Characterisation

Characterisation of the character Dwayne.

Chelsey Loveday

Within the play Fallout by Roy Williams there is a gang of young boys who murder another boy called Kwame. In WAKE UP theatres rendition of the script 130,000 I play a character named Dwayne. He is a member of this gang who killed Kwame and is represented as the leader of this gang. Through reading WAKE UP’s version of the script in depth it can be seen why he is the leader, throughout he is the alpha of the group who seems to boss all the others around. This is supported when the script states “Oi! I’ll slap you both if you don’t stop it, pussies” (WAKEUP Theatre Company, 2013, p.53). The script gives the impression that they are all scared of Dwayne and as most of the other members of the gang back down when he speaks. This is supported within the script when it states that “Dwayne – Don’t do this yeah? Get it. Emile – Alright mate, chill. Dwayne – You chill! Emile – I’m cool. Keep the money. Dwayne – There’s no more fucking money! Emile – Alright mate, whatever, I made a mistake, innit” (WAKEUP Theatre Company, 2013, p.54).

When working on the development of my character I watched channels 4’s TV drama version of Fallout which can be found at http://www.channel4.com/programmes/fallout/4od. It was important for me to understand the play fully and understand why the characters do what they do to Kwame. By watching the TV version of the script I was able to really understand my character and both sympathise and dislike him at the same time. Although Dwayne does some really bad things such as encouraging other’s to kill someone, beat people up, kiss other peoples girlfriends and treats his friends badly at times, I sympathise with the character at times as I fell as though he is misunderstood by others. He does care about his friends and others, this can be seen when we find out that Dwayne doesn’t kill Emile like he has planned. Within the last couple of pages of 130,000 it reads “Dwayne – You think I would’ve shot Emile” (WAKEUP Theatre Company, 2013, p.66). If he was such a bad person he would have killed Emile as planned when he got a gun to do so. This is also supported by the way Dwayne acts with the character of the Shanice, although in parts he treats her badly you can see that he really does care for her even love her. This is supported within an interview which Aml Ameen who plays the character of Dwayne within channel 4’s drama Fallout participated in with FLAVOURMAG it was stated that “a wide grin materializes on his face as he eagerly talks about his role. ‘I play Dwayne, he’s the general. He’s the villain of the piece – which is nice because I’ve never played the villain before. I’ve always had some sense of morality with my character. He tries to keep everyone together and everything on a low. Then a rivalry begins between him and his best friend because his best friend has a girlfriend who Dwayne’s in love with’” (http://www.flavourmag.co.uk/aml-ameen-the-kidulthood-star-talks-to-flavour/, 2008).

It is also important to remember that the character of Dwayne is a black boy; I had to portray this on stage and make it believable to the audience that I was a boy. For more stimuli on my character I also watched films such as Kidulthood, Adulthood and TV programmes such as The Youngers. I did this so that I could listen to the language used by the people within these films and programmes. The more I listened to the language been used the more I was able to convey a true character on stage whilst playing Dwayne. Not only did all these stimuli help with language but also with movement, facial expressions and gesture, I was able to watch how the characters move and act. This was the most difficult thing for me as I am a female having to portray a male on stage. Although we do not show the background of the characters within 130,000 it was important for me to remember that Dwayne has had a very difficult childhood with no guidance from his parents. You see this within Fallout when Dwayne’s father is an a alcoholic who is always asking him for money to fund his addictions. The characters also live within a very complex and difficult community were gang culture is very common. Through the use of very intense rehearsals and constant notes from all involved I was able to develop the character of Dwayne, to make him a character which I loved to play.

There were certain scenes within the play which I found very difficult to approach at the beginning of the process. Within the fight scene between Dwayne and Emile both boys are winding each other up until eventually Emile snaps and pulls a knife out on Dwayne. You can see this relationship within the script when it states that “Dwayne-Cheer the fuck up what’s wrong with you. Emile-Don’t leave me like that again, yeah. Dwayne-What you gunna’ do. Emile-You’ll find out. Dwayne-Go on then” (WAKEUP Theatre Company, 2013, p.39).The first obstacle with this scene was how to stage it, we wanted different levels throughout and we wanted to transform the stage into another area for the scene to run within. We did this by transforming the one of the café tables and chairs into a park bench; this was done with a slight movement of the props and a lighting change. Both me and Julia who plays Emile within WAKEUP’s rendition played around with levels, I begin sat on the back of a chair, then sit on the chair correctly and eventually as the tension builds within the scene we both stood up from our chairs and were leaning across the table to each other.

Then there was the matter of the flow of the conversation between the two of them, parts of the script had to be cut and changed to make it feel more real and personal to both performers. The rhythm of the scene is very up and down with very intense moments throughout. We made a decision that when the knife is pulled on Dwayne there would be a silence which we held for a very long time of around 8-10 seconds. This silence after such a big build-up of both characters screaming and swearing at each other created so much tension on stage for the performance and the audience. Both boys have a very strange relationship with each throughout the play, to begin you get the impression they are best friends but as the story progresses you learn that Dwayne is in love with Emile’s girlfriend Shanice. This relationship changes and differs greatly throughout the play, they begin as friends then end up hating each other towards the end and threatening to kill each other, Emile gets a knife to kill Dwayne and then Dwayne gets a gun to shoot Emile as payback. We wanted to show the development of the boy’s relationship throughout.

Another relationship which we found difficult to begin with was the relationship between Dwayne and Shanice. Dwayne is in love with Shanice even though her boyfriend is Emile. Although Shanice is going out with Emile at the beginning of the play I think it can be seen that she also has feelings for Dwayne. We wanted the audience to see this relationship even if it was just by a look that the characters give each other. Within scene 14 between Dwayne and Shanice, Dwayne becomes very wound up and ends up shouting at Shanice. As soon as he does though he goes to apologise but when she doesn’t accept the apology he gets angry again and storms out of the café.

 

Works Cited

Channel 4 FALLOUT (2013) Available at: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/fallout/4od (Accessed date: 24/04/2013).

FLAVOURMAG (2008) Available at: http://www.flavourmag.co.uk/aml-ameen-the-kidulthood-star-talks-to-flavour/ (Accessed date: 23/05/2013).

WAKEUP Theatre Company (2013) 130,000 an adaptation of Roy Williams Fallout, Lincoln School of Performing of Arts: Lincoln.

‘Wasting your time here, ain’t any criminals in HERE’ (WAKEUP Theatre, 2013, p.5).Characterisation of Ronnie.

Jessica Helen Crosby

Within our production of 130,000 I played the character of Ronnie, a troubled adolescent from South-East London who is a key witness to the stabbing of a character called Kwame. Throughout the rehearsal process I enjoyed developing the character of Ronnie immensely. Initially her character felt alien to me as Ronnie is not the type of character I have played before, therefore I had to think about her back story and how she feels living in a complex environment of poverty and gang culture. She has an upbeat and exciting personality along with some unpredictable behaviour, she is vulnerable and naive, she follows the crowd and looks up to her best friend Shanice, and tries to impress her constantly. Ronnie is the type of girl who failed at school and is a slight disappointment to her family, making her needy and emotional. Therefore I gave her some characteristic that I felt suited her and this description. I spoke with a fairly strong South-East London accent with a very slight Jamaican feel, as this is where I feel her family originated. I gave her a harsh vocal quality when speaking certain words, for example, when saying words like, here, though, I lowered the register to give more emphasis and to gain a comedic element to the speech, and I pronounced ‘th’ as ‘d’. Furthermore I made her speech slightly rhythmic and elongated certain phrases, I gave her physicality’s which mirrored this rhythmic quality. I had chewing gum when rehearsing and during the performance as this helped me to sustain the character throughout the production and gave attitude to her persona.

The character of Ronnie stemmed from watching Fallout on channel four, this gave me a good base to how to play Ronnie, it also gave me an insight to the relationship between Ronnie and Shanice. The character of Ronnie also developed through intensive rehearsals in which we responded to each others characters and utilised the notes provided from the director, dramaturge and other actors.

I also performed two verbatim extracts, one from Doreen Lawrence, Stephen Lawrence’s mum, and the other from Conan Taffee a whiteness who appeared at the scene when Stephen collapsed. This was to be delivered to the audience not necessarily acted, as we are not becoming a character we are speaking the real words from real people, this is not to say that there is no emotion on delivering the verbatim, it remains more about the words than the character. I found Doreen’s verbatim very emotional when speaking her own words, I felt her pain as a mother who was grieving, therefore the emotion was inevitably attached to the words. This piece of verbatim was at the end of the play and one of the most integral parts to the performance as it encompasses our company manifesto and defines the entire piece of merging fiction with verbatim. Therefore, I had an important job in making the text authentic, but at the same time, producing a compelling performance to express the seriousness and realities of the play. This was the reason behind ending the play with a piece of verbatim, as our script writer wanted to leave the audience with the realties behind 130,000.

With Fallout being inspired by the cases of Damilola Taylor and Stephen Lawrence it brings about representations of real events, even more so with our insertions of verbatim,

‘Williams is intervening in a way that may allow new meanings and new understandings to emerge. The degree of success with which he can do this depends on how readily the parties involved can accept his representation as a sound basis for renewed consideration’ (Derbyshire 2007, p.418).

We as a company had to invest in the representations of the characters and the verbatim text and so do the audience. For the concept to work and for the performance to be innovating and inspiring, we all had to completely absorb our characters and understand the subtext. At first playing the character of Ronnie made me question, how am I going to play a young black Jamaican girl? After attending a workshop by Theatre maker Andy Smith entitled, ‘What does it take to make a theatre?’, he demonstrated through his methods that an audience can achieve believability in what is being presented in front of them. Just as an audience believe that Jud Law played Hamelt and they invested in him being Hamelt, the audience will invest in our characters because we are putting it in front of them. This is also supported through the story and the emotional connection the audience make with our characters, with Ronnie being funny and slightly stupid they liken to her and therefore it is believable, furthermore I believed my character one-hundred percent which conveys itself to the audience making it easier for them to invest their belief.  The audience build a connection to the fact that Ronnie has a huge predicament of whether to tell the police that her best friends boyfriend killed Kwame, furthermore the connection to Emile goes further, the audience feel sympathy when they see him living with the guilt but also feel bad for feeling this sympathy because he is guilty of murder, but this is why the characters works so well and is why the audience invested their belief and furthermore is why it becomes irrelevant that we are not black, the emotion, intensity and realness of the story supports the believability.

Derbyshire, Harry (2007) ‘’Roy Williams’’: Representing Multicultural Britain in Fallout’, Modern Drama. pp.414-434

Smith, A, (2013). What Does it Take to Make a Theatre? Theatre Company Guest Workshop, Lincoln, LSPA

Performing Verbatim through audio

Robert Smith

Performing verbatim material is difficult enough on stage, putting yourself into the character of a real person and repeating dialogue that came from someone spontaneously. In a way it is the ultimate in reality drama and a good way of achieving dialogue that is as naturalistic as possible. What was more challenging was performing verbatim knowing that it was only going to be the voice that was heard and not being able to act with your body as well. Recording verbatim with a microphone can feel artificial and you are neither surrounded by other characters or audience to work off. In addition, you are not clothed to suit your character, another helpful tool in getting into character which can hinder your performance. In order to rise to this challenge, I found it useful to gesture with my hands whilst speaking, physically acting even though I couldn’t be seen, hoping that it would add another dimension to the realistic sound of the speech. It was also helpful to close my eyes an imagine reliving the story that I was recounting so that I felt closer to the experience and was able to think about the emotions of the person I was acting as. In this way, I was able to change the dynamics throughout the verbatim extract to make it more realistic and engaging for the audience to listen to. I was not entirely happy with the final result and felt that it lacked some clear phrasing and dynamic variation, but I understand that it is one of the most difficult ways to present this type of material on the stage.

Characterisation and development of the character Joe

Robert Smith

Joe is one of the most challenging characters to portray for several reasons. Firstly, his ethnicity is a challenge because it differs significantly to that of the actor. Joe is a middle aged, black police officer who has returned to serve the estate in which he was raised. It is not just Joe’s ethnicity which poses a challenge for the actor but also his age and his social position, including the professional and personal relationships he shares with other characters in the play. This character description is more than daunting to a young, white, middle class student from the midlands.

What I felt most important about playing Joe is to avoid stereotyping. It was essential for the tone of the play that the entire company remained on the right side of this line in order to avoid creating undesired comedy through the creation of caricatures. In order to avoid stereotyping, it was important to be subtle and maintain ambiguity regarding his ethnicity, as I felt it was one of the less important features of his character profile. It was important to prioritise elements of Joe’s character in order of relevance to the narrative. In this way, Joe was reinvented in order to serve as a functional character in the play acting often as the voice of the audience, teasing out information from the guilty characters about their criminal activity.

With the play having been based on Roy Williams’ play Fallout, and a subsequent television adaptation, I took influence and reference from them both with regards to playing my character, seeking to find inspiration in mannerisms and physical stance, as well as the subtle ways in which the actor uses his voice, both dynamically and in tone. In this way I was able to take the traits that suited my portrayal of Joe and leave the more inappropriately authentic traits out.

Joe’s characterisation changed a couple of times throughout the process. This was largely due to the professional relationship he had with his colleague and superior, Emma. What is most interesting about these characters is their different approaches to the case, Emma taking a very systematic approach, noting down every detail she can find to find some sense in the something that is so nonsensical. Joe on the other hand prefers to take a practical approach; he is opportunistic and takes a great deal of initiative in his work. He is not always as respectful as he should be towards his superiors, largely I believe due to his frustration towards the miscommunications occurring between the authorities and those they serve. This relationship was interesting to develop as I wanted to find the line between being unconventional and being insubordinate. Initially, we tried having Joe being disrespectful to his superior officer by pushing in front of her through a doorway or giving her dirty looks, rolling his eyes at her etc in an attempt to show his contempt for her. Whilst this achieved a strong contrast between the two characters, we decided ultimately that it was too strong a contrast to be considered realistic and that sort of behaviour would have got him into trouble. Once we reined those behaviours in to an acceptable and realistic level, the complexities of the relationship were able to reveal themselves. The relationship became one of mutual respect, despite the obvious differences in personality and professional style. It was important for these characters to respect one another as the have a shared goal and need to work together and this comes through in Joe’s timidity and reluctance to take over from Emma in the presentation scene.

Joe had been drafted in to work on the case because of his familiarity with the area and the gang culture, having grown up on the estate himself. This position of importance affected the way that I portrayed him. For me, Joe would have a complacency about him having been called up for his skills and unique expertise and it is for this reason that he was able to bend the rules somewhat and get away with more than he would under any other circumstances. Although I wanted to achieve this air of complacency with his role, what was more important was his personal attachment to the case. Having been born and raised on the estate, I saw him as an older version of Kwame, an outstanding individual who had managed to break out from the vicious circle of crime and poverty and for this reason, felt that he had returned to make a difference. It was this personal relationship to the place and the people that fuelled his desperation, frustration and anger towards the failing system.

Recording the verbatim of Duwayne Brooks

Chelsey Loveday

As stated by Marilyn Le Conte “studies show that 90% of communication is non-verbal. Facial expressions, gestures and eye contact are vital in conveying emotion and meaning. So how then is it possible to create a believable character and engrossing atmosphere using only your voice” (2012, http://www.rwcmd.ac.uk/other/news/inside_view/less_is_more_radio_acting.aspx). When acting for radio the listener is unable to see any of these gestures and facial expressions. This is a very difficult task to accomplish as a performer; I had to get my feelings across through the use of my voice alone. Therefore the process of acting for radio is very intricate.

The vocal and aural qualities which affect each performance are listed by Richard J. Hand and Mary Traynor as “volume, pitch, pace, accent, individual characteristics” (2011, p.175). It was important that I experimented with all of the qualities to find what suits your character best. When recording to the microphone it was important that as a performer I remembered that the microphone corresponds to the ear of the audience and listener. I wanted the audience to understand everything that I as a character was thinking and feeling, which was why I experimented differently with the way in which I developed and performed the verbatim.

The verbatim which I recorded was that of Duwayne Brooks, he was Stephen Lawrence’s best friend and present the night he was murdered. When the attack happened he was helpless and couldn’t do anything to help his friend. One member of the group of boys that killed Stephen Lawrence chased him with a metal bar. “Duwayne Brooks says it was like a ‘major car crash’ when his friend was murdered by a racist gang in 1993” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2013/apr/22/stephen-lawrence-duwayne-brooks-legacy-video, 2013). On a personal level I could never understand how it feels to watch your best friend be murdered and I wanted to make sure that I did the verbatim justice. I watched clips on www.youtube.co.uk of Duwayne Brooks for inspiration and to gain a full understanding of him as a person and his feelings about the attack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeHQM_TD2oo

The above video especially showed the emotions that Duwayne felt towards the attack, the attackers and the events which took place surrounding Stephen Lawrence’s murder.

“Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme today, Mr Brooks said: “For 18 years, I have endured harassment, victimisation, being blamed for the first prosecution failing, being brutalised and having false charges brought against me” (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/stephen-lawrence-murder-witness-duwayne-171398, 2012). After reading this article and seeing what Duwayne Brooks had said on the murder of his friend, really affected me. It shocked me to read that people had previously blamed Duwayne for what had happened to Stephen Lawrence. This only made me want to record the verbatim with even more honesty and integrity.

Works Cited

Hand, Richard and Traynor, Mary (2011) The Radio Drama Handbook Audio Drama in Context and Practice, London & New York: Continuum.

Le Conte, Marilyn (2012) Less is more: Radio acting Uncovered, Available at: http://www.rwcmd.ac.uk/other/news/inside_view/less_is_more_radio_acting.aspx (Accessed date: 04/05/2013).

www.guardian.co.uk (2013) Stephen Lawrence’s friend Duwayne Brooks on murdered teenager’s legacy, Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2013/apr/22/stephen-lawrence-duwayne-brooks-legacy-video (Accessed date: 21/05/2013).

www.mirror.co.uk (2012) Stephen Lawrence murder witness Duwayne Brooks says seeing killers jailed was “worth the struggle” of years of acrimony, Available at: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/stephen-lawrence-murder-witness-duwayne-171398 (Accessed date: 21/05/2013).