Myself and Alex met up before rehearsal to discuss what we wanted to do in the next rehearsal. After deciding we would do a game, focus Sam on his Adam monologue whilst the rest of the cast work on Scene One which does not include him. Together, we sat through the script and developed ideas for staging that we would then develop when working with the cast. By writing these ideas on the script, I would be able to refer to them when blocking the scene during rehearsal, adding to them if there were issues as well as creating new aspects of stage direction.
The first thing we discussed was the staging we had a discussion about using the crates to represent the groups 'wood' hang out. We also talked about the addition of cans and bottles to add to the suspicion that this is a group society would consider as a 'gang' and give implications of troublesome youths.
We want Lea and Phil to start on SL where there are two crates, we decided that the entrance and exit for their hang out should be USR and using this continuity will be able to change when Adam appears and he goes to his hide out USL instead.
To give a more dynamic flow we want to separate Cathy and Rachel when they come on stage, Cathy going DSR and Rachel going SC, this means that we can emphasise Cathy being in her own world and being detached from the situation.
We also liked the idea of Phil friended Brian and stop him from crying by offering him a sweet, and then recreating the fear in Brian by telling he must go into the police, this we want to try out with how they eat the food.
Rehearsal
We started the rehearsal with a game, as we planned to do. This one is 'The name game' which helped everyone to learn everyone in the groups name, this allows the group to focus and aware whilst being able to have a good time. We decided to make the game more challenging by using the casts character names instead of their real names so people could also get familiar with them as well. This was a lot of fun as even me and Alex participated in the first part.
I then sat the Cast down and went through the script sectioning it up so that when giving them sections to focus on they can relate easier than page numbers. We then did a read through of scene one to refresh what happens, this also gave Alex time to set Sam on his task so that we could start blocking the scene together.
Here is the script as in progress with annotations of stage directions and notes that I put in throughout the rehearsal.
We directed Cathy to be 'in her own world' and by doing this we set her up to appear detached, it also creates a light hearted contrast to the more serious issue being handled on SL. Once Cathy asks the others and they don't respond, I didn't want her to sit idle and as she seems to be occupied until she is asked a question by, we thought we should incorporate her surroundings keeping her distracted so that when Lea talks to her the response is bigger. We tried out Cathy look at bottles and cans of alcohol in order to see if there was anything she could drink, she ends up, shuffling through a small pile near the crate, giving levels as the other three are stood up.
We wanted to show Rachel as being in control as she is the 'leader' of the group, which is why she makes the first aggressive move of leaning towards Lea on the line 'excuse me', we wanted Lea to then make an exaggerated mimic of Rachel's lean to show Lea's character progression of feeling more comfortable with the group she is helping. This part of the script where she talks about 'DNA evidence' we want India to play a bit show offy, so that we can see Rachel become annoyed at Lea, developing the depth of the script.
Having Cathy surrounded by both Rachel and Lea shows that Cathy did the wrong thing, it allows for some comedy when they both intensely stare at her and she says 'there were quite a few'. By having Cathy play the 'ditsy' character, we enable the frustration within Rachel and Lea to come through which is shown in the next fast paced part which makes sure the audience also knows what happening with the DNA situation and why Cathy disrupted it for the wrong reason. When Lea finally states they're fucked Cathy sinks back onto the floor to create a better aesthetic set of levels, as well as removing a chance of blocking Brian's dramatic entrance.
To make Brian's character more hysterical, we want him to repeat the first line of 'I'm not going in' from the moment he is dragged in by both Jan and Mark to being sat on the crate. The two will then stand either side behind him as if guarding him. The rests of the group reaction show that this is not a unusual way for Brian to act. At the side you can see a small sketch in which the stage looks like at this point. Lea retreats to Phil as the group gets bigger on stage due to the fact that that's whom she is closest too. We also arranged how the movement with Phil, offering Brian a sweet on 'But it is like this' and by the time that Brian takes the sweet and calms down, Phil says 'You're going in' causing Brian to drop the sweet and become hysterically for the next part. This is where we finished blocking.
But, me and Alex did make some plans in our meeting for stage directions to give to the cast, when blocking the rest of scene one. We want to be able to give feel and intimating sense of aggression when he does he next part, using the contrasting tone to the violence implied in his words can create a menacing hold, but we will try out a variety. Brian's reacts spur reactions within the rest of the group who are in shock of Phil's outburst.
Here is a video of the first half of scene one before Brian's entrance.
The Notes for improvements that I have for this scene are:
-understanding the lines more might help with the delivery of lines:
-Lea: "DN.. what are you talking about?" - needs to be confused, not so harsh on the "dn"
"DNA from a random.." the intonation should drop as if a trailing thought is interrupted by "Cathy?" where the intonation should raise up, whilst looking at Cathy disapprovingly.
-Rachel: "Excuse me...." should be said more sarcastically to support Lea's next line.
-fludity of lines from Brian to show that it is a running trail of thought in a moment of panic. assured this will improve with knowledge of lines.
-Sam's Adam monologue in the process of development, first part learnt and is progressing with 'broken' tone and discussed the meaning of the words in order to aid delivery of them.
-the biggest improvement required is pace, this will come once scripts are down, this will also make it easier to develop body language and facial expressions.
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