Lesson video

Hello there.

My name is Mr. Burt and welcome to our Drama lesson.

And this is the third and final Drama lesson in this unit of learning called, Acting Shakespeare: "Twelfth night".

And in our first two lessons we looked at the characters of Orsino, Olivia and Viola.

And we also looked at iambic pentameter and punctuation pauses.

And in this lesson we're going to look at the character of Malvolio.

And we're going to see if we can use iambic pentameter and punctuation pauses to help us perform his monologue at the end of the play.

But before we do that, let's have a quick look at what equipment we need before we make a start.

Now in this lesson we're going to need a worksheet or a piece of paper, we'll need a pen and you might want a highlighter to highlight some of your lines.

So make sure you've got those pieces of equipment.

And once we've got them, let's make a start.

So this is the rundown of the work we're going to do today.

We're going to start with a recap of the play and then we're going to explore the character of Malvolio.

We're going to have a little look at what he has got to say at the end of the play and attempt to understand his motivation for what he's saying.

Then we're going to act it out and we're going to finish with a quiz.

But before we do that, there are some key words that we need to know in order to help us succeed in this lesson.

The first word is motivation.

Motivation is the term we use to describe why a character does something on stage.

The second is use of voice.

Now use of voice is a term we use to describe how you as actors use your voice to communicate your character to the audience.

And finally use of movement.

Now use of movement is a key term we use to describe how you use your body and the way you move to communicate your character to the audience.

Now both of those use of voice and use of movement have other key words which are associated with them.

And we'll look at those later on in the lesson.

But before we go on with the lesson, let's have a quick vocal warm up.

Now it's really important that we warm up our voices.

Remember our vocal cords are muscles.

And so just like when we do physical education we need to warm up our muscles, warm up our bodies before we do anything, otherwise we might cause damage.

It's the same with our vocal cords.

We need to warm up our voices to avoid long-term permanent damage to them.

So we're going to start with a very quick vocal warmup in this lesson.

And I'd simply like you to say this line after me.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

I'd like you to say that word line now.

Excellent.

Now I'm going to demonstrate what I want you to do.

And then I want you to do it after me.

The first time we're going to do it, I want to just look at breathing technique.

So I'm going to let all the air out.

I'm going to breathe in for five seconds, I'm going to hold my breath for five seconds, and then I'm going to say the line.

So , and in , hold.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

let all the air out with the line.

So over to you let all the air out and in for one, two, three, four, five hold for one, two, three, four, five, and say the line.

Excellent, well done.

I'm going to say it now, you know, as quickly as possible but still making sure that the line is clear.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

I want you to say it in the same way as fast as you can, but still trying to make the words really clear.

Over to you.

Excellent, well done.

This time I'm going to say it, and we're going to say it from fast to slow.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

Fast to slow.

Over to you.

Excellent, well done.

This time we're going to go slow to fast.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour? Over to you.

Well done.

This time we're going to emphasise some of the words.

The first time we're going to emphasise all the pronouns.

So I'm going to say it and I want you to copy me.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

Say it in exactly the same way.

Excellent, well done.

This time we're going to highlight and emphasise the hard consonants.

So I'm going to say it, I want you to say it in exactly the same way as me.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

You say it.

Excellent, well done.

This time, I want you to say it in a really, really happy way.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

Over to you.

Excellent, we're going to do it in an angry way.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

Over to you.

And this time we're going to say in a really confused way.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

Over to you.

Excellent, well done.

This time we're going to say it three times in a row and each time is going to get slightly louder than the last time.

When you go back to the breath work, so we're going to breathe in for five seconds and say the line as loud as we can.

Now I'm going to do it and then I want you to copy me.

So I'm going to let all the air out and breathe in.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

Over to you.

Let all the air out and in for one, two, three, four, five, and say the line louder.

Well done.

We're going to say it louder this time.

So I'm going to demonstrate.

Let all my air out and I'm going to breathe in for.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour.

Over to you.

You're going to say it louder than the last time.

This time, Let's say let all the air out and breathe in for one, two, three, four, five, and say the line.

Excellent.

This time, we're going to say it really loud using the full breath to give us volume.

So I'm going to demonstrate.

Let all my air out and in You have given me such clear lights of favour.

Over to you, as loud as you can.

Make sure that the breath is giving you lots of volume.

So let all the air out and in for one, two, three, four, five, go.

Well done.

So let's just have a quick recap of the play "Twelfth Night".

Now "Twelfth Night" is a romantic comedy set on the fictional island of Illyria.

Now in our last two lessons, we looked at the plot that involves the characters of Orsino, Olivia and Viola.

But there's also another plot which involves another set of characters, with Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Malvolio.

And in this lesson we're going to explore what happens to them.

So let's take a closer look at this character of Malvolio.

Here is Malvolio.

Malvolio is a servant of Olivia's household.

And he's a very serious and controlling character.

Now this is something is very important about Malvolio.

He has ambitions to become more than he is.

He wants to be a nobleman rather than a servant.

And so as a result, he is rude to everyone who he thinks is beneath them even if they are not beneath them.

And this is his part of the subplot from the "Twelfth Night".

So as I said before, he's rude.

So Malvolio is rude to everyone but especially to the characters of Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Maria, who he doesn't like.

Despite the fact that they are actually above him in society.

So they decide to take revenge in a forged letter.

To take revenge, Sir Toby and the rest of the gang trick Malvorio by writing a forge letter from Olivia.

The letter convinces Malvolio that Olivia is in love with him and wants to marry him.

In the letter, It says that Olivia's favourite item of clothing is yellow stockings with cross garters, And she'd love Malvolio even more if he were to wear them the next time they meet! This is great news to Malvolio, because he sees this is the opportunity to go beyond being a servant and to become an equal to Olivia by marrying her.

So Malvolio, with the excited by the idea dresses up in his yellow stockings and cross garters.

As you can see in the picture and goes to see Olivia.

Of course, this is all a clever ruse and Olivia has no idea what's happening.

So she is horrified and believes Malvolio to be completely mad.

Olivia asks Sir Toby to lock Malvolio up in a dark room until he recovers.

He is released.

Malvolio is later released and he's told of the trick.

And he is so upset and threatens to take revenge.

And this is the monologue that he delivers at the end of the play.

Lady, you have.

Pray you peruse that letter that you must not now deny it is your hand.

Write from it if you can, in hand or phrase why you have given me such clear lights of favour, bade me to come smiling and cross-gartered to you, to put on yellow stockings and to frown upon Sir Toby and lighter people; and acting in this obedient hope.

Why have you suffered me to be imprisoned? I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.

Let's just take some time to break down the monologue.

So we have a full understanding of what Malvolio is saying.

And I've broken it down into thirds.

The first third goes like this.

Lady, you have.

Pray you peruse that letter.

You must not now deny it is your hand; Write from it if you can, in hand or phrase.

And in this section, Malvolio is asking Olivia to take a look at this letter, that you can see that it is written in Olivia's hand and in the same writing voice that Olivia uses.

Why you have given me such clear lights of favour, bade me to come smiling and cross gartered to you, to put on yellow stockings and to frown upon Sir Toby and the lighter people.

And in this part of the monologue he tells the things that Olivia has written down in the letter.

And says begin with that, you know, you have given me a clear indication of your liking of your love.

And you've told me to smile and you've told me to dress up in yellow stockings and cross garters.

And you've told me to be mean, and to be rude to people like Sir Toby.

And the final third goes like this; And acting this in an obedient hope.

Why have you suffered me to be imprisoned? I'll take revenge on the whole pack of you.

And here he's saying, well, I have done everything you've asked me to do and I've done it because you've said that you loved me and you will love me more if I did these things.

So why have you imprisoned me? Why have you locked me up? I will take revenge on all of you.

As actors, when we're acting out a monologue like this, it's important for us to understand what the character is saying and why the character is saying it.

So let's just take a quick moment to check on our understanding of this key word motivation.

So tell me now, what does the key word motivation mean? Excellent, well done.

Motivation is the term we use to describe why a character does something on stage.

So we need to consider what is Malvolio's motivation in this monologue.

To help us, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to write a list on your piece of paper of all the things that Malvolio is feeling in this monologue.

When he says these lines, what emotions is going through him at the time? So pause the video, write a list on your piece of paper and resume once you've done it.

So I've made a quick list of the emotions that I think Malvolio is feeling.

And I've written down confused, angry, hate, and embarrassed.

Now I've gone a little step further here and I've annotated my monologue.

And because at the beginning of the monologue I feel he's confused.

He's not entirely sure.

He thinks that this letter has been written by Olivia but now because he's been imprisoned and everyone's laughed at him, he's not sure, he's confused.

And then I feel like he's been angry because he was told to do these things.

And he did them because he thought he was helping Olivia to love him.

But then he's embarrassed because of the things that he's done.

And because he was imprisoned for something that he felt he's been tricked into he's full of hate, and he wants his revenge.

So what I'd like you to do either on the screen or on the worksheet is I'd like you to annotate the monologue.

Indicating whereabouts in the monologue you feel he is feeling the emotions, which you've written in your list.

Pause the video now and resume once you've finished.

Now, we're going to use those words as a set of instructions to help us act out the monologue.

But before we do that, let's just have a quick check on some of our understanding of the terminology.

So tell me now, what does the key words use of voice and use of movement mean? Excellent.

Well, let's start with use of voice.

So use of voice is a term we use to describe how you use your voice to communicate your character to an audience.

And of course there are lots of other key words that make up use of voice.

And I've written some of them down here.

These are the ones that we've come across so far.

So we've got pace, which is the speed of your voice.

Pause, which is adding moments of silence into your speech to add emphasis.

We've got volume, which is about how loud or how quiet your voice is.

We've got emphasis, which is placing particular emphasis on words or entire sentence to add meaning to what you're saying.

And then we've got tone, which is the emotional quality of a voice.

Whether you're angry or whether you're happy.

Let's move on to use of movement.

Now use of movement is a term we use to describe how you use your body and the way in which you move to communicate your character to the audience.

And likewise, there are several key words, which we've come across already, which work with the idea of use of movement.

The first one is movement.

Now movement is how you move across the stage and the way in which you move.

Whether you go quickly or whether you go slowly.

Eye contact is the way in which you make eye contact with the characters you're speaking to or deliberately not making eye contact and looking away from them to suggest something else.

Gestures are small movements, made with your hands or any part of your body which communicates something to an audience.

And facial expressions is everything in which you do with your face to communicate an emotion to an audience.

Now, before I ask you to perform it I'm going to demonstrate it for you.

Now, remember, I'm trying to communicate to the audience that list of adjectives that I came up with which describe my character at this point and how the character is feeling.

So I've got the fact that they were confused.

they were angry, they were embarrassed and that they really were fueled with hate by the end of the speech.

And I going to try to change my voice and my movement to be able to communicate those things to you.

So here guys.

Lady, you have.

pray you peruse the letter you must not now deny it is your hand, write from it if you can, in hand or phrase why have you given me such clear lights of favour bade me to come smiling and cross gartered to you.

To put on yellow stockings, and to frown upon Sir Toby and lighter people and acting in this an obedient hope.

Why have you suffered me to be imprisoned? I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you.

So this brings us up to our main task which is to perform the monologue.

And what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to act out the monologue using the annotations you wrote as a set of instructions on how to use your voice and movement to act out your character.

So use the monologue on the screen or the one on your worksheet.

Rehearse, act out, and perform your monologue and then press play when you're ready to carry on.

Now, how did that go for you? How was your performance? Did it help by writing down as a set of instructions the emotions that the character was feeling so that you could adjust your use of voice on your use of movement to help you communicate that to the audience.

It's a nice little way of reminding you as an actor what you need to do in your performance.

So before we finish up today I just want to do a quick check of your understanding of some of the keywords we've used today.

So which of these statements are correct? Option one, volume describes how loud your voice is.

Option two, volume is the speed of your voice.

Option three, volume describes the emotion in your voice.

Option four ,volume is adding a moment of silence to your speech.

Tell me now, which one of those options is correct.

That's right.

Option one; volume describes how loud your voice is but let's just go through and make sure that we know what the answers to options two, three, and four is as well.

So pace is the speed of your voice.

Tone describes the emotion in your voice.

And finally, pause is adding a moment of silence to your speech.

Before we go today I just want to say, well done.

Performing like this can be really, really hard and you've done it.

And you've got something to be proud of.

So well done.

Why not share your work with Oak National? If you'd like to share any of the work that you've done from this lesson or the previous two lessons in the unit of learning, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.