Commedia Dell'Arte Research

I've been watching several YouTube videos on Commedia Dell'Arte and listening to several instructors who do this proffesionally in order to help the actors in our troupe and class to help grasp the movements and physicality of the actual commedia characters that they are portraying. Here are several videos that I found useful in order to help direct the characters and help them to become as expressive as they can while stilling improvising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUnaNTfTzuM&feature=related
This video helps the actors associate the movements of the characters with the attitude, but also with animals, which makes it easier to visualize and use during the improvisation. I think that the comparison between a few of the characters and animals will definitely help our actors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzGx1HbYwWk&feature=related
This scene will help with Alessa and Augusto as they try and develop their scene when pantalone will be flirty with columbina.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReMHC4JnSi0&feature=related
I found this video that could be used by Elena so she could learn how to use her body more and since she is a dancer, I don't think that she will have hard time doing so.

A Reflection on Fools

Fools was a great first impression for the new and running drama department. The actors worked very well and became very dynamic with their characters. A lot of hard work was but into this production, and as my role was to assist Ms. Morrison with anything that she needed, I wanted to make sure that the director and the actors were as ready and comfortable as possible. The first night of the performance was a huge energy booster as the audience laughed at the hard work that the actors demonstrated on stage. It started off really well, with a slight hiccup with a missed line and some thunder, but the actors where able to quickly recover and continue with the performance. However, the extended intermission left the actors to think about the audience's response and the laughter seemed to get to their head, and they started Act II with less energy and less unity than they had during the first act. This was a result of a missed line and the lights and sound crew waiting for their cue. The actor was left on stage with nothing to do for a few minutes and the light and sound crew should have reacted faster to the situation than they did on the first night of performance. If we had had the chance to do more rehearsals in center stage, than this could have been more easily prevented. But because the Spanish play was scheduled to show only two weeks before the Fools production, this wasn't possible. But the hiccup was quickly recovered as the characters worked together to great the dynamics of the story. Actors where able to connect to their characters as we got closer to opening night. They had a lot of trouble with this during rehearsal because they were worried that the jokes and their acting wouldn't be funny. This is something scary for any comedic actor because their is nothing worse than putting a lot of effort into a character or plot when the audience doesn't find it funny. But when the actors heard laughter on the first night, and every night after that, they connected to their characters almost instantly. The second night brought more problems than the first, though. Because Operation Smile did not show up, their was no need for an intermission. And I wasn't able to grab the props off the stage without the audience noticing. And since there were no black outs in between the scenes, I simply had to grab the book off the stage, along with the White Flowers that the vendor had forgot to grab before the play started. I did not notice the flowers on the table, so I wasn't able to remind her of the flowers.

Final Monologue

I was not able to publish my final monologue because I was in the GIN performance and had forgotten to post my final monologue with all of the edits. I took the advice that Ms. Morrison gave me and tried to add a more noticeable climax and a bigger falling action. So what I did was describe the shouting and the fight between the mom and Daddy that was being heard by the littler girl in the barn. The little girl suddenly becomes very angry and comes to general realization of her inner strength to stand up to her father, but she does so when she is in the presence of the police officer and is re-telling her story. It is a small window that the audience gazes through and see that she does have the strength to stand up to her father, but she has been putting it of for as much time as possible since she is afraid of him and did not know that she had the mental ability to become so angry at her father. For the actual performance of this piece, the actor would start to raise their voice and start shouting the lines and sound as if she was in pain. Then she would suddenly just stop, readjust herself as if putting herself back into the state of the little girl, and then she would say her final plea to the police officer to not "let Daddy hurt momma no more."

Daddy always told me to never to talk to people like you; that you would take me away from momma, Daddy, Little Mikey, and Bobo. Well, now that he’s not here, I guess I could tell ya. But Daddy’s not going to be very happy when he finds out what I told ya’ll. I guess I should start from the very day that I was born which was April 17, 1987. I remember because every year, I would be allowed to go outside into the field and chase Bobo. I was born in the back of the barn, Little Mikey would tell me. He was about 15 years old when I came along. He told me that momma was alone in the barn, and then came out with me wrapped in an old blanket. She named me Bessie after her favorite milking cow. But, my daddy never called me Bessie. He didn’t like the name that momma gave me. She he just called me baby. He didn’t like little Mikey either. One day when little Mikey was out on the tractor, Daddy took his shotgun off the mantle from the fireplace and when outside. I tried to follow, but he told me stay in the house with momma. Little Mikey didn’t come home that day. Daddy said he went away and just put the shotgun back on the mantle. Momma started crying and cried all night and all day. She said it’s because she didn’t get to say goodbye. Daddy didn’t like it when she cried. She would be all black and blue when she came out to milk Bessie. She wouldn’t talk much. Her mouth was all swollen and she didn’t like to come out of the bedroom. Daddy would sometimes yell for her and she came to his side faster than the cars that Daddy would watch on the television set. But after she was done washing the dishes, she didn’t come fast enough and Daddy got upset. He told me to go to the barn with Bobo and to stay there. The only things I heard was Bobo barking, and screams that I thought were mommas. She was really screaming. More than I had ever heard her scream before. There were sounds of dishes smashing and I could hear Daddy yelling mean things to momma. I could hear tearing of her hair from her head as she screeched.  And she couldn’t do anything but scream and beg him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t stop! (Pause) I don’t want Daddy to keep hurting momma. So I ran down the dirt road by the baker and found the man with the shiny pin, like the one on little Mikey’s old cowboy toys. And he took me here, and now I’m talking to you. Please don’t let Daddy hurt momma no more. Don’t let him make momma go away like he did to little Mikey…