Week 21

Monday 4th March 2024 

Today we focused on the opening scene again, we've experimented quite a bit with this scene as its something that's been coursing us issues throughout the rehearsal process. So today we re did it all- taking inspiration from a scene in la la land that's in slow motion. We applied this to the scene in an oversaturated way- enlarging our movements to make them seem animated and then slowing them down to make the world around Dana seem separate from her. We kept similar concepts that we originally had, like the stopping and staring at Dana, and the speeding up and slowing down of our movements. The idea of this scene is to make Dana feel small compared to everyone else, highlighting that separation she has from society as soon as the play starts. I also personally feel that the way we perform the opening scene now, makes Dana look as if she's drowning metaphorically- which is effective as it links to some of her later monologues about that feeling of waves crashing into her so it feels more effective that this scene now links to that in a way. Although re doing and changing this scene multiple times throughout the process has felt difficult, it's actually helped build up more of a resilience when it comes to perfecting more strenuous scenes. Which as an actor is an effective resilience to build up, because it then means that when we go on to do even bigger and more difficult projects we know as performers how to approach them and how to deal with them. 

Tuesday 5th March 2024 

Todays session was set out like an audition workshop, following the structure of a real life audition that one of our tutors experienced. The point of this exercise was to show the sheer randomness that can come with auditions, whilst continuing to exercise the level of professionalism needed- as you can easily get cut just from the mindset you approach the audition with. The "audition" was set out in rounds/sections, the first being a warm up focus round: this included a throw and catch activity were you had to remember the person you received the ball from, and the person you threw it too. Creating a throw and catch routine that was then linked to the colour of ball that was used to create the sequence. This was then practised a few times before adding in another coloured ball to the activity- learning an entirely different throw and catch sequence that related to this second ball. We then practised this new sequence on its own a few times before running them both at the same time. This is were the heavy level of focus came in as you had to actively be aware of both moving balls, whilst remembering who you received/passed the ball on too next for both routines. We then made this even more challenging by adding in a third routine that we had to also run through at the same time as the other two, meaning there were three throw and catch sequences happening at the same time. Because initially I wasn't sure were I placed in the time line of all three sequences being run together, I used our first run through of it as a way to jest what order I would receive each separate coloured ball- this meant that I then knew what ball to focus more on after receiving/ catching a different one. I could then apply this to the people- quickly organising out what colour ball was associated with what pair of people, meaning I could eliminate every other person from my focus apart from those six. This made the way I performed the sequences a lot quicker and a lot more calculated as I actively knew what to push most of my focus too, strategically planning out how I was going to do things to make it easier, more memorable and more efficient. I personally feel a lot of benefits from doing this activity as yes it was a test of focus, but also adaptiveness- how you work around issues and how you quickly keep up with quick changes, so as someone who is not great when it comes to fast pace pressure I found this extremely helpful for counteracting that difficulty. 

We then moved onto the second round of the audition like workshop- this was a devising section, were we were given a piece of text (this piece of text being Roal Dahls version of the "little red riding hood" nursery rhyme) were we had to make it into a scene, being giving the brief of creativity and physical theatre- initially I was really struggling to think of a creative way to perform this piece of text as its a nursery rhyme not an actual scene or monologue, so straight away felt a little bit stumped as we collectively as a group didn't want to resort to just having a narrator and then acting out the scenario that the rhyme creates as that didn't follow the brief we were given. We then decided that because there is no element of naturalism involved within the text we should go the complete opposite way and make it seem even more animated- building more on the idea of fairy tale story, instead of just visually depicting the text. This is were the physical theatre element came in as we started pushing each others bodies around to show transitions into knew sections of the text, we also added an element of quick character change, whilst having two narrators that had this sense of control- actively adding them into the piece as they initiated the character changes and acted as this sense of structure to the piece. 

Wednesday/Thursday 6th/7th March 2024  

On both Wednesday and Thursday we continued with "shout" rehearsals, re running the opening scene again, tweaking some things and re adding in some older elements that we previously took out as we felt didn't work as well at the time, but would work a lot better now due to the fact that we've changed it and played around more. 

We also did some more adjusting to our scene that involves the university books, as it doesn't really show the panic that it should, so instead of passing the books around in a circle everyone was instructed to slam them on the table that Dana is sitting at- moving from the table into a semi circle around Dana whilst maintaining this swaying motion that mimics the waves in her mind. Although this feels better than what we previously had for this scene I still think there will be more changes to come as its still missing that intensity that we want it to hold.