Week 15: TIE review (Storms)

Performing in front of the client

Before the client arrived, we had a 2 hour rehearsal of just running the piece again and again in order for the fluidity of the piece to replicate what we want it to be like in the actual performances. We added in a piece of music which added in comedic timing, making the idea of us "becoming" boys all the more effective because we are using humour to allow the audience to fully open up and take on board what we are going to tell them. This was from previous research that we had done and we found out that majority of males communicate through humour and so we are communicating in a way that they will understand.

At 3pm, the clients arrived in order to watch the piece and give us feedback on whether it fitted their campaign and whether it reached the points and topics that they wanted it to. They were also checking that the information that we are giving out is appropriate and in a way that is easily understandable. After the run-through, the client and Mr Chipp had a small discussion about the piece and whether they thought things needed changing. We then joined them after 30 minutes to receive this feedback so we could begin to think about adapting the piece.

Overall, the feedback that we got was very positive. They enjoyed the comedic start and they were happily surprised by the idea of us becoming boys as we have a completely female class and so they were glad that we found a way around it with the stereotypes of boys and still managed to keep the audience focused on the topics. It was very engaging for an audience to watch and they liked the way that it was very jokey at the start and then the seriousness of the piece came with the statistics which they agreed was very needed in the piece. The interactive side was very effective and they thought that the forum theatre section was a very good idea to keep the audience engaged with the piece and also an opportunity for us to check in with the audience on where their understanding of the topic is.

They said that maybe we could change the line "80% of people who commit suicide have a penis" to "80% of people who die by suicide have a penis" because the word "commit" makes it  sound like a crime and not something that has happened to them. They also commented that they think we should have a bigger build-up or some sort of preparation before we ask the audience questions so, we need to get slightly further into the piece before we have any audience interaction just so the audience can really get a feel for the topic and understand what we want them to do once we do go out.

The client also brought up something that we had discussed earlier on in the rehearsal process, which was the idea that everybody goes through these problems which they have to deal with but, it can be just lots of little things instead of big topics that we have used like bereavement and financial status. These little things can build up as well as pressure until that person reaches a breaking point. This pressure, if not expressed or let out, over a period of time can lead to having an effect on the mental health of that person. The client expressed that this was one of the major starting points of a mental health problem and so we are considering having Adam, John's friend in the piece, showing signs of these little problems and showing that these problems effect everybody. Everybody comes across their own struggles in life and will recognise that build up of pressure but, we want people to know that there are ways of relieving that pressure and it doesn't have to be a massive thing. This is where we could bring more information about the SToRMs "Wise-talkers" campaign which focuses on recognising the signs of someone who is stressed or upset and taking the first step to talk to them about their problems instead of them coming to you. We want to highlight the fact that everyone needs to look out for everyone all the time because we are all dealing with the same problems and SToRMs want more people to take the steps to helping someone else.

We then moved on to a discussion of our ideas around Adam's character and the client mentioned ideas about modern society and the peer pressure of male's "image". One of the things that SToRMs do is look at alcohol in relation to mental health and challenging stigma. A huge thing for the males in our age range in modern culture is "gym culture," being bigger and having more muscles than your friends. The idea that the client had for Adam was that he could be big and outgoing on the outside but he still has internal anxieties about the way that he looks. So we wanted Adam to represent the idea of males using the gym to cover up their insecurities about their bodies and we would use this character to reveal and admit these insecurities about his image in order to normalise that idea and let the audience know that its okay to be insecure about your body and that many other people are going through the same thing. We wanted to use the idea of Adam being quite scrawny in year 7 and was picked on and now he goes to the gym five times a week and if he misses 2 session then he feels anxious about his weight gain. He appears to be this tall and muscular male but inside he is still that small boy. This issue to so relevant in the society that we live in and I think that once it has been commented on, because it isn't talked about enough, then people will start realising the signs in other people and hopefully use the methods that we have mentioned in the piece to talk to their friends about it. This could be possible with Adam's character as we would see the friends perspective of "John's a lad...he's only having a laugh...he's fine" as Adam doesn't see the other side of John that the audience do and we can accentuate the fact that John is going through all of his problems and his friend doesn't even realise that they are they reason behind his excessive drinking.

The client was then giving us information about the charity as a whole and mainly focused on the wise-talkers campaign which they want to launch with the TIE project, like CAMHS did with the previous year. We took a look at the leaflets that would be handed out and we found that it was to used to help people who know that someone else is going through a rough period of time to find routes into helping that other person talk about their situation. We said that there was a lot of words, all of which were important but it was a bit of an overload of information, also the SToRMs logo was only very small and so for advertising purposes it wouldn't do a very good job and also if someone wanted to get in touch with the producers then the SToRMs logo needs to be bigger in order for them to do that. There was a small change that needed to be made on one of the back pages as the telephone number for one of the companies had changed and we suggested the Samaritans number as you can text that number as well as call due to the modern society finding it easier to text someone instead of call them so including that number would be beneficial. We then moved onto how likely the target audience was to actually keeping the leaflet and what their response would be so we brought in three lads, two in year 11 and one in year 10, and asked them what their response would be to the leaflets after they've seen the piece. They all said that they would have most likely put it in the bin but after watching TIE would most likely keep it but maybe not actually use it because of it being so small.

We had the idea of actually bringing that reaction into the piece so like we were preempting their response to being given this leaflet. The least it could do was think more about their actions and perhaps actually read what they have been given in depth. We talked about what it would mean to throw the piece of paper away. Would they be saying they don't want to be a good friend? Do they not need it? Perhaps adding some of those questions into the piece would also be effective in getting them to rethink their actions regarding the leaflet. This led to us having a conversation about appealing more to using it to help a friend in need, not necessarily for yourself which might make people more likely to engage with the idea of it and also use it. They did comment that it was originally aimed at adults which led us to suggesting that maybe social media was the best route to go down when referring to our target audience. Caitlin mentioned that social media feels more personal and having that constant exposure to the campaign would have a bigger effect than organisational leaflets. Imogen also suggested the idea of anonymous stories, so anyone who has a problem can send them in anonymously and be able to get advice from anyone going through the same problem. I suggested even sending in experiences of helping someone else to help accentuate the fact that these things work and can be helpful to start of the conversation about their situation. SToRMs' social media platform would act as a middle man for communication between peers. We thought that using social media alongside the performance is the way to get through to our age range and actually if the piece impacts 2 people out of 300 then it worth it.

In terms of continuity after the piece, we wanted to get people to realise these signs in both themselves, but more importantly, their friends and use the leaflet in order for them to step up and start the conversation. We would sell the leaflet as "this is a guide to help someone else" and "admitting you've got problems is hard" which would appeal to the male ideas of comrades. Sue talked about friends asking for advice because some people come across a situation where they're at a loss to how to get help for them or a friend, as they don't know what to say or what to do or where to point their friend to for help. We also touched upon the idea of a counselling for friends of people who are having counselling, a kind of helpful hand to tell them how to have an open mind when regarding their friends problems and issues.

Overall, the performance to the client was a success and we don't have any major changes to make to what we originally had and we have some interesting ideas to move to piece into the right direction and start to move onto the perspective of the friend, Adam.

Director's Challenge - Performance Review

Our cast performed on the 19th of December to an audience of around 60 people. From the start of the performance, the cast established the style well and reflected all of the direction that we had given them throughout the rehearsal process. Although there were some pauses during the last two sections, where the cast had forgotten lines, and there was the majority of one section was missed out due to a line slip which meant that a lot was cut out, the cast continued to perform the piece at their best and finished the piece without too many other mistakes. Having these slip -ups meant that the piece didn't have its complete effect on the audience although the cast did continue to maintain the style and the directions that we had given them to the best of their abilities.

Looking at the performance from the beginning, the timing of the entrances was exactly as directed but the only problem that we didn't take into consideration was the raked seating would block the idea of two of the cast coming in from the back. When Leah, the cast member who entered from outside, knocked on the door only a few of the audience turned around to look meaning that didn't have the effect that we wanted,  although the audience did watch both people walk down the sides of the seating. The last entrance worked well as all the others were in quite quick concession of each other which meant that the juxtaposition was increased and therefore bigger effect was created when Hannah entered from sit in the audience. We wanted the entrances to highlight the difference between each person and show that each person was an individual that was coming to help with the delivery of the messages of the piece. We tried to reflect this in the lights with more light entering the stage as each person entered to reflect that each person was needed to have a complete performance. We didn't want the lighting to make the play seem artificial and so we had some lights on the audience and on the back corner of the room so that the majority of the room was lit.

The first two sections of the piece were very fluid and the speed of the lines was as directed and the pace of the piece meant that the topics that were being introduced had a greater impact than they would if the pace was slow as the audience was more immersed in what was being said. The group movements, like the head movements and the lift, were very synchronised and had the desired effect on the audience as some of them reacted audibly and we assumed that this meant that they were re-engaged with the performance - the effect that we wanted.

When we got to Section 3, I think that the casts nerves really began to set in as this is where they began to miss lines and where a substantial amount of script was lost due to one of the cast members saying a line that was too early and it ended up skipping the last third of section 3 and moving onto the start of section 4. The cast carried on as well as they could but it threw some of them off which resulted in some pauses between lines but the segment that was missed out included some of the more interesting topics and also the paragraph that involved the ideas about their capacity to generate surprise is slowly decreasing is a very interesting idea for the audience to consider whilst watching the piece but they couldn't consider it because they didn't hear it. After one of the pauses, two of the cast members tried to cover it up by saying a line, but this just led to them saying their lines over the top of each other. By this point in the play, it was completely up to the cast as to how they were going to react to this and how they were going to deal with this. Perhaps, it could have been down to something in the rehearsal process, as we wanted the atmosphere to not be pressuring on the cast as we didn't think that a stressed rehearsal environment was a successful and productive one but taking this into consideration, maybe we could have been a little harsher on line learning so that the cast knew the order of the lines better. We also had a cast member who became very nervous before hand and we did see her nerves reflected in her performance as she forgot the majority of her paragraph but covered this up by saying what she could and the piece carried on.

Overall, the cast managed to continue with their performance and maintained the style even through their errors. The exits had the same effect as the entrances with each person going off the way they came and as we left Maisie on stage, the final blackout came down on a performance that did have some errors but majority reflected Etchells intentions and the Forced Entertainment style.