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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment