Q1.
Barrie Keffee’s ‘Gotcha’ was written in 1977. At the time there were a lot of changes happening in the world of Politics. One example is that in Israel there were the elections for the 9th Knesset and the right wing winning. Also, a referendum on political reforms in Andorra.
During the era that ‘Gotcha’ was written...
As well as other playwrights, Willy Russell did a lot of work in this era... He wrote various TV, drama and stage plays including Our Day Out, the award- winning musical John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert. He also wrote the stage play Educating Rita which was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and later turned into a film.
Q2.
The boy belongs to the lower class of society. He wasn't a high achiever so was deemed as lost in teh education system.
Context-
Like all plays, Barrie Keeffee's 'Gotcha' (part of the the Gimme Shelter set), is influenced hugely by what surrounded Barrie Keeffee at the time of writing and the years before. This is what's called the context. The context of a play is made up of three main categories, social/ political, cultural and historical. All the parts of context can be considered as contributing factors to the play.When looking closer at the context, we can see that all of these categorizes to infact overlap.
When writing the play, Keeffee used a lot of his personal history in terms of likening him self to the character of the kid in the sense that he went to a big, tough school and felt he was lost in the education system with that feeling of being anonymous. At the time the play was set and written, Keeffee felt that the more intelligent, the 'uni goers' were the only known ones within school and this level of context evidently has an impact on the play. This is shown throughout eh uncertainty of the kid on what he's going to do after being made to leave school at the age of 16. 'Dunno...' he answers to 'What are you going to do? ... What job?'
This point (above) also relates to the cultural context, as well as the historical one, as Barrie Keeffee admits he wanted to give voice to people that would't normally get this in the theatre. This relates directly to the historical context of the play, with the boy not being heard or noticed by anyone in the education system.
The context of the play is still relevant today as this sense of loss in the education system in this day and age. I feel this is something Barrie Keeffee intended to do when writing the play.
Set Design-
Set Design and Staging-
This is my annotated set design for 'Gotcha.'
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My idea for a set design for 'Gotcha is in the round. I have chosen this stage shape for y set design as I like the idea of the actors being able to enter and exit through the audience and from different directions. This stage shapes allows for a more direct and personal interaction with the audience as it removes the 'fourth wall' between them and the characters.
I understand the problematic side in the sense that the actors have their backs to some of the audience at all ties but with the right staging and directing, this could really well for Gotcha. It gives different audience members different perspectives and therefore different takes on the drama as it unfolds.
Lighting-
In terms of lighting, the 'in the round' design set may be difficult to do and even more difficult if you're on a budget. However, I would use a combination of lighting both on and off of the stage. I'd have a loose- looking, bare bulb hanging from above and filtered lights shinning on from the corners, all with a dim, yellow-looking tonne.
Sound-
With sound, I'm happy to continue with Barrie Keeffee's music choices as I think they compliment and reflect both the plays concept and story beautifully. The mix of the low and fast tempos reflect the slight insanity of the boy, the use of popular, well known songs reflects the idea of Barrie wanting to get the silenced heard and the use of pop and rock shows the vast diversity each character portrays. Punk songs would, however, fit well with 'Gotcha' (perhaps in place of the 'rocky' ones) but they weren't available to Barrie at the tie the play was written as the 'punk craze' hadn't yet started and was more of an underground movement back then.
Costume-
The costume on the right is something I'd have Lynn (the female teacher) wearing in Gotcha as it's quite teacher- like (especially the shoes) but is also fun and exciting as well as on-trend at the time. Also, we know in the play that Lynn is wearing a skirt, so this portrays the story.
The image on the right it what I'd have the headteacher wearing. It's all very sensible and smart, the way I believe he wishes to put across.
The image on the left is what I'd have the P.E. teacher, Ton, wearing as it's a sporty, put also a teacher- vibe to it and is something I imagine him to think himself cool wearing. It also clashes a lot with Lynn's outfit, which he may have done intentionally in order to make the two look as least like a couple as possible.
Finally, the image on the right is what I'd have the Kid wearing as it was in fashion at the time but very popular so therefore, it probably would have been cheap and as a result his 'lower class' family would have been able to afford it.
Stanislavski Task
Stanislavski's system is a progression of techniques used to train actors to add believable emotions to their performances.
The key technique behind all the others is Stanislavski's idea of 'the magic if.' He wanted the same level of truth, that appeared off stage, to appear on stage as well. In order to do this, he encourages actors to use 'the magic if' in which they ask themselves as many questions about the character as they can, asking what 'if' that happened, and what' if' I found myself in this situation allowing them to really relate to the character and make them seem more believable to the audience.
A technique leading off of 'the magic if' is one of Visualization. This is something Stanislavski believed actors should do as it helps them to again, get more into character. If they can picture, they can see what's around them it'll change how they act and therefore how realistic their performance is.For example, how they'd speak (projection, pitch etc...) , their facial expressions, their body language etc... if they were on top of a frozen mountain in The Alps compared to if they were in a shopping mall in L.A.
The use of Emotional memory is the next key technique he put across in which actors recreate an event form their past to regenerate feelings they felt at the time. This again helps the to really connect, but this time emotionally with their character, helping the actor to really understand them.
Subtext, Circle of Attention and Given Circumstances are the final three techniques Stanislavski encouraged actors to use. He believed that giving the character a back story, having the actors always thinking about where their characters mind, their attention is at and ensuring they had more human, everyday characteristics would help both the actors and the audience members to connect with the characters a lot better.
These techniques are good for these reasons but I also feel they can hinder the performance in some ways as they may cause some actors to make it to realistic for the personally. So, they may go out of character as they maybe thinking more of what they should do or over- thinking certain things, like some given circumstances if they focus on the techniques too much.
From personal experience, I can say that as a learning actor, I find Stanislavski's techniques to be very helpful. They taught me a lot about realism and how there are so many ways I can make any character seem and be more realistic with his key techniques.
The idea of adding both Subtext and Given Circumstances to my performances adds a lot more depth the character I'm playing as they have both a back story and 'a present story' outside of the main plot. This applies well to play of 'Gotcha' as all of the 4 main characters have a lot of other things to think about, for example the kid with all the stress of having to leave school with no career prospects at all to follow, and it's hidden things like this ( which do sometimes, like in this case, become more apparent) that make the characters, and so the entire play seem more life like.
The two techniques of Visualization and Emotional Memory help me, and I'm sure most other actors, help me to picture and therefore understand a lot more of what's going on. This being both physically around my character, for example, where they are, what's around them etc..., and also emotionally what affect their situation has had, is having, and sometimes will have. These techniques help particularly with a production of Gotcha as quite often the stage design and layout is quite minimalist, leaving a lot up to the imagination. This is where visualization needs to come in and help the actors see where they are so they can respond accordingly. It also helps them feel what their characters feel a lot better, which in Gotcha is hard to do, particularly for the actors playing the Kid and Ton as, from what I understand, they're very confused themselves.
This then leads us onto the final technique, from Stanislavski's 'magic if.' Circle of attention, this fits nicely with Gotcha in the sense that all the character's circles of attention change a lot through the play, and we can see this clearly when it's done right. All the characters go through a lot both emotionally, and some physically (particularity the character of Lynn) and at often their focus, their circle of attention is on someone else to who it wasn't on prior.
Physical Approaches to Characterisation
When looking at the physical approaches to characterisation ,in terms of drama and acting, 'The 7 States of Tension' and 'The Laban System of Efforts' are two very commonly used techniques, well know, techniques.
Firstly looking at 'The States of Tension', this physical approach helps actors to relate to their characters as well as making them more lifelike, and therefore easier to relate to for the audience.
In practice, the first thing we did with these acting states was play a game of 'zip zap boing' using these states of tension. We were told to use different energy levels and different amounts of tension at different times. We, as a group, quickly realized not only how different these level controllers made our performances, but also how difficult they were to maintain. The amount of effort we had to put in to get the balances right for each 'state' was difficult, but did become easier as we went up and down the scale.
The next thing we did was take on the role of different 'characters', the stereotypes of different groups of people, later relating them to the 7 states of tension. These are the characters we were given, and the general persona that came with each:
1. Dead: hardly enough energy to hold yourself upright.
2. Californian: laid-back, relaxed, easy, on the back foot, chest leads before head. Cool. Swagger.
3. Stage manager. Neutral, no attitude to anything emotional sponge. Moving by changing direction using the whole body to turn.
4. Director. As above but with an attitude. Interested, engaged, questing, searching. Front-foot, head lead. An idea has just occurred.
5. Suspension: Optimist, Looking for a bomb. Faster than ‘alert’ as if searching for something. On the front-foot, head lead, excited, eager.
6. Passion: Pessimist, Lots of tension can be heavy or light. Much more tension, fear, passion, desperation. There is a bomb!
7. High-catatonic: Rigor mortis! The bomb has exploded. You pay out so much, you can’t move! Total shock of tension through the body – you are immobilised.
During this activity, we were told to walk around the room, starting at 'a 3', neutral, and then changing into the different characters, the different states of tension, when they were called out. This helped us to really think about the characteristics each state of tension involved, therefore giving us a ground for placing all characters (including those in Gotcha) to a state of tension within the list of 7.
After carrying out this exercise, based on 'The 7 States of Tension' in general, and learning/ understanding a bit more about them, we moved onto relating this information to the characters in Barrie Keeffee's play 'Gotcha.'
Here we worked in groups, on a specific scene in 'Gotcha', and assigned ourselves character within it. I chose to take on the role of Lynne. We then discussed and decided (within our small groups) the state of tension each of our characters would have at different points of the given scene.
Thinking back to what we'd learnt about the states of tension, I decided that my character, Lynne's would remain at a state of tension level 2, The Californian, for the duration of the scene as she wasn't involved in the events too much at this point and also wanted to persuade the kid that everything was alright. At the very end of the scene, when someone's life was at risk, I decided Lynne's state of tension would shoot right up to a 5/6. I felt that this was a good way to both put across Lynne's caring nature as well as helping to show that these people are human, and having her react in this way reassures the audience of the realistic qualities of the play.
In order to achieve this I had to quickly go from being laid- back and relaxed to eager and tense very quickly. I had to change my body language, from slouching to up-straight (alert) and my facial expression, from dozy to shocked and afraid. I also had to change my voice, I had to change my tonne (from understanding to accusing), my pace (from fairly slow to very fast) and my range (from level to high pitched.) This was all in order to achieve, what I felt were, the correct states of tension for my character (Lynne) and the scene (the Head threatening scene) in the play ('Gotcha'.)
Moving on, the second physical approach to characterisation we looked at was The Laban System of Efforts.' These are used within acting to achieve the following:
- Used in vocal work to connect voice and body
- ™ Finding pitch and range
- ™ Getting grounded and rooted in voice
- ™ Character gestures and physicalities
In practice, we started off by doing a warm-up exercise involving a range of different movements to a 'dance song.' We were told to do things like press, punch, dab, flick, slash, wring, float and glide, doing different actions to go with them. This warm up was used to get us use to the idea of different movements having different qualities, sort of like different 'rules' when being performed. We did this exercise for a while and then moved on to a group task, where we split in half into two groups.
In the group task, we were given different 'people to be like', usually these 'types of people' juxtaposed each other a lot , e.g. business men and stoned hippies, ballet dancers and heavy weight champions. Here, without realizing it yet, we were looking at how the way different people move can be so different to others. We later looked back and remember how the ballet dancers would use more of a flick of a movement (these being quick, light, indirect and free movements where as the heavy weight champions would use more of a press in terms of the way they moved (these being sustained, heavy, direct and bound movements.)
When looking more into the technical side of these techniques, we found out that....
Each category (in terms of movement) had two possible options:
Time: Quick/Sustained
Weight: Heavy/Light
Space: Direct/Indirect
Flow: Bound/Free
Then, putting this all together, we found out that the movements each had their own effort qualities, making them what they are:
Press: Sustained Heavy Direct Bound
Punch: Quick Heavy Direct Bound
Dab: Quick Light Direct Free
Flick: Quick Light Indirect Free
Slash: Quick Heavy Indirect Free
Wring: Sustained Heavy Indirect Bound
Float: Sustained Light Indirect Free
Glide: Sustained Light Direct Free
With all this information fresh in our minds, we were set the task of (in small groups) to create a scene, from the play 'Gotcha' that happened before the play is set. Within this we incorporated both 'The 7 States of Tension' and 'The Laban System of Efforts' in order to create the best piece possible.
In my group, we decided to create a scene with Ton's and his children a week or so before the play takes place. We decided to show that he was the same at home, as at 'school' (angry, jumpy and bordering on psychotic at times.) In order to do this we had the head being at a State of Tension level 2 when talking to his younger daughter, his 'little angel' as we had him call her, but be on a level 6 when yelling at his older daughter. As well as using dab- like movements when talking to his youngest but punch- like movements when yelling at his oldest.
Within this scene, I played the youngest child and so was at a level 2, state of tension, for the entire scene as I was aiming to achieve the idea of immaturity and naivety that a young child would have. I also, referring to the childish characterisitics my character had, used 'float-like' and 'glide-like' movements, again thinking about the idea of the character being care- free and oblivious to what's going on (relating directly to 'the affair' between Ton and Lynne is 'Gotcha.)
Interpretation
Playwright (ideas) ---- Director (script) --- Actor (script, characters, director) --- Audience (performance)
{PAGE TO STAGE}
Plot-
Scene 1: Intro/ Development
Scene 2: Development/ Conflict
Scene 3: Resolution (a conflicted one)
Character interpretation-
Ton-
I would have Ton as being...
- Scatty- unable to keep two things along side each other (like his failed affair)
- On- edge- related to his cigarettes and paranoia because of this
- Selfish- doesn't care about others- puts himself first
- Very 'jittery'- related to his ciggarette addiction- as a result, he fidgets a lot, e.g. by tapping his hand on his leg
- Arrogant- walks with pride, he's very full of himself
The scene extract below consists of a piece which I feel reflects the, above, traits that I have chosen for Ton.
Vocal Awareness
When looking at vocal awareness, we first established what the properties of voice were...
- Tone/ Timbre
- Volume
- Pitch
- Pace
- Accent
With this knowledge and the things we gained from practising using them, we went on to do a directing exercise. Within this we paired up and then each chose a monologue from one of the characters in the play 'Gotcha.'
For my partner I picked a 'sentimental like', reflective monologue from the kid's point of view. Upon practice my partner responded well to the direction I gave her to go with it. The direction I have to her were all well linked together and so made sense to both her and I.
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As the monologue I selected for her was a reflective one, I gave her directions such as 'soft tonne', and 'quietly spoken.' I felt these accompanied the piece well as they made it seem more realistic by creating a real life like scenario.
I also gave my partner the accent as a key voice property. When doing previous work with Barry Keeffe's Gotcha, I had established that personally I imagined the kid to have an east- London accent. As a result, when directing my partner, this was something I asked her to do. In the directing stages, this is something she found quite difficult but with practice and the right direction, she performed it with this voice property very well.
As we had similar ideas for both the kid (her character) and Ton (my character), we found it fairly easy to work with and direct each other. This helped us a lot as a lot of direction wasn't needed, even at first, so we both had more rehearsal time but still directed each other when it was needed.
Initially it was odd, directing and being directed by a peer but once both my partner and I got into it, we worked very well together. I personally found it easier to relate to someone in the position as I was.
I learnt a lot about vocal awareness and the importance of voice properties through doing this task. For example in Gotcha, if Ton were to use soft tonnes and a quiet voice, as a pose to harsh tonnes and a loud voice, the way he was portrayed and the audience's perception of him would change hugely.
Another example is if Lynne was to have a Northern accent she may be put across differently, e.g. more easy- going than if she had a North- London one.
