okie..
so this is basically what i have done for it.. invloves stuff that Boo has a;lready touched upon.. just more stuff or rather stuff that deal;s ONLY with my characetr..:D
(sorry for all spelling errors.. am in a rush)
Directorial Vision/Concept-
The scene deals with characters who are aged between 12 and 35, we feel that this is the age group that will be able to best relate to the issues being brought up. This scene shows the audience the way the people in third world Africa live and the various traditions that they are tied to. Our aim is to show them just how fortunate they are to live in this century, in a first world country like Singapore.
My character will be portrayed as a pessimistic, reserved, sober, realistic, careful, thoughtful and weather beaten woman who has given up on hope a long time ago, and now focuses on the only thing left, the present. She has experienced more hardship in life than a normal person, but still refuses to give in and give up.
The audience will feel that I am a rather backwards, tradition oriented person, a caring and loving mother who is very protective over her child and wants the best for her, but in doing so is being unknowingly selfish. There might be times when they think I am being unfair, or too strict, but at the same time they will be forced to respect me for my courage, strength and perseverance.
Performance Theory/History of Tradition-
It is a naturalistic piece, which is set in the 60’s, in Africa, Transkei to be more specific. It is very similar to contemporary realism, as it does have a very narrative, naturalistic and storyline format which is seen in many of the play produced and performed today. Following the plays genre, I have used the Stanislavski method to build my character. My first step was to read the script that I had and to research on the particular time period, the customs and traditions of the people, the region they stayed in, the climate, their main occupations, and the cultural and political situation. Since this was a whole new culture, it required a lot of time, effort and imagination, since not everything in the script could be accounted for by tradition and the lifestyle in those times.
After researching on the environment and other factors that could possible cause the character to be the way she is, I went on to study the character, keeping in mind all that I had researched. I picked the characteristic and feature of her personality and tried to reason with them, asking questions like how she became that way; is there any visible influence from the forces and environment at that time? Using questions like this, I managed to form a profile of my character and along the way, with the help of the script I managed to write out her tentative history.
There were some features that I could not work on by merely exploring emotion; expression of love for ones daughter, and experiencing pain and the effects of hard work on a person had to be experienced. Thus, I took upon the task of observing mothers and other care givers, and how they reacted and treated their children. The tender touches, words of encouragement and pat on the backs were some of the moves I noticed, and have tried to implement into my characters movements. In order to experience just how tired my character was after a days of hard work, I observed how I felt, walked and talked after training intensively in Track. I understood how sore she was, the backache, the numb feet, the sweat and the effort put into the days work.
Since this culture was alien to me, I had to use a lot of material to really understand what went on back then. I did use visuals like pictures of what their dressing was like, so that I could choreograph my movement accordingly, I had to search for the methods they cut grass and how they sit, so that I would do it the right way in my scene. I had to fins videos on how they danced and sang, and search for a song to sing, which is what my duologue requires.
Evaluation of creative process-
We did have initial problems with the set. At first we decided to just do a mime, where we pretended to do the actions we were supposed to. However, we decided that it was difficult to master the technique in such a short time and also juggle this with the acting, voice, other movement, etc. Thus to help us and to also help the audience, we decided to make the real thing.
The first few times we read the script, we did package Lulama as a kind motherly character, but the more I research and the deeper I looked into the script, the more I realized that she was in some ways just the opposite of that interpretation. I came to realize just how selfish she was, even though she does not do it consciously. Researching in her background really caused me to pity and admire her for her strength and courage, and this perception of her made me realize that I sympathize with her more that I disliked her for the way she treated her daughter, because that was just how it was in those days, the rules of tradition were harsh.
