Unit 6 - The container/Performances

 Unit 6 - The container/Performance

During the planning stage of my character I found out that Jamal was Turkish/Kurdish which automatically registered in my brain that he needs an accent. When I was experimenting with accents I found my self disappointed as I felt that the accents I was choosing were really passive and giddy which was the complete opposite of what my intentions were. My intention for Jamal were that he needed an accent that sounded slick and a little charming but very accusative and dangerous as well. I found the right accent when I was siting at home and watching random movie clips online and I suddenly clicked on a clip from the movie undisputed 3 and quickly got drawn to Scott Adkins portrayal of Yuri Boyka. The facial expressions and the tone of the accent were both on point which made me really want to involve his style of acting into my performance.

Scott Adkins portrayal of Yuri Boyaka was intentionally Russian but I added a slight twist in the way I pronounced words and phrase in the rehearsals. My turkish/kurdish friends around college were also a huge help in the way I portrayed the dialect for Jamal and i gave them the right to interupt me at any times to guide me on the way i said phrases and sentences in the play.

When I was in the stages of deciding my characters costume I had a hard time deciding what to pick out to wear as I was overthinking about the atmosphere in the container and would it make sense to wear something like a shirt in the middle of so called France in the play where near the border between France and the UK seemed to be cold to me. As i was picking out an outfit in my wardrobe I came across this wool jacket with all these little patches and rips on it that i had bought a while ago and thought that it was brilliant for the performance and this is because it was warm comfortable and it looked like it had been through hell just like Jamal. 

The choosing of the prop was the easiest part of the production. I chose the prop by going through the script and seeing my reactions towards the other characters. Jamal seemed to be very cocky and hot tempered at times but was also really smart and experienced and because of this i felt that he need to have a cigarette on him at all times, potentially make him into a smoker which calmed his nerves time to time. The cigarette was also there to show the audience that the character is a rugged man and he doesn’t have much care in the world expect of getting back to his girlfriend and child which are both in the Uk.

At first I wanted a prop knife for my character and a small box to sit on as he’s carving a apple or a fruit which I thought created this sense of no self control and made him almost like a renegade which he was out of control which is also an attractive thing in his character to play. As I progressed through the the play and the character also progressed I decided that it wasn’t necessary and I felt that it wouldn’t be realistic in a way so I cut it out completely but still kept that sense of anger and out of control in my character.

The Container overall needed a lot of production work and we as a class faced a lot of problems such as sound and lighting in the technical run. This is because the lights were not working and the college wifi was unstable which meant there was barley any light and the Albanian/Turkish music that I insisted on couldn't be played on the performance. Even though I faced these barriers I was able to overcome them spiritually as I had a few personal relations to the character of Jamal himself and one of them was him being turkish which gave me the upper hand as i have family members who are turkish which have educated me about the culture and also have taken part in the practical bits in the culture.

Tech rehersals

The tech rehearsals went smoothly which was a surprise as many people were finding it hard to find themselves performing in the characters they were chosen to perform in. People were facing a lot of obstacles throughout the construction of their characters which meant that the rehearsals were delayed causing most people to not know their lines really well. We overcame this by repetitive line learning and the use of non script rehearsals. I was finding it hard to remember some of my gestures as the container set was very small and I didn't want to cross it but I overcame this by moving as much as I could to the middle of the set taking on the centre stage.

Evaluation 
The performance went shockingly well in the eyes of the audience as people were cheering and praising me but in my eyes I thought I could have done better as I didn't feel that I portray my characters intentions as much. My characters intention was to show that he missed his family and that he would do anything to see them again including throwing people out of the container. I managed to remember my lines and also managed to save my group many times when there was awkward silence as people forget the lines. My character managed to stay on track through keeping my accent together.