Devising Assignment - Evaluation

Devising Physical Theatre: Evaluation

‘Ode to Billy Joe’

Artistic Effectiveness

     When breaking down our stimulus (‘Ode to Billy Joe’ written and performed by Bobbie Gentry, lyrics - http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/gentry-bobbie/ode-to-billie-joe-13490.html), our first response was confusion and interest.  But we firstly wanted to find any performance themes, that we could deduce and bring to life on stage to refer back to the stimulus.  Our deduced themes were:

•                  Suicide – Deduced from: ‘And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge’.

•                  Abuse – Deduced from: cruel visionary description of “Mama” and “Papa”, particularly when referring to the main character as “Child”.

•                  Acceptance – Deduced from: lead constant lonely visits to “Choctaw Ridge” and little appetite during family meals ‘And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?"’ showing concern and struggle with character’s acceptance.

•                  Relationships – Deduced from: questioning many things, like what is the lead character’s relationship with this ‘Billy Joe’, and what does he represent?  Plus struggles with family relationships, and why are they with this ‘Brother Taylor’, and do the lead character love him? 

•                  Secrecy – Deduced from: this line here – “And she and Billie Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge” – suggested to us that the lead character and ‘Billy Joe’ had a secret to share, whether a physical or metaphorical object thrown off the bridge, it indicated to us a sense of secrecy within the character’s motivations.

•                  and Emotional Battles – Deduced from: liking the deduced themes of acceptance and relationships to develop any possible characters to a better standard as they battle against their irritating and forceful emotions.

     I personally found this to be a good start.  We had a rough/basic idea of what kind of performance we were going for.  But secondly, we looked to famous/professional physical theatre practitioners for inspiration, and had a good thought track to see which performance style would prove to be a positive and/or negative during both the devising and performance process.

Our Positive Inspiration:

1)      Frantic Assembly – I was particularly inspired by their works within their plays ‘Lovesong’ and ‘Stockholm’.  I admired the way they incorporated choreographed dance montages and routines all reflecting characters, thoughts and feelings, and even foreshadowing future events within each play.  All the while experimenting with the actor’s performances and their set and prop facilities and equipment.  Not only that but we wanted to reflect the quote that started their company in the first place: “to do something different” (quote from - http://www.franticassembly.co.uk/media/media/downloads/Frantic_Assembly_Resource_Pack.pdf).

     I found we successfully reflected their style within both the devising and main performance process.  When devising we practically improvised our segments, yet gave depth and meaning to our movements in order to reflect our characters actions/purposes/meanings and our deduced themes.  Plus in the main performance, it proved to be extremely effective, especially when we succeeded in transferring all our character details to the audience and gave the entire performance a natural and realistic vibe and time run.

2)      DV8 – When developing our characters we looked to ore inspiration in order to devise, or improvise, a scene involving a manikin.  We then turned to ‘DV8’ for inspiration, because in their performance of ‘Enter Achillies’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PFR2OXf9iQ) the opening scene has the usage of a manikin to intrigue the audience into their first character seen.  We wanted to make reference to this by having a scene where a supporting character shows she has more significance and will have a vast impact on other characters and the storyline.

     This proved to be an extreme positive as the scene became a success and the performer projected brilliant and precise detail physically.

3)      Steven Berkoff – I personally wanted to use ‘Steven Berkoff’s’ performance style because I was extremely fascinated by his dark, gloomy, clockwork paced performances.  This is something I felt we could bring to life in our performance as we could reflect the dark and mysterious atmosphere that came within our visionary plan of our performance.  Plus it would help us to enhance on the pacing of the entire performance.  Plus in our main performance I felt we succeeded in reflecting a quote from ‘Steven Berkoff’ which read: “it’s an open world” (quote from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/10237651/Steven-Berkoff-trolling-victims-have-left-their-front-door-open.html) and how all the characters interrelate and all bring a sense of realism and good quality.

     This proved to be an extreme positive as it helped to give us a faster pace to the entire performance, and reflect the dark themes and mysterious atmosphere that we wanted to project.

Our Negative Inspirations and Devising Sessions:

1)      Jaques Le-Coq – At first we were inspired by this historical physical theatre practitioner, particularly with his performance styles usage of masks.  We felt that we could incorporate the usage of masks to help us, as performers, to develop our physical abilities to show our characters without the usage of dialogue.  Plus it would have backed-up our main performance with the usage of the manikin as it makes the inanimate animate.

     However this proved to be a negative as the structure we were going for had little to no usage of masks.  But it was a goof plan, just a shame to not use in the main performance.

2)      Our Constant Change of Plans – I personally found this to be a strong negative as it did become something of concern and stress amongst me and some of my fellow group members.  Although I could argue that it is a positive as well, as it helped us to develop our attitude towards our work, and brought us towards the final steps of our main performance. 

     But all in all I do still see it as a negative as decent plans for storylines and stage structures that consisted of: ‘A Crime Scene Interview’, ‘An Office Romance Affair’, to a ‘Love Triangle Drama’; all of which were dropped.  Therefore the majority of our time was used in planning, useful time that I felt the need to use for practical work and development of our performance’s story.

Professional Effectiveness

     With my professional effectiveness I see this breaking into two, one being my professional attitude within the ensemble, and two being my professional attitude within my own performance.  All of these effects I feel interrelate to our ensemble manifesto and reflect my group and independent working attitude.  Our manifesto listed from:

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)                  Everybody’s input matters.

Positives in Working in an Ensemble:

1)                  We had a good collaborative feel to our devising; everybody had an idea to share, everybody’s input was heard, and the final performance was to all of our liking.

2)                  We “took risks” with our devising and experimented in combining our physical theatre styles of inspiration and brought our visions to life.

3)                  There was good communication, whether as a group or individually, on how we could progress and truly make this performance piece a success.

4)                  Working together practically, particularly when it came to our improvisation we successfully managed to produce movement segments that we would later incorporate into our main performance.  This proved to be a particularly strong positive as it really helped us to progress to a good point in the devising process, and reflected our professional attitude, as well as our performing attitude towards reflecting the themes through character actions, and our improvisation helped us to achieve these elements.

5)                  One exercise that I felt was extremely useful in the devising/creative process, was our interview exercise, as this helped us to begin planning a storyline and creating the basis for our characters.  All of which was produced through improvised interrogation questions concerning ‘Billy Joe’.  

Negatives in Working in an Ensemble:

1)                  There were times/moments when our manifesto became a mere subconscious memory, which resulted in lack of focus, communication and commitment to the devising and performance process.

2)                  As mentioned earlier, when it came to our constant change of plans this came to be a negative as it slowed the process down and increased the lack of focus within the ensemble.

3)                  During some of the rehearsal sessions, and perhaps one of the performances, I felt I and some of the group lacked energy within our performances.  Resulting in some movement montages dragging, from my perspective, and projecting the image I had pictured.  But this is something I feel could have been improved with more rehearsal time.

Positives when Working Independently:

1)                  I personally feel I succeeded when creating and devising my character.  Although, like our performance planning, changes were made throughout, but eventually I feel I succeeded in projecting an equal physical and verbal performance that expressed my wish to take risks in physical theatre performance as well as reflect the themes and dark tone of the story we devised together.

2)                  Linking back to the previous point, I also feel positive about my adaption to working in three different performance styles, yet projecting the same character, themes and tones that I/we wanted to achieve.

3)                  But how do I feel about my professionalism within the ensemble?  I feel that I managed to keep a positive and professional attitude throughout the devising and performance process.  I did, at times, have our manifesto in mind and entered each session with a positive attitude to bring our performance to life.

Negatives when Working Independently:

1)                  I do feel at some points I did find frustration towards our constant change of plans and structures.  But this is something I learnt to accept and take on board as a chance to develop and improve for our main performance.

2)                  Plus when working in the ensemble I did find sometimes working in an equal ensemble there was no team leader, and I did find that hard to cope with at first, but, once again, learnt and took on board as the process came to an end.

3)                  Performance wise, I feel I needed to project more vocally.  Having focused too much onto my physicalized performance, I lacked projection in the voice work.  But I feel this is something I could improve through more time in rehearsals.

4)                  Another negative in my performance, I feel I could have projected more physical energy and give a stronger sense of fluency within my main performance.

Vocational Effectiveness

     If I was to truly break apart our performance I would see the storyline and the presentation of the performance, as being more of an amateur dramatic production, rather than a devising physical theatre performance.  Plus I do see three areas of concern when it comes to how I would have improved this performance if I could do so.  The three areas of concern consist of:

What is the target audience?

     A mature audience – I personally would invite further drama education students to come and see our performance, so we could share and educate with them the creative detail that went into the devising of this performance, and the layers of detail within the main performance.  Also with a mature audience we would hopefully succeed in projecting to them the themes and tones we discovered within the stimulus.

How could we further develop the performance?

     I feel if we were to develop our current performance, I would enhance on these four production elements:

·         Bigger stage space

·         A larger ensemble cast

·         More lighting and sound facilities/equipment

·         and A longer better organised rehearsal plan.

     I feel if another production company was to take on and present our performance, I would personally ask that they’d enhance on these production features.  Only then can a stronger sense of professionalism be placed into the main performance only then can our layers of detail and information from the stimulus come to life.

What would be the market and economic viability of our company?

     I personally feel a perfect venue for this performance would be ‘The Nuffield Theatre’ and their theatre facilities reflect a dark, mysterious and intriguing vibe, and this is something that could back-up our performance.  Plus if the company was to enhance on the four areas of development, with a decent budget (minimum of £1000) I feel it would be a success in bringing our vision of the story behind ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ to a mature amateur dramatic production vibe.