In our first rehearsal we focused on the opening chorus, this we were all playing the part of raver and we enter the scene dancing to the song 'Fire starter' by prodigy. The direction that we were give was to enter the scene with energy and dance around the stage. I initially came into the scene with the character of throwing myself around the stage, looking like I'm letting myself go. The opening chorus speech was split up into 4 sections that different groups would perform their sections out to the audience. I have the ending section, we spoke it out to the audience within the group, all in unison.
As the rehearsal process came on we came back to this scene, and we recapped the dance number at the start of the play. We felt this necessary as it is the opening number to the production and needs to be a strong piece, and because it was quite a different concept for an audience to understand, it would have to make sense from the start. I think that for a performance the key moments are always the beginning and the end, so with a strong opening number to bring the audience in from the start. One way that I explored doing this was to make all of my set movements bigger to make the stage look fuller. I think once everyone began to go further with their movement it really brought the scene to life and I began to feel confident with the scene.
As we got closer to the performance we then came back to this scene, having spent time on the movement and working on that to a solid level, we did some work on the text in this scene. As we were at a later point in the process of performance, everyone knew their lines for this scene and was off script. We explore different tones within the speech and different ways of bringing it to life. One exercise that stood out for me was one where we spoke all of our lines to the audience, while imagining that they were a group of children. I think by doing this exercise it gave the lines meaning and really highlighted for me what the key words were in the dialogue that helped the story to carry through.
Pope Scene
In the play this is the first scene where I play the part of Dr Faustus, were this scene now differs to the original performance is mainly the character swaps that we have had to do to help it fit our context. This scene is the first time that Faustus has a bit of fun with the powers that he was given, and in the original performance he travels to Rome to play some tricks on the Pope, however to bring this scene back up to date with our context we have made this character a representation of Simon Cowell, who is a big name in the world of music. This scene when we first blocked it didn't make a lot of sense to me, as the pace seemed quite slow, as it felt that we were waiting for each line to happen. I understand that as it was early on in the process when we first blocked this scene, so as were not yet off script, as a cast we were not 100% with our understanding of the flow of the scene and the script. To get over this I set myself the target to make myself a scene plot to follow, then this would give me something to study and base my characters objectives off, and hopefully help the flow and pace of the scene.
The next time we visited this scene we made some changes to the layout and how things would be set out in terms of the concept of the play. New additions to the scene would include: The addition of the Babes and Guards in the scene. This meant that instead of just tormenting the Pope figure in the scene it gave me other characters to focus on as well. I then split up my lines, and directed them to each character. I felt that this works as it gave me a path to follow in the scene, which also helped the pace of the scene, which had become a problem in earlier rehearsals.
As we got closer to the performance, and production elements started to come together, we introduced some props into this scene. Out of all of the scenes in my half of the play, this contained the most that linked directly to my character. One for example was the cream, that one of the babes squirts on their finger to tempt the Simon Cowell figure, I then run over to snatch it off of her and spray it all around the performance space. I felt this section come alive, as I ran around the stage causing mayhem. Another prop that helped was the Candy Bra that the other babe wore. Faustus is set to run up to her, in his invisible state and eat it off of her. Up until the final rehearsals I had to mime this action, which I thought lost all of the pace in the scene, so the addition of the relevant prop gave me something to play off and helped me to exaggerate all of my movements in order to make sure that the audience saw what I was doing to the characters in the scene.
Emperor Scene
The next scene that I had while playing Faustus was the Emperor scene, this scene also shows my character having some fun with his powers. Out of all of my scene this has the most dialogue in it, so it meant that the blocking was simpler compared to the others. To enter this scene we entered from the back of the stage, with my character and Mephistopheles entering from one side of the Skene and The Emperor and the Knight entering from the other, we walked down the thrust stage, parallel to each other. This made the start of the scene look very neat and tidy, as we paraded down the space. I think that this blocking was effective as it was a contrast to the other scene, which looked a bit manic, whereas this scene was in order, to reflect the contrast in status' of the characters.
As this scene is heavily relying on the speeches of the character to help carry through the narrative, this meant that as we rehearsed this scene more, it began to feel very static. The addition of the servants to the scene, which was not in the original text, this then gave the character of the Emperor a reason to move around the stage, as he would walk to his servants. This I felt broke up the scene, and allows us as actors to move around the space, rather than come out to deliver our lines, stationary, and then leave.
Horse Courser Scene
When we first got this scene it was my favourite scene out of all of them, i felt that from the start of the process this was a strong scene, as i stuck well to the dialogue and the comic timing. The main thing that i struggled with this scene was the understanding of the storyline, and it took me a while to understand the sarcasm of it. I think once it looked over the scene it became clear to me that the whole scene with the fake leg, that my character and Mephistopheles were planning a ploy on the Horse Courser the whole time, i think that once i spent time to understand the cause of the scene, the comedic timing and jokes within the text really began to play out to the audience.
When the props were made, for example the leg, this caused some problems within the scene, as the way that we planned to set up the fake leg didn't seem to work. so during one of our later rehearsal we had to come up with a plan on how to first set up the leg and also how it would be held and how the Horse Courser would get to it. The first solution that we came up with for getting the leg into place was for one of the ensemble members to bring it on during the transition number, and place it under neither the table so when Mephistopheles came over to put my character to sleep she would position this between my legs. This then caused another problem as i had to hold it between my legs, which caused me to have to focus on not dropping it.
When we finally got this scene into the performance space it think that it worked really well as it worked well with the amount of space that was given too us gave us the opportunity to really use the space and be able to travel around the space to give different locations within the scene.
Duke and Duchess Scene
Due to our cut down of the original text, this scene was a late addition to our production. When we first got this scene it felt a bit out of place within the rest of the place as it didn't seem to have any relevance to our concept.
During this scene to make it make more sense of the magic that 'Faustus' was doing on the Duchess in this scene, my character and Mephistopheles began to use subtle looks to each other, to hint the trickery that we were causing. i think that this helped as it made it clear to the audience what our characters intentions were.
Old Man Scene
This scene i think worked well from quite early in the process, when we first blocked this scene we did it outside of the rehearsal period, so when we came to running it within the rehearsal times, it seemed to be at. Higher level than the other scenes. When first exploring this scene we played around with including the rehearsal technique, mirroring. This worked well especially for our concept, as the character of Dr Faustus was double cast and the first faustus played the part of the Old Man, we explored the idea of the old man being a ghost of Faustus, and him coming back to warn him of his wrongs. The mirroring began with some basic movements that the old man could perform during his speeches, then I as Faustus joined in when I felt it right too. For one example of the mirroring,mthenold man had a line that said " draw tears Faustus" with this line we both reached for the others face.
As we got closer to the performance the rehearsals seemed to go very well for this scene, I felt that my self and the other playing the old man had a really good connection, and really worked together to create a powerful ending scene and draw all of Faustus' thoughts together.
Chorus Scenes
I also played the part of a chorus member, who took on the part of a raver, who would represtent the Devils in the show. During the rehearsal period more of these scene came together, and by the later rehearsals there were a few scenes in the first half that involved these characters. For example one that worked well in rehearsals was the devil scene during the Wagner and Robin scene, in order to frighten Robin there are two Devils conjured up, to chase him around the space. I played the part of one of these, to add a comedic flair to this scene, we set it to the 'Benny Hill theme tune'. Whereas in the script it is suggested to use puppetry.
When we got to later rehearsals I think that this scene blossomed to a key scene in the play. As me and the other actor playing the devil, worked together to explore body movements and techniques to bring the scene to life. One of the techniques that stood out to me was: LeCoqs, Valley of the Giants. We used this technique to bring everything that we had set for the section to a different scale. This involved given everything another push, for example, when turning a corner I would really use my whole body to turn the corner, and exsaggerate everything. I think that this not only made our performances, more of a comedic moment, but gave the character of Robin who is being chased, something to respond off of.
Seven Deadly Sins scene
The final scene that we rehearsed that I was in was the seven deadly sins. This scene takes part in the first half of the play, so we began to explore characterisation quite early on. When we first set this scene the main focus was on the different characters vocal abilitys. We did an excerise that focused on different emphasis' on words in our speeches. For example one that worked for me was the word "pride". I really showed off this word, by rolling the R sound. I then linked it to the character by relating it to a snooty man, who would make everything that he says sound posh and better than everyone else.
During the period of not focusing on this scene in guided hours, I happened to watch a different production of the play, who followed a fairly tradition concept. A scene that stood out for me was the Seven deadly sins scene. I think that this was because of their use of physicality. Each character would really push everything out of their characters in order to make them stand out from the other six. When we were revistitng this scene, I suggested that we looked into the blocking and movement of the scene again. When doing this for my section I added a movement to every line, and made everything bigger, I also applied this to other people's sections, if I was not directly involved I would just stand at the back and keep up my interactions with other characters and also always doing something. However we began to get involved with other characters sections, for example the glotteny scene, we would all be gathered round the character feeding him the food, and for my character I would be getting repulsed with his manner. Another section that I got involved in was Lechtry. My character was in love with her, so I walked over to her with a open mouth and kept very close to her. I think that by exploring these movements, and with the vocal work that we had earlier done, it created character that were all interesting for different reasons and everyone stood out in their own scenes.
Finale
The closing scene to the play was Dr Faustus getting dragged to hell. When we first got our parts and scripts this was the scene that I was most worried about, as it is a strong scene which is mainly lead by faustus. When doing the read through there was some language that I was struggling with, as it was a lot of the time written in verse. This means that there is a certain rhythm to the speeches. One technique that helped me with this was setting the speeches to music or a tune. I just used a basic tune like Twinkle twinkle, by setting it to this it gave me something to remember when learning lines
For this scene in particular and most of the other scenes where I played Fasutus, my main challenge was keeping him manly. As my natural state is to keep everything quite light and jolly, however for the more serious scenes and more passionate scenes, this didn't seem to fit. I explored lowering the tone of my voice to give it a harsh, graspy edge. This gave the character a ruff feeling to it. For my physicality I focused on keeping myself grounded in the scene. One way I think that this worked for me was to think heavy thoughts and keep both of my feet planted on the floor, also keeping my jaw shut gave my face a manly feeling.
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