Analysis of speeches

9.01.2014

1.) "Shiela" - A day in the death of Joe Egg
2.) "Luba" - Lady and the Clarinet

A day in the death of Joe Egg monologue
Tone: Irritated and annoyed.
Style: Naturalistic, I would have to perform this as real as I could but I think it fits my personality as I would put it across quite annoyed and emotional. I would use emotion memory as I have been in the exact situation before and this would show the similar emotions.
Physicality: She sounds young but not too young, maybe in her early 20's so I wouldn't change much about my physicality as it is so natural and she is young.

Lady and the clarinet monologue
Tone: Humiliated and worried.
Style: Naturalistic but also a comedy, I would have to perform this in good time so that the comedy of it shows and works to my advantage. If I rush this piece it won't be funny and it won't work too, so speaking it slowly and leaving some pauses for effect will hopefully make this work for me.
Physicality: Luba sounds young but not as young as my first character, from reading a synopsis of the play she has been married before but there is no mention of this in my monologue so I think it is still okay to use for one of my audition speeches. I will play her naturally but also slightly on edge and annoyed too, showing this in my closed body language.

Practitioners: "Joe Egg"
I would say that the most similar practitioner to the style of this monologue would be Stanislavsky. This is because he uses a lot of internal, emotion memory and this monologue uses a lot of this for me as I have felt the same feelings as this character. I will use emotion memory for this monologue and this will make it real too.
Practitioners: "Lady"
The practitioners closest to this monologue would probably be Berkoff and also Stanislavsky because Berkoff shows a big and bold approach which would be shown in the angry parts of the monologue where she imitates the secretary, but then I would also say Stanislavsky because of the emotion memory and the internal emotions.

The observable differences between how I will perform these two monologues are the first will be a lot more irritated but also show a sadness towards the men in her life. The second will be shown more embarrassed and also quite angry too. This is where the practitioners come into it, their techniques will help me to show different vital performance skills like using emotion memory to make it a lot more real and also being bolder and more extreme in parts too.
I will approach both very natural but with a key of over exaggeration to them too. I will approach the first more quieter and shy of talking to people about the problems then the second a lot more bold and really quite angry to show a clear contrast.
Iambic Pentameter will come into how I perform these monologues too, with when to pause and when to not. There are a lot more pauses in "lady" than the first monologue so this technique is used a lot more then.

Shiela
I chose this monologue because as soon as I read it I knew it was just me. It really just said everything that I once thought, it connected with me a lot. I had to pick this monologue because I knew that I could use emotion memory for it and it would be very natural when presenting it. When analyzing this monologue I could see that it is about a woman who is in a controlling, jealous relationship with someone. She wants to get to know other people but knows that she can't because of the jealousy, she has hardly any freedom but is quite a sympathetic person too. She is trying to stop the control by getting away for a while but knows that the other person won't like the idea of it, she gets really annoyed at one point talking about how he always gets his own way in life but she can't stand that. I really enjoy this monologue and I hope it will go well as it fits so well.
The genre of this monologue is hard to say, it could be comedy ("that mole on his face - you saw that"), or it could possibly be drama. The style is quite sad but also very powerful in what she says, it is sympathetic and maybe romantic in who she is talking about. This monologue will work with my own vocal capacity and also my physicality too. There is nothing outrageous about it and it is very normal, it can be done in my own accent and it can relate to my life. It will show the drama schools a real view of me so they get to know the real me without really putting on a character or changing much about myself, this is a big reason why I love this monologue.

Luba
I chose this monologue because I wanted to contrast my two monologues and as this is a comedy piece that is what I wanted without going too over the top. It shows my humor of being quite blunt with that one line at the end of the big story which will tell the schools something about me as they only get around 5 minutes with me in the audition process, I want to show something real. This monologue is about a woman who has not been called back from a man so she goes into his work for contact, but it doesn't all go to plan. She ends up completely humiliating herself and it not working out for her. This suits me well because I can think of a situation just like this one to use emotion memory when presenting. The speech is also very close to mine so I wouldn't have to change much about my performance from real life, the monologue is how I would probably write it, it fits me well.
The genre is a comedy and very natural, the style is also very natural but also quite big and bold at certain points in the speech. I like this because it shows my humor and also will allow me to be slightly different from my first monologue showing a contrast.
It also works well with my physical and vocal abilities, I will be more loud in this speech and show a lot more movement than the first through gestures against the secretary and just general annoyance. I will move around a lot more and will have more expression in my face too as this is a stronger character than my first.
The only problem I faced with this monologue was that it is an American play and I didn't want to do the accent as I am not confident enough with it, but as there are no American words or slang I can keep my normal accent with it.