Final
Stages
Monday 9th,
Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th 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.
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