Another theatre company's version of Fugee, i thought it was really interesting to see how they took it on, interpreted the characters and just from this little video, how our version was similar and differed.

Roza's character..

Since Imogen shared the role of Roza we worked together on creating one character that we could both work off. For character 'quirks' to make Roza more detailed, Imogen and I decided she'd be the type of person to; bite her nails, crack her knuckles, ruffle/scratch her head and dragging her whilst she walks, we chose these because we thought she was the type who perhaps put on a stronger front than what she was actually feeling and this enabled us to play her character similarly and in more detail. For the actual performance, we both decided on the same costume which consisted of; A dark green t-shirt, a black skirt, tights, gold necklace and hair tied back. We chose darker colours because we didn't think she was the type to wear bright colours. This helped us again, get into the role and also look physically the same.

The final performance!

After spending the whole morning rehearsing and then again after physical theatre, it all completely paid off because considering where we were last week with Fugee, the final performance went really, really, well. The lower and weaker points were only when there were a few awkward silences and missed lines that could easily have been improved on if there was another rehearsal or so, but they were convincingly and professionally (notably by Kevaughn) covered up. I thought Jacob's portrayal of the hostel manager was one of the stronger points of the play as although the original script didn't give much description on the character, Jacob managed to completely change it up and make 'Sebastian' unique, which was really interesting and he changed and used his voice affectively to fit Sebastian's personality, helping the character come to life. Another strong point was the scene in which Kojo's mother sang him the song whilst he's in the hotel, which I think Leanne took on and performed really beautifully, and it was a major contrast to the rest of the whole play, as it was quite a softer, calmer scene compared to the heavier ones - especially the scene straight after that one. Overall it was a complete success with a positive reaction from the parents i spoke to, and i personally think that everyone tried so hard these last few rehearsals although next time i think we need to put more effort during the beginning of rehearsals so we don't leave it so late to work on so much, like we did this term.

Immigration statistics from 2010.

A news article from The Guardian about immigrants from Iraq trying to seek asylum in the UK.

 Writing a short piece on Roza spent her Christmas:

...Christmas at the hostel was....interesting. The younger ones were already running around screaming happily by 6 in the morning, screaming all over about how SANTA'S COME!! SANTAS COME!!  - but i guess they're allowed. The day was spent with Christmas songs on a loop and games being played. It was all good fun, but i swear, if i have to listen to Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' one more time, i will flip. The manager had organised a Christmas dinner that everyone, for once, managed to sit down and eat. It was nice, sitting down with everyone and forgetting everything else and just soaking up the celebration. Of course throughout the whole day the younger children were horribly loud but was the most excited they had been throughout the year. The manager had actually got round to giving everyone a Christmas present, although, i suspect that they were donated or a cheap buy from the charity shop - but i guess, it's the most we're all going to get this year, so we've all just got to be grateful. It was to have just a day without worrying about things, but as soon as the sun goes down, the bliss of Christmas is gone, and the worry just sets back in again.

Me and Imogen, whom i share the part Roza with - we worked together on creating a similar character that we could both work with, we talked together about aspects of her personality, her characteristics and then wrote them down on this character on-the-wall exercise that we had already done with Kojo, Ara and Cheung a few weeks ago.

This really helped us both develop the character and it helped me think about the best way to play her. It was really, really useful to look into Roza's character and to think about things that we haven't been given already from the actual script, it gave us a chance to think about how we see the character.