For this unit we are doing a play called 'A Vampire Story' By Moira Buffini. The play is about two young women trying to settle in a small British town. As the youngest of the two tells her story, a strange and ambiguous past is revealed. A Vampire Story was written for the National Theatre's connections programme in 2008 and a film was made based off the play. Moira Buffini was born on the 29th May 1965. She is an English dramatist, director and actor. She advocates for big, imaginative plays rather than naturalistic soap opera dramas and is a founder member of monsterists, a group of playwrights who promote new writing of large scale work to British theatre. Buffini is also a prolific screenwriter, she adapted her play 'A Vampire story' for the screenplay of Neil Jordan's film Byzantium (2013). other plays that were adapted by her or other plays she adapted: 'Tamara Drewe' (2010) film adaptation of Posy Simmon directed by Stephen Fears, her adaptation of 'Jane Eyre' (2011) for BBC Films and Ruby films. She also took part in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project 'Sixty Six Books' where she wrote a piece based on a book of the King James Bible.
History Of Vampires
A vampire is a creature from folklore that survives off drinking human blood as their source of food. In European folklore vampires are undead creatures that visited loved ones and caused mischief and death in neighbourhoods they lived in when they were alive. They wore shrouds (a cloth that cover or protects some other object) and often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark appearance. The existence of vampires have been recorded in most cultures; the term vampire was popularised in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-Century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in the Balkans and Eastern Europe that in some cases involved corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Other versions in Eastern Europe were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, Vrykolakas in Greece, and Strigoi in Romania. In modern times, the vampire is known as a fabricated entity, although beliefs in similar vampiric creatures such as Chupacabra still persists in some cultures. The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was created in 1819 with the publication of 'The Vampyre' by English writer John Polidori. Vampire literature cover the literary work concerned principally with the subject of vampires. Before becoming one of the stock figures with gothic fiction with the publication of Polidori's 'The Vampyre' which was inspired by the life and legend of Lord Byron. Later influential works include the 'Penny dreadful Varney the Vampire' (1847); Sheridan Le Fanu's tale of a 'Lesbian Vampire', Carmilla (1872), and the masterpiece of the genre: Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' (1897). Some authors created a more "sympathetic vampire", with Varney being the first, and Anne Rice's 1976 novel 'Interview with the Vampire' as a more recent example.
A vampire is a creature from folklore that survives off drinking human blood as their source of food. In European folklore vampires are undead creatures that visited loved ones and caused mischief and death in neighbourhoods they lived in when they were alive. They wore shrouds (a cloth that cover or protects some other object) and often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark appearance. The existence of vampires have been recorded in most cultures; the term vampire was popularised in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-Century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in the Balkans and Eastern Europe that in some cases involved corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Other versions in Eastern Europe were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, Vrykolakas in Greece, and Strigoi in Romania. In modern times, the vampire is known as a fabricated entity, although beliefs in similar vampiric creatures such as Chupacabra still persists in some cultures. The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was created in 1819 with the publication of 'The Vampyre' by English writer John Polidori. Vampire literature cover the literary work concerned principally with the subject of vampires. Before becoming one of the stock figures with gothic fiction with the publication of Polidori's 'The Vampyre' which was inspired by the life and legend of Lord Byron. Later influential works include the 'Penny dreadful Varney the Vampire' (1847); Sheridan Le Fanu's tale of a 'Lesbian Vampire', Carmilla (1872), and the masterpiece of the genre: Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' (1897). Some authors created a more "sympathetic vampire", with Varney being the first, and Anne Rice's 1976 novel 'Interview with the Vampire' as a more recent example.
Finding out about the history of vampires as well as Vampire Literature gives a more in-depth idea of why and how Vampires in stories and movies are so popular and is very helpful for me as it helps picture as to why Moira Buffini would choose vampires as a way to drive the story and lure us in as an audience and catch our attention.
Links
Characterisation
The character I play in the performance is Ella. Ella as a character is I would say very awkward and weird in the way she moves and talks, The way she moves would just be a bit fast paced as if she doesn't want to be in the place she is at and just wants to leave as soon as possible. The way she talks as a character and the tone of her voice would be a neutral tone and almost if she's out of it and a bit in her own world depending on who it is ad what she is talking to. For example, around Claire (her sister)she would probably talk and use of a more aggressive tone towards her as they don't see eye to eye and aren't that close to each other but when she's in school she's more neural and doesn't want to be there and seems more out of it and is distant with other people, almost like she doesn't fit in with the people around her or has many friends until she met Frank. Ella and Frank grow close through out and you can see that they bond over the fact that they are both outcasts with not many friends and know what it feels like to be misunderstood by others like their family. Not only that she doesn't have the best relationship with her sister Claire as they don't see eye to eye most of the time because Claire tries to stop Ella from telling their secret that they're vampires and because of that Ella doesn't like Claire forcing her to keep their secret. Ella I just think wants to speak her truth and stop hiding from who she really is without people stopping her even if it means people think she is weird, that's her mind set throughout the play. She just wants to be free and be herself without anyone stopping her. To get into character better in class we watched a movie based on the play called Byzantium and throughout the movie I watched how the actor portrayed the character of Ella and compared it to how she is the the play and how I can portray it in my own way with added inspiration from the movie as well.
Lessons and Rehearsals
The beginning of this unit we read through the script together. My initial thought of the play when I first read it is that I found it very confusing and I didn't understand much of what was going on but at the same time I found it quite imaginative in a way. Then we got into groups and wrote about the themes, plot, and the meanings behind the play and the significance it has. After we created a scenario based off the themes of the play. The themes of the play are abuse, manipulation, and isolation. This can be shown with the abuse Ella has faced in present times and in her past life with her abuse on eating disorders and the abusive relationship between her and Claire mentally both in present and past as well as the abuse Ruthven gave to 19th century Ella by forcing her to be a prostitute at a young age. Themes of isolation in the play can be shown in school as Ella is secluded from the rest of her classmates for being different and this can also be shown for 19th century Ella trying to survive in the world from a young age by herself. For manipulation goes back to the relationship between Ella and Claire with Claire manipulating Ella from keeping her to tell everyone their secret. In our groups we also looked into the symbolisms in the play and what it could mean along with what it could try to tell the audience. For example, in scene 6 at Franks party throughout the scene Ella refuses to eat anything which to the audience can indicate that Ella struggles with an eating disorder but as she has mentioned previously in the play that she's a vampire it could symbolise her resistance towards human food and a temptation towards human blood instead. Doing this group activity is useful as it gives us as the actor a better understanding of the play, plus, a better idea of what the characters in the play are like so when starting to rehearse and getting into the play we have an idea on how to portray the character we're playing as.
During Friday lessons we did warmups one where one person would ask a question and the rest would have to answer. This helps because it made us more aware of our surroundings and made us wake up more and work our brain. As well as that we did vocal exercises and tongue twisters. This is to help expand our vocals and pronunciation. We then did an improv where we would start a sentence in alphabetical order then did another improvisation where we had to improvise the first sentence and carry on from there .e.g. "Where are you going?". What I learned from this is improving and working on our listening skills and being more aware of what is going on. We then started rehearsing and learned about blocking which is the movement of the character in the stage space as well as that worked on thought process meaning being able to react and use facial expressions in the moment when other actors are speaking, basically what the character is thinking during the process on what's going on around them. What I learned from this is trying to play off from other characters and how to react when I'm not speaking. We then cut out scenes from the script and continued working on thought process. during lessons we also learned about profiling which is the act or process of general information about a person based on known traits. Learning this is helpful as it helps understand my character more and pick up on the habits and tendencies my character usually does and focus on how I can develop my character better. We also did more warm ups and exercises. On lessons with Shenagh we focus on more mouth and breathing exercises such as breathing in for four seconds and out for ten or vocal exercises such as "G G G B B B D D D" or tongue twisters such as "Around the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran" doing these exercises regularly helps stretch out our vocal cords and helps with projecting our voices better as well as helping with our pronunciation. During the first few weeks of rehearsals we were mainly focusing on scenes 1-5 and focused on getting our lines down. For the first few weeks of rehearsals it was a bit difficult to get the lines down especially since I have a lot of lines to remember but by the end of the week I managed to get most of my lines from scenes two-three down since I practically already knew my lines from scene one. We recorded each other during rehearsals to look back on and see what we could improve on for future rehearsals. As it got closer towards performance day I had gotten use to my lines and have practically learned most of my lines from the script there were some lines in certain scenes I would keep mixing up or forgetting but other than that everything was fine, everyone else had been getting on with rehearsing and we had been progressing really well when it comes to scenes and remembering lines and just being quick about it. There were days where we didn't have much energy and just didn't practice as well as other days so in order to pick up the pace Shenagh made us walk around quickly and she would say a number and whatever that number is we would walk in that pace of the number while saying our lines quickly in that pace. I would say that was very helpful because it help me think more quickly and helped me become more aware of what's going on when focusing on when my next line is, But other than that most days we were very focused and concentrated in rehearsals. Few weeks before performance day we focused more on scenes nine-twelve those few weeks I was struggling the most because I couldn't remember some of my lines as I kept either forgetting or mixing it up (same for scene five) but I managed to get a hang of it a little The last few days of rehearsals we had technical rehearsals. The first day of our technical rehearsals was basically just a run through and setting up the cues for what lighting appears for what scene and when it changes and how and where everything is set when it comes to props as well as for music and what cue does the music come in. We were all focused in making sure to remember when and where our cues were and we were all just patient and concentrating throughout. Second day of technical rehearsal we did a proper run through with the lighting and music cues and getting used to when we need to appear or leave for certain scenes and just memorising and getting use to the lighting and music. Throughout the first two technical rehearsals there was still a few lines I kept missing or just mixing up but other than that everything went really well and everyone worked well together and pushed through with the rehearsal.
The final day of the technical rehearsal AND the day of the performance we got to do a costume rehearsal and by the third and final day we all got the hang of it and made sure we all got the cues right in time and managed to memorise our lines. I'd say that the final technical rehearsal went really good everyone was focused and knew what to do and most of us were pretty confident in our lines and knew what we were doing. When we had to do our actual performance I was pretty nervous as I was worried I'd forget my lines or that I'd miss a cue and was worried if everyone else would do the same. There was this one scene where me and Chris (who stood in for someone else) had to swap places but that didn't happen immediately which made me panic a bit but we did end up swapping places so it was good. There was bits of scene nine where I did forget to say some lines but it wasn't noticeable to the audience so I wasn't so worried. I remembered most of my cues and lines and did a pretty good performance and I'm happy that everyone was mostly able to get their cues right and remember their lines. Overall it was a pretty strong performance from everyone and we all acted really great and I'm pleased with how things turned out in the performance. If there was anything in the performance I personally thought I could do better it would be to be more exaggerative throughout and speak up a bit more as even though I did well I felt like I could do better and pull of a more stronger performance.
Vampire Story production (lighting)
For production I was chosen to do lighting and was paired up with Keana work with. When we got paired together we both started working on what we thought would look best on stage and what lighting would work well and what would not so we worked on diagrams to map out what we thought the staging of the lighting would look like. Each week we would focus on working on the diagrams and giving ideas to each other on what we each thought would go best for the performance and would work on our own then come together to share our ideas and combine them together in what we thought would work and fit in. On days where we had Becca we would all go sit around a table to discuss about production and give ideas on what each of us are going to do. We didn't do all the diagrams for each scene in one day so whenever we could in lessons with Becca. Overall, for certain scenes when making them were simple and not much had to be added to them like for the first three scenes were very simple as it's just a floodlight being use with a little bit of colour used for in the background. The scenes for the lighting weren't that complicated and there was only for two scenes where we had to use bright or bold colours for which that we didn't use any natural lighting at all. Since the diagrams was in Keana's computer she had to send them to me but there were problems in which I couldn't download them so I decided to redo them and save the diagrams on my computer. I think overall we both did a good job working on lighting, if there was anything I thought I could do more it would be to participate and give more ideas than I should've.
