Proxemics

Through the play of A handbag there is proxemics between many characters. The proxemics between the characters of George and Kinsey is very important through out the play because of their relationship before they came into the institute. So through out the proxemics need to be very distant as George is constantly avoiding the matter that he knows and this should be kept through out and if they move past each other then this should be very quickly and be abrupt. This is to show how George doesn't want to know Kinsey anymore as he believe this will make everyone see him as a better person as he is no longer linked to the crime he committed. However the proxemics can change when they begin to argue as this is when Kinsey feels that he can get closer to George even through George is trying to fight it until he finally gives in and there close as I believe this shows how they are close again and George has his control over Kinsey again. My Character of Rose has very close Proxemics with other characters through out the play due to the fact as she is playing a child like character due to the drugs so she feels like she needs to constantly be close to members of the group in order to feel involved and wanted by other. Where as specs of the other hand has very distant proxemics with other members of the group due to his character being very disconnected. Him being further out from the rest of the group shows that we know very little about who he is and why he is there. I feel like the character of Milo has very unusual proxemics as he is always involved however I feel his anger builds a wall with characters which he always break down when he becomes frustrated at certain characters which cause his proxemics to get smaller and then grow when he calms down more. I believe Allan's proxemics with other characters to be very simple as i believe he never get too close or too far away from any one character as he is very much stuck with his own thoughs. The only character i believe the gap and spacing will change with is with George as they have difference in opinions about the play which causes them to stay away from each other.

Setting

I believe that the place where a handbag is set is in an institute like broadmoor hospital which is the place in the picture and videos above how ever they are in a young offenders version. This hospital is a psychiatric hospital and I think this is the sort of place we are in order to try and make us better form all what we have gone through. I see it being set in a place with loads of big metal doors which are rarely opened and everything is plain and bare. This is why I think we need to have very minimal props and set for our piece. Broadmoor hospital has had some very well known killers and this is what I believe it is like at the place that our character are. I think this because when George and Kinsey argue Kinsey refers to how many pages they were over the paper so it is obvious whatever they had done was a maximum security job just like John Venebiles and Rob Thompson which we believe these 2 characters to be based on. I also know that it has to be high secure like Broadmoor because when Kinsey talks about coming in he talks about how all the doors he went through which get looked behind him. The reason why I think its going to very empty with little objects around is due to Rose talking about all the rules and how there not allowed staples or clocks.

Tuesday 15th March

In today's lesson due to our member of the group who played George not being there we could do very little. So we decided that we would learn our scripts. We did this by going through our scripts for 2 or 3 pages using our script to help then we would do it again with the script down and the person who was reading in for George prompted. This really helped us with getting our line better as we were working with each other and could use each other for cues.

Writing in role

Making people not understand me is one of the most tiring things I go through it’s a constant battle but if I’m honest I think I play off the whole innocent child act very well. Why should I let people understand me and get what I’m feeling and know what I’ve done. If I’m honest I think it was a good idea apart from be being looked away for it. Why should I let people understand me if they don’t understand my actions. Natty is mine and I wanted to keep it that way no one had no right to take her from me so I took her from them. So then we shared something special. Her face will always be in my memory her little smiley face. Natty will always be mine and when I pass we will be together again. Being in here is just my waiting place till I get out and find a way to be with her. I love the drugs they give me, they help me to dream about the picnics and the daisies. I miss those times. Understanding someone is just the beginning of it. If no one knows what I’ve done then I can have my memories to myself. I can keep them with me. Me being a little child makes me like Natty its makes me young and innocent. The tiredness is worth it making people not understand me is one of my best ideas of them all.

Thursday 10th March

In today's lesson we started to look at how we are as an actor looking at diction, tone, pitch, projection, accent, dialect, vocal control, breath control and support. When looking at these areas we had to give ourselves a rating and say our strengths and what we could improve on. I found that my 2 weakest areas where accent/ dialect and breath control rating myself a 4 in both. In accent/dialect I rated myself a 4 as i feel that I can only really do an american accent and find it hard to do other accents. However i am slightly better with dialect and am able to pick it up from different places very quickly. I could work on accents by looking at different accent tutorials when i get a specific character from that region and working on it till it sound right. I am lucky with Rose as we don't know where she come from so I can decide on my accent myself so instead of changing my accent for Rose I decided to use pitch and tone in order to get the audience to understand her. I am also not very good at breath control because when I have long chunks of speech to say which doesn't have much punctuation i have to gasp afterwards however this is working as my lung capacity is getting bigger with the more exercise I have been taking part in but in order for me to be able to speak for longer periods of time I need to learn to take my breath from deep within my lungs to draw a deeper breath so I can last for longer as this will also help when doing a musical. I really need to work on this as Rose as she tends to go of on a tangent and talking about stuff that isn't relevant for a long time. Once we had done this we went and worked on looking at the beginning without using our scripts as much as we could this worked well. However when off script some people are forgetting where they need to move too and this then throws where other people to move to. We need to be off scripts as quick as possible in order to come over these problems and make it look as slick as possible.

Monday 7th March

In today's lesson we looked at the part of the script where George and Kinsey argue and we began by discussing who has most control in the situation at first we thought it was Kinsey but when we spoke about it more we started to decide that George through out the scene is playing with Kinsey to make him seem like he has a sense of control in order to make him carry on with the play we believe this due to after the argument George refers to Kinsey as Colin which is his name before he went to the institute they are in so this was to show the power that George will always have over Kinsey as his the one who will alway know what hes done. Once we did this we started to run the scene trying it with kai being more aggressive which worked really well but it could be made better by the proximity between the 2 characters being kept where as when Kinsey trys to approach George he always move away this is in order to show how Kinsey will always go running back to George as he has the power. It also shows that even though Kinsey knows a lot and likes to cause an argument he is weak as it is alway like he is attached to George no matter what. Once we worked on this we went and did more research and learning lines as a group.

Thursday 3rd March

In today's lesson we looked at subtext within a part of our play and what you were thinking. We did this by using the clapping game in order to tell the audience what we are thinking at the precise moment. In the scene we choose I believe what Rose is doing is she is trying to get reactions from people but at the same time making everyone think she is innocent when really I think she is very intelligent. I see Rose as a character who is constantly trying to get a reaction from Milo (irene) however when he reacts she cowards away as if she is scared but i believe her to do this for sympathy. In this scene I also think that Rose as a character can show a lot of what she does through body language. For example when Milo snaps then she retires into her chair wit her head down.

Tuesday 1st March

In today lesson we started by looking at the characters of Rose, Specs, Allan and Milo (Irene) and there relationships with each other. I find as the character Rose that i am one of the only people who understand Specs and what is going through his mind however I feel like I don't show it.

After we finished this we went into our dance studio and started looking at our voice and how we can change it in order for our character role to be right. I wanted my voice to be very slow at time and drastic changes in pitch as this is how a child is when reacting to different stimulus for example when there angry there is a larger fluctuation in pitch compared to when your normally talk. It was hard doing today lesson due to us missing Kai who plays George is our main character. So we decided that Dom as specs would fill in for him. We then looked at specs re sighting of lines so make everyone understand what is going in on order for him to do this we needed to make sure his voices are different and the way he stand is right if this isnt portrayed right then it will be hard for them to get that he is showing other character Dom does this very well as he changes the pitch in his voice.