Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 18 - 31/03/17

Today we finalised our production of Sweeney Todd by completing the final section which includes the deaths of Beadle, Turpin, Lovett and Todd.

We started with Beadle’s scene, which we felt needed to be quick and merely serve the purpose of the plot. We wanted his death to be insignificant as the only kills that matter to Todd are Pirelli’s as it’s the first kill and he recognises him for Barker, Turpin because he wants revenge and Lovett because she used and lied to him. We had the scene prior his death which was very simple and based in the pie shop and then had Beadle walk up the stairs and the death music play as he walks up. He would exit through the door by the chair and by the music alone it was obvious to the audience that Sweeney had killed him.

Afterwards, Sweeney and Lovett search for Toby, taking them from the pie shop down under the stage into the “bakehouse.” Anthony and Johanna rush up the stairs into Todd’s parlour and he hides her, then leaves to return with a carriage to take the pair away. We then have a blackout where the pie shop floor is then turned into the bake house by removing the table and chairs and dimming the lights. We then have Beggar Woman enter searching for Beadle, who’s body is now on the floor in the bakehouse and Todd appears to find her. She queries with him but he restlessly and quickly murders her to get her out of his way; this creates a great deal of irony considering he murdered his own wife he’s obsessed over for 15 years. During this, Johanna is looking over the edge and watches Todd murder the Beggar Woman; little to Johanna’s knowledge the Beggar Woman is her mother but this is made clear to the audience later which all pieces together in the end.

Todd then rushes downstairs to go meet the Judge who he’s invited as he “knows the whereabouts of Johanna”. As he runs downstairs, I rush up to Todd’s parlour and shout for him and he then runs up the stairs from the bakehouse. We perform the song, which has been very good when we’ve rehearsed in through a sing through. We also changed how I get killed as there wasn’t as much room in the parlour to do our original plan so this led Rob to slitting my throat slowly and pulling a Red cloth out of his hand as he sliced his throat. This looked very effective and worked very well for the “big kill” of the musical.

For Lovett’s and Todd’s death we have it all on the bakehouse floor, in front of the audience. The deaths are simple and stay very true to the story however, instead of Todd being killed by Toby slyly and undetected, Todd senses that Toby is behind him and hands him the razor. This not only signifies that Todd feels like he deserves his death in order to pay for the many sins he’s committed, but he it also takes away a lot of the innocence from the character of Toby, one of the only good characters in the play. Toby the drops the razor and runs away through the aisle in the audience and the lights dim.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 17 - 28/03/17

Today we explored which songs needed something more to them and we felt that My Friends certainly needed something added to it.

Despite it being moving, having Todd and Lovett sing alone, we wanted to fully accentuate the meaning behind the razors and how close Todd identifies with them. We decided to have Ollie, James and I enter during the first verse with a razor each, embodying the razors themselves. We slowly walk down to Todd as we interact with the razors. We get closer and then leave the razors on the table and exit. I feel this portrays the razors a lot more and gives this song a lot more purpose in the show.

Next lesson, we will finish blocking everything by finishing the end section where Beadle, Turpin, Lovett and Todd all die.

Single - Site Specific - Blog 1 - 24/03/17

Today we began Site Specific and brainstormed ideas on where we can perform. We came up with a few ideas which are very local such as Temple Manor, Restoration House and Guildhall. We briefly looked at images of Temple Manor and Kat said it would be a very good place to perform The Crucible due to it's old background and stone brick walls. 

We also thought a library would be a good place to perform as they're not only very accessible but can be cheap or possibly free to hire as they're owned by Medway Council; we thought we could possibly perform a play like Punk Rock

We split off into two groups (Kat, Ollie, Hope, Rob/Ollie, James, Lorna, Me) and looked at the pros and cons of both Guildhall and Temple Manor.

Below are some images of Temple Manor followed by pros and cons:

Pros:

• disabled Access
• plenty of space
• outside and inside opportunities
• out of the way from busy roads so quiet
• eerie household
• historical
• modernisation available

Cons:

• lack of lighting
• limits us to dark plays
• the performance would have to be promenade 

Below is photo of the room in Guildhall along with pros and cons:

Pros:

• Big space
• Historical
• Lots of room for set
• different rooms

Cons:

• artefacts could distract the audience
• specific for time period and genre 
• only indoors
• restricted 

Single - Devised Unit (Ghost Stories) - Blog 16 - 24/03/17

Today we performed our piece to be assessed and we below is my evaluation of our performance.

Rob’s scene:

• Rob spoke with good volume when opening and narrating the scene however, I feel that he needed more diction in his speech as some words were lost for me and I was standing beside him.
• Ollie and I, again, used different leg movements when walking around the shop. While I lifted my feet up normally, Ollie dragged his foot along the ground to meet the other as he walked. Although this showed a clear difference between our characters, it looked a bit odd from the audience’s point of view in a previous runthrough so we should’ve specified which we would do!
• Ollie and I were supposed to meet at the centre at a certain point in the music as this may affect the timing of the whole piece. However, when Rob and Ollie were masking each other’s movement just before this – to make it explicitly clear that they are the same person, just in different places in time – they took too long and if we waited for Ollie to make it to where he needed to be for us to clash, it would have been out of time with the music. Still, to counter this I stepped backwards naturally so that we clashed earlier, thus resolving what could’ve been a big issue.
• The transfer of Rob’s character’s trademark notepad – another key symbolism of the character – went well this time with Ollie successfully taking it when left on the till counter by Rob and then with me taking it from the back after Ollie runs off after his necklace gets stolen and leaves it on the unused chair.
• The entire cash machine section went very well as always, the only problem we thought of was my facial expressions during the robbery. According to Ollie, I didn’t look like a man who was being held at gunpoint.
• The final torture section was very good and was extremely tense. This controversial section did well to captivate the audience.

Lorna’s scene:

• I believe the order of scenes may have been confusing as a few audience members asked questions about the plot afterwards. To make this clearer, we should’ve gone in chronological order.
• We successfully performed this scene naturistically which allowed the audience to connect effectively to the scenario.

Lewis’ scene:

• Our movement went very well and represented the emotions of my character very effectually.
• The dialogue sounded more natural than it has before but could’ve done with being more naturalistic. Also, there was no clear end to the dialogue as I had finished my movement but the others continued talking but there was some sort of awkward pause. We should’ve rehearsed this more to prevent.
• Ollie’s scene:
• Our movement at the beginning went very well and it was clear what was happening.
• Mine and Rob’s speech logs throughout the scenes could be improved as Rob spoke quite casual while I spoke very professionally. Also, I said the word progress twice in the same sentence and said it differently both times.

Ollie's scene:

• Our movement at the beginning went very well and it was clear what was happening.
• Mine and Rob’s speech logs throughout the scenes could be improved as Rob spoke quite casual while I spoke very professionally. Also, I said the word progress twice in the same sentence and said it differently both times.

General:

• Most set changes were good as everything was put in the right place however they could’ve been faster.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 16 - 16/03/17

Today, we worked out the Johanna reprise. We were originally going to have Tom and Rob, but we felt this wasn’t a very interesting way to perform this. We decided to create a rhythmic piece based a lot on the musical Stomp. In Stomp, they use everyday objects like trashcans and brooms, as percussive instruments and this is something we wanted to replicate in Johanna Reprise. We wanted to get every character involved with this number to somewhat show the characters going about their daily actions; we felt that this would how that despite life going on as normal for everyone else, Todd and Anthony obsess over Johanna.

The noises we used were Mrs Lovett whacking a rolling pin on her counter, Toby sweeps the floor with his broom, Beadle walks around and stomps his stick down violently, Judge Turpin banging on a stage block representing a gavel, Johanna tapping on a case she’s packed for fleeing with Anthony and Dan and Ollie M as patrons of the pie shop clinking mugs. Upon practising this we felt that it sounded great and worked very for the scene. However, when it came to Beggar Woman sections, continuing at our regular pace would’ve sounded odd so we decided to be sporadic with our noises, speeding up and slowing down. This sounded very effective and worked well with the tempo of the song. I felt this was a good way to make a simple song more complex.

Next lesson, we will review the other numbers we’ve already done and we will workshop them also.

Double - Performance Workshop (Sweeney Todd) - Blog 15 - 13/03/17

Today we experimented with different ways to show the murders within the show and how we can create the illusion of blood.

We recognised that we have 6 deaths within Sweeney Todd that are seen by the audience: Pirelli’s, Ollie Marshall’s (citizen) Turpin’s, Beggar Woman’s/Lucy’s, Mrs Lovett’s and Todd’s. We wanted to be sure that every death would be somewhat different so that the audience are always impressed by each one. This is far more creative way to approach this rather than them all dying the same way.

With Pirelli’s death, we already have him being choked which meant we didn’t need to worry about anything like blood and for Mrs Lovett’s death, we were considering during her dance with Todd prior to her demise, she gets spun which and Todd lowers her down as if he were to kiss her but then Todd snaps her neck instead. Although this isn’t true to the original story, we felt artistically it looks more effective to end her life so suddenly and it’s a lot more realistic as trying to represent her burning in a furnace would look too cheesy.

This left us with 4 deaths left to deal with. We wanted all of them to be different as we felt that it would make them all independent of each other and not just the same thing again and again. Also, we could show the magnitude of the kills with different ways of killing the characters rather than the same thing every time which suggests the deaths are all equal. We thought instead of going obvious with fake liquid blood, we should go for something more outside of the box yet still conventional. This is where the idea of using red material came into play. Not only is it easy to manoeuvre but it also looks impressive as well.

We thought for Ollie M’s death, as it’s not major, it should be quick and simple. We came up with the idea of him sitting in the chair, it being spun around and the white dust sheet around him is lifted and the underside is red. Ollie would then exit and the chair would swivel back round empty. For Lucy’s death, we have Taylor holding the ball of material in her hand and when Todd swipes his knife at her she reaches for her throat and lets the ball unfurl and drape from her hands as if the blood were dripping from her throat; this is very suitable as this death is very quick and in-the-moment.

For Judge Turpin’s death, we need it to be major compared to the other kills as this is the man Todd has wanted to murder for years. We thought about having a physical theatre piece for this part but we felt that it might be too complicated; just because it needs to be a very bold moment, it doesn’t mean we need to go fully abstract with it. However, our final idea we have Todd stab me, followed by 2 other cast members pulling red material from my chest (which they already have balled up in their hands) and then Todd slowly pulling out the last strand of blood out from my neck.

For Todd’s death, we thought we could have a very simple slitting of the throat from Toby but we then thought that any young child wouldn’t be so suave about murder and after all his thoughts of Todd being a demon, he’d surely want to stab him several times to be sure he’s dead. So, with this, we have James stab him in the throat once and then run around him stabbing him more and more. We discussed having fake liquid blood for this scene as this would be effective to show how much blood Todd has inside of him due to his bloodlust on his hunt for Turpin.

To finish, Tom and Rob sang through Johanna (Reprise) which sounded brilliant. The song is lovely and simple so we definitely now won’t add movement to it; we’ll simply have the pair stood singing. 

Single - Devised Unit (Ghost Stories) - Blog 15 - 10/03/17

Today we finished Lorna’s scene by creating three more sections. We wanted this scene to be in a different order as this fragmented timeline works well with our stimulus. Below are the four sections in order.

• Harry stealing letters
• Charles leaving for war
• Receiving the death telegram
• Revealing the letters

For the second scene, we have me walking in with my case leaving for war and I’m saying my last goodbye to my wife. The third scene has Lorna receiving a telegram notifying her of my death. During this, I am lying on the floor as the dead body, then when Lorna leaves the telegram and walks towards where my grave is, I stand and walk over to the house side of the split-screen. I then place down the photo frame of us both. The final scene takes place 40 years later and Harry (Ollie) enters with the mail. He confesses to Stella that there’s more letters, goes off and comes on with the letters he hid. After he apologises and exits, Stella is devastated and slams down a photo frame of her and Harry.

We feel that this is a very effective ending to the scene and I believe that the audience will be able to understand the flashback.

Next lesson, we will will perform our piece to be filmed and assessed.