Showing posts with label Pinter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pinter. Show all posts
Tuesday, 19 May 2015
Monologue by Harold Pinter - my ambitions!
I am a creature of habit and it seems that when I have an idea it becomes stuck and I cannot shake it. This must seem to you the reader a good thing but imagine you have an idea when 20, you then never fulfil or give life and breath to that idea or plan. Time passes in a a manner that seems like slipping sands, before you know it you are 28 and the idea still bugs you. This is the current state I find myself in. Monologue by Pinter is an enigma of a theatrical piece that I have both obsessed over and pursued the past 8 years. I have at times recorded and posted my own version of the audio of a performance. If I am honest with myself the audio I have posted in the past has been incredibly poor and not fitting my abilities as an orator let alone an actor. It is time to put the past to bed, to put the reputation on the line and finally do a real performance of the piece. So my aim over the coming weeks and months is to rehearse and provide a couple of recordings to my youtube account showing the evolution of the piece. With half term looming I am hoping to have a recording up within two weeks.
Monday, 28 February 2011
Some of my Dream Roles
Hello again… normal service on Theatre From My Head will now resume.
Last week I was mulling over the various roles I have played in my storied career so far and started thinking about the roles I dream of playing or playing again. I have put together a small list of roles I want to play before my days on the stage are over and those that I wish to revisit.
1. Benedick from ‘Much Ado About Nothing’.
For long time readers of ‘Theatre From My Head’ this should not really come as much surprise as this very character is one whom I have recorded myself playing and was available from my short lived pod casts. Benedick is a middle aged soldier who is afraid of his own loneliness and his feelings and when he faces the woman he loves decides to ridicule and joke with her which eventually leads to them falling out. In ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ this relationship is rekindled and the spark between him and Beatrice is very much still there. The one part of this character that excites me is that he changes so quickly in one scene he is mocking love and his friend Claudio for falling for a girl when suddenly, whilst he is hiding, he overhears gossip about how Beatrice is madly in love with him which causes him to suddenly declare how much he will love her (he says he will be ‘Horribly in love with her’) and that it matters not how he has always scorned her advances and women in general. This is a man who wants to be loved and love in return without it weakening him. Benedick’s speech in Act II is one of my audition monologues and one of my favourite pieces of the Bard’s prose.
2. Man from ‘Monologue’ by Harold Pinter
Again this one is no surprise as this does still feature on the headtheatre page in pod cast form which you can listen to here. It is a performed reading, I didn’t learn the monologue and it was just a sight reading piece but I believe the power of this script still shines through. Originally a television play for the BBC it ran at approx 43 minutes long, my version runs to about 16 minutes I believe, and when reading it comes across as a very dry piece. I like to think that the real point of this piece is that the words the man doesn’t say tell us a lot more about the story than his telling ever could. I have adored this play since I was 16 and have always wanted to play the role in its entirety because it is the piece that made me impressed with Pinter’s work. I discovered Pinter in High School through the play ‘The Dumb Waiter’ but until I read this and played the part, not in full, for an audition techniques module I didn’t understand the power of Pinter’s writing.
3. Thenardier from ‘Les Miserables’
During my first year of Drama School, in fact I believe it was the first term; three of us (Kara, Michael and I) went to audition for the musical ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ which was being put on by a local society. I remember being just terrible, actually it was well beyond terrible, for the dance part of the audition but with an adolescent dose of confidence believed I would breeze through on the singing and acting parts of the audition. I knew I was going to play Herod, I really wanted to play Judas but that’s more a ‘in my dreams’ role, I could just feel it because I knew I would blow anyone else out of the water with my characterisation and singing ability when I sang that great song ‘Master of the House’. I was perfect for Herod and nobody else was going to play it, it would be impossible to even contemplate. They started up the piano and... I came in too early, I think it was after two bars, they gave me another chance and I came in too late. I never did get to do my acting piece and never heard from that society ever again, it must be the only production of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ thats ever gone without a King Herod. Now I love Thenardier because here is a character that is a grotesque, he is far from likeable, has no moral compass yet somehow he gets you to enjoy his presence on the stage. The biggest reason I want to play this is for the number ‘Dogs eat the Dogs’ which is the most perfect example of those characters in the world who take advantage of other peoples misfortunes. To play him in the West End would be perhaps my biggest dream of all as I have loved ‘Les Mis’ for years and this time… I promise to come in on time and sing it magnificently. So Sir Cameron Mackintosh are you looking for a new Thenardier once Matt Lucas has finished his run? Because I am your man!
That’s my first three choices when it comes to my dream roles. I will add more at a later date but for the moment those are the ones I am dreaming of.
Coincidentally if anyone wants to hire me for any of these three roles... or anything else then please email me... or if you have any comments to make then please feel free to leave them below.
Xtofer
Last week I was mulling over the various roles I have played in my storied career so far and started thinking about the roles I dream of playing or playing again. I have put together a small list of roles I want to play before my days on the stage are over and those that I wish to revisit.
1. Benedick from ‘Much Ado About Nothing’.
For long time readers of ‘Theatre From My Head’ this should not really come as much surprise as this very character is one whom I have recorded myself playing and was available from my short lived pod casts. Benedick is a middle aged soldier who is afraid of his own loneliness and his feelings and when he faces the woman he loves decides to ridicule and joke with her which eventually leads to them falling out. In ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ this relationship is rekindled and the spark between him and Beatrice is very much still there. The one part of this character that excites me is that he changes so quickly in one scene he is mocking love and his friend Claudio for falling for a girl when suddenly, whilst he is hiding, he overhears gossip about how Beatrice is madly in love with him which causes him to suddenly declare how much he will love her (he says he will be ‘Horribly in love with her’) and that it matters not how he has always scorned her advances and women in general. This is a man who wants to be loved and love in return without it weakening him. Benedick’s speech in Act II is one of my audition monologues and one of my favourite pieces of the Bard’s prose.
2. Man from ‘Monologue’ by Harold Pinter
Again this one is no surprise as this does still feature on the headtheatre page in pod cast form which you can listen to here. It is a performed reading, I didn’t learn the monologue and it was just a sight reading piece but I believe the power of this script still shines through. Originally a television play for the BBC it ran at approx 43 minutes long, my version runs to about 16 minutes I believe, and when reading it comes across as a very dry piece. I like to think that the real point of this piece is that the words the man doesn’t say tell us a lot more about the story than his telling ever could. I have adored this play since I was 16 and have always wanted to play the role in its entirety because it is the piece that made me impressed with Pinter’s work. I discovered Pinter in High School through the play ‘The Dumb Waiter’ but until I read this and played the part, not in full, for an audition techniques module I didn’t understand the power of Pinter’s writing.
3. Thenardier from ‘Les Miserables’
During my first year of Drama School, in fact I believe it was the first term; three of us (Kara, Michael and I) went to audition for the musical ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ which was being put on by a local society. I remember being just terrible, actually it was well beyond terrible, for the dance part of the audition but with an adolescent dose of confidence believed I would breeze through on the singing and acting parts of the audition. I knew I was going to play Herod, I really wanted to play Judas but that’s more a ‘in my dreams’ role, I could just feel it because I knew I would blow anyone else out of the water with my characterisation and singing ability when I sang that great song ‘Master of the House’. I was perfect for Herod and nobody else was going to play it, it would be impossible to even contemplate. They started up the piano and... I came in too early, I think it was after two bars, they gave me another chance and I came in too late. I never did get to do my acting piece and never heard from that society ever again, it must be the only production of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ thats ever gone without a King Herod. Now I love Thenardier because here is a character that is a grotesque, he is far from likeable, has no moral compass yet somehow he gets you to enjoy his presence on the stage. The biggest reason I want to play this is for the number ‘Dogs eat the Dogs’ which is the most perfect example of those characters in the world who take advantage of other peoples misfortunes. To play him in the West End would be perhaps my biggest dream of all as I have loved ‘Les Mis’ for years and this time… I promise to come in on time and sing it magnificently. So Sir Cameron Mackintosh are you looking for a new Thenardier once Matt Lucas has finished his run? Because I am your man!
That’s my first three choices when it comes to my dream roles. I will add more at a later date but for the moment those are the ones I am dreaming of.
Coincidentally if anyone wants to hire me for any of these three roles... or anything else then please email me... or if you have any comments to make then please feel free to leave them below.
Xtofer
Monday, 21 February 2011
Approach to the Theatre's next Lesson for the RTDA
So this time I have commandeered my Dad's beloved home PC/glorified CD player to update with because I am still sans Laptop. I would have done it once again on the Kindle, because it wasn't a problem, its just that to write that relatively short update I did on Saturday took me two and a half hours. I will however be back up and running with a new Laptop very soon so updates will be quicker and more frequent.
Recently my studies for the RTDA (Room at the Top Drama Academy) have been slightly cut down hours wise due to the increasing demands on my time from work and from my Maths course. However having now completed my mulling over of 'King Lear' and finishing chapter two of 'Approach to the Theatre' I am moving on to chapter three and further analysis of text.
This book is very interesting and it has pointed me down the road of studying texts more, getting the feel of them which is something I have slowly dismissed and gotten lazy at in the past two years. According to chapter three the next move is to study the pace that is set by dramatic events and the suitability of a play from the writing. This book was printed in the mid to late 1950s so its ideas of what a suitable piece to read and put on generally is a Shakespeare or a Sheridan, which I followed for the chapter two unit, for chapter three I have decided to ignore the suggestion of something old (in relation to this book) and go for something contemporary (again in relation to this book) something that does not necessarily fit the brief given by Frances Mackenzie. I have chosen the 1972 play 'Monologue' by Harold Pinter which I am mad about, and have been since the tender age of Sixteen, because I want to give myself the impetus to really study hard to analyse the piece like I have never done so before. I find that if I give myself a real task to do then it will lead to a much better output on my part, you ask me to read a play I will do it and if I like it I will generally make my mind up on it right there and then and it gives me a blinkered outlook. I have for several years had a closed mind on Monologue, I even have proof of that. Go have a listen to my dry reading of it for my 'Radio' version (you can find it down the side of the blog or click here) because it is bad and it is one dimensional and Pinter always says more than it seems at first glance. I want to read and study Monologue to really guage its depth as a piece of Theatre and the format that Mackenzie gives, which I will go into and explain at greater length when I conclude chapter three, provides a distinct challenge to my imagination and subjectivity.
I will let you know how I get on very soon indeed...
Xtofer
Recently my studies for the RTDA (Room at the Top Drama Academy) have been slightly cut down hours wise due to the increasing demands on my time from work and from my Maths course. However having now completed my mulling over of 'King Lear' and finishing chapter two of 'Approach to the Theatre' I am moving on to chapter three and further analysis of text.
This book is very interesting and it has pointed me down the road of studying texts more, getting the feel of them which is something I have slowly dismissed and gotten lazy at in the past two years. According to chapter three the next move is to study the pace that is set by dramatic events and the suitability of a play from the writing. This book was printed in the mid to late 1950s so its ideas of what a suitable piece to read and put on generally is a Shakespeare or a Sheridan, which I followed for the chapter two unit, for chapter three I have decided to ignore the suggestion of something old (in relation to this book) and go for something contemporary (again in relation to this book) something that does not necessarily fit the brief given by Frances Mackenzie. I have chosen the 1972 play 'Monologue' by Harold Pinter which I am mad about, and have been since the tender age of Sixteen, because I want to give myself the impetus to really study hard to analyse the piece like I have never done so before. I find that if I give myself a real task to do then it will lead to a much better output on my part, you ask me to read a play I will do it and if I like it I will generally make my mind up on it right there and then and it gives me a blinkered outlook. I have for several years had a closed mind on Monologue, I even have proof of that. Go have a listen to my dry reading of it for my 'Radio' version (you can find it down the side of the blog or click here) because it is bad and it is one dimensional and Pinter always says more than it seems at first glance. I want to read and study Monologue to really guage its depth as a piece of Theatre and the format that Mackenzie gives, which I will go into and explain at greater length when I conclude chapter three, provides a distinct challenge to my imagination and subjectivity.
I will let you know how I get on very soon indeed...
Xtofer
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