The Devil in Drag is a comedy set in the Renaissance period (Italy). The idea of the play followed ideas from Commedia De L'arte which helped us produce different costume ideas, ways each character walked and spoke and all things physical about them. The aim of the performance to create a very fake, tricked play which humoured the audience. We did this by doing lines such as "We're not in a theatre... Or are we?".
Throughout the performance rehearsals, there was a doubt in my mind that we wouldn't be able to pull together such a difficult performance. However despite all the worry, the play had eventually come together to leave an audience laughing at each and everyone one of our outgoing characters.
During the day of the performance we managed to do a full dress rehearsal which ensured that we knew what we was doing, when, and how to do our costume changes all in full view of the audience. The Devil in Drag is a very crazy, outgoing comedy where all characters are required to be on stage the entire time. This meant it was very important that we never lost focus and kept within each scene as there were parts of the play where we had to jump up and do certain things. For example, the unscripted characters were told to jump up and sing 'it's getting hot in here, so take of all your clothes'.
The layout for the play was very simple. We had seats in a semi circle where each character would sit whilst there scene wasn't being done. In the centre stage was a wooden box and a bed shaped object. On stage right there was a table figure with flowers and a tray of drinks (this added to the effect of a more old fashioned scenery). As each scene changed areas the boxes were moved and adapted to fit into that scene. For example from a home to a court room the boxes were pushed aside by the Devils. The lighting was varied, the majority of the time every scene was performed with a scattered light effect where characters had to ensure that the light was above them. However in only a couple of scenes there were short blackouts. For example in my scene when i had to trick the audience that i was up Pizoccas bum and instead I was running back to my seat.
Costume for this performance was one of the aspects that created a lot of comedy. For example the balloons or blow up breasts often worn by boys. In this performance boys played female characters and visa versa. The boys playing female characters would wear dresses and pink scarves ect.. to show there femininity. The devils would be in cloaks, horns and red waist coats. The judge would be in a royal looking jacket to show his authority. Pillows were placed where the stomach is of the cardinal. All of the above costumes would ensure that our audience would find it funny how each character was extremely over exaggerated as this was the aim of the entire performance.
Despite the little time that we had to work on the play together as a class, we proved that we knew our characters wants and needs of each scene. This was done by when a character had forgotten a line they would improvise what they thought would fit in at that point. It was easy to do this because we all knew our characters so well and the aims of each scene. Although that wasn't our exact lines, the performance still made sense in a whole because of the amount of character work we had done in previous lessons.
Each character was required to prove who they are by the way they walk, talk and look. This was all simply done and perfected very early on in the performance rehearsal period because we had done a lot of work on this. For example, Pizocca walked very slouched with a nasal tone voice. The devils scurried about looking mischievous and spoke very excitedly. To help us with perfecting all of our characters actions we did many tasks within our lessons and also looked at Commedia De L'arte videos of people doing what we aimed to do.
Overall, I believe in the short amount of time we had and the difficulty of the play its self it all came together very well. We all have a week to perfect our lines and make sure that by Thursday our performance is top notch and enjoyed by the other class being our audience. There is still room for improvement within this play such as: clearer costume and set changes, perfecting of lines and more outgoing loud gestures to perform our characters as comedic within the play.
Saturday, 15 February 2014
Friday, 7 February 2014
Laban Effects
Glide - Direct, light, sustained
Dab - Direct, light, sudden
Punch - Direct, heavy, sudden
Press - Direct, heavy, sustained
Float - Indirect, light, sustained
Flick - Indirect, light, sudden
Slash - Indirect, heavy, sudden
Wring - Indirect, heavy, sustained
Barlocco in scene 15 Act 1 - Flick - Indirect, light, sudden
Barlocco-Pizzocca in scene 9 Act 2 - Glide - Direct, light, sustained
Dab - Direct, light, sudden
Punch - Direct, heavy, sudden
Press - Direct, heavy, sustained
Float - Indirect, light, sustained
Flick - Indirect, light, sudden
Slash - Indirect, heavy, sudden
Wring - Indirect, heavy, sustained
Barlocco in scene 15 Act 1 - Flick - Indirect, light, sudden
Barlocco-Pizzocca in scene 9 Act 2 - Glide - Direct, light, sustained
Characters
I have been chosen to play Barlocco and Barlocco Pizzocca in the Devil in drag.
The characters I play will have to use sustained energy throughout the entire performace to emphasise the body characteristics of that character for humour.
For Barlocco:
My character will be very light on their feet and bouncy to show mischievousness. When my character shrinks to a midget, my voice will go high pitched to add to the effect. My mantra would be "I know every secret"
For Barlocco-Pizzocca:
This character is a very sexually drived woman. During my scene I need to act like a luscious woman who everybody loves. I will move from the legs and breast to show my authority in the court room with the mantra "I own everything"
The characters I play will have to use sustained energy throughout the entire performace to emphasise the body characteristics of that character for humour.
For Barlocco:
My character will be very light on their feet and bouncy to show mischievousness. When my character shrinks to a midget, my voice will go high pitched to add to the effect. My mantra would be "I know every secret"
For Barlocco-Pizzocca:
This character is a very sexually drived woman. During my scene I need to act like a luscious woman who everybody loves. I will move from the legs and breast to show my authority in the court room with the mantra "I own everything"
Friday, 13 December 2013
Comedia Workshop
Stock characters -
Pantelone - Lecherous old fool, greedy and deluded
(high, top of the pecking order. Pantalone IS Money. His orders are obeyed.)
Il Dottore - A bumbling quack who doesn't know a thing about medicine, pompous windbad (e.g Captain Mennering)
(A bachelor or widow. High.)
Capitano - A complete coward and a fake with a huge nose, likes to strut around somehow he is in charge!
(Pretends high status, a loner)
Pedrolino - A cunning servant who dreams of love, has a white face on account of working in the kitchen.
(low, the youngest son of the family)
Arlecchino - A cunning sevant who still retains the devils horn, mischievous deliberately mixes up his masters orders, agile and acrobatic part monkey part dog.
(Low, A servant)
Columbina - A servant, often the subject of love interest.
(Low, a servant usually a ladies maid.)
My experience on acting all five characters was quite hard because they were all so unique from one another. The way I overcome this was relating them to animals in the ways they walk and act towards one another. For example when playing Capitano I related myself to a giraffe who walked with his nose because he was a 'know it all'. He pretends he is at a high status when really in reality he is a loner.
I think the hardest character to play was Il Dottore because he is a character who you wouldn't know how to act as one thing but show that your meaning the other. For example, I would need to show him as somebody who thinks he knows it all and thinks he is in charge of everything however I would also have to show that he doesn't really know what he's talking about when it comes to medicines. He was of a high status as well which made it twice as hard to act however I compared him to a donkey.
The character I chose to focus on was Columbina. In our improvised performance this suited our story line best. The story line was: A dysfunctional family involving Pantelone, Columbina (who I played), Capitano, Arlecchino and 2 Pedrolino's. Our day was set on a beach where we all began to fight over the sun. The two Pedrolino's fell in love with one another and Capitano found it hard to control our family. Pantelone was trying to make a move on his own sister Columbina. Meanwhile the mischievous Arlecchino was stealing things from other peoples bags.
I was attracted into playing Columbina because it fed into my work of Barlocco-Pizzocca in the Devil in drag. They were both similar characters at this point because Columbina was a very sexually motivated woman as she is usually the subject of love interest and as was Barlocco-Pizzocca during the scene that I play where she is in court.
The strengths of our performance was that it all came together in the end and made sense that we were a dysfunctional family with many unique personalities. We all showed our individual personalities either through facial expression, voice or body movement. We made sure that each of our characters were clear to the audience so that it wouldn't made the main story line confusing.
The weakness' of our performance were that it took a while to create a story line that involved all characters. We could of worked harder together to make it clearer and more characteristic. If our characters were acted further we could of shown the audience that we understood them fully and linked them well into our story line. For example we could have made Columbina more sexually motivated by the way she walks and does her facial expressions. I think its important when doing Commedia that our body and facial expressions are clear because we don't always need to speak to show a story line. The next step is to make our expressions louder and more extravagant for a really good performance.
Pantelone - Lecherous old fool, greedy and deluded
(high, top of the pecking order. Pantalone IS Money. His orders are obeyed.)
Il Dottore - A bumbling quack who doesn't know a thing about medicine, pompous windbad (e.g Captain Mennering)
(A bachelor or widow. High.)
Capitano - A complete coward and a fake with a huge nose, likes to strut around somehow he is in charge!
(Pretends high status, a loner)
Pedrolino - A cunning servant who dreams of love, has a white face on account of working in the kitchen.
(low, the youngest son of the family)
Arlecchino - A cunning sevant who still retains the devils horn, mischievous deliberately mixes up his masters orders, agile and acrobatic part monkey part dog.
(Low, A servant)
Columbina - A servant, often the subject of love interest.
(Low, a servant usually a ladies maid.)
My experience on acting all five characters was quite hard because they were all so unique from one another. The way I overcome this was relating them to animals in the ways they walk and act towards one another. For example when playing Capitano I related myself to a giraffe who walked with his nose because he was a 'know it all'. He pretends he is at a high status when really in reality he is a loner.
I think the hardest character to play was Il Dottore because he is a character who you wouldn't know how to act as one thing but show that your meaning the other. For example, I would need to show him as somebody who thinks he knows it all and thinks he is in charge of everything however I would also have to show that he doesn't really know what he's talking about when it comes to medicines. He was of a high status as well which made it twice as hard to act however I compared him to a donkey.
The character I chose to focus on was Columbina. In our improvised performance this suited our story line best. The story line was: A dysfunctional family involving Pantelone, Columbina (who I played), Capitano, Arlecchino and 2 Pedrolino's. Our day was set on a beach where we all began to fight over the sun. The two Pedrolino's fell in love with one another and Capitano found it hard to control our family. Pantelone was trying to make a move on his own sister Columbina. Meanwhile the mischievous Arlecchino was stealing things from other peoples bags.
I was attracted into playing Columbina because it fed into my work of Barlocco-Pizzocca in the Devil in drag. They were both similar characters at this point because Columbina was a very sexually motivated woman as she is usually the subject of love interest and as was Barlocco-Pizzocca during the scene that I play where she is in court.
The strengths of our performance was that it all came together in the end and made sense that we were a dysfunctional family with many unique personalities. We all showed our individual personalities either through facial expression, voice or body movement. We made sure that each of our characters were clear to the audience so that it wouldn't made the main story line confusing.
The weakness' of our performance were that it took a while to create a story line that involved all characters. We could of worked harder together to make it clearer and more characteristic. If our characters were acted further we could of shown the audience that we understood them fully and linked them well into our story line. For example we could have made Columbina more sexually motivated by the way she walks and does her facial expressions. I think its important when doing Commedia that our body and facial expressions are clear because we don't always need to speak to show a story line. The next step is to make our expressions louder and more extravagant for a really good performance.
Friday, 6 December 2013
Source sheet and Checklist
Internet Source Checklist
Use the checklist below to check your Internet sources when you have completed your research.
o I checked the websites to make sure they were reliable and from a trustworthy source.
o I cited the author and title of each website I used.
o I cited the website address of each website I used and made sure the address was correct.
o For each website I used I noted the date I found the information.
o I checked that I wrote each of Internet citations in the correct format:
BRIT School Internet Source Sheet
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Casting and questions for Barlocco and Barlocco-Pizzocca
I was casted with the characters Barlocco and Barlocco-Pizocca yesterday. I was pleased to know that I had quite a good part and somebody very interesting to look into. I would consider looking into how they walk, talk, dress and their objectives within the play.
1. WHO AM I?
My name is Barlocco, I am a devil in The Devil in Drag. I am a mischievous little devil who lives in Italy during the Renaissance period. I am quite scatty. I will do as I'm told without hesitation even if I don't always understand it (which can go wrong sometimes). I believe I am a crafty little devil but its always the quiet ones that you'd never expect to do anything bad!
9. WHAT DO I DO TO GET WHAT I WANT?
1. WHO AM I?
My name is Barlocco, I am a devil in The Devil in Drag. I am a mischievous little devil who lives in Italy during the Renaissance period. I am quite scatty. I will do as I'm told without hesitation even if I don't always understand it (which can go wrong sometimes). I believe I am a crafty little devil but its always the quiet ones that you'd never expect to do anything bad!
2. WHAT TIME IS IT?
Its Summer in the Renaissance period, the weather is warm and meanwhile a lot is happening behind the scenes that you may not know about! The Renaissance was in the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages. Its about 2/3pm and it is still light outside.
3. WHERE AM I?
"Francipante, the master Devil, enters via the chimney piece, followed by Barlocco." (taken from the script) I am in Italy in Rome in the neighbourhood of Campo De' Fiori. It's a lively square in central Rome that starts each morning as a market place and ends as a popular drinking spot (particularly for the judge). However right now, I've just popped out of a chimney!
4. WHAT SURROUNDS ME?
Surrounding me is a dressing table and mirror, chimney, bed and Francipante. The room is filled with cream and gold colours and arty-farty objects with a lot of detail.
5. WHAT ARE THE GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES?
My objective is to go up the judges bum because he is incorruptible. However at this present time I accidently go up Pizzocca the maids bum! It is now my job to turn her into an attractive woman.
6. WHAT IS MY RELATIONSHIP?
I am about to go up the judges bum and instead end up going up Pizocca the old maids bum. It is my job to turn Pizocca into a beautiful attractive woman. I obey the master devil Francipante and do as I'm told.
7. WHAT DO I WANT?
I need to turn Pizocca the old maid into a beautiful and attractive woman.
8. WHAT IS IN MY WAY?
In theory Pizocca the maid is in my way because I was suppose to go up the Judges bum however because she was literally in the way of going up the Judges bum I was unable to do my job to plan.
(The obstacles which prevent character from getting his/her need)
9. WHAT DO I DO TO GET WHAT I WANT?
I turn Pizzocca into a highly attractive woman in order to corrupt the Judge like he deserves! I enter her body and mould her body into an attractive woman including enlarging her boobs.
Source 1
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