30|4|14 - Physical Theatre - Development - Curly's Wife

Development of 'The Girl in the Red Dress'

We went over the scene from the week before, and found a nice image where we placed our hands into the crate, from this we could physically see the Girls want for comfort but the fear of his strength when he finally grabs her hand and how this urges her to move away from him. 

We both worked on our characters emotions, meaning that we could show through the aggression in the movements the reactions within the Girl of her fear of his strength, and Lennie's unawareness of how to handle the situation once it goes to far and he touches the dress. We made that gesture more clear by showing him grab my dress and having a moment of still fear where I grab his wrist and neither of us are capable of moving showing the unpredictable event they have found themselves in. 

Curly's Wife

We wanted to show an idea of Curly's wife being trapped on the ranch, as in the book she longs to be a star but due to the economic state of America her dream was impossible. Living as the only woman on the ranch married to a man she does not belong to herself. I proposed the question to Emily as it was decided she would be Curly's wife, as to if she could fit inside a crate. She was able to sit in one half, and then we closed another crate on top of her so she was in-cased inside.

We played around with how Curly (Alex) could make Emily appear from the crates, we had ideas of moving the crate but all felt too vague and didn't say much about their relationship. In the end, we had a simple gesture of him pulling her hair out and from this, giving the illusion he was pulling the top of the crate up where Emily could actually pull herself up with the crate into standing. From this, we decided that we wanted to raise her as although she is trapped she can manipulate the fact she is the only woman on the ranch in order to sexually lure the ranch workers for her own power satisfaction. We created a simple lift where we support her legs and back so she is laying flat towards the ceiling effortlessly before placing her down and falling back. She then beckoned Matt and Chris and they responded to the lift and push down motion that Curly's wife offered showing her power to sexually lure. 

When she see's Crookes (Kelly) she is unable to attain a connection, a barrier caused by the race. As a result, we see an aggresive side to Curly's wife. We played around with the different lifts but felt the one that fitted best was the one where she had her legs wrapped around the waist of Alex and she could lean forward mimicking the intimidation of a monster, the horizontal image allows her to have an effect of being in Crookes' personal space. The position of the arms also makes her appear more regal. 

From this we wanted to create a conflict scene between Curly's wife and Crookes that showed how Crookes needed to stay in his place due to his race and the effects for if he didn't. 

As a group we got in to pairs and worked on using just our hands, where one person follows the motion of the other. We then started to play around with blocking each others hand movements and how the other person would regain control over the other. When Emily and Kelly started devising, we noticed that this type of movement had a limited time where it was engaging, from this they development the hand movement to becoming a full body movement in which Curly's wife was able to show her dominance. We used gestures such as the hanging to show the threatening nature Curly's wife had on Crookes which is why he must remain in his place. 

We then needed to show more of the relationship with Curly and his wife. We made it so he walked on this, from this the three devised a scene whilst myself and Matt rehearsed our first scene. When reviewing their scene I liked the way Crookes made a 'throne' for Curly's wife, but it is only Curly that can remove this. From this they created a scene where the crates were constantly being moved until they could realise their affection for each other. From this, the crates were in place for the scene where Curly's wife would meet Lennie. 

This meant we decided this would go before the flop house scene so we could have a continual character of Curly's wife for in the flop house scene Emily becomes a prostitute. 

We wanted to continue to show the sexual nature of Curly's wife, as Lennie had the situation with the girl. Emily Matt and Chris managed to develop a scene which used the proxemics of the crates to show the growing danger. And as it was Curly's wife pushing them closer and Lennie moving them away we can see Lennie learning from his past mistakes. The killing of Curly's wife comes from the temptation of her soft hair and Lennie's desire to stroke it. This has similar consequences as his strength gets the better of him, Matt holds Emily on his lap, suffocating her to her death, from this they proceeded to do a movement to show she was dead by showing the limpness in her body, this was a puppet like movement before he laid her down and concealed her body from the audience by towering crates and leaving the scene.