East end tales is a collection of scripted stories inspired real life events in the east end and developed through improvisation then refined and scripted. The tales look at social and moral issues as well as the way in which society as a whole and its individual members interact and react in the world. Though the tales aren't directly related they are all set in the east end and are performed one after another with though intricate, quite definite transitions. There weren't any costumes used in the play although voice, gesture and at times props were used to define characters.
In the development of the play, although we were encouraged to use our own thoughts and ideas to enhance our performance, the script was always central to our process. In order to develop ideas we looked at small pieces of the text and devised pieces of theater around them, for example after reading the play i devised a monologue in which the landlord who is portrayed as a 'tight bastard' (tale 6) debated the difficulties of running a small business in the east end. We also when looking at Tale 8 created a piece of physical theater focusing on the sounds and atmosphere of a dark alley.
As well as developing the play through improvised work we also developed our ideas throughout the rehearsal process, because of the amount of times we repeated the piece it very quickly became apparent as to which scenes excited the cast and which didn't. For instance tale 4 was originally really hard work to block and seemed to drag throughout the rehearsals, after a few weeks the director decided to hugely change the movement of most of the cast when Nina walked through the rain and met the old lady. This really changed the energy of the cast and the feel of the piece for the better. Also in devising some scenes on our own we really gained confidence in our ability to act and perform.
The strengths of the piece were the way in which one tale transitioned into another, and the way that all of the tales felt connected. As a cast we all were really invested in the play and this was shown through the energy and commitment people portrayed in their acting. The moments that worked best were the real high energy moments where several different things were going on for example in tale 3 where we were playing a 'jack of all trades' character trying to sell the audience something. my favorite moment was tale 2 because i felt as though we had all devised and developed the piece together. I thought the way we portrayed different types of girls was a really good way to open the show as the play was showcasing the diversity in the east end. I wanted the audience to feel at first the lightheartedness of the piece but then also feel the change in atmosphere towards the end of the tale. i think it was perceived this way by the audience because not only did the vocality change but the type of movement also changed.
In tale 3 Matteo played the character of a man who had previously beat a man to death, towards the end of the tale his character relived the night he killed a man and i thought it was a really touching scene. The way that Matteo contrasted his earlier blaze attitude with this softer remorseful side of the character was an effective decision.
Some of the weaknesses of the piece were the consistency of the energy and commitment among all of the cast, while some people were very committed and kept the energy up throughout the whole piece others struggled to be constantly in focus, to overcome this as a cast we encouraged each other and covered lines when they were forgotten. As well as this some of the lines were spoken too quietly and especially over the music this was quite frustrating! Overall though the show was amazing and everyone worked really hard.
This term I've really developed the quality of my acting and physical theater skills, at first i found it really hard to act well with only a few lines in one go and when i wasn't acting as one character throughout the play. due to this i really had to work hard on my character development and condensing what would usually be shown over a scene into two or three lines. I've also developed my ability to tell a story through more abstract means of theater because east end tales isn't a traditional play I've had to work harder in telling the very dynamic story using physical theater and other means. I've learnt that acting isn't always about playing one character throughout a play and its not just about what we think of a classically 'acting'.
I think that I've managed myself quite well over the course of this project although i have struggled with keeping my blog up to date and handing the work in by the deadlines. In the classroom i think I've done well in contributing in class both creatively and critically and I've stayed on task in all the lessons. I think in terms of developing my characters' roles I've shown a lot of growth over the last 17 weeks.
Overall i have really enjoyed working on east end tales the past two terms, the dynamics and constantly changing mood of the play have kept me interested, challenged and sometimes frustrated. As a company we took this play from the page to the stage and in my opinion did a very good job of it, i have grown as an actor and have learned to become more open minded in what i perceive as 'acting' I've almost been humbled and learned the value of creating a piece of theater not just as an individual but as a company of actors.
