Devising Assignment Week 7 - Part 3

One Day To Go

Wednesday 25^th February 2015

Q:           What happened in today’s rehearsal session?

A:                 With tomorrow being the assignment’s performance day, today began at a low.  Concerned with the rehearsal time, and the possibility of losing team members, we were pushing and wishing for a resolution.  Thankfully we received one.

                     Keeping the performance structure, and all that we had rehearsed from yesterday’s session, we set a plan to present our performance today and have it assessed.  Performing with all team members and the entire structure devised, we performed to a small audience and to our assessors. 

The performance, I found was a success.  I felt we succeeded in presenting the character’s and stories to an understandable rate, from the audience’s perspective, and made our physical theatre styles, of inspiration, clear and affective.  As we concluded our performance, we asked, and received, feedback from the audience and our assessors.

Q:           What was our feedback like?

A:            Audience Feedback:

·         Good stage structure.

·         Good presentation of the characters.

·         Brilliant overall outcome.

Assessors Feedback:

(These feedback bullet points concerned areas for improvement, whether in our own performances or the staging of the performance.  All points towards improving our performance in time for tomorrow’s main show times.)

·         Removing the story of ‘Doctor Joe’s’ affair with one of his patients.

·         Set chairs to correct positions before the performance begins.

·         Become very precise with our movements throughout the performance.

·         Pick up our vocal projection.

·         Add a vocal ‘cannon’ effect.

·         Give more purpose to my prop, the Dictaphone.

·         Alter the final act to show more of ‘Doctor Joe’s’ negative thoughts.

·         and Enhance on all elements to make the entire performance truly theatrical.

Q:           What is the goal for tomorrow’s performance?

A:                 Due to one member of our team being absent for tomorrow’s performance, we will give the performance tomorrow, excluding that particular team member from our entire performance.  Because they were with us today, we gave the performance with the full ensemble.  But tomorrow, we aim to give the entire performance again, just re-devising it to a four member ensemble.  Plus with these feedback bullet points from our assessors, I feel we can succeed in alter the performance, slightly, and enhance our performance elements, to make it possibly better.

Q:           How can we achieve these feedback bullet points?

A:            (This afternoon we did begin to include and develop these performance feedback notes.  But in tomorrow’s performance we to have devised the performance to…)

·         By removing the affair with ‘Doctor Joe’ and one of his patients, it will enhance of the fact that the patient is purely obsessed with him.  Plus the scene involving her fantasising her own marriage with ‘Doctor Joe’, it makes the fact that the affair never happened increasing affective, and dramatic in a way.

·         By setting the chairs on stage, it will be less of a struggle for our organisation back stage.

·         By making our movement’s very precise and detailed, it will give more meaning to our character’s actions.  Plus, in my perspective, it reflects the clockwork movement that can be found in ‘Berkovian’ productions.

·         A development point aimed at all of us, we did need to pick up our vocal projection, in order for our audience to understand all information given vocally.

·         Returning to the scene involving the patient character fantasising about herself marrying ‘Doctor Joe’, it was recommended that we should all join in a vocal cannon.  Simply all humming in time to the theme of “here comes the bride”.  Giving an eerie sense and feel to the dream like scene.

·         My prop, the Dictaphone, will now keep the vocal recordings of myself introducing the patients symptoms (OCD, Relationship Problems, and Secrets), but I would playback the recording once the act concludes.  The idea behind this was to emphasis ‘Doctor Joe’s’ descending in to depression.  Plus, for the final scene (‘Doctor Joe’s’ suicide) we would playback a recording saying: “your next patient is ready Doctor Joe”.  I thought this was a brilliant suggestion from our lecturers/assessors, because the idea was that the recording could be a ‘mind-blowing’ reference to the possibility that none of the performance’s events ever happened, and it was all ‘Doctor Joe’s’ dream.  A possibility that we wouldn’t answer and leave it for our audience to deduce/interpret.

·         By altering the final act, changing it from its original structure of being patients suffering from 'keeping secrets', to a new structure that had the supporting character's representing the repetitive negative thoughts, going through ‘Doctor Joe’s’ mind.  Through this it would enhance that fact that the patients/negative thoughts are ultimately responsible for his death/suicide, as they draw him to depression.  We therefore decided to show this though the character's repeating ‘Doctor Joe’s’ questions and his movements.  Plus by us adding the physical theatre performance element of a ‘Greek Chorus’, it visually help us show his descending into depression, his journey to the bridge, and the ending of the performance.

·         The final bullet point, of improvement, focused on all of us, as we set a goal to “up our game” and make the whole performance seem theatrical.  Only this way could we intrigue the audience a step further and bring professionalism to life in our performance.

Q:           Am I ready for tomorrow’s performance?

A:                 Yes!  I now feel extremely confident in what we’ve presented (in a full ensemble), and what we’ve achieved in preparation for our official performance tomorrow.  The plan tomorrow is to rehearse this slightly altered structure and include these points for improvement, and only then, I feel, we would have completed our Devising Physical Theatre Assignment.    

 

 

Devising Assignment Week 7 - Part 2

Two Days To Go

Tuesday 24^th February 2015

Q:           How has this rehearsal session helped for our main performance?

A:                 In this rehearsal session we have successfully run through the entirety of our new and official performance structure.  Today we focused on the entire performance, from start to finish, looking particularly to how we could devise the performance to an independent and professional standard.

Q:           What did I personally achieve?

A:                 Throughout today’s rehearsal, one key area of devising that I found entertaining was my improvisation/presentation of ‘Doctor Joe’ expressing his stress and depression physically. 

     In my blog post showing the official performance structure in the final scenes of each act, we took the opportunity to show the audience physically the stress ‘Doctor Joe’ is going through, throughout this performance.

     What we devised so far, was mainly myself improvising the character stressing and almost panicking over what will happen to him, and how he doesn’t see a future for himself.  But through my improvisation, all I managed to construct had a very natural flow to it, reflecting no physical theatre elements.  But in today’s session I felt I devised these scenes to a better standard.

     My particular area of inspiration, when it came to devising the physical aspect of the scenes, I looked particular to our overall practitioners of inspiration, ‘Steven Berkoff’ and ‘Frantic Assembly’.  My initial goal when improvising/devising these scenes of mine, I began with “wanting to combine the two practitioner styles together”.  Therefore I kept hints, with my naturalism, when performing, yet referencing as well with abstract turns and near clockwork actions, referencing ‘Berkoff’.  But when it came to exploring my character’s mental state I turned to ‘Steven Berkoff’ for inspiration.  I knew that ‘Doctor Joe’ at this state would have mixed emotions and would have no real goal when entering this scene, and I found this reflected a quote from ‘Steven Berkoff’ himself: “These characters have no particular pattern.” – Berkoff, ‘Shakespeare’s Villains’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py9CMN3TYyM&spfreload=10 

     I felt this quote particularly justified my character.  As ‘Doctor Joe’ has no pattern to his actions, in these scenes, and he has no set emotions, he’s worried, concerned, confused, stressed and emotionally trapped all at the same time.  Plus I feel it also backs up my mixture of both physical theatre practitioners’ styles. 

     Not only that, but with usage of props (the Dictaphone), we changed the scripted dialogue to come as the act ends (instead of the beginning) to foreshadow ‘Doctor Joe’s’ loss of professionalism in his job status and descending into depression and nothing.

     I personally feel that this was a huge step forwards in the final devising/rehearsal stages, and these are elements I strongly hope to project for the main performance and indicate all these emotions towards our future audience.

Q:           What is the plan for tomorrow’s rehearsal session?

A:                 Concluding the day with a clear vision for lighting and music cues, plus with the entire performance devised, once again the plan is to just rehearse “like mad” and wrap up any final details so we and the main performance is prepared.

Devising Assignment Week 7 - Part 1

Three Days To Go

Monday 23^rd February 2015

Q: What did we accomplish?

A:

·         Expanded upon the physical theatre elements within the ‘Prologue’ of our performance.

·         Enhanced on characters, in both leading and supporting roles.

·         and Began our first steps towards bringing our new, and official, performance structure to life.

Q: How did we achieve this?

A:

·         In this video footage here, of our rehearsals, we looked to devising the ‘Prologue’ including more physical theatre elements.

 

I felt this was an extremely positive achievement, because we began to physicalize the opening scene and, I felt, succeeded in projecting certain performance elements.  Such as:

-          We showed what the patient characters suffer from.

-          As well as how they respond to the therapist.

-          Plus we felt it could intrigue our audience to a step where they wanted to know ‘what will happen next’.

Q: Did we receive any feedback?  If so, were there any positive and negative points worth taking in?

A:            Positive Points:

1.       Good presentation of the characters.

2.       Good physicality.

3.       Good stage structure.

Negative Points:

1.       At first, it was unclear that the patients were suffering from ‘OCD and Behaviour Issues’.

2.       I, personally, needed to work on my “in character” vocal projection.

3.       The movements on stage needed more practice in order to achieve/present a good flow to the entire performance.

4.       With our newly devised scene, using a ‘split stage’ structure, it became unclear as to what the on stage characters relationships were.

Q: How can we improve for the next rehearsal session and the main performance?

A:            Negative Point 1 –     We decided to give more meaning/usage to my prop, the

Dictaphone, and devised a scripted section for me to introduce each act, and what the patient symptoms of focus would in that particular act, and spoken in a narrative style.  Plus that would give me the opportunity to present vocally, and possibly physically, ‘Doctor Joe’s’ descending into depression.  

                Negative Point 2 –     A point worth taking in, and something I will personally make

achievable for future rehearsals and the main performance.

                Negative Point 3 –     Now knowing our performance style of inspiration (Frantic Assembly

and Steven Berkoff) and roughly how we are going to perform un-devised scenes in future acts, we aim to “rehearse like mad” in order to achieve a fast and realistic flow to the entire performance.  Hopefully then we will succeed in presenting the themes of ‘being trapped’, ‘taking too much pressure’, and ‘wanting to break free’, as well as the human qualities/emotions of ‘secrets’, ‘depression’ and ‘isolation’.  All of which we extracted from ‘Bobbie Gentry’s Ode to Billy Joe’.      

                Negative Point 4 –    When devising/refining scenes for Act One, we wanted to give more

meaning to one scene in particular, this scene was Act One Scene Three, where we would show one of the key character’s obsession with ‘Doctor Joe’.  Now I found that this scene particularly stands out because of our usage of a manikin.  I mentioned in a previous blog, that the purpose of the manikin was to show the character’s obsession and fantasies of my character ‘Doctor Joe’.  So the manikin was to physically represent the character’s fantasy of her and ‘Doctor Joe’ getting married.  We would thereby reflect the Physical Theatre practitioners ‘DV8’ and their performance style policy; “DV8 Physical Theatre's work is about taking risks, aesthetically and physically, about breaking down the barriers between dance and theatre and, above all, communicating ideas and feelings clearly and unpretentiously.” - http://theatreanddance.britishcouncil.org/artists-and-companies/profiles/dv8-physical-theatre/  But we wanted to expand upon this scene in particular and include the ‘split stage’ structure so we could show both ‘Doctor Joe’s’ real love life and his patients fantasy love life, which she wishes to share with ‘Doctor Joe’.  Plus that could have also helped us foreshadow the unrevealing truth that the patient is ‘Doctor Joe’s’ secret love affair.  All of this seemed positive, from our perspective, but when we received the feedback we all agreed it wasn’t giving off the message clear enough for our audience.  Therefore we did not succeed with this newly devised montage, but it was something worth taking into account and we will alter the scene back to its original structure and perhaps use certain elements, which we created in this session, and transfer them for our future scenes.

Q: Did we give any feedback to the other groups?  If so, what was positive or needed improving for their performances?

A:

Group One Feedback – This group devised their performance extremely closely to the stimulus.  Bringing their own interpretation as to why ‘Billy Joe’ jumped off ‘the Tallahatchie Bridge’. 

Positive Points:

1.       Brilliant usage of stage space.

2.       Brilliant character structure (creating their characters in the formation of a ‘dysfunctional family’, strongly referencing the stimulus).

3.       Great presentation of character relationships (in both a verbal and physical presentation style).

4.       Very well-choreographed movement segments (I felt it helped them succeed in reflecting the character’s/performer’s relations and how future events will have a huge impact to the characters and storyline).

5.       and Good reference towards physical theatre practitioners of inspiration (‘Steven Berkoff’ to reflect the dark and gloomy themes they were exploring for their performance).

Points for Improvement:

1.       At some points I did find the character relations a little confusing, but this can be easily rectified through their rehearsals.

2.       and Perhaps stronger vocal projection to really reflect the sound scape style used in ‘Berkovian’ productions.

Group Two Feedback – This group gave another unique interpretation of the themes within ‘Ode to Billy Joe’.  Titling their performance ‘The Bridge’ their main point of reference was ‘the Tallahatchie Bridge’ and its impact on multiple characters through the presentation of a game show.

                Positive Points:

1.       Good presentation of character (I felt their characters reflected the style of ‘Commedia dell’Arte’ in giving each character a distinct physical and vocal structure).

2.       Brilliant usage of all stage space (especially their opening scene of interacting with the audience and give a powerful/intriguing start to their performance).

3.       Excellent engagement with the audience (as we all began to strongly feel for the characters).

Points for Improvement:

1.       Perhaps a little development into characters, to have an extra sense of involvement with the audience, and truly make us care for the characters survival on this deadly game show.

2.       and Make character development more realistic, rather than sudden and “out of character”.

     But all in all I found both performances entertaining and interesting, particularly to how they referenced the stimulus, and how they brought to life their own unique vision of the story within ‘Ode to Billy Joe’.

Q: Do I think we are ready?

A:            I am proud of what we have achieved in today’s session, and it has brought us to a good

start so we can continue devising future acts and scenes and bring our own unique vision of the messages within ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ .  Our goal for tomorrow's session is to develop Act Two and complete devising Act Three.

Devising Assignment Half-Term Session Part 2 - The Structure

‘Secret Sessions’/’Ode to Billy Joe’

Performance Structure

ACT ONE:

OCD and Behaviour Issues

Prologue –                 What happens in this scene?  Doctor Joe is walking to work and he encounters some of his patients (the supporting cast).

Staging: Supporting cast to stand in diagonal line across the stage.  Doctor Joe will walk in line with the supporting cast, showing his response to their speeches.  Having the casts movements and speeches in the style of ‘Steven Berkoff’ will symbolise their symptoms and relationship to Doctor Joe. 

     I felt the ‘Berkovian’ style within the prologue would help us strongly to reflect the correct emotions of our characters, and give the audience a decent introduction to what the first act basis will consist of.  While we are not using specific elements, from ‘Berkovian’ performances, I feel that this scene strongly reflects this quote here: “A piece for chorus and actors, using typical Berkoff mime as the devil, Pilate, Mary etc. develop the story.” - http://www.stevenberkoff.com/playsme.html  As I personally see professionals using all elements, like the chorus in a ‘Berkovian’ production, but for us I think it is an opportunity to experiment and construct something similar yet very different visually.  Therefore we devised this scene to express the character’s emotions verbally, but physically structure it to show ‘Doctor Joe’s’ journey.

Lighting: Individual spot-lights on patient characters (supporting cast) + follow spot on Doctor Joe.

Scene One –              What happens in this scene?  Doctor Joe’s opening monologue and Patient’s still images/movements. 

Staging: Supporting cast to move in their still images/movements in the style of ‘Steven Berkoff’, to reflect a clockwork action as time strongly affects Doctor Joe.  Whereas Doctor Joe will be performed in the style of ‘Frantic Assemble’ to give a natural and slow introduction to the character.

     To quote ‘Frantic Assembly’, their goal was “to do something different” – Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, Frantic Assembly founders and artistic directors.  I feel we can reflect that theme within this scene as we bring a naturalistic flow to our performances to engage the audience a step further and show this is a true and meaningful performance.  Plus by “doing something different” we are giving layers of thoughts which I hope we can project to the audience and wonder how this all links to the stimulus and adds a sense of realism to our entire performance.

Lighting: Surround lighting at a “dim” tone to enhance the atmosphere and create tension.

Scene Two –              What happens in this scene? Doctor Joe has his first appointment/session with patients suffering from OCD and Behaviour Issue. 

Staging: Having the supporting cast in a square formation around Doctor Joe, will symbolise the tension and pressure that they are putting onto him.  Plus having each supporting cast member turn Doctor Joe to face him will symbolise a fast pace to his day, and reflects how little he takes in during these sessions/appointments.  Movement sytles of both Berkoff and Frantic Assembly.

Lighting: Continuing with the “dim” lighting tone.

Scene Three –           What happens in this scene? Doctor Joe leaves the stage, and fellow cast members take to the stage as ‘The Patient’s’ and show their fantasies.  Showing particularly one patients obsession with Doctor Joe himself. 

Staging: Having both cast members staged left and right, to show two different stories, in the style of ‘DV8’ as there is little to no dialogue and more movement.  As one patient leaves the second takes the remaining stage space to show her obsession with Doctor Joe, with usage of the manikin prop to reflect how she see him. 

     By referencing ‘DV8’ in our performance we are also reflecting their own style: “DV8 Physical Theatre's work is about taking risks, aesthetically and physically, about breaking down the barriers between dance and theatre and, above all, communicating ideas and feelings clearly and unpretentiously.” - http://theatreanddance.britishcouncil.org/artists-and-companies/profiles/dv8-physical-theatre/

Lighting: Fading out of the “dim” surrounding lighting.  Follow spot lights on Patient performers and the manikin.

Scene Four –             What happens in this scene? Audience members see Doctor Joe beginning to stress and worry.  The supporting cast join to form a still image representing the theme of “being trapped”. 

Staging: Doctor Joe to use entire stage space, showing emotions and thoughts in more physically than verbally, in the style of ‘DV8’.  Supporting cast to enter from opposite side of the stage to surround Doctor Joe and create this image: 

 

Lighting: To return to a “dim” surrounding effect to return to a tense and dark atmosphere.

ACT TWO:

Relationships

Scene One –              What happens in this scene? Doctor Joe comes to stage to give his second narrative monologue, expressing his thoughts and opinions on the ‘Relationship’ therapy sessions. 

Staging: Doctor Joe to stand centre stage and deliver monologue, using mime movement, in the style of ‘Frantic Assembly’, to give meaning to what he’s saying.

Lighting: Beginning the act with a brighter surrounding light effect, to give visual meaning to the fact that this is another day and he is in a different atmosphere.

Scene Two –              What happens in this scene? The first patient’s enters and tells their story, of their love triangle. 

Staging: Beginning with both Doctor Joe and the patient sat back centre stage, the scene extends into a movement piece, in the style of ‘Frantic Assembly’ where the patient mimes out their thoughts, feelings and emotions.

Lighting: Continue with the brightened surround lighting.

Scene Three –           What happens in this scene? As the first patient leaves, the second enters and tells their side of the story, from the same love triangle. 

Staging: Similar to the previous scene, in having both Doctor Joe and the patient sat back centre stage, the movement montage will come to show how the male patient has fallen in love with a man, hence turning his current relationship into a love triangle.  All performed in the style of ‘Frantic Assembly’.

Lighting: Continue with the brightened surround lighting.

Scene Four –             What happens in this scene? As the love triangle patients leave Doctor Joe finds himself with another patient, who was in the first act (and had the serious obsession with Doctor Joe) and we discover that the pair of them are in an affair relationship. 

Staging: In the style of ‘Frantic Assembly’ the scenes staging depicts more of the patients obsession with Doctor Joe.  Plus we would also show how Doctor Joe has too much to worry about currently.

Lighting: Continue with the brightened surround lighting.

Scene Five –              What happens in this scene? Having Doctor Joe alone again, we see more of him beginning to break down and become depressed.  The supporting cast will join on stage again, to form the second still image, representing the theme of “too much pressure”. 

Staging: Having Doctor Joe use the entirety of the stage space, performing in the style of ‘DV8’ to show his emotions, thoughts and feelings, of slowly becoming depressed.  As supporting cast join, entering from opposite sides of the stage, together, with Doctor Joe, they’ll create this still image:

 

 

Lighting: For this scene we would return to the “dim” lighting effect, to visually embrace the darker tone that comes with this scene and future scenes.

ACT THREE:

Secrets

Scene One –              What happens in this scene? Doctor Joe’s returns to stage and give his final narrative monologue.  This will express his anger and hatred for secret therapy session, plus reflecting his early stages of depression. 

Staging: Doctor Joe to be alone on stage, speaking the monologue and the movement will be in the style of ‘Frantic Assembly’, miming and keeping informative speech work.

Lighting: To resume to the “dim” surround lighting tone, to visually embrace the dark conclusion to the performance.

Scene Two –              What happens in this scene? The first patient arrives and tells their problems/secrets to Doctor Joe.

Staging: Patient will perform in the style of ‘Frantic Assembly’ to mime out their secrets and be informative for the audience.  Yet Doctor Joe to be near neutral on stage, giving slow movements to send the message that he is “bored to death”.

Lighting: “Dim” surround lighting to remain for this scene, reflecting the dark, tense and spooky atmosphere.  Engaging the audience to know what will happen next.

Scene Three –           What happens in this scene? The second patient arrives and begins to do the same and tells their stories/secrets to Doctor Joe.

                                    Staging: Keeping a similar stage and performance formation to the previous scene, this scene will do the same purpose in telling another secret filled story and show Doctor Joe’s descending to depression/boredom.

                                    Lighting: “Dim” surround lighting to remain for this scene, reflecting the dark, tense and spooky atmosphere.

Scene Four –             What happens in this scene? Doctor Joe is alone to begin with, them his adulterer relationship partner returns, and Doctor Joe snaps with anger and wants to break up with her.

                                    Staging: In the style of ‘Frantic Assembly’ the scene starts out like an amateur dramatic production, with little to no physicality in performances.  But as the scene develops the movement montage shows the love these characters once had, and moving from one side of the stage to the other it gives a physical metaphor of their journey to now and how Doctor Joe wants their relationship to end.

                                    Lighting: “Dim” surround lighting to remain for this scene, reflecting the dark, tense and spooky atmosphere.  

Epilogue –                  What happens in this scene? The climax and conclusion to the performance, this scene opens with the final still image showing the theme of “wanting to break free”.  Then ultimately ends with Doctor Joe’s death/suicide.

                                    Staging: Beginning with the still image showing Doctor Joe’s desperate desire to “break free”.  Beginning alone on stage, Doctor Joe is then followed by the rest of the supporting cast to create this still image:



 

 

                                 But as the scene draws to an end, with the performance, we see physically Doctor Joe breaking down.  As he comes centre stage he stands of the bridge, and in the style of ‘Frantic Assembly’ he jumps.  Supported by the rest of the cast, they’ll catch him and bring him to group to show his death.

Lighting: “Dim” surround lighting for the entirety of the scene, with a follow-spotlight on Doctor Joe for his suicide.  As the supporting cast gaze down at Doctor Joe’s dead body, lights slowly fade out to conclude the performance.



 



Devising Assignment Half-Term Session

Development

Thursday 19^th February 2015

What did we develop?

     One scene we looked to particular for development was the movement montage that symbolises the OCD and Behaviour Issue patient’s symptoms.  We decided to have this montage to reflect their symptoms, plus it gave us the opportunity to include more detail in our devising performance elements.  While one patient, in the eyes of ‘Doctor Joe’ (the lead character), is just another patient and their story doesn’t have a huge impact, the other patient has a huge impact to the story.

     This character, along with ‘Doctor Joe’, is in all three acts, for our new structure, and her purpose is to; essentially, drive ‘Doctor Joe’ insane.  For the first act we discover that she suffers from OCD because she has a huge obsession toward ‘Doctor Joe’, this is then later expanded upon when audience members discover both her and ‘Doctor Joe’ have an affair.  But for this montage in act one, showing the character’s symptoms; we took the opportunity to devise a movement segment strongly inspired by the works of ‘DV8’.   

     The character’s movement was to show them fantasising about they particular obsessions.  But for this character’s obsession to be towards ‘Doctor Joe’, we thought the usage of props (or in this case a manikin) would be more effective to show the character’s state of mind.  Using little dialogue, we managed to devise the scene where she fantasises about marrying ‘Doctor Joe’, and the usage of the manikin made the scene/message all the more effective. 

     Because it was natural and emotionless, with nothing to indicate a story, it allowed us as an audience member to wonder and explore what is the manikin’s character thinking.  Plus it gave the opportunity for the performer to work with something that wasn’t working with them.  Hence making this movement montage, in particular, a real stand out and powerful moment in the performance that will hopefully live up to expectations in the main performance.

     A professional example of a performer working with a manikin, in physical theatre performances, would be this clip here from ‘DV8’s’ ‘Enter Achilies’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PFR2OXf9iQ

     Particularly in this opening scene, as the performer works with a “blow-up doll”.  This scene comes to great effect as it introduces the audience to a character and brings forth many possible messages about this particular character.  Could he be in love?  Does he wish to be loved?  Or does he just admire the pleasures life has to offer?  We don’t know and that engages us to find out more.  Hopefully we would be able to achieve this in our main performance and engage our upcoming audience to layers of detail we have with our characters and storyline.

What’s new?

     To conclude our session, we completed the new structure and all inputted what will happen in that particular scene, how will we stage it and what light effects we will use and why.  For the full structure, please follow the link here:

http://sdcperformancefh.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/devising-assignment-half-term-session.html

Devising Assignment Week 6

Final Stages

Monday 9^th, Wednesday 11^th and Thursday 12^th February 2015

Observational Feedback

     Having reached a point in the devising process, where we would only need to rehearse and edit our performances, we began this week by watching our opposing groups and their performances.  The goal for this session was to give observational feedback.  For this feedback we would give two positive points from their performances, and one wish bullet point that needed an area for improvement.  Feeling confident in what we had achieved so far, I was eager to show the rest of the class what we had devised for our performance.   

     Unfortunately due to some of our performance group members being ill or having a little injury, we were incapable of performing our devised movement montages.  Therefore we paused and explained what the purpose of the montage would be and why it’ll be in our performance.  But all in all, we managed to show what we had achieved, and then we received our observational feedback. 

     While the positive and improvement bullet points varied, there were a few that stood out to me, and they were:

·         More energy within performances.

·         Make the devising performance style clearer for the audience perspective.

·         and Physicalize more of the performance montages.

     I found these improvement points the most intriguing because it identified essential areas for our performance to become all the more a devising performance piece.  Therefore we joined in group discussion and devised a plan for the week ahead, to make our performance all the more visually entertaining and layered with details and references towards the stimulus.

     Having devised a plan to present our upcoming audience with a scenario of a therapist (my character, Doctor Joe) having a tense day with his affair partner, and at the same time dealing with a love triangle.  We devised this based off of the theme of ‘secrets’, this is something we extracted from the stimulus ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ by Bobbie Gentry, and I still hold onto it.  The lyrics tell a mysterious story about multiple characters, having secrets and problems which lead to their deaths and suicides on ‘the Tallahatchie Bridge’, as well as a possibility of dysfunctional families.  Therefore we constructed our own characters based on these elements.  The therapist, having secrets of his own and receiving more and more from his patients leads to his depression and suicide.  The love triangle symbolises the dysfunctional family and the big theme of secrets, as well as an element of ‘standing up for themselves’.   While all linking strongly to the stimulus, there was one slight issue with our performance, and that was timing.

     Our performance has to be within 15 to 30 minutes, and has to have devising physical theatre performance elements.  While what we had devised was worthy of a short performance, there was the question of “where could we take it?”  Therefore we set about a plan for a new performance structure that would elongate the timing of our performance, yet keep our links to the stimulus strong.  This is what we constructed for beginning this new structure:

1)      Create a Three Act structure – Through this structure we would be able give the performance a suitable time run.  Plus this would give us the opportunity to further develop the stories of our characters.  We all agreed to dedicate each act of the performance to a different kind of therapy patient, showing my fellow cast member’s abilities to take on board many different characters/storylines and elongate the therapist’s (my character’s) descending towards depression and his suicide.  The three act structure would consist of: Act One for therapy patients suffering from OCD and Behaviour Issues, Act Two for therapy patients suffering from Relationship Problems/Issues, and Act Three for therapy patients suffering with Deep Dark Secrets.

2)      Making ‘Doctor Joe’ the Narrative – The idea behind this was to make reference to modern physical theatre practitioners ‘Frantic Assembly’, as their lead characters have a strong relation of third-person dialogue.  This give the performers and directors the chance to express the characters thoughts and feelings verbally to the audience (not in the sense of ‘breaking the forth wall’ by just as effectively).  So we agreed that it would be my responsibility to write ‘Doctor Joe’s’ narrative dialogue to reference our new act structure as if it was his daily structure, plus this would give me the opportunity to verbally show ‘Doctor Joe’s’ descending into depression.

3)      and Make homage to more than one Physical Theatre Practitioner – In our past devising sessions, our main practitioner of inspiration was ‘Frantic Assembly’.  We liked this performance style because it gave a naturalistic flow within the performer’s actions in character, and gave true meaning to all of their actions.  But in taking on this new structure I personally wanted to make reference to more than one modern physical theatre practitioner.  One practitioner in particular I am inspired by is ‘Steven Berkoff’.  I feel if we were to use this style, it would give us the opportunity, as performers, to really embrace the dark themes that we extracted from the stimulus (as ‘Berkoff’s’ productions all share a dark and gloomy atmosphere).  Plus it would give us the opportunity to emphasis certain words of dialogue and mime out character’s stories, thoughts and feelings.  Also combining the two practitioner’s styles will give more layer detail and information to our upcoming audience, making our performance all the more intriguing and entertaining.

The New and Official Structure

     Beginning to devising our new structure we looked to how we could devise each act, having dedicating each one to a different kind therapy patient symptoms.  Having already constructed the Love Triangle’s movement montages/sequences, we decided to keep them for the second act.  The only difference being that we’re removing it’s relation toward the therapist himself.  This would also mean we wouldn’t have to dedicate the entire performance run time on this one love triangle.  So having more or less constructed the second ac, we only focused on devising act one and three.

     For the opening of act one, I personally wanted a strong and engaging opening that would introduce the audience to the lead character and what he goes through.  I recommended that we used the physical theatre style of ‘Steven Berkoff’, to open the act.  Through this it would give a very dynamic and fast paced start, and with the usage of sound scape we could only emphasis on engaging the audience.  So how did we construct this? 

     Through our devising we constructed the first act, here is a list of the positive and negative actions that we took and how we could improve upon them in future sessions, in time for the main performance:

Positive Action -           My fellow cast members created their own characters, all suffering from OCD and/or Behaviour Issues.  The idea with a ‘Berkovian’ style was for them to introduce these characters through three brief clockwork movements and four different short sentences/words.  Using sound scape and clockwork movements, it would reflect ‘Doctor Joe’s’ loud and slow start to the day, plus as the scenes go on we would have all the patient characters come closer to the emphasis and foreshadow the pressure these characters are putting on ‘Doctor Joe’ and how it would increase in future scenes/acts.  Here is a graph of how we hope to stage this:

 

 

Negative Action -         Similarly to when we devised the therapy session with the Love Triangle, we used chairs and improvised a discussion/therapy session between the characters.  At first this seemed to be a good move, as it introduced the therapy patient, their problems and what they represent.  But as we went on rehearsing/improvising this scene, there was a lack of movement and detail going into our performances.  This could be something we could develop, for future scenes/acts, and possibly turn into a chair duet.  However this proved to be a negative when showing our teacher.
 

 

 

Improvement Action - As mentioned earlier the usage of chairs and more dialogue proved to be a negative, but also an opportunity to develop movement montages in future scenes.  Like I mentioned how we could turn the scene into a chair duet between the characters, plus with little use of dialogue it might make the scene all the more effective. 

     But on another note my character’s dialogue at the moment is rather basic, as I constructed the narrative speeches to be the therapist speaking into his Dictaphone.  I figured I could use the time to develop this dialogue and give true meaning to my character and show to the audience his slow descending into depression.  Perhaps with the physical usage of mime I would be able to bring the message and details across to the upcoming audience.

     Another important part to my written dialogue is the therapy questions, when improvising I used basic questions that came to mind.  But through my research and development of the character, I constructed new questions that would add a sense of realism to the performance and deliver the message to the audience that he was once a professional.  A key place for my research for the therapy questions was from this short video here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2pgYgMDqEY  I found this video interesting because I highlighted the fact that therapy questions are not straight to the point and they like to take their time in order to get there. 

     This is a note I will take on board when constructing my written dialogue, so I can make the whole performance seem more real, add more movement, and show the character’s development downwards.  Taking on board these notes for improvement, I feel we can make our performance with perfect and precise layers of detail.

 

Note -                             Another note worth mentioning, in our devising form this new structure, there was an area of concern when it came to one of the supporting characters.  This character was previously been created, to be ‘Doctor Joe’s’ secret love affair.  In the past the character served the purpose to physically enhance the tension within ‘Doctor Joe’s’ basis, as well as a physical representation to the theme of ‘secrets’ and ‘lies’.  One concern within the group was the worry of potentially removing the character from the performance.  But it was one of our group members who suggested that the character could stay in the performance, still representing the themes, and suffer from all these therapy problems.  For example, act one OCD and Behaviour Issue patients, the character has a weird and uncontrollable obsession with ‘Doctor Joe’.  Act two Relationship problem patients, the character is in an adultery relationship with ‘Doctor Joe’.  Act three the Secret patients, both the character and ‘Doctor Joe’ share the same secret and that’s their relationship.  Almost as if to say as the performance ends, the roles are switched and the therapist is suffering.  Plus the character has another physical representation, and that is to show ‘Doctor Joe’s’ downfall and his anger rising as she physically comes closer to him.  

     Again this is something we could improve upon and develop in future sessions, in time for the main performance, so all the correct details are shown to the audience.

The Plan of Action

     So to conclude the week, for our final stages of this assignment, we set ourselves a plan of action.  The goal for future sessions, before the main performance was to construct and stage the final act and work on hidden details and references we can put forward and make our performance a true success.