Nanyang English Drama Club (NYeDC) Production Journal
3 April 2006
The NYeDC is currently producing a new upcoming and exciting play entitled "Five Foot Way". The cast of the play includes various J1 and J2 students from the Drama Club. They have been practicing for quite some time, but today was the first time that I met the cast.
The cast did some improv exercises, acting out a Star Wars lightsaber duel to simulate a fight scene in the play. The purpose of this exercise was to get the actors to explore their actions and reactions during this particular scene. They then had a group reflection time to discuss what the different motivations that they felt in their characters and the experience and feeling that they had when playing out the role.
The cast rehearsed spontaneous acting as a backup should things not happen as planned during the performance. They tried to fix a few problems such as space management and the distances between one character and another. Timing the scenes and having the actors enter and leave the stage at exactly the right time was challenging.
Mr Tong, the consultant in charge of the production, advised the cast on playing characters that are generally older than themselves. Mr Tong stressed the need for the cast to behave more maturely to really portray their adult roles. He also wanted more realism in the reaction of the characters especially in a scene in which they discover a dead body.
Despite it being only a practice session, several of the cast showed that they have truly immersed themselves in their roles. Desmond Gan plays the character of Hock so well that in a betrayal scene the high energy and tension was almost palpable.
By: Stanley Lee