Physical Theatre Presentation Assignment: Research Portfolio 2

Commedia dell’Arte

Research Portfolio

      Translated to the meaning of “Comedy of the Artist”, ‘Commedia’ is a historical physical theatre practice that has become one of the most popular and well used forms of comedy in past and present entertainment.

     Originating in the mid-1500s, the street market sellers of Venice had priority to sell their products to satisfied customers, but the difficulty was attracting the general public’s attention.  Therefore the street marketer’s devised a series of performances, in a way, to advertise their products (whether telling the truth or lies) and made customers more interested in what they were doing and why they should buy their products.  The marketers sooner became known as ‘performers’.  It was then their new priority, as newly discovered outdoor performers, to truly entertain their customers.  Therefore each ‘performer’ gave off many physical and verbal characteristics and emotions, and then before they knew it they created a new form of performance.  Gaining more popularity over the years, receiving many positive and negative outcomes the ‘performers’ developed their performances to a standard that would be admired and enjoyed by every audience members they received, through the usage of ‘masks’.  

     The ‘performers’ usage of ‘Masks’ was to hide their facial expressions that allowed them to further express physical reactions towards certain scenarios and give an extra bit of detail to their performance.  Ensuring the audience gained full understanding and detail to what the characters were going through mentally and physically.

     It was only a matter of time until the ‘Masked Performer’ became a common and tradition within the market street’s atmosphere.  Then the new form of entertainment was enhanced for the marketing public.  Plus as time passed this type of performing grew in size and became the centre of attention in public carnivals and festivals, launching this newly found performance style to an increasingly popular form of entertainment and comedy. 

     Through the time of the performance’s development, there came to be two key words depicting their two key performance types, within the comedic style.  These performance types were known as Farce and Slapstick.  Farce, was a performing strategy used in theatre, depicting a fast paced comedic performance, involving plot twists and turns, and producing unlikely, yet hilarious, situations for their characters.  Whereas Slapstick, gave a more physical aspect, involving more hysterical violence and physical actions between the characters, all the more engaging their audience members and bringing a vast amount of laughter.

     But throughout the history of performing arts, ‘Commedia dell’Arte’, and ‘Comedy’ in general, has had a huge impact towards the ‘performers’ acting abilities and the audiences love for theatre such as ‘Comedy’.  It is the Actor’s/Performer’s job role to learn how to truly get an understanding of their characters inside out.  But it is within the ‘Commedia dell’Arte’ style that Actors/Performers were introduced to the many types of characters that reflect their current society and bring forth opportunities to test their abilities as a ‘performer’.  Known as ‘Stock Characters’ they list from:

1)      Arlecchino (or Harlequin) – The loveable clown within ‘Commedia’, that allows ‘performers’ to explore their physical and verbal abilities to bring forth the true fool within him.  An example of ‘Arlecchio’ (‘Harlequin’) within modern day entertainment would be ‘Joey Tribianni’ from the hit television show ‘Friends’.

2)      Brighella – This character depicts a crafty servant character.  Paired with ‘Arlecchino’, ‘Brighella’ is the servant within the posh house that always does his best to be the best servant, yet always makes the mistakes and makes a fool of himself.

3)      Pantelone – ‘Pantelone’ is the character in charge.  Depicted as the character always looking down to his servants, and always keeping a posh manner.  Although there is a sense of elegance to him, as we discovered that he would need a helping hand if really necessary.  An example of ‘Pantelone’ in modern entertainment would be ‘Basil Fawlty’ from the BBC’s comedy classic ‘Fawlty Towers’.

4)      Il Dottore (the Doctor) – While having the appearance of an old wise character ‘Il Dottore’ was the lord of the manners, ‘Pantelone’s’, good friend.  Except one of the key characteristics of ‘Il Dottore’ is that he doesn’t have a clue.  This character allows actors to show off their abilities to add “plumpness” to their physicality and bring forth a sense of clumsiness towards every action ‘Il Dottore’ brings to the performance.

5)      The Innamorati (the Lovers: Silvia, Corallina, Ottavio and Lelio) – It is these four characters that bring almost realistic interpretations of married or engaged couples.  One pair showing off their long lasting marriage, yet constantly arguing.  Whereas the other shows the pair in the youth, as well as including difficulties in amongst their day to day actions in the performances.

6)      Isabella – The daughter of ‘Pantelone’, ‘Isabella’ is the character that every man falls for.  She is also depicted as the young rebellious lady, always keeping her headstrong and desperately wanting to control her life.  This character in particular has key physical poses and props that really show off her rebellious character traits.

7)      Il Capitano (the Captain) – Similarly to ‘Il Dottore’, ‘Il Capitano’ is the perfect example of a cocky show off who really up himself.  ‘Il Capitano’s’ characteristics show that he brings forth a sense of power and loyalty, but if you were to put a mouse in front of him, he would be nothing but a coward.  A perfect example of this character in modern entertainment would be ‘Gilderoy Lockhart’ from ‘J.K. Rowling’s’ novel ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’, as this character bring a sense of him being in love with himself, yet lied to gain popularity and is a coward to near everything he speaks of.

8)      Colombina – The sneaky female servant ‘Colombina’, with the ability to make the ‘Lovers’ turn on each other, she is a character you’d have to be careful with.  Physically she has a posh attitude, yet give off an amazing twist when telling lies to her superiors.  An example of ‘Colombina’ in modern entertainment would be ‘Polly’ from the ‘BBC’s’ comedy classic ‘Fawlty Towers’. 

9)      Pierrot – This is the definition of a naive clown.  ‘Pierrot’ comes across as a misunderstood character.  He has the physicality of a really sad person, ‘Pierrot’ will do anything to be welcomed and be laughed at for being one the entertainer around.  But ‘Pierrot’ always get his tricks wrong and continues to be upset.  This character was interesting as it gave us a chance to express strong emotions such as “happiness” and “sadness”. 

10)  Pulcinella – Often considered ‘the Punch’, ‘Pulcinella’ is the character that is stuck in between servant and master.  A quite confused character, ‘Pulcinella’ has the physical traits of being tired and board, bring forth some pure entertainment involving the many other ‘Commedia’ characters.

     The genre of comedy alone has been around since the beginning of theatre, and the genre alone has had a vast impact on the world of performing arts.  But it was ‘Commedia dell’Arte’ that gave an equally vast impact toward the performing arts, as it allowed Actors/Performers to truly embrace a new physicalized performance style that achieves the sole purpose of making its audience feel with joy and laughter. 

     It can be argued that the true reason for ‘Commedia’s’ succession would be its ‘Stock Characters’.  The characters have given the opportunities for many Actors/Performers over the years to embrace many different physical styles and ways to express characterised emotions without the use of voice.  Plus, as mentioned in the ‘Stock Character’s’ descriptions, they have had a huge impact in modern entertainment.  While their costumes and origins stories may be considered “ancient” by the modern audience, it is the characters physical actions and scenarios that truly bring forth a planetary sized sense of comedy, laughter and joy.

     Another fictional character, born from the world of comedy, that has had a huge impact on modern entertainment is the character “Dell-Boy” from cult BBC Comedy ‘Only Fools and Horses’.  It is “Dell-Boy” who is the perfect representation of the early street market performer.  This gives a sense of majesty towards ‘Commedia dell’Arte’ in showing how far the performance style has come, and how it is still admired and loved today, as well as possibly hinting at a bright future for the ‘Comedy of the Artist’.

     Through my personal experiences I have worked and performed, in exercise games, as the ‘Commedia Stock Characters’.  Experiencing first-hand the comedy elements within their physicalized and verbal performance techniques, and I personally would have loved to worked in a production where the ‘Stock Characters’ are the main feature.  My personal favourite character being ‘Il Capitano’, because if his misleading persona and the hysterical outcome of his actions.  In previous experiences I have understood other strategies in presenting character emotions through physical actions, but to a more naturalistic and mature standard.  This all the more back-ups my wish to work in ‘Commedia’ productions so I could perform in an “over-the-top” production style and have a positive and fun-filled atmosphere and attitude throughout production presentation.  Plus it would allow us as performers to work in a more light-hearted performance structure, rather than reflecting the dark and gloomy reality that is often looked in modern contemporary productions, therefore a new ‘Commedia’ production would reflect old performance traditions and would be something new and entertaining for modern audiences.

Physical Theatre Presentation Assignment: Research Portfolio 1

Frantic Assembly

Research Portfolio

     English graduate students, now turned modern contemporary practitioners Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, created in 1994 their very own theatre company and with it a new style of modern contemporary physical theatre.

     Having created this theatre company with a shared goal “to do something different”, the practitioners looked for inspiration to create their own style.  When it came to presenting physical theatre performance styles the two key inspirations that they grew accustomed to were theatre companies ‘DV8’ and ‘The Volcano Theatre Company’.  These two theatre company’s do share something particular in their physical theatre style, as they do have a tendency to keeping their actors performance seem more naturalistic.  This is an element that comes strongly into ‘Frantic Assembly’s’ modern contemporary style.

     As a producing house company, ‘Frantic Assembly’ has given many different structures to all of their productions.  Their structures can be separated as dark and gloomy, and light and fast-paced performances and production atmospheres.  But there are two main elements that link all their productions together is their actors/performers and their characters. 

     A feature that is often admired about the company’s development and workshops is the shared devising methods.  Having appointed themselves as Artistic Directors, Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett like to have the input of their fellow cast members, rather than having them create/devise the entire production.  It does show within their productions as the actors/performers have a strong element of giving/presenting their characters through their naturalistic movement, yet it gives a visually un-naturalistic look in the audience’s perspective.  This is something that many believe has been devised by both the actors and the artistic directors.  Through their physical practice games/exercises it helps to build the actors physical and mental trust between the each other.  Plus it really helps to visually break down the characters and their features on stage.  This helps their audiences to understand the characters relationships, their current state of mood and their mental desires.  Plus through largely choreographed movement segments, featured in every production produced by ‘Frantic Assembly’, it really engages the audience into the development of the plots and characters (shown particularly in their successful productions ‘Lovesong’ and ‘Stcokholm’), and it reflects the ground breaking and eye widening majesty of the ever growing physical theatre.

     But what else does ‘Frantic Assembly’ offer as a contemporary physical theatre practitioner?  Linking to their practices in having movement segments, seeming larger than life, their stage structures take on a vast scale to really back-up the “ah” factor in the audiences reactions/responses.  Plus it also embraces the audience in a way that makes them want to know more about the productions storylines and characters.  This is particularly shown in their successful productions ‘Lovesong’ and ‘Stockholm’.

     ‘Lovesong’ depicts the story of a married couple, but has two pairs in an ensemble cast to show the same married couple in their youth and in their elderly age.  What makes this production so effective though is it presentation of the characters.  Instantly the audience knows both pairs in the ensemble are playing the same characters, but when both pair shares the stage during the production, they use it to an effect that shows the elderly interpretation of the characters wish to be in their youth age again.  Plus with movement segment involving opposite sides of the ensemble cast it really break down the possibilities of endless desires and how strong hopes and wishes can damage an individual’s well-being.  Also there are many little hints and elements within their stage structures that show the inevitability of aging and loss, shown through the stage being riddled with autumn leaves on the ground drying out.  Along with lighting effects to embrace the audience a step further into what could/should/will happen in the upcoming events of this amazing story.

     But it is in their other successful production, ‘Stockholm’, that audiences are shown a completely different interpretation of a married couple.  Keeping to single pair ensemble for its cast, ‘Stockholm’ shows a married couple only in their youth and their many struggles in near everyday circumstances.  Stage structure wise it has a more modern, clean and organised vibe to its setting, reflecting modern society and the couple’s age range.  Not only that but through the actors changed physicalized performances we saw a more adrenaline emphasised couple that were always hell-bent on a singular objective (whether making love or cooking dinner, it changes throughout the storyline) and that enhances a sense of tension.  This is why ‘Stockholm’ has more dark and gloomy lightings and stage facilities, reflecting the upcoming tension and physical strikes towards each character, and that it what also makes the production all the more intriguing for the audience, wondering why the characters are like this and where are they going.

     But in conclusion ‘Frantic Assembly’ has a particularly strong series of styles.  Listing from naturalistic performances, large scale stage sets, and elementary foreshadows within sets and character’s actions.  But all in all they do keep a strong sense of integument for their audiences, and offer new theatre lovers to embrace a style that is modernised and naturalised to be recognised and popularised in the future. 

     Through personal experience, I prefer the acting method of keeping naturalistic movement and vocalisation.  Therefore this contemporary style appealed to me, especially when it came to have exaggerated movement within their performances to give more meaning to the character’s actions and to furthering the plot.  During our college assignment production of ‘Mike Bartlett’s’ ‘13’, we decided to have a naturalistic style to our performances.  This is something I enjoyed working with, but wished we could take it further.  So when watch ‘Frantic Assembly’s’ productions, such as ‘Lovesong’ I really admired their physical actions, and how meaningful they were even at first glance.  Therefore I wish to take the opportunities, in future, to work in devising productions and develop the production through detailed and meaningful movements and storytelling.

     But, all in all, what impact has it had to modern contemporary theatre?  ‘Frantic Assembly’ has built something new and unique from something traditional and classical.  Through their performance styles they offer integument towards their characters emotions, but through naturalistic presentation, this is something that can be found in historical contemporary theatre, such as ‘Commedia dell’Arte’.  ‘Commedia’ offers a range of ‘Stock Characters’ that bring forth a unique physical being and that enhances the actor presentation of those particular characters emotions.  But it is ‘Frantic Assembly’ who has replicated these kinds of styles, just by adding their own tweet to make it relevant and popular amongst younger modern audience members, and I believe they have succeeded.

Devising Assignment Week 4

Refinement

Monday 26^th, Wednesday 28^th and Thursday 29^th January 2015

Continuing where we left off

     Having made the conclusive plan to give an interview structure to our devising project, we continued to work towards the physical aspects/montages we ought to put within our main performance.  We also looked at how we could keep our character’s stories effective from the audience’s perspective, in order to make our performance a success.

     So to begin with we refined our previous achievements.  We showed to the rest of our tutor group, and to our teacher, what we created with our mysterious interview prologue/flash-forward and future scenes concerning key characters.  Keeping the mystery of our characters strong, to begin with, then expanding on certain character traits and origins (particularly within the love triangle and the affair couple) the response was mostly positive.

·         Good physical gestures to show character’s relationships.

·         Good use of music to support the character’s movement pieces.

·         and Good reference towards ‘Frantic Assembly’ and ‘DV8’ physical theatre performance styles.  

     Although there was one negative points given, that was worth taking in:

·         It was hard for them to establish what our character’s relationships were; this is something we hope to develop and expand upon, in future refining session, only then can reach the correct time run of the performance piece and give our upcoming audience the correct and detailed information about our performances storyline and characters.    

 

How did we develop what we had already achieved?

     Looking particularly at me and my partner’s performance piece (performing as the Affair couple) we wanted to really express the broken love between our characters.  So sticking closely to improvised physical actions, we wanted to keep certain character traits alive such as:

·         The woman wanting to end the relationship.

·         The man having enough troubles already and currently in a bad mood.  (Through constructive criticism I changed my characters persona for this scene to have more anger in his actions, rather than previously having a more awkward and fearful trait to my performance.  That way it give the audience more understanding of what my characters is going though.)

·         The man wants to keep the relationship going.

·         and The woman despises his adultery actions.

     While at first we did struggle to construct a movement segment showing, or even just hinting at, all these elements, we then turned to research for some inspiration.  We looked particularly at contemporary physical theatre performance’s that showed any hints or elements of friendship, hatred and anger.  The best video we found was of this performance piece within ‘C2C’s’ music video of ‘Happy’:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvY7Nw1i6Kw

     I particularly like the opening gestures towards his dance partner and I thought that could be useful movement gesture to show the woman’s now hatred towards the man. 

     Another element we felt the need to add to our performance was music, so together we browsed many emotional and dark songs that we felt best depicted the relationship of these characters.  The best piece of music that we both agreed on was ‘Ella Henderson’s’ ‘Say Something’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsXt7XF9a-I

     Together we agreed that this song was the best in summarising the message that the woman is trying to get across to the man.

     So we tried to add these inspirations/elements to what we had already devised for this movement scene, but quite frankly we weren’t getting anywhere with the performance space and what we achieved.  It wasn’t as detailed as we wished, and we got quite lost in the physical theatre elements.  Therefore with a little support we managed to start devising the affair couple’s movement segment for scratch.

     There was a physical theatre practice trust exercise, we used in our early stages of devising, and we were told that this could help us to expand on the affair couples relationship.  The exercise consisted of a pair walking in a straight line, yet keeping in contact with one another, that way it could show support and friendship.  But we agreed that we could use the exercise, but we thought we could use the exercise to tell a different story. 

     Removing the strategy of having both members of the pair supporting each other as they got from one side of the room to the other, we wanted to show the female character trying to escape, except the male character is blocking her path and he wants her to stay and the relationship to continue.  

      Here is a video clip showing what we had achieved using this exercise and what impact it had physically to the audiences perspective:

     I personally was really pleased with what we achieved in this little performance.  I felt we showed the character’s objectives and what state they are currently in.  But when we gained feedback there was some good point’s worth taking in:

·         There were too many holding hand actions.

·         and The time span was too short.

     I personally could have argued that the second point was wrong, because we had longer and equally effective movement segments showing the love-triangle that took up most of the performances time span, so our piece could have stayed as being short and effective.  But then again we, as a devising group, needed to extend the time span of the whole performance, so we took these points into account and begun to make the changes and expand upon them in future sessions.

 

How would we conclude the entire performance?

     Beginning in a group discussion we agreed that it would be good to include six interview questions, police officers would ask to crime suspects.  Having already created three questions to open the performance we wanted to write three more that we could use to conclude the entire performance.  The three questions we all agreed on were:

1)      “Do you know Doctor Joe?”

2)      “Did he show any signs of depression?”

3)      and “Do you feel responsible?”

     I loved these questions because we referred to them through our previous interview exercises.  Plus this give a stronger link to the stimulus, as we established that making my character the therapist, and the victim of the suicide, my character was essentially ‘Billy Joe’, so making my character’s name “Doctor Joe” gave a little reference, that will hopefully blow audiences minds when revealed what our stimulus was. 

     Not only that but all these questions were designed to miss lead our audience.  The first three were meant to intrigue our audience and make them wonder why these characters are here and what has happened to bring them here.  But the final questions miss lead them in the way that the audience knows my character has died, but are wondering if any of the supporting characters did it.  That way we could create two final ensemble pieces showing physical gestures that the supporting characters are innocent and my character committed suicide.

     But how could we stage this?  Well I suggested this performance structure from start to finish:

Scene 01: The flash-forward (the interview prologue).

Scene 02: The love-triangle (the first therapy session and physical segment of the love triangle character’s relationship).

Scene 03: The affair couple (the movement segment showing the couple’s troubles).

Scene 04: The love-triangle part two.

Scene 05: The second interview.

Scene 06: Doctor Joe’s suicide.

     Plus I and my partner worked on a plan to how we could stage “Doctor Joe’s suicide”.  Once again I was really pleased with what we created, because “Doctor Joe’s death” was now the strongest reference point to the stimulus, as he commits suicide by jumping off “the Tallahatchie Bridge”.  Plus rather than keeping it to a one man performance piece, we managed to make it an ensemble piece, and this is was we achieved as a mental plan for future sessions:

 

     Having a large block centre stage simulated the bridge and with physical movements of showing pain, confusion and depression I feel I can show to the audience “Doctor Joe’s” current state of mood and what he plans to do to rectify his situations.  Plus with our plans to include blackouts and mimicking followers to make it an ensemble piece, I feel we can succeed in concluding our performance in high, positive and dramatic note, leaving our audience wanting more.

     I felt that the conclusion of this week was amazing; as we gained new and better elements which I strongly hope to expand on and develop in future sessions in order to make our devising performance the best performance we would have given.

Devising Assignment Week 3

A Conclusive Business Plan

Monday 19^th, Wednesday 21^st and Thursday 22^nd January 2015

What we’ve so far

     So concluding last week, we had finally established what our characters were to be and how they related with one another.  This left us with a positive response and making us feel eager to see where we could take these characters and how we could present them through different physical theatre styles. 

     Beginning by splitting into three pairs we tried to establish these three pairs/couples and then later work on their love triangles and what physical theatre styles we could use to present them.  Plus we also looked into what type movements established them better visually.  The results we got were:

1)      The Gay Couple – Having fasted paced dynamics in time with music really helped show their love and future the character hope to gain with each other.

2)      The Best Friends – Once again they shared fasted paced dynamic, visually showing their strong, long lasting and good friendship and it was effective in hinting at potential dark future events.

3)      and The Couple having the Affair – We took a more slower pace with our performance, to show the love and knowledge that both characters knew they should be together, but I thought it had the potential to take a faster pace, but for then it proved to be effective.

     I personally found that having a faster pace in each of our movements had a way of relating to the style of ‘Frantic Assembly’ in having a naturalistic flow, yet had a very non-naturalistic look to it.  Plus it was a good starting point in establishing the characters coupled relationships, so our next focus was to show the other relationships within the two love triangles and show scenes in between those key movement segments highlighting the lead characters.

     But as we progressed to the end of the session, one area of focus we didn’t think about beforehand was giving our performance a structure.  While before we pictured having the stage structure as a police interrogation office.  As well as having a main plot device being a murder and all our characters were suspects.  Only that way we could strongly link towards the stimulus (‘Ode to Billy Joe’ by Bobbie Gentry) and establish our own original and unique characters that all have a say on the murder.  

     But we dropped that idea because at first we used interviews to create our characters, plus we didn’t know how to relate them with each other.  Not only that but it seemed to give our performance a flow that was repetitive in showing one interview after another, and that is not what we wanted to present.  Therefore it was our goal to create a new structure to the performance, making it seem more professional and allow us time to further develop the storyline within our performance, have stronger links to the stimulus, and show our characters relationship just a little bit better.

 

What we’ve changed

     In coming up with a plan for our performance’s structure, I inputted two suggestions:

1)      An Office Structure – In some ways I wanted to refer to it as “the office romance” as if suggesting that’s how all these characters met each other.  Plus the structure I visualised had a very organised feel to it, that way we could keep our earlier movements in establishing the characters just transfer them into this office layout space.

 

 



2)     The Night Club – I specifically wanted to call this night club “The Bridge” because that would link directly to “the Tallahatchie Bridge” which is where a possible suicide takes place within the storyline of the stimulus’ lyrics.  Making the key character’s suicides all the more relevant and effective.

 

 

     While I wanted to show both structure layouts if possible, some of my team members suggested the negatives in having a structure like a night club, with the usage of loud music and possible repetitive movement.  Therefore we all agreed to try the office structure but give it a layout that was slightly different to my suggestion.

     The new office layout had another very organised structure to it, yet we had a more horse shoe table layout at the front of the stage, and two desks at the back to suggest authority and tension within this particular office.  Plus it showed the two love triangles separated possibly increasing tensions and hinting at the question of where the performance could go. 

     But for the next step we had to visually establish our characters relationships again.  Except for this exercise we were to use no dialogue and stay within our love triangle so our teacher, who was now an audience member, could fully understand the characters relationship, whether it is love, hate or tension, we had to physically show it.  This was our feedback:

 



     But personally I found the non-spoken dialogue office scene to be really effective and I pictured it to be the perfect introduction to our performance.  Plus it very much reminded me of ‘DV8’s performance of ‘Enter Achilles’, as their performance had little to no dialogue yet we managed to understand the character’s friendships and their struggles throughout the story.  

 

What we’ve accomplished

     For our final session of the week, we did have to make some major changes, as not every member of the group was pleased with the progression of our devising piece we decided to take a new and different approach to our performance.  Returning to the idea of having an interview structure to the stage we instantly created a new formation for our devising project.

     Firstly we established our new characters and their relationship towards a recently murdered victim.  It was then suggested to make the interrogation the opening scene and have the rest of the performance to be a flash back so audiences can see how these came to be in this position and why?

     Secondly we created list of questions that we felt gave a strong intriguing element as our character’s answered, indicating to how they knew the murdered victim and what part they will play in the rest of the performance.  The three questions were:

1)      How are you feeling?

2)      What was your relationship to them?

3)      Did you do it?

     I thought these were excellent teaser questions and I felt it would strongly intrigue our audience, to find out why they are here.

     Finally we wanted to give a very physical theatre vibe to it.  The two particular styles that we wanted to stick to in referencing was ‘Frantic Assembly’ and ‘DV8’, only that way could we keep a naturalistic flow and have exaggerated movement.  These came particularly handy when we improvised movement pieces to the interview and to the following scene.  The use of chairs helped vastly for our movements, as you can see here:

 

 

     Using still image movements we managed to establish our new characters for ourselves and for the future audience.  Plus it gave us an idea of how to keep the structure throughout the performance and how they can be changed and enhanced through elements such as blackouts and exaggerated movements.

     As the session came to an end I for one felt please with what we did and didn’t accomplish for our devising project.  But in the end we created something new that we were all please with and were eager to continue down that road for our main performance.       

 





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.