Today we had a fantastic rehearsal with Josh and Charlotte playing the Brother and Sister in scene 5. When we first began to look deeper into the text, we had originally envisaged that this scene would be stylised and physical theatre-esque, perhaps employing some contemporary dance techniques, particularly for beat 7, which is where they first kiss and sleep with each other in the passage of time that the audience do not see at the end of this beat. However, unluckily for me as CPP this scene has become more and more naturalistic. This means we have three scenes which are very naturalistic, two scenes which are more towards naturalism but have stylistic elements and two which are very stylistic/physical theatre.
We had not yet decided if the scene could include some more stylised elements as many of the other scenes do and therefore I ran a contact improvisation exercise with the couple, to get them used to touching each other and not become too aware of themselves, letting go of their inhibitions with each other. This worked well. Charlotte has very little physical theatre experience and found the weight bearing required at times quite difficult. Hannah was still not convinced that any physical theatre was going to fit and although I tried I was inclined to agree that even if we tried to add stylistic elements into previous beats that it may still jar. It is going to be easier for the audience to understand if each monologue/duologue is slightly different to each other than if the elements of a singular scene do not seem to connect.
Back to the kissing. I have never been particularly flustered when asked to kiss a fellow performer. I am quite a tactile person myself. However, for some performers it can be a real struggle. Josh and Charlotte were both relatively relaxed about the actual action of kissing, but found it difficult to find the sexual element of it. Even though contact improvisation exercise I led with them has not been used to create stylised or heightened physical movement, it has informed the contact between the performers, particularly using the hands as a contact point. This seemed to improve the scene immensely.
Hannah also guided them on the actual delivery of the lines where needed and suggested that Charlotte sit on Josh's lap, keeping eye contact and that they had to stroke each other/play with hair etc and say the whole beat as if they are having a lovey dovey conversation. This made them more comfortable with contact and the lines that they were saying and especially began the work in the intensity between them.I had origonally said to them that I only wanted to do the kiss a maximum of two times so that they did not feel awkward. However, I think all in all they kissed about 10 times. This was mainly due to improvements being made to the two kisses and the performers proximity and delivery.
They were still somewhat awkward but it was an awkwardness that suited the characters; they are committing incest after all. Ursula, our dramaturg commented that it felt very personal and quite uncomfortable as an audience member within the contexts of their relationship. She also described the feeling like looking through a keyhole which is a lovely
image.
Although it is not as 'CPP' as we had first considered it to be, these things happen. You can force elements upon a piece if they just don't fit, and this is sadly just the case here.
Ellie
We had not yet decided if the scene could include some more stylised elements as many of the other scenes do and therefore I ran a contact improvisation exercise with the couple, to get them used to touching each other and not become too aware of themselves, letting go of their inhibitions with each other. This worked well. Charlotte has very little physical theatre experience and found the weight bearing required at times quite difficult. Hannah was still not convinced that any physical theatre was going to fit and although I tried I was inclined to agree that even if we tried to add stylistic elements into previous beats that it may still jar. It is going to be easier for the audience to understand if each monologue/duologue is slightly different to each other than if the elements of a singular scene do not seem to connect.
Back to the kissing. I have never been particularly flustered when asked to kiss a fellow performer. I am quite a tactile person myself. However, for some performers it can be a real struggle. Josh and Charlotte were both relatively relaxed about the actual action of kissing, but found it difficult to find the sexual element of it. Even though contact improvisation exercise I led with them has not been used to create stylised or heightened physical movement, it has informed the contact between the performers, particularly using the hands as a contact point. This seemed to improve the scene immensely.
Hannah also guided them on the actual delivery of the lines where needed and suggested that Charlotte sit on Josh's lap, keeping eye contact and that they had to stroke each other/play with hair etc and say the whole beat as if they are having a lovey dovey conversation. This made them more comfortable with contact and the lines that they were saying and especially began the work in the intensity between them.I had origonally said to them that I only wanted to do the kiss a maximum of two times so that they did not feel awkward. However, I think all in all they kissed about 10 times. This was mainly due to improvements being made to the two kisses and the performers proximity and delivery.
They were still somewhat awkward but it was an awkwardness that suited the characters; they are committing incest after all. Ursula, our dramaturg commented that it felt very personal and quite uncomfortable as an audience member within the contexts of their relationship. She also described the feeling like looking through a keyhole which is a lovely
image.Although it is not as 'CPP' as we had first considered it to be, these things happen. You can force elements upon a piece if they just don't fit, and this is sadly just the case here.
Ellie
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