Week 11: Director's Challenge

Staged Production Meeting

Before we began rehearsal, all the directors met together with our teacher and decided to stage a production meeting which would normally include the directors, the lighting crew, the costume department and also the set department. Because our performances are only small scale, our teacher acted as all of the above apart from the directors, which we us.

We made sure that we had a plan of what we wanted the lights to be like. We had a plan of what we would want in a full scale production and a plan of what was more realistic in with our budget and the light/set/costume that we already have.

Our ideas for a full scale performance:

• On times when people were specifically referenced then we would light them with a spotlight and then have everyone else in a blackout.
• When a person had a paragraph, which evidently is only two out of six, then we would slowly fade from the whole stage being lit to a single spotlight on that person.
• Different filters in the lights and have each person lit in a different colour so that we could use the semiotics to reflect the idea of each person being different and they would react to every problem/issue that was brought up, whether it be big or small, in their own personal way.
• At the end, as each person leaves, their colour/spotlight fades until Maisie is the only person left in her spotlight on stage.
• Raised/raked seating.
• Spotlights that are coloured but natural lights coming from the sides. With 6 people on stage, this would mean that we need 3 lights on each person, which would result in 18 lights in total just focused on the people.

We experimented with the idea of these spotlights and found the reason that we would need 3 spotlights on each person as the shadows from the lights cover the facial expressions.

Our idea for our budget performance:

• Lateral lighting shifts
• Coloured spotlights on the set instead of on the people.

Run-throughs

We, again, used the rehearsal to run through the whole piece and keep refining the piece. When we were watching the run-through, we decided that the section where they stand up and down could be to distracting and so we wanted to involve only 2 of the cast members. We decided to add in another element of frantic assembly with a paired lift. https://youtu.be/A3F1pe7UJy8  Next week, we are going to experiment with the people who can do the lift and who makes it look better and those people will be the ones to do the lift in the real thing.

We also performed a small snippet of section 1 for the rest of N2C (https://youtu.be/31TUQqOEHNg) and we found that the speed of our lines was up to what we wanted but because we haven’t performed any of it to an audience, we didn’t know how long the audience could go for without getting bored and we found that we might have to add in more moves than we think to re-engage the audience.

Week 10: TIE (Storms)

Refining the Case Study

At the start of the lesson, we had a discussion about the main features of the piece and which focal point we wanted to address in detail this lesson. We decided that the case study of John Doe was the main point of our piece as it put all of the ideas that we had highlighted earlier on in the piece, into context: a real life situation. We went through the case study as we already know it and added in small sections that would be said by the narrators to introduce the different scenarios that John would be put in.

Because the case study is the turning point in the performance, as we moved into the more serious topics and start moving towards the aim of the piece, we need it to be clear for the audience so that the key messages at the end will be in context for them and they will be able to make some connections to their own life.

It was brought up that it is very easy for the audience to lose who is playing which character when we move into the case study and so we wanted to make it easier to see who was each character by formally introducing them to the audience. This makes it clearer and establishes each character separately. We thought that the narrator's could say a character and one of us steps up towards the front and looks towards them as though we are asking them what they want us to do. In addition to this, we also added in some slightly Goberesque stereotypical movements for each character. For example, as I am the mother who is pregnant, I have a hand on my stomach when the pregnancy is dropped in, the friend has a cheesy gesture and the girlfriend has a hair flick. It adds a slightly humorous tone to the characters which is juxtaposed with the scenes and creates a bigger impact as the scenes are about quite serious topics.  We thought that the idea of us not knowing what we were going to be ask to do, was a good way of having a small connection with the audience as it would appear to be new to us as well, adding in the ideas of Forum Theatre and making connections with your audience. To reaffirm this, we added in looks between the narrators and us, and also between the cast members, when we were being told what to do so that we were reiterating the characters that we were playing and it also added clarity about what each person was doing in the scene.

Next, we thought about a scene where we could add in a small section of Forum Theatre and the first idea that we came up with was a text scene between John and Holly, his girlfriend. The scene that was just before this was the morning after John has come home drunk and the tension between John and his father. We thought that the first text would be sent from Holly as the two had left off on a really bad note in the scene she was in before and, we thought that she would be up all night worrying about what he had done and whether he had got home safely or not. We would have Holly text, and read out loud, a big emotional paragraph about how worried she was about John and we would have John just reply with a sorry, and we would see the reaction to both messages from the characters onstage. There were a few problems that we had with this scene and the major one was that we don't know how boys would react to text messages and if our reply was correct or too stereotypical and if we were to make it up and it was wrong, we would lose the connection with the audience that we have been building up from the start as they would become defensive and shut off - a reaction that we have been talking about and trying to avoid since the very start of the project.

We then thought about a school situation as both of them would have to go to school and could pass each other in the hallway and so we made Holly's body language reflect how angry she was with John and we would show a conversation that would happen between the two of them in the corridor. It would get to a point where Holly would be so upset and angry at John that she would just walk away which would leave John by himself on stage and we would see the anger work up inside of him as he knows that "he has missed something" (a line that one of the narrators says) - an opportunity to apologise to Holly and truly express how he feels to someone who cares about his well-being. We would then show this anger through John punching the wall - a response that we learnt can be quite typical of men when they are angry as it is an easy outlet for them to express how they feel.

At this point we would ask the audience: What should John do now?

We think we could use a thought scale to address the different options that John has and we would allow the audience sometime to discuss where they think that John should be on the scale.

Here is a picture of what we think the scale should look like:

We would then walk John along the scale and ask the audience to raise their hands where they think John should be. We would acknowledge these people and ask them why they think he should go down that route and this would allow the audience to engage with the piece more and also allow us to make some positive comments on what they have said and also get other people involved. We would have a person at each point representing what he should do so that the audience would have a visual aid which we could help them make their decision. For example, if someone said "I think he should dump her," we would ask the follow-up question of "why?" We thought of some responses that we might get and we thought of things like "She's not listening to him" and "She's not taking into account her own feelings that might be confusing how she might react." We would then ask "Well, why would she be feeling this way? Shall we replay what John said?" and we would get John to repeat the lines that he said to Holly at the end of the drunk scene before she walked off. Asking follow up questions is the key to getting the audience involved and also getting them to understand what is going on.
The answer that we really want them to say is "Explain," as this is what Storms want more men to do: express their feelings. If we find that majority of the audience is giving us the answer that we want then we know that they understand and the main message is getting through, but if we don't get that answer we need to help get them to it which is where the follow up questions come in and we can guide them into the right direction of the correct answer. I think that we just need to clean up the sections next week and possibly try it out on a few people of the age range to see how they react and whether it would be what we were expecting.

Further SToRMS Research

We have been given some information about a leaflet that we will be handing out after the performance and it highlights some of the main points that we will have highlighted throughout the entire piece.

These show the main points that we are trying to convey throughout the whole piece and it will be a good reminder for us throughout the rest of the rehearsal process as they are clearly pointed out and we will be able to see them when we rehearse.

Week 10: Director's Challenge

Artaud Research

Before the rehearsal, we were having a discussion about many different practitioners who had interesting styles that we could experiment with putting into our piece. One of them was Artaud. He established Theatre of Cruelty which was described as " a primitive ceremonial experience intended to liberate the human subconscious and reveal man to himself. A communion between actor and audience in a magic exorcism; gesture, sounds, unusual scenery, and lighting combine to form a language, superior to words, that can be used to subvert thought and logic and to shock the spectator into seeing the baseness of his world. Artaud wanted to put the audience in the middle of the 'spectacle' (his term for the play), so they would be 'engulfed and physically affected by it'. He referred to this layout as being like a 'vortex'  - a constantly shifting shape - 'to be trapped and powerless'. He also placed a great emphasis on sound rather than words or dialogue, by incorporating loud cries, screams, eerie sounds, or noise causing the audience to become uncomfortable. Words were an insufficient medium of expression." This links to our piece as we also want to make the audience feel uncomfortable, not in the extreme way that Artaud wanted to, but none the less when they are just sat watching people say their lines onstage they will start to feel uncomfortable as there is literally nothing happening onstage. We could use the idea of loud sounds as one of our movements especially when the cast address the fact that they don't know whether there is anyone behind them as they haven't looked as that is quite spooky and if we put a loud noise in that can constitute as our movement.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Artaud#Theatre_of_Cruelty)

  

"The Theatre of Cruelty has been created in order to restore to the theatre a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigour and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based must be understood. This cruelty, which will be bloody when necessary but not systematically so, can thus be identified with a kind of severe moral purity which is not afraid to pay life the price it must be paid." - Antonin Artaud, The Theatre of Cruelty, in The Theory of the Modern Stage (ed. Eric Bentley), Penguin, 1968, p.66

We had a director's discussion about the research we had done separately and how we would fit Artaud into our piece (or at least some of his ideas) and we thought that it wouldn't really fit as he is too extreme and majority of the movements that we have previously choreographed are minute compared to Artaud and so the juxtaposition would be too much for our piece. We liked the idea of some of his work and if we had a longer period of time to do the piece as a whole then Artaud could be an interesting practitioner to look at in regards to adding in movements.

Run-throughs

We had another member of our cast missing this week and we stressed to the other cast members the importance of the full cast being present in rehearsals as we only have a small cast and when one member is missing it has an impact on the amount of work we can do and also the effectiveness of that work and we will have to repeat ourselves to the person that was missing. I stepped in as Peter so that Alexis could take the role as the lead director and she could make the changes that might need to be made.

As we are getting closer to performance date, we made it clear to our cast that it was now up to them to step-up their line learning as we are at the point in the rehearsal process, when we are beginning to tighten up the movements and we are really refining the speed of the lines and getting a feel for the real performance. We began with a run through of the whole piece and we limited the cast to only having their scripts for sections 1 and 2 again because the cast are still needing them for section 3, which we have made clear will not be acceptable after next week. We have given them this week to learn their lines for section 3 and some of section 4 so that we are using the scripts less and less.

The only things that needed to be stressed during the rehearsal was the speed of the lines and how fast we want the past to be. We need to cut down the gaps in between the lines so that the pace of the whole piece is kept up. Throughout section 1 and 2 the cast are completely still but when we start to move onto the later sections the small unchoreographed movements start to come back in. I know that this is because they are looking at their scripts for prompts on their lines but we still need to make the cast conscious of their own movements and hopefully we will be able to focus on that next week when they have learnt their section 3 lines.

Week 9: Director's Challenge

Run-throughs and lighting ideas

Run-throughs in Rehearsal

In the previous rehearsal we had managed to do a whole run through of the piece and so we decided that every week from now on we should aim to do at least 1 full run through in the rehearsal so that the cast get used to the length of the piece and it also gives us a good chance to check up on the cast's line learning. At this point, we made sure to specific that at this juncture, we have completed the blocking of the whole piece and we are now moving onto refining it all which means that in order for us to do this, line learning is key. We needed the cast to know that it is now up to them to remember their lines as we are getting closer to what it will actually be like onstage and we also wanted them to realise that what they have achieved at this point is really good. Throughout the run through, we found that all of the cast, were beginning to understand why we had asked them to not move unless choreographed as this would attract the audience's attention and Etchells wanted to see how long they could last just watching without anything happening. We started to see the cast truly understanding this as we got comments about actions that attract an audience's attention more like uncrossing your legs or simply just standing. In our plan, we wanted the cast, at this point, to be asking questions about why we are doing this. It is a pretty hard concept to grasp as the play is nothing that anyone has done before in our school environment and so we expected them asking a lot of question but in reality they are actually understanding it and it is starting to show through the run throughs that we are doing.

Lighting experimenting after rehearsal

After the rehearsal, me and Alexis decide to experiment with some lights. We wanted to see how different filters looked onstage and also if we got certain people to stand in the light, we wanted to see where their shadows ended and how we could create some interesting shapes with the shadows. 

I like the effect of the shadows on the wall from the white circular light as we could have this at the start when Peter is turning on all of the lights and I think that the audience would find it quite interesting to watch his shadow move around whilst he's putting on more lights. If we were to use this light I think that we would have to fade it out almost immediately once there were more lights on as it's quite concentrated and when there are more people on stage, we want the audience to be looking at them as a whole not just individuals.

I really like the overlapping shadows that these two lights create as we can say that the different colours show the different people yet when their shadows overlap it shows that they are talking about the same subject and it is both affecting them.

I like the contrast that these two lights create and the shadows that are created, as you can clearly see James' shadow yet if the audience were behind Harry his shadow would be on them. I think that if we use a variety of different filters on the lights then we can make the semiotics reflect the amount of different topics that we address throughout the piece and the severity of them.

I think that we could definitely use the orange colours when regarding the light-hearted subjects such as names and the smaller topics that don't seem very important as the semiotics can reflect the topics that the cast are addressing as they seem quite simple and then when they moved onto more serious topics such as the scientific explanations and death then we can change the lighting to the green in the picture above it as they juxtapose and can create a bigger contrast to show the audience that the topic has now changed.

We could use the circular spotlight when regarding the different people's fears so that they are isolated from the rest but when we rehearse it without lights I think that it looks more effective, not knowing who the cast are talking about and if we introduce the circular light, it may take away the mystery of who the lines are about.

We liked the shadows that this one created with red in the middle and then the blue light shining from behind making their shadows look into the red light. We thought that this could be used for a simple movement that could be emphasised with the lights.

Week 9: TIE (Storms)

Expanding and Forum Theatre

We ran through the whole piece so far and we made a list of things that need to be added in:

• When Hannah is John Doe, we need her to reference the characters that are onstage in her first dramatic aside so that the audience don't get confused about which characters the different people are playing. For example, we need her to say this is my family, my mum, my dad and my brother.
• We need to add in a more fluid way of going into the John Doe case study as it seems to go from quite a jokey manner to quite a serious one too quickly so we gave the narrator's an extra few lines that established the idea of a case study and how it allows us to see these reactions in a real life situation.
• After the case study we also need another fluid transition that allows us to interact with the audience through some of the devices that are used by Forum Theare. For this we wanted the narrators to acknowledge the fact that we aren't men so we don't actually know what it's like to be one and reference the fact that everyone in the audience is male and  so we can find out from them.

We thought that the scene we could explore with the input of the audience could be the morning after John has come home drunk and been caught by his dad. We could make it quite stunted, with a lot of pauses for potential thought as both men are going through a rough period of time and also if we make these pauses clear enough, it would indicate to the audience that that would be a good part for them to start thinking about the thoughts that are going through the two characters heads. We then had a discussion about where these reference points could be in the scene and so we ran the scene and people shouted pause when we think there could be a moment and explained why it was a good place for the audience's input.

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/g8eTysKLn1g
Part 2 - https://youtu.be/MfRVLm5A-ck

These are some of the points that we picked out during the video.

In the actual performance, we would run the scene through once and then facilitate the asking of the audience. We would then go into the audience and ask what the characters were thinking - taking them through the thought track step by step and mention the different points as it would help them think of what to say. After, we would regroup and show the scene again but we would pause the scene and mention what people in the audience had said making sure that we defined who said it and include them in the piece.

Because we wanted this part to reflect Forum Theatre we did a small hour long workshop in the style. We were introduced to two characters through teacher in role and we were going to choose one of the characters and their situation to make better with help from us, the audience. We then took part in a small role play, where we made the set for a NHS waiting room and we were asked to stand in a place that reflected a person going through dialysis or someone who’s family member was going through dialysis. We then did another role play for the second character as well. Thought out the whole workshop we were picking up on how our teacher was talking to us and what things we could use in our piece. Some things we found were:

1. Pausing when the audience gets lost.
2. Repeating scenes so that they can ask the audience whether the scene is going the way they want it to.
3. Simplistic characters and storylines
4. Positive reinforcements of ideas at the people onstage things like, mentioning their acting boosts their confidence and also increase the chance of them joining in.

We could use all of these aspects in our piece as it would increase the amount of interaction we get from the audience which will, in turn, benefit their understanding of our piece and the message that we are trying to convey.

Director's Challenge: Half Term rehearsal

Half-term rehearsal 10-4

We wanted everybody in the session to be very focused on what we were doing so that we could get everything blocked today and so we started off the session with a few games like splat, name tag and ninja just to get everybody on the same page. We decided that we would do a focus game of 21 which is where only one person can say a number, consecutively all the way up to 21 but if two people say the same number then you have to start again. We thought that this would be a good focus exercise for the group as we are only a cast of 6 and so they really needed to listen to each other and be in tune with each other for the exercise to work.

We then wanted to see how well the cats had been learning their lines and so we did a full through of section 1 and 2 because we had previously asked them to learn the lines for everything that we block. We previously decided that each director would make notes on the performance and then we would compare the notes at the end. If there was something that we both picked up on, then it was something to be addressed majorly. We did this twice so that the cast could act upon our feedback and then we made some more on their second run through as well.

For around 20 minutes, we focused on Section 3 as one of our cast members wasn't here last week and so we had to fill him in on everything that we had added in. We had asked him to watch the video on Youtube, so that he had a rough idea of what was going on but we would fill him in once he was in the rehearsal. We went over the movements which everyone had seemed to remember and pointed out the fluidity of the lines. We told them that we wanted there to be a continuity between the lines so that when we get to the movements, which are in silence, then it has a bigger effect on the audience and draws them in.

After this, we decided that we would do a run through of sections 1-3 but we took away the cast's scripts for sections 1 and 2 so that we could monitor their progress on learning their lines. We found that we were pleasantly surprised as majority of the group knew their lines and the pace began to pick up and we started to see the beginning of what it would be like in the actual performance. After this run through, we started to become harsher on the cast about their un-choreographed movements as we wanted them to get used to not moving in rehearsal so that when it comes to performance night they are consciously thinking about not moving. We wanted this to be a clear instruction as when they do come to performance, we are anticipating nerves which lead to un-choreographed movements even more.

In the past few weeks, we have been debating over the plank lift in section 2. We have been told that we can't actually hear Peter's line as it is said to the back and we didn't want to change anything drastically as we still wanted the lift to be safe. We had the option of taking Peter out once the lift was stable but we thought that this was very dangerous having only 4 people spin Leah. We then decided that Peter could face the front whilst Leah got up and then turn around and assist with the lift. We tried this and it turned out quite well. https://youtu.be/KTrFD_dcA4Q We had the safety aspect of the lift and we also had the line being delivered clearly out to the front.

We then moved onto a read through of section 4 and added in some movements. Because of the length of section 4, it's the largest one out of the whole script, we added in some more movements than we did for previous sections. At the start of the section, there are multiple lines that address the people on stage directly with statements about their favourite tv shows,  favourite book etc. and we wanted each person to have a juxtaposing staging to the position they were in before hand. For example, one of the lines is "We know that J's favourite TV show is Breaking Bad." now at this point Luke, who is named J for this play, is stood in the centre and so when the line is said he sits down. The proceeding line is then "We know that A's favourite game is Cluedo." At this point Peter, who is A, stands up as he was previously sat on a chair. This was the first time doing it and so it was a bit clunky due to the cast having to refer back to their scripts but once they are off script the pace will be faster and therefore the juxtaposing movements will be of a quicker pace and the audience's attention will be regained once again.

As our last thing we decided to attempt a full run through of the whole play to have a rough estimate at how long it would be. We did the same as we did earlier and allowed the cast to have their scripts for sections 3 and 4 but not for the first couple. We were there to prompt but we had a chart of who needed a prompt just as a visual reminder for the cast on how well they knew their lines. We wanted the cast to do a run through in their costume so that they got used to what it was like to do the whole thing in their actual costume.  https://youtu.be/S_c8g0ZKjkQ (Sometimes the cast couldn't hear and we couldn't hear the lines as their was another group in the room who were being quite loud)

I think that the cast took on board what we said about staying still as the sections that they didn't have their script they stood perfectly still and we think that these sections are almost up to performance standard. We added in some turns for the rest of the cast when there is a movement going on. So, for example, when Joel and Hannah do their movement the rest of the cast turn to look at them, thus creating more effect on the audience as all attention is on the movement that it happened. I think that this was one of the highlights of the run through as these movements were very snappy and effective.

What we found with the costume was that they were used to it and so some movements crept in when they start fiddling with their costume. This why we had them rehearse in their costume this early on in the rehearsal process as we didn't want it to come to the dress rehearsal and they could have lost all the directions we gave them about remaining still.