Video Evaulation

Script:

I suppose my key learning point throughout this whole process was trying to achieve a certain authenticity to the characters I was creating and make it as spontaneous as possible. Although improvisation is something I have had experience with briefly, roleplay is where I have had the most experience, as I used to roleplay online and still continue to do so. But what was lacking that type of roleplay is that it is purely writing a type of interactive fan-fiction; the characters don't come alive physically, only mentally and everything is pre-meditated and there's no spontaneity there at all. It's even more difficult if you're portraying a canonical character from a film or television programme; for example, I roleplayed in the Doctor Who universe, so if you were to play the role of the Doctor, that character has basically been written for you, there's a wealth of information about him on the internet and in books for you to build his role with. It's not altogether original and it's altogether authentic because it's not your creation. It’s not exactly spontaneous either because when you write with another writer, plotting is important – they don’t want to go into a storyline or a plot thread with no discussion, so any sort of excitement or risk is blown away entirely. I believe Keith Johnstone really sums up what I was looking for in pursuing this module - he wrote that "When a great improviser is inspired, all limits seem to disappear" (Johnstone, 2014: 341). I wanted to use the inspiration I get on a daily basis, which basically comes from anything such as TV, film, a book I've read, a personal experience I've had and really dissolve those limits I encountered with the roleplay I was doing before and find a new creative process.

There were several so-called learning blocks that I encountered throughout this process. One challenge I found quite difficult was the authenticity that I wanted to create - now I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to improvisation; I'm used to having a script, memorizing it, blocking it and just repeating those movements and those lines. I read a small quote by Clive Barker that completely and utterly sums up that sort of acting experience and how I had to really get myself out of that cycle - "“If it has not been programmed with a mass of material about the play, the situations, the characters and their interrelationships, it will only produce the material it has" (Barker, 1977: 90). The performance has to have some sort of authenticity and creativeness on my part, because if I'm just copying how I would react in similar situations instead of going with the instinct of the character itself, it would just become "'mugging’, ‘fooling about’, a totally self-indulgent activity" (Barker, 1977: 90). Another learning block I encountered was finding the physicality of my characters because I wanted to explore characters outside of my age, outside of my gender; there's women, people who are at least 20 years older than me, people with experiences that I can never have, so I had to do a lot of research and a lot of observation work in public places to anaylse how those sorts of people would act in real life. The most difficult was the character of the woman with her social media relationship, she took the longest time to come through. When I would perform her to others, people enjoyed it as a comedic piece, but I would always get the response - "I don't believe you're a woman, you just look like a campy man". It's because I was ignorant to how a woman of her age would act, I hadn't bothered to do the research so I had to really backpedal and really make sure to do my research and incorporate it completely or else it would just become caricature. Joan Littlewood wouldn't have been impressed by that I don't think, I definitely would have been subject to her famous little catchphrase, "STOP BLOODY ACTING!"

One thing is for definite after completing this module, improvisation is something that I really want to explore more of and really hone my technique when it comes to improvising and using it to an advantage. Before this module, improv was extremely difficult - I always had some sort of mental block going on trying to come up with things off the top of my head, but I've found that after completing this module, that mental block seems to have shifted and things flow more naturally when it comes to improv, which is something I'm very grateful for. In terms of looking to the future, Jacques Lecoq provides quite an apt quotation in his writings that basically says that roleplay and improvisation doesn't just apply to the re-enactment of human behaviour - “We play people, elements, plants, trees, colours, lights, matter, sounds – going beyond their images, gaining knowledge of their space, their rhythm, their breath through improvisation" (Lecoq, 1972: 41). So in terms of thinking of what to do next, I believe that I should expand my knowledge, expand my technique, but also expand the variety of characters that I play - animals, plants, trees, colours - they probably have all sorts of personalities that seem fascinating and I guess if I were to do something similar, I'd move away from humans and focus on elemental beings instead. But people are so full of poetry, it's going to be hard to try and break away from that because a lot of what we find ourselves inspired by are personal experiences – what people have done to others, what we’ve had done to us. It would be hard to try and find a similar connection with something such as a tree ... but maybe you could if you thought long and hard about it.