Unit 9 - King Ubu

KING UBU

CONTEXT:

For Unit 9 we will be working and performing a play called 'King Ubu' which is a parody of Macbeth written by Alfred Jerry and translated by Kenneth McLeish. 

The play is loosely based around several different Shakespeare plays  and is about a man called Pa Ubu, a friend of King Wenceslas, who his cunning wife convinces him to murder and assume the throne. The play is a satire/comedy following the battle between Pa Ubu and his barmpots with Bilikins and King Wenceslas's army. 

We will be working towards putting on a production of this play as a class for our end of year show and final assessments on Tuesday 18th June. This gives us all a couple of weeks to prepare and rehearse.

Firstly, were given a copy of the script to read through as a group. The language used in the play is very unique, its a combination of old English, cockney rhyming slang and complete gibberish. For example, there is one sentence in the play that goes like this: 

"our favverwichartinevvan forgivmasins", some people found this type of language almost impossible to understand however I was immediately able to recognise it as saying " our father, which art in heaven for give me for my sins" , a line from the lords prayer, and was excited by the wackiness and unusual language of the script. 

 RESEARCH & CHARACTERISATION TECHNIQUES

The first thing Shenagh did to prepare us for this was show us a few videos of other satire and comedy pieces. This was good because it helped to give us a feel for the tongue in cheek humour that we will need for 'King Ubu'.

Unlike some of the other plays that we have looked at over the year, this is the first piece we have done that allows us to be a bit more free and funny.

This is really cool because it means we don't have to take ourselves too seriously on stage and can really have some fun with as it is supposed to be a comedy.

After spending the first  few lessons reading through the play together as a class and trying to come to terms with the language, we were given our individual roles for the play. The class was split into two - one half doing the first act and the second doing the other. Roles were to be split for the first act and the second. For example, Altin was playing Pa Ubu for Act 1 however I would be playing him for Act 2 .

In order to portray Pa Ubu we have been thinking about what characterisation techniques and acting skills I might need.

Body language - As he is competing for the role of King, Pa Ubu is a high status character, which involves bold and open body language. As a confident male he walks with long strides, chest puffed out, shoulders back.

Tone of voice - his tone of voice is authoritative, firm and projected loudly. He's a cockney royal who speaks with a rugged confidence. He shouts a lot and makes up funny words. 

facial expressions - Because its a comedy, everything including facial expressions are to be done in a really exaggerated, pantomime manner. This can be hard because sometimes it feels like you're doing too much but actually with this kind of acting the bigger the better. 

Another thing I decided to do was to research my character, Pa Ubu, as much as possible. It was important to me to try and find as many different representations of Pa Ubu and watch how he had been portrayed and acted as before as well as watching how Altin chose to portray him in order to try and match the delivery.

PROBLEM SOLVING/ REHEARSALS

There have been many bumps along the way of this production which I have found very difficult to handle. A lot of it has been about persevering and trying to make it work as best as we can which I have found quite frustrating as I feel like we ( or I ) should be past the level of " trying to make it work".

The first problem, in my opinion, was the lack of willingness or ability to understand the play, which for me is the most important thing. How can you act something out if you don't understand what you are meant to be doing?  I cant speak on what the exact barriers were for some people however, I felt that not many people truly understood the context of the piece which meant their delivery was poor.

Also, as well as this, there was a big problem with attendance. Admittedly, I do not have perfect attendance however this is due to mental health and I have always been able to put maximum effort in when attending, learn lines and deliver my best possible performance. Unfortunately this could not be said for the rest of the class, people were either turning up hours late or not at all. This meant that during a lot of the scheduled rehearsals scenes had to be skipped, cut or replaced. This also meant that people were un aware of how things had been blocked out which lead to constant repetition due to having to catch people up. This is another thing that had a detrimental effect on the show as attendance to rehearsals is key when working on a piece as class/group. If not everyone is present, then not everyone can succeed and others have to step in- which increases their own workload - and the fluidity of the performance diminishes.

To add, people were almost completely incapable of learning their lines.  When we were first handed the play, one of the first things that Shenagh said was that she was thinking of cutting some of it due to people complaining it was too much to learn. This upset and shocked me because learning lines is almost the most important thing when it comes to acting! I mean, How many pages did people think their favourite movie scripts were? I ended up convincing Shenagh that surely we would be able to manage the task as ac class, however I could not have been more wrong.  Quite literally, a day before the show people did not know their lines, which scenes they were in or where they were supposed to come in from.

As rehearsal director and someone who is very passionate about developing their skill set as an actor, I found this all very irritating and disappointing. I am not perfect or the best actor but I believe that effort and willingness to learn goes a long way - something that my peers seemed to lack. Despite all three drama teachers working together ( Rob, Monique and Shenagh) , scenes being cut, broken down and repeated , a group chat and extra rehearsals being set up by me as well as extra long lessons (9 - 5) the other students were unable to put in enough effort to create a smooth running show.



Rehearsal director!



Rehearsing Act 4 Scene 3!





EVALUATION

Without being too negative, as I feel that there were parts of the show that went good, if I'm being honest as a whole I feel the play was an absolute disaster and embarrassment.

Altin and Anastasia started the show as Ma & Pa Ubu and I have to say that they smashed it. Everything about the performance they delivered was amazing - down to costume, characterisation , corpsing and stage presence. They were definitely a hard act to follow, they have always worked really well and bounced off each other when on stage together. Even when people forgot to bring on and take off essential props, Altin was able to improvise and stay in character. Their scenes were easy to follow and very funny.

Unfortunately I  felt that my half of the play let the performance down as that's where the majority of mistakes where made - though not by me. I was playing Pa Ubu from acts 3-5 and didn't make any mistakes with my lines or miss my cues, however most people in my half of the performance did and I found improvising over their mistakes quite a challenge.

For example, In the beginning my army are meant to come on stage before me and have a silly introductory scene, however half my army did not make it onto the stage on time which delayed my entrance and created a few awkward moments and also creating a little bit of anxiety for me before I went on stage.

After this, there was another scene where my army was supposed to fight a character called Tsar Alexis however the character playing him did not arrive on stage for quite a while. This lead to me and my army awkwardly standing around on the stage trying to improvise but not in the same way which looked very awkward and felt just as uncomfortable to do as it was to watch.

There was also as a part where I was supposed to fall on the floor and grab someone's gun to shoot them but my aim when reaching the gun was a little off so I ended up shooting him with a wrong facing gun.

Although we were taught repeatedly how to bow by Rob, even at the end of the performance we were unable to come together and perform a bow in unison.

Despite all the trials and tribulations we had to face, I was very proud of us all for getting through the show.

Show day!