Evaluation of Performance

Let me start this evaluation by saying, how much I think everyone has improved since our first performance. The change was extremely noticeable, as confidence and the focus in the group has increased creating a better working environment for everyone to excel in. Even though I did not see everyone's scene during the actual performances, what I saw during run troughs and later on the tape, was very impressive and something to be proud of. I also felt that my group did quite well and being able to see how our scene developed during devising is quite amazing.

Right from the beginning, after we had our initial idea about being becalmed, we wanted to get the feeling of boredom trough and portray it realistically. I think, this was one of the strongest parts of our scene. There were bits in our performance, where we had decided have no talking, but rather let the character's way of holding themselves speak for themselves and so shed light into their inner thoughts in a very subtle manner. Also, given the situation the characters were in, not seeing each for a while and their friendship maybe even be falling apart, the awkward silences and conversation starters told a lot about the dynamics in the group of friends and how they are not as close as they used to be. We used a lot of time in devising to create this 'perfect mood' for the piece. Our scene even starts with an elongated silence, with our characters barely even acknowledging one another. This let the audience really get into the feeling of the tiredness of the sea, and how the characters were feeling in that particular moment.  We were able to show right from beginning the dynamics between characters and set the mood for the piece to then follow throughout the scene. The way we decided to start our scene, with the conflict between Rick and Craig, hooked the audiences attention right away enabling us then to focus more into the different personalities on the boat. This was something we as a group really wanted to have the focus on, the characters, and used a lot of time during devising to make it happen without making it seem like we were trying to force words out of our characters in an unnaturalistic way to their individual personalities.

Poems, songs and paintings about the sea worked as our stimuli, but I believe that the person we began to build our characters from, was ultimately the stimuli we worked on the most, spending numerous hours in and outside of class, thinking about who our characters were and trying to dive into their most inner thoughts. I found this a bit challenging at first, either drawing too much from the original person I based my character, Vera, on, or bringing too much of myself into the improvisation. Vera started out as a character who was very much living in her own bubble, seeing things as she liked. She was the kind of person who saw the universe as something wide and interesting, and the world was something so big, yet so small, but also so beautiful and worth exploring. I think that during the devising, this sort of naive Vera got lost a little bit and got turned into something a bit more contrasting, at least when comes to her way of seeing people. It was like the more I did improv with her, the more she became a character that didn't anymore believe in people, but doubted everything. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I would sooner think, that I used to my advantage in the final piece. Rather than keeping Vera as this mystery to everyone, just showing her positive outlook on life, I decided to show more what used to be hidden. All the improvising and exercises, like the hot seat – game, helped with building up this character out of what really was just a skeleton at the beginning. Our group especially, used a lot of time talking about how our characters feel about each other and the world, so I feel that we really did get a good grasp on who our characters truly are.

One thing that our group did well on, was balancing the different personalities on the boat. All of our characters were very different, some of them having more open and social personalities and others that would rather not talk about their lives so much, but we still were able to let all of the characters have their own time to shine and show what they were all about. We did have difficulty with this at first, since in the beginning of the devising my character Vera and Jades character Paige, were more on the background and not meeting their full potential on stage. This was probably because both of our characters personalities were of those sort that would rather stay on the background, than get involved with the action. What we did to get them more out there, was to use our contrasting personality traits to our advantage. Paige was someone, who liked to stir up trouble and to add this with Vera, who was already sort of on the edge thinking about leaving the friend group, would create drama between the characters and help to build up to the scenes 'finale'.

As the whole piece was on a boat, surrounded by the sea, it was essential for us to be able to establish to the audience that we were actually on a boat, without having any sort of a set to show that. In rehearsals we started of by taping the borders of the boat on the floor, to help us picture the boat and learn to move around on it. Imagining the boom and mast during devising was a challenge at first. We often completely forgot to consider the places of the boom and the mast, and so would simply walk over them. I can't honestly say how many times Max, our boat expert, had to remind us about the different parts of the boat. In the end, I do feel we were able to get trough to the audience, that we were in fact on a boat and create the illusion of a boat remarkably well, even if in the final performance the boom was once or twice ignored, in the rush of performance. It wasn't too ground breaking, but I did notice that once Rick was hit by the boom at the end, and the other characters run up to him, the mast and boom were absolutely forgotten about. I can personally say, that I did the mistake of running through the boom. So, even though we had worked on getting the boat established and did succeed in it in some extent, there were was still some things that should have had more attention during rehearsals.

It wasn't only the physic of the boat that we had to create with miming, but also the movements how we on the boat reacted to the boats movements. The obvious one, of course, was when Rick(Yunusa) was hit in the head by the boom. I am very proud of him to be able to create the illusion of the boom actually hitting him, and he did have a lot of practice to do it. Timing it perfectly and doing that kind of a quick, yet controlled movement must have been difficult to plan out perfectly. But it did work well, and that way we did not have the need to use any kind of props or awkward sound effects to show the audience what has happened.

A smaller part of this miming we used on the boat, was the rocking, once the wind started to pick up at the end of the scene. Even though the movement itself was quite simple, it did make a huge impact to get the feeling of the sea and the oncoming storm. It was also an effectual way to end the piece, by having the characters rock slowly with the boat, starting to realize the full extent of the situation and then having them all been thrown by a hit of a large wave.

Because of an unfortunate situation with one of our group members being involved in an accident, for some time we weren't sure if they were going to be in the scene. This really taught me, that anything can happen during a show. We used a lot of time creating a plan B, rewriting some bits and changing some lines, which in the end was not used. This took some time from doing actual devising or doing the finishing touched to the scene, but ti really was our own fault that we did not have enough time in the end. It would have been smart to take on some extra rehearsals, during lunches or after classes, to work on some part of the scene, but for some unknown reason we never did. Taking in consideration, that in my last show 'Song lyric' we had the same problem with time management, it is a bout time that I and really everyone else as well, learned something from this. Perhaps next time time won't become, or rather we won't make it become, our enemy.

The lack of time really prevented us from looking more into some of the parts in our scene, to get the little things and confusions worked out. For example, there was a part in the middle part, where discussion about Paige's home life started, where all of the lines were not really decided, who would say them. So, we had some over lapping of dialogue or people saying each others lines. This was because those particular parts and lines were not well enough established, when and who would say them was still a bit unclear. This could have been prevented simply by more rehearsals and having a proper discussion about who says what and when. Other part that didn't exactly go as planned, was when the characters decided to play some poker and start looking for the cards, which have been knocked over board earlier. This was supposed to be a bit of a funny scene, with Paige finding some of the cards, and instead of keeping them safe, throws the rest over board as well, and then blaming Vera for leaving the cards on the deck. This would have worked well, if we would have had actual cards to show the audience what Paige really was doing, but since we did not remember to bring the cards with us, the humor in it was somewhat lost.

The biggest thing I would criticize in our performance, was my own delivery and acting. I have started to pay more attention to my accent, and when we were watching our performance on tape, I couldn't stop grinding my teeth every time I heard myself speaking. This might be over criticizing on my part, but it really brought my focus on the fact, that I do need to work on my English. My accent and the fact that I cannot stop thinking about how I say my words has an affect on my acting and my confidence on the stage. What this means, is a lot of work outside of college on my own to fix what I lack in English language, compared to my peers.

Looking back, if I could change something about our devising or the show, would be the fact, that we simply did not use our time right. I would have more rehearsals and I would have also liked to discuss the research within my group more, to have perhaps had a wider image about what is happening in the scene.

Progression of Ideas

As you look back on what you did to get to your final version of your piece, you realize how many ideas you and your group have actually went trough together to create the outcome you came up with. In this post I will be going into more details on the different ideas we had and how they finally evolved into the piece that was seen on stage.

Of course, since the whole project was called Lamer, we had an idea that the scene would have to do something with the sea, and probably be set around it. Especially after our whole course groups discussion with Andy, where we talked about the different possibilities for us to set our scene in, it was quite clear that we were going to be set on the sea. For a while we had an idea with my group to have to be on a cruise of some kind, meeting for the first time, but quite quickly we got inspired by our stimulus and came up with the idea to actually have the characters be friends and have them to be on a holiday sailing trip together. With this we also came up with the boat being becalmed, since this way there could be more room to focus on the characters and their emotions, rather what is happening around them, a storm or too much of the sailing. This really stick all the way trough our devising, since we wanted to show our characters, their personalities and the dynamics between each other.
    To set the feeling of boredom on the boat, we started our scene with the different characters just minding their own business, sitting and laying around, only Craig fiddling with the boat. Yunusa also felt that his character, Rick, wouldn't just be sitting around, since he would be more concerned to get out of the whole situation and back to dry land. This lead to the idea of Craig and Rick having a bit of a fight, quite in the beginning of the scene. It was interesting way to progress from the silence and boredom, starting the drama on the boat with a bang, rather than slowly building up to it. Yet, we didn't want to keep the fight going on too long, since in some of the improvs it started to drag a bit, and so we added that Xanthe should go and break the fight off. After this the all of the characters would gather around to sit together and have a play of poker, leading to a deeper conversation about the lives of the different characters. We had this in our scene for a while, but after showing our progress and getting some feedback on our scene so far, it was aid that, if all the characters sit down right at the beginning, it takes out all of the energy from the scene, making it harder to pick it up later on scene again. At first, we just dropped the poker game, since it wasn't exactly adding anything crucial to the piece and changed it to the girls discussing how the group isn't as close as it used to be, resulting in apologies over a group cuddle. This was good, but it also solved all the possible future drama the characters might develop later on the scene about their friendship, something that could be used much more efficiently, or even as the main focus of some of the characters. Rather than having the people solve the friendship issue right away, I came up with the idea, that perhaps Vera could have some doubts about the group, resulting her finally blowing up at the end and revealing her most inner thoughts and doubts. We settled on this idea a bit later, after figuring out the outline for the end of the scene. Like this, we could end scene with the same kind of rise in action as we started with the physical contact between Craig and Rick. Now, since we weren't going to have a deep conversation nor a poker game, we turned the discussion about the different peoples lives, into Vera starting to hint at about her doubts towards the group. She still apologizes in the end, but the whole thing is not resolved, but rather just pushed back for a while. We also wanted to use the poker game somehow, since it is usually the thing go and do when extremely bored. A little part of the characters searching for the cards was added then, bringing some more of that feeling of being becalmed and dullness to the scene.
   Now all we had to do was to figure out how we would like to end the scene. We really wanted to end the scene with a bang, and so we were lead to the idea of having someone die in the end. We considered having Xanthe die of the boom hitting head, but then leaned more towards Rick dying. For Xanthe, death would be more of a release, ease from all the pain she is going through, where as for Rick, the one person who really has a life outside of that boat and wants to get out, it would be more dramatic. Yunusa also came up with the idea to not use a 'bang'-noise to imply the boom hitting him, but rather have the chance to use physical theatre in the performance to bring across the hit. This amazing, since it ended up being more believable, than with the noise, and this way we were also given the chance to use different kind of techniques in our performance.
    After the boom has hit Rick, we initially had all the characters just stand there in shock, but it wasn't very believable and so it was changed into the characters actually gathering around Rick's dead body, not maybe knowing what to do to help, but still trying. Xanthe would be the only one who doesn't do anything because of the amount shock and panic she is in, giving the opening for Vera to let out her mind about Xanthe and this boat trip. We also had a call from Ricks girlfriend to interrupt Vera, ending the piece with the group in shock of this revelation, but we then felt that it was taking too much attention of Rick's death and the emotions Vera was going trough, changing it into the characters just getting the grasp of the dark reality of Rick being dead.
    Realizing, that we pretty much had the piece all together now, we still felt that there was something missing. Paige wasn't getting enough time to really show her personality in the scene. We really wanted to show everyone's characters, so we definitely needed to add something for her to really bring out her evil ways. This was done by adding too the search of the poker cards. Paige would actually find some of the cards, but toss even the rest of them to the sea, then blaming Vera for leaving the cards on the deck. This way we were able to show how much Paige as a character just loves to stir up trouble, and also get some rise to the action right before the final showdown.

Using the Stimuli in Devising

Before I go into more detail about how we used the stimuli, here you can find my initial response to it. 


La Mer - Charles Trenet

   Originally, we were thinking about having our scene so, that this would be the first time the characters would all meet together, just having Xanthe as the link between two different groups of people. After thinking it trough, Lucy suggested that perhaps our characters should already be friends and the boat trip they were on would actually have some meaning to it.  This song right away had more of an happy and festive feeling to it than the other two, which really inspired me to the idea, that perhaps our characters could be on a some kind of a holiday-trip or something that they have done before and created a tradition within their friend group. This song really helped to get the sense, that these people should actually be friends
    There is also a part at the end of the song that somewhat gave me more inside into Vera character and her feelings towards Rick. The song is in French, but if you translate the last three lines you can see how they relate to Vera's love and how the sea has affected her:
"And with a love song
The seaHas rocked my heart for life"
    The song probably meant these lines to be interpreted, as the sea helping you fall in love, but for me it sounded a bit different. Sure, probably this tradition of getting together to go sailing on the sea has had an affect on Vera's love towards Rick, deepening it and maybe even helping her realize her feelings, but the sea has also ripped away the change of her ever getting to be with Rick. 



Benjamin Britten - Four Sea Interludes
   This piece really has a certain calm but at the same time uncertain and ominous feeling to it. In my original response, I talked about how sea is somehow unpredictable, at first calm and safe, but then can quickly turn into something dangerous. Especially with this symphony, the serenity has a dire inkling to it. Anything could happen. This really lead our group to the idea of being becalmed in the middle of the sea. Four Sea Interludes really has the feeling of slow drifting, like when you are becalmed with no wind, only the currents of the ocean pulling you forward, perhaps into something unknown. Our characters are feeble in the hands of the sea. This symphony also inspired the storm at the end of the scene, since it has an 'emerging danger' feeling to it. Claude Debussy - La Mer also helped us shape this part on our devising, but in a lesser extent, since it has more of an unstable sensation, especially as the song progresses it gives out an image of a storm, rather than a calm sea. 

"Sea Fever" by John Masefield
   In one of my earlier blog posts, I mention a part of this poem having a strong influence in developing Vera's feelings towards this boat trip:
""I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,"
- a segment from John Masefield's 'Sea Fever'    This first line of the poem really felt close to what is going on in Vera's head, when she decided to participate on the boat trip. On the other hand, she sees the closest friends might have ever had in this group of people, which is why she has hope to their future together, but at the same time Vera realizes the fact, that she hasn't felt like a part of group in a long time any longer. But rather than like the poem, which seems to admire the sea and the journey it will take the person, Vera dreads the outcome of this trip, because she knows deep down that what ever happens, the result won't be pretty. "
  To add to this, the poem also talks about" gypsy life", travellers heart, wanderlust, which I feel Vera very much is. when improvising this character there was a lot about Vera travelling her whole life, living in two different countries when growing up, and the year before our devised scene happens, she has been travelling and trying to find herself. But rather than finding herself during this trip, she has realized some things about her friends, or rather, how they might not be her friends at all. This uncertainty is very visible in the final piece, since Vera's main focus is to explore the possibility of having any future with these people.  


"The Great Wave off Kanagawa" by Katsushika Hokusai


   In my initial response to the stimulus, I thought that this painting had a sense of loss and defeat to it, but after researching the painting a bit more, I have to say that I am taking my words back. When before I only saw the powerful waves taking away the lives of these poor fishermen, now I am not so sure if the fishermen are even completely bothered by the waves. They are experienced and most likely know what they are doing, and so are confident that they will get home by the end of the day. This contrast between the terror of the waves and the empty placid sky over the mountain create a balance of confidence to reflect out of the fishermen in the picture. All of the characters in our piece have this kind of trust and confidence towards Craig, the person sailing the boat, as they ask for his help in getting the boat back to moving. Some of the characters also have this trust towards Xanthe, the one who arranged the whole trip, and so is in a way responsible for everyone. Unfortunately, this trust is broken in the end when they fail to secure the boom and Rick gets killed. 


"Vera" Person from your own life
   When I originally started thinking about the four possible people I would like to create my character for the finished scene, 'Vera' was the one I knew least about compared to the other three people. She was always a mystery to me, and so when she was picked for me to start working from, she was initially given the name "Deep and Mysterious". I kept this in mind when I started doing the improvisations, but as I started to work with different character dynamics, Vera's character really shaped into something a bit different. She wasn't any more that mysterious, but rather closed. I wanted her to be more than just the 'Deep and Mysterious'-girl, so I started to think of, what if she used the mystery as a front and is actually starting to want to get out of it? I felt that this was a more interesting way to portray someone, someone who is in crossroads in their life, and it is very visible in the final piece, with Vera's uncertainty with her friends and some lack of confidence in defending herself. Still, at the end of the scene, she is able to let it all out and take a step forwards, closer to knowing herself.

Research - Mike Leigh & Naturalism

MIKE LEIGH

• One of the most important contemporary directors in the UK
• First realized wanted to make films while analysing  the cinematic potential of his grandfather's funeral at the age of 12
• In his teens devised comic sketches
• Studied at the Camberwell School of Art then enrolled to London film School
• has since returned to be the Chairman of the Governors since 2000
• As a student started to write plays which were largely  improvised
• Became recognized for writing powerful TV films like Nuts in May(1976)
• Directing methods involve intense improvisation, research and close collaboration with his actors
• Starts projects without a script, begins with a basic premise which is developed through the improvisation 
• established clear codes of practise such as never letting actors discuss their characters anything but in third person
• players getting too close to their parts in firmly discounted
  "... people becoming the characters doesn't happen..."
  - Mike Leigh
• Actors only know what their characters do

NATURALISM

• Movement in European drama & theatre
• developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries
• Refers to theatre that attempts to create a perfect illusion of reality
• Dramatic & Theatrical strategies used(e.g.):
• three-dimensional settings
• everyday speech forms
• a secular world-view
• acting that attempts to recreate the impression of reality
• Naturalistic writers influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution
• believe one's heredity &social development determined one's character

How did we use this in our devising?

    Unlike Mike Leigh does, we didn't use his method for a long period of time before actually starting to create our scene, because of obvious time constrains, but we did begin the progress of our scene with improvisation and character development trough it. Talking about our characters, playing games like The Hot Seat and thinking about how our characters move and hold themselves to start the progress of our characters and to give us actors the knowledge to use to react to things just like our characters would when improvising. So, in a way we used Mike Leigh directing method, but in a shortened amount on time. It was a lot about exploring the character that was chosen for you on your own time, and finding out new things about them especially after we were divided into pairs. Once in pairs, the mane focus was creating memories for our characters, improvising when the two would first meet and some of the most important moments in their relationship. This all connects to Mike Leigh's way of directing and creating his characters and stories, we first create these memories and happenings that have moulded our characters. The final result of the character will be seen the finished piece, but there is so much character development that the audience might not be able to see or know about, because the importance of this development is to enable the actor to truly know their character and their life inside and out. For me, I felt that starting right away improvising the first time my character Vera and Yunuse's character Rick, met was difficult at first, but trough that improvisation we were able have in depth conversation about our characters, how they would act in certain situations and how they would react to each other. When we were then put into our final groups of four, or in our case five, we continued to improvise the first time all of our characters would meet. This really helped me with character development and further understanding Mike Leigh's method and why he uses it.  Because when we finally started to plan and improvise the scene that would become our final piece, it so much easier for me to act as Vera and think on my feet about what she would do and what she would think about this situation they are in. 

    Naturalism was the style we were all going towards with our pieces, trying to be as realistic as possible throughout the scene. We did this by keeping our characters in kind of boredom, since in real life, everyone isn't talking all the time, but there are moments of silence and uncertainty. 

 We needed to think about being realistic especially with our end, where Rick dies. The shock and the actions of the different characters needed to be done so, that it could actually happen in real life. Originally we had everyone just stay silent because of shock, but then after some consideration, we realized that this wasn't actually how most would act. There is always someone who go and try help, and so changed so, that we would actually have Craig be one of the first ones to run out and help Rick. After that Vera, probably still in denial about Rick dying, trying to go and wake him up. The only one not to actually do anything would be Xanthe, which seemed the most natural reaction to her character, a deeply unsure and depressed person who just cannot deal with this kind of shock. Still, in the end, when all of them realize there isn't anything they can do to save Rick, all of the characters sort of move into this helpless silence, where their youth and inexperience with these sort of situations come alive. All of characters are either in their late teens or early twenties. Naturally they haven't seen that much of life and so are feeling afraid and useless in this situation. 

27.11.2013

Day before the show

Today was a true working day. I felt from the right beginning everyone in to finish anything unfinished and do their best to use all the time we had beneficially. We had special focus on getting the movement pieces to flow and work well as the transitions between different pieces. It was important that they actually had a meaning to them and a link to the scene, rather than just having people randomly moving on the stage. We also worked on the big ending movement piece for the first time in the performance space at Pelham. This brought up some difficulties, since the space where we have been rehearsing is a lot bigger than our performance space, and so we needed to tweak some parts a bit to make it work. For example. when before we had been in straight line creating the tableaux, now we needed to edit it into a semicircle to be able to fit it on the stage.
   Even though we did a lot of good work, I still feel there is something we really need to improve on. With the beginning and end chorus poem, we really need to get a perfect complicity to be able to say the poem all together at the same time. Now, it seems that people are not sure when to start and what exactly is the rhythm. This could be fixed with working on our when we all take our in breath. Also, in our final movement piece, in the beginning with the jumps, not everyone is in time with their jumps(including me sometimes). This is about finding the rhythm and focusing on the piece, rather than the things happening around us.

25.11.2013

Describe all exercises done today and answer the following questions:
- What did you learn?
- What did you achieve?

   The first game we played was very simple in theory, but it seemed difficult for some to actually play game well. The exercise start by someone quickly deciding who to run to, and then running to them whilst keeping eye contact with their target. When realizing someone is running to you the 'target' has to then yell the runners name out loud and become the runner themselves by choosing their own target to sprint towards. The difficulty of this exercise was its simplicity, many might have thought that they are too good for this game or won't anyway needed, and so wouldn't put their 100% in doing it. The exercise was really about commitment and focus. You had to be fully committed to the game to make the best out of it. You also needed focus as the game became harder, as there were more than one runners. You really needed to focus on your target for them to notice you, and focus on everyone running, to know if one of them was targeting you. I really felt that this exercise was a good 'test' to see, who is really willing to go all the way and really commit to the game rather just thinking what they do is 'good-enough'.

   The next exercise we have done in class quite many times, but it is still very useful. The exercise starts by everyone moving around the space in neutral, playing the game named 'Don't Bump Into Each Other', so basically you make a game out of not bumping into other people. This then goes into the next part where you have to jump in unison with the person in front of you, landing at the same time and then keep walking around. The last phase, what I call the 'Stop and Start', always starts everyone standing all around the space in neutral. The idea of the game is to be able to start or stop walking all at the same time, without communication or anyone leading the group. The movement should start with perfect complicity with everyone else, and getting that complicity is the goal of the exercise. To make the transition from still to walking a bit easier, we joined the stillness with a deep breath in, and as we start to breath out, the group would start walking all in unison. To this breath, we also added a chant "Rose, rose, rose,rose" every time before started to walk again. I think that every time we do this game as a group, we get closer and closer to the point of perfect complicity, but we still have a long way to go. The focus in our group can be extremely terrible from time to time, people starting to talk or giggle, and without some discipline it is unlikely that we will ever achieve complicity. But with some hard work and true focus, I know we have the potential for it.

   The Clapping Chain is where the group gather around to a one large circle. One starts the chain with passing the clap to the person next to them by clapping their hands once both at the same time. The next person then turns to the person next to them on the right and passes the clap to them the same way as they received it before, by clapping hands once in unison. This is repeated with everyone first receiving a clap and then passing it down. All the way trough the chain, the group should keep a even rhythm with the claps, because as there are more clapping chains started, it is easy to lose track when is your turn. With focus, being ready to receive the next clap is very important, and so, after passing the clap down, you should right away move back to your left hand side to receive the next clap.

   In the next exercise we were divided into four different groups and teach'd this song:
Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose
Shall I ever see the red
Aye, marry that thou shalt
Shall thou art dead.
    This exercise was about developing the chorus, as all the four different groups would start to sing at different times, in canon. This exercises was a lot about being able to keep a rhythm within your own group, that would help us further develop complicity. 

 
After the chant we were given a sheet with two songs of Ariel's from the Shakespeare's play The Tempest. We started off by reading each song with the whole group in a circle, each reading one word at a time. This was to find the rhythm within these little songs, but also transfer the words into songs, since we did not really know, how the actual melody went. After this, we were divided into two group, each having one of the songs of Ariel's to work on. We were supposed to  learn the song, with each group member having a line from the song. Then we had to perform the song to the other song, keeping a certain rhythm whilst reading it. With this the idea was to really find music within the text. This was a real focus exercise, since you needed to be alert the whole time to hit the beat the right time with your line.


Reaction to Round-By-Trough exercise
   This exercise was to eventually turn it into part of our performance, linking each scene together. We were divided into pairs, our partner being someone from our devising group. Our mission was to create a 12 beat movement piece, with using the idea of going either round, by or trough  your partner. After this we went back to our full devising groups showing each other the ideas we had and then combining them to create an initial movement piece. With this exercise we really needed to get comfortable with each other and be able to be close to each without feeling awkward or afraid. It was also a sort of a trust exercise, especially when we added some lifts into the movement. I personally really liked this, even though it did feel a bit awkward at first, but after a while I realized how silly it was of me to feel uncomfortable with people I was going to perform with.

22.11.2013

What did we work on today?

    After our feedback on last Tuesday, we really wanted to start working on the bit's that were either lacking something or needed more attention from us. Especially getting Paige's characters have more lines and let her personality shine more trough, was a very important point to work on. So, what we did to enable this, we added a new part to the scene. In our scene, we have a moment where the characters start to look for a pack of cards on the boat, but then realize, that the rocking of the boat has knocked the cards into the debts of the sea. Before, this was just a moment that passed in our scene without bigger drama, but since Paige as a character is someone who naturally wants stew trouble, we decided that this could be a good moment to expand on trough improvising. Instead of the group just forgetting about the cards and moving on, Paige starts to speaks against Vera for leaving the cards on the deck, and even make fun of Vera's mishap. Even though the girls calm down quite quickly, this little episode between the two character's gives Paige the chance to keep picking on Vera trough out the rest of scene, bringing more of Paige's personality and character to show. What I really liked about improvising this scene, was that it felt very naturally to act out. Paige stirring up trouble because she feels it is the only thing she does well and Vera reacting to it with her uncertainty towards the group and her effort in it showing clearly and stating to the audience, that these people truly are drifting apart from each other. Still, with Xanthe trying to get over the cards, trying stop her friends fighting, point across that they did use to be better friends.

   Another thing we changed was the ending. Before, we had Rick's phone ring after Vera's melt down, revealing that he had a girlfriend all along, something more important than this friend group. From the feedback, we realized that this was a bit unnecessary, taking away emotion from Rick's death and Vera's emotions. What we did to fix this, we simply crossed out all the parts about the cellphone and the girlfriend, and rather had the group slowly realize, that Rick truly is dead and end the piece with them standing in silence, before being knocked out by large wave.

    We decided to also work on a Plan B, in case Max wasn't able to perform next week. The biggest changes in this version of our scene was, of course, the absence of Craig's character. Xanthe would be taking on the sailing of the boat, since her character was the only one with a privileged background and possibility to have done sailing before. Craig's lines were then divided between different character's. Hopefully, we won't be having to use this, but it is always good to have, just in case.