Rehearsals & 2nd Stimulus

My recent rehearsals have been interesting and I have realised a lot. I have stemmed away from the idea of being a woman dealing with the home duties whilst her husband goes to war; I think this is a very naturalistic ABC idea that will restrict me from being truly free within my body.

. I don't want my performance to be linear with a basic formation so I've decided to focus on the meaning of death... a massive outcome for many who experienced the war. Death happens to everyone and anyone but those in the war experienced it at its worst and I want to highlight this in all of it's forms.

The rehearsals have been better when I focus on them at my own house by myself than at school. I thought it would be the other way around due to my home being my... home, and there are many distractions, however it has been ok.

Because I have decided to have no music in my performance, I'm finding that I am speaking quite a bit more and I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I want to highlight how death came cruelly and almost instantly to those fighting in the war and my words combined with my movements will leave an impression - I really
hope.

As well as a short short monologue I have written myself, I think I am also going to use sections of the poem Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen-

What passing-bells for those who die like cattle?
     Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
     Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
     Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;
     And bugles calling them from sad shires.What candles may be held to speed them all?
     Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
     The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
     And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds

I don't want to read it all out whilst rolling around on the floor so at the moment I am planning on picking out significant words and repeating those, such as "blinds, rattle, monstrous, prayer."

First rehearsal

I'm liking this idea of me doing a solo! I'm rather enjoying being completely dependant on just myself, and not having to schedule and rearrange times to rehearse with others. I came home from work, got into my pyjamas and dedicated a full two hours to devising my solo piece in the comfort of my front room.

I didn't want to sit down and just think or write about ideas because I thought that would take the organic and natural beauty away from it. I decided to be instinctual and think with my heart instead of my brain (oh god, that sounds really cheesy) and just start moving in ways that felt right and fit for the theme.

I'm deciding not to have any music to my piece. I'm hoping this will create an intense mood that enables the audience to focus on my movements instead of a song.

I've noticed that in past physical performances, my group and I have always thought it necessary to use props so I think, at the moment, I'm going to go against that idea and just use myself. I'm hoping my stripped back solo performance - just me, no music, no props, no costume, no make up - will reflect just how open and vulnerable these women and men were during the war.

I'm excited!

Stimulus Idea

The lecture we had on the history of WW1 was very inspiring and I immediately thought of many possible ideas I could take my solo physical theatre performance down. I thought specifically about the women, the children and that family's involvement in the war, not just the soldiers physically involved. During the twentieth century, women of the whole world became indispensable in the war efforts. In many countries the need for female participation in the First World War was seen as almost necessary, as unprecedented numbers of men were wounded and killed.

They were given the opportunity to help as nurses, teachers, textiles makers, coal miners and clothing, but the largest area in which the women worked was in the munitions factories. Munitions factories were there to produce supplies for the men on the front including tailoring, metal trades, chemical and explosives, food trades, hosiery and woollen and worsted industries. Sure they weren't physically at the front line taking down soldiers, but they were left to keep the nation from crumbling. 

I thought the factory working could be a great foundation to build my solo on. Of course my performance doesn't necessarily have to have a naturalistic plot but the actions taken out within a factory - using machines, the repetition, that hand movements - could add to a potential piece of theatre focusing on the women during the war, not just the men. 

Lesson 3

In today's lesson we experimented freely with music and the characters we felt drawn too by listening to the different songs. We listened to 3 completely contrasting songs and as we created our characters, our teacher used the same exercise as lesson 1, by using the scale of 1-10, and increasing or decreasing our character depending.

The first song was slow and I can only describe it as... twinkly. As I lay listening, I thought of this song being used in a movie when the protagonist is at the peak of happiness in their life and skipping merrily down the road. I created a character of the same emotion, having fun at the park with my dog. When the scale increased, my actions were much bigger and my pace quickened. Not necessarily with increased speed though, (I realised from the second song.) At a neural 5, I was happy spending time with my dog with a smile on my face, so by the time we reached 10 I thought my face was going to fall off, having increased the happiness. 

The next piece of music played had a rocking, loud roaring sound to it. I recognised the song but was sure not to make it influence my decisions for a character. As I lay listening, I listened intently to the song as if with new ears. I thought of emotions and intentions with the song,'and adapted quite a moody and frustrated character. As I walked around the space adapting this emotion, I thought closely on who would act openly in such a way. I ended up creating an stroppy toddler in a supermarket, throwing a public tantrum because my mum wouldn't get me my favourite sweet. When having to push him to his limits, I realised that just because the number on the scale increases, I don't necessarily have to speed up like first expected. Because my character was moving slowly and begrudgingly anyway, the more I had to push this, the slower he would become.  When the number on the scale decreased, my character stopped being so stressy and just.. a little bit stressy.

The third song was, in one word: depressing. The pace was slow, melodic and had a dark feel to it. It was sung by a female singer, and the pace was incredibly relaxing, however with more of a downbeat melody. I sort of annoyingly went with my first initial reaction and played a very sad and depressed character. I adapted a slow pace and didn't actually move that much at all, as if the simple action was on the same level of pain was getting stabbed in the throat. The higher the scale, the slower and unhappier I found my self. Looking around and interacting with the other people doing this exercise, I found most of us adopted the same emotion and character with similar intentions.

War in physical theatre

I think this is such a good topic to base our physical theatre solo performances on - full of so much potential. This war was life changing and so many people were effected, whether they were on the front line or just a child. I think there are so many aspects of this subject to explore physically and mentally and I'm excited for the term.

Lesson 2 - Lecture on the Great War

First World War.

28 July 1914 - November 1918

World War 1 was a global war centred in Europe. From the time of its occurrence until the beginning of World War II in 1939, it was called simply the World War or the Great War, as no one could have predicted a second one would follow. More than 9 million soldiers were killed: a scale of death impacted by industrial advancements, geographic stalemate and reliance on human wave attacks. It was the fifth-deadliest conflict in world history, paving the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved.

Lesson 1 - Exercise 1

During our first physical theatre lesson, we began exploring exercises and theories constructed by Steven Berkoff, a famous theatre practitioner.

Steven Berkoff

Born: 3rd August 1937. 

He is know for his various work in the creative industry as an actor, playwright, author and director. Berkoff's writing and acting is often branded as unique, and we explored this in our first lesson. I thought this was exciting because before this lesson, Steven Berkoff was just a name to me and I enjoy exploring new things. 

One of the Berkoff theory's we worked with in the lesson was developing characters in a different way from the standard naturalistic theatre. With that type of theatre, most character development is internal, focusing on emotions and thoughts in order to communicate feelings to an I audience.  

Alternatively, Berkoff believed that you could actually learn and portray a lot about your character through their physicality, body structure and movements instead. 

We explored this theory in the lesson by using the Lecoq exercise stemmed from the prestigious Jacques Lecoq theatre school in Paris. Just like the school encourages, we spent a good amount of time focusing on movement and physicality.

We began the exercise with our body curled in half, bent at the waist, keeping our legs sturdy. We then went the opposite way and uncurled, protruding the one body part that was asked of us, leading with it. The first was our hips. We lead with our hips and walked around the space. It was amazing to see what kind of character we could create just by using this body structure. Just from leading from one part of our body instead of neutral, we could form characters with objectives, current emotions and histories. 

I had the first instinct to imitate a pregnant lady. The large stomach a pregnant lady experiences means they unintentionally walk with their hips sticking out. I placed one hand on my back, feeling the strain from the baby and another cradling my stomach. I was walking around the supermarket with a tired expression on my face, evidentially exhausted. My pace was slow and my feet scuffled on the floor. 

Each classmate created a strong variety of characters like Parris. Also leading with his hips, he created a completely opposite character to mine. His knees were bent as he walked around the space and his arms dangled and swung with the movement. His face looked disgusted but he wasn't... if that makes sense. His head was constantly turning side to side as if he was checking everyone out. He was asked to demonstrate his character and movement in front of the class and we all guessed he was a sleazy man with sleazy objectives. 

We went on to explore leading with other part of our bodies, like our nose and our chest, all creating such different but apparent characters. I enjoyed this exercise and found it really beneficial. I learned that characters don't have to be created from the mind, but from the body too.

Lesson 1 - Exercise 2

We then moved on to experimenting with Steven Berkoff's theory of pushing characters to their extreme, using the scale of 1-10. We chose a normal every day task like 'eating.' We had to act out the realistic process of us eating a meal or type of food. Like if it was a banana, we had to imitate us peeling the banana before eating it. It was best for it to be short - the sequence, not the food - and something we could easily repeat for x amount of minutes. We did it normally first, that being 5 on the scale. 

When the teacher increased the number on the scale the actions got bigger. When he decreased them, the actions got smaller. This did get harder the further that the scale increased, which surprised me. When it reached a high 8 or 9, the food got bigger, your actions larger and your emotions towards the food were pushed to the extreme. I began just casually eating a banana but by number 3 on the scale, I almost imitated a minuscule mouse nipping at a piece of cheese.

Then we added a different layer to the exercise by having to greet someone, during eating our food and then eating it in their presence. We had to think about whether we liked this person, how we felt about them and how we'd react in their presence eg. Increasing speed because wanting to get away from them, eating sloppier because didn't care about them, eating neater because fancied them. 

When my extra person supposedly walked in, I stopped eating my meal to wave at them, but definitely not enthusiastically. I ate my banana really quickly with a look of sarcasm on my face, emphasising the fact that I did not like this person invading my space.

It was very interesting watching the different responses around the room. Some very clearly did not like the person, like me, and their actions reflected mine. Some thought highly of the extra person coming to join them, therefore would decrease the speed of their meal and chew more carefully, as not to spill anything and look like a fool. 

I thought this exercise was beneficial as it showed when you think you're acting at a 7 on the scale, you're probably only on a 4. To keep pushing your actions as a character shows new emotions, intentions and objectives.

Steven Berkoff taught me that really pushing  characters to their extreme really does teach you a lot about them.

Today was cool.