We decided to work on the scene right before Roxie and Billy go into the courtroom. In this particular scene there’s a lot of tension between them two. We first thought it would be helpful to actually listen to the accent that they use in the versions in order to help us pick up the accents ourselves
Considering that we’re both not so confident with the accents. In many versions that I’ve watched Roxie is portrayed in a variety of different ways, in the film version she’s quite uptight and snaps at anything Billy says, however in the Broadway versions on YouTube she’s made out to be quite scared and snaps at Billy only at the very end which helps to build the tension in the scene. We began by watching the previous versions of this scene so that we could gather the ideas for staging and costumes etc. We discovered that there was a lot of changes in the staging in the sense of the shifting of power, Roxie would often move downstage or upstage to parallel Billy, and they’d often end up facing one another at the peak of the argument.
We really liked tthe idea in the shifting of staging so we started of with Roxie upstage and she’s complaining about the dress, as in essence she’s the protagonist. Then we had her move downstage when Billy begins to shout about telling her what to do, she remains downstage until she starts complaining again about her not getting enough “showtime” this is when they become parallel with one another. We felt like this is a poignant point to show the audience that this whole thing is a show by adding in some over dramatic shouting and excess drama such as Billy almost grabbing hold of Roxie’s neck.
I thought that in order to portray my character successfully I should aim to include a range of emotions in this scene to not only develop my character but to portray to the audience the “show-like” nature of this production. I decided to begin with my character just being meant as she’s just in disgust about the dress, I feel like by doing this it shall help to begin the scene as quite calm and then allow it to escalate as it develops. When we decided to add in Billy grabbing my neck it was quite a heated moment so I felt like I should tone down my aggressive nature when this occurs so that it comes as more of a shock to the audience, I decided that this should cause my character to act a bit shocked in order to fuel her aggressiveness when they begin to swear at one another.
We briefly discussed the use of our costumes. Alex felt that due to the formal nature of the event to come we should dress accordingly including my horrible lace dress. By having the horrible lace around my neck it’s a clear contrast to what I would usually wear which shows that Billy is controlling her. Usually Roxie would be dressed in quite sultry black tight clothing so by wearing a loose incredibly horrid dress it allows the audience distinguish Billy controlling nature. When running through the scene we found that at the start the scene was a bit empty, Billy was just waiting for me to enter, so Alex decidedly that he would bring a briefcase and a load of papers aligned on a table and when he starts talking about who says what he would then rifle through those papers. This helps to add to the “show-like” nature of the performance, where the papers could be inferred as scripts.
Thursday’s began with us warming up with similar warm ups to last week, apart from instead of the counting we did a different exercise. The group would walk around the space and partner up and then we would label ourselves one or two. One’s would then act out their morning routine and two’s would have to copy. It’s not particularly musically important but in terms of a drama perspective it allowed us to get into the mind of our characters and their traits and the way they may act. It was then suggested to us that our character may sing in a different was to what we do as an individual. For example the use of an accent and how that may differ our singing voices.
Next we were told about the importance of sol-far. This is basically the idea that you can look at a score of music and sight-sing the notes in that score, basically knowing how it sounds like before you sing it. Unique syllables are linked to each note of the musical scale, for example, do,re,mi,fa,sol,la,ti etc. Sam added a hand gesture to represent every syllable for every note. It helps to provide and visual back up for identifying intervals (which are intervals between notes). The use of sol-far can help you figure out harmonies as well, by matching the end note of which you want to harmonise and then using do, re, mi, find the third note up from the end note! I never understood how to figure out a harmony and I think by being shown this I’ll be able to figure out my own harmonies when singing things like a duet.
After we’d been told about sol-far singing we then applied it to our harmonies in “All That Jazz”. After last week I really struggled to find the lower note and I think this was because it wasn’t the tune and that’s what I’m used to singing so I decided to go into the sopranos. Even though I’m not naturally a soprano I felt like this was easier for me to sing. The way sol-far was applied was that because the tune is higher we used do,re,mi downwards to find the third. In my opinion I felt more confident singing the higher and felt tht I could sing louder than what I was in the lower group because I felt more confident.
The group then began singing over “Cell Block Tango”. I’m not in this number so Alex and I went into another space and went over our scene together. We felt relatively happy with our staging ideas so far, so we did several run throughs but without our scripts this time. I think over the course in musical theatre I’ve got a lot better at learning my lines and realising the importance of having to know the lines because I know how much it can hinder rehearsals and your character development.
On Friday the group went over “Cell Block Tango” both singing and dancing, so me and Alex were left to our own devices again. We were very confident with our scene and decided we would work on our songs together. Alex did his solo first and I noticed that he was often looking down and not giving it as much personality as he would if he was acting. I gave him this point as feedback and then acknowledged that I need to do this myself, as it enables me to develop my character and make it believable to the audience. My song is “Nowadays” which is a duet with Zoe but she was doing “Cell Block Tango” so I decided it would be a good idea to familiarise myself with the lyrics so when it came to going through the song with Ralph I would be prepared. I also figured that by watching the previous versions on YouTube I could gather a few ideas about props and staging etc so that me and Zoe could have a discussion later on about these elements.
At the end of the lesson Nadine called us in to show her what me and Alex had me working on with our scene. After we’d performed she mentioned that the tension in this scene is supposed to rise and fall, but in our scene the tension remains quite high as we just end up shouting towards one another a lot. After thinking about the performance I felt like we could change the volume of our voices at various parts in order to deplete the tension and then allow it to rise again.
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