Peer Evaluation

Daniel: Don Pedro

Stayed in the performance the entire time even when not speaking, intense eyes meant that your intentions were clear and I could see the anger behind from your physicality. Whispering to Claudio can be a little risky because the audience may not be able to hear it. Have light and shade to your performance; you don't always have to be this angry force you can soften and pursue other objectives like trying to calm Claudio down. Don't play the state, Play what you want, what do you want? To shame hero? To redeem your friends honour? Brilliant moves, very grounded and solid, you don't sway or move aimlessly, pronunciation and diction excellent, really starting use the language and get your mouth around the big words. The energy drops after Vlad's speech so you have to be responsible for picking it back up so the audience don't switch off. Characterisation is really starting to come through, very believable performance.

Obama: Real life equivalents: Directors Notes

A brilliant suggestion from my direct was to look at the way President Obama speaks and the charisma and charm he effortlessly exudes. The specific word he used was "magnanimous". This is now the word I think of whenever I need to get into character. This video helped me to understand the way he can command conifdence from anyone without having to ask for it. It's all about taking your time when you speak, pausing, making them wait for you. Smiling. Another note I got was that I give too much eye contact. I have to give it when I feel like the person I am talking to has earned it or I want to make them feel important or special. 

Another real life equivalent I looked at was Sammy David Jr. I watched a video of him tap dancing and noted the way he just moved around the stage using minimal effort yet still looking so effortless and brilliant. I think I need to stop working so hard and just exist without attempting to drive the scenes. These two men are cool without trying and that's what Don Pedro needs to be. 

Laban Effort Work

I got an note in rehearsals today about the way I moved as Don  Pedro. "Don Pedro never runs, he's a cool guy, he takes his time". This made me take some time to work by myself on the way Don Pedro moves. I did this by playing around with Laban Efforts. I first of all thought about words that I would associate with the character. In the original text he is a prince, so I though about royalty, regalness a sense of majesty.

Light, Sustained and Direct. Glide. This was imdediately the effort I thought of and the one that was definetly best suited. Don Pedro doesn't waft about aimlessly, nor is he indirect, he is straight to the point, he doens't waste time bubmling about. He may be a soldier but leaves the real fighting to his men. This means he doesn't have to be rock hard, he can afford to be light and not bulky. He is consistent, you can rely on this man for anything. He is not staccato or flicky, he is constant.

With all this I decided to go into a room and just move about the space "gliding" going as abstract as possible, finding the effort within my own body. Once I felt I could identify with the feeling of glide, I then got into character as Don Pedro and started pairing some key words with the movement. E.g. "I will assume thy part in some disguise". This meant that I was now pairing the movement with text. I began to feel really rooted and comfortable with the way Don Pedro moved. This exercise was really useful because I now felt more rooted as my character and more confident with my movement choices on stage.

Research Task: Why does Don Pedro dislike his brother?

In order to justify my hidden anger towards my brother I have to have a strong reason in order to make sure my there is truth behind my actions. I have done some research into friendly fire/blue on blue attacks.

friendly fire

noun

MILITARY

1. weapon fire coming from one's own side that causes accidental injury or death to one's own forces.

During a very heavy raid one night Don John and has squadron devise a plan to loop round the back of the target and shoot Don Pedro and his men in the back and then blame it on misinformation from the strategy department. This would effectively kill Don Pedro and allow Don John to get away with murder without being court marshalled. This was all going to plan until Claudio tipped Don Pedro off about the plan and allowed him to stop it before the mission began. However Don Pedro never reported this to the military police because it would disgrace the family name and he still had a sense of loyalty towards his brother. It took awhile but they final reconciled just before the end of the gulf war but of course the tension still remains.

This article details some of the worst cases of friendly fire, they usually always happen by accident however someone could utilise this and use it as an excuse to end the life of someone else and then blame it on a misfire or miscommunication.

http://listverse.com/2012/11/03/8-worst-cases-of-friendly-fire/

Visual representation of status

It is important to understand the Status of a character in a play. This simple exercise allowed us to physically the placement of our character within the hierarchy of the world of the play. As pictured Don Pedro is the highest status character in the regiment of soldiers. He is higher than his illegitimate brother, his right hand man Benedick and really high above Claudio. This allows me to see how I am allowed to treat other characters.

I am allowed to be offish and dismissive of my brother, I am allowed to get a little rough with Benedick and I am allowed to be a father figure towards Claudio. This means any interaction I have with most characters in the play will show me having the power. This also means whenever I enter the room I take the power and I am allowed to walk around like I own the place.

The only character I'd say is above me is Leonato, as he is the owner of the house and I am trying to keep the good relations between. This also means there might be a power struggle at some points as Don Pedro enjoys taking charge of situations.

Off Text Improvisation

In order to enhance our personal interactions we got into pairs and devised little off text improvisations. I partnered up with Sasha who is playing Hero. The context of our scene is that I (Don Pedro) is wooing Hero in the place of Claudio. Seeing as this is a moment that actually happens within the play but is never actually physically written it was really useful to get a sense of what our two characters would actually be saying. This exercise was very useful because it allowed us to look further into the kind of relationship Hero and Don Pedro share. When we first attempted the improvisation it came off too flirtatious. This was wrong because Don Pedro's of objective isn't to seduce Hero for himself. If this was to read on stage the audience might get the wrong idea and may think Don Pedro is dishonourable. We tried re-working it so I went down on one knee like a chivalrous knight and kept things more formal. This seemed to work a lot better as we still kept that connection but our statuses where more apparent. Even though Hero is the daughter of very high status character she is still lower than me however placing us around the same height allowed the barrier to be broken and we more free to talk with more equal footing.

When we performed these in front of the class some important things came up that we can take forward with us in the rehearsal process. Even though we had good chemistry something still wasn't right. Our directed wanted to see Hero give Don Pedro a big hug. This would have relieved the weird tension that there was between us. It also meant that I wouldn't give off the creepy uncle figure vibe because there would be an unspoken acceptance between the two characters. Another point that got flagged was that there were too many questions being asked. This meant that we kept going round in circles and we weren't finding the importance in the message I was trying to deliver to Hero. This made me feel like I needed to sit and just watch her reactions when I give her the news. This means I would have time to gage her reaction and calculate what I should say next. This also gave me insight into the way Don Pedro plots and plans things in his head. He never just dives head first into danger. He is strategist.

This exercise was very useful. Because we were under improvisational conditions there was no pressure to get the interaction perfect first time round. It allowed me to unleash my instincts as Don Pedro and see how he reacts to other characters. It also means we can use this work in the actual scene. Instead of just mouthing and pretending to have a conversation on stage we'll actually have real things to say moreover making the acting more rooted in reality and truthful.

Interrogating Relationships (World of the play)

Family - Don John

Friends - Benedick, Claudio, Leonato, 

Acquaintances - Beatrice, Hero, Antonio 

Enemies - Don John

Openly Like - Leonato, Benedick, Claudio, Hero, Beatrice

Openly Dislike - No one

Secretly Like/Fancy - Beatrice? Benedick? Claudio?

Secretly Dislike - Don John