Devising exercises / Halloween project / Logbook

This post shows a group of exercises which we used to create a piece about Dementia. Also during the process of creating our main piece we created a fright walk with a purpose to raise money for charity which helps people living with Dementia.

Isolation

In this exercise our group was given a word “Isolation” and our task was to show this word, as a photograph.

First of all, we thought about definition and the easiest way to represent it was to show one person far away from a group of people. But we are actors! We think out of box, so how to show this word differently using physical theatre? The idea was that four of us were holding hands with each other (in a cross) while a person behind them tried to hold hands too. But there were not any hands free, so the person felt isolated. We did not have a positive feedback another group did not understand what we were showing. It might be because we were standing too close to each other and our gestures were not clear. Also, because the isolated person was standing behind the group audience could not see what it was about.

The second exercise was to make a short scene with the same word. Learnt on our previous experience we have decided to change our story and use traditional techniques. Now we had a couple of girls, one of them was trying to introduce to her old company her new friend. She was cheering another girl up, but when the girl met her friends she forgot about her friend. And the friend felt isolated. This interpretation was more successful and another group understood it.

In front of the Lennox Plant

My first devising experience was on my second week, I have never heard or tried anything like this before. Usually, in traditional theatre you are coming for rehearsal and a director has unique vision on a play and build everything around. While in devising theatre actors have freedom to create something unique. There is a word or feeling what is needed to be represented. This is where actors start. 

So, on Friday 20th of September, Sonia gave us a piece from script by Bertolt Brecht “In front of the Lennox Plant”. The task was to perform it later. Also, we needed to think about a style of performance, because we had to show a crowd of working-class people, while there were only 6 people in a team including me!

First of all, we had to read the piece through and decided how we are going to separate the script between us. Also, which parts we are going to read together to create an effect of the crowd and which parts we are going to read one by one. This is what we had in the result:

Brechtian style is more about the story in general, not about characters. So, we did not pay too much attention on each one. The main task was to show conflict, sabotage and anger.

After understanding our parts, we decided to add physical theatre, holding every person with a monologue. Also, we tried “to break a fourth wall”, as it mentioned in one of the Brechtian techniques.

In the end we had a positive feedback from another group and Sonia. Especially, they have noticed an atmosphere of anger, using physical theatre and group voices.

Horror project

A raising money project, which was created in 2 weeks' time. Our audience were students and workers from Gloucestershire college. First of all, group of students came up with a plan and a story of hospital with insane people. Then we have decided that maximum it should be 10 people per performance and each performance should take about 8 mins. The entrance fee was 1 pound per person.

I had a role of a person on wheelchair who was tied up by carers. After understanding everyone parts, we were given absolutely freedom with script and movement. Then, decorations were putted in right places consider the plan. We used clipboards for making an effect of walls and different rooms. While one group of students went to the shop to buy props for decorating, another group of students were preparing their parts, music and light. In our scene there were 3 people including me – 2 carers and a patient. In our scene our first scenario was to transform carers to female nurses, while they were playing by male actors to emphasise that this hospital is completely insane. But we have changed it, because the place for our scene became clear invisible.

When everything was ready, I took some pictures and another student made a poster:

We were given positive feedback by Level 3 Performing Arts students. They suggested to make our scene more visible, because the light behind was not bright enough, also they did not get the story with stickers and different levels of insanity (in the final version this was cut off). However, overall, they were petrified.

This project helped to raise money, but also showed to me how a group of people can create a perfomance in a short time with a lack of props and money. At the same time, the project showed that we can work together as a united team.