Tag: Francesca Simeoli

Keeping up with spending

Just a quick post to put up the picture of the spending spreadsheet. This spreadsheet will keep detailed track of what money is spent on what items and how much money we have left in the budget. As previously said, if we feel we will overspend, fundraising ideas will be put into play.

progeny spending (2)

Click image for clearer picture. If this does not work,  the top lines say: Company sectors, Items bought, Cost and Money remaining (according to budget).

Underneath is then the sectors such as marketing, set, etc.

This spreadsheet will be filled in as and when to keep on top of our spending.

 

Francesca

Budget

Our company have created a budget in the same way that we would have done if we were applying for Arts Council funding. We have taken into consideration every aspect of our performance which will need money putting towards it. If subject to change, budget will be updated.

See budget below.

budget (2)

 

A list of all items which are bought and paid for will also be made to keep up to date with how much we are spending and where. We do not want or need to overspend. This will soon be put on the blog for an idea of layout. However the final one will not be put up until the performance is ready as it is subject to change frequently.

Fundraising will be used if necessary to cover any other aspect of performance.

 

Word Count: 134

Francesca & Jamie

 

 

The Monologue

During rehearsal time, I have been thinking about monologues and why we use them. I decided to do a short post on what a monologue is and why we have decided to use one in our production. I have included some brief research on an opinion which opposes to the use of monologues.

“A monologue is a lengthy speech by a single person” (Abrams and Harpham, 2009, p.85)

“The monologue differs from the dialogue in the lack of verbal exchange and in that it is of substantial length and can be taken out of the context of conflict and dialogue” (Pavis, 1998, p.218)

 

As I see it, a monologue is a theatrical device which is used to portray a character’s inner feelings. You do not necessarily come across monologues in every play you see or read, yet they can be used as one way of just one character communicating with the audience, whether it be directly or indirectly.

In Scene Two of ‘A Gothic Tale’, my character, The Countess, delivers a monologue. It is a long speech which introduces herself indirectly to the audience. The monologue gives a brief explanation as to who she is and what she is doing. The speech also foreshadows the rest of the scene, and partly the rest of the play.

It is questionable, however, whether or not monologues should be used in theatre at all. As Pavis states, “[Monologues] are often condemned or restricted to a few indispensable instances. Besides the fact that it is static, even boring, it is seen as improbable. A man alone is not expected to talk aloud, so that showing a character confiding his feelings to himself is easy to ridicule as being unrealistic and improbable. (1998, p.218)

In this case, the monologue is used not only to give depth to the Countess, but it is also used to allow the audience to clearly see the change in her personality later on in the play. Her monologue introduces her as a newly married woman who is vulnerable and shy. Later on however, she is quite the opposite. Her speech is there as an inner consciousness, questioning everything that she is worried about. At this point in the play, she is about to lose her virginity to the Count. She has a few moments on her own where she is able to think about what is happening and what is expected from her, and the monologue reflects her feelings towards the situation. This also allows the audience to get to know, what they think, is her true character.

Although not all playwrights agree with using monologues, I believe that the Countess’ speech fits well in our piece. She is the only character with a monologue, and she is the only character who changes dramatically. Her honesty in the monologue is able to fool the audience who later on find out that she has turned into a much darker character.

 

Works Cited

Abrams, M.H and Harpham, G (2009) A Glossary of Literary Terms. Boston USA: Cengage Learning Inc.

Pavis, P (1998) Dictionary of the Theatre. Terms, Concepts and Analysis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press Inc.

 

 

Francesca Simeoli

Word Count: 490

Character synopsis: The Countess

I have done a character synopsis to delve a little deeper into the countess’ traits and personality to get a better feeling of how she acts. All of the following information has been discussed in rehearsals and workshops, and is still being worked on as we get further into the script. 

 

What is the personality of the Countess?

The Countess is one of the protagonists of the play. She is a dynamic character that changes as the story unfolds, allowing the audience to see big changes in her. At the beginning of the play, the Countess is a naïve young lady. She is marrying the Count who is an older, wealthier man. The thought of her new life scares her – all of the wealth and power is intimidating. The beginning scene of the play shows the housekeeper getting the Countess ready for her wedding. The Countess seems quiet and shy, nervous about what her new life will bring. She barely talks, but when she does she remains reserved and respectful. Although she is nervous, the wedding goes ahead. As the play carries on, all is not what it seems.

The Countess does not remain innocent for long. Quite soon into the play, she has a sexual awakening. She starts to enjoy the relationship between herself and the Count, and soon gets used to all of the wealth and power that they now share. Her speech and movement is now bigger and more confident. She begins to get a little arrogant about her power within the castle. Her character responds to the play as it unfolds more.

When the Snow Child is introduced, jealousy takes over the Countess because the Count pays attention to somebody that is not her. She does not want the Count admiring anybody but herself, and she certainly does not want to let go of the wealth she has found herself in. Her new life and her new found independent woman is too good to give up. All of these aspects of her life excite her, and she does not want to give that up for anybody. She becomes selfish, and there is an obvious change in her in relation to the Count.

 

How does her behaviour affect other characters?

When the Countess is vulnerable and shy at the beginning, there is some sort of hierarchy between herself and the housekeeper. The housekeeper has been in the castle a lot longer than the Countess, so the Countess has a lot of respect for her. The housekeeper is used to new women coming into the castle, so she remains quiet and keeps her opinions to herself. The more the Countess becomes comfortable in her new role and wealth, the more selfish she becomes with little care about the other characters. The respect that was seen in the beginning slowly disappears.

The relationship between the Countess and the piano tuner is a lot different to all of the other characters. She sees the piano tuner as a character she can talk to and confide in. He shows her a kindness that the Count does not, so she feels at peace around him. When she is with him, her original sweet self can be seen, instead of the arrogant, selfish new personality she seems to have changed to. Their actions show a slight chemistry between them and the audience can see that there is an obvious difference between the Count and the piano tuner.

 

Any other information/opinions

Although the Countess comes from a family without much money, I believe that her marriage to the Count was what she needed to come out of her shell – to finally be the person she really is. Her sexual awakening plays a big part in her personality change, and the independent woman she becomes is much more like her than the shy character at the beginning.

The wealth she has found herself in means that she can be a woman – she can have all the jewellery and rich clothes that she wants. These objects are connotations of power to her. She enjoys having something to show off.

All in all, she is a confusing character with many traits to her. The audience will be taken through a range of situations where they like her and sympathise with her, to not liking her and sympathising with the Count instead.

 

 

Francesca Simeoli
Word count: 726

What is it about Angela Carter?

After deciding on our chosen stories The Bloody Chamber and The Snow Child, there was a small dispute over how we were going to portray certain scenes in our new devised performance. There are what are considered ‘adult’ scenes in both stories, meaning there was a worry as to how we would overcome the issue of portraying them in a tasteful way. For rights purposes, the group decided to merge the two stories together to create a new story with brief similarities. Although we decided to merge the stories, these ‘adult’ themes were still an issue. However, as any professional theatre company would, we sat down and allowed our director, script writers and producer to explain their ideas on how these scenes would be tackled. Eventually we came to a mutual understanding and concluded that none of our performance would be offensive to watch. Due to our heavy technical aspects, we will be able to show the ‘taboo’ in a much more tasteful way, allowing our performance to provoke high emotions as was talked about in the beginning stages.

Taking all of this into consideration, I thought I would take a brief look at Angela Carter, her stories and the criticism that came along with her work and how she tackled it, if she did at all.

An article written by Helen Simpson in The Guardian talks about The Bloody Chamber and what Angela herself had in mind for the book. It states: “[Angela] knew from the start that she was drawn to ‘Gothic tales, cruel tales, tales of wonder, tales of terror, fabulous narratives that deal directly with the imagery of the unconscious’”(2006). This is the essence that she wanted to get across in her stories. Although her book may have shocked readers (and still shocks readers now), her focus was not on the disturbing scenes she used. Simpson tells her readers that Carter’s idea “was not to do ‘versions’ or, as the American edition of the book said, horribly, ‘adult’ fairy tales, but to extract the latent content from the traditional stories and to use it as the beginnings of new stories.” (2006). By touching upon this new way of writing, this new style, she wanted to reach out to a wider audience. She did not want to offend or disgust anybody, which is what our group also aims to avoid. Because these types of stories were so new to Carter’s audience, they soon wanted more, and she got criticised for not writing about more taboo subjects. She was, in so many words, breaking the mould of society.

She had very vivid ideas of what she wanted to write and how she wanted to portray them. Her love for science fiction and fantasy played a big part in her writing, allowing her create a new world full of issues and themes that were never thought about until the book was published.

Angela Carter is such an inspiration to our group because she knew exactly what she wanted. We love her ideas of the gothic and the tales of wonder. Our aim is to tell a tale all about love and relationships with no real focus on the ‘adult’ aspects. Overall, we want our story to be mysterious and spooky so it can catch the attention of our audience. We want it to provoke high emotion with help from our actors and technical spectacle, rather than shock them with the ‘mature’ attributes.

 

Francesca

Word count: 574
Works cited: Simpson, H (2006) ‘Femme Fatale’. The Guardian. Online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jun/24/classics.angelacarter (accessed: 16th February 2013)

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