Adding in improvements
Due to us having the client review our piece last week, we focused on the feedback that we were given and went through the entire piece making sure that changes were being made and we were keeping what Sue said in our heads at all times.
We started with changing the line "80% of people who commit suicide have a penis" to "80% of people who die by suicide" so that suicide doesn't sound like a crime. We also changed the wording of some other lines so that it made the build up to the question easier for the audience to understand what we wanted them to do clearly. The line "please help me explain to my colleague what happened by answering the following questions with the person sat next to you," was changed to "right, we need you guys to help me explain to my colleague how non-verbal communication was used between all three characters in the scene you just saw. To help you out, we've put some questions up on the board for you to discuss with the people around you." We made sure that we included "with the people around you" so that they wouldn't be restricted to the person sat next to them and it also leaves room for bigger discussions. We also made sure that we the cast was called back, the instructions for what we wanted them to do was clearer and so we now say "let's replay the scene and when we reach a point of non-verbal communication, we'll pause the scene and hear some of your ideas." We thought that this wording made it much clearer to the audience what was about to happened when we replayed the scene and it also prepared them to be called on to say their ideas.
We then started discussing the idea of doing a potential second arm test during the sliding scale if no one decides to put their hands up to stop John when he's walking then we thought that someone could say something like "so you all think that John is going to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness" as a joke and then we would redo the sliding scale, asking for them to be honest.
Also during the "who should John talk to" scene, we were thinking about adding in the option of Childline or Samaritans etc as someone that he could talk to, or maybe not adding it on the slide that would be shown but when we go out and talk to the audience, we could mention it and see how they would react to Childline as an option. We would then have a true reaction from the target audience on how they would feel calling an anonymous line.
After these discussions, we then focused on the asides that are throughout the piece as we wanted them to have the most impact which meant that the atmospheres, from the actual scene to the asides, need to be as juxtaposing as possible. We went through each individual aside and made sure that we, as the cast, knew when the asides ended in order for us to bring the atmosphere back up.
We then moved onto the facilitation of the forum theatre as we have never actually clarified what we were going to say in that section and so we decided that Adam, John's friend, should be the one to introduce the idea of the audience telling him what to say and do in order for John to open up to him. We came up with some reasons, that we thought the audience might say, for why John isn't communicating. We thought of:
We started with changing the line "80% of people who commit suicide have a penis" to "80% of people who die by suicide" so that suicide doesn't sound like a crime. We also changed the wording of some other lines so that it made the build up to the question easier for the audience to understand what we wanted them to do clearly. The line "please help me explain to my colleague what happened by answering the following questions with the person sat next to you," was changed to "right, we need you guys to help me explain to my colleague how non-verbal communication was used between all three characters in the scene you just saw. To help you out, we've put some questions up on the board for you to discuss with the people around you." We made sure that we included "with the people around you" so that they wouldn't be restricted to the person sat next to them and it also leaves room for bigger discussions. We also made sure that we the cast was called back, the instructions for what we wanted them to do was clearer and so we now say "let's replay the scene and when we reach a point of non-verbal communication, we'll pause the scene and hear some of your ideas." We thought that this wording made it much clearer to the audience what was about to happened when we replayed the scene and it also prepared them to be called on to say their ideas.
We then started discussing the idea of doing a potential second arm test during the sliding scale if no one decides to put their hands up to stop John when he's walking then we thought that someone could say something like "so you all think that John is going to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness" as a joke and then we would redo the sliding scale, asking for them to be honest.
Also during the "who should John talk to" scene, we were thinking about adding in the option of Childline or Samaritans etc as someone that he could talk to, or maybe not adding it on the slide that would be shown but when we go out and talk to the audience, we could mention it and see how they would react to Childline as an option. We would then have a true reaction from the target audience on how they would feel calling an anonymous line.
After these discussions, we then focused on the asides that are throughout the piece as we wanted them to have the most impact which meant that the atmospheres, from the actual scene to the asides, need to be as juxtaposing as possible. We went through each individual aside and made sure that we, as the cast, knew when the asides ended in order for us to bring the atmosphere back up.
We then moved onto the facilitation of the forum theatre as we have never actually clarified what we were going to say in that section and so we decided that Adam, John's friend, should be the one to introduce the idea of the audience telling him what to say and do in order for John to open up to him. We came up with some reasons, that we thought the audience might say, for why John isn't communicating. We thought of:
- He might be embarrassed of admitting he's struggling
- It might be out of the blue
- The alcohol could be stopping him from communicating
- It's also in front of everyone
At this point, we would be in the audience asking questions in order for them to understand the situation more. If they did say that having the friends there was harder for John to explain how he's feelings then we would encourage them to put their hand up and suggest that Adam get John on his own.
We then decided to add in some chorus narration so that we could drip-feed some information to the audience about what was about to happen in the next scene, where Adam takes it upon himself to ask John how he's feeling instead of waiting for John to open up. One of the lines that I was given was "so here's our top tip for helping someone open up about their feelings," but we decided to change the line as saying "feelings" to an all-boy audience may cause them to switch off as it seems like a quite feminine thing to say. So we changed the line to "so here's our top tip for helping someone open up about stuff." We would therefore be using vocabulary that the audience can relate to and understand more in order for them to be able to unlock the real meaning behind the piece. We also had to change another line to "one thing that makes it easier to feel like someone gets you," for the same reason that we changed my line: so that the audience could relate to it more.
We also had a discussion about how we wanted to end the piece and we though that we could have a small section of reflective listening which is where we, as the cast, would go into character as John and give the audience a chance to practice reflecting John's feelings back to him. It also allows the audience a chance to see what it feels like to help someone open up and so if this situation happens in real life, they know what to do and how to react when someone is telling them how they are feeling and their situation. We would also highlight some mistakes that people make when communicating, which are thinks like direct questions which are more likely to make someone switch off instead of open up and so we would try and get them to avoid asking questions. At this point, we would also hand out the wise-talkers leaflets to reiterate what we have been saying about it being easier to ask than to explain.
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