Double - Dr Faustus - Blog 12 - 17/06/16

Today, we focused all of our efforts on trying to stage a prologue for our Dr Faustus production. The way we wanted our prologue to be was feature a great deal of foreshadowing. We started the lesson with a brief focus exercise based on us creating the prologue.

We split off into two groups (Charlie, James, Rob/Ollie, Rhiannon, Lorna and Me) and came up with ideas on our movement and sound for our prologue. Below are the ideas my group came up with:

We then began blocking our own prologue ideas in our groups. We would then present these pieces and then take elements of each.

Below is the movement we came up with:

• We sit at one end of the traverse in a 2x2 facing away from the rest of the stage. We, in cannon, each face our nearest side audience and say a line. (Ollie would speak Latin as he is Faustus. Lorna would list off the sins to foreshadow Faustus' obsession. Rhiannon says, "But at what cost?" as it's a repeated theme throughout. Finally, I would say, "Cut deeper Faustus," as I'm Mephistopheles and it foreshadows Faustus' desperation for power.)
• We continue chanting in a ritualistic way (just like Artaud would've done this) whilst Ollie and I stand, we face each other then help up Lorna and Rhiannon. We step back whilst they then walk to the wall and draw the circle of a pentagram together.
• The pair walk away and kneel down waiting, whilst Ollie and I finish drawing the pentagram on the wall. We then walk around Lorna and Rhiannon and Ollie kneels down. I walk in front of him to which I finish with, "Cut deeper Faustus."

We each performed our pieces and got feedback. The other group felt that our piece was very good but the beginning wasn't anywhere near as good as the rest. We agreed that when we merge the prologues next lesson, we will include the beginning of the other group's scene but we would include the end of the of our scene.

Also, Lorna laid out the set design keeping in mind our movement we already have planned. Below is her set design: