To start this lesson off, as usual, we had one of BTEC lead in a warm up, this time it was Beckies turn to lead the warm up session.
She decided to work, simultaneously on voice and movement, by giving our characters emotions to portray. She told us to think of a line that our character would say, and then walk around saying that line, in a particular emotion. For example, walk as if your character was sad, whilst saying your line in the same manner.
We went through happy, sad, angry, scared and surprised.
For this i chose the line "Hello my friendzzz..."
For happy, i just played up mischievous and cunning, as i think Chesh' would only be happy when he was getting his own way, or causing havoc. So i strode around purposefully, yet still delicately on the balls of my feet and toes, with a lot of arm movement thrown in because i like to make his mannerisms quite large and elegant looking, so when he strides, he strides through the air in a bound, and as his feet reach the floor, his arms carefully keep him balanced (key as cats have superb balance) As for the line, i read this with a slight chuckle in my voice as though he were pleased with himself, and to really live up to the cliche... like a cat that got the cream.
Next we did sad, which was harder to put to my character, as i had never envisioned him to be much of a one who had time to be sad, however, needs must and i attempted to put something to the character. I decided he would still attempt to have a spring in his step, but only every now and then, mostly he'd just drag his feet, and hunch his back severely. He would occasionally try to maintain some slyness and slickness but it would be lost in translation as his sadness interrupted his stride. I would say the line in a way that would be almost mumbled, because although the line is "Hello my friendzzz." in order to do this line, i thought he could being saying hello, purely out of politeness (though i don't believe he would be all that big on polite, being evil and all) but i thought that if he were to say it, much like the occasional dragging of his feet and tail (though of course, it's harder to show that without actually having a tail myself...) his voice would drag too, into a gentle mumble.
For the next one, angry, i decided to have my character fly into action, as i thought, if he were angry, he would move faster than he already does, meaning i had to swiftly dart around the room, in and out of people, charging towards whatever he was angry at. After all, he is a cat, if he were angry, i would think it only appropriate he would pounce. When i first tried to find inspiration for my character, i looked towards Scar from The Lion King, as he was a perfect role model to base this character around, and when he gets angry (which is often) he really gets angry. I figured it would be best to take inspiration once again from Scar and put it into Cheshire, and so his actions were very much like that of a much larger wild cat, as apposed to the kitten he sometimes pretends to be (a little like Puss In Boots from Shrek 2) As for the line, i think it was simple enough, i just made it sound cunning, devious and very much as though, even though he was angry, he was preparing for revenge, making the "Hello my friendzzz." sound very sinister.
We moved onto scared for our next emotion. Now i do think my character has tendencies to show cowardice from time to time, but i wasn't quite sure how to put it into action on this one, so i just improvised without thinking too hard on the matter. I ended up making him seem quite twitchy and nervous, as well as quiet and he would hide behind the things in the room, such as pillars, and even other people. Though if this is how i really feel the character would react, i am not sure, he would probably be similar, but not as twitchy perhaps. That seems far more characteristic of The White Rabbit.
Our last emotion to work with was surprised, for this i found the movements easy, as they were just more upright and unsure than usual, very similar to the way a meerkat stands whilst on lookout, but it makes them look very surprised. However, the line didn't really fit at all, but i just said it with a surprised tone anyway.
In the lesson we started to block Act 2 Scene 1, the scene where the good characters are feeling hopeless after the kidnap of Alice, The White Queen then attempts to cheer them up by singing "If You're Happy And You Know It..."
We decided to have an action for each character. As The White Queen started, she had the well known "Clap your hands!" command, to start the characters off, and to give the audience a chance to sing along.
We then created one for each character.
For Prince Charming, we had "If you're happy and you know it, strike a pose!" at which point all character strike a pose.
For Fairy Godmother, we had "If you're happy and you know it, make a wish!" followed by a wand waving action.
Then we had Red Riding Hood, who was hard to find one for, but in the end we decided as she is off to visit her grandma, we had "If you're happy and you know it, wave to gran!" at which point, an extra, dressed as an old lady would come out and say "Hello dear!" dressed as an old woman. But as this happens three times, we have 3 people dressed as old women appearing from different parts of the stage.
For Cinderella we had "If you're happy and you know it, sweep the floor!" and they all mime sweeping actions, this was because of Cinderella's past spent cleaning and cooking for her evil stepmother and stepsisters.
For Rapunzel we had "If you're happy and you know it, brush your hair!" but because this character has the tendency to be very Chavvy, Rachel, the girl playing her, improvised "If you're happy and you like totally know it, brush your hair!" which when she said it fast, and over and over again, was really quite funny and so has been kept in.
Tweedle Dum is on stage at this point, sulking and being upset about not finding his brother sooner, i put forward the idea of The White Queen singing her line again but tripping up Tweedle Dum so when she gets tot the line "and you know it..." she would fall off stage and say "I'M OKAY" so the song would go "If you're happy and you know it *crash* I'm okay! (still in tune)" But we finished the session before deciding what to do fully with that.
We later did an after school lesson where we worked on blocking Act 2 Scene 2, in which we worked on basic staging of characters, and spacing, plus many physical, visual jokes, such as The Red Queen standing over Alice whilst wearing a long dress, meaning Alice is stuck inside her dress. The Red Queen, knowing Alice has the book on her persons still, reaches under the dress to get it and pulls out a number of other items before finding the right one. This joke however, can only work if everything looks right, for instance, the dress must be long enough, and the timing has to be spot on for it to be funny. These are the things we have been working on.
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