Eventful week so far! We had our auditions and recalls, moving to choosing our cast and our first rehearsals! I have only been the recipient of auditions and never been the person casting so it was quite a surreal experience! The cast for Pornography is integral to its reception by our audience. Ideally, we would have liked to have a multicultural cast, representing a microcosm of London. However, due to a number of factors from the lack of auditionees to the type of auditionees, this has not been possible to the extent we would have liked. However, I do not that this has been to our detriment as we have been extremely lucky to have found an exceptional cast who are suitable for the parts they will play. The read through was so exciting, hearing the performers read their lines already touching upon some of the tone in the scenes we had not noticed before. We cannot wait to get down to it.
We had our first two rehearsals last night and this morning as a full ensemble. In last night's session we also had our lovely designers Sue and Adrian present for the first read through so they could hear the voices come to life off the page. They have reworked the previous set they had envisaged playing further on the 'yellow line' of the underground which is mentioned at the start of the text. Its very exciting hearing their ideas and how our piece will fit into the design and vice-versa.
One of my main tasks for the next few weeks or so is to find exercises which will enable to cast to take on the character work that Hannah specialises in whilst also cleanly fusing the contemporary performance elements and their understanding of these two techniques. George will be the key in fusing the elements together as she has worked in both modes before and will be able to see ways to meld the techniques. I have been looking at Frantic Assembly this week and the way they view text and how to use it in the devising process. Although we want to be 'true' to the language and words of Simon Shepherd, he has left the text open to interpretation and presentation for a reason and we want to play with it as much as we can.
We have to be careful to ensure that we are clear when our performers and acting and when they are performing, playing with the modes so that the play is not presented in a straight forward manner. It would be disappointing to take such an open text to treat it as a straight play. However, we also do nto want it to become so far removed from the text that it is unrecognisable as Shepherd's work. The first performance of Pornography was in Germany and Shepherd actually did this on purpose knowing that the director would completely rip teh text apart and edit as he wanted. They even changed the brother and sister to brother and brother! see link below!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m3r16uRChU
This week we are mainly working with the performers on an individual basis to get to grips with their characters and the monologues or duologues. The faster we can get lines learnt and text understood the faster we can start playing with the presentation. We are also going to be attending a physical theatre workshop held by Elina one of the MA students to try and get the cast on a par in their physical ability as quickly as possible so that they feel comfortable begin creative together with their bodies.
The two key physical exercises that we used today worked well; follow the leader and moving tableaux. However, although we have to start simply to encourage those who have not necessarily had physical theatre experience before, these exercises, whilst being beautiful and insightful, may have been too simple for our cast. We plan to move further quickly employing some of the exercises of Jaques Le Coq; colours and elements.
All in all very happy and bring on the fun and exciting work ahead!
over and out.
Ellie.
We had our first two rehearsals last night and this morning as a full ensemble. In last night's session we also had our lovely designers Sue and Adrian present for the first read through so they could hear the voices come to life off the page. They have reworked the previous set they had envisaged playing further on the 'yellow line' of the underground which is mentioned at the start of the text. Its very exciting hearing their ideas and how our piece will fit into the design and vice-versa.
One of my main tasks for the next few weeks or so is to find exercises which will enable to cast to take on the character work that Hannah specialises in whilst also cleanly fusing the contemporary performance elements and their understanding of these two techniques. George will be the key in fusing the elements together as she has worked in both modes before and will be able to see ways to meld the techniques. I have been looking at Frantic Assembly this week and the way they view text and how to use it in the devising process. Although we want to be 'true' to the language and words of Simon Shepherd, he has left the text open to interpretation and presentation for a reason and we want to play with it as much as we can.
We have to be careful to ensure that we are clear when our performers and acting and when they are performing, playing with the modes so that the play is not presented in a straight forward manner. It would be disappointing to take such an open text to treat it as a straight play. However, we also do nto want it to become so far removed from the text that it is unrecognisable as Shepherd's work. The first performance of Pornography was in Germany and Shepherd actually did this on purpose knowing that the director would completely rip teh text apart and edit as he wanted. They even changed the brother and sister to brother and brother! see link below!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m3r16uRChU
This week we are mainly working with the performers on an individual basis to get to grips with their characters and the monologues or duologues. The faster we can get lines learnt and text understood the faster we can start playing with the presentation. We are also going to be attending a physical theatre workshop held by Elina one of the MA students to try and get the cast on a par in their physical ability as quickly as possible so that they feel comfortable begin creative together with their bodies.
The two key physical exercises that we used today worked well; follow the leader and moving tableaux. However, although we have to start simply to encourage those who have not necessarily had physical theatre experience before, these exercises, whilst being beautiful and insightful, may have been too simple for our cast. We plan to move further quickly employing some of the exercises of Jaques Le Coq; colours and elements.
All in all very happy and bring on the fun and exciting work ahead!
over and out.
Ellie.
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