Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (1984) - Blog 4 - 29/04/16

Today we began with devising a prologue for our version of After Troy!

We discussed the different ideas that we could have for our era and location and we came to the conclusion that a modern day urban London is our favourite! We discussed locations and we thought (linking back to my research for 1940's London) we could set our piece in an abandoned London Underground Station. This links the civilians of the second world war and the women of Troy as this area is their shelter for worse to come. We used a lot of inspiration from the images James found in his research of graffiti and we want to have in spray paint along the back wall different icons representing different Greek Gods (e.g. Trident for Poseidon, Lightning bolt for Zeus).

We then got to devising the prologue itself! We wanted our prologue to display the carnage during the battle of Troy and the depression of the women of Troy. We wanted to show the women at their highest point then show how, when the Greeks came, they're entire lives changed. The song we performed to was, "Nightmare," by Avenged Sevenfold.

Below is our fully devised scene:

• Kat, Hope and Lorna walk in with drapes in their arms to represent babies like mothers.
• When the drums enter in the music, we run in pairs to a woman, (Rob and James runs to Lorna/Ollie K and Charlie run to Hope/Ollie M and I run to Kat) and yank their babies away from them. One of us pull the drapes away and the other takes the other end of the drape to pull the 'baby' apart.
• The girl would run into the drape and be "slingshotted" back into the centre.
• In our three's (with the exception of Charlie's three; Charlie exits to drag on Rhiannon later) we each perform a sequence of torment. Mine, Kat and Ollie M's sequence goes like this:
• Kat attempts to run and dive past Ollie and I but we catch her, Ollie takes her body, I take her legs.
• We lower her down and drag her back by her arms.
• As she struggles we push her forward instead.
• Once everyone finishes we get into pairs (Ollie M, Kat/Ollie K, Hope/Lorna, Rob/ Charlie, Rhiannon/James, Lewis) While James and I start wrecking the set into ruins (ripping off drapes from the walls, breaking furniture etc.) while the pairs take it in turn to run more torment sequences:
• Ollie M and Kat portray mental violence
• Ollie K and Hope portray physical violence
• Rob and Lorna portray sexual violence
• When the three pairs finish their sequences, I walk over to Charlie and Rhiannon. Charlie starts offering Rhiannon water, but I snatch the bottle away and drink it. Charlie then pushes Rhiannon down and exits with me.
• The soldiers all form a formation at the back and hear a call from the distance and we exit.

Double - Dr Faustus - Blog 1 - 29/04/16

Today was our first lesson on our new physical theatre unit! We were told before that the play we would be performing was Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe; the version of the script which we are performing is an adaptation by Cristin McAuley and Kyle Anderson.

We began the lesson by receiving the cast list of the play which was decided by our teacher. The cast list is as follows:

Faustus - Ollie Kelly
Mephistopheles - Rhiannon David
Murdock - James Borg-Clancy
Cornelius - Rob Andrew
Valdes - Lewis Fisher
Evil Angel - Charlie Sanderson
Good Angel - Lorna Clark
Scholar - Charlie Sanderson
Lucifer - Lewis Fisher

I am extremely happy with the cast list as I'm very pleased with the role of Lucifer and I feel every role was given to someone suited to it (E.g. Faustus - Ollie Kelly).

We spent the rest of the lesson reading through the script in role in order to get a feel for our characters and to fully understand the plot and characters of the play.

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (1984) - Blog 3 - 28/04/16

Today in After Troy, we focused creating our environment to perform in by researching different time eras we could perform After Troy. The great thing about the play we're performing is that we don't have to be tied down to a time era; we could place our After Troy in any era we liked whether it be Victorian, Modern Day, Modern Future, Dystopian Future etc. We were asked to find images online which would represent the time and place of where we would like to set our After Troy.

When thinking about After Troy, my thoughts led directly to the aftermath of the Trojan war which left the entire city in ruins. This led me to think about other wars which have brought masses of destruction. One of the worst the world has ever seen is the aftermath of WWII. I searched for images of massive craters, buildings in ruin abandoned railways and toppled vehicles as they not only showed the destruction caused by the war but things such as the buildings and vehicles clearly depict the era that this armageddon happened in.

I then led on to the costumed that we would wear as those of the 1940's wouldn't be styling the robes and sandals of the Greek soldiers.

We then presented our ideas to the group and we came up with a wide range of very different ideas. We had Dystopian future, Urban London, Dark Forests and Edwardian era.

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (1984) - Blog 2 - 26/04/16

Today, we spent our time looking at the two Greek plays, both written by Euripides, which After Troy was based on. The first was Hecuba which depicts Hecuba's grief over the death of her daughter Polyxena, and the revenge she takes for the murder of her youngest son Polydorus. The second was The Trojan Woman, a play about the trials and tribulations of the four Trojan women.

We split off into groups (Rhiannon, Kat, Charlie, Hope, Ollie M/Rob, James, Lorna, Lewis) and researched our given play. We then collated our research and shared with each other.

Below is our research:

Double - Commedia Dell'arte - Blog 21 - 25/04/16

Evaluation

Costume: Brown shoes (Shows filthy and dirty side), black trousers (an attempt to be smart), creased white shirt (messy), black blazer (shows maturity and age), Pantalone mask

What went well:

• Every scene went in the correct order and we kept on focused on getting from one scene to the next
• We all kept in character throughout the performance and remembered what we were meant to do/say
• Our characters costumes matched our characters perfectly and our props were used very well
• Our set design worked well with the space we had

What we needed to improve:

• We constantly lost the voices, stance and movement of our characters throughout the entire piece; we should have made sure our characterisation was perfect
• There were too many scenes going on at once where we interacted with each other and the audience while our main scene was going on. This lead to us speaking over each other.
• I felt very lost during the performance due to having long moments without planned interaction. There was a point where I was sitting at my table, alone, for ages with no one to interact with.
• Those on "the restaurant floor" were fine but when in the kitchen, we were far too quiet and the audience couldn't hear us from across the venue; we needed to project our voices more.

Triple - The Healthy Performer - Blog 8 - 25/04/16

It has now been 2 weeks since my training programme began and I feel I have made an intriguing amount of progress. Below is the change in my measurements from the start to after week one (all measurements are in inches):

Biceps: 14 to 15

Forearms: 12 to 13
Chest: 38.5 to 39.5

Abs: 35.5 to 35
Quads: 24 to 25

Calves: 17 to 18

To speed up my progress, I have raised the amount of reps for each set exercise and raised the time I ran for.

Below is my new workout programme for week 3:

Single - Contemporary Theatre Unit (1984) - Blog 1 - 19/04/16

Today, we began our work on our second contemporary theatre play! We started the lesson by getting into groups (Rhiannon, Kat, Hope, Lorna/Ollie M, Charlie/Ollie K, James/Rob, Me) and began reading extracts from the play. The girls were given an extract involving the women of Troy. whilst us pairs of guys were given a duologue between Kratos, the personification of authority in all forms, and Talthybius, herald and friend of Agamemnon.

In our pairs, we read through our scripts, understood the characters and began running the scenes. In my pair, Rob played role of the scribe, Talthybius and I played the role of sarcastic and witty Kratos. We began staging the scene with a table to represent the bed and established different sides of the stage as the light side and the dark side, the dark side being where the women were from.

After rehearsing we performed our scene to the rest of the class. I found that I constantly stumbled on my words a lot but this was due to having to read from my script as I didn't know all of my lines. For a future small performance, I will try to learn all of my lines. I need to work on my diction and try my best not to slur my speech as this makes it difficult for the audience to understand what I'm saying and the meaning of the piece is lost.

Double - Commedia Dell'arte - Blog 20 - 18/04/16

Today we evaluated where we are with our piece and which parts we need to finish/improve! Below are the scenes we need to complete still:

• Extendo Fork
• Oil Cocktail
• Intro of the critic

We also discussed who we were going to have as our critics; as Ollie Marshall and Katie James were planning on watching the performance they offered to be our critics.

To finish the lesson we made a list of props and decided where we would source them. Below is our props list:

• Packet of crisps (x7) - Ollie
• Syrup - James
• Letuce - Lorna
• Plastic cups, plates and cutlery - Rhiannona and Charlie
• Aprons - Rob
• Saucepan and Frying Pan - Lewis

Triple - The Healthy Performer - Blog 7 - 18/04/16

It has now been a week since my training programme began and I feel I have made an intriguing amount of progress. Below is the change in my measurements from the start to after week one (all measurements are in inches):

Biceps: 13.5 to 14

Forearms: 11.5 to 12

Chest: 38 to 38.5

Abs: 36 to 35.5

Quads: 23 to 24

Calves: 16.5 to 17

To speed up my progress, I have raised the amount of reps for each set exercise and raised the time I ran for.

Below is my new workout programme for week 2: