UNIT 9 A Vampire Story

 A Vampire Story

The Characters:

Ella

Eleanor  (A young women)

Claire  

Clara (A young Women)

Frank (A boy)

Briggs 

Moon ( Schoolboys, present day)

Debit

Point (Schoolgirls, present Day)

Mint (A Drama Teacher)

Fillet  (A Food technology teacher)

Marianne (A Child Prostitute)

Ruthven  (A Gambler)

Darvell  A Stranger)  

Tina  (Franks mother)

Geoff  (Franks Father)

Letty

Harriet  (SchoolGirls, 19 Century)

Bettine (A Maidservant)

CONTEXT

A vampire story is an atmospheric and often funny exploration of their Vampire lifestyle. Two females arrive in a small town and try to fuse with the community, But are they really themselves? Shifting between the past and the present you can see that their lives unfold while examining their unusual relationship. Moira Buffini was born in Cheshire to Irish parents and attended ST Marys college in wales, Moria Buffini studied English and drama at goldsmith college. Moria trained as an actor at the royal welsh college of music and drama in Cardiff. Moria Buffini won a time out award for her performance and also had a writers guild award for best fringe play. 

Ella (vampire) is the protagonist of the play who tries to convince herself she is a vampire, Ella has a older sister called Claire, They travel town to town making new lives for themselves. Ella enrols to a school and she does drama where she meets people such as Briggs and Frank. Ella decided to tell the others that she is an vampire but the others don't take it seriously, The question is is she really or is a mental health problem? Ella has a play about her past life as a child. Ella (Protagonist) uses words like Beelzebub to to show her vampire this is subliminal messages throughout the play.

Information on Ella :

She is a sick child

Playwriter 

orphan 

Mother is her sister

vampire...

Sister is overprotective

Ella and Claire are trying to blend into society with the opportunity they both have, Mint, Ella and Frank are introduced into a drama class. Later on in food tech while peeling potato's they talk about vampires, Briggs and point end up in a bar and Briggs who shows of his wares tries to pick Claire up for a date, Point plays hard to get, Moon is a fool and debit is drunk.

Later on the play Ella is in a class while Darvell who is a stranger sits with Ruthven at a card table, Darvell speaks about his friend dying but Ruthven doesn't believe it so this stresses Darvell. Later on the play Franklin has a party, There's quizzes and food and what not. In Scene 7 is really interesting because Ella is in a car park and she embraces death but this is weird because vampires need blood to survive so this scene links to her convincing herself she's a vampire.

Scene 8 is interesting to because Mint and Claire talk about Eleanor and vampires and this scene also shows us that Eleanor has a play/Script about vampires. In scene 9 Eleanor, Ella, Ruthven and Letty are all together and is an education class and they mention how men look dangerous and about a dead mother. Later on Frank and Phillip are in food tech, They show pigs blood and they both talk about the disappearance of Briggs, This scene is really interesting and the pigs blood actually links back to scene 2 where Ella herself said " I hesitate to tell you. But ive tried almost every experience in my life, except one - telling the truth. I freely confess that I  have stayed alive for all these years by DRINKING HUMAN BLOOD" In Scene 2 this is an subliminal message to let people know who she "is".

RESEARCH

Vampires are very weird creatures that lurk on the weak and strong to suck blood, The only time they do this is during the night. Vampires are undead creatures and in some cases a Vampire will go visit a loved one to cause mischief or deaths in a neighbourhood that a vampire lived in. Vampires hunt at night since sunlight weakens their powers and some may have the ability to morph into a bat or a wolf.

Vampires have super strength and often have a hypnotic and sensual effect on their victims, They have no reflection and no shadows. In the middle Ages, People were much scared of Vampires especially when it came to a plague decimated town, A disease often left behind bleeding mouths lesions on the people.

The people often thought of this as a practise of vampirism so people thought it was an action or a practice ritual of a vampire, In modern days a conversation of a vampires isn't as scary as for someone to talk about vampires back in middle ages. 

Modern day Vampires have fangs, drink blood (Like the olden vampires do if we compare) and have no reflection and can be warded off with garlic. There are three types of vampires 

Sanguinarian 

Psychic

Hybrids

The Sanguinarian Vampires ingest small amount of blood for energy, they try to separate themselves from the religious and occult vampire groups by calming their vampire "vampire" condition.

The Psychic vampires (Energy vampires) is a religious creature said to feed off the "Life force" of other creatures, Psychic vampires are represented in the occult beliefs of various cultures. they are spiritually or emotionally weak creatures who drains others vital energy from other people.

A Hybrid is more dangerous and deadly then other vampires and werewolf's combined, Is pretty much self explanatory that a hybrid is a mix with werewolves and vampires, they possess the powers of both species making them twice as powerful.

Moira Buffini written a lot of plays 

screen plays

(Filmography)

Marianne Dreams (2007)

A Vampire Story (2008)

Hand bagged (2010)

Tamara Drewe (2010)

Jane Eyre (2011)

Byzantium (2013)

Viceroy's House (2017)

Harlots (2017-2019)

The Dig (2021)

TECHNICAL ROLE

I role was a technical manager/director and my job was to make sure all the other production rollers were up to date and knew what they were doing. In one of the lessons I made them come together to speak about there roles and how they could make it better, I made people that had a role of sound sit together with people that was in charge of lighting, we spoke together to see how sounding and lighting could match to create an atmosphere. My role made me confident which took over my worrying's about the roles not being up to scratch. At once at a time, I would go and speak to every individual to see how they're doing and if they had a problem.

Some times I would get frustrated, due to the fact that in a way I had to rely on production rollers to get things right.

Problem solving

I had to make sure no one was lacking and everyone knew what they're doing, if I didn't do this the play would have change of failing and if that was the case then I would fail as a technical manager/director, in order to make sure no one was confused I would personally sit down and talk to each and everyone on how they were doing, Then I would make them sit together and talk about their plans.

I was worried because even though I help others, It takes one problem to mess up the whole thing but I hoped that everything would go as planned. 

We was running out of time so one day we went to the theatre to run it through and to get things done and dusted to get it ready for the real day of performance.

I had a thought about the actors and their script lines, that if they don't read on cue it can delay the technical art as in sounds or lighting, Luckily we knew our lines so it turned out amazing.

REHEARSAL

 

In class we first did body and vocal exercise to get us ready to act for example we did some humming at different volume and some neck stretches, we did this because during our performance we could get ready and not lack on a few things.

we also worked on our voices for a strong clear projection this is very important because without a strong clear voice the audience 

we also had focus and control this could develop character by staying in the scene and actually living the moment and not lacking. I also developed my use of my memory for movement, this was effective when me and some of the actors actually remembered where and what to do including blocking but unfortunately some of us including me have to rely on the other actors to remember the movement too because if they don't do this it can have a big impact on me and the other actors, we rely so we don't mess up if not we wont be able to do the gesture.

I had to learn the lines regardless when the play was because without the script during rehearsal I can do what I have to do comfortably, but with the script it can get I'm my way, while am acting or during gesture movements I will have to go back and look in my script for my line.

Staying in role is important as we blocked and took of some lines, we practised a lot of scenes over and over again but this was perfect because the more we did the better it was. We did this because we had a lot of ideas and when we put in in the scene it was very good however some of the actors had better ideas so we decided in a way to put all the ideas so we all could agree on it. 

We played this beneficial acting memory game that we played, we get split up and go into rows of 3 and if Shenagh said 23 the people in row 2 and row 3 have to run and switch up lines so if I'm in row 2 and Shenagh said 21 i run into row 1 and the people in row 1 run into row 2. It gets tricky as If Shenagh Shouts our 22 or 33 or 11, Because is the same number we jump up.

We did this because it can increases our attention, concentration, and focus, Is beneficial because it gives us a faster comprehension and improves the memory strength. After we did some rehearsals from scene 1 and how we could improve it better sometimes we changed up scenes, We did some blocker and we kept practising. 

By Moira Buffini, the play is an atmospheric and often funny exploration of their Vampire lifestyle. Two females arrive in a small town and try to fit in with the community, but are they really themselves? Shifting between the past and the present you can see that their lives unfolds while examining their unusual relationship. 

The message that is conveyed in this play is about vampires, death and love, this play is a supernatural play meaning it has manifestations or events considered to be of supernatural origin, such as ghost but is vampires instead. This can include with fantasy since a vampire isn't really a real thing. This play is a mystery since Briggs and Frank disappears later on in the play, Of course this rises up a lot of questions. There is romance, During scene 4 Briggs tries to talk into Claire which is Ella's "Sister" and this is a coincidence since Briggs disappears.  

My role was Briggs and Darvell, Briggs is a class clown who makes jokes to make his mates laugh especially when it came to Frank and Ella, When Frank was in the hot seat I asked questions like if he was a wanker or if he was gay. I also tried to make the class laugh by telling Frank I loved him.

Later on scene 4 I was in a bar dancing when I spotted Claire, At this point I was trying to pick her up (while showing of my wares) for a date when it backed fired and she was a weird one and so this freaked me out. 

Claire: Claire you dickhead

Briggs: Claire I know there's an age difference between us..

I was confused and exited at the same time towards the end of the scene.

Darvell is a stranger during the scene with Ruthven, I talk about my friends death and how I sent letters to Byzantium requesting aid for my friend that died, This friend was unknown and of course Ruthven was not buying it and so this stresses me out.

Briggs disappears later on and this seemed like a wake up call for the others and this rises question about Ella.

At first we would lay down the scenes acting the same way we did in other lessons but this will include memory movement because without it we would forget what will happen or where to go, This was a problem because during rehearsals we had some actors with scripts in their hands so this got in the way and they mostly forgot what and how we acted out a scene. In some scenes actors knew where to leave stage when he scene was over and to bring or drag certain props away in a specific area.

 

 

PERFORMANCE/ Evaluation 

The performance went well but this is an understatement, it was a phenomenal experience for everybody and regardless of their roles. At first personally, I was nervous because on that day we were going to act, an hour earlier when we rehearsed very few actors couldn't remember there lines so (of course) I was a bit panicky. During scene 1 I and a few other actors were frozen upstage so the spot light was on the 2 main actors acting downstage,

While it was scene 1 I was still nervous regardless of the fact I was frozen but this could be one of 2 reasons, either at the time I was scared that someone would forget their  lines or maybe because I wasn't acting and was just sitting down. In Scene 2 my emotions changed and I was more excited this was because I was acting with good gestures and memory movement, Then I knew my confidence took over my fear so I was happy. Everyone's cues were on point and it was only when the actors forgot their lines that I was thrown off.   Rather than not doing anything, me and some of the other actors improvised to cover up. This made the play more realistic and we received laughs from the audience so it went extremely well.

In scene 4 it was a bar scene and I had to dance. Whilst I was dancing I realised the music had stopped and my partner who starts the scene wasn't on stage. It felt awkward and I carried on dancing with gestures to attract a different actor on the stage. However, luckily my teacher started it off and it ended very well.  Above all else, the performance went really great and it was exiting to act.

In terms of approaches, or to be specific as in skills or techniques, of course we were confused at first until we did our first ever rehearsal.  As soon as we had done our last rehearsal it was way better then the first because it improved from rehearsal to rehearsal.  We tried to remember the blocking on stage but sometimes we had to rely on our fellow actors to bring prop on stage during the transitions.  

During the performance I was aware of improving my facial expressions. This was a good thing as I didn't want to look like a robot, I wanted to play my roles more convincingly and strengthen the personality within the character and therefore impact the audience.

 

 

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