Birthday Party Review

The Birthday Party, written by Harold Pinter was my story of choice. My performance actually consisted of an extract from The Birthday Party as it was written as a play and performing the whole play was a little too much! In brief the play revolves around 5 characters, Meg, Petey, Goldberg, Mccann and Stanley who over the course of the book are involved in a lot of sinister, subtle and dark, black humor events which ultimately leads up to Stanley committing suicide. However, in the extract I chose to perform, an extract I call, “The interrogation scene,” only Stanley, Goldberg and Mccann are involved. In this scene Stanley has become uneasy with the presence of Mccann and Goldberg in the Bed and Breakfast place where he lives and so he attempts to make them leave house. However, Goldberg and Stanley who are very sinister characters give Stanley a VERY hard time by ignoring his demands to leave and eventually turn the tables and fire dozens of random questions at Stanley that they want answered. Stanley does his best to answer these interrogation questions but eventually loses touch with himself and a grasp over the situation. These questions lead Stanley into a breakdown where he eventually screams, and effectively ends the scene.
I found this text very appealing for a variety of reasons. One of which was how bizarre the scene is created and concluded in such an unorthodox manner. For example, when you walk into a random place, people are normally timid and courteous to the tenants and existing guests. Goldberg and Mccann however were not. As a matter of fact, they were extremely rude and dominating, but in a very subtle way. This masterful skill enabled them to very quickly break Stanley down into a crying mess with seemingly little effort. Another factor that really impressed me about this text was the obvious shift in power between the characters. At the start of the scene, Stanley had all the power, making orders and barking demands at Goldberg and Mccan, but eventually Mccan and Goldberg take all the power away from Stanley, leaving him below the bottom of the power ladder.
The build in this story begins at the “sit down” dialogue. Stanley orders the men to leave the house, but instead Goldberg and Mccann begin the fiasco with Stanley by asking him to sit down. Stanley eventually sits down, which leads nicely into the crisis phase. Stanley sitting down is in my opinion the crisis as he has just shifted the first element of power into Goldberg and Mccann’s favor. Because Stanley relinquished some of his power, it was foreboding of more power to be lost. It is after this crisis that we have a lengthy crisis, or a second buildup into the climax. Goldberg and Mccann’s quick, personal and demeaning questions at Stanley continually build up to the climax, especially because Stanley is progressively getting worse at answering the questions. This vast buildup of tension is eventually released in the climax of the scene, which is the breaking point for Stanley, the point he lets out a loud scream in frustration. Immediately after the scream, comes the denouement. Goldberg and Mccann have completely wore Stanley down to a broken man and they confirm this by saying “you can’t live, you can’t think, you can’t love, you’re dead,” effectively confirming what the audience already knows from watching Stanley fall from the proud man to the heap of nothingness.
My reactions and subjectivities came into play while first and after reading the text as I could relate to Stanley. Initially, I though Goldberg and Mccann treated Stanley very unfairly, especially as I could see no reasoning behind their actions. However, when I thought twice about it, I realized I only felt this way because I’ve been hammered with questions various times in the past similar to the way Stanley had just experienced, and at the time I too thought it was unfair. However, I realized you have to consider the meaning behind Goldberg and Mccann for doing what they did. In my view, in order for Stanley to improve the poor excuse for a life he lives, he would have to stop the one he is currently living which is very difficult – to compare, quitting a very addictive habit such as cocaine. I believe Goldberg and Mccann saw this, and so they tore him down so he could learn new habits, and hence rebuild a better life in the same time an addict goes through detoxification.
In my performance I played the character of, Goldberg. In my opinion, Goldberg is a very hard, stern, yet extremely intelligent individual. Because I not only vocally depicted the character but also acted, there were various physical traits I used to portray Goldberg. For example, I made it a point to be definite in my walking movements, slow in my change from status levels, (sitting on the chair, crouching by Stanley’s feet) and made the effort to constantly invade Stanley’s “personal space bubble.” Through this I believe my character was put across to the audience as the strict, intelligent and always one step in front of my opponent person.
Similar to my physical movements, I translated the same characteristics into my vocal delivery. On occasions I was slow and deliberate in my questions to Stanley, as if I was pondering where to go with the question. In other circumstances I spoke very fast, loud, almost in a mocking tone to ridicule Stanley in my attempt to break the man.
In my opinion, my performance strengths were mainly in my voice, which came about through a lot of hard work. As oppose to my first performance, I took more time preparing and becoming more familiar with my text, hence understanding the meaning and purpose of every world involved. Even the simple words such as “and,” or “in,” I paid attention too in order to evoke the true meaning of the statements Goldberg was making. Through this, I believe I gave Goldberg the true personality in performance that the author, Harold Pinter had wanted. Another strength in this performance was the British accent I used to portray Goldberg. This sounds a little weird, but in High school I did some theater, and all we did was British plays, similar to The Birthday Party, and so I was used to performing in a British accent. My first performance I was not very comfortable acting in front of the audience as something did not feel right. However, with The Birthday Party incorporating the British accent, I felt a lot more comfortable during performance, and I felt it added to my ability to pass the meaning of the text onto the audience.
My main weakness in this performance I believe to be the length of the text I chose. As you know I did this performance with Jen as my partner, and so I would have liked to choose a longer extract or play. I would have liked to choose one that has a greater range of vocal emotions, or a clear contrast in speaking styles within one text for the same person. The reason being, in The Birthday Party, the tone of the scene does not change a great deal, and I know a play with a greater range in tone could have exploited my abilities better – enabling me to give a better performance.
To conclude, I believe this second performance was a lot better than my first performance. First of all, I actually enjoyed giving this performance, and I liked the story, whereas in the first performance I REALLY did not like my story, which prevented me from performing well in front of an audience. I believe my use of voice, body, correct interpretation, and identification of audience in this performance was a massive jump from my first performance. In a nutshell, I was very unsatisfied with my first performance, and although I can see room for improvement I am very happy with my performance of Harold Pinter’s, The Birthday Party.

It's Crunch Time!!

The Premier league is really heating up. Points are at a premium, as Alex Ferguson would say, "It's Squeeky Bum Time!"

Scotsman seem to have the best sayings...

I haven't been able to post as much as I have wanted to, but that doesn't mean I haven't been keeping track of all the games and watching them as much as I can!!! On the contrary... I wake up early every Saturday and Sunday morning to watch the Titans of Soccer battle it out for 90 minutes... what would life be without soccer?

Heading into the hunt it's Man United with a 6 point cushion... HUGE matches against Chelsea and Arsenal coming up. If united mange to get just one... ONE point off those pretenders, they would be crowned champions, yet again, and finally take over Liverpool as the team of the ages. GO UNITED!!!

Who is going to win the Premier Title?

I've been watching some seriously beautiful games recently.  Did you see man utd vs. wigan?  That was a master class in destroying a soccer team and something I was proud to watch.  How about Wayne rooney's overhead goal recently?  What about Chucharito's coming of age performances?  Baby faced assasin is back again!  It's all good stuff.  It kindof makes you wonder when you watch these people play, what their personal lives are like.  The players matter so much to the world as part of their team, how do they deal with it?

I know Wayne is married to Colleen... they're having a baby n' stuff.  But what about Chucharito?  He's new to the UK, and new to the team.  How is he finding time for a personal life?  Wanna go on a free online date? LOL. Can you imagine the response he would get?

Fingers crossed the run in to the title remains exciting as it has been so far. Keep going Man United!

It's about Soccer. It's about the beautiful game. It's about a way of life.

For any passionate fan who has ever had the joy of having a round soccer ball at your feet, or the avid player who has had the honor of smashing a ball into the roof of a net, this blog is for you.

Glory Glory Man United (and all soccer teams and fans).  Whomever you support, I respect you so as long as you support somebody and try every once in a while to play the game.

 

You know, it's really frustraiting for me to be living in America.  Back in England, people watch soccer ALL the time.  It is a culture.  Life isn't good without a game of soccer in front of you. In America, there is baseball, basketball, hockey, american football, among a bunch of other things.  Soccer doesn't get any play locally, and we rarely get the EPL over here.

 

The only way to get the EPL is to pay an arm and a leg for a subscription to two, yes, TWO channels.  Having these two channels is the only way you MIGHT be able to watch your favorite team play.

 

Sigh... it's sad, but I'll tell you what.  On that random Saturday or Sunday morning at 6am, if you're lucky, you might... juuuust might get to see your team play, and it's ALWAYS a good time.  It makes the wait sortof worth it.

 

Then again, rather than only watching 1 good game every 6 weeks, i'd rather watch 6 okay games.

 

But I digress.  This was my first posting.  I'm testing this site out so sorry for being all over with my post.

 

Lack of soccer attention in America is my first topic.  How do you guys feel? What are your thoughts on Soccer?  Hope to talk to you all soon.