The Plan
Monday
31st March 2014
It was
the second week on our ‘Junk’ assignment and this week was the beginning of our
structure plan for the production process.
As per usual we began today’s lesson with a warm up exercise, preparing
us for the week ahead. But once we began
working we started with some editing.
Like our previous assignments we have had to remove certain scenes in
which to make the plot of the play flow a bit more and keep a decent time
stream in the whole production. Just
like our first assignment piece, ‘Scaramouche Jones’, we had to remove a lot of
scenes due to the amount of actors on stage, and we managed to perform the play
in a running time of exactly one hour, with scene changes being obvious by the
change of actors yet same character.
Whereas our second assignment, ‘Shakespeare’s House Party’, being six
different scenes from three Shakespearean comedies, we didn’t need as much
editing but we managed to perform our production in a total run time of thirty
minutes exactly, and scene changes made obvious with the use of dance and music
montages in between scenes. So when it
came to the editing of ‘Junk’ we also had to consider the approximate run
time. Our teacher explained to us the
plan of including an interval in between act one and two, thus being able to
spread the story further to include ever bit of detail and present it to the
audiences. We didn’t have intervals in
our previous assignment pieces, so I thought this would be a good opportunity
to explore more theatrical strategies in presenting a production piece with a
longer time run. We predicted that the
approximate run time for ‘Junk’ would be around about one hour and thirty
minutes. So when it came to editing our
teacher showed us the scenes in which included characters that we were unable
to cast, due to a lack of female cast members.
In the end we managed to alter the script in way in which keeps the
plot, without minor characters and has an equal amount of scenes in each act.
Once the
editing was complete it was now time to hand in our homework. From last week our homework was to print off
and hand in images that were categorised on themes that were essential to the
plot of ‘Junk’. Themes such as: Drugs,
Squatters, Prostitution and Domestic Violence.
We handed in our images and created a mood board, which we would observe
during our rehearsals. The idea was that
these various images could support us during rehearsals as it could us as actor’s
picture what the characters looked like, what the characters have been through,
and what the setting of each scene would look like. From the sea side town of “Minely-on-Sea” to
the city houses in Bristol. I thought
this was extremely helpful as not only will we be able to constantly observe
the images on the mood board but we were also given more homework in which was
to bring more images every lesson, so we can add to the mood board and it also
implies the thought that every member of the tutor group is focused and committed
to these lesson and want to complete and achieve a high grade in this our third
assignment.
With each
member of the tutor group inputting images, of the plays themes, and witnessing
them we already had a decent idea of what we could visually imagine when
rehearsing, but now we had to create a plan of how we are going to structure
the stage for the main performances. First
of all I inputted that we should keep the stage facing the audience, but
onstage have a number of props in which we could refer to during the
performance, also we could place them in a really messy fashion as to give a
general view of what world these characters live in. All of which would imply that they are
constantly moving from house to house and constantly making a mess, but it was
also imply the moral message that these characters have got nothing to go back
home to, like they’re trapped in this cruel world. This was my input but then we all discussed
that we use the stages structure of facing the audience in our previous
assignment pieces, so this time we all agreed that we should change the
structure of the stage to fit a style that was both original and suited the
plot of the play. So the structure of
the stage that we agreed on was a structure that had the audience surrounding
the actors on stage. In some ways like
William Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, except that our structure would be
rectangular shaped so the audience can view the performance from the front and
the sides. This would allow the audience
to view every part of the stage and view all the actors, so whether an actor’s
back to one audience member they would still be able to view another actor’s
facial expression in their performance.
Personally I like this idea because in a in sort of represented the
stage as a street, which backed up the plan to make it show the themes of the
play, in the characters being squatters on the move and I felt it could also
deliver the moral message of the whole play being a journey that follows the
two lead characters, Tar and Gemma. In
the end we all agreed on this stage structure and planned the entrances and
exits for the actors, for the main performance.
As the
day’s lesson came to an end, once again I felt confident with our plan towards
the presentation of the play, and I also had a lot to input. Such as I presented my images of the themes
of the play, and I also inputted my ideas as to how we could create a decent
stage structure that worked for our plans for the play.
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