2021 Fall Oral Interpretation and Readers Theater

# 2021 Fall Oral Interpretation and Readers Theater Student：A10917011 劉昱君 Jean Instructor: Sarah Brooks ## Weekly Journal ### Week 1 (10/6) * **Vowels & Consonants Practice** English pronunciation focuses on the articulation of vowels. The sounds that come out of the mouth differs from each other based on the shape of the mouth and the position of the tongue. Some sounds of the words might be hard to distinguish if the articulation is not correct, thus it will be hard to understand what the person's saying. This practice helps us to be aware of the importance of speaking clearly. At first, we exaggerated the sounds by opening our mouth wide apart. Once we were familiar with the way of how this was done, we got more comfortable with this way of speaking. * **Breathing** Proper breathing helps us relax. Loosening the nerves, so that we can let out more in the open space. * **Limericks** 順口溜 Most of the words from the limericks are short-letter words that does not consist with many stresses in it. There, the practice that had done before were helpful in practicing this, and it was less easier for us to trip over our tongue. *** ### Week 2 (10/13) * **Name game** This is a larger class than the theater class last semester. It was a bit hard to remember everyone's names even we had been separated into two groups. I had to listen more carefully to each person since some of them spoke really quietly and unclearly. I think it was a good practice for us to get to know each other and their names of course, meanwhile building our ability to remember things better. * **Off-stage focus practice** Not like stage performance for theater, characters don't have real eye contact throughout the play. Instead, they face the audience, imagine there's a mirror in front of them, and look at the "reflection" of the other characters. It is a really new and special concept for myself because from the theater class last semester, Sarah had been saying that we need to have eye contact and respond to one another. --- ### Week 3 (10/27) * **Breathing -- Explore the vowels** I used to be one of the members in the choir when I was in elementary school. Proper breathing is very important when delivering your voice. In order to let your voice be heard, the key is to be loud and send the voice far enough. But it's not like to say the words from your throat but from your stomach (it's called 丹田 in Chinese). From doing that, you can send your voice even further. Based on what we practiced today, voices can actually be sent from different parts of your body (stomach, back, ribs, chest..). It was a little bit hard to tell if the voice really came from the spots or not, but it's easier to tell if it's from the stomach or the chest. When the voice are coming from the stomach/chest, I can feel warmness in that part. Just like the heat is transferred outside my body through the vibration. * **Vowels -- Share the story** To take on the idea of sharing the story, you need to let the audience hear clearly of what you say. To exaggerate the vowel sounds, we need to open up our mouth. In my opinion, if you want to speak good English, you really need to open your mouth. For instance, you can't pronounce /æ/ if your mouth is not wide enough. From others performance, some had really good expressions on vowel sounds. It was clear and smooth. Some really need to speak up a bit (and clearer, sometimes I couldn't even know what they were saying). Taking from my practices, the breath controlling really helps you to strengthen your voice and make it clearer. This actually helps you with your presentation, public speaking, etc., too. * **Consonants+Vowels -- Direct focus** From what Sarah demonstrated, it was just like telling a story to us, the audience. With eye contacting to the audience, it shows the intention of telling something, and it can really make us want to concentrate on the story. Using gestures, like pointing at the audience can also help with the storytelling which will make the audience more into the story. --- ### Week 4 (11/3) * **Breathing practice** With the practices from last week and before class, I feel like I am more and more able to control my breath and the words. When we were practicing with our breathing, I tried to use different parts of body to make the sounds resonate inside. Surprisingly, I could clearly feel it resonated. I could feel the vibration by touching the top of my head when I kept the sound resonate in my head but not when I used my stomach to produce the sounds. This was truly an amazing progress. * **Script practice -- The Ballad of the Oysterman** I like this practice very much. It was very interesting. Especially when we switched our characters, we got to try all the characters with different approaches. Even though, I couldn't keep up my pace at reading the script. I tend to read the script at a low pace in order to express the story in a special way using different speed and tones. The outcome was quite well, but I think even if I keep up the pace I can still able to do that. Maybe I can try that in the next class. --- ### Live English Performance -- Monologue SLAM! (11/5) It feels amazing sitting this close to the presenters! I can feel the tension, emotion, the stories from them. Though I don't understand some of the words and just simply because I don't read that much of those epic literature (or I'm just lack of vocabulary or both). I remember one guy named Tom, he's from England, but he used a Scottish accent throughout his monologue, which is from the movie Transpotting 2. I have to have double extra ears to be able to understand what he said. By that, means extra concentration but that's fine cuz he's cute. Though I can still pick up some funny lines. ![](https://i.imgur.com/9EBybVB.jpg =220x300) It is a great experience to get know what real stage performances are. Last semester, due to the pandemic (and I was too late to find any), I hadn't had the chance to watch any live stage performances. It's nothing like what we did in class. It will be a great help to improve my skills. *** ### Week 5 (11/10) * **Script practice -- The Ballad of the Oysterman** Some movements were added according to the script and what Sarah suggested. We had Valerie played as the daughter and Penny played as the father. Since Valerie is taller than Penny, we let Penny standing on the stool when they are interacting. Through different stage focus, it also creates an interesting feeling because you will see an angry father facing a daughter that is taller than him. After the practice, I can pick up the pace more and not too chopping the words. It was fun changing from the lines that the oysterman's saying and the lines described his action. *** ### Week 6 (11/17) * **Script practice -- The Appointment in Samarra** Today we had our class at a new place. Though it's smaller than the original, it's brighter and it's just for us (AFLers) to use. We practiced a new script that had decided last week, *The Appointment in Samarra*, I teamed up with Chiho, Joy, Minnie, and May. We learned to divide each character and the lines each should say. We also switched between characters to see which one each of us want to play. I chose to play as the servant, and thought that I could express a panic and nervous feeling throughout the lines where he was explaining what happened when he was at the marketplace. Then we added a few interactions between the characters like handing over the horse rein to the servant, the servant hopping on the horse and ride away, etc. --- ### Week 7 (11/24) * **Breathing practice** The practice today was a bit different from before. We focused stronger on our stomach this time. We tried pushing the walls, lifting up the chairs to strengthen our stomach and to make voice from there instead of our throat. While I was doing these things, I could feel that I was using the muscle of the stomach. This make your voice better to be heard by the audience. Then we closed our eyes and feel the differences of our breathing between each emotions. Happiness makes the breathing more peaceful and steadier. Sadness makes the breathing slower and it uses more muscles from below the stomach. Anger makes the breathing faster, intensive, and breathes more from the upper part the body. Different lines can show different emotions. By breathing properly and adjusting it accordingly, you can express the emotion out of the line and make the audience feel more about the character. * **Script practice -- The Appointment in Samarra** There were some excellent performances today. What I like about the first group (Alan's group) is that their voice were all loud enough to be heard, and the articulations were very nice. Alan's performance as a rattlesnake was wonderfully authentic, especially when he spoke like a snake whenever the words have a 's' sound. Our group worked more on the repetition in order to create a sensation that the Death was near. After a few times of practice and stage performances, I came to aware that I need to make some adjustments to the tonation I was using. I put too many emotions that the line was not showing, thus made it less authentic. To think about how the character would say the line, and what emotions they would feel when saying that, could make the actors better interpret the characters. --- ### Week 8 (12/1) * **To Sit in Solemn Silence** I watched the videos of 'To Sit in Solemn Silence' Sarah posted on Moodle. They gave me some ideas of how we can arrange in our performance. Since the rhythm of it is light and energetic, I think it will be suitable to apply some repetitions. After the first tryout today, I feel like we can still add some more because the overall length is too short. Also, as Sarah suggested us, we should think of a better ending at the end. Besides that, from watching others' performances, there were some different repetition I can use in ours. --- ### Week 9 (12/8) * **To Sit in Solemn Silence** On the second tryout of "To Sit in Solemn Silence", we added a proper ending to make it more complete and some adjustments to our clapping. It needs more focus to perform, speak, and be connected with others at the same time. I think should work on the connection more and it's not only to my other teammates but also the audience. To make it like telling a story instead of just memorizing the lines and say them out plainly. And the final singing part could make it more interactive with others? Maybe I can be aware of them turning to my position, so I can turn to face at them, then drop my head and end the show. * **Go over new scripts -- In Prison/On Must Learn to Love** The two new scripts from Nietzsche, *One Must Learn to Love* and *In Prison*, are quite hard to understand when I first read them. --- ### Live English Performance -- Monologue SLAM! (12/10) This is the second Monologue SLAM event. I especially love two of the performances today, one is Erin's moth story, two is the lines from *Hidden Figures* presented by the girl on the right. Since this time I still sat in the first row of audience (again, it's always nice to sit at the front), the emotion and the tension coming out from Erin's performance, I could feel every pinch of that. The story is also very interesting! The building of that creepy and suspicious atmosphere was absolutely successful. I personally love the movie, *Hidden Figures*, very much. It talks about back in 1900s, how black women suffered from unequal treatment, and how the main characters, three black women, broke that unequal status. That performer presented the line where one of the characters explained why she was not in the office often, and it was because there wasn't any colored restroom to use. I think it was very authentic, and brought me a lot of chills because that's one of my favorite parts in the movie. ![](https://i.imgur.com/tNQZubh.jpg =500x360) --- ### Week 12 (12/29) * Script Practice - One Must Learn to Love *** ### Week 13 (1/5) * **Practice for final script - The Story of An Hour** *Online Practice (1/4*)-> https://vimeo.com/662291739/166424e49e *Before Class Practice*-> https://photos.app.goo.gl/VSxqswL6r8rhVNPV9 To prepare for the final performance, me and my teammates rallied up and commenced to practice. It was so much better to practice face-to-face than to practice online. The two of my teammates have rather lower voices, Amber and Joy. I also tried to make my voice sound distinguishable between different characters since I was responsible for Josephine's, Richards', Brently's, and the line for the society. We reviewed other groups' performances afterwards. I loved how Edmin expressed the character of the 'mad man.' The voice of his and the tonation were wonderful. The script arrangements with his teammates made the story really well told. *** ### Week 14 (1/12) - Final Performance * **Practice with Sarah (1/11)** We made a lot of arrangements to our script with Sarah's help, and it also helped me come up with some good ideas. Through the practice, I could see that not only me but others had really make our improvements. Amber and Joy were more willingly to open up and make themselves clearer and to be heard more. Along with more exaggerated expressions, but not dramatic, they were able to stick less to the script, not just reading along. Besides that, I am happy that I could combine readers theater and drama together, and act when I am performing my line. I had once had of thought of performing as 'Louise' because there's more lines so I can express myself more, but I like the part where her sister Josephine knocked on the door and where Brently showed up at the door. Besides, I also thought that it would a great opportunity to help Amber practice her speaking, her volume, and stuffs, so it just remained what it is right now. It was hard for Amber to express Louise's character since she kinda just likes to play cool sometimes (no offense); however, it was a great improvement for her after this long practice we had done. Thanks to Sarah for giving us these advises! * **The Greatest Show** It was a really great and successful show! Some of us dressed up and brought the storytelling even closer to the audience. I have invited some of my friends to come, though none of them showed up, I was really surprised that Miffy from the drama class came for the show. ![](https://i.imgur.com/BlChNZQ.jpg =500x300) Since I really like the story, *A Telltale Heart*, I paid much attention on the group's performance. Edmin performed so well, as usual. His articulation and voice management were just on spot. There he created a nervous, suspicious, and horrifying atmosphere; however compare to that, others' voices are rather weaker than him. But the overall performance was good, especially the part where they repeated 'louder'. It was really great. ![](https://i.imgur.com/urzp39W.jpg =500x350) It's hard to believe how long the journey we have gone through. Remember back when we still had class in the dance classroom, it feels a long time ago (well IT IS a long time ago). We were not familiar with each other nor any acting/reading skills, especially for those who hadn't taken Sarah's class before. After all we have come through, I can believe that we have learned a lot, not only skills on stage but also ways to express ourselves through speaking. Not just read the words along, but to really take them in, and into your heart.