Black and White - Performance Evaluation

I think that overall our performance went well. On the actual show day I think we performed it to the best of our abilities and it was a lot better than the rehearsals as everything just seemed to fall into place naturally.

 

I thought that the delivery of the lines and the clarity of them was a strength for me; I thought that everything was on cue and I said my lines clearly and confidently. I also wanted to deliver my lines using the chorus character that I thought of being mischievous and playful. I thought that throughout each of the plays everyone had more clarity with their words as we were told what words we had to work on with our diction and we got more confident being on a bigger stage. However the first time we showed the play to an audience we made a mistake in one of the chorus scenes as we said the lines in the wrong order but we managed to make it work by repeating the line one after the other; me as playful, somebody else as angry... and so on. I see this as another strength because we all worked together to fix the mistake instead of telling the audience what we did wrong by our facial expressions.

 

A weakness that we had during the rehearsals was our transitions as the performance space was two times bigger than the space we usually rehearsed at. For example the final chorus scene in act one we all had to come on with chairs but we ended up being slightly late and we all weren't spaced out evenly because we were rushing to get in our places, so this ended up looking untidy but once we figured out when to come on it ended up looking much better and the chorus was on at the correct time.

 

For the pace in the performance I thought it was very good especially on Wednesday night, because for me I thought that it was the best performance that we all did as we were all excited but more nervous as we knew our family and friends were seeing it that night so it made the energy levels pick up. I felt that within each of the chorus scenes brought the energy level up in the play and without it the play would of dragged a little bit as the chorus was a crucial part in the play. The only thing that was a problem for me on that night was in my hair I had pencils, to give off the effect of journalists but one of them slipped out and fell on the floor; I think I handled the situation really well as I just kicked it behind the block without any of the audience seeing what I was doing.

I felt that as a main member of the chorus all the chorus members worked well together and we bounced off each other with ease. Me and another main chorus member Paige, used each other to show the rivalry between the chorus members, as journalists fight to get their story on top. I think this made our characters seem more believable. The only chorus scene that I would see as a weakness was the end scene of act one. The reason I saw this as a weakness is because I think some of our movement such as when we did the ‘’Shout for joy shout’’ bits could have been clearer and we could have worked on it more as I think it was unclear as some of us were unsure of what we were doing.

As a group I felt as if we all did our best to achieve the performance style and managed to achieve it which was Greek theatre with a contemporary adaptation which the audience could relate to with some realism that brought out the tragedy in the piece. I think overall everyone worked really hard on their individual characters and their chorus characterisation so this created a believable performance with different personalities.

 

During the rehearsals we had a lot of talking backstage as nobody knew what scene was next, however on the performance day I thought that everyone backstage was very supportive with each other with for example helping people get in their costume and help moving the props backstage so they were out of the way. There was still some talking but only minor things which helped each other out if someone was confused about the scenes. I felt like everyone did their best to create the best possible performance and that everyone really concentrated on the things they needed to improve on. 

 

I think that by the end of 'Black And White' everyone really enjoyed performing it, as we all had a chance to play around with it and make it our own. Overall I think we put on a really good performance and everyone tried their best and the end result was due to team work, concentration and determination.

Greek Tragedy Week 7

This week we started doing a run through of the play especially in movement we ran through act one but it wasn't smooth at all and it was clear that people were getting confused with the order of the scene and the transitions were affected by this everyone wasn't clear on the entrances and exits of each scene so we went through each one individually so everyone knew. Once this was clear it all started to come together.

 The next day we did a improvisation warm up, where we would do a run through of act 1 but it was a fun run so we had to keep changing it to a different style for example,

 

- EastEnders
- Farmers
- Essex
- Doctor Who
- Clowns
- Vampires

 

I found this exercise so entertaining to watch and so fun to do yet I also found it helpful because some of the different styles we did could incorporate within our Greek theatre. One style where I thought the exercise could be incorporated was when the chorus had to do their sections but in a style of clowns I thought it looked really effective and different. I also thought the fun run was good because you could see all the different things that everyone could do like accents and voices and I thought it was effective because I could show that I was confident being completely silly and I wasn't afraid of stepping outside the barrier and doing something different, as my character is supposed to be mischievous and playful.

 

We then started doing a run through of each act and sorted out and polished any little bits that need to be changed. Music was then added which I thought really brought the whole piece together and added more tension to the drama so it looked really effective. By the end of this week I feel confident in the upcoming show week.

Greek Tragedy Week 5

This week we worked on developing Electra 2's monologue where Electra is asking the mourning women for help; the mourning women were the journalists in disguise. We had previously blocked it, so this time we just had to polish it and redo some movements. As the chorus we used newspaper to hide our faces at the beggining and added in more actions using the prop. For example on the line when Electra says "I cannot pour out the oil, the wine, the milk, the honey" we all throw the newspaper in the air and watch it flatter on the floor after each line that she said. Another example is the line; "As he poured out his blood", we dive outwards onto the floor with the newspaper in our hands, this looks really good because we use our bodies as if we are the blood that poured out of Agamemnon. Showing a visual as well as an audio of what Electra's saying.

I link arms with the rest of the chorus in a straight line which quickly turns into a tangled circle where Electa is standing in the middle- this mirrors how Electra is gullible thinking she has lots of support from the women but really they don't want to help her and she has no one to ask except the Gods. In the next section where Electra has dialogue with us (the chorus) she follows each person that speaks to show that Electra is desperate for advice and information. I had lines in this scene and one of my lines was, "Evil for evil is Justice." And this is a key moment as this is the point were the chorus finally convinces Electra to do their bidding - killing her mother.

We also went over the chorus section again when Helen and Electra first meet just to see if we needed to adapt the chorus movements in that section in anyway. Me, Alicia, Paige and Joe also started setting and experimenting with the chorus doing some sort of action or gestures whilst Electra (Shelby) is doing her first monologue to try and show Electra's story.

We looked at creating a character of being journalist so we did our journalist poses, and we also looked at if you were a journalist how would you hold yourself and walk around the room? I thought that my character would be higher status for a journalist so I walked around the room with my head looking across my right shoulder but my hand covering my mouth. Although doing this makes me seem lower status behind my hand is always a mischievous grin. Portraying that although I may seem to be on your side and plotting with you I’m actually against you.

Overall this week I feel like I developed my individual character and understood her more. E.g. why she does most of things she does and why she does it that way. Hopefully creating a character that the audience connects to and understands.

Greek Tragedy Week 3

To begin this week, we looked at what we thought were
the most significant scenes in the play, instead of saying
what they were we drew 5 pictures of the main scenes
that make up our play. I drew a bath with a dead body
inside. This is the beginning scene and really sets the
play in motion. It represents Clytemnestra killing her
husband in the bath, I think this is the scene with the
most significance out of the whole play because
without it Orestes would not have a motive to kill his
mother and therefore the people of the city (chorus)
would not be begging for him and his sister's blood. I
showed the chorus by putting Tinderios on top of a block
with all the chorus members surrounding him with notepads in their hands. I drew a gravestone as death is a theme in the play and it could represent anybody who died. I also drew Clytemnestra with a sword going towards her heart and Orestes jumping off the cliff with Helen and Menelous' baby, Hermione.

Developing the Chorus

We later played a game that involved a master, a servant and an under servant, the master would ask for something then the servant would tell the under servant and then they would get the item they required. I think this game helped us grasp the meaning of the different status', i.e. the master is high, while the under servant is low. This helped me decide whether I wanted my character as a high status or low. I picked high, as it matches my word that I picked to describe my personality; mischievous.

Other's Point of View on the Chorus

The National Theatre did the play 'Antigone' and modernised it like we did, but they made their chorus as business workers, as the play was set in an office. The actors in the chorus said that the chorus presented a community, however there was arguments in the chorus as individuals had different opinions. They said that the chorus is a body who speak together but doesn't think together - they have independent thoughts.This is useful to know as in the beginning I thought that the chorus all had the same opinions, as they are all hoping to achieve the same thing - getting the best stroy however, now I know that they are individuals, the idea of the chorus members in our play of Blood and light makes more sense, because I picture it as if the members of the chorus are all competing against each other for the best story.

Blocking Scenes

We blocked a scene where the chorus (journalists) were posing as mourners at King Agamemnon's grave, we all had a line each. My line is, "Sleepers awoke and lay in terror." I tried saying that line in many different ways. For example, one of the times I said it excitedly, this showed that I was eager to tell the story and made it seem more bigger than it actually was. I didn't think this one suited me and my line so I tried saying it a different way, e.g. really exaggerated as if I was telling a child a bedtime story, dragging out some words - like "lay". I decided that I liked that one but didn't do the exaggeration as full on, as I added more mocking undertones to suit my own individual character in the chorus. After we all did the lines we all decided on different ways of coming in. I came in running and hiding behind a chair to show the mischevious side of my character but unfortunately the way the chair would be placed on stage would make it unlikely for me to be able to get behind it, so instead we all decided to run in and speak our lines standing. We did this to show the urgency in the story we're telling and bringing energy to the scene.

Greek Tragedy Week 2

This week's main focus was on the chorus and how we could develop scenes that the chorus were in, during our Theatre Context class we looked out how we could take our idea of having the chorus as journalists and how we could take some of the scenes in "Oresteia" and how we could make them more contempry through our chorus. So for the first excerise we had to think of a topic or a event that has appeared in recent news which could be controversial,we then had to act it out to our peers. This was so the audience could engage with the subject and start having a opinion and get involved in the drama with each side just like the chorus would in our greek play.
　
We then thought about who was influential in our society today and came up with Celebrities, The Media, Mps and the Government. This was so that we could see that we are being influenced by what we see everyday and by other people which we could use in the play as the journalists (chorus) have to influence and deceive the other characters in the play. We also looked at the character of Helen and which celebrity would suit her. We all said at least one female celebrity each and the top two was Miley Cyrus and Kate Middleton. Miley because she has been on the news very recently and is now quite a stuck up person which suits the character of Helen and Kate Middleton because she is a princess now and she is protected just like Helen was. Helen was protected from all the people who wanted her to suffer for causing the war, while Kate is protected from all the journalists and on lookers.

Themes

The main themes we focused on for the play 'Orestes' was: forgiveness, honour, viloence and revenge. From these themes we looked at which part of the play they related to. I think forgiveness is an ongoing theme all through out the play, as each character is asking someone for forgiveness. For example Clytemnestra begging her son Orestes for forgiveness for the horrible crime she commited by killing her husband. Honour related to Electra and Orestes killing their mother for killing their father. Violent and revenge relate to all the killings and the people who wanted to avenge the victims. For example Clytemnestra killed her husband and her daughter Electra

Blocking the first scene

We started blocking the first scene of blood and light, and tried to include the persona of being a journalist so their was the idea of us having individual journalist poses whilst the killing of Agamemnon was happening to show that the journalist where always watching and finding out about the event. We all did different moves but came together to show us as one. My movement was covering half my face with my hand to show my michevious side by looking at what was going on and trying not to get caught. Then I would change to my professional mode with my notepad and pen taking notes down on what's happening.

Working together as the Chorus

For the Chorus we looked at words that the Chorus say and how we could emphasise these words with movements and sounds. We would say the words together in a different way, whether it was singing them, whispering them, saying it fast or slow ect. And then we looked at movements, two of the words we used for movement was Death and Justice. I had the idea of everyone whispering Death one at a time and dropping to the ground, while two people stood over them shouting Justice to show the meaning of the actions.

Staging

We looked at different types of staging these are a few of them: a Proscenium Arch stage, In The Round, and Traverse Staging.

We did an exercise for The Round stage; we treated it as if we were on a circle that was balancing on the point in the middle, so when another person jumps in you would have to move to balance out the circle, no matter how many people come in to the circle you have to keep it balanced.

      

The image on the left is a Proscenium Arch stage, this is a very simple actors on the stage and the audience in front watching what's happening, this is also known as end on staging, where your audience is lower than the stage.

The image in the middle is a In The Round style of staging, this is where your audience sit all around you and the acting is centred in the middle, this creates more of an intimate feeling for your audience.

The image on the right is a style called Traverse Staging, your audience sit either side of what looks like a cat walk, and they will not only watch you, but they can see the other audience members reaction.

Greek Tragedy Week 1

This new project I'm doing is all about Greek theatre, Greek Tragedy to be more precise. The play that I am studying and performing is Orestes from the Oresteia by Euripides.Over the past weeks before I started the project I've been doing essays on Greek theatre to help me increase my knowledge on not only Greek theatre but the play itself.

Casting Process

Before we started the real rehearsal lessons on the project we did casting for the parts, because there was too many of us Karen (who was doing the casting) split the lead roles, which were Orestes and Electra; brother and sister and the 'hereos' of the play. The roles were split into four seperate roles in different parts of the play. The four roles of Electra was the different stages of her emotions. Electra 1 is numb, as she's the one who witnessed her mother and lover killing her father. Electra 2 is grief, as she's now mourning her father. The last two Electra's were pretty similar, but Electra 4 is more sinister as it's the end of her journey and all of these horrible events have happened to her making her feel no emotion and withdrawn from all of humanity.

The character I preferred to play in the beginning was the mother, Clytemnestra as I felt her character would challenge me the most but instead I was cast as one of the main chorus members, who will be in the chorus throughout the play. After reading all of the chorus scenes and finding out that the chorus plays a huge role in the play I feel like the chorus would challenge me more than any other role I could have gotten, as the chorus members are going to be portrayed as journalist with Tyndareous the newspaper editor to give a modern twist to the play. So I'm really making this character my own, creating my character profile, i.e. my character's name, my background, my personality and where I want to go in the future.

Knowing Your Character

During our first lesson on the project we got into groups or pairs that we thought our character fitted into, for example the chorus and Tyndareos would go together as they are always together and want to achieve the same thing; getting the best story for their magazines/articles. Then I went into a group and we picked one pose from a word that best shows my character. I picked the word mischevious. I showed this by turning my back to the audience and looking over my right shoulder, with a little smirk on my face and my eyebrow lifted up to make it look like I'm challenging you to write a better article than me. Then I had to do a second pose but this time I stood straight, with my head held high to give off the feeling of power, but still keeping the mischevious smirk on my face. One question we were asked was, 'if you had to make a statue of your character what material would you use?' For my chorus member I picked marble, as marble is strong but not unbreakable, showing that I could be destroyed no matter how much power I have at that moment. Some other people that played the chorus chose stone as you are toying with people's lives you have to be stone cold and not show any of your emotions, such as guilt.

Group Exercises

One of the excercises we did as a group was about working and moving together as one. We moved around the space and copied the leader who would be the person at the front if we changed direction the leader would automatically change, I think this showed us how difficult it is to all be in sync without looking directly at the leader, but once we had gotten the hang of it, it worked really well and felt powerful.

Another excercise we did was called Chair objectives. This is were we used the chair to show our emotion physically towards another character. E.g. blame and protect, forgive and punish. I came up with the word Persistant, as we are the journalists and they never stop until they get what they want. And the other word we used was Deceit as journalist twist the truth and decieve to make their article interesting enough to get published. We did a number of movements to show us trying to get to Tyndareous first to give him the story. Some of the moves we did was standing up on the chair and blocking the other journalist out and the other journalist kneeling on the chair but sticking their arm out to stop the person from passing to get closer to the gossip going on.

Starting the Scenes

For the final part of week one, we worked on two scenes, one where Tyndareos and Electra 3 were arguing about what was to happen to her and her brother after they had killed their mother, with this one we had the chorus choosing sides depending on what we thought was right and what was wrong by either listening in closer, ignoring them or even literally walking to the side to back them up. We all had to go to both sides at least once to show the audience that what they're both saying is logical in their own way and that the journalists have to get both sides of the story.

Our second scene was with Electra 1 and Helen (Clytemnestra's Sister) in this scene Helen has returned home to find out her sister is dead and so she goes straight to see Electra and questions her, the chorus in this scene were like rats running about checking their surroundings, but also being there for Helen if she needed something like her slaves. Showing the chorus as journalists and looking for clues to write about.

Conclusion

This week proved challenging because we were thrown into a new play and Greek theatre is not as easy as contemporary theatre is, as there's just so much elements you don't know about. However, I so far am enjoying this challenge of a type of theatre that I have not yet done before and am looking forward to learning more not only about the play itself but also about the type of theatre that it lies within.

Week 3 Additions

The 'Circle' scene would be the best example to show the group progress this week as we all worked together positively and enthusiastically. As I mentioned before somebody came up with the idea to form a circle around Christina (me) and somebody else came up with the idea of spinning after every person has said their piece. The reason we did this was to make it look more interesting and to show that inside Christina's head all her thoughts are literally twirling around and confusing her. We came up with this idea by linking it to the idea of Christina being ill; mental health. She hears voices in her head but all the voices are actually her; showing that the only thing stopping her from doing something that she wants or becoming who she wants to be is herself.

We showed this scene to the other group and their feedback was all positive. They loved how we added in the spinning transition. They said it made it look more effective and interesting. We asked them how it made them feel and they all agreed that it gave them chills when they heard some of the things that the characters said. For example, "You are a waste of space and a waste of time." It brought out strong emotions that they didn't expect to feel. It felt good hearing this as it showed us that we were going on the right track as we didn't know how to get the emotions of Christina across to the audience. But this scene proved to be effective as we achieved the response we wanted.

Week 4 Additions

How some decisions were made

The 'Hospital' scene was really made in the week before the performance. The reason we came up with this scene was because we feared the piece wouldn't make sense without it. Our piece is all in the character Christina's mind and the only way we felt we could show this was by showing the audience that Christina was in a coma. How we came up with the idea was by linking it to the real woman in the painting; "Christina's World". The woman in the painting was diagnosed with a deadly infectious disease caused by a virus that spreads from person to person invading the brain and spinal cord; this is called Polio. Although our Christina has not got Polio we still used the idea of her being in a critical condition to show her being lost in her own mind.

Coming up with the last scene was hard, as we had all the idea for it but we didn't know how to develop it. We finally decided on showing the audience that although Christina may be happy now, she still questions whether or not she's entirely free. How we came up with this idea was exactly the same as the other idea; by linking it to the painting but this time for an entirely different reason. For this scene instead of going into the back story of the painting we looked at the painting and interpreted how we all thought she felt in the painting. We all interpreted it as although Christina showed that she had strong will and determination she still wasn't completely free to do everything she wanted as her disability stopped her and how that would effect her state, whether that be physical or mental. The last line Christina says in our piece was "Am I Free?" and all of us whispering "Wake up, Christina." To show that whatever happens next in her life is her decision as she wakes up from the coma.

Performance Evaluation

I think that overall our performance went well. Although we performed it to the best of our abilities I don't think it was the best that we performed it as we had slight problems during the performance, which we didn't have during the rehearsals. But we also improved on some scenes as well.

On the first scene, which was 'The Hospital' scene two people overlapped each other, so they ended up talking at the same time and in this scene I could have talked a bit more louder as the audience had to strain a bit to hear, but during the performance the projection of my voice and my articulation got more stronger and clearer to understand. The audience commeted on this scene saying how they loved the physical theatre and the emotions it provoked, such as frustrastion and helplessness on Christina's behalf, as she couldn't do anything but watch her parents fight.

Our scene entrances and exits flowed really well, as we all moved in sync with each other and didn't take too long on the blackouts. However, the weakness of having the blackouts was that it was a little bit time consuming and we had to do it as quickly as possible so the audience wouldn't lose interest or the feeling of the piece. The blackouts would be one of the things I would have changed in our piece. We only used the blackout twice and both of those times was to put the blocks into position on stage and take them off to put them backstage. Instead of doing blackouts to put them on and take them off we could have done more creative ways to move them, for example kicking one of the blocks on. Because my character on that scene was angry it would have fit the characterisation.

Aftter I read the audience's commentry I concluded that their favourite scene was the 'Mirror Scene'. Some of the reasons they gave for this was; the scene on its own had great atmosphere and the piano just added to that and it was a powerful scene as it provoked emotional responses from them i.e. scared and a feeling of loneliness. The scene was a big strength to our piece, as it focused on all of our timing. Everyone was in sync throughout that scene and because of that it came off more powerful than we thought it would. Timing I think was also another strength for us. The 'Mirror' scene was a great example of the timing and 'Who's the Real Christina?' scene, where we're all trying to be in sync to show that we are one person. This ended up looking really good as we were all in time for most of the moves we did like when we moved our heads to different points in the room. We had a problem with this in the rehearsals as three people were clicking and they were going at different speeds to each other. So we just decided to have one person clicking. However, one downfall of this scene was Dan's drop at the end. We nearly dropped him which could have caused a serious accident. The reason for this was because in rehearsals we never decided how many counts we where going to do before we where going to turn around link arms and catch him. As I was in the middle I managed to get a good grip on him when he fell but the people in front got there a bit too late as they couldn't see what was going on but luckily they seemed to sense something wrong and managed to catch Dan before he fell. Unfortunately, I think this incident did take away the tension in the scene as the audience came out of the atmosphere, as they were all on edge as they could see the accident happening.

Each person in our piece showed good characterisation skills and it showed as most of the audience answered that they're favorite character was all of us. A great example of our characterisation skills was the 'Train Scene' where everyone was Christina but just had different personalities. There was a mix of personalities i.e. happy, worried, angry. Another good example was the monologues. There was me and two other girls who did monoluges and as time went on we showed Christina gradually becoming more confident in herself.

Our aim was 'Lost in sanity explores the notion of identity, isolation and freedom throughout the action of movement and to confront and challenge the perception of the 'self' and one of the questions we asked the audience was 'Do you think our performance supports our aim?' All of the replys back was yes. This felt good as we portrayed to the audience what we wanted them to feel and understand of the piece, as somebody said our piece was "thought provoking".

I think that when it came down to the final performance everyone was very supportive backstage and on with each other and focused about their performance. Which is a strong point in a group, as it helped us pull off a great perfomance.

Week 2 Additions

Problems and Solutions

The group had a problem with scene 2; Past Memory as we all felt it was too naturalistic but we couldn't decide on how to change it and make it look abstract. The first thing we did was sit down and discuss it. This was a mistake as we couldn't test out these ideas and see them developing and the group was getting frustrated as we couldn't agree on what would look better, so I came up with the idea of all of us making one big shape together and see what would come out of that. In the end we came up with the idea to instead of using chairs and a table to portray to the audience a family eating dinner, we used our bodies instead. We all sat on the floor and made a star shape with our legs, with 'Christina' in the middle. We came up with this idea by coming up with one word describing us. We picked United as we all came together as a group and a star seemed like a perfect way to show us all being connected.

Another scene we had a problem with was the 'Train scene' as it was too naturalistic and wasn't going the way I pictured it in my head. I saw the four characters having a conversation with each other but talking to the audience as well to make it look abstract. For example the character of Christina looks at another character smiles and says hello and the other character turns to the audience and says something like "Why is this girl staring at me? It makes me feel uncomfortable, don't you feel the same when somebody looks at you that way?" But the group went another way with this scene and made it more naturalstic. The other group gave us feedback and said although it was entertaining at times and has good potentital it dragged on a bit as you couldn't tell what the point of the scene was. That feedback helped us a lot as we decided to focus this scene more on the aim of our piece about finding 'oneself' and asking the audience questions making it more entertaining to watch.

The Groups Process

I think that everyone was really positive during the rehearsal process. We understandable had moments where there was some disagreements, such as what we would like the audience to get from this scene and if that point gets across. A good example of this is the 'Obstacles' scene half the group wanted the obstacles to be us; using our bodies to make the shapes while the other half wanted objects placed there instead but verbally being the obstacles. So instead of us actually stopping that person with our bodies we stop them with our words. We tried out both of these ideas and luckily came to an agreement that the idea of us being the obstacles looked better and fit the piece more, as it looked more abstract us being the objects.

Everyone added in ideas to the piece and contributed to other peoples thoughts and ideas. Everyone in the group also had a chance to become the leader and take charge of their own idea to see how it played out, with the others chipping in every now and then. I think that the group got on well together and always listened to each other, even if things did get a bit stressful and frustrating at times. But we always handled it professionally, which I see as a strength. A weakness however was that when people became tired or frustrated they would just sit out and not take part, stopping the other members of the group from getting on with the scene.

Week 4 - (14th - 20th October)

This week was all about perfecting our scenes, and devising our last three ideas. Two of the ideas was the last two end scenes that we all had ideas on but didn't know how to go about creating them. So, we kept on pushing it back until inspiration hit us. And the other idea was our first scene of the whole piece which we actually made and thought of this monday.

The first scene was called the "Hospital" scene. I was the mum and Bradly was the dad, waiting in the hospital for news on our daughter Christina who was in a coma. Although the scene starts off naturalistically it soon becomes a battle of movements between me and Bradly as we have a dance/fight number. There was a couple of lifts, i.e. the paperclip, and a clever technique which looked like Bradly was pulling my hair and dragging me across the floor, but really it was me doing all the kicking and pulling without him having to do any effort. We all came up with this scene as without it the piece wouldn't make sense and it wouldn't feel completed.

We also fixed a couple of problems the day before the performance, such as the phone scene and Dan's lift. We changed it by having only one person clicking instead of three as it confused all of us because they were all going at different speeds. Dan's lift was also a problem as when we catched him the audience couldn't have been able to see, as the angle we placed ourselves was a problem. So to fix this we tried for Dan to go on two blocks instead of one to have the extra height but that didn't work out well as we nearly dropped him. In the end we decided to move the box to be directly in front of the audience so they could see Dan falling head on and more clearly.

Then we decided to develop the bus stop scene. Before we developed it I felt it was too naturalistic so I thought of the idea to talk to the audience instead, make them feel like they were involved as our aim is to make the audience question themselves. So I thought of the idea of asking questions like; "Do you know where I am?" and "Do you know how I can get out of here?" In another scene I did a monolgue talking about time and why everyone cares so much about time; so I linked this scene with that one. We all had different emotions, i.e. happy, sad, worried. To again show different aspects of 'oneself'.

We also came up with a new scene which was accidental as someone was messing around with the curtains and poking their head out, so we thought we couple incorporate that into the scene "Who's the Real Christina?" as we thought it looked effective and interesting to watch. We all stuck our head through a different opening in the curtain and hid our bodies. We thought this could add a little humor before we crawled out and got to the next scene.

Here's us in the theatre with our heads sticking out the curtains:



Finally we devised our last scene. We already had the idea of us having the "AM I FREE?" letters on our shirts back and front. In the beginning we were going to have two words; ISOLATED and I AM FREE on two shirts. But I thought that it would be hard to do that so instead we only opted for one black shirt and the words I AM FREE. I came up with the idea of making the audience question if Christina is really free as in the beginning we were going to finish it as the person speaking as Christina saying "I am free." But then I came up with the idea of Christina saying "Am I free?" And the person playing Christina (who was Shelby at this stage) having a question mark on her top, to show her still feeling confused. At the end of the scene we all whisper "Wake up Christina", making the audiecne feel a sense of eerie and eagerness to find out what happens next.

We finished this week off rehearsing all the scenes and going through the piece over and over again to get everything perfect and in sync to make it look as neat and effective as it could be before we finally had to perform.

Week 3 - (7th - 13th October)

This week the group began by doing the same thing as last week which was revisiting some of our less developed ideas, ones that we touched but didn't really know how to carry on and develop more ideas. So we did the solution of trying out different physical aspects i.e. lifts and choreographed dance steps. For example, the movement of our heads, the sharp left, right, centre, and coming together as a group and making individual shapes and seeing how they fit together to make an abstact shape at the end with all of us used.

In the end we came up with 5 more developed and changed individual scenes. These scenes are:
Scene 1 - TrapChristina is sat in a chair surrounded by her inner demons, who stop her from escaping her own mind. We explored this by having three people on either side of whoever was playing Christina and grabbing her when she tries to escape the chair. We tried doing that in different syles. First going fast to show the franticness of her situation, then slowing it down to make her seem more sluggish and tired, with a heartbeat in the beginning gradually speeding up the more worked up she gets. I thought up the heartbeat idea to always be in the scenes to add dramatic affect. At the end of this scene Chrisitna says a monologue talking about how she's gone numb and can't feel anything anymore.
Scene 2 - Who's the Real Christina?This scene is crucial in our devising piece as it's called 'The Real Christina'. For this scene there are four of us and we are all repeating the line "I'm the real Christina". Three of us are standing on blocks to give it a change from always using chairs. Three of us are all Christina but we have different personalities of that one person. I'm the angry one telling of my past memories, my bad experiences. Another personality was a happy one, telling of their happy memories and the last one was the sad personality, telling of their sad memories. The last Christina was the "real" Christina who was confused on who she was and trying to get out of the blocks surrounding her, metaphorically showing that she's trying to escape her own mind.
Scene 3 - Circle sceneWe started this scene with me saying my Christina monologue, talking about how now I'm starting to feel things and the numbness is seeping away, but Christina doesn't want to feel these things. In this scene somebody came up with the idea of forming a circle around Christina (me) and I came up with the idea of looking out to the audience, to make the audience question everything we're saying and making it look more abstact. The group take it in turns to speak their piece and to make that transition from person to person the groups count to three beats and twirl together around the circle to make the next person speaking go in front and face the audience.

Scene 4 - Obstacles scene

In this scene I came up with the idea of working together as a team to make obstacles for Christina (who is still played by me) to climb over, to show her struggle of fighting her own mind. We did this by three people literally being the obstacles. The original idea was for all of us to be the obstacles but we soon realised that it wasn't working, as it looked and felt too messy. The three people who were the obstacles were making the obstacles with all different shapes and sizes with their bodies. We decided to do all the obstacles low, so I had to crawl and drag myself on the floor. We decided this to show more of the characters inner struggle and to show a link to the stimulus; the painting of "Christina's World".
Scene 5 - Mirror Scene
This scene links in with the obstacles scene, as it's still the characters inner struggle. This scene is what the title says it is; it's people mirroring each other by their movements. For example if I lift my hand up and touch my face the person opposite me would do exactly the same thing. The reason we did this was to show the audience that although we're all parts of the character Christina we are all still the same person.

Although we came up with new scenes this week, it was still a tough week; as we changed many of our old scenes to make the piece fit in more together. For example the first scene we ever did was the fire scene and we completely took that idea out as we had to ask ourselves as a group does it go with the piece? So even though we had some disagreements, we always managed to solve them and get scenes done.

Week 2 - (30th September - 6th October)

This week the group began by revisiting some of our less developed ideas, ones that we touched but didn't really know how to carry on and develop more ideas. So we did the solution of trying out different physical aspects i.e. lifts and choreographed dance steps. For example, the movement of our heads, the sharp left, right, centre, and coming together as a group and making individual shapes and seeing how they fit together to make an abstact shape at the end with all of us used.

In the end we came up with 5 basic individual scenes:　
Scene 1 - Fire scene

Christina is sat in a chair surronded by her inner demons, who she tries to run from in order to escape her past. We came up with the idea of her family dying in a fire and she was being haunted by her family members. I came up with the idea of using people in the background to actually speak as the family members and I also came up with the idea of her fighing off her inner demons. We did this by two people pulling her down on the chair, and making her feel the affects of the fire.

Scene 2 - Past Memory
In this scene Christina is reviewing a memory of her family eating christmas dinner, she is noting all the small but significant details of the moment, such as who's chair is who's, the arguments that went on. We started to explore this scene but left it to come to a later date, as we were just coming up with problems and no solutions.

Scene 3 - Obstacles scene

We have Christina crawling on the floor and struggling to move and we also have people becoming moving obstacles that are blocking her path making it even more difficult, this is to symbolise Christina overcoming her struggles. We did this by using three or more people together to create bigger shapes for the person playing Christina to struggle out of. For example, I came up with the idea of two people putting their legs together to make a bridge shape and another person over them using their arms to give the notion of a box and Christina trying to struggle out of that box.

Scene 4 - Trap
Christina is pushed around and held back by her inner demons again, they flip a chair over her and bring her back to where she started. The main part of this scene is the phrase T-R-A-P we use this on our costumes, which would be black shirts with everyone having one letter on their shirt. At the end we were thinking of having a word to form at the end that would involve all eight of us. Like Isolated.

Scene 5 - Train scene

In this scene Christina meets new people, we wanted this to be an insight as to how Christina saw new people having been kept away from everyone other than her family. We were using ideas to do with the chairs, but halfway through the scene we decided to change the chairs for stage blocks. This was also the scene we used the invicible phone keypad, where all the numbers are bigger and we turn our head sharply to look at each number. For example the number 1 was on the top left corner of the room, the number 5 was in the centre of the room and the number 9 was on the bottom right corner of the room. But we scrapt this idea to use on another scene or to come back and add it on to this scene later, as it didn't seem to fit in with the way the scene was going.
　
We decided as a group to split into two groups, 4 in each and work on separate scenes to speed up the process of making more scenes. The scene I worked on was labelled 'The Train Journey' but we later decided that it was too realistic and we were aiming for non-naturalistic. To update the scene we used blocks instead of chairs and decided not to make it a train but instead it being in Christina's mind. For this scene there are four of us and we are all repeating the line "I'm the real Christina". Three of us are standing on blocks to give it a change from always using chairs. Three of us are all Christina but we have different personalities of that one person. I'm the angry one speaking about my past memories, my bad experiences. Another personality was a happy one, telling of their happy memories and the last one was the sad personality, telling of their sad memories. The last Christina was the "real" Christina who was confused on who she was and trying to get out of the blocks surrounding her, metaphorically showing that she's trying to escape her own mind.

The name of our piece at the moment is now called 'Lost in Sanity' which was linked with Christina being trapped and isolated. The themes are isolation and identity and our aim is that 'Lost in sanity explores the notion of identity, isolation and freedom throughout the action of movement and to confront and challenge the perception of the 'self'.

Week One - (23rd - 29th September)

This week we where given a stimulus to look at for our devising piece. We sat and took notes of our initial thoughts and ideas about the stimulus, we did this separately so we could later get into groups and explain our ideas and thoughts on the stimulus, which was a painting. At this point we had no knowledge of what the painting was actually about or it's history, and because of this we got to make our own assumptions on what the painting was about or what it represented. At my first look at the painting I thought it looked like the woman in the painting was being chased by someone, as her posture looked like she had tripped and fallen onto her hands and knees and she was looking up at the house across the field as her sanctuary; a safe place. When I looked at her body the first thing I realised was how deathly pale and thin her arms were and the style of her dress; as I identified as from an older era. Because of this I thought maybe she wasn't going to that house for safety maybe she got disowned by her father or husband and was trying to come back. The first thing we learnt about the painting was the title, which was "Christina's World". My initial idea from the name of the painting was that it was her mental world that she had thought of and made up in her head. But then I thought maybe this was her reality and she was trying to escape from that. We later found out that the painting was from 1948, American, Maine, Cushing and that the Painter was called Andrew Wyeth. The Girl in the photo was called Anna Christina Olsen and she was found to have polio which made her unable to walk which was why she was crawling around on the ground, which would explain the drastic state of her arms.

We then discussed in our groups our thoughts and opinions about the painting and we soon realised that none of us thought that this showed happiness and that darkness, abuse and neglect was common factors in our initial thoughts. We later learnt that the Painter, Andrew Wyeth, watched Christina crawl like this everyday, to get inspiration and Christina was aware of this. We took part in a workshop which had three different stages; of looking and staring at someone, so they knew they where being looked at, not knowing they where being looked at and then blatantly staring at a person. After this workshop we were asked how we felt through that. Many people said uncomforable and awkward, but I felt unaffected as I was looking at a point on a far away wall and thinking that as my goal that I had to reach; ignoring everybody else that was there and just focusing on getting to that point. So in Christina's case her house.

As a group we came up with many ideas and started bringing some forwards to try out. One of the ideas we went with was Christina being an orphan, someone thought of her being an orphan because of a tragic fire, from this I thought of the idea of her being tormented by her inner demons, which were really her family members who died in that fire. In this scene I came up with the idea of two people either side of "Christina" trapping her into the chair; making it impossible for her to get out, while the rest of the group was in the background being the voices of the family, talking about the feeling of the fire creeping up onto them. We finished with Christina screaming, but realised it was too cliche and was done too often, so we all came up with new ways to end that scene. One person came up with the idea of a violin being played, another person came up with the sound of nails on a chalk board making the audience wince at the nosie it emits. I came up with the idea of her happily laughing at the end; promoting the audience to stare in shock at her response.

To add more physical theatre into it we did another workshop were one person was Christina and the rest of us were making obstacles around her to see how we could use our bodies to symbolise her being trapped, as we went for the idea of mental illness. We used someone's idea to put Christina back to a good time in her life with her family at christmas dinner, the twist is that we have the later Christina narrating the story when the characters are frozen. Alicia who played the Christina who narrated the story played her as a woman who was suffering from a mental illness looking back at a happy memory from her past watching the younger version of herself (who was played by me). We also added a rule that every time a certain few words where mentioned like fire or family Alicia would scream and react to the word. We also had to make the scene look more abstact so instead of having a table we used our legs to make a star shape, thus using our bodies to become the table.

In the end we took a range of ideas and thoughts that all of us had come up with from our own creativity, having looked at the stimulus and ended up experimenting with many different ideas.