Double - Children's Theatre (FMF) - Blog 14 - 30/11/15

Today in Double, we decided that we would run the entire performance and stop after every scene to make notes on how to improve it.

When performing, "The Three Farmers," scene, it was obvious that our changes had improved the scene tenfold! This created an energetic introduction to not only the farmers, but the entire production.

Our, "Plan For Shooting/Shooting," scene was as amazing as ever! Our planning was very evil and horrid yet keeping a light hearted and comical approach! Meanwhile, the actual shooting was full of energy and portrayed the farmers' aggression.

After removing the chase from, "We'll Never Let Him Go," it ran so much better! Although we magnified our movement, I still feel we need to be more expressive with our actions to fully portray our characters!

When performing, "Bean's Cider Cellar," scene, the introduction of Badger, Mole and Rabbit has improved. Rat's little scene has been near-perfected, with the exception of people not knowing their lines. We also choreographed a new part when hiding from, "The Woman." This is the outline:

• On, "dashed behind," we all stand behind each other, (The Order: Ollie, Charlie, Rob, Lewis, James)
• On, "breath," we poke our heads out from behind the cider jar (James-Bottom Left/Rob-Top Left/Charlie-Bottom Right/Lewis-Top Right).
• On, "breathe," we poke our heads out but on the opposite sides from where we were before (Eg. Rob would go from Top Left to Top Right).
• On, "heart," we come back to centre hiding behind each other.
• During each of our single lines we pop our heads out of the side which we did on, "breath."
• When James mentions how Mrs Fox said Mr Fox will get them in trouble, Charlie walks out, no longer hiding behind the bottle saying, "Oh yeah I bet she did!" We all poke our heads out, shhh him, then Badger pulls Mr Fox back into line.
• As, "The Woman," takes each bottle of Cider, we all poke our heads out and gasp! On the final jar, as she place her hand on the handle, we all poke out with terrified facial expressions. But when she leaves the bottle, we all cheer in happiness and come out from behind it; the scene then continues as planned.

After this comes the Great Feast and, with the lyrics which James printed out, we performed it exceptionally well! For next time, I need to work on my voice for singing as Rabbit! 

At the end we received a very key note on how to improve our performance! Our introduction of the three farmers was far stronger than that of the fox family! This, most definitely, should not be the case! We decided a way to combat this effect is to swap the order so that the introduction to the fox family is before the introduction to the farmers. This establishes the first bond between character and audience with Mr Fox not the three farmers. 

I feel I've improved a bunch on the notes which were given to me last lesson and this has bettered the entire performance as a whole.