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:
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