Bouncers 2

1.      This week we looked at the second girl scene where there in the toilet. We set the first half of this scene as if we are in front of the mirror doing make-up, for dialogue we kept looking across to each other and at points distracted by our reflection in the mirror so we don’t hear each other. The next half of the scene is where Rosie finds out her boyfriend has cheated on her and has to talk to the audiences on how she feels. For this we had the others stand in the middle of the stage and Rosie on down stage right, she would be addressing the audiences and for humour we had the 3 others not paying attention to what she was saying.

2.      This week we looked into more techniques of multi-rolling to help us develop our skills even further then what we learned last week. We did the drama game “park bench” but we changed the game to help develop our skills, so instead of switching with another person, the two that our up have to change their characters and story. This worked well as it also helped with my creativity and my improve skills.

3.      This was another successful week in running scenes as we managed to go over the scenes we have done show some good memory of what we have done and we managed to set 3 more scenes which where the “second girl” scene, “Wak and Wak” scene and half of the “second lad” scene. However we are showing weakness in our creativity at the moment so I think we need to start next week with a better attitude and more energy towards our rehearsals.

4.      To Develop the show further I think we need to look at some scenery for the show as in my opinion some of the scenes need some things to set the scene, like in the hair dresser I think it would look better if we had an overhead hair dryer or in the pub I think it would look better if we had a bar for us to drink off of.

Bouncers 1

1.      Today we have started our performances of Bouncers and looked at our first scene. The first scene for the version that we have done is where the Bouncers come on first and introduce ourselves. We decided we wanted to show their social awkwardness straight away, so for the start we placed Ralph, Judd and Les in a line with big gaps between them, they each say each other’s names but for this we kept them looking forward, not keeping eye contact with the rest. Eric joins in with the line and keeps up the idea of not keeping eye contact. We kept this going for a while until Les burst forward and says “I wanted to have ‘em, but Eric said no.”,  after this Eric and Les get aggressive towards each other, this ends with Eric getting Les’s face and then they both back off. In the script this is followed by Judd saying “I got a basket meal for nothing yesterday” but before he says this we decided to have a long silences to emphasise the social awkwardness in the group again.

2.      This week as a company we had our first look into multi-rolling, during the class we went through several different techniques for learning how to multi-role effectively. The first technique we looked at for creating our characters was a challenge that would help us create a walk for the 3 characters. This involved walking from one end of the room to the other but in the character styles of whoever are teacher said out of the 3 characters we have. Each time we did it wrong or it wasn’t convincing enough we were sent back with advice on how to improve our walk.

3.      This first week went well in for work in class as we managed to get a lot done in our first lesson for Bouncers; we managed to get through the first scene for the Bouncers, Girls and Lads which is a good eleven pages of our script. Our area for improvement would be to look into and improve our multi-rolling skill as from this week we learned how to multi-role but we need to work on perfecting this so it is clear to our audience we are a different person when we change.

4.      To develop our production further I would of like to look into the behaviours and attitudes of our 3 main characters (Bouncers, Girls, Lads). I think it would help us to research each of the 3 in detail to pick up key characteristics in the way they walk, talk, stand and respond to curtain things. I think by doing all of this it will help to build better characters for the show.

Task 4

We have just done our performance of Bouncers to a small audience as part of our workshop and it went very well as a performances. One of the scenes that went well in my opinion was the lads in the bar who are doing rounds; I believe this went well as one of our main problems in rehearsal was keeping the energy and fast pace speech needed for this scene but when we got on the stage we manage to keep this scene going without dying down, we managed to keep our energy up by improvising our lines instead of doing how they were scripted. Another scene that I think went well was the second girl scene wear Rosie learns that her boyfriend has cheated on her, I like how we go to dance and the other girls dance away from Rosie on the other side of the stage as they don’t want to be with her then kick her out of the photo they go to take, this worked well as it made it clear to the audiences that Rosie was an outcast of the group. After this Rosie starts her speech, I personally don’t like this speech as in rehearsals I wasn’t very good at it and I was worried that I was going to mess up the big speech. I struggled with sounding and saying how I felt upset about seeing my boyfriend cheating on me with another as when I first did this in rehearsals I did really high pitch but no one could understand me and when brought down the pitch I didn’t sound upset. I found this hard trying to find a way of saying the lines without sounding to upset so that the audiences could understand me. My main problem was that I didn’t look at the audiences while I was speaking; the whole purpose of this was that I tell the audiences how I feel why the other girls don’t care so I need to address them with the line. When it came to the performances I think I managed to improve on all of this as I sounded upset but the audiences could understand me and I keep eye contact with them but there were parts where I looked away. Most of the scenes went well and not many mistakes were made but there were some things I would have liked to have changed for the performance and develop for if we did it again. One of the scenes I would have liked to have cut out from the performance was the Wak and Wak scene as I couldn’t do the liverpudlian accent and I feel that really brought down the scenes energy and comedic value, this scene also doesn’t play any relevant to the story as not much happens. The show could be improved and developed in many way, one of the ways I would have liked to improve the show would have been to performed the entire play but because this was a workshop we cut out some scenes so we could focus on the workshop, by doing this I think we lost the main plot of the show and some scenes with good jokes that I think the audiences would have liked. I would have liked to have done every part of the story as there are a lot of interesting and key scenes like Eric finds out that his wife has been having an affair in one of the last scene but we removed everything to do with that plot. Another part of the story we removed was to do with infertility which I would have liked to do as that a very deep scene. One of the things that disappointed me was how we set up our audiences and our stage as I wanted big round tables with the people sat around each one and to have also had a bar on one side selling a range of drinks. Sadly as were in a school we were not allowed to sell alcoholic drinks and also we need a licence to do this so we weren’t allowed a bar. We didn’t have the round tables either as we only had on big round table which wouldn’t be enough to seat everyone so we compromised with smaller square tables so people could sit in groups with their friends. I would have really liked to have done the show in an actual night club as it would of helped set the mood. It would be a good idea for the show to have been in a nightclub as it would help with John Godber’s original intentions with the show as he wanted Bouncers to bring in the Masses to the theatre world. Doing the show in a night club would help this as people will feel more relaxed and comfortable in a club then a theatre as it’s more of a familiar setting and our audiences would feel they would have more freedom in moving around more , instead of being confined to a seat in a theatre. I would have liked to have been able to have scenery on stage for the scenes like in the hair dressers I think it would have been better if we had an overhead hair dryer for Ralph and in the pub scene with the lads I think it would of looked better if we had an actual bar. I would of also of like to of had a Bar for the when we were in night club and when the lads were at the pub. Scenery would have helped in setting the scene but the problem with scenery is that it would slow down the energy going from scene to scene having to wait while each of the scenery was set up. If we could have had scenery I would have had not many, only what was essential like the bar and help sort out moving it by having the bar on wheels for easier movement on stage when changing scene. Our main area I would have liked to have improve our projection as several members of the audiences said they struggled to hear several parts of the dialogue especially due to the music we added to the scenes as the audience said the songs was sometimes all they could hear during the scenes. One thing that annoyed me about the opening of our show was that the audience didn’t find it as funny as we thought it was when we came up with the idea, the opening was one of our favourite parts of the show and the piece we put the most energy in as it was meant to be us making ourselves look stupid trying to dance and getting caught by the next Bouncer to walk on, so it was a bit off putting to not hear the audience laughing at us during this piece. To develop the production further I believe we could plant some more actors in the audiences as we only kicked-out two people at the start but i think we could get more people planted to do something during the performances that we as bouncer can get involved in which would be effective as we would be able to create a longer performance and it would help destroy the fourth wall between us and the audiences as they would be aware that we could go in to the audiences, this would also help with John Godber’s original intention’s as it makes the show more believable as the audience could relate to either being kicked out or watch someone get kicked out. I believe this would help us make the audience feel uncomfortable in a way that makes them believe they are in are club and anyone can be a planted actor who could do something any minute. Another way to develop the production further I think would be to sell alcohol because we could have an actual bar for the performance which sold alcohol so are audience could relax and have a drink, I also would of liked us as bouncers to be able to but a drink so we can give us a more distinguished look of an older bouncer. My last point to develop the production further would be as a group to think about the delivery of are lines. Like the first scene, when we all greet each other, I feel we need to take more time between lines so there can be a clear social problem with them as they don’t know what to talk about with each other. Final as an actor I feel Bouncers as a workshop has really helped me develop areas of my acting skills, mainly in multi-rolling as I have never done a play where I have to play more than one part when I couldn’t leave the stage and change, by doing this this helped me in my skill of developing my characters as I had to do 3 different characters at once so I had to make clear physical differences between then so the audience would know I’m a different character. Another skill of mine that has developed was my skill in improve as there were several parts of the show we a adjusted with a couple of line but mainly in the bar scene as we had to keep are pace going in the scene so we agreed in not sticking to the script in that scene and we will improvise our lines. When we are doing rounds at the bar, between the drinks we made up some of the lines which went well and I feel this one piece helped my improve skill as I had to be quick with our lines.

Task 1

John Godber intentions with Bouncers was to change the way people see the theatre, he wanted to make a performances that would attract a bigger masses to the theatre. The idea of Bouncers was to create a performance that had characters and situations that you could relate to or understand; "I want to create theatre that connects with people's lives, not a piece of candy floss" this is John’s thought on Bouncers, he believes that this is the main reason Bouncers is successful as people watch it and relate with the characters as they are people you see every day or are a reflection of you. This show will entertain young and all as the young people will be going through these situations and the older lot will be able to reminisce about their adventures of the night life. John said "I think a joke only works if it's painfully true.  If you didn't laugh you'd cry" this is what he wanted Bouncers to show his audience, he wanted to high light the painful truth that we go through every day and ignore because we don’t want it to be true. This show makes you laugh because as a person it takes you to an awkward place that makes you laugh through the harsh pain because you don’t know what else to do as it explores normal but key things that can happen to you in life like getting in a fight, losing friends and even fertility. The play is about 4 Bouncers (Eric, Judd, Les and Ralph) who work the night life at a club in Yorkshire during the seventies. Bouncers was nominated for UK Comedy of the Year in 1985 and won seven Los Angeles Critics Circles awards and five awards in Chicago in 1987. The shows first performance was on 15 August 1977 Hill Place Centre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe; performed by drama students from Bretton Hall College. The show is performed with 4 actors playing the Bouncers and multi-role parts like a group of girls and Lads, a DJ, Liverpool teens and other characters people interact with when on a night out. The show is a challenge as there are no costume changes so when the actors multi role, there needs to be clear distinctions from the characters so the audiences can tell if they have changed characters. The show is a good idea for a workshop as there are a lot of potential in the source material and there have been many performances of the show over the past 37 years in big and small productions. The main thing with Bouncers is that we will be able to have a play around with the script as it’s set in seventies Yorkshire so some of the jokes may be hard for are audience to understand so we plan on modernising some of the parts of the play. For our audience we are hoping to get a mixture of age ranges coming to see the show as there is something for everyone to enjoy in Bouncers but as a group we think we may put an age rating on the show as there is a lot of adult humour and a young person may struggle to understand what is going on in the performances.

When we first read Bouncers we liked it a lot but we wanted to change some details about the play. We took a vote as a group and decided we didn’t want to do every scene or part of the play as we wanted it to be shorter to focus on the workshop. The first thing we cut from the play was the rap the bouncers do near the start and end of the show as we didn’t like the rap because it didn’t have the right flow with the performance we are planning on doing. We came up with our opening as a group after looking at the script inspired by this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMqZFXfaknA, I liked how they all came on to the stage 1 by 1 and danced but I want to change what happened next as I think it could be funnier if they see each other dancing then got embarrassed when a another bouncer saw what we were doing. Another thing we did to the script was cut out were 2 of Eric’s speeches as we didn’t want to make the show seem like it’s all about him. We also cut one of the girl’s scenes as it wasn’t essential to the story and it helped us focus on the workshop. Another scene we cut was the scene that followed the “Wak and Wak” scene as it was just about two punks trying to get in to the club which we felt was too similar to the “Wak and Wak” scene so we cut it out as well. The final part of the script we changed was the running order as the play as the show is meant to start with the girls in the hair dressers but we decided against this as the show is meant to be about the bouncers so we wanted our show to start with the bouncers. After our first bouncer’s scene we go back to the start with the girls at the hair dressers then follows the script through to the start of the lads scene at the barbers and keep going till the end of the pub scene. We follow the scene by skipping a big chunk of the play until another girl scene where there in the bath room and talk about Rosie’s cheating boyfriends which leads into the entrance of Wak and Wak who are trying to get in to the club which is meant to be followed by the punk scene that we cut so now it is followed by Baz and Terry trying to get in the club and leads to the Lads in the toilets which is the end of act 1 we decided. Another part of the script we change was the acts as we turned it into a 1 act play as we cut a lot out of the play that it wasn’t long enough to have an interval so we just carried on straight into act 2. Act 2 starts with Ralph as the DJ which goes into the bouncers outside talking about watching a “bluey” later tonight, we skip to Les and Judd now in the video store watching a “bluey”. This scene ends with the only speech we gave Eric, the script then skips 12 pages to when the customers are leaving the night club and les becomes a “Punter”. We then go to our last Lads scene were there trying to get a taxi to go home and we then end our version of the show with the bouncers looking over the club in a mess who then go out to a film which is meant to be followed by a music video of Michael Jacksons thriller video which then goes into the rap but we cut it out as the end of the scene we chose works as a good ending of the show. We decide our target audience would be people who go out on to night clubs, so our target age range would be 16 or older so they would understand and relate to the characters or situations in the show. Looking over the script we also discovered that a lot of the jokes are about old famous people or places from a couple of years ago so we had to modernise so people could understand the jokes. As we were performing it at our school I had an idea to set the audience up around tables and have a bar set up so people can buy drinks. Looking over the first girl scene at the hair dresser I think will be one of the better scenes as I imagine both Ralph and Eric sat on their chairs with the overhead hairdryers above them, I would like to them have Judd ranting about “Steve Wright” going franticly into her hair with scissors and then have Eric siting there worried about her hair, answering her question quickly with answers she wants to hear because she scared she may lose her hair if she says the wrong thing. I had another idea for the scene where the lads were at the pub, this is the scene where there ordering drinks and get faster in dialogue, I wanted to do the scene in a similar way to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMj3JVZUYZU from time 6:10 to 7:06. I like how they have done this part by using their bodies as the bar but I feel there is more that could be done with the creativity of the scene, I want to do the idea of what they have in standing in a line and bursting out from behind each other but I want to be bigger and more creative to get more laughs which will make more entertaining. 

Character Profile: Kev

Name: Kev

Age: 19 (born on April 3rd)

Job: has a new job at a bar which he is starting next week

Family: he has no siblings but has a strained relationship with his mother. He currently lives with his dad. He is very single, he clams it’s to do with him being a ladies man, so no girl can tie him down but actually he can’t keep a girlfriend as he always does something stupid that ruins the relationship.

Personality: Kev is a very energetic person and is always jumping around asking for a fight but would be terrified if he actually got in a fight. He constantly annoys his friends with this attitude but they put up with him because he always gives them a laugh. He loves getting drunk with the lads but is a light weight so gets drunk to fast and doesn’t remember the night

Presentation: he is a tall lad who wears skinny genes and shirts all the time. He always stinks of lynx as he puts too much on. His most distinctive feature is his shoes as he always spends all of his money on a pair of shoes that are over a hundred pounds

Character Profile: Rosie

Name: Rosie

Age: 21 (her birthday today)

Job: works at Tesco as customer services

Family: has a mother but no dad as they are divorced and she doesn’t know where he is. She has a little brother who is 15. She lives in an apartment building that she just moved into. Has a current relationship with a man named Patrick (this relationship is only 2 days old), later in the knight she ends up all upset about him when she sees him kissing another girl.

Personality: is over the top with every little detail and very annoying to her friends which she is not aware of. Even though she has a boyfriend she is a very big flirt and is the most gorgeous girl ever (in her head). The other constantly mistreats her but she doesn’t notice or care as she is always up in her head. She also believes the world revolves around her and everyone loves her as much as she does.

Presentation: she is an average girl with long hair but wears too much make-up. She dresses very provocatively by wearing short dresses and crop tops, she also wears a religious cross necklaces as she is a Christian.

Character profile: Les

Name: Les

Age: 30 (born on august 7^th)

Job: bouncer at a nightclub

Family: lives by himself in a single apartment in London. Has an ex-girlfriend and a child who is six that he doesn’t regularly see. Has a pet Labrador he keeps in his apartment that is eight years old. Les has done seven years as a bouncer at five different clubs and has been at this currant job for four years.

Personality: he is a little thick when it comes to talking with others. He like the rest are socially awkward when with the other bouncers and normally doesn’t know what to talk about when he is with them which causes awkward silences in which the others end up trying to annoy the others as they don’t know what to do.  Les is a violent Bouncer and is always ready for a fight even if there is no need. Eric helps to stop him from going too far and hurting someone which Les doesn’t like so tries to undermine him a lot.

Presentation: Les is dressed in a black suit with a white shirt and a black tie. Les walks bigger than he is by poking his chest out and tensing his arm, which are next to his sides or across his chest which he needs to do so he can intimidating the people going in to the club.