On the 5th of March (last Friday) I had a very interesting and enjoyable time with two of our cast members; Catherine and James who play the two characters in scene 3.
At the start of last week there were still teething problems with this scene. It is one of the more naturalistic scenes in our presentation and it was very difficult at first to find the right amount of energy. It was relatively boring and we were finding it difficult to make more exciting and the performers were finding it difficult to connect to the scene. Then on Thursday's rehearsal with Hannah, suddenly it was as if a light switched on and they both started to relax and became more comfortable with the scene. George had an idea earlier in the week to take them out of the rehearsal room and make them do the scene in a bar in town and involve real alcohol to see how it affected their performance and if it brought anything to light.
It worked brilliantly. We walked into town, which was nice in itself, chatting to them out of contexts of rehearsal, something we have no had much time to do with such a large cast. Once we arrived at the pub/bar The Millers Arms I showed them the table they would come to and then asked them to return outside and take a moment to think about the questions Hannah had asked them in their imagination exercises and to think about their body centres and the gestures of their characters. When they entered the pub I was already at the table with their wine ready and they entered as their characters.
Although I have tried to shy away from 'acting' techniques, improvising their meeting at the bar before going into beat 1 was beneficial so that they had already become comfortable being the characters in a public place. Whilst drinking the bottle of wine, (which was incidentally 14.5% and therefore got them quite nicely tipsy throughout the time in the pub), they spoke together in script and then used improvisation to explore the possible conversations that may have happened between the times the audience see them. They very smoothly slipped between their actual beats and the material they were improvising. Although this is technically fabricating upon what Stephen's has written and the characters do not actually exist, it aided James and Catherine in understanding the flow of the journey of the scene.
Furthermore, actually being able to use real 'props' helped the scene - Catherine's flirting became far more natural but also at a higher level when she had the wine glass. We had already considered the idea that in the performance space that they would leave wine glasses along the yellow line as time passes, and this exercise illustrates that this may work.
Having finished the bottle of wine at the end of beat three, we left the pub and walked home with James and Catherine remaining in character. In the script the characters walk home and we thought that if James and Catherine could almost have memories of landmarks and how it actually felt to walk home in the cold that it may potentially aid the scene. The walk was slightly too long and they began to have trouble finding conversation having spoken so much in the pub. This was not their fault, more that I live that little too far away from town.
Once we arrived at the next destination; the church at the bottom of The Terrace near Ye Olde Beverly they were able to begin beat 4. This moment was beautiful. The blocking that Hannah had already experimented with them was able to be illustrated here and informed what they did so naturally. At this point they had been in character for almost 40 minutes. The short walk back to my house meant that they found more to talk about once inside; my house was representing James' character's flat. Sadly we had run out of coffee so tea was made instead but they both used the mugs like they had been using wine glasses. Again, Hannah's blocking informed how they manipulated the space of my lounge and James' awkwardness worked well and Catherine's last line of beat 5 was delivered perfectly.
All in all it was an incredibly successful exercise and James and Catherine both felt that they responded to this method of working. I found it incredibly interesting, feeling like it was a perrformance just for me, the lone audience member of this very intimate meeting of two old aquaintances.
Although it is perhaps stepping into the boundaries of fabrication, even method acting to an extent, it was in fact about taking them out of the rehearsal room, making them feel more comfortable in their surroundings and realising elements of a journey similar to that in the scene.
I have even managed to find a CPP link which is similar to this exercise! When Little Bulb made the first incarnation of Crocosmia, they would often walk around in character, exploring the possibilities of the personas they were creating. The first line of the script is "I am going to keep this short and to the point, because it’s all been said before by far more eloquent people than me. But our words have no impact upon you, therefore I’m going to talk to you in a language that you understand. Our words are dead until we give them life with our blood." Although our work has a script to start of with, it is our performers who are developing the characters and making them fuller, devising the personas and exploring how to present themselves. It may sound prentious but it is the performers who are giving them life.
Fingers Crossed!
Short Video to follow very soon.
Ellie
At the start of last week there were still teething problems with this scene. It is one of the more naturalistic scenes in our presentation and it was very difficult at first to find the right amount of energy. It was relatively boring and we were finding it difficult to make more exciting and the performers were finding it difficult to connect to the scene. Then on Thursday's rehearsal with Hannah, suddenly it was as if a light switched on and they both started to relax and became more comfortable with the scene. George had an idea earlier in the week to take them out of the rehearsal room and make them do the scene in a bar in town and involve real alcohol to see how it affected their performance and if it brought anything to light.
It worked brilliantly. We walked into town, which was nice in itself, chatting to them out of contexts of rehearsal, something we have no had much time to do with such a large cast. Once we arrived at the pub/bar The Millers Arms I showed them the table they would come to and then asked them to return outside and take a moment to think about the questions Hannah had asked them in their imagination exercises and to think about their body centres and the gestures of their characters. When they entered the pub I was already at the table with their wine ready and they entered as their characters.
Although I have tried to shy away from 'acting' techniques, improvising their meeting at the bar before going into beat 1 was beneficial so that they had already become comfortable being the characters in a public place. Whilst drinking the bottle of wine, (which was incidentally 14.5% and therefore got them quite nicely tipsy throughout the time in the pub), they spoke together in script and then used improvisation to explore the possible conversations that may have happened between the times the audience see them. They very smoothly slipped between their actual beats and the material they were improvising. Although this is technically fabricating upon what Stephen's has written and the characters do not actually exist, it aided James and Catherine in understanding the flow of the journey of the scene.
Furthermore, actually being able to use real 'props' helped the scene - Catherine's flirting became far more natural but also at a higher level when she had the wine glass. We had already considered the idea that in the performance space that they would leave wine glasses along the yellow line as time passes, and this exercise illustrates that this may work.
Having finished the bottle of wine at the end of beat three, we left the pub and walked home with James and Catherine remaining in character. In the script the characters walk home and we thought that if James and Catherine could almost have memories of landmarks and how it actually felt to walk home in the cold that it may potentially aid the scene. The walk was slightly too long and they began to have trouble finding conversation having spoken so much in the pub. This was not their fault, more that I live that little too far away from town.
Once we arrived at the next destination; the church at the bottom of The Terrace near Ye Olde Beverly they were able to begin beat 4. This moment was beautiful. The blocking that Hannah had already experimented with them was able to be illustrated here and informed what they did so naturally. At this point they had been in character for almost 40 minutes. The short walk back to my house meant that they found more to talk about once inside; my house was representing James' character's flat. Sadly we had run out of coffee so tea was made instead but they both used the mugs like they had been using wine glasses. Again, Hannah's blocking informed how they manipulated the space of my lounge and James' awkwardness worked well and Catherine's last line of beat 5 was delivered perfectly.
All in all it was an incredibly successful exercise and James and Catherine both felt that they responded to this method of working. I found it incredibly interesting, feeling like it was a perrformance just for me, the lone audience member of this very intimate meeting of two old aquaintances.
Although it is perhaps stepping into the boundaries of fabrication, even method acting to an extent, it was in fact about taking them out of the rehearsal room, making them feel more comfortable in their surroundings and realising elements of a journey similar to that in the scene.
I have even managed to find a CPP link which is similar to this exercise! When Little Bulb made the first incarnation of Crocosmia, they would often walk around in character, exploring the possibilities of the personas they were creating. The first line of the script is "I am going to keep this short and to the point, because it’s all been said before by far more eloquent people than me. But our words have no impact upon you, therefore I’m going to talk to you in a language that you understand. Our words are dead until we give them life with our blood." Although our work has a script to start of with, it is our performers who are developing the characters and making them fuller, devising the personas and exploring how to present themselves. It may sound prentious but it is the performers who are giving them life.
Fingers Crossed!
Short Video to follow very soon.
Ellie
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