Road: (Before) & Week 1

So today we were introduced to our second contemporary theatre play that we hope to perform in April. The play chosen for us is a play called Road by a play-write Jim Cartwright. The play 'explores' the lives of those who live on this 'road' in the working class area of Lancashire. At the time in which the play is set, Margaret Thatcher was in power (80's) and a time of high unemployment. Cartwright first published this play in 1986 and has won many awards. The play is, simply, a huge selection of interconnecting stories and relationships.

Taking a step back a bit, we were first asked to analyse our previous characters in  the play '13' to remind us and to ensure that we wouldn't pick a similar character/s. Rachel was a feisty and dominant character who believed heavily in politics and largely against religion. She was loud and passionate: so from this I knew to have a less outgoing character to also have a character whom had more friends and family that surround them. I knew that I couldn't go for a much quieter character than Rachel because in some cases I could end up playing myself. I also wanted someone less politically drawn and perhaps more religious based to have a real contrast in characters.

Our first task related to Road was almost like an auditioning process. We were all given a character and a page or so of text and a partner. We, mainly individually, had to create a short scene (movements or just a chair, an accent, attempt to understand that character etc)
With that said we went on to read the play allowing us to understand the story and meet all the characters as we went... I was given the character named Valerie for this exercise. I had to perform this short piece of text as Valerie- or as well as I could from the ideas the text had given me about this character. I portrayed her as a chavvy women in her mid-forties and she mentions having children and a husband. The husband treats her badly and gives little money for her to feed the children. As this activity was short I created the scene with just me sat on a chair- which represented Valerie owning little. In the text she comes across as a food-deprived character and she talks about how she looks and her feelings about her appearance. I recited this text with me sat in the chair smoking. Simple but effective as I felt it represented my interpretation of Valerie perfectly!
I enjoyed playing Valerie because although she is similar to a character I have previously played she was one character who really expressed her feelings-others in Road don't do this as much (or in the style of a monologue.) She just sits and tells the world and the audience her problems and I think in that era- doing something so honest and talking honestly about your life and the Road was brave- especially as Skullery and other characters appear extremely proud of their Road. I know that I could do something interesting with Valerie but I really want to try a character that I haven't played before.
Even though I am still not set on a character despite the fact that I was able to see others play these different characters which briefly introduced them all to me- I have yet to settle on a character in which I am drawn to.

A few weeks later we did a proper introduction to Road; a read through.
My very first thought of Road was that it reminded me of The Royle Family (a comedic television programme). The accents in Road mainly made me link the two: The Royle Family is set in Manchester so the accents are Northern, witty and rude. And the few pages into Road that we were made me think of the similar accents. The accents are very strong and all the text is written in the accent-so I can already tell this will be something of an aim for me because accents are a weak point for me. Another immediate acknowledgement of Road was that it was comedic. There are many rude elements to it and other dark moments but majority of those rude sections are written in a humourus way-which of course appeals to the age range which the cast majorities (16-17). The play, to me, is fairly patchy to begin with and it doesn't always make much sense but as we read on I began to understand it more but I still haven't formed an opinion on it as I want to re-read it to really analyse the storyline. At this stage I am thoroughly looking forward to getting stuck into Road and the casting day because this entire play is different to what we performed together back in October- so I look forward to how we all come together and hopefully put on a great show.

Following up from this read through we had a session of discussion all about Road. We had to write words/themes/ideas that sprung to mind that related to Road, on the board, and this is what we came up with: We did a similar session with Deborah so I am combining both sessions information

Road, themes and other 

The main and probably the most re-occurring theme is sex. Prostitution is mentioned with some of the female characters as well. But sex back then (80's) wasnt passionate or hugely heartfelt- it was more of a way to get (females mostly) at they wanted. It wasnt a private matter either- as it was kept silent in the years before the 80's. At first glance the women in the play are portrayed as slutty and unintelligent but looking into it more they come across more intelligent when looking 'behind' the language. They have control over who walks over them and they're not easy to 'pull' as such-Carol is a perfect representative for this as in the final scene she makes it very hard for Brink and Eddie to lay hands on her whereas Louise is a lot easier. Some said, in our class discussion, that Road was written from a very male perspective of women- which in some ways is true seeing that the author is a male; but the women are definitely mis-interpreted: they are clever and as said above they use sex as a means of getting what they want.

Mental health/ issues/disorders was another theme mentioned. A lot of the characters are deprived of things we take for granted now; such as education. Education is something never mentioned apart from the Professor who's previous occupation was coincidentally a professor. And not much about the future is mentioned either which leaves that open for our interpretation when it comes to our individual character profiles. Returning to the mental issues Joey and Claire deprive themselves of food which leads to Claires death. Their method was being locked in a room, in bed and not eating nor drinking; their method is a lot more of a protest. Whereas if people were to do that nowadays they would simply just not eat... Perhaps it wouldn't be so 'dramaticised'? But then again it would be treated as a lot more serious than it is in Road.

Alcohol. Road is fuelled by alcohol. The pub is the main place to be and to drink! Perhaps they all drink to solve the problems and issues of Road? Skullery acts as the audiences tour guide and even he is drunk by the end of the play: This tells us a lot about Road, the characters and the time-era...

Poverty is another running theme. The characters have little possessions. Skullery appears to have no friends or family- or are the audience his friends...? He is lonely and poor. And many of the other characters are also.

The 80's were free of rules and freedom was admist. There was, still, rivalries, fights, rights and violence. The time of Margaret Thatcher in power. Male and female arguments occur in Road also such as between Marion and Brian and family arguments between a mother and daughter.  Which leads me onto talk about relationships during Road:

The relationships contain a lot of emotion especially between Marion and Brian. The relationships, at them moment, are unclear at the moment purely because I haven't had the chance to re-read into each of the characters and whom they relate with etc etc.

And finally music is also a key element to Road- various 80's tunes are blarred out in nearly every scene. Music is a great way for forgetting- so perhaps the characters listen to a lot of music, again, to forget the real issues in Road. But on the other hand Road doesn't sleep- it is always alive and there is always a lot happening. This is relevant in the interval which theoretically isn't an interval- the play continues and the audience come and go.

So to conclude: Road, at the moment, is coming across as a really interesting play- personally. I think it will be challenging in all aspects but I can already start to see different ways of doing scenes/characters etc and I am really looking forward to it.


So, the following week we did some practical improvisation on Road. In pairs, in front of the class, we were given a line from Road and had to create a fully improvised piece. Me and Hannah nominated ourselves (more like Hannah nominated me!) And we were given a starting line (a line from Road). Our piece was all about why I wouldn't go out (out to the pub etc). The scene was started with some force and the tension was kept up throughout the whole piece. Improvisation is something I find quite hard but I think we did really really well and performed a well told story between these two random characters. I think this was mainly due to the fact that me and Hannah are close friends; that we could easily bounce off one another's ideas- whereas if we didn't know as much about each other then the scene mightn't been stilted with ideas etc.
I enjoyed this activity and especially watching everyone else's improv. Although it didn't relate to Road much (apart from the starting or ending line) it was really interesting to see how it could fit into Road well and match one or more of the storylines that feature in the play.
After this session we were set the task of listening to our road. We had to listen to and observe the sounds we could hear firstly in our bed rooms, then our house and then our road at different times of the day. This task was really interesting because, living on a busy road, I could really notice the differences in the noises at different times of the day. For example Saturday night (11.00pm) was busy- the cars were driving past frequently. And then 7.00am Sunday morning there wasnt a car to be heard.

But the lead on from this exercise was in our Mondays session (p.s also happens to be the day of casting!) We formed a line and one by one had to read a section of our 'road diaries'. Then we spoke them two at a time; forming a overlapping and a jumble of words-but we were still able to understand what they were both saying. Then we had to choose three noises, that we identified in our rooms, houses or on our roads, and make these noises. I chose the ticking of an alarm clock, an iMessage tone and a lawn mower- all being sounds I had noted that I heard in my house. Still in the line format, we all started making our first noise; mine being the clock ticking. We had to keep the noise level to a real minimum. We slowly had to increase the noise volume, again and again until it was above shouting level. We had to drop straight into making our second noise silently and so on for the third noise.
When we were introduced to what we were going to be doing I felt apprehensive about it purely because I wasnt sure how well it would sound as the finish project. When doing it; it felt too much. The noise level was high and it was impossible to pick out any particular noise so my brain was overloaded with thoughts and sounds. When we listened to it back however, it was much easier to pick out specific sounds. Although it still made me feel uncomfortable- too much going on and too hectic for my liking- I could clearly see/hear how well it had formed and also how well it all sounded. The sudden silences worked the best purely because as the noise level rises you start to identify that its too much and then it drops completely. The silences were refreshing! In the quiet sections it was much much easier to identify and pick out specific sounds and even notice the slow rumbles of the motorbike noise etc. The loud parts drowned out the peaceful noises of the birds tweeting but what would've been effective is if we had risen the volume of the birds and dimmed down the other noises and this is the case for other noises being made.
This exercise was really interesting as it is nothing like I've done before. It felt almost Berkhovian but nowhere as near as grotesque so it really was a new experience for me; and an experience that I know to use in the future because that hectciness of overlapping day-to-day noises created such an atmosphere and told such a story that it turned out to be really powerful to listen to.

So after this we were casted... I am casted as a character named Louise. Louise is nearly always with Carol, a close friend of hers, and from what I can see, they are up to no good; messing both Brink and Eddie around at the end. Louise is the character I asked for because, although I know little about her, she intrigued me because she appears as a tag along to Carol in the final scene: it made me wonder why this is, if there is a reason or not? I am really pleased with Louise and I hope I can make her a unique character in Road.
I want to make her different to me although I understand she is really quite similar to me any ways. From what I gather she is quiet and a bit of a tag-along to her loud friend Carol. I said above how I felt she was a tag along and I knew that I wanted to look into why this was and talking to you from the day after the performance (15th May) I feel as though I now really understand why she is the so called tag along to Carol and I also now wouldn't class her as this. She sticks closely too Carol because she has noone else, but she is sort of using Carol as a protector. So is it Carol using Louise or Louise using Carol?
Louise, once, appears alongside her brother played by Jake. I am pleased with this pair casting because I know I work well with Jake and we are good friends which will help smooth the creepy scene which is between only me and him for the opening scene.
Louise mostly appears with her best friend Carol who will be played by Phoebe I am really pleased with working alongside Phoebe because she is a brilliant actor, she is really easy to work alongside and we often bounce off each others ideas (so we work well together.)

In my final scene I am acting alongside Lewis, Phoebe and Milo. Me and Lewis have acted alongside each other many times before (school shows/GCSE Drama etc) so I know I work well with Lewis and I know how he acts and vice versa.
Milo is someone I've not yet acted properly with yet; so I am yet to discover how he acts i.e. teamwork/pair work etc. I know we will work well together because I'd like to think that I am accepting of everyones ideas and suggestions and that I hope I am good to work with. This final scene is basically Louise and Carol being brought back to Eddie's and Brink's apartment for sex (in the boys and Louise's case particulaly) so this scene is quite close between the girls and boys. I am willing to accept that this scene is purely acting and I hope that this applies for the others in the scene and that make it casual like our characters and not awkward because "Issie is kissing Milo" etc etc. I am also willing to take on this new challenge for me in my acting experience.

My set design for Road

On our Wednesday session we came in prepared with our ideas for the set/layout of Road. My layout is above. This design is for the housing scene(s). The sofa and chair is to be clashing 70's/80's patterns. An ironing board with clothes piled up. A washing line hung from one side of the stage to another- all with dull and dirty clothes on it. The audience either in the round or on either side of the stage. And finally a Road sign that stays on stage the whole time.
My design is simple but I feel this is effective because the characters in Road aren't they don't have the latest designer home items-far from it really. The clashing of patterns represents the era in which the play is set in (1980's.) The washing line is compulsory in my design but for me it will immediately show the audience what sort of living conditions that this area is living in.
My idea didn't live up to the standards of others design for Road however.

More set designs

Luke's design was for the audience to be in the round. Each different scene would be set in different places around the stage. This idea is strong because it will give off the impression of being on a journey.

Hannah's idea was having the scenes set in a snake like structure. This forms the representation of repetitiveness (a circle). The stage would have various household objects around the snake structure also.


Matt's suggestion was to use all the rooms in the drama department. So the main stage would be where the household scenes are held (excluding Joeys scene) The training studio would be the pub and a room leading off of the training studio would be set out to look like Joeys bedroom as a lot of the play features in this room. This is one of my favourite ideas purely because its a style of theatre that I've never taken part in nor seen before.

Half way through our design discussions the idea of having the audience go around the 'tour' of Road in sets of 10- I suppose this is so it's not overly crowded. So when the first group are done they will go sit in the 'pub' and we will provide refreshments-soft drinks etc. To me this is a really fun idea and it's diving us version of Road straight in with the audience interaction take on theatre- which to me is so fascinating!!

Frankie suggested having dim lighting to match the dull aspects everyone has mentioned for their sets.

We had the idea for which the audience would walk through the ruined engineer car park (the wrecks of cars etc) so they enter from outside, and then in through the fire exits. But, returning to the room scene layout, we were faced with the hurdle of those whom are playing two characters- how can they be in two rooms at once etc?

Joe's idea was that the staging would be in the structure of thrust like a never ending road. Two characters in the play relate Road to a 'pigs trough' which is how Joe settled on the thrust staging. I, again, really like this idea because it is simply showing that this play is set on a road.
Joe's second idea was to have every scene on stage the whole time- so noone and nothing leaves the stage.

Franks suggestion was the stage would be set in the round. Household objects, again, would feature on stage and the strong smell of alcohol would be apparent as well as muffled music and dogs barking so eventually it seeps into your subconscious.

Milos idea was to set it into four separate sections of the stage. One being a construction site- "bulldozer wheel" is mentioned which links it to a abandoned construction site. Another section being the pub, the third houses and a wall which would be the seating for the audience.

The others are best described through my drawings however: Sophie's idea was to simply have our Road set out in a simply, stereotypical road layout.

Lewis' was my favourite idea. He suggested using the whole drama department to perform Road. The dance rooms would act as two/three housing scenes (so decorated as three different scenes in one room.) Room 341 (end room) would be the chip shop as this is a scene setting used a lot in Road- here could be where refreshments are served...? The training studio would become the pub setting and the final room would be decorated as Joeys bedroom. I really, really like the idea of setting our Road around the different rooms however I can see many downfalls to this idea. Firstly we have the herdle of those whom play one or more characters. And also, if we expect a large audience then not all of them will be shown around at the same time and also a lot of audience members won't be capable of standing for the whole performance which is something we all want to take into consideration in order for all of our friends and family to attend.

Set design 3

Set design 2

Nyakeh's proved similar to Lewis' idea however
 some scenes would be performed 'behind closed doors'. By this he meant that some scenes would be pre-scenes and the audience would only get to see brief clips of these scenes from an outsiders view. This will leave any pre-conceived ideas about specific characters open for the audiences interpretations.

Jake's explains itself in the image, right, above.
And finally Pheobe's was for the road sign to be the main focus point of our performance. The stage to be the main setting and the use of both entrances to the theatre.

It was really interesting to get an understanding of everyone's individual ideas and designs for Road as they were all fairly different; until we began discussing and ripping apart different ideas. We have a fair bit of knowledge to how Deborah wishes to create Road and to me- they all sound extremely intriguing so I am genuinely looking forward to getting stuck into it.
All the set designs suggested today all appeal to me and they are all very intriguing! Lewis' has to be one of my favourite layouts. However all the ideas are really good and I think, if we can, we should include an aspect of everyone's design to fit all needs etc.

Today we were set the aim of 'selling' road. I was in a group with Nyakeh, Lewis and Nathan and our stimulus was both selling Road to the audience; as though it was the best place to go to!  Our second stimulus was the notes we had made about Road itself.

We created a short piece that told everything positive about Road- we played our own characters and did a vlogging style (video logging) as though we were filming our individual opinions of Road. As my character, Louise, I knew to mention going out to the pub and meeting all the boys because this is all Louise is known for in Road. Lewis playing his character mentioned the 'birds' of Road that you could meet. Nyakeh did the same. And Nathan didn't say a lot but moved around-energetically like his character. 

This little activity really allowed us to delve into our characters and what they think of their Road. This gave me a clear insight that the people of Road are proud of where they live so this activity proved very beneficial to us; it also proved as a good introduction to Road itself.

Thursday we jumped straight in with practical activities to again, introduce us to Road. We first focussed/discussed characters and people statuses. For this activity in groups we had a selection of images of celebrities and had to put them in order of status-purely on the basis of what the image told us and not who the people in the image actually were! 

Some images such as Dot from Eastenders were put at the bottom of the status level: she wore a long 'tramp' coat and her face looked drooped and exhausted. Her back was slightly hunched with her hands neatly placed in front of her stomach. She was put at the end for all the reasons above. 

We had an image of Matt Smith who wore a dull tweed jacket and bow tie. We placed this image in the middle of our status ladder because although this guy in the image looked smart he didn't look as presentable as David Beckham did in another image we were given. 

We were given about 9 different images and an image we placed at the top was a picture of Superman. We chose this to be at the top due to his stature. His arms resting on his hips and chest out 'puffed'.  This image beat all the other images because he portrayed the whole representation of being of a high status. 

This activity sparked a lot of disagreements in the group: these disagreements would revolve purely around who thought where each image should be in level of status. It, also, became obvious that we all had very different interpretations of these status levels and also how some people found it very difficult to see these people in the images as just people and not the celebrities they are well-known for. 

We then did a second status activity: four people stood out as observers and the rest of us were all given a number. This number would represent our level of status (number 1 being the lowest and 12 the highest.) The four whom observed had to watch how we all moved and acted and had to select and guess what number status we were and then put us in order.  This exercise allowed us to embody the status in which we were representing. I can see how it was difficult for the observers to identify what statuses we all were because for example number 3 and 4 were represented quite similarly.

Continuing our practical work our second activity was: we were all given an animal and had to briefly described the human like physicality that this animal would have if it were to become a human. My animal was a hippo and I decided that if this were to be a person then it would walk heavy footed and lead with its nose- like the qualities of a hippo. We then had to move as these human/hippo characters. This exercise is there to remind us that animal influences can assist us when bringing our characters to life in Road. For example Louise is a quiet but confident character. She could then be linked to an animal that represents these characteristics (look in character study/profile.)

And finally, our last activity for todays session was: we were in pairs and one of us was given an emotion in which we would have to represent to our partner (in silence and only with movements, facial expression and body language.) This exercise proved really, really difficult. It was really hard to identify the emotion Hannah was trying to show and vice versa. Which shows that we, both me, Hannah and others in our class, need to work on how we specify emotions and express these through body language, facial expressions etc etc. A lot of times we could look at everyone (everyone was portraying the same emotion) and then use them to gather more 'information' to what this emotion could be such as frustrated, guilty.
All of these exercises done today were to assist us further into our introduction to Road. The status and animals will help us apply those learnt today to our character(s) and Road itself.

Road houses?

Added in, three weeks on from this blog post week:
When sat at the bus stop I came to properly notice this house in my local area. It is situated on a very busy road (the main road to reach Waterlooville) and it is a house that I have known off all my life due to once living in the road opposite and now for it to be where my bus drives past everyday to college. But today I actually looked at it. Noone is ever seen to be living here, despite the light that's on in the image that I took (This image was taken from across the road, and zoomed in so the privacy level was not forgotten!). But, when I looked at it, it reminded me of how I first had imagined Valerie's house, the very first day that we were introduced to Road.
The paint work is rotting, the front gate rusty, and ivy swallowing the right side of the house and the windows looking like they had seen much better days. Which leads me to say that the owner of this house is either quite elderly or poor due to the house looking as derelict as it is. The house is surrounded by some really lovely, and well-kept together houses so it's not due to the area in which I live in or anything. When really thinking about this house, I could begin to relate it to how I had pictured the living room in which I set Valeries monologue in.
- The patterns in the room clashing, and the colours considerably faded
- Mould begining to appear in the high corners of the ceilings
- Mess and untidiness surrounding each room
- Unclean plates/dishes/cutlery left out in the kitchen
- Empty cups and plates again in the living room.
All of these images I had created with my imagination, later helped me to conjure up the exact image I wanted our Road to look like (see above.)