21|5|14 - Physical Theatre - Final Performance

The video of the final performance: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eD0Kk8tV7g&feature=youtu.be 

from 20.25 

I feel like in the final performance we were able to convey every characters emotion showing a clear split when we changed characters whether it be through our costume or stance. We managed to do the lifts to a standard where they looked effortless allowing the piece to be enjoyable and appear to a high standard. I also felt we managed to convey the story well, reflect issues such as the desperation for work through the opening scene and George's need for Lennie to keep out of trouble so they can maintain work in one place. We managed to show sensationalism of women as well as how they were objectified and how it wasn't the women them selves but the effects on the men that seemed to cause the catastrophic events such as Curly's wife's death, and the need for Lennie and George to leave their original place for the implication of rape to the Girl. 

Here is my video assessment covering the process and development the piece: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnqquMqyo3E&feature=youtu.be

14|5|14 - Physical Theatre - Development

Development of George and Lennie

Mr Chipp questioned our ability to bring Lennie's dream out (living of the fat of the land where he could tend to the rabbits) which only had to be short. Therefore we created the reason why they kept having to move, showing different images of fast past violence after removing the makeshift map highlighting George's realisation into the fact this will happen no matter where they go. He then brings us out from behind him to show the distraction of the dream to Lennie, we using the idea of petting animals and being happy, he then wraps his arms around us causing us to be crushed. This is showing to George that he must kill Lennie in order to progress, ending the piece with a pull back and push to the floor. After this, we created an image where we move upwards to pull him down, to show clearly that George depended on Lennie as well. 

Music

We used sir's vast music libary to find music similar to those used in our original piece, sir had a great input. We then used people who weren't on stage to control the music whilst the people on stage could find points within the music that the pace of the movement could change.

For instance - in mine and Matt's scene at the beginning, we found that there were pauses which we could time to be the moment he touches the dress, and everything becomes quiet and you can just hear both of us deeply breathing, another point is the touch of the hands within the creates. The music also builds up at the beginning and when it becomes the loudest that was the point in which Matt killed the animal which he was petting in his hands. 


Run Through

We did a run through of the whole performance where we could sort out where we would exit in order for a smooth entrances. We then performed to a year 8 group in order to have the pressure of performance on us allowing us to receive feedback, the main thing we were told to work on was the character performance and making sure we conveyed the correct emotions. To resolve this, we discussed each scene to make sure we all had an agreement on the emotions that needed to be shown. From this we did another run before the final performance that allowed us to get a feel of how it should go.   

7|5|14 - Physical Theatre - Development - George and Lennie

Development for 'Curly's Wife'

Overall we felt that the main thing we needed to develop was making the lifts as slick as possible. If they are done with ease it reflects her ability to control and how easy it comes to her being the only woman on the ranch. We decided to add more moments of this by having her summon us onto the stage to lift her, we also added to Crookes' character by making him remove the crate from beneath Curly's wife. 

With discussion with Mr Chipp, the idea of creating a puppet from the dead body of her, we realised created an undesired comical effect. To remove this we decided to show more of Lennie's physical strength by having him pick her up, this meant we could also show a pinnacle moment where Curly's wife finally looses control. By the time that Lennie has her facing the back her struggling stops showing her death, the rest can continue as planned ready to move into the flop scene. 

George and Lennie

We wanted to start the scene on Lennie hiding after killing Curly's wife. From this we created two pieces of movement to show the people above setting off and the intimate relationships above. This then allowed Chris to enter, we decided rolling the crate showed aggression and anger as now George did not know Lennie's story. The scene showed the dependency they had on each other. The frustration of George and how they must always move place because of Lennie's curiosity and it's consequences. We wanted to show how George distracts Lennie by planning their next location in order to kill him. Chris was able to capture George's regret in having to do the action but making sure it seemed necessary. There were certain movements, such as the tower of crates and Chris removes the middle one but due to the way Matt is securely holding the top crate is appears to be hovering. This shows the aspect of dependency and hinting towards George's thoughts that he may have to depend on himself. 

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. 

9|4|14 - Physical Theatre - Girl in the Red Dress

Myself and Matt and Emily and Alex both decided to create a short movement sequence that showed the meeting between the girl in the red dress. By having two sets of people do it, we were planning on picking the best parts from each others to create a stronger section. We decided to make sure there were certain features with in the movement so we didn't loose the story, this meant we must include: 

- Lennie killing the mouse

- Girl trying to comfort

- attraction to the dress being clear

- implication of sex but nothing happen 

We both created these pieces of movement and as this was the part I was going to be portraying in the final piece I made sure I was aware of the characters emotions. As she is not a highlighted character in the story it meant I had a lot to work on. If she was near a ranch it was possible that she was feeling lonely, everyone was working and to find a man upset seems to be a chance for her to create an emotional connection. Her intentions aren't sexually but the idea for companionship. This worked well as Lennie had no understanding of any of this, only the danger that women bring and with this - is weary of the Girl. Lennie doesn't mean to imply sexual confrontation, only an admiration for the clothing. 

We decided that we would use the crate in this as we thought they should be used throughout the piece. We used the crate as a barrier in this scene between Lennie and the Girl. The danger within the scene was reflected in the placement of the crate, for example, when the Girl is stood on the crate, it implies she is the danger, which is why Lennie must remove her as a danger. When the crate is first pulled round it crates a barrier between the characters, and as Lennie is the one that moves it - it is almost like he has been warned and told what to do when put into this situation, but it is the distraction of the dress that gets the better of him. 

The movements I really like for this, were the lift over the shoulder that myself and Matt created as it showed Lennie's ease with his physical strength, as I go onto the floor after this, it could be interpreted sexually as 'laying her down' when in fact he is removing the temptation from himself but is so unaware he stumbles. This is where we used Emily and Alex's movement of Lennie falling on top whilst the Girl pushes him away with a kick. This created a nice image as well as showing that nothing actually happened betweened them, but the implications of what happened that meant that George and Lennie must leave. 

 

2|4|14 - Physical Theatre/Workshop - Of Mice and Men

We were commissioned to create a piece for Year 11's on the story 'Of Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck. We used two day of workshops to create this performance. We did a series of Video Logs throughout the day that tracked our thoughts on the development process. These are the links to these video's: 

workshop one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDKCOe-Q6bE

crate improvisation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEzSkQ5uiiU

crate vlog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG32cDCww9w

first half of the day vlog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAMR7swDtGw

flop house scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buLXDm-_Ngw

second half of the day vlog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2FxODtzgQ4

From this, we were able to create a series of physical theatre pieces, which we then added realistic scenes inbetween to tell the story for the purpose of the commission. 

We wanted to make a full 15 minutes piece of physical theatre that used the story and incorporate these scenes we already have. We decided to pin point the key moments of the story that we felt we could manipulate into engaging theatre. These points were.. 

The girl in the red dress - who Lennie innocently tries to touch her dress and they are chased out of that location and have to leave 

Curly's wife - and her relationship with her husband and the power she has with her looks over the other ranch workers, except Crookes, who due to his race and strong hatred for the segregation it causes refuses to fall over her. 

Lennie and Curly's Wife - the killing scene of how she innocently lures him and his strength is overpowering

Lennie and George's relationship - and the equal dependence, Lennie needs George like a parent or brother, but George needs Lennie's incredible strength to show they are worth having has workers on a ranch to earn money. We also want to show the killing, and we decide that this will be our end point. 

We decided that we would work in chronological order to make a story that's easy to follow considering the lack of words. As the flop house scene and Curly's wife's death happens simultaneously, we shall decide the order of those when we have developed the scenes so we can see which have the best transitioning effect. 

26|03|14 - 'Find Me' - Site Specific Final Performance

Setting up:
We went around with two members of the MITIE company to discuss where we would like lighting to be dimmed, these had to comply to their safety regulations meaning every other light could be off, but the others had to be on but dim. This was, although not originally what we wanted, actually turned out to be a lot better as the audience had better sight of the performance and meant that less accidents could happen. For the stairs, the lights would be virtually gone, but as their are also windows we were counting on dim natural light as well as setting up our own LED lights to give scenes more atmosphere and colour. 

We then cleared out the classroom at the end, covered walls inside (and boards outside of the classroom) with black poster paper to remove any aspects of a school building, we then put up phrases said by a doctor's in order to calm down patients. We also took any posters that were on doors or stairs down so the building didn't feel so much like a school. I then painted the pictures that would be used, these were child like, as if I no longer painted to be talented, (as we later see a good drawing held by stage one verity) these paintings also looked more disturbing in such a way.

For the audience, we wanted to transport them into a different world, to do this instead of receiving a ticket, they received a badge and label in which they had to write their name on, on the back of this were instructions that complied with health and safety, encouraging them staying with the doctors. 

For costume, we borrowed lab coats from the science department and we were also fortune to be able to borrow some 'scrubs' to show differences between nurses and doctors, giving a more realistic feel to the institution as different people have different power status within. The three Verity's were able to buy the same nightie and created the same look with their hair in order to create as much familiarity for the audience to understand.

We recorded two videos of the performance: 

Overall, I think the performance went fluidly without issues. I felt we engaged the audience so they felt invested in Verity and added to frustration as she does not get better and instead becomes mentally unstable to the point she becomes suicidal. I think aspects we could've improved on, were the audiences sight as I think for the number we had in the audience the viewing was difficult for people who weren't on the first or second row. I also think if we had more LED lights we should've lit up the last classroom as the TV didn't light up the room as much as we thought it would. Here is my interview with Mr Chipp discussing further aspects of our Site Specific piece 'Find Me' : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drt0Kig_KWo