4|9|13 - 'Chernobyl'

Two tower blocks were set out in front of us and as the group of 6 we were told to create 3 freeze frames.

1. Off the ground

2. All on the floor - with physical contact

3. On each level. 

After create these three basic steps, we were told to put them together as smooth as we could, this meant adjusting which side we would face, but we kept the initial position, the outcome was this: 

After doing this we were split into 2 groups: Matt, Emily and Alex. Me, Kelly and Chris. 

We were then told to remake that movement in the group of 3. 

After doing this we were shown a visual stimulus of an abandoned Chernobyl fairground, we then had to recreate that setting with ourselves, Matt stood in the middle recreating the hanging drape in the center, this added levels and a certain depth to the beginning. We then moved into the groups. 

We then developed the three freeze frames to fit the story of the Chernobyl incident. To do this we assigned characters, I played the daughter and Chris and Kelly were the mother and father. We had an idea about them dragging me backwards to show the audience that the parents were going against the speech that we fitted. Adding the plastic bag gave a physical representation of the nuclear disaster and the effect. As the parents continue to have speech and they hold the bag behind my face it shows the guilt and responsibility they hold after sending the girl out to the fairground alone. 

This turned out as this: 

The overall effect meant we followed two stories. It was a unique performance because the original movement was not made to specifically fit the story, we adapted the basic movements in order to tell the story, in mine this was where Kelly dragged me back rather than pulling myself back. This is because it could resemble a foreshadowing action of what the mother wish she would've done and the guilt she would've felt. All the actions were very violent in juxtaposition to the words we put with it. This made it more unsettling to watch as well as leaving a lot of unanswered questions. This shows the success of this way of devising. When devising it can be hard to get a unique and interesting way to start a piece, starting away from the piece idea and focus on the movement then add dialogue gives a depth to the piece as there's more to watch as we focus on different meanings at different times. 

After watching each others performances,  Mr Chipp then set both groups to do a realistic scene following a character or couple of characters from the other groups performance.

Alex, Emily and Chris were following the story that myself, Kelly and Chris decided. They approached it from the aspect that I'd gone and not returned from the fair. They were awaiting news but there is now tension from the guilt and self blame on deciding to send her alone. This is when someone calls round to announce they've found the corpse. 

I liked the way they connected with the characters we had left for them, and the naturalistic scene gives the audience a chance to connect with the atmosphere that's left. When the police/doctor comes round to say, you can (or should be able to) feel the atmosphere drop when the news of the found corpse is delivered  This is because so far the information has been shown aggressively and the audience can relate to the confusion. 

Kelly had to leave rehearsal so me and Chris decided to do a doctor meeting where Chris was playing the brother Alex. As the doctor I was giving Chris the bad news of his results. Here is the piece: 

Creating this scene needed research onto the long term effects after the nuclear destruction took place. Finding out that Leukemia was very common afterwards we decided that would be the news. We make the audience feel uncomfortable when Chris questions the doctor because it's such a serious issue and instead of being upset, the character of Alex ends up getting angry and frustrated. The doctor, who if was working at this time would've been giving this news out very consistently throughout the day, we wanted to make it seem as if she was caring, but yet she still had other people to talk too about their results. 

Creating a realistic scene after the more vague movement was a lot easier, because it can allow you to answer some of the questions from the first 'scene' and we also get a better connection with the characters. It also allows a variation in the performance style which can create a better and more engaging performance.