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.

Week 8: Director's Challenge

Section 3

Again we had another cast member missing and so I had to step in as Luke as it was Alexis' week to be lead director and so I took a step back to watch and write down any changes that we could make. We used the first 10 minutes to go over the lift that we did last week so that we could add in the person that wasn't here last week. We then went straight into a run through of Section 1 and 2 to see how fluid we could get it. In the video it is still quite lumpy but we think that fluidity will come with the cast learning their lines and coming off script. We made sure that we highlighted that learning lines was the key to unlocking the potential of this play and so we had to put slightly more pressure on the cast to learn their lines. https://youtu.be/FAHDPfuVzzE (We were in a room with another group and so sometimes it is hard to hear the lines that are being said. Although we could this to our advantage and try to get the cast to speak over the noise so they are using their full vocal range but this may just add to the chaos.)

Improvements that I thought of and we discussed as directors:

• Synchronisation of movements - The sharpness of the unison look up and then down. We definitely need to reiterate what words that the two movements are on and make sure that each move is more defined to help emphasise the move. 
• Staging - From a different angle the chair that I am sat on could block the girl sat on the floor but with our actual staging she will be sat on a riser which brings her slightly higher but I think that we need to investigate a little more when we have our full set. 
• Natural movements/twitches - The small movements that we have previously told them to avoid are slowly making their way back in, so I think that we need to be stricter about the movements and so in the rehearsal in half term I think that needs to be one of our focal points throughout the rehearsal.
• Reactions to lines - We need to figure out whether we want the cast to react to each others lines because reactions are quite natural and we want the audience to realise that these actual people being themselves onstage not characters, but on the other hand if the reactions are too big then the audience's attention will snap to that reaction so maybe the compromise is that the reactions need to be big enough for themselves to be reflected but small enough not to attract attention.
• Lines being said over movement - I think that if there's a movement going on the rest of the cast who aren't involved need to watch the movement so that they help draw attention to it and then the lines commence. If the lines are said over the top of the movements I think that we lose the author's intention, to see how long an audience can go until they lose concentration, as the style isn't reiterated after the movement. The movements should offer the audience a break from the stillness of the lines and allow them something to think about and if this is overridden with lines then it defeats the purpose.
• Fumbling of lines or loss of place - Because we are in the early stages of practice, we expect these but I think that we need to tell the cast not to react if someone does as we want them to really understand the atmosphere that we are trying to set up and if the cast are laughing or breaking that atmosphere by reacting to the loss of lines then they are disrupting the whole piece.

At one point, I actually did a leg swap by accident as a natural move but I think that we could use that as a small move to re-attract the audience's attention. I also think that the synchro movement on the line "we know the sun sets in the west and rises in the east", looks really effective and the pause before Joel's line, which is after, really helps emphasize the movement and I think that we should add a pause after every movement as it sets it apart from the rest of the piece and it could accentuate the snap in and out of the stillness. 

After this run through when then did a read through of Section 3 with the cast adding in their ideas for movements and for the positioning of those movements. Because we have done this process will both of the past sections, the cast have started to look deeper where and why we were putting the movements in their places which is what we wanted to happen. We gave them slightly more freedom with section 3 as we wanted to allow them to feel a part of the directing process. Although we do want to let them have an input, we do keep adding in ideas that we actually want and then letting them expand of them. We then narrowed down the movements that we wanted into around 2/3 and slotted them into the section. We wanted our cast to feel like they are really apart of this process and so we started asking him questions about how we are going to do the movements. For example there are a series of lines that talk about the fact that the cast is always looking forward and they wouldn’t be able to tell “what’s happening behind” them and a specific line that we previously decided we wanted a movement on was “unless we turn around.” We knew that we wanted a movement here as it was an interesting concept that not everybody thinks about in a drama piece and so we asked the cast what do you think we should do. We had many ideas including a look over the shoulder, turning around and looking at each other I’m confusion as not many people think of that. As directors, Alexis commented that we would like the movement to be a turn around but then she sparked the question of  should it be the whole cast? We had a small discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of doing a whole cast turn around but then we decided that the positives outweigh the negatives and it would look very effective. So we told the cast to all stand on the word “camera” from the previous line and then, once the line had been said, to turn around it a circle in silence to emphasise the move.

The final thing that we did in this weeks rehearsal, was practice the fluidity of the lift so that when we showed it at the end of the session we could do it fluidly enough for everyone to see what it would be like in the actual performance. Some feedback that we got was, when Peter, the boy who has his back to the audience throughout the lift, says his line, it is directed towards the back. We knew this from practice but we thought that we would focus on the safety aspects of the lift as we are still in the early stages and so we didn't ask him to turn around as we wanted his focus to be on the lift. We did think, with practice, that Peter could help lift Leah and then just before they begin to rotate her, turn around and say his line to the audience. This would mean that only 4 people would be spinning Leah which could be a safety hazard and so we want to be absolutely certain that the 4 can do that before we put it in the real performance. Overall it was a very successful rehearsal, getting everything that we planned to do completed, staying on track to block everything in the next week and helping fuel the casts understanding of the play as a whole.

Week 8: TIE (Storms)

Developing scenes

We started off the lesson by reviewing all of what we had done so far. We specifically went over the 4 topics that we discussed last week where the miss-communication of a boys emotion could lead to something vital or lead to both themselves and their peers suffering. We managed to get them down to 3 main events, difficult home life, exam stress and bereavement, that we could show in small scenes as the build up of pressures on our focal male character, John Doe.

We wanted our first scene to establish the scenario and atmosphere and so we thought that we could use the difficult home lift as our first short scene. We used dramatic asides from both the dad's point of view and John to help add to the story-line and keep the audiences attention on what was going on. We thought that we should use the moment of orientation to set up the atmosphere and we said that we wanted a lot of things going on so that we could add in dual conversations. So we had the younger brother looking for his school bag, John some revision on the kitchen table and the father figure waiting for his breakfast. This allowed us to have the freedom of multiple conversation going on at the same time. We also had the event of water being split onto John's revision notes through the mum being pushed by the younger brother which sparked even more conversations and the atmosphere grew with the intensity of the lines. The dramatic aside that we used for John's character was "Parents are arguing again, doesn't happen all the time, but it's started happening more often. I have to get myself ready and I need to make sure my little brother's alright. I'm not stupid. I know money's tight, they're trying not to let on but it's kinda obvious and that just makes it worse." We think that this is a good way of settings the scene for the audience as they now understand that this is a reoccurring thing that has started to become a problem and it also shows John's perspective on it which adds to the insight on the pressures that have already started building up. We also changed one of the lines to help drip feed more pressures into John and so we added in to the father's aside that the mother is pregnant.

We the thought we could use the exam pressure scene next at it seemed to be in chronological order and at the end of the last scene the two boys were going to school so this seemed like the next best scene to add in.We set the scene of a optional revision session and some of the class were staying and others were wanting to leave and we thought that this would be a good opportunity to add in some more pressures such as the teacher, a girlfriend and a mate. The scene builds up with all of these different people adding to John's pressures as they all have different expectations on him. The teacher wants him to reach his potential, his mate wants him to come out to football and his girlfriend wants him to do whatever he wants. The dramatic aside we used was "Fuck's sake! S'not like I don't want to stay but I need to pick up my little brother because no one else can and my parents don't want him going home by himself. Don't get me wrong, I do want to stay and she's kinda fit, but I just can't today." After we had done the bereavement scene, we decided to change the lines from "no one else can," to "my parents have a hospital appointment," so that we were drip feeding information about other pressures that were going on and this could also reflect the pressure that John is putting on himself by not telling anyone about his other ongoing issue.

Our final installment of the short scenes was the bereavement and we have previously drip feed that the mother is pregnant and so we made it so that the parents have lost the baby and so they ask John to take some of the pressure off them by looking after his brother more but, in turn, this puts more pressure onto John, adding to the pressures that we have already build up in the previous scenes. We thought that the father should have another dynamic aside so that we could see the thought process of a grown male in this situation to show that it effects everyone. We also chose miscarriage instead of stillborn because the statistic of having a miscarriage is 1 in 4 so we thought that it would effect more people and therefore we could relate to more people.

We knew that we wanted all of the asides to have a juxtaposing atmosphere so if the scene was high intensity the aside might have a more casual tone and vice versa so that the change of tone invites the audience to listen and understand what's going on.

We then had a discussion with Mr Bashir, a teacher who specializes in dealing with students who have or show signs of mental health. He said that the main signs of deteriorating mental health is that they will start to isolate themselves as they don't know who to talk to or don't know how to access support. This sometimes progresses into risk taking and things such as smoking weed and drinking alcohol or even progressing onto self-harm in some extreme circumstances. There is normally an underlying mental health issue when people start moving towards suicide, which is the direction in which we want our piece to go so that we begin to talk about suicide prevention. Everyone is from a different background and are brought up in different ways so some boys might have been taught that it's okay to openly talk about their feelings, and others are taught "man-up" and that "big boys don't cry." We need to talk this into consideration and think about the contrasting ways that some people might react to suicide and the triggers that are there.

We thought that the main reaction was going to be defensive of their actions that we are claiming they have and so we thought that we could add in a scene that shows us acknowledging this action. We could have a teacher who has noticed some of the signs of deteriorating mental health and has called John into a meeting about it. We would have John reacting in a way that is quite defensive and this enables us to show that we understand how they react and why.

We carried on adding a few more scenes to the piece and one of which was a scene between John and his girlfriend, Holly, were she has caught him drunk with his friends. We thought that this was showing one of the routes that John could take to "forget" about all the problems that are going on in his life. I think that this is a good example of what someone might do in this modern age as alcohol is available to many more people that it should be and it is one of the easiest forms of distractions for people in our target audience age range.
We then followed this scene with another that presented the coming home of John to find his dad sitting in the hallway waiting to confront him about where he has been. I thought that this scene could be quite hard because it involves two male characters. Both will automatically channel there emotions through anger as they will both sense that this is a confrontation, and also the father will want to lecture the son on his behavior and show his power and dominance as the older male figure and "that is what a father should do." We made sure that the scene ended with the father gaining control over John and sending him to bed but also showing signs that he is just relieved that his home and safe. We thought that the father would been in a similar position as John and being dealing with his own stress in a similar way as he needs to step-up and keep his family together.

We had a small discussion about Forum theatre and we said that a forum, in the roman times, was a place where you had a discussion and in a modern sense this could be an online forum for example. So if a forum means discussion then forum theatre could also be called "discussion theatre." Which it is in a sense as the cast take a scenario and they take on board discursive points from the audience. A facilitator would begin asking the audience questions and establish the subject that they would be addressing. The cast would aim for a resolution through these discussion points and could also add in points that might fuel the discussion onward, possibly into the direction of the resolution. We found that this pushed us onto looking at Augusto Boal, who was the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, "whose objective was to study, discuss and express issues concerning citizenship, culture and various forms of oppression using theatrical language... His objective was to work out issues citizens might be facing in their communities through theatre, and also to discuss the laws of the city of Rio with people on the streets... Boal also worked with prisoners in Rio and Sao Paulo. Boal argued that people in prison are not free in space, but that they are in time. and that the Theatre of the Oppressed strives to create different types of freedom so that people are able to imagine and think about the past, the present, and the future instead of having to wait for it All this was in order for prisoners to have a 'healthier and more creative lifestyle.'"(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augusto_Boal#Center_for_the_Theatre_of_the_Oppressed-CTO-Brazil ) Boal pioneered majority of the techniques that are used throughout Theatre In Education pieces and I have personally seen multiple T.I.E pieces, like "The Raft of the Medusa", and researching Boal has shown me the roots of where the techniques that I have seen, and are currently working with, come from. Applying this discursive technique to our piece, I think the Dad scene would be a key spot, where we could show our version and then ask the audience if they think either of the characters would react in a different way, or their body language might be slightly different and we could also ask them to put in some lines that they think either of them might say. There is a risk that our audience might not participate at all or they might think of it in more of a joky manner and take the scene out of hand. I think that we really need to think about our course of actions if that happens. Will one of us have to give them a line? How will we respond to any inappropriate comments? If the audience to participate, there are core responses that we can anticipate being said as lines, things like "I'm disappointed in you", "I'm angry at you" etc.
I think that this could be a good path into some workshop activities and audience participation and so we could come to a comedic end, re-establishing the audience's interest, in our "scientific" presentation. We could then snap out of our male characters and acknowledge the fact that we are all girls and we don't know how boys react we are just guessing and assuming. This would then lead us into Boal's "discursive points" with the audience.

Week 7: Director's Challenge

Section 2

This week, we had another member of the cast missing and so one of us had to step in to read the lines and also when we started experimenting with lifts, one of us had to step in again. This set us back slightly as we wanted to get as much of the script blocked in the first 4 weeks of rehearsal so that we could maximize the time perfecting it but we had to slightly adjust our plan. We then decided to experiment with frantic assembly lifts instead so that we could decide which ones worked better and which ones were easier and were easier to get into.

We decided that this week would be my week to be the central director and Alexis would be reading in the lines whilst I explained the lifts. She would also make notes throughout the process and then we would discuss the changes in a small director's meeting after the rehearsal. I also asked Alexis to be an extra spotter on each of the first times doing the lifts so that we were very aware of the safety of the person being lifted.

We kept to our original plan slightly in that we ran through section 1 to check that everyone had remembered where we put the movements in and we made sure that we reiterated the fact that we didn’t want any other movements to happen apart from the choreographed ones. This is something that the cast was struggling with both this week and last so next week I think we need to incorporate an activity into the warm-up that will allow them to get into the nature of the play and re-emphasise the need for no movements.

We then did a read through of section 2, which is the shortest section of the play, and asked the same question to the cast: when do you think the audience's attention will falter? We all established that we think it would be when the subject moves onto quite scientific statistics and ideas and so we all agreed that there needed to be a big movement at this point so that the audience would stay connected and interested through the lines that they might not understand.

This is where we brought in the idea of a frantic assembly lift as we have had previous experience of learning how to do them and we've also got videos that we can look back on to help remind us. Before this, me and Alexis went through the videos that we took at the workshop we did with frantic assembly and made sure that we knew all of the safety features that need to be established before we lifted anyone in the air. We started off the process in our cast, by establishing and giving each person a specific part in the lift for example, "the rock," "the sides" etc. And we made sure that everyone knew what their role was in the lift and we highlighted the danger aspects of the lift and made sure that everyone was focused on the person that we were lifting instead of anything else that was going on.  Despite me having to step in, we still carried on with doing the lifts instead of postponing it to next week because we knew we wanted the frantic lift to go into section 2 so if the majority of the cast know where it is, we could still do a run through of section 1 and section 2 together and we can just say the lines. Also we have had a chat to the year 12 who was missing and they understand the concept of the lift and what they need to do, we just need to do the full lift with everyone involved.
We started off with a plank lift which required everybody and I think that the cast adapted well to the corrections that we gave them, which included the placement of their hands and altering the way that they stood in order for them to have the most balance. Here is the first frantic lift we did: https://youtu.be/1ao29wgUEIU

After we had had a couple of tries at it, I made sure to ask the cast something that they found easy about the lift, something that they found hard and then something that they thought could be added if needed. Majority of the comments were that the coming down from the lift was very easy for everyone and everyone found it very easy to get to their next position. The hard comments were mainly about the going up of the lift as we established that Leah, who was being lifted, needed to lift a leg in order for her to push off the floor and also to get her weight onto "the rock." I then decided to step in and establish an idea that we could do for an improvement which was to add a turn in to the lift. So when Leah was stable in the air, we would then rotate her so that she went from her stomach to her back and then was placed down onto both feet. I thought that this small change could be added in as this would be the first big movement that the audience will have seen and so we wanted it to look as interesting as possible.  The cast agreed and we had a try. For this lift, we made sure that there was an extra spotter which was our teacher just in case we had a fall. https://youtu.be/ZGS2W0MmdzE

This was the full lift sequence that we want to incorporate into the piece. https://youtu.be/9e23XyvZ-ZU

After we established the full sequence we then did a run through of the whole of section 2 with the lift. https://youtu.be/ZfGvDtLMLyU We think that we need more fluidity between the lines and also we established that everyone is speaking in the same tone and so we need to highlight that they can still talk as themselves instead of having a dead tone of voice and not using their voice to juxtapose everyone from each other.