'Othello' Character

My Othello drawing added with a written description on the picture. Mind my drawing skills as I am not great at drawing but this was one of best pieces to say the least.

Inquiry Questions:

1. Why did I pick Othello?

2. What is Othello's status?

3. How does this affect my drawing?

Iago's Monologue

This is a video of my monologue sorry if the sound quality is not clear as I had to re record it because the original file got corrupted.

'Special Effects' In the globe theatre

'Special effects' were described using language in Shakespeare's time but in contrast to the playwrights who described special effects using language there were acting companies that could produce special effects on a dramatic level. For example lightning and thunder filled theatres that needed 'storms'. Money was not always invested into theatre and getting the 'ingredients' for special effects was expensive therefore special effects could be used in moderation.

Exactly how were special effects made?

In terms of thunder the effect was produced by either rolling a cannonball (a heavy ball that made a thunder like sound) across stage or drums were beat offstage. In those days there was actually something called a thunder machine (A box balanced like a seesaw that used a cannonball which rolled side to side to make the noise).  Flashes of lightning were also made by throwing a type of powder into a flame to make a flash. Artificial 'lightning bolts' were made by attaching a wire to two sides of a stage which was attached to by a firecracker. The firecracker then gave them that lightning like effect which was entertaining for all watching. The firecracker shot from top to bottom or side to side giving a firework that lasted for about 5-8 seconds.

Things can go wrong with special effects to right?

Special effects rarely go wrong but 29th June 1613 they did. The prestigious globe theatre burnt down during a performance of "Henry VIII" a Shakespeare play, this was considered as big news especially in that time as things like this did not happen often. Ingredients used to make special effects did not always smell nice especially when set alight. Sulphur smells like a rotten egg and saltpetre (made from cow dung) already smells bad when mixed up and worse when set alight they were both put together to make gunpowder.  These are used when the witches in Macbeth make smells the air in the theatre actually was not dangerous but just disgusting to breathe in.

How about spells and magic?

Plays from Shakespeare's time had a lot of influence from spirits. gods, goddesses and they usually entered through a trapdoor from above 'heaven'. The actors/actresses were usually lowered in by a strong wire this process or descending act was called 'flying in'. Obviously for positive and good spirits there are bad spirits (evil spirits, devils) that came up from 'hell', under the stage through a trapdoor. Firecrackers were the normal thing when a devil appeared or witchcraft or magic was used. Dr Faustas (a popular Christopher Marlowe play) had one such production where the devil put firecrackers in their mouth to suggest they were 'breathing fire'. Companies related to theatre used smoke as a magic effect and the best part about smoke was that it could be coloured (depending on what chemicals were used). Real fire was used shrewdly as it could be dangerous to the wood and the globe theatre (fire was why the globe 'burned down'). Flames were rarely needed but if they were needed strong alcohol was mixed with different types of salts depending on what colour of flames were needed.


Theatre companies used smoke mostly as a magic effect, although it was sometimes used to suggest a fire. They could make black, white, yellow and red smoke – depending on the chemicals they mixed together. They used real fire as little as possible, it was very dangerous in a wood and thatch building. If they needed flames they burned strong alcohol mixed with a variety of salts, depending on the colour they wanted the flames to be.



Now the globe theatre has been restored into a modern version and is still based in England where the old theatre was and still has plays dating well back into William Shakespeare's time.

I did not know that they used ingredients for special effects even though I did not know it still did not surprise me. Another thing was that I did not know that the globe had plays that were not only Shakespeare's.

Interestingly I found the fact that people actually had the guts to put firecrackers in their own mouth amusing which is quite scary as well because I know that it is not a small thing to put your mouth and taste buds at risk. That was quite daunting also because health standards was high nowadays.

Shawn 10C

Character Study

I am going to analyse Roderigo from the Shakespeare play 'Othello'. Roderigo plays the role of a jealous rich and wealthy man who simply cannot get the girl of his dreams. In terms of Othello I do not have a great liking for him and this is why....

First off Othello is with the women of my dreams and that doesn't make any sense because in my mind she is meant to be my women/wife. The worst fact is that he is an outsider and I feel (as Roderigo) that she would be better suited to posh lifestyle. This of course provokes me even further because my best friend the opportunist Iago gets this into my head.

The feelings are mixed but they are a mix in terms of negative feelings mostly jealousy and anger because again reiterating the fact that I am used to getting my wants and needs and in this case that did not happen. The disappointment feeling is also there and that comes from the fact that I am again not getting what I want.

My reaction again is similar to my emotions and I am not happy. As usual being rich gives me the mind to think i deserve to get everything I want and reiterating the fact that I do not like being second best to someone regardless of who they are.

Obviously as a jealous grown man it is acceptable (not really) but yeah it is acceptable to understand that I want to break this relationship at any cost and my somewhat 'supportive best friend' Iago tries to get it into my head and succeeds in doing so. Obviously this ends up bad as seen later in the play with not only Othello and Desdemona losing their love life but I also end up losing my chance of being with her.

Shawn 10C

Final Performance Reflection (Unit 1)

After learning and taking in a lot of skills over the course of our first unit in Drama we ended up doing a performance based on one or more of the scenes that we had practiced in our drama classes during the unit.

My group consisted of myself, Federico, Laith, Sai and Tommy and our piece was based on the bus 174 incident along with Carlos getting kicked out of his home.

My character was a frail, daring and lost teenager called Carlos and my situation/scenario was I was scared to death of father although I loved him dearly but I had lost all the money I had earned at 'work'. I knew that my father would kill me if I reached home with absolutely no money. I was a very delicate character that did not really have any mental capacity to face an angry father. As a character I had a lot of distinctive lines that showed
a) I was scared to death of my father yet I love him
b) I was a troubled teenager who had no purpose in this world
and finally...
c) I was no big gang member in fact I was delicate and quite frankly scared.
A few of my lines that were an example of the above...
1) "How am I going to face my father"(scared of my father)
2) (When Laith attempts to interrogate me) "I WANT TO GO BACK TO MY FATHER"
(my profound affection for my father).
3) (Thought Tracking) "How could I lose that money?, How could I be so careless? and is that a gun in his hand?"
(this shows just how lost I was (losing the money))
Along with these lines that I said during our performance I was quite restricted in my posture as again I was a "delicate gang member"and my toes were pointed inwards just to show how restricted I was. The fact that for most of the performance I had my head in my hands and most of my gestures were extremely hesitant was a massive clue even before any of my dialogue that I was a troubled soul. I did not utilise my accent change 'talent' to much which is something I wanted to do but I am not disappointed I didn't. I feel that I did a good job portraying the person I wanted to be although I did really well I still feel that I had room for improvement (accent change).

Our beginning was a quite a slow start yet it built a lot of tension in the audience. The beginning consisted of me (Carlos) and Tommy (Drunkard) in a bus occupied in our respective lives and again it was quite silent besides from the bus driver (Sai) yelling out the stations and stops. Entering angrily and not very silently was Nascimento (Federico) who first angrily dropped the money for the driver to pick up and then strolled to the back seat hesitantly yet confidently. The middle then came when we started to use 'tableaux's' (freeze frames) when we used the drama technique of thought tracking. The middle then sauntered along into the climax with Carlos getting fake killed and then controversial death of Nascimento we came to quite a depressing end where we tried to portray the lost streets of Brazil and I feel that we did in the form of a bit of role play between Carlos the lost yet daring teenager and the lost clearly not confident police officer (Laith) had a face off where eventually the faster teenager got away. The end was when I broke away from the police officer who had absolutely no care for the innocent person he killed barring in mind he also killed Nascimento.

I feel that as a group when I thought we were not being productive we actually were and the fact that our group looked like a group that could not pull anything substantial off and then doing the opposite and pulling off a brilliant performance was one thing I felt that worked really worked well for us. Another thing was we made sure no scene was boring and we utilised both space and time extremely well and that is another thing I feel very pleased about. Finally another really good thing was the fact that we had made sure a character's were all very believable and relavant to whatever performance we were doing.

Overall I am extremely pleased with our performance as both a group and individually. There was room for improvement like utilising the role of our characters a bit more but overall it was an extremely good performance. Our performance made me feel that we wrapped up the first unit in very good style.

Shawn 10C

What happens when Carlos is kicked out of his uncle's house?

In this specific scene we were re acting the scene of Carlos who is the nephew of Eduardo. This scene is based on what happens after Carlos is kicked out of the house by his uncle because he did not bring back any money from the outside therefore making his 'uncle' starve and kicking Carlos out because he is a waste of a 'nephew'.

We took this shot on a train where Carlos has boarded.

The scene consists of myself, Luca, Josiah and Krish, Krish is Carlos in this scene and has got no money for the train ticket (showing how the Brazilian youth can get lost quite easily in life) and a kind rich guy Alberto (Josiah) has paid the ticket for Carlos out of pure generosity and because he likes Carlos (Not all rich people are bad in Brazil was the aim of that gesture).

Corte (Luca) is an impatient train ticket collector and is having a bad day therefore he snatches the ticket angrily and walks away (this is showing the image of ticket collector's in Brazil). Rivaldo (Me) am seen as the rival gang member that Carlos helped and At the moment you can see my face thinking how I could have died today and how a rival gang member saved me. With a lot of thoughts running through my head like "Will I ever see him again?", "How can I ever repay him?" etc my life is at a complete standstill. Carlos on the other hand is semi-regretting his decision and feels life is over for him.

The two characters clash later in the scene but that part of the story could go either way.

Possible endings:
1) Carlos is accepted into the rival gang works his way up the ranks and eventually becomes the leader.
2) Carlos is beaten up and thrown out of the train to rot and die.
3) Carlos ends up working for the rich guy and getting a better life.
4) The two members Carlos and Rivaldo make their own gang/team or business.
5) Life continues as it is and everyone in the train go their separate ways.

Which ending?
We don't know :)
Shawn 10C

'Marking The Moment'

In our recent drama lesson we expanded on our skills in making our characters both believable and realistic. However we focussed on a particular skill which was called 'marking the moment'. This skill was used when we finished a particular scene.

Our scene was quite a particular scene which ended when the new 'train-surfer' was about to commit suicide when the police threatened him (Oggy).

In this frame Laith is seen as a curious and a train driver who has completely lost his senses due to the actions of the train surfer that was going to kill himself. While the photo was taken you could say he had a complete brain freeze and had absolutely none of his senses working at the same time. The role of Laith was to epitomise a driver lost in his own world someone just looking to finish his day but ending up tangled in a nightmare.

Moving on to the other characters Anushka was a police officer doing their normal thing and obviously taking advantage out of whatever they do because they have no choice. The role she played was as seen in the scene a role that is a bit like a sadistic, opportunist and someone who is looking just to take advantage of the situation.

I play the partner in crime the more experienced train surfer that has contemplated on why he didn't help his new teammate and save his life. In general I am seen as the team leader who is concerned for his team until something bad happens. I also am seen as a very over confident person who has a soft side when someone is in trouble but again I do not have the courage to stand up and help.

Oggy is seen as the young prodigy in train surfing who is eager to prove himself and badly wants to enter the field. In general he wants to be the be among the top and again is willing to do anything to prove himself.

Marking the moment is very clearly shown here with Oggy blackmailing the police with his life which is a gesture that is clearly shown when he reaches up to the wire. This shows how desperate he is to retrieve the vibrant yet deadly life he has. The other characters like myself, Laith and Anushka are all doing are respective things but because of Oggy our characters display the type of person they are. Laith was a lost soul who had absolutely had no idea what he was doing, Anushka was a police officer that did not have a clue about what to do to Oggy. I am as I mentioned earlier a person who is generally a hardcore, determined train surfer who is proud of his art yet has a soft side that can be exposed in situations like these.

Shawn 10C