Today in our lesson we did our final performance of or extract of A Woman Alone! Here are some pictures of the costumes and makeup that we decided on due to a) us not being able to wear face paint -Megan, who plays the housewife element- is allergic to it, and b) we couldn't wear sexy nightdresses to school.
Melody playing the Psycho Element
Picture showing the juxtaposition between our different character traits
We decided on this makeup because it is kind of mime like and the Berkoff style and makeup is inspired by mimes. Whilst we didn't have incredibly white faces, we didn't really need them because we're all so pale anyways (England, woo!). Also, the black lipstick we decided would help the audience understand that we were all the same person and was a representation of our unified voice as The Woman. Also, our costumes are all in black and white, but they are inspired by our elements of The Woman.
We decided on:
Sexy Element/Emily- having a full face of makeup that is kind of drag queen like, extreme, colourful eyeshadow that is noticeable, with huge eyelashes and lots of blusher, with the black lipstick; black dress with black tights
Psycho Element/Melody- Gothic makeup and black lipstick in a frowning shape; band t-shirt, ripped jeans, converse - all black and stereotypically gothic
Bubbly Element/ Me- Lots of blusher, minimal eye makeup, and black lipstick in a happy/smiling shape with two dimples on either side; white dress and black tights -juxtaposing the Sexy Element through costume, but still similar to show the link between us both being idealistic toys for men to play with
Housewife Element/Megan- No makeup except for lipstick, lipstick goes to the side- extending lips in a sort of frown; white dress shirt, black trousers, apron
Final Performance!
Things that went well:
Pace- which was something we were consistently concerned about was good and we remembered all our lines, certain of each section that came next
Establishing our characters- I think that our group did this particularly well, using costume and makeup and throughout the rehearsal process...giving people fitting lines and movements that represented the elements of The Woman genuinely
"Stay still you cretin, stop pulling at me..."
"What are you doing? Let go of me!"
"What'll I do!?"
Things to improve on:
Reactions - the Berkoff style askes for huge and over exaggerated reactions. We needed more reactions and bigger reactions between each other and the audience. For example, when we do synchronised reactions -we could do them more between ourselves as well as directed towards the audience.
Staging- because we hadn't really gotten to practice in the space that we were preforming it in, the proxemics of the stage were slightly off and often the riser wasn't centred as it should be or the person speaking (being the voice!) wasn't in a place that was easy for the audience to realise who was in control.
I also messed up once, and accidentally put my 'gun' down too early, so I would change that if we did it again.
This Wednesday in lesson we were very privileged to have a Frantic Assembly workshop with one of the Frantic Assembly members herself. I think that it was an incredible opportunity to grow out physical theatre knowledge and learn how to lift people in new and different ways, and how to devise exciting physical theatre in simple ways. I found that the Frantic style takes a lot of concentration, but the more you practiced a certain lift or move, the easier it got for everyone.
When studying Antigone, I first looked more into depth into Frantic Assembly and was fascinated by their techniques, and how easy they made hard physical theatre look. Here's a link to the blog where I talk more about Frantic Assembly : Physical Theatre/ Frantic Assembly
Here also, is a link to their website, which I found useful when looking up about the history of Frantic Assembly, and when making the blog post linked above: https://franticassembly.co.uk/about
Starting out the Workshop!
Talking to Maggie, the Frantic Assembly member who came to teach us, I also learnt a lot about how Frantic Assembly tends to work and how to learn from the different techniques of multiple companies and make them your own. She said something along the lines of, "it's impressive to be able to duplicate a technique, but it's even more impressive to be able to make that technique your own". She told us that in order for her to catch up and to learn different techniques, she had to work really hard and be dedicated to the craft. Once she and her associates would learn a technique, they would think about what makes up that technique or practice and tear it down in order to create something brand new and individual. It's amazing to see the different varieties of movement that can come from the same stimuli and techniques...it's all about making it your own.
What I've learnt from this workshop is that there is so many ways to make a certain lift or a certain technique work for you and the others you are working with. It's not about forcing things, but about letting the movements fall into place and feel natural.
Physical Theatre / Warm Ups
Physical Theatre can often take on a more dance-y like effect when it comes to it's overall structure. However, with Frantic Assembly's style, this is not always the case. They are all about letting the movements take on a structure that best fits the piece and that are functional, rather than showy. It's about being strong and precise in your movements and choosing when to be more dance like and fluid, and when to be more forceful.
We first started off by doing multiple stretches and strength exercises to get our muscles warmed up and our bodies moving.
The first exercise that we did was to run a path that was set out for us, abiding to the rules that Maggie gave for us to follow. We were meant to a) always run on the outside of the chairs, b) run down the middle of the chairs and straight back to the beginning of the course, c) high five the person up next when you are done, and d) walk backwards along the wall so that you won't get in anyone's way who is on the course. I think that the whole purpose of this exercise was to demonstrate that being focused can make a piece of physical theatre so much better for an audience to watch and can make something that looks very hard, easy to implement...if you are completely focused.
We then paired up and did a sort of trust exercise with the other person, and this is how it works: person A puts their hand on top of person B's hand, person A's job is to apply pressure downwards and to guide person B around the room, person B's job is to apply pressure upwards -into the other's hand - and to close any gaps. We did this for a little while, but then, person B was asked to close their eyes and person A was asked to lead them around the room. We then did this again, but with person B leading person A. I think that this exercise was really interesting because it allowed for us to create a sort a relationship with the other person that required for us to respond to the other's movements and be hyper aware of their hand. It was amazing and beautiful to close your eyes and to only think about the other's hand...and nothing else in the entire world. Maggie wanted to demonstrate to us the different ways that bodies can move and how when we can see what the other is doing and where they are going, we can pre-think out where we are going to step next, or how we are going to move. However, when your eyes are closed, your body will respond in a different way because it cannot guess what is going to come next or where we are going to move. This creates a different sort of movement to the type that can be predetermined...for example instead of taking steps, the movement may become more of a lean. Here's a video of this exercise:
It was revealed to us that Maggie was trying to get us all used to each other and for the year groups to melt away. It's important for the body of people to be able to work together in unison when they will be doing semi-dangerous tasks and lifts. She also needed to get us all focused and made a point of encouraging us to give our full 100% when performing or doing anything in life; she said it's easy to see when someone isn't giving their all, and I totally agree. We need not think about what others may feel, if we are giving our all, the audience will not feel uncomfortable in any way for us (even if we mess up). If we mess up, we must own our mistakes and go with the flow. It's not the end of the world if a mistake is made!
We then were paired according to our sizes and started doing some lifts and exercises to warm up! One of the very important lessons that I learnt in being paired with someone who is slightly smaller than me is that I still cannot hold any of my weight back for her, it doesn't even help. When lifting someone, it is easier if a) the person being lifted holds back no weight, and b) the person doing the lifting keeps the person they are lifting close to their body -as close as possible. When doing this warm up exercise with Connie, pictured below, at first, I tried to hold my weight back a little bit because I thought that I'd knock her over, however, after awhile I got more confident and found that holding no weight back actually made it easier for the both of us:
Connie and I leaning on each other :)
Maggie using me to demonstrate a lift
In our groups, we learnt a series of lifts that would allow us to lift the other person easily, even if they were taller than us! Lifts:
The first lift is one to the side of you in a starfish like manner. In this lift, the point of contact between the two people are incredibly important, those being: the shoulders, hips, knees, and feet. You must close the gaps between you at these points of contact, standing side by side, which can be easily done if you let your full weight lean into your partner. Also, it's important for both people to take a wider stance in this lift and bend your knees to get some leverage.
The second lift is one that can be used to transfer the other person from one side of you, to the other side. This one, again, you need to get a wider stance, but the person who is lifting needs to have a lower squat than the other person. Additionally, the person who is being lifted needs to push into the back of the other person, with straight arms.
The third lift is a lift that requires person A to drop down and squat before person B, whilst person B puts their armpit onto person A's shoulder. Person B then takes hold of Person A's legs and lifts them...Person A should also eventually be able to let go and Person B should be able to support themselves.
The last lift was having person B over the shoulder of person A completely, using person A's hip bones as a planking tool, person B will bend over person A's shoulder and put their shoulder into their gut. Person A will stand and person B will apply pressure on person A's hip bones.
Here is video of us learning these assorted lifts, mostly showing the first lift and the last lift:
Squeeze Duets
We then were set on the journey of devising our own small physical theatre piece! We started out by learning about squeeze duets. Squeeze duets work like this: a) you are paired up or in groups, b) you choose three places to 'squeeze' your partner -may it be on their arm or their shin or leg or head...just three places, c) then your partner chooses three places to 'squeeze' you, and d) you alternate between these different 'squeezes' -your partner does one, then you do one- until you figure out a fluid way to transition from each position to the next. I think that squeeze duets are an excellent way to create pieces of theatre that are new an exciting, because no two people will react to each other the same way. Additionally, it doesn't require the introduction of a story to the sequence, but can be interpreted by the audience. Maggie told us to try and keep the things that we were doing simple, and to let whatever stories we may be developing fade away in our heads in order to let the class interpret the movements for themselves.
She then, adding onto what we had already started, asked us to do at least three lifts within our piece, in between the squeezes. She wanted us to experiment with the lifts themselves as well and look at how the different skills we had learnt could be changed slightly to make different variations of the same types of lifts. However, she didn't want us to force the lifts to happen, but to let the lifts happen where they were meant to naturally. Here is a video of our final squeeze duets:
Quads
After having a break, the first thing we did to warm ourselves up and get us focused and ready was to do some of what is called quads. How you construct a quad is get into groups of about five people, and have those groups line up behind each other. Then, create equal spaces around each person, so that another person could walk around you on all sides.
Maggie first had us start out but just nodding our head to a count of eight, as the song was a 16th beat. Then she had us jump in our groups to the beat, one after another. Eventually, she had us change the beats that we were counting at to go from 8 to 6 to 4, etc, counting down. The quads eventually got harder and harder for us to handle as a group and it became important for us to count out loud so that everyone could know what was going on and keep perfectly on beat. It perhaps is just better to show a video because I can't explain it correctly:
As you can see, we built upon our prior knowledge of quads, first mastering the simple, but eventually making it harder and harder for ourselves and getting more complicated. Maggie eventually added in arms and legs and a counter beat that we had to clap to. Here is how our quad session turned out:
Maggie explained to us that quads can be used for any sort of drama and planted that seed in our minds. For example, we could devise a piece where someone talks for 8 beats whilst jumping, then the next talks for 6 beats whilst jumping, etc...it doesn't just have to be jumping, it can be something else entirely, and to music or not to music. There are so many possibilities when it comes to this technique. Again, it's all about making it your own and being in communication with the rest of the group about what is going on. I think that using quads in future pieces would be incredible because they are so cool to watch because of their pace and quality...they look so hard but can be made so easily if you focus and give your all!
Group Lifts
Maggie put us all into two gigantic groups and taught us three different types of group lifts:
The first and second lifts require: a) a rock, or a person at the head of the group that is strong, b) four others that are about the same size -don't need to be, just makes it easier, and c) someone who is willing to be lifted. The first one starts out with the person being lifted, leaning forward and holding the shoulders of the rock. Then two of the people who are lifting the person will take hold of the person's shoulders and hips. The person being lifted will lift up one leg and offer it to one of the people waiting to lift and give a little jump up -lifting their other leg, when everyone is ready. The lifters will then try and straighten their arms as quickly as possible, and as smoothly as possible; I've learnt that it is easier to hold someone up if your arms are completely straight. Lastly, when the person is coming down, it is essential that you put their feet down first. You can do this same lift, except with the person being lifted being on their back as well.
The third lift requires: a) two rocks, b) three people in the front, c) three people in the back, and d) the person being lifted. The two rocks stand to the sides of the person being lifted and bend their knees -with a wide, strong stance. The other lifters stand three in front and three behind and grab the person being lifted strongly below the knee. The person being lifted pushes up on the shoulders of the rocks, as the other lifters push up -lifting the person off the ground. The two rocks then turn sideways and take hold of the bottom of the person's feet that are being lifted.
After learning these foundation lifts, Maggie taught us different ways to make the lifts more complicated. One of the rules that Frantic Assembly is keen on is starting simple with their movements, perfecting those simple movements, before moving on and adding harder things to the moves -making them more complicated. I think that this is incredibly important because it both safer and more impressive if you can first perfect the foundation of a complicated lift. If you can't perfect a lift, and are not able to speed up and slow down the pace of you lifting the person, or not able to straighten your arms fast enough as a lifter for example...you will not be able to do your very best when it comes to the next added bit of complications. I appreciate that Maggie put a lot of emphasis on this because often the pressure can be to make a very complicated piece of physical theatre right from the beginning...but starting small and then building upon what you've already done, taking it step by step, seems like a simpler and more effective way of devising a piece.
So she then taught us a few more variations of the lifts...for example, how to lift someone in the first or second lift (listed above) and to roll them over in the air. Here is a video and some pictures of these assorted lifts:
The first lift I was describing above
The third lift I was describing above
The second lift I was describing above
Final Piece
For our final piece, we created a physical theatre outcome that combined all of the skills that we had learnt throughout the day. Everyone was divided into their two huge groups and the whole group was told to stand on the outside of the room in a sort of circle...then one person from the group was chosen to be lifted. I volunteered to be lifted by the rest of the group, because by the end of the day I had come to trust all of them to lift me and to be safe throughout the entire process. We have all been taught the same things and how to do everything and whilst it may seems scary to be lifted really high up, it's perfectly safe. Additionally, when you get lifted, it feels absolutely brilliant because it's exhilarating, but also requires a lot of focus and engagement of your core to stay upright (especially in the last lift). So I think I can speak for the whole group in saying, when a lift is accomplished correctly, everyone feels proud of what they've done, and from there we can push ourselves harder to create more complicated sequences.
Maggie had me choose a few different spaces to walk to and a certain 'path' to take, as we did earlier in the warm ups. I had to choose about six separate spaces within our half of the room...then the group and I had to memorise this path quickly so that everyone knew where we were going. Next, Maggie told us to implement something that we had learnt in each space -be a it a squeeze duet or a group lift of some sort. We were also told not to attach any sort of meaning to what we were doing again...as when we came up with our squeeze duets...so that again, the rest of the class could try and interpret what was going on in relation to the music and other things going on -such as facial expressions and other characters being created through interactions between the person being lifted and other people. We were given about 10 mins to come up with this path and figure out where we were lifting, and where we were generally going when it comes to each space. It was important that everyone went to where they had practiced going so that I wouldn't be dropped and everything would look effortless.
After, practicing this, Maggie put on some random music that we hadn't heard and asked each group to perform their pieces. This was the first run-through of our piece, without ever hearing the music beforehand:
After hearing the music, our piece suddenly took on a life of it's own and was open to a whole new interpretation of something deeper than just going from one person to the next and being lifted. Many of the other group thought suddenly, that our piece was about bullying and standing up for yourself, even though it originally had no meaning attached.
Here's why it worked:
the music fit so well, even though we originally didn't have a meaning attached to the movements. It seemed to suggest that I was being bullied or something terrible was happening to me...the world was against me. For example when its says, "and I get, what, I want", I got up into the lift and my fit synchronised perfectly with what was being said
the interactions between me and the other people in the cast, such as when I'm bumped into by Caitlin and I walk away, defeated by her - really portrayed emotions that suggested some sort of bullying situation. Every time I bumped into a cast member there was some sort of interaction.
The height difference between Charlotte and I, when I'm lifted and stand against her is immense and breathtaking -it's shocking to hear it match so perfectly with the music as well. It shows me standing up against my problems.
The juxtaposition between me being pushed down and lifted up so many times, helped make this piece so meaningful
We were then given 5 mins more to develop our piece and it's meaning. We decided to stick with the same music for our final run through and added a few more bits and pieces, to really define what it was that was going on. Here is the video of our final run through and performance:
Here's a video of the other group's final piece, which I also really enjoyed watching:
At first, in their first run through, I thought that their piece had to do with some sort of magical stone or thing that everyone wanted, but after watching it again with some different music, I got a whole different vibe. It's amazing how just a few changes and music can change an entire meaning of a piece for an audience. After watching it again, I thought that the piece was more about a young girl, just old enough to go out and get boys -and about her leading them on with promises of different things, but her deciding not to do those things in the end (being vague for a reason).
It was a really well done piece and worked well for multiple reasons:
It was fun and the interactions between Hannah (the girl being lifted) and some of the boys was hilarious. For example, one time a boy lifts her and then immediately pumps his fist afterwards like he's achieved something
Other little things to do with reactions between Hannah and the others. Such as when Hannah looks back to see if they are looking at her and they turn away like they haven't been
The throwing of the object that Hannah had, I think, was metaphorical of herself and the other's desires, rather than it just being some magical object as I first thought. This brought a deeper meaning to the piece for me.
They had a lot of impressive lifts that symbolised the power that Hannah had over them when she had the object and also her climb to that power
What Maggie taught us, is that with pieces like these, they can easily be developed into dynamic scenes within plays. For example one could be doing a monologue to the physical theatre as they are being lifted, rather than doing it to music, or there could be any sort of scene developed with regular lines but these lifts incorporated to give the speaker authority over others. It allows for proxemics between characters to take on a more metaphorical standpoint when it comes to staging, rather than staging it realistically.
I think that it was amazing also to work in huge groups and to come to trust those around you to carry you and hold your weight fully. It was wonderful to learn how to do all of these lifts and I'm sure we'll be using them a lot in the future for many similar pieces of drama. There's just so much variety to what you can come up with and the lifts create so many shapes that we never thought that we could do before. It's amazing what you can accomplish in such a short amount of time, and was really encouraging to come up with something that could so easily be developed into a scene or a stimulus for a play.
Frantic Assembly vs. Berkoff
It's when we first started to do the squeeze duets that I started to see the differences between Frantic Assembly and Berkoff. Although we hadn't had learnt the lifts that we did today, I'm sure if we wanted to, we could fit them into the Berkoff style of movement -fast paced and motivated by speech. However, with these squeeze duets for example, our movements were inspired the music that went with them, but when devising them, they were for no particular reason and not motivated by anything. They were simply an experiment, open to interpretation by those surrounding us. Whereas with Berkoff, everything must have a more defined and direct meaning and speech determines the movements that happen.
Another difference is that the Berkoff style of movement is staccato and fast paced, whereas the Frantic Assembly style is more open to any pace and movement -it can be staccato or it can be more fluid, you can experiment with speeding up and slowing down easily. I also soon learnt that Frantic Assembly tends to work on a much larger scale when it comes to some lifts and creating shapes and images...this comes with having a bigger cast, as with our Berkoff/ A Woman Alone cast, we only had four people. Having may people to help do lifts made everything a huge success when it comes to group lifts and quads later on.
Berkoff and Frantic Assembly's styles are in no way realistic. However, Berkoff uses movement to represent the script and what is going on around the characters; using onomatopoeia, ensemble, and defined beginnings and ends at a staccato pace. With Frantic Assembly, pace and movement and speech can be much more varied and open to interpretation and change according to the piece and the mood you would like to set.
Additionally, I found that there were harder bits to abide by depending on each performance. For example, in Berkoff's style, my group often found it hard to have defined movements that weren't too fluid and flowy at first - they needed to be staccato. We also had trouble with our set and incorporating it and making sure it was in the correct place. Whereas for Frantic Assembly, although Maggie made it really easy for us to learn and improve when things went wrong, I often found the lifts pretty hard the first time around. I even found balancing against Connie and putting my full weight on her incredibly hard because I thought I would fall over.
Relating to performance, what we came up with for Frantic Assembly as our final piece is completely different that what we came up with for Berkoff. With Berkoff, we came up with a more stylised and sharp piece and we found it hard to stage things correctly. However, with Frantic we came up with a much more interpretive outcome, that used lots of lifts and music to guide the story of what was happening. When coming up with the final piece for Frantic Assembly, I found that the hardest thing to figure out was which idea to go with, considering everyone had so many different ones! Overall
I learnt so much from this experience and am excited to see where I can take the knowledge that I now have and put it into practice when it comes to drama. My drama group and I have already started talking about using the things we have learnt today in a short film one day!
The biggest things I will take away from this are:
Be confident in yourself and always give 100%, because the audience can tell when you aren't giving your all. It's alright if you mess up, just own it!
When being lifted or trying to balance, always put your full weight into the other person. Holding your weight back actually makes it harder for them to lift you...
Keeping your arms straighter, and closing the gaps between you and the person you are lifting will make it easier for you to lift them.
Physical theatre, although it can be, is not always meant to be dance-y or showy, but rather a simplistic piece can have an even better effect in some cases. Start small and build upon the things that you have learnt from there -making the movements more complex.
Letting physical theatre take on no meaning at first can allow for freedom of movement and interpretation -creating images that may not have been created with an intellectual part to the stimuli. Meaning and interpretation can be added later on, with pace or music, etc.
Thank you Frantic Assembly, and Maggie, for the amazing experience!
Wednesday
Unfortunately, this past week I've been seriously ill and had to be quarantined in the hospital for a little bit...this therefore has set my drama group behind quite a bit. We were meant to be performing this performance today, however, it seemed that we wouldn't be doing our absolute best if we performed today because we've lost time. So Mr. Chipp graciously gave us until next Monday in the lesson to finish our piece.
This means that we won't have an audience of people outside of our class, as the rest of the groups will, but we will have too cope. It'll be interesting only performing to our classmates, but we will still do our makeup and dress up in our costumes and have dimmed lights, etc...so it may not feel too different.
So we started our rehearsal out by doing a full run through, and filming it so that we could watch it back and improve bits of it:
We talked about adding the gun prop into our performance, because we've tried to do this in the past, but have always practiced it without the gun. In the stage directions it says that there is a shotgun on the wall...however, what we have is a hand gun and we need to place it somewhere that Melody (as the Psycho character) can easily get to because she is the person using it in our extract.
We found that we would have to strategically place the gun somewhere around the stage or keep the gun in Melody's pocket. We also talked about the possibility of having an audience member hold the gun, contributing to the proxemics between the audience and the actors...however, we thought that there was too much possibility of things going wrong if we did that. We decided on placing the gun on the floor, stage left. This way, the audience can be aware of the gun the entire time, but it's also out of the way but easily accessible by Melody.
After watching the video, we also decided we needed to clean up how we pick up the gun and load/ shoot it. We've been picking it up as a group recently, or all bending down and forward to get it. So, we decided to just push Melody down as a group, but let her step forward and pick it up on her own. Then, as group we would load the gun, using onomatopoeic sound and corresponding movements, then show the audience our individual reactions to the situation before firing the gun. Looking at the audience, we thought that we could reconnect with them, and with the fact that we are not living in reality as The Woman -making a reference to 'the neighbour'. I think that in reconnecting with the audience, it will create a moment of tension before we fire the gun and allow for the audience to see that we are absolutely insane...especially with the psycho as our voice and the leading character at the end of the monologue.
We also talked about incorporating the riser more, if possible. We don't think that, all the time, the movement of the riser is completely motivated by the lines or anything at all...the sometimes we pick it up and incorporate it for no apparent function. Additionally, we have problem with moving the riser too far stage left.
Section 2
After talking about the general changes we needed to make, we decided to start going through the sections of the monologue that we came up with last time we were together.
Here is the video of the section with no changes:
Here's what we need to change:
more emphasis out of the 'stabbing with the spoon' from me
smoother transitions
snap heads towards the person who is speaking, allows for the audience to see who has the 'voice' of The Woman and directs their attention
"What are you talking about?" becomes our motivation to snap the attention off me, and onto Melody
The proxemics between us as a group needs to be stronger and more focused -we need to have more reactions between us
Here's another run through, with more changes:
More changes we made after this run through:
blocking, to fix that Megan was blocking me after 'stabbing me', she should walk around the back of me, rather than in front of me
Melody shouldn't move away from the group as much...she was kind of floating stage right
Overall pace needs to be picked up slightly
Final run through and final version:
Section 3
Here is video of this section with no changes:
Changes we made:
To make the 'trumpet' sound of the brother in law clearer, we decided it would work well if Melody made the noise...considering she's at the end of our line
Spacing also needs to be fixed. Emily needs to not lunge so far so that we can keep a connection between us
Emily needs to a make her movement more sharp when 'slaughtering' Megan
When Melody steps out of line, it needs to be more staccato so that the audience can see clearly what is going on
We need to stay in our 'sod off' positioning's to draw attention to Melody, who is the voice of the next line
Melody shouldn't turn on my line, "this is no time to start playing jazz"
Here is a video with these new changes:
Section 4
Another video with no changes:
Changes we need to make:
add some onomatopoeic sound after "pigging phone pig", and do a synchronised snorting sound
When Megan takes the phone, Melody is going to be more verbally angry with her -this allows for more interaction between the elements of The Woman and is an indication that she is breaking down mentally
Sort out the blocking of Emily, by Melody taking a step to her right
"Pregnant" motion needs to be in time and much larger so that the audience can see
Came up with some new movements for "locked up"
On "click", when we put our phones down, we need to put our heads down too...so that only the people who have lines should have their heads up -drawing the attention to the voice of The Woman
Run through with changes:
Some more changes we made:
after Emily says, "what a pig", we have another synchronised pig snort...in agreement
another locked up motion, after I say it as well...we just move our arms above our heads and I say, "my husband keeps me locked up"
Today in lesson we decided to implement our action plan regarding our extract and going through each section at a time...changing things as we go. We began with section 1 of our extract of A Woman Alone, and determined that we would do a run-through and film it, then look at the video and see more closely what we needed to change.
Here is the unchanged version of section 1:
After watching this back and discussing things that perhaps we should change, we realised that the beginning of our piece starts off incredibly slow, and is kind of misrepresenting what is going on at the time that our extract of the monologue starts. Since the Berkoff style of movement is often motivated by speech, we needed the beginning of our piece to suggest that there was an unwanted person outside our door...trying to get in, "get out of my house with that hand yours".
We also need a beginning that would suggest that we are all the same person. This is why at first, we went with this original freeze frame at the beginning -because we are all in the same place, and Emily's hand represented the hand of the man in the door. However, we think that a) it looks weird and misrepresents the man, and Emily, as the character of Sexy and b) it makes it hard for the pace of our piece to be established.
So we started from the beginning, and tried to think up an entirely new beginning. We think also tried to remember to incorporate the riser more in our piece and use the riser as an implication of things that are going on...for example, using the riser as a representation of the door or of the brother-in-law. We were also trying to think of ways that we could use the riser to help indicate the voice or the mouthpiece of The Woman from the very beginning of the piece. We've experimented with pushing and pulling the riser between us before, and it seemed to work as a good indication...
Here is what we came up with as what we think would be a good idea for the beginning of the piece because a) it is fast paced, but simple, b) it shows a clear indication to the audience from the very beginning of the piece of where to look, c) if we all got into the riser, it would also indicate that we were the same person, fighting for a chance to speak, and d) it could represent the sporadic nature of The Woman.
Video of our riser experimentation for the beginning of the play:
Over this week as well, I did a little bit of analysis and kind of went over the latter part of the piece by writing it down. We didn't end up having time to do anything more than go over the beginning bit of our monologue, and do some run throughs of the entire thing, but it still helped me to think of some things to consider for the whole monologue -not just the end. For example, one thing that I think we should consider doing more of is making more of an emphasis on the words like "I" and "My", the pronouns referring to The Woman. This is because it further reminds the audience that we are all the same person. The other suggestions include places that would be good to add in onomatopoeia, other ways we could incorporate the riser, and slicker and bigger movements that are still motivated by the speech. For example when Megan (as the Housewife) says, "I'm getting to the end of my tether", instead of doing the small hand movement that we are currently doing, we could hold onto each other's hands and extend our entire bodies across the stage and pull out.
We've been changing so much lately and I wanted to make sure that I'm up to date with what is happening. I also wanted to start writing it down so that I could think up some suggestions for the problems we've been having with staging, so we could save some time in our rehearsals. Here are some pictures of the notes that I made, with the ideas that I had (all ideas are in pencil, kind of hard to see unfortunately):
Monday
Since we blocked out our whole section of the monologue, we decided to start trying to do full run through of the piece without our scripts in hand. We really need to focus on upping our pace and slicking down the movements that we have already devised. Once our pace has increased, it will be easier to improve upon where we have gaps in our lines and add in reactions and movements to keep everything that we are doing fast and interesting.
Onomatopoeic words/sound effects
We discussed today how onomatopoeic words and sound effects could possibly help us speed up our pace and help us establish the Berkoff style even further. We did this a lot in our versions of East and Lunch and I thought that it was really effective in engaging all the senses of the viewer and establishing the scene. Thinking about it, removing all sound effects from the Berkoff plays would be really odd to watch and quite boring when it comes to sounds... it'd just be us talking at the audience really fast. However, with sound effects you can enforce an emotion or action and make things so much more compelling.
One example of where we're added in some sound effects is when I say, "watch out! I'm going to stab you with this spoon...don't believe me?". When I say, "watch out!", the rest of the cast runs and hides from me, gasping and ducking as they go. After I say, "...with this spoon", they bring the riser up behind me and I sit on it as they make a whoosh sound. These sound effects, although small, add another layer of complexity to the scene, that could be easily overlooked, but really help define the pace and style we are going for with Berkoff.
Defined movements/ flashes of facial expressions
Another way of keeping up the pace will be to keep our movements exceedingly tight and sharp. The Berkoff style uses defined movements and it's something that we really need to get right. At the moment we're too slow to keep up with the staccato pace, but movements can easily define the staccato beat if we hit the 'notes' correctly. If we think about what staccato means in music, it means short and quick and separated from the others. Several of these movements in succession will make a beat that is consistently staccato in pace, which would be ideal.
One way that we've attempted to do this is by using cannon lines and movements...echoing each other. Not only does speaking in cannon help establish that we are the same person, but it will help for us to be more staccato because we're saying everything in succession and doing similar movements right after another. Additionally, they are small, short and quick, lines and actions that are over in an instant. So we decided to add in some more moments when we say lines in cannon, including the time when we say, "what will I do?!". I think that this is a perfect line to use in cannon because a) it has the word 'I' in it, which helps establish that we are all The Woman, and b) it's short, but can also be said in may different ways (eg/ Melody, who is the psycho says it in a disinterested voice...whilst I say it in a momentarily concerned voice).
Wednesday
Today, since we've finished blocking our whole piece, we decided to focus on doing some run throughs and identifying where we might have any problems with the blocking not being 'Berkoff enough', or where it generally may just not being going well. We've timed our piece and it is about 9 mins at the moment, so we may need to add some more time onto the piece somehow.
In order to cut down time we may be spending on one section of the play a time and also, to help us keep organised as we revise ourselves, we sectioned the monologue up into eight sections. We've figured that we can start referring to the monologue in sections and spend about 15 mins on each section at least. This will help us to focus on the bigger problems with our extract rather than small ones we may encounter throughout each run through.
We also decided that filming each section and watching it back might help us to identify the problems from the perspective of the audience. It will also help us sharpen up our movements if we can see for ourselves where we are falling behind or not doing something right and immediately fix the problem.
When sectioning them, we thought that dividing them up by topic and where there is a natural break in the scripting would be a good idea. For the most part, when I remember the running order of plays, there are natural breaks in scripts and staging that are clearly evident and help as cues for the actors -so we tried to abide by these particular breaks when sectioning them up.
Here are the sections we chose to divide the monologue into, (these are the last lines of the sections):
Section 1 - "now then sweetie pie, I'll get you something to eat"
Section 2 - "Oh that hurts"
Section 3 - "And a grope for the groper"
Section 4 - "He called me a tart"
Section 5 - "Oh the penny's dropped at long last has it"
Section 6 - "Well I'll show you"
Section 7 - "That's it, that's enough"
Section 8 - "Very calmly"
After doing a run through, Mr. Chipp also talked to me about my voice, and how because of the accent that I have been using the intonation of my voice has all been the same for the most part. Since I've been trying to match my accent with my character, who is bubbly and quite vacant (when it comes to her making decisions -she typically just responds to everything in the same way- happiness). So, using this accent has limited my range of voice and what he was trying to say is that I don't necessarily change it completely but try and unlock ways that I can use a range of tone within this accent. I shouldn't become to attached to the way that I say lines because then it's making it hard for me to experiment with different tones and ranges.
Also, the other thing that my group talked about our set and how we haven't tried blocking it within the drama space. Recently, because of exams, the drama space has been being used for other purposes, so we haven't actually gotten to practice our piece in the space it's meant to be performed in. The only reason why we're slightly concerned is because the performance and our staging may not fit into the space as well as it has in the classroom we've been practicing in. We're thinking that we'll have to think about how far we travel as a group when we're doing this piece, and about where we will be at the end of the piece because we want to try and centre Melody at the end. I suppose we just realised that we need to keep this more in mind than we have been doing.
This lesson we decided to start blocking an entirely new section of our monologue -taking a break from the stuff we have already begun to do- in order to have a clean slate. We don't want to find ourselves running into a rut because we keep going over the same exact things. I think that in doing this we can always return to the bits of the monologue we have already blocked and improve them with new ideas.
Also, we're in a bit of a pickle because it's exam season at the moment so everyone in our group are having to take some time off from our drama lesson to do that instead. Since this week we're missing a person, we thought that blocking a whole new section would allow for us to progress through blocking the script and allow us to practice something without her. Later we will add her back into what we have already blocked. We're having to think ahead a little bit and think about how she will fit into the staging later on, but it's proven to be effective because we blocked quite a big section of the monologue (about a page).
Whilst blocking, we kept the discussion we had in last Monday's lesson in mind...taking care to define who was the chosen voice of The Woman for each line and passing the voice in different ways. We've also taken special care this lesson to experiment with proxemics and how this could help define who is the voice -for example, we've tried bobbing up if it's our turn to speak or putting our heads down in unison, excluding the speaker of that line. I think that in doing this -especially if we do it in the fast paced and staccato style of Berkoff- it will clearly define which element the audience is supposed to pay attention to at a certain time.
Wednesday
Today we are still missing a cast member unfortunately, and we decided that it was best to try and clean up the section of the monologue that we already blocked without her rather than try and visualise more of the piece without her. Despite this, we thought that we could do our best to try and quicken our pace and slicken the movements that we came up with on Monday.
One thing that we have been struggling with is the bit of the monologue where we basically are forced to wank off the Italian boy who is trying to get through the doorway of our flat. We've gotten to the point where we have created a doorway using the metal frame and decided to form a phallus with all of our hands connected to each other (similar to an earlier section of the monologue where we form the Italian boy's hand in the doorway). However, we were finding it hard to represent this correctly to the audience.
We were given some time to talk to Mr. Chipp about any problems we may be encountering with our devising and we asked him how to better create this part of the monologue. As you may be able to better visualise by watching the video pasted below, he instructed us that in order to create a more realistic phallus, we should a) physically hold each others hands, which can be done by the person on the bottom hold the person on top of the them using their thumbs, and b) start the movement (of the wank... ... ...) at a slower pace at first and gradually speed it up.
We also have been having problems integrating the riser frame into our piece and basically abandon it at the back of the stage for the majority of the piece. We think that perhaps incorporating it as a physical representation of objects and people will establish the overall situation and help define what's physically happening in the room around us and outside the door as we tell the story to our 'neighbour' (who, as I've discussed before may not even be there! But is essentially in the position of the audience...). We also think that by incorporating the riser in visually interesting ways will keep the audience engaged and help keep up the pace. Additionally, we think that it may be hard for the audience to establish where everyone is within the room (where is the brother in law and the baby, and where is the doorway?). So we think that in using the riser to create images it may be easier for the audience to understand where everyone is.
Mr. Chipp also gave an idea of how to create an image of us wheeling our brother in law along in his wheelchair into the glass door. Megan, who is the housewife, will wheel him along because she is the loving and caring element of The Woman...she will do this by holding the riser sideways to create a chair like structure. I will do a sort of squatty walk adjacent to the wheelchair and create the wheels with my hands and squeak as they rotate around. This isn't shown in the video below, but it's something else we came up with. I think it's a good way of showing this movement because it's keeping to the Berkoff style; it uses onomatopoeia with the wheels, and motivated by language after the line, "Come on. Let's take you for a nice little sexy walk". I think that the line itself and me creating the wheels makes the darker action of killing our brother in law comical which is in keeping with the Berkoff style.
The last thing we talked about today was the gun and how we are going to tackle the bit of our monologue where The Woman starts to become suicidal. We thought about adding a handgun into our props and placing it somewhere towards the front of the stage so that Melody can pick it up before she goes mental (as she is the psychotic element of The Woman). I also had the idea that perhaps we could place the gun in the hands of one of the audience members and take it from them when we need it -that way it's out of our way when we are performing and it would seem to appear out of nowhere to most of the audience. However, this may be a bad idea because it could be distracting for the audience, and it would create direct rapport with only one audience member.
After doing all of this, we performed a section of our monologue to the class. Here is the video of the performance:
There are some things we definitely need to improve about this section:
we need to learn our lines, but that will come with time...we only just started blocking this section. It's slowing down our pace and making there be gaps in between our lines that are unnecessary
we need to make our movements slicker and more staccato -keeping with the Berkoff style- which will be better when we have all of our cast members I'm sure
I need to stop looking so concerned...my mouth is smiling but I'm overdoing it with my eyebrows...making me look scared at times (I'm the one wearing the Batman jumper). My character is meant to be bubbly and happy at all times; I dropped this persona at times.
We had a class discussion today before we started to devise more of our piece about how we are going to create that balance of being juxtaposing elements of the same Woman and all at once, being The Woman together. We also talked about how we are going to distinguish who is the mouthpiece of The Woman and how we are going to pass that from element to element.
The 'voice' of The Woman, we decided, should have control of the stage and the body of The Woman and therefore, this should be completely clear to the audience when it is passed from one element to the next. The transferal of the voice from one element to the next is important to distinguish because we want the audience's attention to be on that person.
Costume/Makeup
Costume and makeup, it seems, could be one way to distinguish between each element and their personalities. In the stage directions of A Woman alone it says: "she is wearing a low cut negligee", which is basically a thin, sexy, nightgown. However, a) we can't wear such a thing at school, and b) all wearing the same thing may not help our situation.
We came up with some ideas of what we could do:
all wear the same thing, but with different variations. For example, we could all wear a night dress but in different colours or black trousers and white dress shirt with different variations of tying the shirt or wearing different accessories. However, we thought that this might be too distracting for the audience and also make us differ from each other too much.
another suggestion was that we all wear pajamas, but different types. For example, sexy could wear a more of a night dress and the housewife could wear a more conservative type of nightwear.
if we went with the different variations of the same outfit concept, then we could have the differences defined by colour rather than how the costume is worn. This way, we thought, we could use colour to represent the personality and emotions of the characters we were playing. If we went with this concept, we could essentially use common colours metaphorically (eg/ red representing anger -psycho, or love -sexy) as to manipulate the elements of The Woman into these stereotyped metaphors. However, colours can often be represented in multiple ways, the colour red being interpreted as being both angry and sexy...so perhaps this would make things confusing to the audience.
the Berkoff style of makeup is a take on the common makeup of a mime artist. Essentially how he would do his actors' makeup is by having them manipulate their own faces into the most extreme facial expression that defined the main emotions of the said character. After applying a white base, he would draw the extreme facial expressions that they were making over the top of them in black; he overcompensated for that emotion through makeup. I think that this style of makeup works well to designate the feelings of the character and since we are all elements of personality within The Woman, streamlining our facial expressions would really help to define who we are. Matching our faces, shading wise, will allow for us to look similar, but the different emotions will help us juxtapose.
we also discussed perhaps doing 'normal' makeup, but, for example, the housewife hardly wearing any...but sexy wearing a lot. This would force the audience to stereotype the elements using the standard cues of everyday life and would expose how one stereotypes women by their makeup choices everyday. I think that this however, may be better for a play drawing inspiration from practitioners of realism or adjacent types of drama.
Example of Berkoff's style of makeup^
Unity of Lines/Movements
We also discussed how saying lines in unison and doing synchronised actions will help establish that we are the same character. I've also been thinking that it's not necessarily about only saying lines in unison but about picking the lines that will establish that we are The Woman. For example, saying lines such as "my husband", "me" and other pronouns referring to "myself", and anything having directly to do with us as The Woman would be good lines to isolate and say together. Movement also, as I've established before, are also a huge part of the Berkoff style, and synchronising them will without a doubt define the fact that we are all the same Woman. It will establish that the 'voice' we have is all coming from the same mouth.
A combination of these things will both establish that we are The Woman, together, as well as help us juxtapose. This is because we can choose to make the movements and lines that we do synchronised, but how we do these movements and lines slightly different according to our characters. For example, when we say "a kiss, on the lips?", we've actually decided to all say "a kiss", but in cannon, and all do a similar movement, but change it slightly according to our particular characters. For instance, my character says "a kiss" and I cover my mouth and giggle because my character is embarrassed and the representation of the ideal innocence desired by men. Unity of lines and movements can establish that we are the same Woman, but can also help us juxtapose as separate elements when we are saying our lines by ourselves.
Physical Contact
We also analysed the idea that physical contact could be an excellent way of passing the 'voice' of The Woman and shifting the attention of the audience from element of The Woman to another. Essentially we just need to experiment with different ways of transferring the voice... For example, we could touch the shoulder of the person who is going to speak next, all turn our heads or bodies towards that person, or have that person push to the front and centre of the stage -taking the voice rather than being given it. We could also pass an imaginary object between us in order to pass the voice. For example, another group in my class came up with the idea to pretend to throw a thread from one element to another in their piece in order to pass the voice. I think that this idea is a brilliant way of passing the voice because it easily establishes who is about to speak next.
