Section 1
Because one of our cast wasn't here last week, we decided that we needed to begin with recapping the entrances and tell Joel where he was meant to be. We had previously asked him to watch the video of what we did last week so that he had a vague idea of what the set looks like and what was going on.
Rehearsal of the entrances we did last week: https://youtu.be/VrVVbOoi9HA
We also asked the whole cast to learn the lines of the movements that we blocked and we used that time to check whether they had. We then told them to plan of what we wanted to do this session, so that we were all on the same page and we all knew what we needed to get done and we think that this is one of the key things to getting our cast to work hard and productively. We told them what we expected to be done by the end of the sessions so that they knew what our goal was and how far we were from achieving that and it really fired up the cast to work collectively. We wanted to be able to do a full run through of Section 1 by the end of the session and we managed to achieve that which lifted the spirits of the group.
Rehearsal of the entrances we did last week: https://youtu.be/VrVVbOoi9HA
We also asked the whole cast to learn the lines of the movements that we blocked and we used that time to check whether they had. We then told them to plan of what we wanted to do this session, so that we were all on the same page and we all knew what we needed to get done and we think that this is one of the key things to getting our cast to work hard and productively. We told them what we expected to be done by the end of the sessions so that they knew what our goal was and how far we were from achieving that and it really fired up the cast to work collectively. We wanted to be able to do a full run through of Section 1 by the end of the session and we managed to achieve that which lifted the spirits of the group.
We asked their input on where they thought the audience would lose concentration and it was interesting to see where they thought we should put a movement and where we thought. We thought that the audience would lose interest a lot later than they did and so we decided to cut down the space between the movements so that they weren't as close together as they thought they should have been.
We then decided to give the cast a small bit of freedom to decide a move in pairs that could attract the audience's attention. We did offer them some support, saying that it doesn't have to be big and elaborate it could be as simple as swapping places and maintaining eye contact throughout the move. Our cast struggled with the concept of not telling a story with the movements so we had to make sure that our movements were juxtaposing to the lines that were being said so that the audience wouldn't be able to make a connection between the two.
We then watched each pair and discussed what we liked about there movements, things like it was simple enough to draw attention but not enough to make a story, and then we discussed some of the negatives that could come from those movements, the audience might think we are connected in some way etc.
Then we added those movements that we liked into section 1 and made sure that the lines still flowed and that the pace didn't dropped whilst a movement was happening.
Section 1 rehearsal with the movements: https://youtu.be/9Jk9kP63v9k
We were then later asked to perform a small section of what we had been working on and we showed this: https://youtu.be/Ph0oV9xAlMQ
We then decided to give the cast a small bit of freedom to decide a move in pairs that could attract the audience's attention. We did offer them some support, saying that it doesn't have to be big and elaborate it could be as simple as swapping places and maintaining eye contact throughout the move. Our cast struggled with the concept of not telling a story with the movements so we had to make sure that our movements were juxtaposing to the lines that were being said so that the audience wouldn't be able to make a connection between the two.
We then watched each pair and discussed what we liked about there movements, things like it was simple enough to draw attention but not enough to make a story, and then we discussed some of the negatives that could come from those movements, the audience might think we are connected in some way etc.
Then we added those movements that we liked into section 1 and made sure that the lines still flowed and that the pace didn't dropped whilst a movement was happening.
Section 1 rehearsal with the movements: https://youtu.be/9Jk9kP63v9k
We were then later asked to perform a small section of what we had been working on and we showed this: https://youtu.be/Ph0oV9xAlMQ
I think that in both of the videos, the rehearsal and the performance, there were small movements from the cast onstage, things like them cracking their fingers, pulling down on their shirts or playing with their hair, and I think that we really need to get across to the cast that we can't have any natural movements because we want the bigger, planned movements to have the biggest impact and if the cast keep doing small movements then it will take away the emphasis on the large moves. I think that we could have been slightly more clearer at the start that this is what we meant because we did explain that they would be sitting/standing still for the majority of the play with only a few movements that attract the audience's attention back because this is what Etchells wanted. I think that next week, we really need to put emphasis on the movements that they are making and make them realise what they are actually doing and how distracting it could actually be.
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