Rough Draft Performance

Self Evaluation
Link to performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQPzHktVnRA
Criterion B Level: 4/10

I have given myself this level of achievement for my rough draft performance. My artistic intentions were vague, and were not communicated in an appropriate manner as I did not have many gestures and physical actions to dictate my words. My skills were satisfactory, as I did not articulate and inflect my voice to the best of its ability. I should try to put more energy into my performance to improve the overall sarcastic and annoying effect. Some strengths of performance were that I was easy to hear because I projected my voice quite well, and, I emphasized on certain words to drag the audience's attention to the main points of my script. I also tried to put on facial expressions that related to my script directly. I can improve my performance by utilizing the stage space more appropriately (moving upstage and downstage for emphasis), and,  following the vocal notations that were mentioned on my script accurately. My goals for the final performance are to:

• Memorise my script more effectively
• Not trying to rush through my words
• Focussing on what actions I could use to convey the theme
• Using props that might suit the various scenes
• Have more energy and elevated characteristics
• Ensure I have the same level of confidence in front of a live audience

Peer Evaluation

Link to performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0jei6JTGFA

Criterion B Level: 7/10 

I am evaluating Mifrah's rough draft performance. I decided to give her a grade from the level 7-8 band, as her performance because her skills and techniques were displayed at a good level of proficiency, and her artistic intents were communicated clearly. Her use of hand gestures really elaborated her ideas and made the performance more engaging. Mifrah had clearly memorised her script really well, as she did not mumble or stutter. She could improve for the final performance by maybe having a bit more energy and utilizing more stage space. She could also have more angry facial expressions when she talks about specific details of her oh-so-annoying parents. On the whole, she put a good amount of effort into her rough draft performance. 

My Acting Script for Annoying Parents

 10 Habits of Highly Annoying Parents

Source: http://suburbanturmoil.com/the-25-habits-of-highly-annoying-parents/2013/10/29/#prettyphoto[13265]/1/

Legend:

Bold= Emphasized words

Italics= Sarcastic tone 

Blue highlight= Forte 

Yellow highlight=  Soprano 

Purple highlight= Phrasing

Green highlight= Crescendo

Red highlight= Diminuendo 

Orange highlight= Adagio 

Scene 1

Narrator: Never take your crying kid out of the theatre during a movie or performance. Everyone in the audience was a baby once. They’ll totally understand.

(Mom and son sitting on two chairs and pretending to look up. Mom holding a paper bag and pretending to eat popcorn, while child starts crying)

Son: Waaahaha waaaahh!

(Mom ruffles son’s hair while two other people sitting on chairs behind roll eyes at the family)

Scene 2

Narrator: Always be late to pick up your child from sports practice. Coaches love spending extra time with your kid.

(Son poking male coach repeatedly in different places and giving wet willies)

Son: Coach, coach! Do you wanna build a snowmaaaaaan?

(Enter mom running onto stage and wiping forehead with relief after seeing son)

Mom: [To coach] Isn’t my son a gem!

Scene 3

Narrator: Let your toddler climb the stairs all by himself in crowded public places. Loudly cheer him on with phrases like…

(Enter son and father. Son climbing up black boxes very slowly and clumsily)

Dad: You can do it, widdle man! Only 10 steps to go!

Narrator: …and as the crowd of stair climbers forms behind you, look back at them and smile as if they all think watching your son climb steps is the cutest thing they’ve ever seen. (While narrating this section, enter 3 people waiting to use the stairs, Dad smiles at them and places both palms on his heart)

Scene 4

Narrator: If your baby poops during a party at a friend’s house…

(Enter guests, jazz music playing. Mom holding baby doll pretending to be daughter, when all of a sudden it starts to smell. Mom wipes air near nose to indicate this).

Narrator: (Mom glances at fancy lady while placing finger on chin) …don’t bother the host by asking where you should put the dirty diaper.

Narrator: Just throw it in the guest bathroom trashcan- or better yet, stash it in the  kitchen trashcan instead. It’s bigger.

(Mom takes fake diaper off baby doll and walks slowly on her tiptoes towards the kitchen. Mom throws diaper into dustbin)

Scene 5

Narrator: Dress like your teenage daughter. Flirt with her boyfriends. Oh and if you’re her father, this will be even more effective.

(Enter daughter with boyfriend casually conversing. Enter Dad, cat walking in stiletto heels with a pink skater skirt and tank top along with sunglasses. Daughter and boyfriend stare at Dad)

Dad: Ciao! (Wave) OMG, you must be Stella’s boyfriend! (Mini jump)

Boyfriend: Nice to meet you?

Dad: Well, I’m no photographer, but I can picture you and me together (slides sunglasses down to double wink).

Scene 6

Narrator: Bring your cranky toddler to a romantic, high-end restaurant. Get huffy if they don’t have highchairs or a kids’ menu.

(Enter mother and daughter into restaurant. Waiters roaming around with fancy glasses. One other couple on a date)

Mom: Waiter, waiter! I need a highchair for my baby.

(Waiter looks at baby up and down)

Waiter: Sorry Ma’am, this is supposed to be a romantic restaurant…you know, for grown-ups.

Mom: Uggghhhh, what a sassy bitch.

Scene 7

Narrator: If you happen to see your child hitting or biting another kid on the playground…

(Enter two children. ‘Another kid’ bouncing a basketball and having fun. Son enters and swoops the ball away).

Another Kid: Hey, I was playing with that!

Son: You snooze you lose.

Another Kid: I wasn't snoozing! Clearly your glasses aren’t too effective.

Son: Don't insult Armani!

(Son throws basketball away and starts punching ‘another kid’ in the stomach. ‘Another kid’ tries defending his face and whimpers. Son fake bites ‘another kid’s’ shoulder. Enter Mom with a friend. Mom and friend witness the action).

Narrator: …just keep talking and act like you have no idea that it happened.

(Mom mumbling random things to friend)

Scene 8

Narrator: Brag. Every chance you get. Brag.

(Enter Mom with a friend)

Mom’s friend: I need to go tinkle. Come with me to the washroom?

Mom: Sure. Did you know my son stopped bedwetting at the age of nine? (Cross hands over heart and wipe a fake tear). 

(Mom’s friend looks at Mom with nasty facial expression).  

Scene 9

Narrator: Send your sick kid to school, parties, and sleepovers, whatever. You totally need a break from the vomit.

(Enter four children. Start having pillow fight).

Daughter: Yay this is so much fun!

(One child hits Daughter in tummy. Daughter fake pukes. Children start running around stage)

Scene 10

Narrator: Start a Twitter account for your unborn child.

(Enter Dad with a laptop)

Dad: “Your Hobbies”… hmm, "probably staying in my mother’s womb"!

Blogologues: Production Roles

The production role that I have received is publicity. In the theatrical community, publicity plays an extremely important role as it attracts a wide audience. Some real life jobs related to publicity includes public relations, advertising, and marketing. Without publicity, a theatrical production would not make a profit, and would not have any large scaled recognition. 

My responsibilities include creating a poster portraying necessary information of our group's production, creating a performance program, and taking pictures and videos throughout the rehearsals for our production portfolio. Some traits that I will have to display includes being an inquirer and a communicator. I need to inquire about our own performance with the members of my group, and I need to communicate with the general population. My role will assist my group by publicizing our performance, giving the audience an overview of our performance and collecting evidence of our productivity. 

I feel that I am well-equipped to fulfill this role, as I enjoy making posters and I have thoroughly gone through the Love of 3 Oranges program. I also enjoy photography and compiling various images together. I need to learn about the essential elements needed for a performance program, and I need to work on different design ideas for posters and brochures. 

Priority List:

• Titles of each blogologue sketch 
• Cast members for each sketch
• Production roles for each member
• Duration of performance 
• Photographic evidence of rehearsals

Timeline:

• 17th May 2014- Production poster completed
• 24th May 2014- Performance program completed
• *Photographs/videos taken throughout the lessons

Blogologues: Find your own Material- Part 2 (Task 4)

The theme for our group is "Annoying Parents", and was accordingly selected by Mifrah, who is our director. The other members of the group include Ryan, Hamza, and Vanessa. This theme portrays daily situations in which parents act rather irritating or have weird habits based on how they take on their role of being a parent. The main reason as to why I like this theme is because it is a very broad topic, which can be interpreted, brainstormed and produced from different angles. Some perspectives that interest me would include families with typical cultures (e.g. Indian household), families with contradicting cultures, homosexual parents, foster parents, grandparents as parents, and much more. We could also look at this topic from another angle and see the different ways in which parents react to certain situations their children are going through (for e.g. is their daughter has a boyfriend). I think the two perspectives that would attract an audience the most would probably be families with typical cultures and parents with annoying habits. For example, if the family with typical cultures were Asian by nationality (either oriental or from the Indian subcontinent), an easy idea would be for the parents to talk about their children's school marks/grades and them being disappointed even though the grades are quite remarkable.

Blog 1: http://suburbanturmoil.com/the-25-habits-of-highly-annoying-parents/2013/10/29/

This blog is of interest to me because some of the annoying habits mentioned are relatable to a wide spectrum of teenagers and children in our society, including myself. My abilities as a performer are not very exceptional, but narrating these sentences would allow me to focus more on my articulation, projection, and inflection of words rather than my physicality, which is my strongest weakness. I have some ideas regarding how I could perform this blog to the best of its ability. After I finish narrating each habit, my other team members can briefly act out what the message is trying to say. For example, the first annoying habit is a about a crying kid in the theatre, and everyone in the audience getting annoyed because the mother or father is too selfish or careless to do so. If I were to direct this scene, I would have a mother and son sitting on two cinema seats at the front, and a couple sitting directly behind them that are trying to focus on the movie. There will be loud scary or action music playing in the background and the son will start crying. The mom will just ruffle his hair and not bother taking him out of the theatre, while the couple rolls their eyes at the odd family. The lighting would only have to be dim during the first scene as that is in a theatre, and the lights are always off while a movie is running. Costumes would almost constantly have to change from scene to scene which might be a struggle because the narrator (I) will need to stall time.

Blog 2: http://www.reddit.com/r/confession/comments/1j6akj/im_asian_and_i_hate_asian_culture
_because_of_my/

This appealed to me because it was an ideal example of our topic, and our audience members would definitely have Asian parents. Although this scene involves more gestures in general, they would be quite easy for me to perform as being angry is a norm for me and it would not be difficult for me to express rage. I would possibly use a red light backdrop for this blog because red represents anger the best, which will set the mood for the scene. No sounds would be needed and the narrator could just wear pyjamas or anything casual. Also, two people can pretend to be the parents and enter into the scene in between and scold the daughter for things that are not worth scolding for.

Blog 3: http://twodadsandme.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/big-boys-dont-fly/

This blog represents the struggles of two gay dads trying to raise their son, and how his behaviour stemmed up from his time at residential care. This blog appeals to me because I really enjoy the way the author has depicted his emotions using specific words and how their son treats them. I can see this being staged by two gay dads being present, and one of them being the narrator while the other on is acting with the son. There are many action cues in the script, so the gay dad and son have to perform some stage combat with each other. The lighting can be a bit dim, because the script's storyline is a bit dark itself. If I was the narrator, I would have to play a male role, and that is fine with me costume wise and acting wise because I have to pretend like I am gay anyway.

Blogologues: Find your own Material (Task 3)

This task consists of three possible sources of material for a Blogologue sketch, and the one I think would be the best to perform.

1. Doge

Link: https://www.facebook.com/VeryDoge?fref=ts

Doge is a popular Facebook page that displays various images of Shiba Inus (a dog breed), which originate from Japan. The pictures include various caption/phrases in different colours that are intentionally grammatically incorrect (or incorrect in spelling), and can sometimes be very hilarious for some people. A classic example would be:

We can compile the phrases to create a script, which would interest several people, as Doge has over 413k likes/followers. The key to successfully saying these phrases out-loud is to have ordinary facial expressions that are not very exaggerated, so that most of the attention is directed towards the words rather than the actions, and so the audience gets the whole, simple Doge appeal that can be seen in the pictures. I do not have many strengths as a performer, so using this blog would be of great help towards my lack of acting skills. I am not good at exaggerated facial expressions and actions, and I feel more comfortable with words. I, personally, am a huge fan of Doge and I actually laugh out loud sometimes while reading some of the things. This would keep me interested while rehearsing and would be easy for me to memorise the lines. It would be easy to come up with a storyline from the images, although it would be rather time consuming.

2. Cyanide and Happiness 

Link: http://explosm.net/

Cyanide and Happiness is a web-comics production that post various comic strips that are mainly aimed at teenagers and/or young adults. Some of the content contains bad language, however, this sometimes adds to the humour, which is why it is not aimed for kids. Below, is an example of one of their comic strips:

Similar to Doge, we can compile various comic strips in order to generate a script. This blog interests me a lot because I generally find the short stories really funny and relatable to teenage comedy that does not go too overboard. However, performing this would be a bit of a struggle for me, as these comics require exceptional acting skills, which I do not have. But, I feel that I am quite okay at playing roles that are a bit awkward or grumpy, as thats what I am generally like while performing. So if I pick a role that demonstrates these characteristics, it would be more feasible to produce a better sketch. I think this is a great source of material as they have several mini-stories, which can be arranged into one huge story.

3. Damn You Auto Correct! 

"Damn You Auto Correct!" is a famous website (and is also a Facebook page) that displays several images where auto correct corrects words somewhat incorrectly to the sender's intentions. The auto corrected words usually deliver a different message than what it was meant to be. For example, here is one auto correct fail:

They can range from different chatting platforms, such as WhatsApp, iMessage, BBM, and much more. These autocorrect fails can be extremely hilarious at times, which makes them worthwhile to read, and which is why I am interested in them. Adequate acting skills are required to express the right feelings while pretending to chat on stage because some of the fails can be really nasty, horrifying or hilarious. I feel that if I put in enough effort during practice lessons, I can easily improve my abilities as a performer. I think this is a good source of material because it is very relatable for a wide range of people and the content is generally very comedic.

The Chosen One

If I were to choose one of the blog/sites/pages from the three mentioned above, I would strongly pick "Doge", because, firstly, it plays to my advantage as the words speck for themselves over the actions (there are many actions but not many feelings need to be expressed), and secondly, it is very unique and will appeal to several people as it has become a trend of speaking.

However, it would be a bit complicated to stage this as a piece because we need to select appropriate images from "Doge's" Facebook page and compile them together to create an appropriate script and production. This will be extremely time consuming, but I feel it is worth the while.

The key concept of the piece would be daily activities and/or shenanigans presented in "Doge" language. For example, Doge riding a bike or playing the guitar. The brilliancy of this blog is that you can use as many people as you need. Essentially, there is only one character (i.e. Doge) but many other external influences can potentially and easily be added.

The staging would be quite simple, but various props would need to be used depending on the storyline. For example, if Doge is using a hula hoop , the cast member should be using a hula hoop.

The production elements that are required include: costumes, set, props, and lights. 

Blogologues: Review a Sketch (Task 2)

The sketch that I have chosen to review is "20 Guys Trying to Bang a Total Psycho on OKCupid". This is the video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMP-anxaOxU.

The material for this Blogologue was collected from an application that can be downloaded on smart-phones called "OKCupid". This app allows you to connect with random people that live near you, so that you can initiate multiple conversations and eventually take it to the next level (dating/going out). The main girl who was acting in the sketch created a fake, wacky OKCupid account in real life in order to get the words for the production's script. Her username was "Marlababy" and she had a dog named Booty, she was looking for men from the ages of 26-72, she really liked movies, and her profile picture consisted of only her shoulder, which shows no sign of whether "Marla" is even attractive or not. The sketch is then followed up with a series of random men rising to the occasion by trying to get Marla to go out with them, even though she is a complete nutcase and they do not know what she looks like.

The staging of the sketch was pretty neat and simple. There was a projector in the background that showed Marlababy's profile, but we can only really see her profile picture and username to give us an idea of what the app looks like. They also use it to show the different points that Marlababy has answered (for e.g. you should message me if...). No other props were used as they were not necessarily required. There was normal, white lighting and the clothes they were wearing were ordinary as it suited the various situations. No sounds could be heard, besides the audience's laughter.

I enjoyed seeing how Marla dealt with the different conversation prompts that were sent to her, which is essentially the entire sketch. It just goes to show how desperate some guys really are and how the world is gradually turning towards online dating mediums, which I personally find rather obscure. The voices that they used suited their personalities really well and they used enough gestures for their individual roles. They used the term "hot-pockets" during their performance, which I quite do not understand. Other then that, everything was clear. One minor change I would like to make to the sketch is the colour of their clothing. Most of the cast members were wearing pink and it seemed a bit too monochromatic. A bit more variety would have been nice to see.

From this sample, I generally feel that the reviews of Blogologues are fairly accurate. For example, as mentioned by the Huffington Post, I agree that their use of virtual/web media in live theatre is very effective and attracts a great number of people, as technology has become a developing necessity in first world countries. However, I do feel that some of the reviews were a bit exaggerated. The Observer: Betabeat, stated that Blogologue performance made them laugh relentlessly, but I do not entirely agree with this, as I only giggled a few times here and there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMP-anxaOxU

Source:

"Blogologues." L!VELY Productions . N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. <http://livelyproductions.org/home/what-is-blogologues/>.

My Brecht Montage

Since we never performed our piece, below, you can watch my montage, and the script created by Sunaira can be viewed as well.

Theme:

Wedding scam. The bride died.

Characters: Igor, Vladlenna, Valentina, Veronika

Script

Act 1: Scene 1

Igor: Valentina, this bread is stale and hard

Valentina: Sorry, father. We do not have enough kopeks for flour and yeast to make more bread

Igor: The crops are failing, it is becoming harder and harder for me to provide for our family

Vladlenna: Father, we are going to starve

Valentina: We do not have enough flour and yeast stored to last the month

Igor: We need a new source of money. Veronika, come here.

Veronika: Yes, father?

Igor: How old are you?

Veronika: 16

Igor: You are of age to be married. We have no choice here. I cannot feed you girls; we do not have the kopeks to feed ourselves anymore. If you get married, I will have one less mouth to feed.

Veronika: No! Father, you cannot do this.

Vladlenna: Father, no. Please do not separate us. After mother passed away, we are the only ones there for each other

Valentina: What if she didn’t really get married?

Igor: What do you mean?

Veronika: A scam?

Vladlenna: No, Valentina, we mustn’t. We are honest people.

Veronika: Vladlenna, even honest people need to change their ways during harsh times

Act 1: Scene 2

Igor: So, all is set for our plan?

Veronika: Yes, father

Vladlenna: I’m not too sure about this, father

Igor: Hush yourself, we need this

Valentina: Make sure you look your best when you meet your groom to be

Note about Brecht Rough and Final Performances

The reason why I have not completed a reflection for these two performances is because we never performed them, due to absences of group members and progression through the drama syllabus.