"The Admirable Crichton" Essay, Research Paper
In this play I played the role of Lord Loam.? An old man in his early 70’s with little
clue of how to survive in the real world.?
?????? When
we had rehearsals for the play I wanted a good part.? When I found out I was too play an old man I tried very hard to
put on the voice of an old man.? As this
was set in the period of the early 20th century, I knew it had to be
a posh sounding voice.? This put a bit
of stress on my voice, but I knew I would get used to it.? The genre of the play was a fantasy
comedy.? There were a lot of fantastical
elements to this play.? For instance in
act four when Lord Loam and Lady Mary were looking back at their experiences on
the island.? There was a lighting change
to signify a change in mood.? During the
play we did several improvisation exercices to get ourselves into character and
really feel exactly how we should act.?
As an aristocrat, I had to learn to walk and sit more upright.? They felt dominant to the servants and all
the aristocrats had to show this by looking upon them like they has just
crawled out of a sewer.? Although my
character Lord Loam, didn?t feel this at all.?
He was all for equality and wanted the aristocrats and servants to get
along.? But this is not how anyone else
felt.? The servants didn?t feel
comfortable being served and socialising with the aristocrats.? And the aristocrats felt disgusted about
serving the servants tea, and the thought of even talking to them disgusted
them.? This was obvious too see, as you
could see the frowns on all their faces and the fake smiles. ?????? This
is how my character developed throughout the play.? The movement of my character had to be very energetic, yet slow
and pondering.? I had to seem like I was
slightly hunched in appearance to portray the age of Lord Loam, who was around
seventy years old.? I had to be
energetic in Act 1 because I had to make it look like I was enthusiastic about
the whole equality situation.? My
character is the only one who can bring true energy into the Act because
everyone else is totally against my ways.?
I use my hands a lot.? I am very
confident in Act 1 and I show this by waving my hands frantically a lot to make
me look busy.? My posture when in my
formal costume has to be fairly upright, but with a slight hunch.? But when I am on the island, I am much more
hunched, not so tense, so this is more my normal posture, because I feel
comfortable on the island.? In the ear
rehearsals my voice was not as good as it should be. ?Maybe because I was embarrassed to experiment.? I was not putting on a huskier voice like I
should have been.? But in the final few
weeks of rehearsals I put on my voice, as I knew I had to start talking in an
old mans accent.? Earlier on in the play
my timing of coming on and off was always too slow, on account of I didn?t know
the play as much as I should have.? I
didn?t learn the cues of other people so I knew when to come on.? Throughout the earlier rehearsals,
everyone’s timing was slightly off cue, but we all worked on this and when we
knew the text well, we pulled this off easily.?
When I knew the text, I found it so much easier to get into
character.? I find that I need the
confidence first to really express the character properly.? When I have confidence it gives me the
license to experiment with my own character and that is when most of my
development of Load Loam took place. ?????? In the
final rehearsals, we all had to work on our pace of everything we did, because
the play was overrunning.? But in our
next rehearsal we did very much better and sped the play up a lot.? The costume made me get into my character
much more because I did feel slightly restricted.? We all looked very different and this made me feel much more
comfortable.? My make-up helped a lot to
make me act more like an old man, because it made me look very much older.? So it really encouraged me to look and act
older.? I want to play my character
badly, so it really transformed my development as a character I felt.? We had to make slight positional changes at
the last minute due to lighting and sound.?
This was not much of a problem and was organised within one rehearsal. ?????? My own
performance I felt was very good, and in the last few weeks of the production I
really felt involved in my character and knew how I should play him.? Other character such as Ernest and Lady Mary
helped me and gave me some tips along the way and they were very
worthwhile.? I felt that Lady
Brockelhurst played her character superbly, as I knew how hard it was to play
someone 50 years older.? I think I could
have done better in some parts of the play.?
When I went into my own fantastical world, I could have gone more over
the top I felt.? I felt all the servants
did a very good job of getting into character and certainly made my part easier
to play in Act 1 because you could see they were all very rigid and
uncomfortable, and I could feel that and I could respond appropriately. ??????? ??????