Vinegar Tom & Silent Movie
The play Vinegar Tom was written by British playwright Caryl Churchill in 1976. The play is set in the 17 century and based around the witchcraft trials in England. The title of the play is the name of the main characters mother pet black cat, which is supposed to be her spirit animal. The play was inspired by the movement of the women's right act in 1970 and explored how women are treated unequally by men.
The play is about a small village girl called Alice and her mother Joan, who are being accused of witchcraft after having a brawl with their neighbours, Jack and Margery. Who are experiencing a number of frustrations for example their work life as well as their bed life. They didn't want to believe that God had judged them so they accused Joan's behaviour and actions on witchcraft.
The play is mainly focused on feminism and how women are objectified and oppressed by men. An example of how feminism is explored through-out the play is when Betty says she doesn't want to be married, which was frowned upon because from the moment a girl was born they were expected to grow up to get married and have kids.
We can clearly see that Betty wants to break away and be independent. Another example of feminism in the play is when Susan admits that she doesn't want any kids because she almost died last time, however Susan also admits that her husband wants her to have more kids.
Caryl Churchill
Caryl Churchill was born on the 3rd of September 1938 in London, England. After the second world war her family moved to Canada where Churchill attended Trafalgar school for girls. In 1956 she returned to England to attend Lady Margret Hall, Oxford University, where she graduated in 1960.
She later went on to achieve the Richard Hillary Memorial Prize at Oxford which is when she began to start writing. Her first four plays, Downstairs (1958), You've no need to be frightened (1960), Having a wonderful time (1960) and Easy Death (1962) were all performed at Oxford by the students studying there. In 1960 her play Downstairs was performed at National Student Drama Festival where she won first place.
During the 1960s to 70s Caryl began to wrote radio dramas for BBC Radio. Some of her plays where then went onto stage, this included The Ants (1962), Not Not Not Enough Oxygen (1971) And Schreber's Nervous Illness (1972). Churchill plays explore the theme of Feminism and how women are objectified and oppressed by men. Mid 1980s she added dance theatre in her writing. In 1972, Churchill wrote a play called Owners which is about obsession with power.
This was also her first play professionally produced on stage in theatre. She worked at the Royal Court Theatre from 1974 1975 and was the first female playwright in residence. She then began to work with multiple feminist company's such as Joint Stock Theatre Company and Monstrous Regiment. Caryl is a strong feminist, hence why she expresses it through her plays.
Feminism is the belief that women should be equal to men, For example if a man and women are both a chef, it's more likely that the man would be payed more which isn't far hence why people who are feminist are fighting for women's equal rights.
Churchill play Top Girls won an Obie Award for best play in 1983. In 1976, Churchill wrote the play Vinegar Tom. Her play grew famous bringing in a wider audience. Caryl then won another Obie Award for her play.
Rehearsals
Our Rehearsal for me was hard considering only one person in my scene was in. There was four people in the scene and most of the time it was only me and Ellie. In our first rehearsal our main focus was of course learning the lines. Ellie and I repeatedly rehearsed our lines. But we still struggled remembering certain lines.
Once we learned our lines we then had to figure out how to say our lines. For example in the first half of the scene the tone of the lines was calm until things started to heat up. As i mentioned before to help with this we broke the scenes down into beats.
When then had to set the stage, which means deciding if we were going to be standing or sitting as well as trying to figure out what the stage lights would be.
We also had to think about body language and facial expression that we want our characters to show. We went through our lines over and over again until it was imprinted in our brains.
Acting Skills
In class we discussed Stanislavski and his many acting methods. One we spoke about in particular was Naturalism and Realism. Naturalism refers to theatre that strives to create reality by using a wide range of theatrical and dramatic strategies. Meaning he believed It was important for the actor to create a inside profile of the character, for example their back story or inner thoughts. Stanislavsky thought this would help actors connect more with their characters and portray a more realistic image on stage.
Realism refers to a 19th century theatrical movement that strives to seek the sense to portray real life on stage. Both the things are very similar to each other. However Realism talks about they way and how characters speak. It also touches on facial expression. Despite from all this Stanislavsky's main goal and method was to get the feeling of natural and believable acting on the stage.
The fourth wall
The fourth wall talks about an invisible wall imagined to separate actors from the audience. It's identify as a theoretical convention rather then a set design. Actors would ignore the audience and only focus on the stage. However there is a way in which you can break the fourth wall. Which would be by directly Turing and referring to the audience. It's also a way to draw attention back on the stage (or to the audience).
The magic if
The magic if technique refers to the actor putting or imaging themselves in the characters situation. This helps the actors open up to their imagination to discover new and interesting things about the character.
Given Circumstances
Given Circumstances refers to the information that's given to you in the play. For example in the play Vinegar Tom, Caryl tells us how old the characters are and what they are. As i mentioned before I play Alice and the given circumstance is that Alice 24 year old village girl who has a son and doesn't have a stable relationship with her mother Joan.
Subtext
The Subtext is the hidden meaning behind the lines. An example of subtext in Vinegar Tom is when Alice says "I don't want to be married, look at you, who'd want to be you". Alice is saying that she doesn't want to be married because she doesn't want to turn out like Susan. But the hidden meaning behind the line is in fact that Alice does want to be married and she is in fact jealous of Susan which we later find out later in the play.
Beats
We broke our scenes down into beats to help us learn how to say the lines as well as learning how to the tone changes in between lines.
Advice
Advice my teachers gave me. Play my adjectives because its sounds like I'm just reading from the script. Ask myself why am i saying the lines and how i am supposed to say them to show how my character is supposed to feel. When I've learnt my lines, play round with the tone of the lines. Thought process isn't something we see but i need to stay focus. Body Language is important. I need to keep still and let the words do the work. Remember it takes time and hard work.
Listen to how the other person says their line and feed of them. Take my time saying the lines and avoid reading the lines. And most importantly don't rush.
Witch-Craft
Our play Vinegar Tom is set in the 17th century and based around witchcraft and in order to know more and understand the play we had to learn about witches. We were told to research witches and witchcraft, there is what I found out.
Most people believe that witches are female when in fact one in five witches were male. Most witches weren't burned at the stake in fact people who were found guilty of witchcraft were hanged. As well as the fact that not all witches weren't bad. Some witches practised white magic and were known as white witches, who were healers.
People could be convicted of witchcraft without any solid evidence, for example witch marks on their skin, allegedly proved they made packs with the devil.
Witchcraft wasn't made a capital offence in Britain until 1563.
Most witches were known to be old and poor widows with black cats or some type of cat.
If they had a cat, this was also proof of them being a witch.
One test, was called the swimming test where accused witches were dragged to the deepest end of the water, stripped, bound and then tossed in to the sea to see if they would sink or float. Another test was the prayer test. It was believed that witches was unable to say the words in Scripture. Which means people who were accused witches were dragged to the deepest end of the water, stripped, bound and then tossed in to the sea to see if they would sink or float. Another test was the prayer test. It was believed that witches was unable to say the words in Scripture. Which means people who were accused of being witches were forced to recite the prayer that starts with "our father" without making any mistakes. If that person made a mistake, they would be considered a witch who speaks in the name of the devil.
Evaluation
Before we started our performance we walked around the room shouting ' a big box of biscuits' we then stopped walking and Shengah stood at the back of the theatre as we shouted one of our lines. During our performance I felt extremely nervous and tried to shake my nerves down, when it was my time to get up on stage I took a deep breath and mentally prepared myself. When it comes too how loud I was, I'm hoping that I was loud and there was a part when I felt my nervous come up again and I rushed my lines. Re-watching it I can hear that I should of been louder and shouldn't slowed down and not rush my lines.
During our online sessions we were instructed too make a plan about what we want out silent movie to be about. We came up with a list of scenarios off what our character would be doing, we could either chose from the list or make up an idea off our own.
My short silent movie is about a princess who is cursed, the princess tries to break the curse but she put the wrong ingredients by mistake killing herself.
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