Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
We began the lesson by reading the poem and coming up with ideas for a story to portray. We decided that from the phrases, "Nobody heard him, the dead man" and "not waving but drowning," we would base it on a late teen who suffers from bullying. We wanted to show that in all aspects of his life he is mistreated which led to his inevitable suicide. We wanted to show all these aspects in shorter scenes and demonstrate on each scene what effect that has on our troubled character.
We decided to lay out our cast as characters and they are as follows:
Charlie - The Bullied child
Lorna and Ollie K - The parents
Hope - The Girlfriend
Ollie M - The Boss
Everyone else - Multi role
We decided to use to create an outline for our story so that we have an idea on what we want to do with the piece. Below is the outline we went with:
- Opening Death Scene
- Childhood Bullying
- Child Abuse
- Work Issues
- Death
We decided to show the Bullied Child's death scene to begin with to foreshadow what's to come later. The blocking for this scene is as follows:
- Charlie starts atop two stage blocks facing the back. Ollie K and Lorna start on the floor downstage and start reading the opening line. Whilst they read the opening line, Ollie M, Kat, Hope, Rob and I support and lift Charlie as he falls backwards off the blocks.
- We carry Charlie to centre stage and lay him to rest, Ollie K and Lorna stand and watch as he's lowered down. The next scene begins.
We wanted to show how The Bullied Child suffers immensely in all aspects of life, that he's slowly "drowning." We wanted this to start off at a younger age where he would get bullied as a child and then move on to Child Abuse and followed by issues at work. Below is the blocking for the bullying/girlfriend scene:
- Charlie rises from being dead and walks slows downstage centre. Kat, Ollie M, Hope, Rob and I all stand behind him in a line. Kat leans in to hug him and in a chain we all link and hug the person infront of us. This is the idea of the bullies being deceptive and giving The Bullied Child a sense of false security.
- Kat releases from the hug slyly and stabs Charlie, holds him and leans back. As she leans back, the person behind her leans back and this results in us all leaning back and then throwing Charlie forward onto the floor; this represents the act of betrayal.
- Kat, Hope and Rob exit, while Ollie M and I remain. I kick Charlie and lift him up. Once Charlie is standing, Ollie M and I grab his arms, (Ollie grabs left with left, I grab right with right), we turn over our opposite shoulder to our active hands (Ollie rolls over his right, I roll over my left) so that we have our backs to him, We then lift him up by leaning forward due to shift in body weight and then we let go and drop him down. Ollie M and I exit.
- Hope then runs in and offers to help Charlie. This then leads to a short hymn hands sequence which leads to Charlie being pushed away and left alone.
We though after this scene it would be very effective to show the progression of The Bullied Child and their gradual breaking down. We decided to showcase this in three short sequences, all very similar but each more intense. Below is our blocking for the scenes:
- After whichever scene comes before, Charlie staggers and sits at centre stage. Ollie M, Kat, Hope, Rob and I would surround Charlie like walls (Hope and I stage right, Kat and Ollie stage left, Rob at the back.) One hand would be flat as if it were pressed against an invisible wall, the other would be a fist banging on the wall.
- After the first scene (bullying) we pound rather slowly and throughout Charlie looks confused at this new pressure.
- After the second scene (child abuse) we would pound the imaginary wall at double speed, resembling a heartbeat. Charlie would seem more freaked out by it this time after being surrounded by this for quite a while now; he would even be twitching too.
- After the third scene (work scene) we would pound very fast on the imaginary wall, Charlie begins twitching a lot which leads to him lashing out. He runs at each of us at the wall and aims to hit us through the wall. Every time Charlie tries to hit us, we press both of our hands flat and once all of us have our hands flat, Charlie walls to the floor.
We feel this scene is very effective for portraying the gradual emotional break down of The Bullied Child.
For the work scene we wanted to incorporate some Round-By-Through, something different to the rest of the movement we've been using throughout the piece. Below is the blocking for this scene:
- We start the scene from the second imaginary walls section and Charlie begins walking towards me. He goes to shake my hand, I grab it and turn under his arm and walk towards Kat and I stand where she was and she walks towards Charlie.
- Charlie gestures for a hug but Kat places her left shoulder underneath Charlie's left arm and lifts him out of the way using the distribution of her body weight. She moves towards Hope and stands where she is and Hope walks towards Charlie.
- Charlie walks towards Hope smiling but she spins around him seamlessly and walks towards Ollie M. She stands in his place and he walks towards Charlie furiously.
- Ollie M approaches Charlie very angry and pointing at him, accusing him of not doing what he was supposed to and throws him to the ground to show that Charlie's been fired. Ollie stands where I stood at the beginning.
We decided for the end we wanted to repeat the beginning because it brings the entire piece full circle and shows that bullying is a never ending topic and will continue to repeat itself.
