Vocal awareness

Language and vocal awareness Language Is a key element to be explored In drama. An Important characteristic of dramatic language Is the way it indicates the mood of a scene. It does this, by Incorporating stage directions Into the dialogue. We can often tell the mood of a character by the language that is used. For example the repetitions of the noun ‘Laurence’ suggest that Beverly was annoyed with the fact that Laurence wasn’t doing what she asked him to do. The way in which a play is written can inform us of the time period, the setting and it also helps to give each individual character an identity.

Dramatic language is also able to indicate how actors should be grouped together upon the stage, for example the character of Beverly as a host of the dinner party she has to be up and serving drinks to make sure her guests are comfortable and satisfied. Altogether language helps the actors/actress to convey a naturalistic performance. The technique I found particularly useful when exploring my character has been language. This technique really developed my characterization as well as improved my knowledge and understanding of my character Beverly as she uses a range variety of punctuation.

An example of this Is with the rhetorical question ‘dya know what I mean’ this may suggest that Beverly Is the sort of person that Ilkes to be understood. Secondly, Beverly also uses a lot of question marks: ‘Dya get something to eat? ‘Dya get those larger? as the play was written in 1977 and the traditional role of women’s changed in the 1 920’s can suggest that Beverly abuses the freedom of not having to follow the traditional role of a women (cook and clean and providing) although she doesn’t work but she still doesn’t cook (that’s why Laurence eats a lot of fast-food).

We used an exercise in class where we walked around the room reading our monologues aloud and when we got to a punctuation marking such as a full stop or question mark we had to turn 90 degrees and then carry on. This told us where all the breaks where In the monologue and by doing this helped us get a better understanding of where the tension was In the piece. For example my character was Beverly; she’s a very demanding character so the first scene starts off with lots of explanation marks: ‘Laurence! ‘ ‘No! this tells me that my character is quite angry and he tension would be high in this part of the monologue. As we continuously repeated this exercise which included the turning around and round (bearing in mind Beverly is the host of the party so she has to do a lot of talking, this was a disadvantage for me) which made me feel dizzy and as if the room was spinning around. This was relevant to my role because the whole dizzy effect can be used to portray a naturalistic performance as In the play Beverly drinks a lot so the dizziness can be a result of the alcohol.

This can change her use in language as she is drunk. Vocal Awareness using my monologue piece I had to vocalise the vowels the consonants and the consonant only. My character was Beverly, I had to read act 1 scene 1 on all of Beverlys line reading only the consonant without pronouncing the vowels. This exercise seemed a bit weird at first as but I then realised that the character of demanding as she’s always asking him to do things and she’s always nagging constantly, she doesn’t keep to the rural traditional wife law of having children, cooking and cleaning and expect Laurence to always eat takeaway and ‘pizza’.

This technique really helped me to learn more about my character also using this technique helped me noticed that my character uses a lot of “Irnc” which kind of sounds like the word ‘drink this is significant as in the play Beverly continuously offers her guests drink Sue in particular as she declined most time but was forced by Beverly to have some more this also links with Beverleys super objective which is to keep her guest occupied and comfortable by offering them drinks as her way of being a good host as she’s always trying to make a good impression.