Individual Development

Individual Development - How I worked on my monologue 

- Create a backstory

- Devising our own Pieces

- Getting into character

- Be prepared for any situation

- Annotate the script/ take notes

- Confidence

- What happens before the scene on stage

I spoke to Chris over WhatsApp for my monologue; he said to me what I wanted it about and how I wanted it to turn out. I explained to him, that I heard stories and had also seen online to how a lot of people feel about going school and what they go through at home and school as well. Therefore, I had written to him that I wanted to be bullied in school and also to be hated by both parents, have a terrible life and pretty much think of suicide all the time. I wanted to perform a role that I thankfully never experienced in my life and I wanted to change my acting style a bit. I had never performed a play like this before, I was very excited to see my monologue. Chris had written it and printed it out exactly the way I wanted 'Dylan' to feel. I then had to do a little background about Dylan for me to be able to understand my character the best I can.

"Chris and I had a discussion about my character; my character is called 'Dylan Ibra'.

 I appear in scene 4 with Pillowman and Dylan's Dad. In the play I explain how I got to the position where I'm right now. I talk about how I get bullied in school  by other students, especially Jonah and his friends, well, his puppies, they follow him wherever he goes. Jonah was the one who started everything. The second time he tried to take my sandwich, I stood up for myself thinking that if I beat him down Ill gain respect and he will stop. But NO. Unfortunately he was better than me. Well 'm not a fighter. Ever since then I've never been able to bring him down or do anything about it. Since then he started bulling me, him and his friends. I would always go home with a bruise on my face or a black eye.

My dad would never support me or help me in any of my needs. If I came home with a black eye or a bruised face, he would shout at me, he would start punching, kicking and push me. He would never help me at all. All he would say is 'you useless shit'. I don't remember the last time my dad ever smiled at me or hugged me or anything. All I remember from him is, his punches and kicks on me. I have never had a peaceful day. Just one. I've never experienced to be happy with your parents. I wish I never existed. There no reason for me to be alive.

My background was;

'When I was born, my father wanted the first child to be a daughter. I still don't know the reason behind me, but yeah, he preferred a daughter first. When my mum gave birth to me, he found out that their first child was a boy, and ever since then he didn't like me at all. He was not surprised at all, my dad never loved me at all. Everything started since then. As I grew up, I was never able to talk to my dad, I would come home from school and go straight upstairs in my room. My dad would always watch football and he would take all his anger on me. He loves the Arsenal team and every time they lose, its like I'm his boxing punching bag, he takes all the anger out on me. He will leave me bleeding on the floor and he will not worry for me at all.

Then in year 7, that's when I met this person called 'Jonah'. Jonah was the best male sports man. He was always really athletic and everyone loved him. I hated sports especially 'football' all because of my dad and the experience I had with him. I remember it was during P.E (physical education) my class was going to play football, and I denied from playing it because I wasn't really interested to play. I see Jonah coming towards me aggravated, asking me why I'm not playing and calling me names and that I'm not a man if I don't play football. I already had enough of my dad beating me about football, I didn't want another person to enter that lifestyle to make me feel bad about sports. Therefore, I pushed him back, and his friends came to help, he stopped all of them and took of his shirt. I was ready to fight him because I didn't want to let him ruin me like that. As I swung towards him he blocked my punch, and he punched me on my face and kicked me in my stomach. I had a busted lip and a black eye.

When  I got home, my dad was mad at me because he didn't want his son to lose no fight, he wanted his son to be a man and fight back. He then punched me on my face and pushed me away. I was crying and sobbing on the floor in a pile of blood thinking how my life got to the position it is now. As my dad walked away he turned around and said 'YOU USELESS SHIT' and he walked off. I run upstairs and started crying and I fell asleep. Everyday Jonah had bullied me till year 11, not only that but coming home with a bruised face did not help my dad seeing it. Instead of helping me, he would hit me as well for not fighting Jonah back. He would always push me and kick me around. He gave me bruises everywhere in my body. I ALWAYS THOUGH ABOUT ENDING IT ALL. It will never hurt anyone, everyone would be at peace and so would I'.

During lunchtime, I sat to eat my sandwich and I saw Jonah again. I try to not look at him and ignore him because I knew he was stronger than me from the first time we had a fight. I didn't want to be embarrassed again. Ever since then, I've always been scared of him and been scared to talk to him. He's always bullied me throughout the two years that I've known him. I cannot even change school because my parents don't even care about me. My dad injures me and bruises me more than Jonah and his friends.

When I saw Jonah again he came up to me and said "What you looking at" and as I was eating my sandwich he kicked it out of my hands. They all started laughing at me, I went to pick my sandwich up, and he pushed me on the flood. They carried on laughing and started calling me names "loser, loser" "look at the nerd on the floor" and things like that. Then I finally heard the school bell ring and they started walking towards their classes. I picked up my sandwich and wrapped it around my plastic bag and I put it in my bag. I make my way to my class, and on the side there are these kids from the window laughing at me and pointing at me and swearing. I tried my hardest to fake a smile and pretend as if everything is fine. I was eating my self inside and wanted to start bursting our crying."



When I received  my script, I looked over it and tried to annotate as well as I could because i wanted to start reading and memorizing my lines. I annotated the script to how I should feel when I say certain words or lines. For example, when I mention Jonah, I hate it so much - mentioning him makes my blood boil, therefore I raise my voice and talk with anger. Annotating my script straight away helped me a lot because I knew what to do and how to react when I would say a line. I have always learned my lines much faster when my script is annotated because it gives a better understanding of the monologue and its easier to remember. I always try my best to memorize my lines really quick and then just work on the movements and objectives - meaning behind the lines and the emotions as well.

NOTES

Work on Articulation, when we get emotional, we lost track of words and we end up mumbling, my notes were to work on it and make the articulation clearer and easy to hear and understand.

Work on the backstory of our character, to get to know him better, I completed this with Joseph, where he helped me with the background. Because of my character, i get bullied by Jonah and my dad also. Therefore, Joseph acted double characters as my dad and the bully as well. The background work helped me a lot because it gave me an idea of how it feels to be bullied and hated by everyone. You have no hopes at all, all you think about is death.

My confidence build up from performing in front of my friends and teacher. If i'd make a mistake they would tell me what I did wrong and help me do it better. We done a lot of run through's before the final performance - run through's helped us maintain our focus on our character and not be distracted from the play to something else. While performing on the final performance, I was really confident and I knew I could do it and impress the audience because I had a lot of rehearsals and had more than enough time to finish and memorize my lines. 

Before my scene on stage, I ran from my dad because he punched me in my face and I came upstairs in my room crying. He punched me because he was drunk and didn't know what he was doing. Every time I would come home from school, I would always get a beating if my dad was home, he was home most of the time. As I came upstairs, I entered the stage crying and sobbing and Joseph my 'Dad' shouted "You can stay up there, you useless shit".