Hello bloggers,
During this part of the blog I will be critically analysing my characterisation, my personal process throughout the module, from the first rehearsal through to the final performance, and how I used my knowledge of ‘Dramaturgy’ to develop my ideas and understandings of the play.
At the beginning of this module, I had no understanding of what a Dramaturg was. I had actually in fact never heard of the word before. Therefore a question remained in my mind; what is a Dramaturg? After reading Cathy Turner and Synne K.Behrndt’s book, Dramaturgy and Performance, I discovered that there are many different types of dramaturg, used in many different ways. A quote I came across during the book sums up the definition of a Dramaturg quite well;
“The dramaturg may be someone appointed to the theatre that takes a particular interest in dramatic literature and could be responsible for translation, adaptation and even writing new work. The dramaturg may be a person who is concerned with the identification and development of new writing for the theatre. The dramaturg may be a ‘creative critic’ or a ‘critical collaborator’. The dramaturg may be all these things or only one of them, or some of them. The dramaturg could be a sound artist. The dramaturg is bound to seek out new roles, expanding our sense of the many ways in which ‘dramaturgical thinking’ might be applied.’ (2008, p. 102)
Over time, I have come to the conclusion that the Dramaturg is a creative contributor, constantly feeding the minds of the actors within the group, overloading them with ideas and personal thoughts, contributing with ideas for set design, costume, make up, and generally motivating the group to do well. It is also over time that I have realised every member of the Leonce and Lena group is in fact, a Dramaturg. If the descriptions given inside Dramaturgy and Performance are correct, then each member of my group has successfully used their dramaturgical knowledge to help sculpt our play into the wonderful and exciting piece we believe it to be right now. Through giving each member of the group a specific area to work on, both during rehearsals and on the blog, the group were able to come together every week and discuss our personal progress so far, allowing every member to have their thoughts heard, discussed and furthered more if needed. My individual contribution towards is set design, this is a part of the blog where I can go and post my ideas and thoughts. As well as being a page for me to express my design visions for the play, other members of the group can comment and add ideas of their own if they wish to. As James has re-written the play text, changing the setting to Las Vegas, we decided during the first rehearsal that we were going to try and use as many Las Vegas themed props as we could, hoping that for the final performance we could get hold of, or make our own, Welcome To The Fabulous Las Vegas sign! Obviously due to budget and costs, it is very unlikely that we will be able to purchase one, but through deciding to look at pictures of the original sign , we have developed fantastic ideas on how to make our own!
As well as a change of setting for the play due to James’s re-write of the play text, there was also a change of character gender for the character I am playing, Valerie, known in the previous text as Valerio, Leonce’s first hand man, or woman in my case. In the original play, Valerio is a very comical character, constantly mocking Leonce and generally just talking in riddles. We liked those qualities about him, so when the character gender changed, we still kept Valerie’s personality very similar. She’s quirky, and has her own unique style, separating her from the usual american stereotype. She is in love with Leonce, and has clearly been in love with him for a long time, the feelings are not mutual though, and she is heartbroken when she witnesses Leonce kissing the hand of a beautiful stranger, Lena. I really enjoyed building up this character. Valerie is a lovely character to play, and very different from anyone I have played before. To begin with, I had an idea of how Valerie would dress in my head, but once we had read through the lines a bit more and discovered more about the characters personalities, that all changed. Jen was the main creator for the costumes, and she gave me some excellent ideas that we all loved and thought worked extremely well.
Dramaturgy has been a very enjoyable, intellectually stimulating, and all round fantastic module to study. Considering we were a miss match group to begin with, we have pulled together an amazing performance, and I can honestly say I have never enjoyed anyone’s company as much as I have with this group of people! They are all very talented and I feel privileged to have worked with them.
It’s safe to say … it’s been fab-u-lous!
Work cited: Turner, Cathy and Synne K. Behrndt, (2008) Dramaturgy and Performance, PALGRAVE MACMILLAN.