Wednesday's Notes

On Wednesday, we ran the show fully and then Simon gave us notes on how we could improve it and what could be done better:

-We need to have more of a filter on at the beginning for the recruitment scene. Develop a back story and put some emotion behind your actions and what you're doing.
- When Layla reads the poem the girls need to not rush their movements, keep focused and be slow. Don't start moving forward until Layla says the word, "return" in the poem.
- Soldiers in the bar - look left and right then move to your place, when you do the look, put a story behind it. You're desperate, the women have gone, so you look at your friends and run to the bar. Use it as some sort of emotional story telling.You're merry, but you want to get to the bar. Put your whole body behind it and make your movements bigger. Let James speak - there's a beat - and then you go.
When you get into the line, it's stereotypical beer drinking. Put your elbow up and out and your hands up. You need to prove to the audience that you're drinking. Hold your pint glass and visualise it, don't let it change size.
When you're in the line, it's heightened movement and slow motion. We can have some levels of low talking/noise/laughter/drunk conversations, but don't pull away from the action at the front of the stage.
- Marching - think about the quality of your movement. Use some precision and discipline to do the moves. Stay in straight lines, make it more accurate. Lock your arms out and make it less camp. Make your movements more precise.
-Rise up with your boxes - you're rebuilt as a human being. You're being pieced back together. You're looking at your sweetheart and trying to reconnect and you can't. You're trying to establish a connection, but you just have to watch.
- No spoken lines in fat cat scene, nonsense sound and not words. Leading from various body parts, use what you know about commedia dell'arte. Use high pitched, flirty noises. You're characters in the extreme. Greet each other and replace words with sound.
Jordan is a ghost, when you see him, he's a reminder of all of the bad things you have done - making profit out of the war etc.
Go to a jacket, pick it up in front of you. Look from the jacket to Jordan and realise what you have done. Leave with the jacket and act like it hurts, you've had an awful realisation of what you've done. Remain as you're character, find your back story and make the audience think.

These notes were really helpful and I have taken them on board and will try to improve my performance from them.

Devising The Ending

On Tuesday we had a rehearsal where we refined things, ran them, did a rough ending, which we changed a few times and generally just cleaned bits up.

We changed the ending a couple of times because we were seeing what would work better and how we could visually create more of an impact on the audience. Our first ending was that Tom, Liyah and Dee would read out the poem and we would sit dotted around in our couples, watching Molly and James do their physical theatre piece.

This was an average ending, but it didn't really feel like a definite ending, so, on Wednesday, Simon devised us to do something that felt a lot more powerful. We then came up with the ending where we file on in lines and line by line we drop to the floor. This was really powerful, but took a long time to figure out. We put our heads down as we lowered ourselves to the ground in a kneeling position, to make it look like we were grave stones. The women then come and look around us, as if trying to find the grave of their loved one. They then lower themselves next to us and kneel next to our graves, mourning. This looked very powerful and happens while Molly and James keep doing their physical theatre piece and at the very end poppies fall on them from above.

This was a very beautiful ending and although it took a very, very long time to be able to kneel line by line, once we managed to get the timings correct, it looked very powerful and moving. Perfect for the ending of our piece.

Rehearsals in the Theatre

On Friday, we started rehearsals in the New Theatre. I was a little nervous, because I had missed the last run through due to a University Interview and I couldn't remember much of what we had done before Christmas. However, it seemed that everyone was in the same boat and was struggling to remember.

We went through each section really slowly and ran bits that we could remember, it all came back to me really quickly, there were a few new movements, but they are really simple and I was able to pick them up very quickly.

I think we were all a bit worried about how this Physical Theatre Show is going to come together, because no one could remember much and a lot of our focus has been on our separate Common Ground plays, however, I think, despite some talking and messing around, rehearsing it in the space was really productive and with a few more rehearsals and if we keep running it, it should be in good shape for Thursday's show.

We still need to develop some sections, some transitions and an ending for our show, but I think at the moment, it is looking like a rough outline of something good and if we focus and work hard, it will look really good by the end of the week. I think Friday was definitely needed, especially for the soldiers, to really go through and remember what we had done and now we can work on cleaning it and making sure that it is ready to be performed.