This week was mostly about the songs rather than working on the play scenes. Apart from practicing Cell Block Tango from last week, we also started to work on All That Jazz (also from Chicago).
Chicago - Cell Block Tango
First of all, my classmate who got the Hungarian monologue was not very happy and she sort of struggles with learning her lines, so our teachers asked me to do the Hungarian lines and she will do mine. However, I was told this only at the end of the session, so I was still working on the "Pop" monologue this week, and I took all my notes at school in reflection of that, though it's mostly about general ideas that anybody can use. Nonetheless, I already started to work on my new character's analysis, so it should be okay.
I mentioned in my last post that I'm having difficulties with timing my monologue lines. Most of my groupmates have the same problem with this song, so we started to share our ideas about how to solve this.
What I'd been thinking of is to use certain words in the spoken text and match them with certain parts of the rhythm. Because I was never really able to learn how to read music sheets properly, I kind of have my own system of marking rhythm in songs, and this might be a bit difficult for others to understand, but according to my system, the rhythm pattern of Cell Block Tango is generally 8[1457] with an exception of some parts (including the Hungarian monologue's part, unfortunately). All I have to do is to listen to the monologue with the background music and mark the parts that are easy to memorise.
We also got some background information about the musical from my teacher, and I realised that I should have done research on the story earlier (especially because I've never seen Chicago), so I did now. The story is set in the 1920s, in the USA, Illinois. At this time, female criminals, especially murderesses are a cultural phenomenon; because people are generally more suspicious of men than of women, they tend to remember a criminal better if it's a woman. Some of the main characters are actually based on real people, one of them is Belva Gaertner, whose murder case from 1924 was the model for Velma's case.
About the Hunyak:
* her real name is Katalin Helinski
* Hungarian immigrant (though her surname is actually Polish), doesn't speak English
* doesn't have enough money to hire a lawyer
* accused of decapitating her husband
I tried to look up the meaning of the name "Hunyak", but the only thing I was able to find is that Hunyák is a real (but not very common) Hungarian surname, there was no information on the origin or meaning of the word. I'm not quite sure, but it might be in connection with the verb "huny", which means "close" (eyes) or "sleep" or sometimes even "die". It's a word used only by old people nowadays, but maybe it was more common in the 1920s.
I tried to look up the meaning of the name "Hunyak", but the only thing I was able to find is that Hunyák is a real (but not very common) Hungarian surname, there was no information on the origin or meaning of the word. I'm not quite sure, but it might be in connection with the verb "huny", which means "close" (eyes) or "sleep" or sometimes even "die". It's a word used only by old people nowadays, but maybe it was more common in the 1920s.
In her Hungarian monologue she's trying to explain that she's actually innocent, and there are many clues in the musical that show that she is telling the truth. For example, the meaning of the name Katalin is "purity" or "innocence", and also, in the song Cell Block Tango, her monologue is the only one which is not supported by the other women singing "he had it coming..." in the background. However, she is still executed during the play because her English is very poor and this makes her unable to prove that she is innocent. So, my fellow foreigners, let me give you a good advice: please don't come to any English speaking country unless your level of spoken English is at least intermediate, otherwise you might just end up being hanged for murder.
So, even though it doesn't give me the opportunity to practice any foreign language, I think I still got the most interesting character of this play and I'm looking forward to portraying her on the next session.
So, even though it doesn't give me the opportunity to practice any foreign language, I think I still got the most interesting character of this play and I'm looking forward to portraying her on the next session.
Chicago - All That Jazz
We haven't done much with this song apart from listening to it a couple of times and dividing it into four parts as there's four people in the group, Unfortunately, I didn't even have time to do any research on it yet, but I will do it very soon.
Blood Brothers
We didn't work particularly on my dialogue, but there was a general discussion about working with a script, which included topics like making a character analysis and learning lines.
Different people have different methods for learning lines. Some of my classmates said that they are visual learners, which means that reading their scripts many times helps them with memorising their lines. Other people are auditive learners, they usually record themselves and their partners saying the lines and then listen to those recordings; or they have to read the lines out loud several times to learn them.
As for me, I'm kind of the mixture of a visual and an auditive learner. I normally don't spend that much time at home memorising my lines (except for the bigger roles when I have a lot of lines to say), because if I read them a couple of times during my character research/analysis and do a couple of rehearsals, I usually learn the text in just a few days. Sometimes I'm even able to memorise other people's lines if I watch some of their rehearsals.
Also, because I have quite a lot of experience in Shakespearean plays, I must note that Shakespeare normally used iambic pentameter, which gives a very unique rhythm to his lines, so I think those lines are generally easier to memorise auditively, speaking out loud or listening to voice recordings.
As for the character analysis, I've already done mine on Mrs Johnston a couple of weeks ago (it's normally the first thing I do whenever I get a role), but we also had to read the whole play again for this week and copy some quotes in three categories:
* I by me (everything my character says about herself)
* Me by others (everything other characters say about my character)
* Everything I say
It was quite an interesting task, because I got different results in all three cases. I wouldn't say it's like three different characters, but some quotes (especially in "I by me" and "Me by others") say quite different things about the very same character, mostly because a character doesn't always know everything about the other character, so they see each other very differently.
As for the third category ("everything I say"), it mostly helped me find my character's objectives during the play.
Though I didn't copy all the stage directions, I think it's still very important to use those as well. I noticed during the lessons that most of my classmates simply skip those lines and focus on the spoken words only. A character in a play never says or does anything without an objective, and I think this includes the stage directions, too. We shouldn't forget about them as sometimes they contain essential information (another Shakespearean example, from The Winter's Tale : "Exit, pursued by a bear").
We haven't done much with this song apart from listening to it a couple of times and dividing it into four parts as there's four people in the group, Unfortunately, I didn't even have time to do any research on it yet, but I will do it very soon.
Blood Brothers
We didn't work particularly on my dialogue, but there was a general discussion about working with a script, which included topics like making a character analysis and learning lines.
Different people have different methods for learning lines. Some of my classmates said that they are visual learners, which means that reading their scripts many times helps them with memorising their lines. Other people are auditive learners, they usually record themselves and their partners saying the lines and then listen to those recordings; or they have to read the lines out loud several times to learn them.
As for me, I'm kind of the mixture of a visual and an auditive learner. I normally don't spend that much time at home memorising my lines (except for the bigger roles when I have a lot of lines to say), because if I read them a couple of times during my character research/analysis and do a couple of rehearsals, I usually learn the text in just a few days. Sometimes I'm even able to memorise other people's lines if I watch some of their rehearsals.
Also, because I have quite a lot of experience in Shakespearean plays, I must note that Shakespeare normally used iambic pentameter, which gives a very unique rhythm to his lines, so I think those lines are generally easier to memorise auditively, speaking out loud or listening to voice recordings.
As for the character analysis, I've already done mine on Mrs Johnston a couple of weeks ago (it's normally the first thing I do whenever I get a role), but we also had to read the whole play again for this week and copy some quotes in three categories:
* I by me (everything my character says about herself)
* Me by others (everything other characters say about my character)
* Everything I say
It was quite an interesting task, because I got different results in all three cases. I wouldn't say it's like three different characters, but some quotes (especially in "I by me" and "Me by others") say quite different things about the very same character, mostly because a character doesn't always know everything about the other character, so they see each other very differently.
As for the third category ("everything I say"), it mostly helped me find my character's objectives during the play.
Though I didn't copy all the stage directions, I think it's still very important to use those as well. I noticed during the lessons that most of my classmates simply skip those lines and focus on the spoken words only. A character in a play never says or does anything without an objective, and I think this includes the stage directions, too. We shouldn't forget about them as sometimes they contain essential information (another Shakespearean example, from The Winter's Tale : "Exit, pursued by a bear").
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