! I will always outsmart him and his gang of loons!", tied with a strong voice directed to the audience tied with a proud stance with hands on hips and a broad smile only convey the desired theme of pride bordering on arrogance, and so here I have obeyed the conventions of Peter Pan's character here as I felt that it was the best approach to the script, and obeys my promise to the audience through our college's programme wherein the 'About' section I argued Peter Pan is a depressed character who hides his fear of isolation with boastfulness and arrogancy. Antithetically, one thing I feel separated myself from the other Peter Pan's done in the past as I didn't really flirt with the character of Wendy which in movies is rather the opposite. The best example of this is Scene 9 when Wendy and Peter are meant to kiss during their farewell, but this did not occur. The reason this did not occur as I personally felt that unlike other cast members, the relationship between Wendy and Peter isn't as key to his growth as previously portrayed, instead it is his feud with Hook that should've been explored more as when reading the script, I could sense the pure emotion emanating from Peter Pan about his relationship with Hook, the pure seething tension between the two, however with Wendy I could sense little connection between them on Peter Pan's side, and so I felt personally a friendship at the end of the play would've been more appropriate. 

The Jungle Evaluation

On Wednesday 14th October, we performed the final production of The Jungle, which when evaluating now, I will argue was a successful performance and this was as a result of the criticism I received and the alternative interpretations we explored in the rehearsal stage. 

Firstly, a strength of mine in The Jungle was my characterisation, staying in the role and alarming the audience. I will argue that I played the role of human trafficker convincingly, and when I instructed the audience into the back of a hypothetical truck convinced they were refugees, I played this convincingly. Therefore, the immersion style of theatre we used in The Jungle with the audience participation I believe worked effectively as a theatre technique, the effect of having audience participation was it demolished the ideology audience members would have that the tragedy of these peoples lives was unrelated to their own lives and not worth thinking about that would have occurred if the audience viewed the Jungle as a conventional performance where they'd sit and observe. The forced immersion the audience had when they were instructed by my character of the human trafficker destroys this barrier and allows the purpose of the performance (which was to address the lives of refugees and the misery of life in The Jungle whilst it was constructed.) to increase in effect. 

Additionally, my use of voice I believe was effective also, with my shift in tones being a key tool in my overall performance and the audience's intended opinion of me. Whilst performing, my intention as a character was to spark fear in the audience, the purpose of this is to address the cruelty of human trafficking and a link to the truly deplorable conditions refugees would face whilst being illegally transported into Britain. I achieved this through voice, via my direct imperatives to the audience and instructing them to sit down, especially towards the end when I bellowed "SIT DOWN!" which caused all audience members to sit down looking scared. The effect of shouting rather than saying that line was it caused an increased level of fear in the audience and helped establish characterisation as I later received information from the audience members they believed I was my role, and not myself. What's more, other acting techniques also assisted me in my role as a human trafficker, such as facial expressions, for which I majorly kept a violent yet authoritative expression, this I decided to use as it established key context that human traffickers such as my role were only in this business for the money, and the use of facial expressions combined with voice established clearly that I did not care about the refugees. This assisted in the theatrical style intended for The Jungle which involves blunt realism and being an expose of the horrific conditions refugees faced in the refugee camp in Calais.

However, when reflecting on my weaknesses in the performance, I believe a skill that could be improved was with regards to my role as a refugee towards the side of the stage, this performance I felt needed more integrity than what I provided, with my movements and gestures being minimal and often copied repeatedly throughout the rest of the performance. Therefore, what I will take from this is I need to focus more on the power of facial expressions as this was my primary tool with my role as a refugee due to the limited movement I was permitted to use and the lack of voice. I also need to work on remembering to ensure the audience can see my face throughout my performance, as my face would often look at the performances that were occurring on stage, which was fine however if I was given the opportunity to do a re-run of The Jungle, I would make sure the audience could see my face whilst I was watching the performances, alongside attempt creative new movements that give off the impression of loneliness and poverty.

In conclusion, however, The Jungle I believe was a successful performance, and one that allowed me to explore new territory as an actor and broaden my understanding, not only of the refugee camp in Calais and human trafficking as a whole but how to use this expose style of theatre to use as a reference for future pieces of theatre which address social issues that will occur in the future.

The Jungle Character Profile

12/11/18

For our college's production of The Jungle, I have been tasked to play the role of a human trafficker, who will "greet" the audience and lead them into the theatre where the play will commence. Now, this is an especially challenging role so below is the preparation I have taken to ensure the role is played well and true.

To research human trafficking, I listened to a Ted Talk called "I was human trafficked for 10 years" and when listening to this talk, not only did I learn more about human trafficking and the logistics, but the tragedy human traffickers inflict on others and how they are to be perceived. I also watched a documentary called "The worst refugee camp in the world", this was more of research regarding how refugee camps functioned, and how it genuinely was for its inhabitants. I can use these two pieces of film to assist me in the role of my character as they both provide realistic facts regarding the concept of refugee camps and human trafficking for The Jungle, and assist me in my characterisation.

For example, when considering the role of human traffickers, I had to consider stereotypes associated with the role, which I learned are that human traffickers are cruel and care solely about profit, and are loathed by the majority of society. I then thought as to why this was, and agreed that a human trafficker as a person was one to be despised, but as with any role, you must find a way to understand why they are doing the actions they are doing, and attempt to understand them so the role you portray is genuine to the actual traffickers. Therefore, in lesson, Yolanda and I discussed how we could make the role of a human trafficker be more deep and complex, and even attempt to "humanise" the traffickers. We considered how it would be from the trafficker's perspective, which was difficult regarding how there was barely any material we could use online, however we did a characterisation activity where we created backstories, names and ages for our specific characters. The effect of this exercise was it allowed me to connect with the role, and giving myself an identity and story would allow me to play an actual  person and not just the role of "trafficker" on stage.

The role I gave myself was as followed:

Name: James True
Age: 31
Story: Fell in love with a refugee woman from Pakistan named Zehra who he married for a year and even had a child with her, until she bolted and took all of his money and memories without even telling him, taking the child too. Since then, his confusion and anger as to why Zehra would leave him unannounced and the loss of his daughter Aaliyah has accumulated to a prejudice against all refugees and joined the trafficking society to exact his cruelty on all refugees, whilst also secretly looking for Zehra and Aaliyah and ask why they left.

There is a reason to each of these specifics, for example the name James I gave myself as it is a name commonly associated with British culture, and as I wanted to play a British trafficker, the name worked. I decided to make myself 31 as it is an age that could warrant such a tragic event that happened to him, and at this age it would still be logical to assume he was not over it and hadn't yet found peace with Zehra. The backstory I gave myself I will use as a bedrock for all the emotions I will show, such as pain and rage, and in my opinion, knowing where this pain came from for my character makes the emotion I give more genuine and allows me to consider the levels as to which his anger and prejudice will seep out in the play.

For future rehearsals, I will practise playing the role with this newfound evidence and story and use voice, movement and characterisation to make the character of James as convincing and real as possible, and the challenge I have set myself is to make James human and complex, despite being employed in a truly detestable profession. 

Peter Pan Characterisation

Peter Pan Characterisation- Rhys Wallett

This blog contains my sources I have explored in an attempt to play the role of Peter Pan as genuine and unique as possible, and how these sources of inspiration have shaped my desired interpretation of the character. 

Characterisation and Role

The role I have been assigned in the pantomime production is Peter Pan. The role has been explored vastly in the past, and hence creating strong juxtaposition's between the role, some being suitable for children, other's portraying Peter Pan as evil and in some cases, bloodthirsty. Below are a list of sources I have viewed and how they presented their Peter Pan and their vitality to me:

Once Upon a Time (2011 - 2018)

Peter Pan appears in series 3 of the series, and in this. tale, Peter Pan is the villain, and a cruel one at that. Personality wise, he is manipulative and cunning, tricking the heroes into believing Henry's safety is a paramount concern of Peter Pan, and he is hellbent on revenge as he attempt to cut out a child's heart to restore magic in NeverLand and curse Earth to recreate Neverland. It is this cruelty and murderous attitude to life that distinguishes this Peter Pan from the others, with the key plot points such as making Wendy a captive of Peter and his toying with everyone assisting in Henry's rescue. He demonstrates his cruelty with a series of grins and cruel remarks which the mise en scene shows him saying these in a polite way, being both childish and mature when doing this. He mixes his Machiavellian nature with his charm. Now, this interpretation may not be as much use for inspiration as others due to the script of Peter Pan we are doing follows the traditional tale, however through a breakdown of how the actor Robbie Kay embraces the role, I have concluded certain traits of his are a short temper and a love for the fantastical, and these I can use with the role. What's more is his body language of being upright and dramatic can also assist me, as in my opinion, over-exaggeration is key with up keeping the role due to his childish body and the magical land he lives in.  

Peter Pan (2003) 

This adaptation is more useful to me, not only because the movie follows a majorly similar narrative, but in this tale, Peter Pan is the saviour just like he is in our play. He is more cocky and snarky in this interpretation, evident when he battles with Hook and through straight body language, and facial features such as smirks and winks, beams with confidence. I can use this as inspiration as in our script, Peter Pan demonstrates to be confident and a fan of insults when he spars with Captain Hook, his vanity being his vice, an idea I agree with. However, he is also caring and loving towards Wendy, and at the end when they kiss, his beaming of joy tells the audience that like the rest of the Lost Boys,  all he wants is companionship and love. Therefore, my interpretation of him here is he is a fantastical, confident type who acts suave to not only impress Wendy and the Lost Boys, but tohidz his inner pain of being absent of parents and family in general, and this idea I will attempt to incorporate into my future rehearsals. 

Pan (2015)

In my opinion, this movie adaptation is not very useful for me, as I viewed the movie as more of an origin story for Peter Pan and a prequel of sorts to the current play we are performing currently, but I will argue that a backstory can be very useful when playing a characters and if I were to make my Peter Pan have theses a backstory, it would alter my performance of him and make the adaptation more real. Such as how the movie establishes how Hook and Peter Pan were originally friends who lost touch, and this is a more heartfelt and complex approach to his interactions to Hook rather then the go-to hatred between the two that many directors and cast follow. To make the interaction more complex and heartfelt, say by using facial expressions such as beady eyes to demonstrate sympathy, and attempting to display a hint of sadness behind the smirks Peter gives when he spars with Hook will in my opinion, provide me with a challenge as an actor and allow me to develop as an actor, allowing me to experiment with more complex and entwined emotions rather than just perfect how to act basic, parallel feelings, increasing the quality of my performance and hence the performance as a whole. 

Conclusion of Characterisation

Using these as sources of inspiration alongside my individual interpretation of the role, I can conclude that I will attempt to portray my Peter Pan as a wounded individual, who hides it very well with confidence and feeding of his vanity, yet he will also have a short temper and be irrational, which will make the scene he banishes Tinkerbell all the more potent. I will also make him remorseful and behind all the joy, depressed. This will make the scenes he prays for Tinkerbell's life and his farewell to Wendy genuinely heartfelt and moving, as he must watch his comrades receive the happy life he himself can never have, lonely being also a subtle trait of his. I will attempt to perfect this challenging interpretation of Peter Pan in the rehearsals to come, and aim to achieve this difficult challenge.

Logbook entry - 28/9/18

Logbook entry - 28/9/18

Today's lesson was focused on the use of voice, in particular, the development of our vocal range and singing capability, alongside introducing us to methods to exercise our voice, skills essential to the acting craft. The first task, which was a vocal warm-up with exercises such as producing siren voices and going up and down octaves in both staggered and smooth rhythms were key as this allowed the next task to be achieved with the best possible quality due to the newly exercised throat muscles. Afterwards the focus was more on broadening the capability of our voice via accessing new areas of our throat which we would not commonly use, how this was achieved was through an exercise in which I opened my mouth wide and stuck my tongue out to reach the bottom lip, and say "Ja Ja Ja" repeatedly, the effect of which created an unfamiliar sound and vibration in my throat I was previously unaccustomed to. When discussing the purpose of this exercise, I will argue that this exercise gave me the inspiration to frequently exercise my voice, and understand audible skills such as singing, projection and clarity are essential for aspiring actors, which I tempted to use in the following task. 

The aforementioned following task was to split into two groups and produce a piece of group singing, either in A-Capella style or with a backtrack. Our group henceforth produced a group cover of "Man in The Mirror" by Michael Jackson and the key skills required from this exercise were teamwork and experimentation, trying new approaches to singing and movement, strengthening my skill of improvisation. No critique was given, however when considering areas of which I could have improved in this task, I will say I need to work more on my singing, in particular changing octaves more smoothly then I did, as I would occasionally sing the wrong note or sing off-key to others, therefore I will work on my fluency of singing and more broadly voice in the lessons to come.