Unit 9: King Ubu
Unit 9:
King Ubu
Introduction To King Ubu
In this unit I will be looking at the play King Ubu and it's background. The play King Ubu is like a funnier, more wild and more bizarre version of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Context&Planning
Over the past week we've gone over the King Ubu script top to bottom and got an idea of what the play is actually about. We watched a couple skit YouTube videos based around political subjects such as Teresa May and Donald Trump. The reason to why we watched these videos is to get an idea of what the King Ubu play is about and why it is the certain characters talk the way they do e.g "SHIKT and Stagger Me Sideways". In my opinion I didn't find any of these videos funny which apparently were supposed to be.
For the last half of the lesson we done a sculpture activity. For this activity we got into pairs and labelled ourselves A or B. Person A would sculpt person B into any person that they wanted them to be such as a family member etc. and it had to be a person that they knew very well. You would have to come up with 3 different movements, movement 1 being a freeze frame, movement 2 you would portray an action without any dialogue and the last movement you would portray the action with dialogue whilst really showing facial expressions. This activity I didn't really find helpful because it wasn't fun, it didn't interest me, it wasn't targeting me as an actress and I just wasn't really feeling the spark in this activity but I still took part in it.
In lesson Shenagh gave each of us our characters for the performance. I was given the characters the Queen and McClub. In order for me to achieve these characters I would need to do some deep research based on the 'King Ubu' performance in order to really be and stay in character.
In lesson with Monique we done different warm up exercises. The warm up we did was a person would say their name with an action and then pick someone else from the circle and say their name with a different action. We then continued the lesson with reading through the script in action and this made me feel more intoned with my character.
On Monday we spent the lesson writing down in our Ubu log books and working our way through the script.
The class ran through the whole script together in action.
On Friday we ran through acts 1-4 with Monique. our class was in room 035 which had way more space than our usual Friday afternoon classroom would. This benefited me a lot since there was more space to perform in action.
On Tuesday we ran through acts 1-3. Once it was my time to perform and I finished with my scene, I had gotten some useful feedback from both Rob and Monique which was to keep the same energy as the people who were acting their scene before me since it would help improve my scene and keep the liveliness throughout the scene too. So for example, don't lower your voice etc. My second piece of feedback was to really get into my character and show her emotions, facial expressions and to react to whatever is going on around me.. I was also told be more queen like and use a very posh accent, which I struggled with. So in order to push through that I would need to watch some videos to get help and guidance on how to do so. I also asked a classmate of mine on how to speak posh since during her scenes she was very good at it.
During Becca's lessons we all sat down in our production roles for our King Ubu performance i.e. Hair and make-up, Lighting etc. Since I wasn't in the following Monday, I was assigned to props, which I was happy about. I got some lined paper and went around to each person in the class and wrote down under each character's name what props they need and they amount they need for the Ubu performance.
We had Rob today for our rehearsal run which didn't go too bad. We actually managed to get some more stuff done and improved certain scenes and also added some things in which turned out to be very comedic.
Research and References
At home I've been doing some research and watching videos on how to speak more posh/queen like and also looking at how to do accents so that I can really get in tune with my characters. I've also watched some YouTube videos on the King Ubu Play and searched the type of clothing styles that they would wear.
These are the 2 YouTube videos that I watched on how to speak posh. I sort of learnt a few things from watching these videos such as dragging out your word to have more of an effect whilst saying them. Another thing I learnt was that you need to be careful of how you pronounce the letter 't' in your sentences. For example, Better and Water.
In the first video it was stated that posh people tend to speak very precisely and slur their words. Some notes that stood out was that you would need to say Pudding instead of dessert.
In the second video some important points that were noted was the upper RP is Non-rohtic, which mean the r sound is not pronounced. Also the sound comes from further up in the mouth. A rule that was also stated in the video was that the higher the level of RP, the posher the accent. I found these notes helpful as it can guide me on the certain words and letter in my script that I need to pay attention ti in order to sound like more of a Queen in my performance.
I've been really trying to focus on how to achieve a queen like accent. Each night when I get home I would test my self on my lines and speak in a queen like voice. At first I didn't really feel like I was making any progress but, I sort of sounded slightly more posh than before.
Problem Solving
In Tuesdays lesson our teachers was still trying to figure out each persons character for the Ubu performance. I was finally given back the character McClub and this made me frustrated because since Shenagh took that character away from me I focused more on the Queen's character but, now I also need to focus on McClub and learning his lines and learning to do a Scottish accent as well.
Towards the end of the lesson we finally managed to get some acting done.
Yesterday we managed to to run through act 2 and parts of act 3 which wasn't great because people were messing around and taking the piss and that made us loose a lot of time and we had to end up going from the begging of the acts all the way to the end, again. Towards the end of the lesson we once again had to reassign certain characters to different people since the ones who were originally given them weren't here. This annoyed me since it took a chunk out of our rehearsal time and it's something that seems to keep on repeating itself during our lesson time. This is something that makes me lack confidence in myself and for our future performance since we have less than 3 weeks and we haven't managed to run through the whole of the King Ubu play yet.
During rehearsals people have just been messing around during scenes, talking whilst others are performing and just haven't been paying attention at all. it's tiring and annoying and has just brought the energy down in the class and personally my energy down to even rehearse the performance at all. We only have 3 days left until our performance and we haven't even ran through the whole of the 5 acts and we were given this script months ago. It's ridiculous and embarrassing.
Today was our technical run for our performance tomorrow which we had in the theatre. However, as usual people turned up late and didn't know what they were doing. Once a majority of the class turned up, we moved into room 034 and done a quick dance warm up and then took a look at the props that were brought in for us to use. Since I'm in charge of props, I've asked all my teachers if they could take me into the prop room and they all said that they couldn't. Now sine it's 1 day till our performance and I had to beg to be let in the prop room, I was finally taken to the prop room to sort everything out. I spent a good amount of time looking for the props, probably around 20 minutes or more since the props list that I wrote down to be ordered wasn't ordered for our class. So, Shenagh also had to end up bringing in some props.
Even though we're getting marked individually, it's still a group performance and we need to work together in order to do well but, we can't do well if people don't know what they're doing and what scene they're supposed to be in. This just doesn't only affect that person or people but also the rest of the class and people who are in the same scene. How I overcame my fears and doubts was that I need and want to get onto the level 3 performing arts course and progress so, I knew that no matter what, I needed to give a great performance as an individual to accomplish that. I was extremely close to giving up on the Ubu Performance and doing a monologue but I stuck to doing the performance and just focused on myself and nothing else. I knew my lines and where to stand so, as long as I knew what I was doing, I was good.
Evaluation
DAY OF THE KING UBU PERFORMANCE!
Skills I accomplished during this unit are:
Since the very beginning of the performing arts course I have been a person that has lacked in confidence and lacked in taking criticism. In my very first performance I lacked confidence and I improvised some of my lines in order to hide that and express how I truly felt. My second performance I was a bit more confident than the last time however, I still had a lot of self doubt. I felt that I wasn't a good as my other classmates and even though at the end of my performances I received good feedback, I would just push it away and concentrate on what I did wrong such as forgetting lines due to me being nervous or not standing in the right place at the right time. As the year went on and it was time for my 3rd performance, I had a lot more confidence in me than before. I developed skills such as Confidence, thick skin, voice projection etc. The self doubt was still there but, I managed to push through it. Now in my last performance and unit 9 as a whole, I have a lot more confidence in myself than when I first started. Even though at times when the audience is being seated and our performance is just about to start, I know that small piece of self doubt will be there and I know that I will overcome it. My life is a roller coaster and doing my performing arts course has helped better that in many ways, whether it's getting the opportunity to play and be someone else and forgetting everything that's going in behind closed doors even if it's just for 5 minutes. I am glad and couldn't express more on how much of an experience this course has been for me.
King Ubu
Introduction To King Ubu
In this unit I will be looking at the play King Ubu and it's background. The play King Ubu is like a funnier, more wild and more bizarre version of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Context&Planning
Over the past week we've gone over the King Ubu script top to bottom and got an idea of what the play is actually about. We watched a couple skit YouTube videos based around political subjects such as Teresa May and Donald Trump. The reason to why we watched these videos is to get an idea of what the King Ubu play is about and why it is the certain characters talk the way they do e.g "SHIKT and Stagger Me Sideways". In my opinion I didn't find any of these videos funny which apparently were supposed to be.
For the last half of the lesson we done a sculpture activity. For this activity we got into pairs and labelled ourselves A or B. Person A would sculpt person B into any person that they wanted them to be such as a family member etc. and it had to be a person that they knew very well. You would have to come up with 3 different movements, movement 1 being a freeze frame, movement 2 you would portray an action without any dialogue and the last movement you would portray the action with dialogue whilst really showing facial expressions. This activity I didn't really find helpful because it wasn't fun, it didn't interest me, it wasn't targeting me as an actress and I just wasn't really feeling the spark in this activity but I still took part in it.
In lesson Shenagh gave each of us our characters for the performance. I was given the characters the Queen and McClub. In order for me to achieve these characters I would need to do some deep research based on the 'King Ubu' performance in order to really be and stay in character.
In lesson with Monique we done different warm up exercises. The warm up we did was a person would say their name with an action and then pick someone else from the circle and say their name with a different action. We then continued the lesson with reading through the script in action and this made me feel more intoned with my character.
On Monday we spent the lesson writing down in our Ubu log books and working our way through the script.
The class ran through the whole script together in action.
On Friday we ran through acts 1-4 with Monique. our class was in room 035 which had way more space than our usual Friday afternoon classroom would. This benefited me a lot since there was more space to perform in action.
On Tuesday we ran through acts 1-3. Once it was my time to perform and I finished with my scene, I had gotten some useful feedback from both Rob and Monique which was to keep the same energy as the people who were acting their scene before me since it would help improve my scene and keep the liveliness throughout the scene too. So for example, don't lower your voice etc. My second piece of feedback was to really get into my character and show her emotions, facial expressions and to react to whatever is going on around me.. I was also told be more queen like and use a very posh accent, which I struggled with. So in order to push through that I would need to watch some videos to get help and guidance on how to do so. I also asked a classmate of mine on how to speak posh since during her scenes she was very good at it.
During Becca's lessons we all sat down in our production roles for our King Ubu performance i.e. Hair and make-up, Lighting etc. Since I wasn't in the following Monday, I was assigned to props, which I was happy about. I got some lined paper and went around to each person in the class and wrote down under each character's name what props they need and they amount they need for the Ubu performance.
We had Rob today for our rehearsal run which didn't go too bad. We actually managed to get some more stuff done and improved certain scenes and also added some things in which turned out to be very comedic.
Research and References
At home I've been doing some research and watching videos on how to speak more posh/queen like and also looking at how to do accents so that I can really get in tune with my characters. I've also watched some YouTube videos on the King Ubu Play and searched the type of clothing styles that they would wear.
These are the 2 YouTube videos that I watched on how to speak posh. I sort of learnt a few things from watching these videos such as dragging out your word to have more of an effect whilst saying them. Another thing I learnt was that you need to be careful of how you pronounce the letter 't' in your sentences. For example, Better and Water.
In the first video it was stated that posh people tend to speak very precisely and slur their words. Some notes that stood out was that you would need to say Pudding instead of dessert.
In the second video some important points that were noted was the upper RP is Non-rohtic, which mean the r sound is not pronounced. Also the sound comes from further up in the mouth. A rule that was also stated in the video was that the higher the level of RP, the posher the accent. I found these notes helpful as it can guide me on the certain words and letter in my script that I need to pay attention ti in order to sound like more of a Queen in my performance.
I've been really trying to focus on how to achieve a queen like accent. Each night when I get home I would test my self on my lines and speak in a queen like voice. At first I didn't really feel like I was making any progress but, I sort of sounded slightly more posh than before.
Problem Solving
In Tuesdays lesson our teachers was still trying to figure out each persons character for the Ubu performance. I was finally given back the character McClub and this made me frustrated because since Shenagh took that character away from me I focused more on the Queen's character but, now I also need to focus on McClub and learning his lines and learning to do a Scottish accent as well.
Towards the end of the lesson we finally managed to get some acting done.
Yesterday we managed to to run through act 2 and parts of act 3 which wasn't great because people were messing around and taking the piss and that made us loose a lot of time and we had to end up going from the begging of the acts all the way to the end, again. Towards the end of the lesson we once again had to reassign certain characters to different people since the ones who were originally given them weren't here. This annoyed me since it took a chunk out of our rehearsal time and it's something that seems to keep on repeating itself during our lesson time. This is something that makes me lack confidence in myself and for our future performance since we have less than 3 weeks and we haven't managed to run through the whole of the King Ubu play yet.
During rehearsals people have just been messing around during scenes, talking whilst others are performing and just haven't been paying attention at all. it's tiring and annoying and has just brought the energy down in the class and personally my energy down to even rehearse the performance at all. We only have 3 days left until our performance and we haven't even ran through the whole of the 5 acts and we were given this script months ago. It's ridiculous and embarrassing.
Today was our technical run for our performance tomorrow which we had in the theatre. However, as usual people turned up late and didn't know what they were doing. Once a majority of the class turned up, we moved into room 034 and done a quick dance warm up and then took a look at the props that were brought in for us to use. Since I'm in charge of props, I've asked all my teachers if they could take me into the prop room and they all said that they couldn't. Now sine it's 1 day till our performance and I had to beg to be let in the prop room, I was finally taken to the prop room to sort everything out. I spent a good amount of time looking for the props, probably around 20 minutes or more since the props list that I wrote down to be ordered wasn't ordered for our class. So, Shenagh also had to end up bringing in some props.
Even though we're getting marked individually, it's still a group performance and we need to work together in order to do well but, we can't do well if people don't know what they're doing and what scene they're supposed to be in. This just doesn't only affect that person or people but also the rest of the class and people who are in the same scene. How I overcame my fears and doubts was that I need and want to get onto the level 3 performing arts course and progress so, I knew that no matter what, I needed to give a great performance as an individual to accomplish that. I was extremely close to giving up on the Ubu Performance and doing a monologue but I stuck to doing the performance and just focused on myself and nothing else. I knew my lines and where to stand so, as long as I knew what I was doing, I was good.
Evaluation
DAY OF THE KING UBU PERFORMANCE!
- Once I got into college I needed to go straight to the theatre to sort out props that we needed for our dresses rehearsal and performance
- I developed my character by adding some crazy Lipstick, red gloves and done a crazy hairstyle to look more weird for the play.
- Some students ended up coming in late for our rehearsal which annoyed me.
- Before our dress rehearsal everyone made a section for their props so that they had easy access to retrieve them when they were about to go on stage and my props kept on getting taken from my area and not being returned.
- During the rehearsal people were talking loud during performance scenes, not knowing when it was their turn to go on stage etc. This made me lose even more hope for the performance.
- At around 1:50 people were starting to be let into the theatre.
- During our performance certain people didn't know when to come on stage and didn't know if they where in the next coming up scene or not. This really frustrated me since we've had this script for months, have rehearsed it for hours on end and have scheduled earlier rehearsal classes and finished later than usual so that things could run smoothly on the performance day, so I don't why people were confused on what they were supposed to do.
- During the performance the tech members kept on playing the wrong music at the wrong time and were very slow at putting on the right music at the right time. This happened while I was on stage performing and it made me very anxious, annoyed and worried.
Skills I accomplished during this unit are:
- Confidence
- Voice Projection
- Team Work
- Eye Contact
- Memory
- Practice
- Creativity
- Use of Space
- Body Language
- Communication
- Pacing
- Control
- Time management
- Trust (50/50)
- Imagination
My Weaknesses:
- Positivity
- Confidence
Since the very beginning of the performing arts course I have been a person that has lacked in confidence and lacked in taking criticism. In my very first performance I lacked confidence and I improvised some of my lines in order to hide that and express how I truly felt. My second performance I was a bit more confident than the last time however, I still had a lot of self doubt. I felt that I wasn't a good as my other classmates and even though at the end of my performances I received good feedback, I would just push it away and concentrate on what I did wrong such as forgetting lines due to me being nervous or not standing in the right place at the right time. As the year went on and it was time for my 3rd performance, I had a lot more confidence in me than before. I developed skills such as Confidence, thick skin, voice projection etc. The self doubt was still there but, I managed to push through it. Now in my last performance and unit 9 as a whole, I have a lot more confidence in myself than when I first started. Even though at times when the audience is being seated and our performance is just about to start, I know that small piece of self doubt will be there and I know that I will overcome it. My life is a roller coaster and doing my performing arts course has helped better that in many ways, whether it's getting the opportunity to play and be someone else and forgetting everything that's going in behind closed doors even if it's just for 5 minutes. I am glad and couldn't express more on how much of an experience this course has been for me.
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