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.
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