Devising Assignment Week 2

Developing our Devising Plan of Action

Monday 12^th, Wednesday 14^th and Thursday 15^th January 2015

Our Group

     Continuing our devising work towards our assignment ‘Ode to Billy Joe’, we set a goal to begin practical work and get a structure for our main performance.  Having spent the last week (our introduction to the stimulus) talking back and forth bringing in multiple ideas and suggestions to what we could do to bring the stimulus (‘Ode to Billy Joe’ by Bobbie Gentry) to life through Physical Theatre.  But before we could begin any practical work towards the assignment, we had to establish ourselves as groups.

     In our groups we had to come up with four bullet points and a Manifesto.  The four bullet points had to symbolise what makes us stand out when it comes to us working professional as a devising group for this assignment.  Plus a Manifesto was to be a short sentence or paragraph that summarises a slight motto of how our group likes to work in devising. 

Our four bullet points were:

1)      As well as inspiring others, inspire yourself first.

2)      Accepting and declining ideas as we progress.

3)      It’s not wrong until you’ve tried it.

4)      and Everyone’s input matters.

Our Manifesto:

We want to bring a collaborative and energetic devising process.  With a clear goal and an obstacle filled road, yet we like to enter each session in a positive attitude and bring our plans to life.

     It was from these written mottos that we set a plan to conclude the day by beginning to understand the basics of the storyline, for our future performance, and what our characters are going to be like.  Previously we had discussed a plan of having all our characters related in some way, and the best suggestion was making these characters close college friends, and then there was a plan suggested to make these characters involved in a murder.  At first thinking of making ‘Billy Joe’ the victim of the murder, and then possibly transforming ‘Billy Joe’ into our characters subconscious (or inner-demons), the debates/discussions went round and round in an endless circle.  So we devised a method of getting to know our characters through improvised interrogations.

     Through improvising an interrogation scene, one at a time, we had each member of our group step into the hot seat and the remainders of the group were to ask them questions concerning the fictional murder of ‘Billy Joe’.  Through this we would give improvised answers, in character, and begin to understand how to perform as our own chosen characters.

     The questions were various, but key questions that popped up for each of us were:

·         How do you know ‘Billy Joe’?

·         How long have you known ‘Billy Joe’?

·         Do you know anyone who might have taken a rivalry towards ‘Billy Joe’?

·         Did you stay in contact with ‘Billy Joe’?

·         Where were you last week?

·         Is there any reason you would want to attack ‘Billy Joe’?

     While the majority of the questions did concern ‘Billy Joe’ I found it to be very effective.  Because it established our characters relationships, as well as what they liked and disliked, what potential motivations they might have and why the do things.  I personally enjoyed our little interrogation sessions and I felt confident in using my current understanding of my character, and I wanted to put that to good use during the main performance.

 

Our Still Images

     Taking time out of our planning, our next session focused on our practical abilities.  Beginning with Physical Theatre games, such as trust exercises and team balances, we then looked to creating, in our assignment teams, effective still images.  The plan was to create still images that symbolised what we thought were the key themes within the stimulus, and what we believed we should show particularly in our main performance.

     In our group our three still images consisted of:

 

Still Image 1: The plan with this still image was to show the metaphor of having all of our character emotionally trapped, with their secrets and their well-being.  So for this image we constructed a visual cage with a victim trapped within, showing their emotions and the impact it has on them.

Still Image 2: For the second still image we thought it would be good to show the theme of pain within the stimulus.  Plus giving a visual image to the theme also reflected a scene we would potentially use in showing our characters haunting and painful origin stories of being bullied.

Still Image 3: Now for the final image we didn’t give it a representation of one of the themes within our upcoming play.  Instead we wanted to show the outcome of what these characters wanted to achieve, both physically and mentally, and that was “breaking free”.

     I found creating these still images and taking part in the Physical Theatre games helped us as a group to practically, instead of verbally, show our originality and commitment toward this assignments stimulus.  Plus these still images may come in handy for when we include a movement segment in our main performance.

 

Our Goal Set

     Concluding the week, we came to another group discussion concerning the structure for our main performance.  Having stated that we understood the basics of our characters, we now wanted to find a better way to have them all related in some way, and keep the themes and metaphors within their characteristics.  Whilst still including strong movement segment and having Physical Theatre elements referencing famous Physical Theatre Companies/Groups.

     So we established our character’s roles, relationship’s to others and characteristics and began improvising scenes where we could use movement elements that enhanced on the storytelling and referenced to what the outcome of the story may be.  I found that there were two main characters, who share the same outcome for the conclusion of the play. 

     The first character was to be a young man struggling with his sexuality, and showing how he has a crush on another male character, but he is already in a relationship with a female character and doesn’t quite know how to come out. 

     Yet the second character (that I would be portraying) was to be in a mist of a long-time relationship with a woman, and things are quite awkward, resulting in my character committing adultery and tension rising and he falls into depression and struggles to hide it.

     Both characters will of course have the same outcome, in that they will both commit suicide, referencing to an extract in the song ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ which is repeated in the lyrics saying: “jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”.  Plus I did like the thought of having all the characters related in some manner, hinting at a slight Ancient Greek Family Tragedy, plus a Greek Chorus may be an element we may use in our main performance. 

     But all in all I was happy with our established characters and slight plot layout.  Also we had a task to show improvised movement pieces that we could or might use in our main performance, and we received good feedback, as our movement was rather fluent (like that of Frantic Assembly), slightly comedic (like that of Commedia dell’Arte) and showed the tense, awkward and authority within the character relationships.  All this I believe we can and will develop over time and we will soon bring a great basis for our main performance.