Frantic Assembly Workshop - 12th July

Awesome.

One word: Awesome.

At the heart of frantic assembly's method is collaboration in a collective creative process (hence assembly) and it's about conjuring energy, experimenting, learning and sharing. This was telling from the start, Maggie emphasised how Frantic Assembly is about the group effort and how they were interested in your best effort, not the best in the room. I love this, my best experiences in acting have always been ensemble casts rather than ones where you feel there's a hierarchy, even if you're at the top, it adds a level of experience unmatched by any other style of drama, a shared energy.

After the warm-up (which killed my abs) though also at the same time part of the warm-up, we had a slalom which we individually run around at first, which seemed benign but through this Maggie emphasised the need for energy and focus using Caitlin and Megan's run as an example as their focus made it enjoyable to watch. Employing this, we then developed it through making eye contact with others in a relay slalom which was hard to get used to at first, but helped increase sharpness, focus and cooperation. It was also surprisingly enjoyable to watch.

After the full warm-up, all our muscles thoroughly used, we began the method of touch movement thing, where a connection between people allows them to know how to move. This was first used in this session in partners, one hand on top of another, guiding the other simply by the pressure of the hands on each other. No gripping with the fingers, all through pressure from the above hand on the lower to determine the direction they move. This was fun to take part in, especially when I closed my eyes, as it felt freeing to concentrate on one area alone without making decisions or inferences about where to move, relying solely on the area of pressure from the partner's hand. It was actually more stressful being the guide with the eyes open than it was being guided with them closed. All about trusting the other person to get it right.

Using this idea of contact again, the next exercise had the sides of our bodies in complete contact and leaning against each other so that when we both raised the central leg, we were completely reliant on the other person for support. Again, this involved a lot of trust, and was pretty hard for me and Megan because she's quite a bit smaller than me, but we eventually got there.

Then began the revelation of the lift. Oh! I was flying! Though Megan was smaller than me, she didn't like being lifted and my is she strong! So I let her lift me - the first time in forever, I've always been one of the biggest, strongest or heaviest, so always been the lifter, now I was the liftee and it was glorious. I think I squealed in delight every time I got lifted. First was one where we stood side by side, she put her arm around my waist, my hand pushed down on her shoulder and she stepped taking the opposite leg of the ground sending me into the air. We developed on this, adding a little spin to do a 180 turn.

Then we did a lift where the person lifting puts her hand around the liftee's waist from the front whilst they put their hands on their back pushing down and they should twist around the lifter's body. We weren't quite so good at this lift, something about the way I was pushing into her back, but we eventually got a couple of good turns in.

Next was a lift where it was up to the person on top to support their weight, going into a plank position on the other's shoulder with the heels of their palms into their waist. The first part was easy, but I struggled when they started to raise the legs into the flat position, partly because I have no ab strength, and because every time I felt like I was being pushed forward by Megan's hands, we got nearly there and reckon I could have gone flat if we had had more time.

Next on the agenda were pressure duets. First, we had to find three points on our partner (now Jenna) where we would gently squeeze, I chose her left wrist, her cheek, and her right ankle. We then devised movement around the body between these points, then put them together, one point at a time each which confused our already devised movement, but allowed us more opportunity to create more interesting transitions between the pressure points. Finally, we added parts where the partner could manipulate the other's body to reach their pressure point, or even use the lifts we'd learnt earlier. I used the shoulder lift to spin Jenna around 180 degrees, then manipulated her body and head to turn her around. I liked our little sequence whilst devising it and found good moments where we connected, moved slower or forced movement around. Watching everyone else's, I was amazed at the range of different sequences, the beauty and the talent displayed by each partner. I would make special mention to the trio, Hannah, Megan and Charlotte who had a beauty and coordination in their sequence which seemed quite professional.

Having learnt duet lifts, we then began to learn group lifts. The first one had a rock on which the liftee lent whilst two people support the shoulder so that the liftee can lean all their weight on them and kick their legs in the air so others can catch and lift them up, arms locked in position above with the liftee in a plank position. I had a go at this, and that was when I truly felt amazing, not quite as awesome as the last lift, but a revelation. It was also another trust exercise, for me at least, not used to being lifted. 

This was followed by one inspired by the Calipso where the liftee has two rocks on whom they lift themselves up whilst a group rush in to take their legs and lift them up. This felt less stable than the other ones, so a little scarier both lifting and as the liftee, requiring more coordination and balance.

Last lift of all, was one where the liftee leans down with the rock's hand on their back, then they push back into it, and others rush in to lift them up into the air on their back, the pressure of their movement determining where people hold them, tested when Caitlin (when lifted) did a roly-poly. When I was lifted, it felt very free and full of adrenaline.

We then did a quad game, where we were lined up in rows and to music, jump up and down to a beat of eight and on the eighth beat turn 180 degrees to face someone behind. It was surprising when it didn't go perfectly first time, as when someone jumps to face you, you want to jump to face the one behind you also. Furthermore, we reduced the beat to six and jumped back around on six, then four, then two, then one. Then we added things such as an arm lift on two, then a 'whoop' 'yeah' on one and two, getting more and more complicated requiring us to control our bodies from doing impulse movements. 

The final exercise of the night, we split into two groups and combined all the skills we learnt to create a big final sequence with one person at the centre. We had a duet lift at the start, the one with the spin around the body, then Sarah (central girl) walked to another point and on the way, I trip her up put my hand on her back and lift her up with the rest of the group, the walk her a way before putting her down where she is budged by someone and the rest of the group run in to do the Calipso move making her walk in the air then finishing with a squeeze thing. In feedback, we were told that it looked a bit like Sarah was getting bullied, so in the next five minute rehearsal we developed our sequence to make it look more like we were bullying Sarah. 

I loved devising all the sequences and discovered a love for being lifted, and physical theatre. I hope I have the opportunity to get involved with Frantic assembly again some day.

Frantic Assembly

They're a physical theatre company founded in 1994 by Scott Graham, Steven Hoggett, and Vicki Middleton. They were students at Swansea University, none had studied theatre, but were fascinated and willing to learn. Taking inspiration from the likes of the company DV8 they wanted to create something different to anything seen before, and created a style based on movement, music, design and text to create energetic, memorable pieces.

They believe strongly in the idea of collaborative efforts in the creative process, an ensemble production, trying new ideas through trial and error, learning and sharing. They have number of devising techniques, beginning achievable and building upon it to make the creative process easier to handle so that more ideas are formed.

Reviewing the Situation

For the whole term, I think not only did our group produce a quality piece of drama, but we worked really well together and each contributed to the creative process, (though hats off to Hannah for an amazing effort in every respect). I think we were pretty lucky to get the funniest and least harrowing part of the monologue, but we took advantage of this to produce a very humorous and energetic piece. I personally loved choreographing in a Berkoff style, although tiring, it has a hella lot of energy and fun with it (though I don't think I'd want to do a performance longer than fifteen minutes).

Perhaps we could have made our piece more defined and mimetic as within it there was maybe a little too much fluidity of movement. I also think we could have worked more on transitions to make them more eye-catching and synchronised. Although the passing of the voice was very good for the first half, I think we lost the focus achieved there in the second half of the piece. Finally, we could have reacted more to each personality, perhaps creating a certain manner of reaction from the group each time a certain personality took control, nothing big, but an indication.

I think all this would have come with a longer rehearsal period considering we only blocked the full piece two weeks before the performance and did a considerable amount of refinement as it was, and so for the time we were given, our piece was pretty good. I loved devising and performing, and hopefully improved my expression, physical movements and memory for choreography, though that is yet to be tested.

The Performance

The big day!

Of course the duration of the day entailed pre-performance nerves and paranoia sure you'll forget a vital line and freeze still and idiotically on-stage as Chipp pulls what's left of his hair out of his head, or I'll make unfortunate bodily noises at really inopportune moments. An
d the constantly thudding racket in your rib cage, sickly butterflies winging your stomach into a mess of unease all the while stupidly excited for the adrenaline fueled night ahead.

The first thing on the agenda for the final rehearsal was the transition between the two groups' sections (the third left out due to Sarah's terrifying quarantined contagion) where we had music in the background as we marched on stage in a mirror order of personalities and took their place. Then in a smooth canon move we peel off and go to the back where we move the riser lid and riser further back. After just a couple of run-throughs it was pretty smooth, and looked effective.

We had a couple of run-throughs, the first one slow to remember everything before we picked the pace up. We didn't adapt much as we didn't want to panic ourselves before the performance. I think the only things we changed was the direction I jump down from "Yes, Chair" to get into position with Caitlin: instead of facing forwards, facing sideways, as the audience can see what I'm doing much more clearly. And also, after "little explosions of love" the "Whoosh" Charlotte joins in to turn herself around to face the audience. Everything else, we kept the same and ran through, refined and tried desperately to remember cues.

Then it was the long process of everyone getting costume and makeup on before we did a dress run-through. 

Here are some pictures of our development through the hour:

With all the makeup done, and costumes on, we did a run-through with the lights, and someone taking photos. The run-through all went well, no-one forgot lines or cues etc. here are the photos (some):

And so... following this came the dreaded and awaited hour: the performance.

Watching the other group smash theirs with a sledgehammer (it went very well) nerves jangled and we boogied our way up to the front. Sadly, the placing of the riser went wrong and it was slightly wonky for the rest of the performance. To be honest, I can't really remember what happened, it's all a bit of a blur, all I can really remember was starting and what felt like two minutes later reaching the end. From what I can remember, it went really well. We hit our cues, for lines and movement, no-one went wrong and we put all our energy into it. Basically, I thought it was a fantastic performance. Well done gang!

Monday 3rd July

Today was time to experiment with the make-up. Or more precisely, my make-up (which I did not apply, thank god).

We began with a white mask-like base to create the mime-effect. I thought the white mask was spooky enough, it looked I had no real features, just blank… and ghost-like… I think it reminded me of my own mortality…

On this white mask we just decided to apply a hella lot of black paint, beginning with the lips which were coated in a nice thick layer of black (black face paint does not taste nice it turns out, just for anyone who was curious) which made me feel well threatening and mysterious. Then around the eyes, lots of black eye liner stuff, and for the finishing touch, underneath the eye a line of black paint then watery black paint running down to look like mascara tears. As many class mates commented, I looked like a member of kiss.

After an awkward minute of being aware of Chipp doing his judgemental stare, my restraint burst and I asked what his problem was, and he pointed out that rather than enhancing facial expressions which Berkoff make-up should do, mine ironically masked my expressions. Therefore, my group developed the makeup into big quizzical eyebrows, extending the lips into a creepy permanent black smile and deciding to next time, paint subtler tears. I for one loved the new make-up, especially the stark contrast between the black tears and the creepy smile, really reflecting the mental state of my character (a mentally unstable psycho). Furthermore, the make-up really enhanced my facial expressions, so mission complete!

Following the make-up escapade, we decided to do a run-through. This was sick! Smooth and energetic with a hint of spicy sexual innuendo (or more explicit than a hint). Excited for the performance on Wednesday, I think our group have created and will achieve a well-deserved rousing performance.

My only problem came at the end when I struggled for ten minutes trying to get the black smudges off my face before I returned back to the real world.

Sunday 2nd July

Nerds that we are, our group decided to meet outside of school to 1. pick up a costume from the high class retailers, Primark, and 2. rehearse in our newly purchased costumes. Not even yet met up and disaster struck… I couldn't meet them in town!

So a simple solution was drawn up where they would just buy mine and I'd pay them back. Sorted.

After some very nice flapjack and a visit from Hannah's mum exclaiming about a baby ladybird she had discovered in the garden, we got to work in Hannah's sitting room (surrounded by her embarrassing family photos he…he…heeee). Must admit, not wholly comfortable with the costume, for one, it's probably the most feminine thing I've worn all year, and it is a little revealing for my tastes, displays my gorgeous tan lines and just doesn't sit well with me. However, the combined effect of all four of us wearing the exact same outfit in my opinion made it all the more effective especially in portraying the idea of a single entity with multiple personality traits.

The only problems found with the costume was that the flimsy cheap socks began to tear as we moved around in them, and due to the smooth material, at the point where I lift Caitlin and she wraps her legs around my waist and leans back acting as the 'penis' to Charlotte's bellybutton, she began to slip a little. We quickly adapted to this situation I think by just being a bit more firm in our hold, a little less vigorous with the thrusting. Other than that (and general uneasiness) the costumes were fine and fit the bill.

With the costumes successful and all fitting adequately, we began our rehearsal. We began to slowly run through it, looking at places to iron-out faults pointed out at the last Wednesday rehearsal, such as rising with more purpose and in-sync, working on my "STOP! That really shocked him." and most importantly, diction.  The main problem with this rehearsal was the lack of head space especially with Hannah's chandelier-like light, and the small replacement for the riser, plus feeling a little self-conscious with Hannah's mum nearby and the nature of our play so speaking the lines with a little less volume or passion.

We spent a while on the section which had caused a momentary pause on Wednesday. It was after my line of "Oh it was awful! So was the hundredth time come to that." followed by Hannah's "Find out?" Questioned to the other person in the conversation. This was awkward because as a group we kept forgetting to lean forward in acknowledgement of the imaginary person in the conversation, so we tried to work out a way for either all of us to remember a simple movement after "hundredth time come to that" or to just have Hannah acknowledging and questioning seeing as it's her line following. In the end we decided to have Hannah going "hmm?" and us just putting on confused expressions as she says this (this was after a number of trial and errors including us all in-sync tilting our heads and going "hmmm?" which resulted in an impromptu canon performance).

After ironing out a few moments where we can move or get up in sync, we did another full run without stopping which went very smoothly and was a positive start to the week of the performance. I think we'll kill the performance and bury the body…

Had to stop after the last run else I'd miss my train.

Make-up and Costume

We had many conversations concerning make up and costume.

One of the ideas was to have the same make-up but with different costumes for each personality, me perhaps with ripped clothes, or a leather jacket, Hannah with a conservative motherly outfit, Charlotte with an apron and a scarf tied around the neck (50s housewife-esque) and Caitlin obviously in red, fishnet tights etc. but we thought people might just see this as four different people.

The next idea was to have the same make-up and similar costumes, so say a white shirt and black trousers, I could have mine ripped and muddy, Caitlin buttoned down and tied at the bottom to show some skin, Charlotte tucked in with the top button undone, maybe with an apron or scarf, and Hannah tucked in and buttoned all the way to the top. But we weren't sure we like this and wanted to look at having nightwear on as she's meant to be in pajamas or nightie.

So we decided on having the same pajamas, going to Primark and buying a top then wearing black leggings underneath. And to show the different personalities, we went for different make-up and hairstyles, me with black lipstick and eyeliner, Caitlin rouged cheeks and big red lipstick, Charlotte pretty, prim make-up and Hannah mostly natural. The hairstyles would reflect this also.

We looked at images of Berkoff make-up and found that most had white mask-like face paint, with exaggerated expressions.




So on Monday, we experimented with makeup (on me) using the guy on the right above as quite a heavy influence for the final result.

First attempt at face, but wasn't expressive enough.

Last face, using the guy above as inspiration to extend the ends of the lips and enlarge the eyebrows, but we may make the tears smaller for the performance.

The first part just showing how we created the tears.

Wednesday 21st June

With the script fully blocked, and pretty well rehearsed if I may say so, all of the night was taken up with rehearsing what we had, and refining sections. I arrived late after an enchanting Biology trip looking at grass, so we didn't have as long as we may have hoped, but we were back in the performance space! Finally!

We did a slow run through to remember all the points and changes etc. and this felt pretty good, none of forgetting much and what we did forget was due to the slower pace making our brains work slower. So we did another run through which was fast paced and this filled us with confidence, the only one messing up really me, on the last page as I always seem to forget my cues for this specific section (this was a theme which carried one during the night, until the performance where I nailed them cues).

We decided that some parts of our choreography had the potential to be more dynamic and synchronised, and so make it more Berkoffian. One of these moments we tweaked was at the beginning when we all say "Yes, Chair" together and mime sitting down, originally I jumped down, Caitlin got up and we did "Yes, Chair" in a line together, but this had awkward movement getting to it, we changed this to me staying high, and Caitlin staying on the floor making it look way more effective as there were more levels and we were in a kind of diamond formation (sadly, in the performance I ruined this image by losing my balance). This also lent itself to the next bit when previously me and Caitlin had gone up onto the riser and done our little pose, now I came down and she stood up and in one smooth move, me met each other in the perfect position to do the same move, and although not as high, in a more central and obvious placing, bringing more attention to it. What a decision with many fruits to harvest (weird analogy) as this meant there was a fantastic transition into the next position as Hannah just turned Caitlin's shoulders and pushed her down, making it snappier and therefore, more life Berkoff! Whoop, we were on a roll!

Following this, we edited my part where I say "At ease" for the second time so that I fell back on the riser as if were going to sleep (sort of) then Hannah for her line "Then I can relax and got to sleep" can put her legs over mine and "go to sleep" (a line I mentioned earlier in my logs caused a bit of problem)which again, meant the next bit was more effective when I stand up to say my line, doing a passing the voice as I knock Hannah aside.

Again, I mentioned earlier in my logs that I thought Caitlin should adapt the bit where she acts as my 'penis' so that she can be lower down, we did this through her holding onto my forearms rather than her neck, and I think this immediately makes the image more effective and easier for the audience to understand.

A moment where the transition could have been more synchronised was getting up after "Then I grew up. No I never had another sexual experience" when Charlotte says "Well, I didn't get much out of that belly-button experience" Charlotte, Caitlin and myself are all on the floor, so as Charlotte gets up, we could all do it but in a way which is obviously the same movement rather than haphazardly rising. We lent forward, slammed hands on the floor, up into downward dog, then rise. It took a while to get in time with each other, and even in the small performance at the end, me and Caitlin were a bit behind, and I managed to lose my balance and look like an idiot.

In the section after Caitlin's emphatic fight to get on the riser, instead of pulling her forward, we changed it to pulling her backwards, as this meant the when she stood back up, it was less awkward and her line was neither stunted nor spoken to the back as she picks Hannah her up, keeping the pace high.

The bit with the "blue eye" moment was extended as because there was a break in character from Caitlin, and so a break from the script in a way, we had to have a way of getting back into it, so we had me and Hannah coughing then doing the woosh again then Charlotte copying but with two eyes a bit after us. This added humour and allowed us to get back into character without it feeling awkward.

We also added another synchronised moment with Berkoff sound effects after "Ding-dong" where we open a door with a creak, a shocked intake of breath etc. It's a nice break from our normal move and acts as a set up for the next part. Charlotte also adopted an Italian accent acting as the mother at the front whilst Caitlin flops at the back (though the accent turns a bit Indian towards the end, but I love it).

We made more of the "Then we're alone. He kisses..." with more elaborate choreography, rather than Charlotte and Hannah just coming up to hug Caitlin, Hannah hugs from behind, then Caitlin spins in her arms, then falls into Charlotte for kiss till I shout stop. Then after I shout this, they push me down and I burst out of them for my "I love you" till I'm pulled down again to forma window.

We performed it at the end of the night, and watching it back there were a couple of points which we need to work on. The main thing, which I think I am particularly prone to, is when we're not in the main action, shifting around a lot, fidgeting etc. so we need to have a focus and stay as still as possible. Furthermore, I kept preempting movements, which meant they lost their effect. And something which was picked up on by the audience was my diction, losing the words as I try and shout the loudly or something. I've always struggled with diction since I was a child, some sort of speech problem, and it wasn't until year Nine I really got any help with it from my drama teacher of the time, and I still fall foul of mumbling, speaking too fast or just not pronouncing consonants and being lazy with the mouth. I am conscious of the problem and try to work hard to overcome it.

Video of our performance:

Monday 12th and Wednesday 14th June

On Monday, we carried on blocking from where we left off, on the "he started shivering" line, originally, we had been moving in a shivery way, but slowly, so in a Berkoff manner to increase pace and humour, we decided to exaggerate this movement into completely over-the-top shivering. Furthermore, as Caitlin says "Stammering the Italian" we began shouting random Italian words (Mario, Pizza, Pasta, Chica, Bella!) and to immediately stop and return to neutral face as Hannah slams her hands down on the riser.

This section was followed by the more melancholy admittance that the woman didn't know much about emotions, adding a quick stark contrast in mood. This meant that the original splitting of the line with the me, the psycho, saying it all didn't really work. We decided to split the lines between the four of us and create a simple movement which wouldn't interfere with the mood. This definitely worked a lot better, and was probably more striking to the audience in relation to realising the suffering the woman went through "day after day".

This also helped for a contrast to emphasise the new experience of emotion she has with the boy, as as soon as we say these lines we immediately fall back into "I began to feel these little explosions of love" here we made contained "Pew" noises, which I really love as I feel it reflects the tingling you get at the beginning of a strong feeling before it swells with the "Woosh" that me and Caitlin do in-sync, then contained again by Hannah. A visceral demonstration of feeling, you might say.

We hit a wall with blocking for "I quite the Italian lessons" so decided to leave movement for this line, just act a bit annoyed or summit. Then for "I'd go down to do the shopping" originally we blocked Hannah to have her hands out as if holding plastic bags, with the other two coming up underneath as the 'bags' to deliver their lines. At first we kinda liked it, but then realised it wasn't really clear what they were doing, so changed it to just a little stealing of each others' lines, followed by a synchronised movement for "pale and sad, and wearing a white mac."


On Wednesday, we reviewed this last section of blocking, then carried on developing. This saw the devising of "Woosh" everyone's favourite bit. Originally, this was normal, say the lines with a bit of choreography, but we decided to act on the development of Charlotte being very ditzy and a bit of an embarrassment to the whole group with her getting confused at the antiques of her own person. It also allowed us to break the flow of Berkoff, and come slightly out of character adding a lot of humour.

Then again we split the lines for "go away" to emphasise the characteristics, me shouting it very loud and angrily, Hannah pleading in a motherly tone, and Charlotte being really pleased with herself that she's joining in. We again used the last "go away" as an opportunity to bully Charlotte and display our embarrassment, through directing it at her rather than the boy, but her being completely oblivious.

This next section saw a lot of us adding synchronised movements with splits of the script to add Berkoff-esque sound effects such as the "Fwip-shhh" for the movement after "Huge Letters" as we each do a 'T' in the air. Also, in-sync swigging of booze and disgusted 'ach' at the bitterness. And finally "Ding-dong" as we meet the boy's mother.

We weren't really certain what to do with this section with the Italian mother rambling on and on about her son, but in the end had Caitlin falling dramatically into our hands on three sides of the riser, for the "he won't eat, he won't sleep..." which led to the section with the boy in his room. We used the lines to have canon bursts into tears from different personalities, then a tender moment at the front with the line "he hugs me, I hug him, he kisses me, I kiss him" then "STOP" from me, the one who can't be arsed with the whole thing and makes fun of the others, and this is again used later with the repeated "I love you" as I burst into Opratic song at the end in mockery of the others. I personally love this bit, going wild with Opera.

We then created the image of a window with me a Caitlin opposite in a diamond shape, sticking our heads together in the middle, each spouting our lines as other people in the flat. When we first tried this, I had the last line, and accidentally for some reason I know not, said it in a peculiar accent, which the others loved and so decided to adopt it themselves. What a spectacle!

We created another synchronised movement (been doing a lot of those lately) for the line "If you don't go to bed with me I kill myself" where we each put a knife to our throats then slice and 'pwagh' as blood spurts out in an array of gory glory! Originally, I (who doth speak the line) held two peoples' hands to my own throat, but this excluded one and was a bit awkward to get into, so we quickly adapted it to my orginal description. However, it was pointed that I should do an Italian accent as I am imitating an Italian boy, and due to my awful accents, it turned sounding pretty racist, but we went with it, and it definitely added texture.

We finally used the riser, for something other than standing on, or lying on, or sitting on, with my last line (almost) which is "bang, bang, bang, like a pile driver" (infer from that what you want) me underneath and the others banging it down with each bang as I say, "bang" and do a suggestive move underneath. I think this effective, though pretty awkward for me to perform, though thank God we changed the direction of my move from on my back, to on my front.

The last line is one we say together after someone says "Love is gentle, love is sweet" and we all say "So Sweet" but for our last line we decided to again emphasise the different characteristics by saying it in our different attitudes: I say it sarcastically with a glare out to the audience, Caitlin sexually, Charlotte excitedly, and Hannah sweetly. I think it is an effective, though maybe sudden as it's a little short, but a nice send-off from our section of the script.

We finished blocking the whole section! So proud!

Below is a small performance, not the whole bit we blocked, but a cheeky teaser:

Wednesday 7th June

Wednesday saw a surprising amount of productivity in our group, partially because of awesome brainwaves, and partially because we were devising a section with lots of physical opportunity.

The first part of the lesson we looked at the part of the script which was looking at the memory of her marriage and getting excited about sex, disappointed with sex, then finding out about erogenous zones. When psycho (me) complains about her 'first night' we tried to create a simplistic, abstract physical move to demonstrate the movement (which I'm sure needed explaining) beginning with something with me talking at the back on the riser, then Hannah and Caitlin lifting Charlotte to perform the movements.

Here is our first attempt:

This was a little awkward and not clearly emphasised enough to be effective in what we wanted to portray, so we decided to create a less complicated movement which could be done in synchronisation in line, with me behind doing the same movement which I think makes it look more effective, especially as a piece of Berkoff. The looped movement in-sync both looked good and fit with the lines really well, all ending with a sigh of disappointment after the second run movement at the exact moment I finish my lines. 

Then next part we took advantage of the lines and Caitlin's 'sexy' character to over-exaggerate the movement, which we did through bringing Caitlin as the main focus, her going onto my shoulders. This also helped to create a sense of an alliance between the two extreme emotions: psycho and sexy, which helps with the kind-off exaggerated movement to elevate the sense of emotion/character. It took a while to get the lift right, beginning with Caitlin getting on the riser behind me, with me kneeling on the ground, then me squatting and her getting up and finally we decided to stay with me sitting on the front of the riser, Caitlin stepping behind, onto my shoulders, then me standing up. I think Caitlin being that high really helps with her emotion, adding a new dynamic to the movement allowing her to manipulate bodies, and adding humour. To make sure the section didn't lose its effectiveness and to save me from dying, we cut a few lines to shorten the section and add a bit more of a flow to keep it snappy and interesting. 

Getting out of the shoulder lift also proved difficult, as there appeared no way of getting Caitlin down safely without it being a bit clumsy, furthermore, Caitlin had a line straight after which needed to be snappy and effective. Thankfully, our saviour Mr Chipp swooped in a suggested a drop where I just bend over from the waist, without being conscious of Caitlin on my shoulders, and her feet should just touch the ground and go off. I was terrified of killing Caitlin and snapping my back the first time we tried this, but it was magical! It worked first time! It also turned out to be perfect for the next line which talked about the 'rump' and my 'rump' happened to be in the air right in the centre of stage straight after the lift and Caitlin could use it as a table or whatever she wants to do with it. 

This is our performance up to the "rump" part:

A major point from Mr Chipp during the rehearsal was the direction of our faces and lines. He noticed when I was doing my "No Loin. No Rump. No fillet. No Nothing!" (in following video) I directed my lines down with my concentration on the movement. He also noticed in our performance that we often direct our lines either to each other or directly in front-middle where the person we're speaking to is located, the neighbour. Looking at everyone in the audience, or just staring at a single random person, could add humour or make the more uncomfortable especially during the 'sexy' moments, such as the moment with Caitlin's legs spread for the 'loin' where I stroke my hands up her legs. During this first performance of that, I was pretty embarrassed, as were the others and I lost my composure a bit during the performance. 

An exciting part of the devising was a part with Caitlin where she gets excited about the young Italian, we decided to really draw out some movement before her line to create humour for a 'punch line' as the other personalities try to prevent the 'sexy' one taking control out of embarrassment. Thus ensued a load of choreography beginning with me as the 'psycho' violently grabbing Caitlin around the waist, her screaming a kicking, to the opposite corner, eventually she gets free and gets up to the riser to deliver her line. The choreography was hard to get right, but after a bit of rehearsal it got pretty smooth.

Generally the rehearsal was productive, and the end result was effective, though it still needs more pace and refinement, parts still pretty messy and unsynchronised etc. but with more rehearsal it should be awesome. 

The last part of our performance:

Monday 5th June

After a week off school (yay) we needed a little refresher, so Monday was mainly spent refreshing our memory and refining points which we had already defined. With my disgusting memory for choreography, it took a while for me to get into the flow of the movement and sequence and it was clunky to begin with, then began to pick up as we went over it. It was still a bit messy by the end, but this was partially due to the fact that most of the group had scripts (except me, just to point out ;) ) and I was clunky because I'm clumsy and struggle with choreography - as pointed out earlier in the blog.

At the end of the rehearsal, as is customary, we performed a small section of our devised script to the rest of the class. This went relatively well considering the lack of rehearsal and the use of scripts, but there were a few points of issue as well as a couple of moments pointed out in feedback from the audience (the 9-strong audience, I know, massive turn-out).

One of the points addressed the clarity and precision of our movement, picking up on the fact that it wasn't quite perfectly together. One of these moments where we needed most to improve precision was between me and Caitlin in a section devised in the 'passing of the voice' lesson where Caitlin passes a thread as where last time this had been slick and magical, this time it was sloppy and imprecise, mainly my fault I'm afraid, I was preempting it and this made my brain do a caffufly thing, and I missed the timing completely.

"Then I can relax and go to sleep" had a move where we all lift Hannah into 'lying-down' position, this was in hindsight probably a little too complicated, long and physically demanding for the length of line it was we had to do it, and this told in the performance where it was clunky, slow and ineffective, slowing the pace right down. Next time, I feel we either need to really work on getting the lift slick and smooth, or cut it and have her doing a simpler move such as lying back on the riser.

A point pointed out by the audience was that we made too much of the chicken pox line, which was short but had some elaborate movement (I thought personally thought we should have all just done a quick chicken movement but the rest of my group laughed that off the table) so either we need to cut the movement and keep the line, simplify the movement, or cut the line and movement completely, I like the latter idea as the line is unneeded and awkward as it is.

Although I love the move where Caitlin acts as my penis, (because I finally feel like a patriarch with power!) as I think it's dynamic and humorous I think it's missing a definition which would come if she let go of my neck with her hands, so we need to work out a safe way of doing the move so she's lower down, as it looks a little too high and perhaps not understandably a penis.

I think we generally need to work on the definition and synchronisation of movement which whould come when we lose scripts, and with more rehearsal.

Down below is the video of our end of lesson performance:

Another Woman Alone 22.05.2017

A Monday morning rehearsal... tiredness...

A point pointed by the pointer-outer Monsieur Chipp, was that to effectively create the image of a single person, and meanwhile improve the aesthetics of the images, we should create connections between the speakers to indicate who was speaking, and the fact that we work as one and are not simply conversing in a group of women like a mother's meeting ( is that the saying?) having an old chinwag.

Un bon point!

D'aceur we began working on this point pointed out by the pointer-outer for the next hour before we performed our work. Therefore, we worked on the scenes already created and not only must it have looked more effective to the onlooker/ audience, but it felt like it ran faster, smoother and more effectively as a group and identity.

Examples of our work is at the beginning beginning with our backs turned and as each character speaks their letters of "O.R.G.A.S.M." we connect by pushing the previous speaker down/away etc. then as we progressed through our choreography, all we added were little touches from the characters, or in-sync looks at the speaker from other characters, or pushes out-of-the-way-to-take-centre-stage!

I think that the end result was effective and managed to have a smooth-running performance which helped the audience understand who was speaking and the connection between each identity of this one person.

The video below shows our performance at the end of the lesson. It's confusing because we're missing one of our people, Charlotte, so that's why look at an invisible person and push them out of the way. I love the bit where I catch the thread, but I need to work on the canon 'frozen' moment.

The video of our wonderful performance

Beginning Woman Alone 17.05.17

Having split the whole script, we began to work on choreographing the monologue.

We decided that the set would just be a single roster in the centre, upon which we  all gather and begin at the start, trying to indicate the idea that we are all four parts of one conscience. We also tried to do this through beginning in the same pose although with different posture and facial expressions (and of course we added a few neat levels in there). The first line in the section we decided to perform was "Orgasm. O.R.G.A.S.M" So we split the spelling of the word into each of our characters saying one or two of the letters, again emphasising the fact that we belonged to the same brain and to introduce each of our characteristics through our stance and the manner in which we speak the letter.

The physical choreography was at first hard to come up with, our brains not feeling quite up to the challenge of thinking of moves to match the words, but once they had whirred into action, warming up the nerves and the few brain cells each of us own, we eventually got into a swing and began to create the basic outline of some kind of Berkoff thing. Therefore, in the first couple of hours we managed to create something resembling a piece of drama over the first page of dialogue.

We had a little interlude between the rehearsing to watch the upper BTECs perform their theatre in education piece which was very impressive and quite touching at times. Must admit that none of us were to sad to have a little break from Berkoff, all exhausted from the physical toll it takes.

At the end of the night we had to perform our pieces to peoples and I'm pleased to say that I was pretty proud of what we'd achieved. I felt the movements were effective though a couple of moments were a little awkward and perhaps need tweaking or neatening up, or just cutting all together. All in all it was adequately fast paced and physical for a first rehearsal and performance.

I think that we need to improve the definition of our movements, making them more precise and clear cut. Looking at the film footage (much to my displeasure) I noticed that I often lose a stable stature instead moving too much when I'm not doing the choreography making it seem as though I lose my character when not acting my lines.

My favourite parts were the "Look, this is how I do it" and the canon frozen moment, this is because they seemed very in-sync and as though we were all part of the same body, whilst looking effective.

All in all, a good first performance I do believe.

Splitting Woman Alone 15.05.17

Monday's lesson we allocated the three sections to the three different groups of four (Caitlin came back - yay) we got the middle section, and we began splitting it into four personalities. We decided on Mother, Sexy, Angry Psycho, and Ditzy Gossip. I got the angry psycho which will be fun to do.

The splitting of the lines was actually quite difficult, trying allocate the most appropriate and effective lines to each personality, whether it was ironic or just suiting the character. The script and the character also turned out to be crazy and I swear we landed the most weirdly sexual part of the whole monologue. I think it'll be good fun to work out and create, and much easier than the first part which we attempted last week and completely failed at.

Lunch and Woman Alone 10.05.17

Caitlin was ill again! This meant we had to perform Lunch with only three people, so followed the adaptation of it. We weren't sure how to pull it off at first, either there are two sun-consciences or the female does both real and sub-conscience, in the end deciding on the latter. This meant that Charlotte had to suddenly learn all of hers and Caitlin's lines and in way which meant you could tell which part was sub-conscience and real. I also had to adapt to being the only full-on Berkoff person, as before I was working with and interacting with Caitlin, and using her energy as well as my own to pull off an engaging performance - therefore it was pretty difficult.

It was hard to adapt at first, but once we got into the swing of things it began to get pretty smooth. In the end, the first two pages had a lot of energy, and a decent amount of valid Berkoff style action, somehow managing to work out the last bit of page two which was an interlocking dialogue with me and the girl. The last page was also pretty good as the two 'real' began to have more movement, the problem came from the fact that it didn't have quite enough pace, energy or engaging movement, plus, I din't really have much to do other than listen, but I think considering our circumstances and how much we had to adapt, it turned out pretty decent.

From the feedback of the performance, although apparently my voice had the right volume and energy for Berkoff, it was a little too much too much of the time and I needed to add more variation. Furthermore, I stumbled very obviously on a couple of my lines, Charlotte doing a far better job despite half of her lines being new that day. The physical movement was good and appropriate to the lines, though it slackened towards the end. However, overall, it had a good reaction and I believe that we did pretty well considering we lost one of our cast members.

After the lesson, during N2C, we began looking at Woman Alone in the same groups as Lunch. The first thing was splitting the monologue into the three different attitudes, we had gossipy House Wife, Mother and Sexy. We split the lines and then began adding the physical movements but we found it quite difficult to achieve - partly because we just exhausted - as the text didn't have quite the same indication of physical movements as the last two.

We didn't really come up with nearly enough Berkoff movements, and the ones we did come up with were generally not quite defined or mimetic enough. This was especially with the dancing which I hadn't realised until the performance. I found that the whole lacked an energy or a confidence required for Berkoff and I had no confidence performing it: it felt awkward and slow. Did not go away from the lesson feeling like I'd achieved much.

Monday 8th May

It was a pretty relaxed session today, just a few drama games then forty minutes rehearsal. Played a weird game where we have to pass pens or something and it was way too confusing for my brain's capability.

We began rehearsing our Lunch scenes, in our groups of four, but Caitlin wasn't there - she was ill. This made it a little difficult coming up with sequences especially as the other sun-conscience she was the only other one with large Berkoff movements. We managed without her, and actually came up with quite a bit of choreography in this lesson. By the end of the lesson, the first section was quite smooth and rehearsed, as we already had an idea of what Caitlin was doing from the previous lesson and it had a lot of me being very loud. However, the next two pages are still a bit under-rehearsed and we have very little Berkoff movements. We find the text pretty confusing and it's hard to understand which part is sub-conscience and real, and so hard to make movements to fit to the dialogue.

We definitely made some progress through the lesson in our rehearsing, but it still doesn't fell secure, and doesn't have the right energy needed for Berkoff.

Wednesday 3rd May - East then Lunch

In the lesson time, we were again working on the section from East from last week. At the beginning of the lesson, I was having doubts about whether our performance would be suitable for Berkoff, and whether it was any good at all. You never know until you perform it... so after the first twenty minutes Chipp made us do a sneak peak of the first twenty seconds to see if we were on track. Naturally I was nervous, of being revealed as awful at Berkoff and any form of self-directing! But it was fine - turned out we were on the right track after all and people seemed to enjoy the performance so thumbs up from me.

Therefore, with this report, we decided to carry on in the same nature as we had done previously, and because we're just such damn good workers and real goody-two-shoes, we added a little extra bit on to the end. One bit of advice we tried to act on from our twenty second preview review, was to add more sound effects. We added a couple, but I don't feel like it was to the right extent or effect, watching another group's later I realised they were pauses in the dialogue whereas we tried to incorporate it into the dialogue making it a bit rushed and ineffective.

After rehearsing for an hour or so, I can certifiably tell you that Berkoff is extraordinarily exhausting. At the end of our piece, I end up lying on the ground and found that the space of time between me finishing and getting up increased with each rehearsal - apparently I am not in great physical shape at the moment.

One of the major issues for me personally was coordinating the lines coming out of my mouth with the movements, remembering the lines whilst moving, remembering the moves, then the facial expression and characterisation on top of that, as well as the Cockney accent (still atrocious), so basically, I had a problem with everything.

However, with copious (exhausting) rehearsal the piece got pretty smooth and had a very good pace to it. It was energetic with a lot of movement, and I think it went down pretty well with the audience. I certainly felt pretty good after performing it, though it wasn't perfect, I think it began to capture the idea of Berkoff and had a lot of good energy.

In the N2C time we began looking at another of Berkoff's plays: Lunch. This involves and man and a woman and their sub-consciences in which the couple are constrained by societal etiquette / awkwardness whilst the sub-consciences have free reign expressing their thoughts, getting pretty weird, sexual and a bit uncomfortable (to perform at least) at times. I took the part of the males sub-conscience despite being forced to play the female one in the read-through because I "always play the guy" or something. It was pretty fun getting into this part, and trying to get rid of all reservations and just go for it. I think I was maybe a little too loud, forgetting to be subtle at times, but the voice kind of worked for the character. 

We found it hard to come up with anything, partly because it was difficult splitting the lines between real and conscience and trying to make it work in performance with the different interactions e.g. could the two sub-consciences interact, should they also interact with opposite gender's real person, should the two real persons act Berkoffian or should they have more realism. In the end, we decided the two sub-consciences should interact, though not with the opposite gender's real person and the real one should have more realism though the sub-conscience manipulates their bodies at times. It was also difficult because people were feeling a bit exhausted, and therefore not very creative or on the ball. By the end of the lesson, we weren't feeling any more confident with the scene then we did ten minutes in to the rehearsal process, all we were really confident with was the entrance. We didn't leave it positively, and were a bit nervous about having to perform it the following week.  

Berkoff No. 2

Looking again at Berkoff (as I guess we will for the next couple of months) we began with an exercise in partners creating slow-motion, defined and exaggerated fight moves. We developed this gradually first through just coming up with the moves as a sequence of four with exaggerated mask-like faces, then adding words to the action, a little sequence at the beginning to give the moves context, the splitting apart and each facing the audience respectively. During the process, I began to realise how hard it was to maintain multiple disciplines at once: the face mask, the definition of the movement, remembering choreography and moves etc. during the practice, I realised my moves weren’t defined enough e.g. no definitive beginnings and ends to make as once I’d do a move, I might still move slightly, so I began working on making it more staccato and thinking of it in that way meant I did that more easily, though still not perfectly. However, in the performance, my downfall became clear: choreography. As always. Choreography is my failing in everything, my mind just pulls blanks for moves, and it did in this case as you can see in the video below:

Following this exercise we split into different pairs and began to look more into creating an actual scene. The theme of the scene we created was surrounding the idea of two waiters/ servants laying a table. Me and Hannah decided to have two contrasting characters, one who was a bit of a quiet perfectionist and the other (me) was arrogant, jealous and over the top. I think that the contrasting characteristics worked well for the performance, creating a great basis for an undercurrent of friction and argument between the two characters, and opportunities arose in which we could have little moments such as glares, and deliberate twitches of table setting to rile the other.

The physical movement was harder to create and subsequently pull off (especially with my lack of skill in choreography, memory and grace) especially considering the style of Berkoff. It was a massive struggle trying to remember the moves, (let alone the order of movements) the facial expressions, character etc. (thank god there weren't any lines). The first problem was creating appropriate movements, to also work with the music, some fantastically weird and groovy Tom Waits. We eventually came up with around thirty seconds of movement, deciding to do some synchronised movements, some responsive similar movements and alternate. Although I think the piece was quite fun, firstly, our timing went a bit off in the middle section when we're putting down plates (think it was my fault, I'm a terrible counter) but the main problem is that it wasn't extremely Berkoff-like. The movements were too fluid without beginnings and ends plus not precise enough.

Our next task was looking at the beginning of East. The setting was interesting, well, interestingly bare - just five chairs sat at the back for the chorus to sit on. The stage directions tell the cast to enter and sing a song off beat, different keys and descant, ( I think we spent a little too long trying to find the song on youtube to get the tune, you can't tell what the tune is anyway it's that bad) the first port of call was to create each character, I played the Dad which was decided was a bit of an in the pub guy, with a tuneless voice and overconfidence.

Again, my problem for the physical side of the piece was the beginning and end of moves, e.g. they're too fluid, need to be more "defined and mimetic". However, I repaired this issue before we performed it though the movements look a little awkward and unrealistic (in an unrealistic Berkoff way) but I feel we performed an almost-Berkoff like piece.

The next part of the lesson was spent on looking at the following section of East between Les and Mike which is a dialogue about the moment they became best friends. In the read-through I was given the role of stage-direction reader - there was one direction to read and the other readers skipped through it, my talent was wasted! But then half-way through we swapped roles and I got to show-off my perfect cockney accent (if it's anything other than middle-class Radio 4 accent or even posher, then I can't do it). Then in pairs we began working on a one-minute section of the first scene.

I went with Charlotte, Charlotte playing Mike, and Les: yours truly. The forty minutes before break were quite fruitless, finding it very difficult to come up with appropriate movements, or even good ones, we were feeling pretty hopeless. But after break, a spurt of creativity came and we were coming up with movements quick and slick. This came partly through adapting the section we were going to perform, starting a bit later, so that we started with my line "A crowd of yobs formed a ring of yellow face in the lamplight" rather than talking about going "round back" and something about "dragon's breath" cutting out a small section in the middle about police men and finishing after a small slow-motion fight. The editing of the script took a long time, with lots of different edits and failed choreography till we decided on which bits we were doing, but I feel that in the end, it was an appropriate script with a good number of suitable lines for each character. We decided to have a lot of synchronised movement to centralise the narrative (and make it easy for us and the audience to follow) as well as some parts with alternate, or even opposing movements.

Although not quite perfect yet (especially the atrocious Cockney accents), I think our scene is looking pretty promising for the performance next week.

Berkoff and Lecoq

Berkoff is a British actor, writer, director and practitioner who is known for his physical, exaggerated theatre technique which defies the norms of naturalistic theatre. His style is extremely physical preferring to focus on movement rather than voice. Berkoff often rejected ensemble productions preferring instead to focus on movement rather than voice. Berkoff said it was important "to see how I could bring mime together with the spoken word as its opposite partner, creating the form and structure of the piece" using techniques such as background movement, repetitive actions, and mime. According to Berkoff, the purpose of a script is to help "minimalise and physicalise" the story, stripping it down to its most basic components. The idea of 'Total Theatre' was important to Berkoff with the idea that every movement, line and lighting effect is perfect for a purpose to create extreme experiences for the audience.

Steven berkoff learnt under Jacques Leqoc at L'ecole Internationale De Theatre Jacques Lecoq who likely had a large influence on Berkoff's technique. A mime artist, he departed from the traditional silent mime, rejecting also the idea of mime being a codified sign language where every movement had a meaning, regarding mime instead as the body component of acting. His approach to acting was based on clowning, the use of masks and improvisation. He used two different masks, the first blank, making him use the rest of his body to express the emotion, the second one portrays an emotion such as joy, grief or torment to which he adapts his body language to express the emotion on the mask.

Beginning Berkoff 24.04.17

New term, new unit. This one combines both acting and pysical theatre the ultimate aim producing a monologue piece (though splitting it into different parts) called 'A Woman Alone' by Franca Rame using the style of Steven Berkoff (see next blog post for research on him).

Beginning the actual lesson, we started with a game passing extreme mask-like expressions from one to another across the room (you wouldn't think coming up with facial expressions was hard until having a mask (figurative) thrown at you and having to come up with one on the spot) this proved to be an extremely entertaining game with some of the faces produced frankly haunting. Expanding from this, we did the same in pairs therefore broadening the number of faces tried so that ultimately we had a facial mask expression we liked - this we then found out would have to be kept on for a length time, now a regrettable decision for some including me, whose face began to hurt after a couple of minutes - but using these expressions we then improvised around it through creating a body language using a technique of moving our bodies in a circle through our nose to find the right posture and from there the voice to create a character. It was weird how easily you began to find a character through using this technique as the face indicated a body posture and the posture a character with a unique voice (don't know what happened with mine, just seemed to morph into my neighbour's voice).

With these characters we then improvised in a 'blind date' for a minute long scene. I loved this, just suddenly deciding my character was a backwards farmer with no knowledge of modern social etiquette or hygiene. To be honest, coming up with the scene was only difficult in that we kept cracking up during the scene or losing the mask face which was really beginning to get very strained and my eyebrow which wasn't raised began shaking. Found my mask face meant it was really hard to fully pronounce words which was quite useful for the characterisation for an unintelligible accent commonly associated with farmers (though I can't do accents to save my life, though I based the character of the local farmers to my home who have really broad Derbyshire accents). Perhaps in the mini performance I hadn't really thought of a proper dialogue as it wasn't too polished and still pretty improvised, but it was fun performing it, evident in the number of times I almost cracked up. All the other performances were top-notch, I was literally in tears at the end of Jenna, Melody and Sarah's performance.

Still utilising these characters, we were again split into groups, this time three of fours and used our characters to represent a characteristic of one person such as self-awareness, or sexual-drive. Still not sure I quite got the brief despite asking for clarification, but I went for it anyway. These were used in a job interview opener thing selling ourselves for the job of cleaner in an organisation. We came up with lines for each characteristic, swapping for each line. It was quite fun exploring three completely alternate aspects of one character.

Our mini performance:

I think I blanked a little on what I was going to say and rushed it a little, so it wasn't as decent a performance as I would have liked, but I loved working up to it. The process is somehow effective (at least internally) at helping grasp characters, though exaggerated, that's probably what I like most about it - not having any real restraints on how much you portray a character. 

I loved this lesson and can't wait to explore it more through this term.

Clear-Up Saturday

3 tons of soil...
               Some number of orange buckets...
                                                      Three wheelbarrows...
                                                                                 Twelve teenage girls....
                                                                                                               and one crazy teacher!

Link to video

WHY DID WE DO IT ON SOIL?!

(nah, it was worth it.)