Week 27: Classwork

Monday

Before we began rehearsing, we had a discussion in class about how to show that all people on stage were the same person. We focused on the transferal of who is in control of the body of the woman, which is showing clearly the shifting from one personality in control to another.

We discussed the different ways that would show the transferal of control and we came up with:

• Costume. 

We started by thinking of a variety of the same kind of costume. Like black, trousers and white shirt but with accessories that show the different between the personalities, for example scarves or hats etc.

But the difficulty with this was that it might not be clear enough for the audience and they may lose concentration and also they may not follow what is going on. 

Adapting a base costume might work better. For example, like when people change their school uniform to how they like it, we would change our base costume to fit our feelings so the sexy one would have their shirt unbuttoned and then the housewife would have hers tucked in and more regimental. We could even play around with having some stains on a tshirt, so the housewife could look like she had been thrown up on from a baby and the sexy one could have lipstick stains on her collar.

We also discussed having different colours to represent the feelings, so the psychotic person would have red because that is a harsh colour and red evokes anger and makes the audience slightly disconnect from them because of the harsh colour. On the other hand, the housewife would wear light blue or pastel colours because they are more inviting and the audience would lean towards that personality more and highlight the juxtaposition.

• Unity of lines/movements

Unity of voice could be effective to show the unity of the personalities as the same woman but it might not be enough for the audience to understand and the audience need to be fully engaged throughout the piece for the continuity of the style and the story line.

We thought that intonation of the lines could back up the difference between the personalities because it would juxtapose the reactions from each other and show how many different reactions this one person is having in her head.

In our group, we use an echo as a way of showing the difference between each person and so when I say the line "A kiss?" I do a movement like i was covering my lips and wiping the kiss away. As the housewife, I don't want to kiss the boy who is trying to enter the house and so the hand that goes over my mouse signifies this.

The other characters then say the same line but do their own actions at the same time that I do mine and it symbolizes the unison of the woman's emotions but also the difference between the personalities. We felt that a kiss would be a good line for an echo because she would have mixed reactions to it. The reactions need to be quick in concession of one another as it would have a better effect on the audience and could also emphasis the continuity of the audience being engaged.

•  Physical Contact

A push/pull transition could be an effective way of showing who was speaking as the audience could see the physical connection between the different personalities. We could also use proxemics to help indicate who was in control of the body as whoever was in control could be towards to center and front of the stage so that they would have a closer connection with the audience and they would be able to see their facial expressions clearer which will lead to them understanding and identifying what the different personalities were.

A smaller and easier change that could be added in after we have blocked everything would be just to have a sharp head turn and look at whoever's speaking so that it was slightly clearer to the audience, and also the Berkoff style is snappy as well so as well as making the speaker more clearer it will add to the continuity of the style.

Our group decided that after blocking everything out and getting all of the movements in with the lines, we would begin to focus on the speed of the lines, so that there was hardly any space between the lines, and the clarity of the speaker.