Watching EastEnders Live gave me some inspiration for Hannah: Ian Beale had just found out who killed his daughter which it was revealed to be Jane Beale (his wife) but later revealed the truth as it to be Bobby the 11 year old son of Jane. Being live the acting skills really, really shone. And Ian's reaction to the death of his daughter was caused by his 'half son' was intense and exteremely realistic. Our situation between Hannah, Nyakeh and Matt is a lot less serious and dramatic but it would still 'break Hannah's heart' making her loose confidence in Nyakeh and other men in her life in the future. As a lot of our feedback was for Hannah to respond better to the situation I suggest that she should act more distraught and sad rather than angry. Her response would open up her characters story more for the audience and then when they do find out the real reason,
After all the groups performed we sat and looked through our feedback and listed those that we needed to work on the most (the most common feedback.) Kirsty came over to extend on her feedback she'd given us and she suggested that we change our idea slightly. She suggested that we should all play a range of different characters. So for the opening interview scene each time the spotlight flashes onto us we are one character. The second time round we play another character etc. She also suggested that we have three different therapist sections the first one being OCD the second being all about relationships and the last would be secrets. For relationships we would keep majority of what we've already devised and just create two other sections. I can totally understand why Kirsty implemented this idea because our idea we were working on wasnt going anywhere nor could we take it further. So this new idea would mean we could open our piece up more. However at the same time I can see why we shouldn't be changing our idea so close to the performance due to creating, devising, developing and refining all in two weeks...
Our devising process slowed down after one of our members got upset about the but we tried to get back on our feet and really tried setting in stone this new idea. My idea was to begin the opening interview and get Frank to ask the questions, with his back to the audience. We moved straight into Deborah's lesson and continued this but it immediately became dry. Being, maybe, one of the quieter ones in the group-meaning that sometimes my ideas are easily brushed off- the ideas I was suggesting to get the group running again were simply brushed off with "no its got to fit" or "no that doesn't work". Deborah brought us some more ideas and we got up on our feet and tried these ideas out. I got all of us to pick an OCD like manner. Mine was rubbing my hands as though I was trying to make them clean. I would also rub them on my clothes, I did this repeatedly to show the 'obsessiveness' of the disorder. Deborah suggested to make it a really Berkohvian style so I began to make it much more robotic-like. This (to the left, is the only image I could find to demonstrate the hand movements I used in our piece.) In the image his hands are place in an odd way. I tried to use this aspect to Berkoff style in our piece by: when rubbing my hands at odd angles and using really sharp, short movements. Each movement of my hand I pause for a second and then move my hands again to incorporate more of the Berkhovian style.
 |
| Metamorphasis |
I wanted to start the piece with Frank talking into his dictaphone, almost like a reporter or narrator of his own life. As this is happening we are all stood around him doing our Berkhovian OCD traits.
OCD is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and it can affect anyone. Traits often include
- Fear of deliberately harming others or yourself. Only a fear and thought that you might attack someone.
- Fear of harming yourself or others but accident such as forgetting to turn off the oven or iron for fear you may set the hour alight.
- Fear of contamination or disease which leads to obsessive cleaning of hands or just cleaning
- A intense need for symmetry and orderliness wherever you are but mainly in your home environment. Such as all tin cans must all be facing the same way in your cupboard. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Obsessive-compulsive-disorder/Pages/Symptoms.aspx
OCD can be a serious disorder and is fairly common. OCD is yet to be researched into why people have it or get it but it is to be said that environmental, genetic, cognitive, or microbiological factors all trigger the disorder. This is a disorder known to a lot of people and usually people can keep it to a minimum but at the same time the disorder hugely affects people. We know that we have to approach this subject correctly as people are fully aware of it and understand what it entails. If over done or not done well enough it could be seen as comedic which is something we need to step away from. All of the disorders we have chosen are fairly common and I think with practise we can master what its like to have an OCD issue.
This little clip gives us an insight into what its like to be OCD, the video gets quite irritating which can only be what those with OCD feel like a lot of the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBkveiaKfBk
This is another brilliant clip, it broke down the means of OCD to easier terms which means we, as actors, can embody these thoughts and the sensation of constant nagging into our characters to master being OCD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6fMiK_ahdk
This research has given me a full insight into what its really like to have OCD. I would class myself as a very tidy and organised person and some people have said that I, myself, have OCD. But I can now identify how intense it is to have OCD and the unbearable thought of having to move the picture frame, for example. I can now understand that although I am very tidy and like things clear of mess I am no where near OCD behaviour.
We came to a big stand-still when all the ideas we had all mentioned and experimented didn't work. This frustrated time led to one of our members going home and another getting upset-which neither helped our matter. I understand that changing our idea at the last minute is probably too stressful, mentally I think when one of us suggests an idea we hear it and think no its got to be really good because we have two weeks. We are too set in stone that someone needs to suggest an idea and it needs to be brilliant and we all start working on it and-voila. But our method needs to change to someone suggests and idea, we try it and stick with it. We then ladder it up and bounce off new ideas and add to it. Steal from things we've experienced or seen etc and use all this to gather large knowledge and release it into our piece...
So today wasn't as successful as we had hoped but another knock down only means we can come back fighting on Wednesday and see how we go from there. We need to, as a group, be a lot less respondent to ideas and be more open minded about what is suggested...
Wednesday was a lot more productive: Nyakeh wasn't in today to devise with us however we still made a good start. We created a brief structure for our piece starting with Matts line idea. We would stand in a diagonal line as Frank slowly walks past us. One by one we all start talking to 'Dr Joe' and then fade out as he continues walking. Almost like he is tuning each and everyone of us out of his thoughts representing that he has more important thoughts i.e. depression.
Depression, again, is a hard subject to master on stage. We want short scenes with Frank alone for him to portray his depression with alcohol. This is a simple touch and clear for the audience. I also think if we try and do more with Franks depression we could be at chance of over doing it which isn't necessary on this occasion and subject.
Deborah suggested to have us all fade out as he walks past each of us which gives Frank the more professional look: brushing off patients outside of the work environment. As many teachers would do to students etc. I then got Frank to react to each of us, but looking back on it now I don't think it works because it makes it too repetitive so this is something I feel we will need to change or adapt or even get him to do something more physical to show what's going on in his head.
From Mondays session we had briefly created a triangular shaped physical piece so today's session was an extension on that idea. The three of us (Matt, Hannah and myself) thought of 5 short sentences that our characters would say, this was my idea because as we say our sentence we walk to the next point in the triangle. My five were;
- I've brought you some flowers today
- I was thinking of changing the frame colour
- Your hair looks nice today, do you like mine?
- I've brought you a packed lunch x3
On the last sentence we all say it once and then at the same time repeat it three times, getting louder and quicker. This brings the effect of chaos and hecticness onto stage-representing Franks mind.Walking on each sentence created a very messy looking scene so we decided to walk after we had all said our sentence. So in total we move four times instead of more. This still creates the right chaos we were aiming for but this way means we can plan how many steps we take precisely before we speak.
This effect will almost be like the nagging of the picture frame in the clip above. But switched around so that we become Franks OCD issue. We begin to irritate Frank because of his depression which leads to him being so depressed it leads to suicide.
This effect will almost be like the nagging of the picture frame in the clip above. But switched around so that we become Franks OCD issue. We begin to irritate Frank because of his depression which leads to him being so depressed it leads to suicide.
Today was mainly dedicated to mine and Hannahs 'interview' scene. I really didn't want to fall back onto the almost stereotypical chair, office-like layout so I got the scene up on its feet instead. Frank stood in the middle of me and Hannah-the scene turns out to be more of a fight between myself and Hannah to have Franks attention. This theory is to show the audience Franks feelings-he has a very hectic mind and the fighting between the two of portrays that he cant focus on one. All this pressure and chaos he lives through day-to-day causes depression and suicide.
Our main feedback from Monday was to have much more Physical Theatre included into our piece and this is what we did in this scene. We created a short movement piece including Frank and the dialogue we already had from earlier today. This is something I think we need to adapt because even though we have steps backwards and out to the side etc. I think it could be taken a lot further and have more physicalisation added to it. This is also the case with a short scene of Franks; we want to briefly portray Frank being an alcoholic and depressed and I think we should show this purely through movement- including some obvious gestures to show that he is drinking and kicking a chair to show his anger. This will allow us to be more creative physically and how we portray this is completely up to us instead of following simply guidelines on clearly showing the audience his depression. I had in mind something similar to the pub scene in Enter Achilles by Dv8:
Our main feedback from Monday was to have much more Physical Theatre included into our piece and this is what we did in this scene. We created a short movement piece including Frank and the dialogue we already had from earlier today. This is something I think we need to adapt because even though we have steps backwards and out to the side etc. I think it could be taken a lot further and have more physicalisation added to it. This is also the case with a short scene of Franks; we want to briefly portray Frank being an alcoholic and depressed and I think we should show this purely through movement- including some obvious gestures to show that he is drinking and kicking a chair to show his anger. This will allow us to be more creative physically and how we portray this is completely up to us instead of following simply guidelines on clearly showing the audience his depression. I had in mind something similar to the pub scene in Enter Achilles by Dv8:
In this scene you see the men moving around and with a pint of beer. I had an idea similar: Frank does a similar movement sequence with the alcohol he's discretely drinking. This incorporates the physical aspect we need and also the representation of Franks drinking problem.
Finally I think we are really progressing on this new idea: reality hit home that if we don't like an idea we discard it or add to it to make it to the standard we like it. We know we haven't got the time to waste sessions discussing seeing as we have less than two weeks til' show day. The feedback and changes that happened on Monday have really helped as we are now fully set on where we our taking our piece which is the main thing.
We all met early to get some extra rehearsal time and it was extremely beneficial. We showed Nyakeh everything we had incorporated him into the 'triangle sequence'. As an audience perspective, we noted that we should make it a lot more Berkhovian by turning, walking and turning back to the front. When we reached the overlapping of lines the atmosphere we created was brilliant. Even though we had no audience members the room felt quite tense and as soon as it went silent Frank began talking. Going from really loud to really quiet helped us create the perfect atmosphere and I hope we can do the same to our real audience.
Me and Hannah continued working on our physical theatre piece which fits alongside Franks dictaphone dialogue. Frank stands center stage and similar to the actual question asking scene me and Hannah enter on 'our' side of the stage. Coincidentally Hannah and I were singing a pop song when I suggested we should hum or sing as we are doing the physical pieces. In some ways this will show that mentally we are not stable. Hannah now hums 'You are my sunshine' to her jacket-the jacket her OCD behaviour revolves around. I hum the same song to link me and Hannah in some ways and I perform my box-step dance with Frank in the picture frame. Immediately the audience will understand my characters mentality and understand the obsession for Dr Joe is intense.
We rehearsed this with the dialogue and both Matt and Nyakeh thought it looked really effective. We took a short break and admittedly we were messing around with our characters and I was pretending to walk down the aisle to where I had placed the photo of Frank. I then said "why don't we have a mannequin and I dance with it and marry it?" So that's how that idea came about-so we fetched a mannequin and put a white t-shirt on it and will hopefully put a bow tie on it too to represent
So independently I created a rough piece of a scene in which takes place between me and the mannequin. I wanted to include me humming or singing the 'wedding tune' to physically show the audience the scenario. Frank places the mannequin at the front of the stage allowing me to walk up the 'aisle' and reach the front of the stage also. Kirsty recommend "lalala-ing" the tune to make it almost more like a little girls fantasy wedding dream type. She also said that I should reel off some wedding vows and then go into a conversation with the mannequin. Like a phone call conversation-the audience only get my side but they can still clearly understand what's going on. I found this scene really difficult to do mainly because it felt so abnormal to be talking to nothing. To become this quite crazy, obsessed character is really difficult but my aim is to fully embody her and be that obsessive person because if not there is the danger that my character will be more cringey.
He moves the doll so she looks extremely realistic. The slow movements look really love-felt and then the faster movements again look very real. He never leaves eye-contact with the doll to show he is in love with her. He strokes her arm and messes up her hair all with slow movements.
This clip has taught me a lot: I know that I need to keep eye contact with the mannequin to 1. show me that he is so very real to me and 2. to show that I am in love. Physical contact was used throughout the Enter Achilles scene so this is something I need to incorporate into our piece. In this clip he doesn't talk to the doll but in our scene we do- and I think this still works because like I mentioned before its like a phone call conversation which shows the audience my feelings and emotions towards Dr Joe.
^^ The mannequin is my height and light enough for me to move it etc. To represent a wedding scene we will put a white t-shirt and either a bow tie or a tie. The blue t-shirt can be used if we do use the manikin in other scenes. The mannequin is a strong point in our piece because the representation of it is so clear for the audience and it also gives them an insight into my character.
This is unfortunately all we got done today but it is a huge step up from the dilemmas that took place on Monday. I am pleased with how the piece is coming together more now and the new things we've included are massively improving the piece-which is a good sign! We know where we are taking our piece now so all we have to do now is put it all together, devise the rest of it and take the Tuesday and Wednesday of show week for development and refinement process which includes showing our piece to our class and lecturers etc.
No comments:
Post a Comment