Development
Thursday 19th 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’:
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
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