Tag: Victoria Turzanski

An essential aspect in developing my character was the research into the behavioural and social traits of a parrot. To do so I researched studies and watched videos of parrots.

 

Physical  Characterisation

One of the most obvious behavioural traits of a parrot is their ability to copy, this trait in my character was not established until a later rehearsal. When it was decided that I would be using this behavioural trait, it became a massive part of my character development. It began first off by copying other birds sounds, however as my character developed throughout the rehearsals I began to copy the physical aspects of the other birds.

The biggest challenge for me when developing this character was understanding the circumstances to which I would be saying my lines as a parrot, as a lot of what the Gossip says, as well as the other birds speeches, do not make sense in the context of the play as a whole. It was then recognised that the speeches are just copied versions of what my characters had previously heard or read, and consequently so was the movement. A large part of developing this characteristic was experimenting in rehearsals; I would play with different ways to use a phone and a magazine in order to portray that my character was, like with the speech, copying what I have previously seen but not doing so correctly, as “although there is a great deal of debate as to just how well these birds actually understand the meaning of the words they speak, there is little doubt whether they and other parrots […], are highly intelligent in comparison with other birds” (Anieti, 2007). This characteristic not only allowed for comic elements but also established that I was not the most intellectual of the birds.

One of the essential parts to physicalizing my character was showing a distinction in my moods from when I was relaxed to scared, and finally when I confront the Wild One at the end of the piece. What was even harder was portraying this physically as a parrot. To portray the fear and vulnerability of the birds when the Wild One is, in their minds, attacking them, I changed my degree of openness, which describes the amount of concealment or exposure of the front of the body, “Animals’ degree of openness tends to reveal how vulnerable they feel to attack by hunters. The ultimate degree of concealment and self-protection – the favoured defence posture among many animals – is the ‘foetal’ position” (Elsam, 2006: 55). Therefore as the Wild One got closure, physically I aimed to make myself smaller and consequently had a smaller degree of openness. When my character became more aggressive however I wanted to have a large degree of openness and full exposure, for this scene I also researched the social behaviour of my bird and found traits such as “Peck threat: aggressor pecked at opponent but did not make contact” (Seibert, 2006: 49), which these birds do when attacking or threatening another bird, other aggressive physical traits which I adapted for this scene were ‘wing flapping’ and ‘charging’. This change in behaviour had to be portrayed through my physical characterisation in order for the audience to recognise what my character was thinking.

 

Vocal Characterisation

Vocally it was important for each of us to create a bird noise, which was not established until later on in a rehearsal when it was recognised that both physically and vocally we needed to be more like birds. To do so I watched videos of parrots to get a sense of the noise they make and this also aided the physical characterisation. As I developed my character more I realised that the noise I made changed its volume and pitch depending on the situation, as if I was using it to signal to the other birds. One scene which this worked particularly well was when the Wild One corners off the Guzzle, parrots call to each other and “in case of danger; they signal the danger with powerful, raucous calls” (Anieti, 2007). I used this trait to signal to the Guzzle, and consequently with all the other bird noises it created a tense, chaotic atmosphere.

For the final scene when the Gossip confronts the Wild One, the direction was to portray a complete shift of character throughout the speech, to show how the birds were beginning to be taken over by instinct. This was something that vocally I found challenging to distinguish a difference. Elsam suggests that changing the speed of a speech can change the dynamics and meanings of it. He states that:

Different speeds of speech create different perceptions of the speaker. Fast speech can suggest confidence, quick-wittedness, spontaneity, energy…fast space can also suggest nervousness; and slow speech can be the sign of a confident person who chooses to dictate the pace of communication. (2006: 99)

When the Wild One began to confront me the speech was fast to show that I was nervous, however when the instinct began to kick in my character became more confidant and aggressive, so I used this change in pace to portray the shift in my character.

 

Works Cited

Anieti, S. (2007) Ten Outstanding Parrot Traits, [online] accessed from : http://news.softpedia.com/news/Top-10-Outstanding-Parrot-Traits-57698.shtml accessed: 3rd May 2013.

Elsam, P. (2006) Acting Characters, 20 simple steps from rehearsal to performance, London: A & C Black publishers.

Seibert, L. (2006) Social Behavior of Psittacine Birds, Manual of Parrot Behaviour, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

In the initial stages of the rehearsal process the main challenge was creating a character that had human and bird traits, and having the confidence to physically and vocally portray a bird. Therefore an essential part to the rehearsal process was the development of characterisation. Once we had developed our characters it was important to create levels in the piece as a whole in order to create tension and portray change. To do so, once we had blocked the piece and created these characters we would run the play and receive feedback. Once we had learnt the lines the characterisation developed, however we were still not getting the correct individual ticks for each character. To discover these specific ticks for one rehearsal we played with our characters, we would move and speak in different ways to discover which way best suited the individual and would also work as an ensemble.

After feedback it was apparent that we were not reacting enough to the changes in situation in the cage, in order to ensure I was portraying this reaction in the best way I researched changes in parrot behaviour, a study on this stated that, “our results illustrate that one parrot species can alter its movement and spatial and habitat use patterns to adapt to human induced changes in habitats.” (Salinas-Melgoza, 2010). The idea that the species has a specific pattern was interesting in creating this reaction as all the birds in the cage are part on their own ritual, and when the Mistress introduces the Wild One, it changes these patterns. Therefore in order to make a distinction in the rituals before and after, I used this idea of movement, spatial and habitat use to frame a change in my character. For example as the Wild One started to show my character the emptiness to what we were obsessed by I began to almost become bored with my own objects and was more fascinated by the other birds.
In order to create tension in my character and portray mental unease, I took Peter Elsam’s advice and used small subtle movements in my hands and feet (2006: 48), so for example when I was sat in my area to portray mental unease I would rapidly tap the phone, if I was stood however I would shuffle my feet repeatedly and increase the pace the closer the Wild One got. On the final performance, these movements got bigger as the piece in general became tenser.

As we approached the show date, our bird characters became bigger and consequently became physically and vocally more demanding. Elsam states that “The voice is especially susceptible to damage from tension, so try to avoid, even when playing a very tense character, centring your character’s stress in the throat or neck” (2006:48). Therefore in order to avoid this we began to do vocal and physical warm ups leading up to the show, and on the final performance a member of the group conducted a fifteen minute warm up in order to ensure that we could deliver and perform our character to its maximum potential without any strain.

Some aspects to my character I did not implement until the final stages, for example, when researching captive birds, I found that many are prone to “Feather damaging behaviour (also referred to as feather picking or feather plucking) [which] is a behavioural disorder that is frequently encountered in captive parrots” (Zeeland, 2009). In our full costume run through I decided to use this information to express how my character had subconsciously become oppressed by the cage, to do so I attached extra feathers to areas of my costume that I would pull out during the performance.

The final performance, for me, was when my character had the most energy throughout the whole process. As the characterisation was so physically and vocally demanding I wanted to save that extra bit of energy for the final performance.  As it was the first time we had performed the piece in front of a large audience, throughout the performance it was important to keep in mind how the piece and my acting looked from their perspective (Miller, 2010). This was so important especially when portraying to the audience how we felt at different moments in the piece, as the text didn’t clearly explain this we had to portray our feelings to the audience physically. For me the hardest element was keeping the energy throughout the piece as even in moments where we were more purposefully static, it was crucial that we kept our postures and ticks constant. The increase in props also aided my character in the final performance as it allowed me to increase these ticks, such as pressing the phone repeatedly when I was nervous.  Overall I feel that the energy of the piece was lifted due to the presence of the audience.

 

Works Cited

A. Salinas-Melgoza et al (2012) “Behavioral plasticity of a threatened parrot in human modified landscapes” Biological Conservation, Elsevier, 303-312.

Elsam, P. (2006) Acting Characters, 20 simple steps from rehearsal to performance, London: A & C Black publishers.

Miller, B. (2010) The Scene Study Book, roadmap to success, New York: Limelight Editions.

Zeeland, Y. (2009) “Feather damaging behaviour in parrots: A review with consideration of comparative aspects” Applied Animal Behaviour Sciences, Vol 121, Issue 2, 75-95.