Drama Exam Revision

• VRAMFEC
• ACTING OBJECTIVE

• Questions 1-4 : 10 minutes each, Her Mind
• Questions 5-6 : 20 minutes each, Blue Remembered Hills

Key Words:

Stage right, Stage left, Up stage (back), Down stage (front), cross cutting, thought tracking, hot seating,non-naturalistic, naturalistic, caricature, improvisation, 4th wall, flashback, social realism

Describe: state what you did

Explain: describe but with more detail, and say why you did it

Analyse: state what you did whilst considering the impact/success, did audience react the way you wanted? What would you change

Evaluate: say what you learned, give details on strengths and weaknesses

HER MIND

To create and perform a character with multiple personality disorder, and to make the audience understand the disorder and how it can affect a person's mind on an emotional level.

BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS 

To act an aggressive 7 year old boy from Sommerset, to try destroy the idea of child innocence

What is the piece is about? A girl (Sammi) in a psychiatric ward with multiple personality disorder (MPD), the play explores the disorder and what is was in Sammi's past that made the disorder develop. The name of our play was Her Mind

What is the style of the performance? Non-naturalistic, because we used explorative strategies such as cross cutting.

What was the performance space used? B1, a classroom converted into a drama studeo

What was the period your play was set in? 1960s when mental illness wasn't fully understood

What was the genre of the piece? Social realism

Your skill that you contributed. Actor, I played the main girl Sammi who had multiple personality disorder (MPD). (I contributed to the play as a performer. The role I played was ... )

Design areas that you used. Costume, all black except I wore a white top, to make me seperate, to isolate me from the others, simplistic to stop any distractions and also because we had no budget.

Technical areas used. We used simplistic on and off lights to seperate the scenes in Sammi's mind from the scenes in Sammi's reality.

Target audience for the piece. Our contemporys because we felt that they were at the correct age to learn about a subject like this and understand it fully on an emotional level and we felt comfortable with that age group as our audience for the piece.

To get the full 10 marks mention all of these with the detail given, expand on everything (say why you did it!)

CHOSEN SKILL QUESTION

How you applied your skill

How you met your acting objective

VRAMFEC

Voice - pitch, pace, volume, exaggeration

Relationship with others - your character's relationship with the other characters on stage

Audience - effect or intended effect on the audience

Movement - where you moved to and from and how

Facial expression - what you did with your face to create a certain emotion

Expression (body language) - what you did with your body to create a certain emotion

Costume - how it created/helped the character

DEVELOPMENT/REHERSAL QUESTION

1. Why it needed developing?

2. How you developed it?

3. End result

.

1. What was the problem?

2. What did you do to solve it?

3. End result

EVALUATION the question could ask about your success personally or about your group

2 areas that went well 1 area that could be improved

GOOD - why was it so good? what did you do in this moment/scene? audience reaction - link to actor objective.

BAD - why did it still need work? what did you do in this moment/scene? what would you change? how would you changed it? how would these changed create a better audience reaction? link to objective?

examples to use (her mind)

G - TJ's orphanage scene, successfully acted a scared child, emotionally engaged audience

G - My fit, 'gave me goosebumps', got emotions through, mad, actor objective met

B - Table scene, I felt i didnt get my character across very well in this scene, I felt the group didnt get to introduce their characters very well

What the module has taught you?

Learning lines

Group working skills

To create and connect with a character on an emotional level

HOW YOU PREPARED YOUR ROLE AND DEVELOPED IT IN REHEARSAL

Playwright's intention with the play.

Description of the role you played age, gender, status and relationships to other characters 

Exploration of research and rehearsal

VRAMFEC for the character

Decissions with movement and positions on stage

Intentions for the audience

1. What my challenge was

2. What I did about it? (reasearch, rehearsal)

3. How I put this research and understanding into my character (VRAMFEC)

REMEMBER TO ADD QUOTES FROM THE SCENES!

You have to get your knowledge of the play across in a few lines:

Playwright - Dennis Potter

Main plot - A group of 7 year olds in the forest of dean

Main themes - Childhood, bullying, status

When it is set - 1943, WW2

What the aim of the writer was - To destroy the image of childhood innocence, see the effect of adults of children

Challenges - Age, accent, gender

Research - Listened to accents, watched film version, watched proffessional actors playing children, observed the movements of my 6 year old cousin, improvisation

EVALUATION OF SCRIPTED PLAY

Summarise the playwright's intentions

1. What you did (VRAMFEC) communication of message, character interpretation, creation of audience effect, 

2. What was good about it? 2-3 things in particular

3. What could have been improved further? 1-2 things, why and how you would improve it

4. How you met the actor objective/playwright's objective 

5. What the project taught you. learning lines, how to act like a child, about child innocence

Keep referenceing back to the script

Add quotes

Audience effect

KEY POINTS 

Quotes: "I'm not crazy!"

"Don't call me that!"

"I should have helped them"

Good: In the table scene when Anna said "Like me, like you, like everybody else here" we did the same movement in unison, "Like me" we looked down, "Like you" all the characters looked at me, and "Like everybody else here" we broke the 3rd wall by looking at the audience. This created an eerie effect and made us look like we were in a trance.

Good: We used 'Ring a ring a roses' a childrens nursury rhyme throughout the play, always in the scenes in Sammi's head as if her childhood is haunting her. 

Improvements: Personally I felt I could improve my emotions in my final fit scene, however a girl in the audience, Cherry McMeeking said that the moment gave her goose bumps.

KEY POINTS

Scene 1, the fighting scene

Peter "A bit of a bully but none too bright" - Dennis Potter

Quotes: "You greedy devil!"

(impressed)"Wallace did?" - isn't the hight of status, is impressed by another boy

Good: Fight between Peter and Willie, a lot of practice, showed my character's violence and status

To be improved: Accent at times wasnt completely clear