DUE BEFORE EXAM WEEK!
On your end-of-year drama exam, you will be asked to write about your work in class this year. One important area of work in our class this term was on a key scene from Death of a Salesman. Please write a 15-20 minute essay answering the following question.
Next year, you will need to submit one piece of "repertoire" group work as IGCSE coursework. It is likely that some of your classmates will want to further develop the scene between Willy and Howard from Death of a Salesman for this coursework. If you were to develop this scene into a coursework piece, what would you do? Try to be as detailed as possible in your answer. In particular, be specific about what you would do to improve your performance and what advice you would give to your partner concerning his/her performance. etc.
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If I would like to develop Death of a Salesman scene as next year’s coursework I think I would first of all think about costuming, props and learning lines. I am really not sure how to improve it because I think that this year’s one is quite good, well ofcourse I can improve it by first of all making myself look more guy like. Makeup an gestures can help. Also think more about costuming, I think hat his year me and sara did a good job except we should have brought shoes with us as well. Then we should position chairs in 45 degrees, because this year it was 90 degrees, it was comfortable for me to talk with sara, but I assume that that didn’t look good on camera. Also speaking louder is good.In whole I think that this year’s work was very close to coursework, but we could ofcourse improve it a bit.
ReplyDeleteTo develop the Death of the salesman, everyone would need to learn their lines ( because I didn’t know it so good after all those months).
ReplyDeleteAnd immediately like after one week learning rehearsing I would act it out so you remember it really well! Because that is what went wrong we did to many things so almost no one knew their lines.
Than I would let everyone look more old and that they look a bit into the audience and camera. More walking and talking up and maybe a real wire recorder with the family of Howard ( just some people from our class) record their voice in it.
I think if we do that that I would look more better than it already is!
Drama Revision Homework
ReplyDeleteIf you were to develop a different ‘The Death of a Salesman’ scene into a coursework piece, what would you do? Be as detailed as possible and be specific about what could be improved and performance.
This year I think we did really well on our drama work but we could have improved greatly on it. Development on these scenes we did was poor and we needed much more practice. Costuming, Memorisation of Lines, Props, Voice Projection, Blocking and Staging could have really improved. Well that’s practically everything. Costuming first of all was not bad this year. We had decent and proper clothing for the scenes we were performing, but in the future people need to have these at hand quickly and easy to use. We might also need to bring them from out of school as we only have formal clothes there and for other students, they might need different clothing for different sketches. We didn’t have many lines to learn, but the constant breaks didn’t help us with learning our lines and so we forgot them. This must not happen again, and to do this you would need to learn the lines quickly at the beginning, as that is the foundation of your building, and if you do not know your lines, then you cannot perform as well as when you know them! Another factor would be Staging. It was very important. There were many scenes in ‘The Death of a Salesman’ where they go from the people talking from the bedroom upstairs, to spying on the people downstairs. This is how important it is. You must stage your act correctly and appropriately to achieve a great scene. Also a very important factor would be the blocking. Most of our work was badly blocked as we had our chairs in an awkward position for the audience, but not for the actors. Resulting in a bad performance. This shows that you must block according to the scene and that you must be facing the audience no matter what the cost. Props can be a great help for your performance as in the scene we performed Willy and Howard were constantly talking about a wire recorder, which greatly helped the scene as it made it move along nicely. Any prop that could be suitable would be good. It livens up your performance and it also makes the scene more believable and entertaining to watch. Voice projection is a big factor too. Without it you cannot be heard, which is a very bad thing. Therefore you must have a lot of projection of your voice so the audience can hear you. It might feel uncomfortable for the actor, as we have all heard, but it sure does sound great from the audience’s perspective.
I just realised how long mine is :P
ReplyDeleteIf I were to direct Death of a Salesman next year I would change it quite a bit. I would want to be Willy because I really enjoyed screaming at people and I found the part challenging and I think I would want to develop it into something really something. For my Howard I would want Sara. Sara really gets into her roles and I love the enthusiasm she shows for every role no matter how boring or strange it is. I would make sure that all the lines were good because the script has quite a bit of mind numbing parts that are easily confused. I would make sure that make up was used to make Howard look in his thirties and Willy in his sixties. I would also do something about hair, put it up or in a hat or in a pony tail with powder for white coloring for Willy. I would try to make the wire recorder more realistic and perhaps put a real cassette recorder inside with a timed recording or something to play because the person playing it can be a nuisance and sometimes unreliable and tricky to get timing , so I would definitely do something about that and make sure that enough rehearsal time was given so that the piece was really well prepared and perfect , although nothing is really perfect : )
ReplyDeleteIf i would have to develop the death of a salesman scene for coursework next year i would definitely work on different ways to enhance our acting skills. This meaning that we should work more on hand gestures, face expressions, and effective use of pauses. I would especially work on projection, largely on Willy's part. When Willy is arguing against Willy he needs a loud, mad voice full of power. You need to show the different moods to the audience as clearly as you can, even though it might be exaggerating a bit. It is really good for Willy since he is in a terrible state, talking to himself because of the great depression he is in. For Howard's performance, which is the character i acted out as, i need to work on pauses like that. In the beginning i need to sound really excited about the wire recorder and extremely into what i am telling Willy. I as well would have to work on projection and definitely providing a manly voice to my scene. Howard as well towards the end needs to sound sympathetic and terribly sorry for Willy when he tells him that he is firing Willy. But at the same time not sound completely concerned about it. As well during Willy's long speech Howard needs to act ignorant to what Willy is saying and as it says in the script, not to look at him throughout the speech. For my partner's character, which is Willy i would advise them to try and express the age of Willy. Willy is an old man and it is very hard to act like an old man when you are 15, but maybe putting on a rusty voice, walking a little weirdly and not on pattern. And as i mentioned earlier, when it comes to the climax points, after howard tells willy that he's fired, need to first act shocked but utterly maddened afterwards so that it makes sense with Howards last few lines 'i've got a line of people to see this morning (firm voice). Sit down, take 5 minutes, and pull yourself together. and then go home will ya? i need the office willy". But otherwise i really think everyone who acted Willy in the scene portrayed the character extremely well. Just a few improvements to consider really.
ReplyDeleteIn Death of a Salesman I would improve on a number of things. I would definitely wear a suit and try to look more like an old man.
ReplyDeleteI would perfect my lines so that I act more realistically. I would also talk with an American accent. This should improve my character, as he is a New Yorker. It would also be good if there were more props and a better setting. This would dramatically help the performance.
Adding more passion to the speech would help. I think that a good idea would be to build up a crescendo during my performance as Willy. This should build up the tension between Howard and Willy.
The first thing i would do is make sure the costumes matched the time of the performance, so suits would work well. The make-up and hair would have to be done up like that of a man especially if a girl was performing the piece.
ReplyDeleteI'd use a proper desk, with 2 chairs. A good wire recorder and to make it look like a proper office, i'd add files and stacks of paper and lots of pencil's, pen's etc..
For the cast, i'd remain as Howard myself, as i enjoyed playing the charecter that seemed to be 'in-charge' of the situation. I would want Onur to play Willy as I think Onur and I work well together and also he's a very good actor and when he performed the piece, he was very good at playing an old man :P ( but he would have to learn all his lines first).
I think I would definitely want to use my repertoire scene as my course work and i find this scene very strong and understandable to myself. I find it greatly important, for the audience to understand what the scene is all about, as it will be easier to understand!
ReplyDeleteI would want to use costuming and maybe make up and props for using in this scene. I wouldnt use too much make up or props and i feel it is a simple scene and there is nothing to show and use in the scene as the scene is easy to understand already and it is all about communication really, not as much knowing your lines.
It was great working in this scene and it has been a pleasure working with our drama teacher this year! Thank you very much sir.
what do u think about this ?
ReplyDeletei think that Death of a Salesman was quite a good play but it would have been better if we had more practice and had more confidence saying our lines. i think that the costumes should have been more realistic and make up that way you get the feeling of the theme and play. but like i said it was not bad on the whole.
by mike
Exam Revision #2:
ReplyDeleteThe main thing I would change about our scene is the costuming. When we were doing it in class we ended up taking random suits we found and wearing them, and they made it better but they weren't very good. It would be better if we could actually ask around for suits to borrow, or even buy some cheap ones, because it would improve the scene a lot.
We would also have to change the props and the set. We would have to get something that actually looks like a wire recorder, instead of the broken gramophone we used, and we would have to get different chairs and a different table, since the story is set quite a while back in the past.