Devising - Week 3

New Ideas

As we told our idea we started to notice as well as Deborah that our work as we would like it would not fit the time limit that is required. We had many scenes that we wanted to use but unfortunately it would of taken a long time. Our work was also quite linear meaning that it was a story, however we needed it to be less linear to achieve the physical theatre style. On Monday we found it difficult to devise as Donna was away and so was Lewis. 

We looked at a scene where Brother Taylor meets Billie Joe, in this physical theatre scene. We discussed how this is the first time they meet and they both dislike each other as brother Taylor is getting married to Bobbie and she is in love with Billie. In this scene we first have a stare off this shows the tension between these two characters and is almost like what boxers do to publicise a match.  After this I run really fast at Billie as if I'm attacking him, Billie leap frogs over me to show he's dodging an attack, it also shows how he dodged people finding about his and Bobbies relationship. Next Billie runs at me and I catch him, this shows how whatever Billie tries to do Brother Taylor is one step in front. This catch we learned from Kirsty and is very much in the style of the physical theatre practitioner 'DV8'. after the catch I throw him down and push him back as if to show I want him away from me, however I pull him back to show the tension at this point he punches me in the ribs and this is when Lewis' character intervenes. His character is the father and his intentions is that his daughter Bobbie will marry Brother Taylor and will stop the relationship with Billie. Unfortunately at this point we couldn't add Lewis' part as he wasn't with us.

After choreographing this we went to Deborah's lesson.

Deborah's Lesson

In Deborah's lesson we were prompted to try something new as the idea we had planned was too linear, we were thankful that this was brought to our attention early in the devising process. She told us how it would of been easy for the audience to guess what was going to happen because of the obvious storyline. We were also told how some of our story and lines were cliché. For example their is a dance where I am with Phoebe and I say 'for the time we have left let's spend it together'. Unfortunately this line is quite cliché and almost sounds unreal however this is not what our intentions were. Our group were guided that it would be better to set it in a wedding environment where things can happen and go wrong and it can be less linear, in this fashion we would also be able to use the audience as Wedding guests. I had the idea that we could have three relationships and base our piece around the theme of 'Abuse.' I said that we could set it in a Restaurant and Kennedy raised the idea that we could show three different types of how abusive the couple were. For example subtle abuse, so things like a kick under the table or a subtle look. Then a more noticeable by the audience abuse where you can see physical hitting and mental abuse like name calling. The third couple was to be neutral this would give the audience a nice scale to see how abusive some can be. 

We thought the restaurant idea was good but we felt we had more options with the wedding and also link it to the arranged marriage. As this was one of our ideas Deborah was willing to help us build on our idea and play a game sort of exercise that we may use in our piece, much like the work of 'DV8'. This improvised games helped to produce ideas. The game had rules that each member had to follow, the rules we used were that one person had to be standing at any one time, another rule was that someone had to be moving to a different seat. This simple exercise created moments of unison and tension between different people in this game. This gave us different ideas of how we can develop on this and maybe use it in our piece. Other rules could be that you have to make eye contact with only one person, or you have to balance the plate meaning that you do the opposite to another person in this scenario. This could be implemented into our piece as we could explain to the audience the rules and they join in.

On Thursday we started to devise some more and look at new scenes and a way in which we could add Lewis into the scene with me and Joe. Me and Joe had already devising a physical scene and we've now added Lewis in, for this scene Brother Taylor and Billie Joe have had a tense battle and Father comes to break it up. After this the father who is on Brother Taylor's side shakes his hand, we then do two roll overs back to back, to show the connection and companionship between these two characters. This sequence is also good because it allows 'Father' to be face to face with Billie creating tension. Billie and the father then have a set of moves that resembles a fight this is good because it shows what lengths Billie will go to because he is truly in love. At one point in this sequence Billie is thrown into centre stage, where me and Lewis' surround him, at this point Billie runs away. This scene is good because its easy for the audience to make out who the antagonists are. 

In our group also the girls did a dance to show abuse with movements that resembled a dagger going into their heart. The boys later joined in on this and did movements in this scene such as pushing the girls hands down to show abuse. We thought this was good as it showed the major theme in our play. However from feedback from other members in the class it was difficult to understand what was going on and it would of been better with just the girls. This constructive criticism was duly noted and we will look into changing it next week. 

Conclusion

Overall this week I felt we bonded over doing simple tasks and exercises like the wedding game suggested by Deborah. I think there is still a lot of work to be done but we're on track.