Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 12 - 29/01/16

Today, we began by creating a full production outline including a scene list, prop list and costume list! This production outline is pictured right. We did this as it gives us something to refer back to if we are ever unsure on what to do next. This out line features highlights detailing what we have done, in the making or not even started yet. Having these highlights also helps us when we're unsure what to do as it says what we have done and what we have left to do. 

In this outline we also had labelled next to each scene what we had/wanted to have in them. This would highlight the main technique used in each scene. For example, we wanted the You Don't Own Me scene to feature lots of physical theatre so from this we've based our positioning on possibilities for movement. Also, this helped us decide what we'd want from our scenes we hadn't devised yet. When writing, we only wrote down the techniques we had used in the scenes we had done then from this we thought about what we hadn't yet used much and then decided which would be suitable for what we wanted to show in each scene.

For costume, we wanted to have our characters to wearing quite fashionable, modern clothing as piece is set in modern day London. We wanted the change from Hunter to DI Sanderson to be very distinguishable but quick. Baring this in mind, we have Charlie take off his hat and roll up his sleeves.

After this we began discussing different ideas for Hunter asking out Shanice. One point that Charlie pointed out was that we take a significant jump from the pair's teenage romance to domestic abuse. With this point brought up we decided that we should make the asking out scene much longer by adding on the end how the pair's relationship blossomed from a school crush to engagement. We agreed that we'd discuss properly how we'd show this later but our first impressions were to show it with still images/freeze frames followed with either narration or thought tracks.

We then focused on the beginning of the, "Asking Out," scene. Our initial thoughts were to use projection to display texts happening between the pair but we wanted the projection to a video of the texts happening but we were unsure how to do this. I then came up with a new approach featuring placards. Below is the outline of what our new idea:

• Shanice and Hunter would enter and sit on opposite sides of the table and go about their normal lives in their bedrooms as if the other isn't there. This creates the abstract barrier between the pair.
• Hunter would decided to message Shanice. I would enter in all blacks with placards. Once hunter had sent the text, I would play a text tone to signify Shanice has received it and hold a placard shaped like a text speech bubble above Hunter's head from behind him. We would all freeze giving the audience an opportunity to read it then we'd continue this throughout their conversation; conversation details Hunter asking Shanice out on a date.

After all agreeing on the idea, we decided that next lesson we were going to make these speech bubble placards.

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 11 - 28/01/16

Today in Single, Hope, Charlie and I decided that as we had so much done already in the short time that we've spent on this unit, we've focused this lesson on recapping previous scenes and perfecting them. We decided we'd time our run through so we could have an idea on how long our piece would last with what we already had. Doing this activity helps us remember our movement and speech and approach our piece with a more analytical mindset.

We ran all the way up to meeting Shanice in the canteen when Hope brought up some flaws with the meeting of the future fiancées. These flaws are listed below:

• When Clive mentions his bullying to Hunter, he says that everyone hates him, yet when the pair go the lunch hall, Shanice calls Clive over to sit with her; this goes against what Clive said earlier.
• Also, it would make no sense for Hunter to not get told off for hitting Kyle.

We have now changed the scene so it makes much more sense baring in mind what would actually happen in a school environment and the relationships between students. Here is the new outline from where we made changes up to the beginning of Clive's next interrogation scene:

• Clive mentions to Hunter how all the guys bully him for being bisexual (we make it clear that the guys, in reference to all the boys, are the ones who bully him which covers up the issue of Shanice and Clive's friendship).
• Hunter exits then re-enters holding his fist, he asks Clive to help him to the Headteacher's office as he doesn't know where it is as he's new.
• **TRANSITION** Lewis and Charlie exit, Hope enters and takes the left chair and places it to the left of the front chair. Lewis and Charlie re-enter. Lewis takes the front chair and faces it towards the audience while Charlie takes the right chair and places it to the right of the front chair. This is outside the 
• Clive and Hunter enter and sit down in their seats explained above, and greet Shanice. Clive introduces Hunter to Shanice. Hunter then has to go to the headteacher and exits.
• Shanice asks Clive about Hunter and they discuss where he came from and whether Clive has his number. Hunter then re-enters.
• Hunter tells them about his 3 day exclusion and Shanice nudges Clive saying "Get his number." Clive suggests Hunter texts him tonight as he has to get to sociology so asks for his number. Hunter shows Clive his number, Clive gives Shanice a look, then he reads the number out loud slowly. Shanice frantically types the digits into her phone then proceeds to smiling at the pair nonchalantly.
• Clive picks up his chair while saying goodbye to the pair and places where the right chair would go and he sits there ready for his next interrogation scene. Shanice says that she needs to see the headteacher next and then leaves taking her chair with her and places it back in the left chair position. Hunter then stands, places the chair in the front chair position and then sits on the table with his hat off to represent the character of DI Sanderson.

With these changes made our story hasn't got any plot-holes we know of!

We continued running through the piece skipping over the parts we hadn't devised yet and pausing the timer when we needed to. After our runthrough the length of our incomplete piece is 16 minutes and 10 seconds! As our piece only needs to be 20-30 minutes long and we still have a couple of scenes left to devise, I feel we're very ahead of schedule and we'll be able to have a piece with the correct length.

Following this recap activity, we decided to sort out part of our new scene which shows Hunter's breakdown after leaving both of his partners due to his overwhelming guilt! We recorded the phone call between Hunter and his boss after him not coming into work. We first scripted the conversation as it made things a lot easier when it came to actually recording the conversation. We arranged the scene so we would have Hunter receive a call and he would say his part live while his boss would be recorded. The conversation goes like this:

Boss - Hello. May I speak with Hunter Andrews, please?

Hunter - Yeah, speaking

Boss - Hi, yeah, it's Steven from work

Hunter - Oh! You alright? What's up?

Boss - "Whats up?" Maybe the fact that you haven’t been showing up for work in the last week and when you did before that, your service was terrible, I must have had roughly 8 complaints about your appalling service in the space of four hours.

Hunter - Oh, I'm sorry, it's been a rough week and a lo has been going on. I won't do it again!

Boss - No, I know you won’t because you won’t be coming back to this shop again for a long time, I called head office today and they are sorting out terminating your contract right now. Come in and get your stuff from your locker and sign your end of contract papers and you can be on your way. Thanks.

Now that this is recorded, we have that one less thing to do which gives us more time to do more complicated tasks and recap old scenes!

Next lesson we will focus on making a scene, prop and costume list and how we were going to complete our unfinished scenes.

Double - Storytelling - Blog 19 (Snow Queen) - 27/01/16

Today, we spent time discussing our research we conducted on storytellers, watched performances of professional world champion storytellers, and discussed Ollie's plans for his scene.

To begin with, we observed each others research for different storytellers. Some of us chosen movie actors (e.g. Morgan Freeman) and others chose audiobook readers (e.g. Stephen Fry). My decision to choose James Earl Jones was very different compared to everyone else's as he used a very bassy tone and elongated vowel sounds to portray a wise character (much like his character Mufasa in The Lion King). Meanwhile, Lorna's choice of Judy Dench represented a more regal and well spoken approach to storytelling. Knowing the different dialects and word choices etc. of there storytellers has now broadened my knowledge on storytelling and I will utilise this in my performance.

Afterwards, we watched a performance of a world champion storyteller on YouTube. We analysed her different techniques she used such as exaggerative facial expressions, loud gestures and her constant movement. This showed us that there are different elements to story telling other than voice; movement plays a large role in telling a story.

Finally, we spent the rest of the lesson discussing how Ollie wanted his scene to be done. He wanted it to be just him on the stage telling the end of the story with projection (sorted out by him), a small dance sequence (to be choreographed by Lorna and I) and a 3D sound scape (designed by Rob).

Next lesson, we will focus on what Charlie wants for his scene and how we will make his different to everyone else's.

Single - Devised Piece (CP) - Blog 10 - 26/01/16

Today we devised a brand new scene for our devised piece. This scene was to represent Hunter calling his relationship off with Clive. We decided before that we wanted to make this scene very physical as a large proportion of our scenes so far are very dialogue based. We decided to take a route which we wasn't obvious at first: Hymn Hands! Below is the outline for our scene:

• Clive and Hunter enter, Clive enter happy, Hunter enters sad. They each pick up the a chair from an end of the table and place it in front in the form of their respected emotions (E.g Clive would delicately place the chair while Hunter would chuck it about aggressively)
• The pair sit on their seats slightly apart. Clive moves his seat closer to Hunter but Hunter shuffles back away
• Clive places left hand on Hunter's right leg, Hunter moves it back to its original position
• Clive puts his left arm around Hunter's shoulders, Hunter moves it back to its original position
• Clive lifts his left hand with his right on to Hunter's right leg, Hunter moves it back to its original position
• Clive attempts to place his left arm around Hunter's shoulder again but Hunter stands before he gets there
• Clive stands and goes to hug Hunter but he rolls under Clive's arm (using Round-By-Through) and stands in front of the chairs
• Clive grabs Hunter's left hand and spins into his arms. Hunter pushes him out and sits back down, facing forward
• Clive sits facing forwards too, but with his head turned to Hunter. Hunter looks at Clive and shakes his head while Clive nods back desperately
• Clive places his right hand on Hunter's left shoulder, Hunter shifts his body away from him. Clive leans in for a kiss but Hunter covers his mouth with his hand
• Clive latches onto Hunter hugging but Hunter gets up and leaves
• Clive lunges towards him, trying to reach out, but its too late as he is already gone. Shanice enters during the lunge as she shares the feelings that Clive has
• They step back out of their lunge and hold their chests with crossed forearms. They then fall to the ground and pound the floor three times which represents their anger and frustration
• After the third pound, they roll left and act as if their arms are chained to the ground. They then break out of their chains and sit up to their left. They look around lost as they have nowhere to go
• They stand and stomp in anger, then mime pulling a rope from the right and Hunter appears. He walks past like a ghost, unaware of their presence and they reach out for him but can't get there
• Shanice flies off with him but Clive looks around as if he were lost then sits back in his seat and performs his monologue

Below is a video of the performance:

We decided on using the instrumental to the song, "Elastic Heart," by Sia as our backing music. We chose this song as the title pretty much summarises the past 8 years of Clive's life as his feelings and emotions have been toyed with, in his eyes, and he's always felt like a victim.

Ways to improve my performance:

• My movement with Hope needs to be in time with hers.
• My facial expressions need to be constant for each mood.
• My gestures such as nodding need to be more exaggerative in order to get them on camera.
• My tone of voice needs to be appropriate to my characters emotions at the time during my monologue (e.g. Sad when sad, angry when angry).
• Take time with my speech and speak louder.
• Articulate my speech as it becomes slurred.

Double - Commedia Dell'arte - Blog 8 - 25/01/16

Today, we polished off our opening scene! We began by rehearsing what we already had but we all lack energy and we weren't convincing enough as our Commedia Stock Characters. We decided that the best way to nail our characterisation was to split off into small groups and discuss our characters personalities and how they interact with others and the audience. I paired with Ollie as Pantalone and Doctor interact often in the world of Commedia! I discussed how Pantalone is very old and is a former Magnifico, he is greedy and rather stingy with his money, has a high regard for intelligence, he is incredibly gullible, and walks with a hunched back but not because of his age, but in order to protect his money sack banging over his groin.

After this we got into different groups (Lorna & James/Rhiannon, Rob and Ollie/Charlie and I) and devised a short Lazzi scene! Lazzi is an improvised comic dialogue or action commonly used in the Commedia Dell'arte. Our groups were based on which Commedia characters would typically pair with the others. Brighella is forever telling Zanni what to do, Harlequin is forever ignoring Pantalone's demands and Captain is always getting into fights against people he can't beat such as Columbina whom is known for her flirting with the doctor.

We wanted these scenes for us to include no dialogue as we wanted to improve our characters' movement. Our movement needed further characterisation so by restricting ourselves to only movement, we needed to be sure our movement fully accentuated the story we were trying to tell and our characters' motives.

This is how mine and Charlie's scene went:

• Pantalone walks to Harlequin and orders him to do something for him, but Harlequin tries to laugh him off; this results in Harlequin being hit.
• Pantalone tells him again and leaves.
• Harlequin finds some food and eats it using Commedia styled gestures.
• Pantalone spots him and approaches him, meanwhile Harlequin quickly tries to eat the last scraps of food available.
• Pantalone pulls him by the ear and tells him to leave. Harlequin looks at Pantalone surly and starts walking off and Pantalone kicks him on the butt.

When presenting this short scene, we were given the following feedback:

• Our gestures need to be more exaggerative
• We must keep our faces facing the audience as much as possible so that the audience can see our masks
• Display our emotions to the audience more than the characters we're performing with

Following this activity, we tried our opening scene out again but this time with our improved character movements. This went a great deal better than before but we made some more relevant improvements:

• When characters enter, it should be of their own accord (excl. Doctor as he's called). We decided it looked rather weird having every character enter mysteriously as they are mentioned and thought that they should be walking past in the background before they're blamed.
• We resolved issues with characters masking each other due to us all being hunched together on the stage around Harlequin's body.

Next lesson, we will actually get round to devising other smaller scenes between fewer characters.

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Character Profile - 25/01/16

Name: Clive Rodman
Age: 16/24
DOB: 15/04/1991
Sexuality: Bisexual
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: White British
Hometown: Croydon
Current Residence: London

Occupation: Student
Favourite Subjects: Art, Drama, English
Least Favourite Subjects: Chemistry, Physics, History

Height: 6ft
Weight: 13st
Eye Colour: Blue 
Hair Colour: Ginger
Glasses or contact lenses: Yes
Distinguishing features: Freckles
How does he/she dress? Jeans, T-Shirt, Fresh Nikes
Habits: (smoking, drinking etc.) Smokes and drinks at 24
Hobbies: Going to the parks and parties (16), Going to clubs and pubs (24)

Introvert or Extrovert? Introvert
How does the character deal with anger? Takes it out on those closest to him
With sadness? Bottles his sadness
With conflict? Keeps quiet and cries
With change? Reacts surprised and shocked
With loss? Bottles his sadness
What does the character want out of life? To be considered a friend to someone
What would the character like to change in his/her life? People to accept him
What motivates this character? The thought of a better life
What frightens this character? The aggression of his classmates
What makes this character happy? The thought of a better life
Is the character judgemental of others? He always thinks everyone is against him
Is the character generous or stingy? Stingy due to the hate he's received

Is the character generally polite or rude? Rude but only because of the way he's been treated

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 9 - 22/01/16

Today, I began to script my monologue for when Clive gets dumped by Hunter. Below is what I scripted but nothing is set in stone yet:

Why? Why has this happened to me?!?! For my whole life, people bullying me tormenting my feelings. My sexuality being a joke for two years at school! People always giving me evils and threatening to do things to me... horrible things. "Oi everyone watch out for Clive in the showers! Don't let 'im touch your knob!" Constant mocking! But then he came along... Hunter. My diamond in the rough! My one and only! I didn't trust him at first but he was different. He didn't satisfaction from tormenting me, but he only wanted a friend! He chose me! He punched Kyle! He was the one for me! When we left school we lost touch but it was him who tried to meet up again! It was him! Not me! He made that effort for me and it confirmed my feelings! I told him how I felt and he loved me too! He felt the same way! At least I thought so... He tricked me! In the end he was just like everyone else! He hurt me in a way that just fractured my heart and I don't think I'll ever heal! He's just a fucking....no... No, no, no he didn't mean for it to end this way! He was only trying to console me. It was her fault! His so called, "Love of his life!" but she was nothing but a distraction for him! She made him more focused on her than his work and never let him have fun! But it was my fault! I introduced him to her! Wh-wh-wh-what have I done! It's my fault! I killed Hunter! It's all my fault and... and now I can never have him back! It's all my fucking fault!!!

Now that I have this monologue scripted, I have a guideline to base my speech from other than going off a basic idea and mostly improvising! If I were to learn my monologue off by heart, then my performance will be improved tenfold.

Next lesson, we'll decide which scene we want to devise next and possibly work on performing and perfecting our monologues.

Double - Commedia Dell'arte - Blog 7 - 22/01/16

Today we presented our scenes we devised last lesson in our small groups, (James & Rhiannon / Charlie, Rob & Lorna / Ollie & I).

James an Rhiannon's scene was very effective at portraying the personalities of the lovers and was easily adaptable to add something in before or after. The only way I would change it is for James to have a slightly higher pitched voice as the lovers are supposed to be rather feminine so a higher pitched voice would be more suitable.

Lorna, Rob and Charlie's scene was extremely funny yet like James and Rhiannon's piece, it showcased the characters personalities remarkably! The only was I could see their performance being improved is during the sword fight between Brighella and Captain, they should be more vocal with Brighella shouting aggressively in Gromalot whilst Captain whimpers and screams cowardly in Gromalot.

When Ollie and I performed our piece, I performed it slightly differently with a better use of voice. I changed my voice so that I sounded a lot like an elderly man which relates to my character of Pantalone very well. I also spoke rather proudly and aggressively as Pantalone is a former Magnifico so I feel he would still act as if he was at the top of the Commedia Dell'arte status ladder.

Following this we got up and devised our first scene, the discovery of the body of Harlequin. Below is an outline of what happens in the scene:

• Brighella enters and finds Harlequin's corpse
• Brighella calls for help and Doctor enters
• Doctor checks for a heartbeat but finds nothing
• Pantalone enters, sees the body and asks who caused the death
• Doctor blames Brighella, Brighella blames Captain
• Captain enters and explains a battle between him and Harlequin's murderer
• Captain identifies the killer as Columbina
• Columbina enters, prides Captain on his physical strength and then blames Zanni
• Zanni wakes from he call of his name, runs to the group, approaches the corpse and then starts biting Harlequin's arm.
• Brighella pulls him off and Pantalone asks who killed him; Zanni blames Columbina
• The group start randomly accusing each other of the death of Harlequin with pointing gestures. (The diagram to the right depicts who points at who and when).
• Doctor ends the quarrelling and suggests that they try to resolve the matter diplomatically.

After running through this scene we discussed our plot line and which direction we wanted our performance to go in; we weighed up the options of how Harlequin could die. Would he kill himself? Would it be murder? Would it be planned or accidental? The ideas we had were our original idea of Zanni knocking him in an oven, Brighella accidentally killing Harlequin mid duel with Captain, or Harlequin choking on a mammoth mouthful of food. Lorna brought up an interesting idea of showing, in all of our individual/partner scenes (e.g. Pantalone & Doctor, Zanni) the process each character arranging the death of Harlequin but we actually don't see how he dies until the very end. Ollie conjoined onto this idea by saying that after this we can join all of the incomplete parts of these together to show how each tactic failed, obviously excluding the succeeding plan. This will bring all the scenes together fluently and explain everything clearly to the audience, therefore revealing the true result.

Next lesson, we will continue to polish off our opening scene and possibly move onto our other individual scenes.

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 8 - 21/01/16

Today we continued devising our scene representing Hope being in a restricting relationship. Carrying on from what we got, this is our new outline:

• During the chorus Charlie pulls Hope up using non-contact puppetry.
• Lewis enters and Charlie shakes his hand. Charlie forces Hope to shake Lewis' hand. Lewis sits on the right chair.
• Charlie pushes Hope to the floor shouting at her.
• Charlie feels up Hope's side seductively and pushes her down.
• Charlie sits where he previously was seated in Lewis' interview. Hope exits. Music fades out.

After this scene we devised the next scene which was Lewis' interrogation followed by Lewis coming out to Charlie. We decided that we didn't want our characters to share the same names as us so we decided to change them. Charlie's character is called Hunter, Hope's character is called Shanice and my character is called Clive. We chose to change the character names as we didn't want our associate our characters with ourselves too much.

We wanted my coming out to be very mime based with narration as, typically, when someone "comes out" they narrate what happened and the other person would then imagine the scenario. With this scene it would fully immerse the audience into Clive's experience. Below is an outline of how we're performing this scene:

• DI Sanderson asked Clive when things changed between him and Hunter. Clive asks what he means but soon realises that Sanderson knows everything.
• Charlie transitions from DI Sanderson to Hunter by sitting on the seat. Meanwhile Clive would narrate part of the scene.
• The narration starts with Clive explaining how him and Hunter started losing touch after leaving sixth form. During the intro of the narration Charlie changes from DI Sanderson to Hunter by putting on Hunter's hat and moving from sitting on the table to sitting on the chair behind it.
• I narrate how Clive and Hunter get back in touch whilst Charlie and I get our phones out and mime texting each other.
• I then detail about how Clive and Hunter meet in a bar and have a few drinks. During this, Charlie and I both stand, shake hands, sit back down and mime taking shots.
• The narration details about Clive and Hunter going outside for a cigarette and Clive discusses with himself whether now was the right time to tell Hunter how he felt. Meanwhile, Charlie and I walk away from the table (Upstage Left) and smoke.
• To represent how drunk we are, we decided to use Round-By-Through to show the pair dancing drunkenly around the alleyway.
• While I narrate about telling Hunter that I love him, Clive's actions link up. We thought it would be clever to integrate the narration with the speech so that whilst I'm narrating, it flows fluently.
• We finish the scene with Clive holding Hunter's head close to his own and narrating saying, "But he didn't know how serious I was." We then have a blackout to suggest that Clive and Hunter kissed. When the lights come back on, we're sat back in our original interrogation positions: Clive on the right chair, DI Sanderson on the table.
• DI Sanderson asks what happened after that night and Clive says that they just went home and spoke again the next day.

To the right is the recording of our performance:

Ways to improve this scene:

• My narration needs to be better planned and scripted as it was improvised and that was easily recognisable.
• My speech needs to much clearer as a lot of it was slurred and lisp.
• When Charlie sits down after the blackout, he needs to remember to sit on the table rather than the chair.

Triple - Historical Context - Blog 8 (Greek) - 22/01/16

Today, I continued to direct my Greek Theatre physical theatre scene. After last lesson, I devised the rest of the movement for my scene so that I could have a it arranged for everyone the next day. Pictured right, is my choreography.

I began by teaching this to everyone individually. Although this took more time, I feel it's easier to remember something when you're taught it by yourself rather than as a group. Once I had taught it to everyone we began to run it a few times. These runs were very successful but there were some issues to sort out.

Firstly, none of us had learnt our chorus verses so in this run through, we couldn't actually perform the runthrough properly but in the next lesson, we'll make sure we all know the verses. Secondly, Dan didn't feel confident doing contact improvisation because of medical reasons, so for this reason, I changed the scene so that we skip Dan's contact improv so it goes from Lorna's, skips Dan's, then straight to mine.

Finally, upon performing a few runthroughs, I noticed that there were quite a few blank spaces where we were all just standing still waiting for the music to get to the next section; there were only three luckily but they needed to be dealt with. The first was at the very beginning where we don't come onstage for around 30 seconds. To resolve this I will cut the audio from the beginning up to when we enter when I edit the track. The second gap is in between after we take our 4 steps into centre stage and when we turn in our respected directions to then perform our combat sequence. To resolve this Lorna and choreographed a short sequence for that time period; this amount of time lasts 16 bars of the song. For the first four bars we would each swap positions in our formations clockwise four times. E.g. Lorna would step into my position on the first bar, Toby's position on the second bar, Dan's position on the third bar and back to her position on the fourth bar. For the next section we'd all lunge forward in our respected angles twice, each lunge lasting 2 bars. Finally for the last 4 bars, we will turn anticlockwise 4 times whilst marching, one per bar. This is then followed by the turn and combat sequence which was already arranged. The final issue with blank space was when we rise from kneeling and circling Cyclops, by the time we get there we have loads of time until we start stomping. To resolve this we will do rise and circle him in slow-motion.

With these changes, the piece is a lot more fluent. Next lesson, we will focus on creating our masks so that we can finally perform and film the piece.

Double - Storytelling - Blog 18 (Snow Queen) 20/01/16

Today we finally moved onto a different section of Snow Queen! This time it was Rob's turn to devise a scene! Below are my actions during the piece:

• We start off as my sections ends, all in a circle around Rhiannon who is on the floor huddled up.
• When the Snow Queen is mentioned in Rob's narration, I exit the circle and leave the stage.
• When the narration mentions many men trying to win the queen's hand, I enter centre stage and walk towards her. I gesture towards her flirtatiously but when she gestures for me to leave I join the end of the line behind Lorna and Charlie. I then repeat this multiple times as they leave from rejection and I reach the front of the line.
• When the pearl is mentioned, I enter centre stage and lay on the floor as a ball and Rhiannon sits on me; at this point I'm representing the pearl. When Rhiannon stands, I exit.
• When the lamp is mentioned, I go on my knees and follow Lorna everywhere she goes.
• When the palm tree is mentioned, I stand behind the rest of the class in a line with my arms in the air like the leaves of a palm tree, our bodies representing the trunk of the tree. When everyone else falls, I resume my role as the lamp.
• When Lorna lies down, I stand and join the circle around her.

After devising this scene, we were asked to conduct some research on a narrator/storyteller whose voice captivates us. In my separate blog post is my research.

Double - Storytelling - Narrator Research - 20/01/16

Last lesson I was asked to conduct research on a specific narrator and how their voices captivates and immerses me into the story they are trying to tell. This was a difficult choice for me so I went with two very different narrators: Edward Norton, most commonly known for his role as The Narrator in the hit 1999 film Fight Club, and James Earl Jones, famed for voicing characters such as Darth Vader from Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King. Below is my research conducted on the pair in bullet point form:

James Earl Jones (Based on Mufasa monologue & "The Raven" by EAP reading)

• Extremely bassy voice
• Extends vowel sounds where appropriate to have you hanging onto the word for as long as possible
• Accurately placed pauses for effect
• Sharp yet low portrays raw authority and power
• Echoes embody the true supremacy of his characters

Edward Norton (Based on "An Urbanising Planet" narration & "Fight Club" monologue)

• Slightly high pitched american accent
• Fast paced speech makes you want to keep up with his narration
• Fast yet fluent speech impresses the listener thus maintaining their interest and attention
• Pauses are less frequent that JEJ but they match well with his high tempo speech

Triple - Historical Context - Blog 7 (Greek) - 20/01/16

Today, I got physical with directing my Greek theatre play. We first started by reading through the script; this meant everyone else understood what the play was about and what happens within it. Following this we got up and started acting.

My idea to make the piece more modern was to create a piece of physical theatre based around the script. The way I wanted to do it was to have all of the actors mime their lines instead of speaking them (except for the chorus). I got everyone to act out the scene with speech first; this got everyone familiar with the story before miming it which is a bit trickier. I also created a new verse for the chorus to say at the beginning of the piece. This is because the story would lack an introduction if the verse wasn't added. 

Partway through trying to mime the whole story, I decided that mime wasn't really fully using physical theatre and decided to start again. I thought about the Greek soldiers being much like the Romans, moving in formation to improve tactical ability. From this I devised a short movement sequence for our formation of 5. Below is the movement I devised:

• SL: Formation facing right (Tom centre, Dan right, Toby front, Lewis left, Lorna back)
• At 0:33, step LRLR, one per bar
• At 0:55, Lewis 90' L, Dan 90' R, Lorna 180'
• Shove shield, stab spear, shuffle forward (and back for Tom) ] x2
• Shove shield, stab spear, go to original stance
• Step back RLRL, turn to original directions, turn heads to audience
• Music fades out, Chorus Verse 1, Music fades in
• Cyclops enters SL, all turn 180'

After this I was planning on having some contact improvisation between each soldier and the Cyclops (excl. Tom) but I will have that devised with the rest of the scene ready for next lesson. In the next lesson, I will aim to teach everyone the newly devised choreography and then iron out any creases.

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 7 - 19/01/16

Today we decided to continue devising based on what we wrote on our production plan. The first scene we devised was Charlie asking Hope on a date. This mainly consisted of dialogue. We then devised the next scene which was Hope's interrogation. This again consisted of mostly dialogue. This interrogation details the downfall of the couple's relationship.

We then devised the next scene which showed how restricted Hope was in her relationship. This scene was very physical theatre and involved non-contact puppetry. I felt that using hand puppetry was an effective way of showing how manipulative Charlie is without actually touching her. We first thought about using our stimulus, "Chasing Pavements," as background music but we decided to go with, "You Don't Own Me," by Grace and G-Eazy. We thought this would be a good track as it reflects the same message that our scene is trying to put across: that restrictive partners are bad. Below is an outline of what we created so far:

• Charlie starts seated in front of the table, while Hope stands upstage left.
• On the "Ah ah ah ahhhh" at the beginning of the song, Charlie pulls her back in line with him (All interactive actions between Hope and Charlie are non-contact puppetry).
• During the short rap section, Hope bangs on a metaphorical wall between the pair which represents how distant they've become distant. Charlie then stands up and gestures towards her threateningly and she falls to her knees begging for forgiveness. He walks off to fetch a drink.
• During the first verse, Charlie enters with a drink takes a sip and places it on the table followed by him sitting on the seat. He uses non-contact puppetry to pull her over to him and her head rests on his leg. He then pushes her away and stands up.

This was all we got through in this lesson, but next lesson we will aim to complete this scene and potentially a new one too.

Triple - Historical Context - Blog 6 (Greek) - 18/01/16

Today we moved onto my Greek Theatre play. Beforehand, I chose an extract from, "The Frogs," by Aristophanes but after attempting to alter it so that it appeals to a modern day audience, I felt that a play like The Frogs is very hard to modernise as it would either be totally different or it lose it's original plot. 

Following this decision, I searched for a new play and came across, "The Cyclops," by Euripides. This play featured a lot more movement than the other play so I thought it would be a good idea to convert it to a physical theatre piece. I decided that I would remove all dialogue from the entire piece (minus the Chorus speaking parts) and we'd mime what our lines were saying. For example, Odysseus has the line, "Look- a cave!" so the actor reprising his role (Tom) would probably point to the cave and beckon the other soldiers over with hand gestures.

During this lesson however, we spent some time designing our masks for our characters. There would be 3 different mask designs; one for Cyclops (Ashley), one for Odysseus (Tom) and one for the soldiers (Dan, Toby, Lorna and I). I feel that the soldiers would all have the same mask, as soldiers are very uniform and everyone would look the same. Odysseus would have a very similar mask to the soldiers as he is a soldier too but he would have something which distinguishes himself from the other soldiers. Cyclops' mask would feature gross nose, one bloodshot eye and horrible teeth.

Next lesson, I'll start getting people on their feet and I'll devise what will happen in the scene.

Double - Commedia Dell'arte - Blog 6 - 18/01/16

Today we continued to look at possible storylines for our Commedia Dell'arte piece. We first split into two groups (Rhiannon/Rob/James, Charlie/Ollie/Lorna/Lewis) and we started looking at devising. Splitting into two groups allows us to multi-task and allows no room for people not doing anything as there are multiple tasks being done at once.

In my group, we discussed how our story would be ordered if we were to go with our original idea of having a murder mystery. Having a scene list would help us if we weren't sure what to do in the future.  Last lesson we discussed that we wanted Harlequin's corpse to be found first and then have the story explained through flashbacks. This would bring a very abstract Brecht atmosphere to the performance. We constructed a scene order and this is how it went:

• Brighella finds Harlequin's Corpse/Panic
• Captain's explanation (Flashback)
• Pantalone/Doctor's explanation (Flashback)
• Columbina's explanation (Flashback)
• Brighella's explanation (Flashback)
• The Lover's explanation (Flashback)
• Zanni's confession (Flashback)
• Zanni's promotion

After completing this, we conferred with the other group to see what they had done. They had come up with a different way to approach the death of Harlequin instead of a panic when Brighella finds him; a court case! As explained in the photo (right), we would have Pantalone as the Judge due to him being at the top of the power tree and a former Magnifico, Doctor as the Jury as he is meant to be intelligent and of high status and Captain and Columbina as Lawyers as Columbina has her cunning side and Captain loves the attention. Brighella would be one suspect as she is known for using those with power over her and is sometimes known to kill. Our other suspect would be Zanni as he has spent many years at the bottom of the status ladder and we feel he'd want to have a taste of what power is.

When I heard this idea, I was very questionable about how Harlequin would come into the story much as he would only be available in a maximum of two scenes involving flashbacks. Collectively, we thought that Magnifico should be murdered instead and that Harlequin was a "witness" to the murder. With this arrangement we began to devise a scene which involved Captain trying to grasp everyone's attention, Zanni being too scared to speak and Harlequin not taking anything seriously as usual.

Partway through this scene we decided that after devising nobody really liked this idea and preferred our original plan as it got everyone involved a lot more and had lot more variety of scenes to offer. We split off into groups whose characters often interact and devise a short piece involving the plot of our original story.

Ollie and I (Doctor and Pantalone) decided to devise a short scene which involved us showing our displeasure for Harlequin as he took Pantalone's money and Doctor's money, our cunning plan to kill him with a potion, and the making of said potion.

James and Rhiannon (The Lovers) devised a short scene where they interact lovingly like the stereotypical Lovers and Lorna, Rob and Charlie (Brighella, Captain and Harlequin) devised a short scene where they took an alternative approach to how Harlequin died; this involved him killing by accident during a sword fight between Captain and Brighella.

For next lesson, we will present these ideas to each other and discuss how they may alter our original storyline.

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 6 - 15/01/16

Today, as Charlie wasn't in, I conducted research on gay people! As my character comes out bisexual, I though it would be very useful to research how people came out and revealed their sexuality. I interviewed two of my gay friends, who won't be named, about their experiences coming out to the world about their sexuality. Below are the questions followed by the responses:

1. What was it like coming out to your friends and family?
1. Quite difficult
2. It's easier for friends because they're your friends for a reason but family, you're kind of stuck together.
2. When did you come out?
1. 2014
2. 2013
3. How long has it been since you came out?
1. 2 years?
2. 3 years
4. Have you been confronted about being gay?
1. No, because they're scared of me
2. One kid shouted "Fag!" at me but besides that no
5. Have your friends been supportive?
1. Some haven't but I suppose they're not my real friends
2. Yes
6. Have you always thought you were gay?
1. It just kind of happened
2. I found out at a young age (of 8) but I didn't come out as I feared everyone's reaction.
7. What would you advise to someone wanting to come out?
1. Get it over and done with
2. Do it when you're ready

From this exercise, I've learnt that people react to coming out differently than others. From what I've learnt about how others have experience coming out, I've written down what my character, Lewis would've answered:

1. My mum and dad are "always here for me" but the kids at school always laugh at me. I didn't have many friends and I have none now
2. 2008
3. 8 Years ago
4. Nearly everyone has called me names, laughed at me, pushed me in the corridors, thrown paper at me in class, just solid bullying ever since
5. I told my friends first. One of them told his sociology class and now everyone knows! The others left me for 'better' people.
6. For a few years, I've felt something but I've always kept it quiet.
7. Don't bother, it does nothing but bring pain.

Double - Commedia Dell'arte - Blog 5 - 15/01/16

Today in Double, we decided on an outline for our characters and we did research into our character's movement.

Firstly, we spoke about our outline and how we were going to kill Harlequin. We first had thoughts of having Harlequin die in the middle of the play. Before his death we'd show the motives behind everyone wanting to kill Harlequin and after, we'd show everyone deducing who killed him. However, we then decided that it would be more effective introducing the piece with Harlequin's death then flashback to everyone's whereabouts before his death, therefore revealing their motives. Our plan is pictured to the right. We decided to do this to give us a clear outline of what we wanted and we can keep on track. If we ever don't know what we're doing, we can refer back to the production plan.

Next we got the laptops and researched our character's stance and how they moved. We needed to do this so we had our movement perfected. Without this we can't devise because we wouldn't know how to move correctly. From this, I've learnt this about Pantalone's movement (all info found from http://shane-arts.com/Commedia-Pantalone.htm):

• Hunch-back
• Restricted leg motion
• Feet together, Toes apart, Knees bent, focus on the crotch
• Small, slow steps
• Nose in the air/seated with head in hands/cuddle position with women/nose targeted to parts of the female anatomy
• Hands flutter continuously or behind his back
• High pitched voice (like a chicken squawk
• To self-interested in himself to be aware of spectators

After trialling and perfecting my Pantalone movement, we came together as a group and we performed each other's characters while the actor playing the character watches. This would allow the actor to see how everyone else's variations of their character and make relevent changes to their own performance.

For next lesson, we need to present a design for our masks with notes on why we made the mask look the way it does (e.g the length of the nose/eyebrows)

Single - Devised Unit (CP) - Blog 5 - 14/01/16

Today we went over our domestic violence short piece and performed it for recording. Whilst rehearsing, we added a new section at the end which elaborated on the types of domestic violence and more involving standing up to domestic violence.

Continuing on from where Hope pushes me to the floor, this is what we devised to happen next:

• Hope kicks me after throwing me to the floor and narrator (Charlie) says, "Domestic Abuse comes in many forms, such as: Physical,"
• When Charlie says, "Verbal," Hope and I mime her shouting at me while I sit on the floor apologising to her.
• When Charlie says, "and Emotional," he takes Hope's hand and spins her around.
• Charlie then says, "With the help of someone else, all the problems go away." He then walks over to me helps me up and we walk off together.

This signifies the message that we were trying to put across through this piece: that speaking out about your issues helps.

Below is the recording:

After this we made a decision on which of our ideas we were going to develop further. We chose our first idea with the death of Charlie due to his relationships with Hope and Lewis. We decided on this story as we had already done a lot of research into it as we were very confident with this idea at the start and we felt we could do a lot more with it. We decided for the last 15 minutes of the lesson, we'd write down a production outline. To the right is our plan!

For next lesson we will all conduct some research into our piece: Hope will research monologues, Charlie research drama puppetry and I will research gay people and their coming out stories. For my research, I will interview my gay friends about their social experiences with being gay; they will remain anonymous.

Triple - Historical Context - Blog 5 (Post War) - 14/01/16

Today was our performance of Toby's Post-War era play, "A View From The Bridge." We spent a lot of time rehearsing and perfecting our performance!

The only real issue we had was not being loud enough throughout the entire scene. Where we were really loud at the beginning, due to the entrance of the Police, and at the end, due to the exit of the police, the middle section was rather quiet. We rectified this issue as soon as we noticed it and we were prepared for the filmed performance.

After performing the filmed performance, we were very happy with it but I felt I could've done slightly better. I stuttered a couple of times when talking to Lorna's character, Catherine. Although this was a minor issue and that I recovered well, it was still very noticeable. I feel this is because I hadn't learnt the script so I was more focused on getting the words 100% correct which caused me to stutter. Next time, I will make sure I know all of my lines so I wouldn't need to take it onstage with me. Besides this, I feel the performance went very well.




Next lesson, we will start looking at my era of theatre, Greek! For next lesson, I will have a script ready. 

Triple - Historical Context - Blog 4 (Post War) - 13/01/16

Today we started acting out Toby's play from the Post-War era. The play Toby chose was called, "A View From The Bridge."

Our task was to make our plays appealing to a modern day audience and Toby did this by changing the setting from *** to an urban London environment. The main characters have now changed from immigrants to drug dealers and a lot of the dialect was changed to make the characters sound like "Chavs." We spent the rest of the lesson rehearsing and perfecting our performance.

Next lesson, we will finalise our rehearsal process and finally perform it for recording.

Double - Storytelling - Blog 17 (Snow Queen) - 13/01/16

Today, we've finally completed James' story and finally filmed it!

To begin with, Lorna and I took Rhiannon through the third story as she wasn't there when we spent the one lesson on it. We really needed to do this at some point as Rhiannon was playing the role of Gerda in this story who is a main role in this story. Now that we have Rhiannon completely up to date we can potentially perform the first three stories chronologically. 

We then cracked down on the second story and aimed to complete devising it. The last point we got to was  Kay (Me) jumping on the sledge and riding away with the Snow Queen (Rhiannon). For the next part Kay comes out from being a silhouette and has gotten off the sledge. Kay looks around scared and the Snow Queen appears. She (Rhiannon) kisses his (my) forehead twice sending sharp pains into his heart. I lie crippled and crumpled on the floor at this point as the Snow Queen watches in pleasure. We then both exit and as we exit, Charlie enters the silhouette as the Snow Queen and gets lifted to represent flying.

We decided to use Charlie as the Snow Queen as it would make the piece a lot more fluid if the moment someone exits, another enters; this is very difficult to achieve with Rhiannon constantly playing the role of Snow Queen. Also, where Rhiannon hasn't got much experience with being lifted, Charlie is very experienced with them and he's a great deal better at holding his core when in the air than Rhiannon. This lowers the risk of the lift failing and more importantly someone getting hurt.

Below is the final recording of the second story which we filmed yesterday:

The main thing I think needs improving is we need to add more to the short section at the end where the Snow Queen kisses Kay and freezes his heart. A great deal of it was Rhiannon and I giving each other awkward looks as if to say, "Now what?" If we were to add just simple gestures or movement, this section will become much less awkward.

Next lesson, we'll make sure that we add something new to the short section at the end and we'll also get round to filming the third story.