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.