Styles

The 39 steps is a very slapstick comedy relying on big actions for the comedy, what makes "39 steps" very slapstick is because of the plot of the show as a definition of slapstick is clumsy actions and humorously embarrassing events which is shown the natural plot of Hannay trying to get to scotland in Act 1, we have used slapstick elements in all of our scenes for 39 steps as a lot of slapstick is written into the script like when Annabella dies and falls across Hannay stopping his movement, this is very slapstick as it is a clumsy action. the style of slapstick is all over the show as the main style of 39 steps is slapstick. Another style that is used a lot in 39 steps is multi rolling as the show is reliant on a four person cast so needs to use multi rolling. Multi rolling would be a key part of 39 steps as it is another form of the show's humour like in the train scene where the two clowns keep changing between the Salesmen, Porter, Mrs Higgins, Policeman and paper boy. This scene is made incredibly funny due to the chaotic and randomness of the changing characters, without this the scene becomes a lot more dull. A style 39 steps is very similar to how the english comedy group "Monty python" work in the sense of Monty python create humorous sketches for their audiences while 39 steps is performed very similar with each scene of 39 steps feeling like a sketch in a comedy show.
An idea our group had was adapting the style of "The play that goes wrong" as we had watch a scene from the play one lesson and really like how they performed the show so we had worked on adapting the style to 39 steps. We showed this style in like the scene where Annabella dies over Hannay, after Hannay gets out we leave her on the chair as we just move it to the side for the next scene and then back on after. Another part of how we adapted this was in our last scene of the Act between the professor and Hannay, for this scene we wanted to make it seem like to the audience we didn't know our lines so had another one of us behind the curtain reading out the lines behind the curtain every time one of us cofed the line was read out obviously to the audience before we'd then say it. We made this idea even more obvious by repeating lines already said before and us as actors acknowledging this and reacting to this. Another part we have kind of adapted from the play that goes wrong is just before Hannay gets shot, as the professor looks in all his pockets and then just points his hand at Hannay like a gun, we thought this was funny because it makes the professor look like he's forgot the gun and very childish as he's using his hand as a gun.

Transitions

We were working on our plan for staging of 39 nine steps and our plains for transitions as we are performing in the Avenue theatre as it is a small theatre that will accommodate the tone of the show helping the audience to be immersed in the humour. Our transitions will be done by our cast to help with the humour side having random bits of scenery come on like in Crofter's house when i'm told to take a seat, so I look around see there is nothing so go into the wings and pull on a table with 3 chairs on, or in the professor's house when the professor appears he slides on in the armchair acting like he's alway been their. I like these scene changes as they add their own bit of humour to an already funny show making the show just as quirky. We played with the idea of transitions by using the idea of our characters being aware their in a show, so like in the pilot scene when the plain crashes they keep screaming, look at the audience like whats going on before getting up and just leaving like this was suppose to happen which was but has the illusion of it going wrong.

Today we have found out that the Avenue have a performance booked on the day we want to perform our production so we are now doing the show in our schools main hall as it has helped us change some transitions to make them more appealing. A member of our group suggested having our stage curtains closed a it helps makes the stage look more full with us on it as we are a small cast, this idea helped us come up with an another idea for transitions which involves having the train scene preset behind the curtain and for the start of the scene having it open into the train scene. After the train scene ends it would close until Crofter scene when Margaret lets Hannay into the house which is the que to open the curtain showing the house. I liked this as it was an easier way for us to set up scenes as well as creating an illusion of entering the house with the curtain opening. Another new transition we added was in the radio announcer scene where Hannay jumps of the bridge, for this i'm actually going to jump of the stage as it will help add to the humour of the scene when our sound effect of me falling goes off. Overall for 39 steps we have managed to create a load of creative and humours scene changes and movements between our scene.

Voice

As I am playing Hannay in our production of 39 steps so my understanding of voice is a lot similar then everyone else as I do not multi role so I only need one voice. My voice for Hannay needs to be a well brought up posh man from the thirties. I was able to mold my voice into this easy but I had a recurring problem. My pronouncing of some words isn't great due to the area and people I was brought up with I naturally slur words and don't pronounce all the letters of a word. I spent a short time working on this as once I became aware of this I was able to adapted and change my speech pattern. I had another bigger problem with my voice that was later pointed out to me and that was with my "f" and "th". I had a speech pattern where I would naturally say "th" as "f" making words like "that" into "fat" or "thirty" into "firty". This was becoming a big issue for me that I was struggling to overcome as I found my self naturally saying "f" for every thing.
To try and help with thus issue I looked up some tongue twisters that I could use to help involving "th".

"I thought a thought. But the thought I thought wasn't the thought I thought I thought"

"They threw three thick things"

"Father, mother, sister, brother- hand in hand with one another"

I used these tongue twisters before practicing Hannay's monologue at the start of the show. These tongue twisters over time helped with this issue but has not got rid of it. While playing Hannay I have to really thing about the movement of tongue because. Eventually after focusing on this issue I was able to use my voice with thus only being a little issue in my performance as I still naturally find myself saying "th" but the amount I do this has definitely decreased since I became aware of the issue and started working on it.

Pace

This is the definition of pace: "the speed at which someone or something moves, or with which something happens or changes". Pace can make or break the performance of "The 39 steps". The 39 Steps is a much beloved english comedy play and one of the reasons that it's such a successful comedy is because of the pace of the show and the amount of energy put in by the actors. Each scene needs to be treated like a little sketch where we focus all our energy and focus on because if we are splitting our focus across the show, we won't be using all our energy in each scene. The show doesn't work if the actors talk really slow and their movement is lacking the energy the show very quickly becomes boring so the high energy is needed to make 39 steps the spectacle that it is. Pace is enssntial weather the scene needs the slow pace reaction for an old man moving and talking or the face pace speak between Hannay and the milkman when he's trying to run away, Pace is constantly used in the show and without the pace the show becomes a bit boring as it goes from scene to scene needing to change pace every scene to what is suitable for the interractions between characters while still keeping the fast pace sketch like performance tone. In Thirty-Nine Steps pace is most important to the two clowns as although Hannay and the girl do alot, the clowns have an endless number of quick changes and characters to perform as. Like in the train scene in Act 1 when the two clowns are constantly changing between the two underwear salesmen, a policeman, a paper boy, Mrs Higgins and the train assistant. This scene would lose all comedic value if the clowns pace is slow because the changes between the characters needs to be fast and chaotic.

Characterisation

I'm playing Hannay in Act 1 of our production of 39 steps. Dan S is also playing Hannay but in Act 2 instead so we had worked together to create our character of Hannay by deciding certain characteristics that we can share in our acts. We talked about how are Hannay should stand in every scene, we thought it was obvious that Hannay would have strong posture because he is use to a higher living and would of had a strong upbringing which also would mean Hannay has a very clear and well pronounced English accent. After me and Dan had sorted this first part of details we were then stuck deciding what to do with our hands in the posture, whether to hold then at our side, fold them or hand over hand in front. We didn't like the idea of having folded arms and having our hands by our side didn't seem right either so what we do is hold our hands togeather in front of us as Dan and I agreed that Hannay would use alot of hand gestures and this hand position we have agreed on will help this.

Another part of Hannay we worked on together was how Hannay should sit. We had already said Hannah was of upper living so I suggested we sit up right with legs together but Dan then said he thinks we should have our legs crossed which would show Hanny's comfort and control in scenes wgere he gets to sit. We cross left over right. I then suggested that we should do something else begore we sit. I said we could like brush our legs before we sit and kicck our leeft leg forward before we cross. We would place our hands on our stomach when were not moving them.

The last bit of characteristics we decided was when Hannay enters a scene. We agreed that no matter how tired or beat up Hannay is from the previous scene he will always take a second to sort out his clothes/smarten himself up before moving on with the scene.

The 39 Steps

Today we started to work on our next unit which is "Appling acting styles" and for this unit we are going to do our own production of "The 39 Steps". For our own performance of this we have split our class into 2 groups and each will be given an act to perform for a production. The 2 groups are Freya, Dan S, Toby and Tom in one group with Dan S playing Hannay, Freya playing Pamela and Tom and Toby as the 2 "Clowns", they were given Act 2 to do. My group is Meg, Dan M, Carl, Dom and I, our casting is me as Hannay, Meg as Annabella, Margret and Pamela, and then Dan M, Carl and Dom as the "Clowns", we were given Act 1.




Vaudeville research:
Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment. It was especially popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. A typical vaudeville performance is made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill. Types of acts have included popular and classical musicians, singers, dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, female and male impersonators, acrobats, illustrated songs, jugglers, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and movies. A vaudeville performer is often referred to as a "vaudevillian".
Vaudeville was variety entertainment, consisting of a highly diverse series of very short acts, or "turns." The acts ranged from singing groups to animal acts, from comedians to contortionists, from magic tricks to short musical plays. A typical vaudeville bill consisted of approximately 13 acts, most of which were typically 6-15 minutes long. Many of the modes of performance developed in vaudeville had a profound effect on popular culture that continues into the present day. For example, many of the ethnic stereotypes prevalent in television and film -- Jewish, Irish, Italian, African American -- derive from the ethnic caricatures that were a mainstay of Vaudeville comedy. The comedian Frank Bush, whose act is recreated for Virtual Vaudeville, exemplifies this brand of ethnic humor.


Appling:
Vaudeville is a very useful acting style to apply for "The 39 Step" as Vaudeville is very fast pace and full of energy that we need to show in our performance. The way Vaudeville is performed with sketch after sketch is similar to "The 39 Steps" as each scene in "The 39 Steps" gives an impression that it being performed as a sketch by it's uniqueness and quirkiness that needs to build more and more each scene.

Workshop Evaluation

We had just finished our workshop performances of "Rent" which went very well for our first production of the workshop. If we were to take this production further into a bigger venue we would need to listen and respond to the feedback given about the performances from our audiences and cast. Our biggest complaint with our workshop production was that our audiences members struggled to hear what was being said as well as sung during the show. I thought about this issue and how we would resolve this issue if we were to continue, my first thought was to use radio mics instead of having our mics at the front of stage which we did have but I was then made aware that in a lot of professional productions the cast didn't have mics at all and would project their lines across the theatre with no problem. Thinking about this point I then thought that with the type of rock music "Rent" is projection wouldn't work well so that help me realise that if we were to take our production of "Rent" to a bigger venue we would use radio mics on our cast so that our audience wouldn't have trouble hearing our vocals.

If we were also to take it to a bigger venue I would like to of had a production team to focus on our use of Props, Costumes and Stage crew. Props we would need to work on as we lacked a lot of props needed for our first production and some of the props we did have wasn't decade appropriate. Costumes we had for our version were nice but we had a member of our cast sort them so it would help further our production if we could have a separate team to create our costumes for the show. If we were to take it to a bigger venue, having a stage crew would help with our scene changes we have to do as before we were moving everything so we had to add over score so we could set up. Having a stage crew would really help but if were to have the, I think it would look good if they were dressed in costumes and appeared to be apart of the show but having them as just stage crew would be nice as they could just focus on set. Overall I would probably have them dressed in costumes because then we could change set with lights up and have it not look strange.

Taking Rent to a bigger venue I would have like to change some of the numbers we had cut, I think the production would further itself if we had re-added numbers such as "La Vie Boheme B", "Halloween" and "Happy new year A". I feel these number would help improve the production as one of our complaints about our production was that our audience struggled to follow the plot of the show, so I think by putting these numbers back in to the show would help improve the narrative but I would also take some number to shorten the run time, I would remove "We're okay", "You'll see" and "Vociemail #1" because these numbers serve no massive relavences to the narrative of the show as well as being song that take alot of time while still serving no character development relvences. Another objective I'd like to achieve before we would moved venue would be to add more dances to our show, in our whole show we only really had 3 dances and I believe we could better the show if we improved the dances we have in our show. As an example I would like to make our version of "Tango Maureen" more dances orientated, as the whole number is ment to be a tango but we only started to dance a little at the end of the dance. I would like it if we looked into making it a much bigger ensemble number from the start with a visually appealing dance. One last improvement I would make to our production before we took it to another venue would be changing how we performed some of our songs, I feel our narrative of the show would better itself if we didn't sing the whole show. I would take a song like Tune up #1 and change it into a scene, by doing this I feel it would help our audience to understand the whole story of our show as one of our audiences complaints was that they struggled to follow the story.