Monday 3rd December 2018

On Tuesday we mainly worked on reviewing choreography simply because Nadine’s feedback mentioned a lot of worried faces and not feeling so confident during the dances. I felt particularly confident with the choreography itself, but just when I have to worry about adding in harmonies. However, saying this I feel like its definitely improved since the beginning of rehearsals. At the beginning I really struggled to add the two together which meant that the dancing was often messy, and the singing wasn’t particularly great. But now I feel confident with singing and dancing together but it’s just the harmonies that I’m struggling with.

We tried out the harmony with Rachel just singing the harmony and I feel like it was a very good decision to make because I’m not confident wit that harmony and now that we have some of the louder singers doing that bit as well it makes me feel like I’m able to really go for it rather than not. We also ran Roxie which was a little bit out of tune to begin with, but I think this was because people weren’t sure of which part they were supposed to be singing and then also getting confused with the choreography. So, Nadine broke it down for us again just to clarify the dance, so we’d be comfortable when we got time with Ralph to go over the singing part as well.

Me and Alex took ourselves off to a practice room to rehearse the scene with the frilly dress which Nadine said about Alex’s back facing the audience. We blocked through the movements that we did and made sure that Alex and I knew who moved when and what line that corresponded to and we also made sure that either one of us had our backs facing towards the audience. Whilst Alex and I had the practice room I thought it might be a good idea to work on our interaction in the song “Razzle Dazzle” just because the feedback we were given mentioned that I looked out of place. I thought that if Alex and I interacted more then my presence on the stage would make more sense. By making my character feel particularly angry about what is happening in the song, that being Alex/Billy getting all the attention, I decided that I should be quite reluctant to interact or even talk to him in the song, therefore he would need to be quite persistent. It would be almost as if he was showing off to me and I hated that. The movement consisted a lot of me turning away from him in an attempt to ignore him and then him turning me back around and getting in my face quite a lot. It just helps to reinforce the relationship between the two, how Roxie isn’t really interested in anything but fame and that when it’s stolen from her, she’s not too happy about it.

Zoe and I decided to show Nadine how we were getting on with “Nowadays/Hot Honey Rag”. Personally, I felt that we’d made a really big improvement over the few weeks we’d spent on it. I definitely felt a lot more comfortable with the singing and the choreography and feel like in costume It will look particularly effective. Nadine said that she was really happy with how far it had come and there were only a few little things with timing that needed clearing up that she would go over with us afterwards. But she did say that mine and Zoe’s interaction whilst singing still wasn’t quite up to scratch. I still think this is because we are really focusing on getting that singing right, we’re still concentrating on using diction and ensuring that we are in the right key. However, saying that, this is the final performance of the show, this is the scene where both Velma and Roxie have got everything that they wanted, they’re famous and I think that we need to show that through our interaction with one another. One of the ways that I thought we could do this is make more eye contact with one another, make it as though we are trying to outperform one another but still keep it to the level where we know we couldn’t do it without one another.

On Thursday we worked on the judge scene again. As a group we felt that Keira’s entrance was sort of unprovoked and we needed something that would cause her to come on. In “All that Jazz” when Fred Casely gets shot, we used balloons to make the sound of a gunshot, we thought this would be good to use in this scene as well because it would give us cast members onstage something to react to, and for the lines to be cut off and then Keira to burst in. this also helps the audience what’s happening in the scene and makes Keira’s line make sense. The shooting that takes place creates a juxtaposition between the court scene that is occurring, because my killing and committing of crimes is over and a new character has come in and started that all over again. After Keira’s lines have been said all of the cast except Alex and I need to exit the stage, we decided that it would be a good idea for them to rush off of the rostra at the back and for me to climb that rostra in a hurry to try and get attention from the reporters. It’s at this point where I’ve realised, I’ve lost my claim to fame and when I deliver these lines, I’m just grasping hold of hats left of that fame by almost performing my lines to Billy.

 Rachel and I finally got to work our scene just after “I can’t do it alone”. Throughout the song she thought it would be a good idea for me to basically ignore her for the whole song, however I thought that there could be little gestures or raises of her voice in order to grab my attention to really show the opposite natures of our characters at this particular moment, with Velma being very pleading and demanding and Roxie being very uptight and refusing. I felt that with a few of her gestures and voice raises it would add a comedic nature to the story and help to entertain the audience more. First of all, we decided that the use of a small newspaper that had the headline “Roxie rocks Chicago” on it, this helps to portray Roxie’s vain nature, and helps to add a comedic element to the scene. One of the first gestures we implicated was with Rachel smacking the paper into my face, we felt like this really showed how uninterested they both are in one another, which adds that comedic element as they’re both so unaware of how much they actually need each other. 

At the very end of the scene after I’ve finished my little monologue I decided that it would be a good idea to use the newspaper again, because my line is “Nothing personal”, and I thought that I would hold that newspaper up and point towards it and sort of show myself off to the audience to really depict my self-loving nature to them. The whole monologue before that is all about how the world and everyone in it loves Roxie now and not Velma. So, for a lot of the monologue I decided it would be a good idea for me to remain just in front of Velma as it would demonstrate how I now have that power that Velma used to have. I decided to put in a lot of mannerisms that Roxie may have in this monologue and throughout the song, for example, touching my hair, looking at and buffing up my nails, all things that scream I love myself, just so that it is abundantly clear to the audience.

On Friday the group showed Richard what we’d been working on. He gave us the following feedback:

1.       The movement that we had included was great it really reflects the plot of the scene and represents what the story is about, with the idea of the grabbing hold of the last moments of fame etc.

2.       The use of the gunshots before Keira’s lines was brilliant it really helps the audience understand what’s going on and helps Roxie to develop her jealous character even further.

3.       Roxie (me) needs to make sure that there’s a really obvious and distraught acknowledgement of what’s happening. Just make the reaction really big as its almost the end of your career and your life.

4.       When the cast members left, and Roxie moves up the rostra acknowledge them as well almost push them out of the way as they’re getting in the way of your last moments of fame.

5.       Work on the final few lines delivered in the scene, make sure that there is somewhere for the two characters left to finish onstage.

After we’d received this feedback, we spent the rest of the lesson applying this to the scene. The feedback given really helped me to understand how in depth my character must be. Richard spoke to me about thinking about myself in the situation, he mentioned that any person would react to something that was said or a noise that was heard and that I need to think about that as my character. I need to consider what’s important to my character and what would spark the most emotion from my character. So, when thinking about this, I decided that this is probably the poignant scene for my character as it decides her fate, and in this case it’s not the outcome she wanted, now I have to really react to that.

For the final lines that me and Alex deliver, we decided to have me remain upstage because I’ve lost my limelight now. Initially I had been running down to join Alex at the front, but by keeping me behind Alex it reinforces the idea that he is the one who has won and not Roxie. We decided to end the scene with Alex sauntering off to his exit music and leave Roxie onstage, as this represents that Billy Flynn has a place to be and somewhere to go in life and Roxie doesn’t anymore.