Working On Our Country's Good

At the beginning I would like to highlight my targets which is to improve my articulation and voice projection, get under the skin, correctly use Stanislavski`s methods to help me understand Duckling`s character.  My partner Matthew and I have been rehearsing for the last few weeks for Our Country's Good. We have tried different pace and pitch by doing voice exercises and repeating the same line for a few times, slowing down and speeding up.

Our Country`s Good in West End

About my character: Duckling Smith born and raised in London. She was a young prostitute and thief who was sentenced to death at only age of 16. Her childhood was severe. She was sold as a prostitute when she was 8. Later on was working as one of 'Goose's girls'. Because of lack of money she started stealing and got caught. She was accused of stealing silverware worth for 45 shillings at this time. Hanging as punishment was completely normal thing for that kind of offence. Stealing of things valued at £3.00 (equal to 60 shillings) thieves got hanged. Harry Brewer who is hopelessly in love with Duckling saved her life by writing her name on a list to transportation for 7 years. However, their relationship was quite hard. Harry goes great guns to get Duckling's attention while she tries to ignore him because she's afraid if he realises that she loves him he will become cruel. However, she knows exactly what he likes and what he doesn't. She plays with his feeling not realising it can end up tragically. For example, the scene that she goes down her knees and using sexy voice talks with Harry about intimate things. Nobody expected that I would do it but I know that my character would. To be honest, it's not my favourite scene but I can't imagine this scene without any body language. Because there is a reason why she says it, she's seducing Harry, so just saying the words out doesn't make any sense about the actual meaning of it.  

Our Country`s Good in West End

About the play: It was written in seventeenth century by playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker. This play is based on real story of convicts that was exiled to Australia. 

Our Country`s Good in West End

What barriers am I discovering? Firstly, I didn't know all the words are used in the play such as Mollie, and got confused how to pronounce lieutenant, Thames, gaoler but Rob and classmates helped me out. Rob said that my articulation gets better and better but the line "...and take my corpse with you. You could have kept that in chains" is a good tongue twister. At the end of the day, vocal and breathing exercises helps me a bit. I trying to do it every morning before college. Besides, we have vocal class every Thursday. Every Thursday morning in Rob's class we warm our bodies up, did OO-OH-OR and a few tongue twisters. Here is one I flew through the air without a care. 

After all, working on Stanislavski`s techniques was very helpful. I will adapt it while will be working on The Tempest  written by Shakespeare after Christmas holidays. I already used his methods to understand the poem Free. To be honest, it takes a while analyzing every single line or even a sentence. But I`m sure the time is well spent understanding the role I`m playing. 

P.S. I will upload a video soon.