Anatomy of a Suicide: Part 1

Lesson: 28th September 2017

The main premise of this session was to explore the themes surrounding Anatomy of a Suicide by Alice Birch. The play investigates the suicide of a mother (and grandmother) and the impacts that that has on her child (and grandchild) as the play progresses throughout the ages, from the 1970's, 1990's, and in the future in 2033. The stories are told simultaneously and lines cross over each other into each of the different scenes being shown on stage. It investigates what it means to be a mother, which is what we focused on during this lesson.

At the beginning of the session we thought about this statement of what it means to be a mother. we came up with the stereotypical things that are included as "womanly" things to do such as cooking and cleaning which tie into being a mother. We then organised them into the Venn diagram shown, into the sections "emotional", "domestic", and "social" which were all, in my opinion, very stereotypical.

One quality/characteristic that fit into all three categories was "Role model" as seen in the centre of the diagram. A mother has to be a role model towards their child so that their child can grow up as socially acceptable  and also teach them about how to act and what to think in a rapidly evolving world. In addition to this, they have to be an emotional role model in the hope that their child will give the same love and care that the mother did to a child of their own.

Another quality/characteristic that was suggested was that a mother has unswerving love which is where a mother will love their child no matter what they do, even if they don't agree with it, the mother would probably still defend their child in public. This could also link to how a mother is supposed to protect their child from anything that could send them harm, in society or emotionally.

Another quality/characteristic that a mother is said to have is that they are not as violent as the father, as they should cater for the child's emotional needs rather than the father. Mother's are often the ones who don't condone violence whereas the father would probably say that some violence is okay which shows an emotional balance of roles between the mother and the father.

A final quality/characteristic that was suggested was that mothers are stereotypically family oriented and that traditionally, mothers would solely look after their children and clean the house. Mothers, again, would cater for the emotional side of the family rather than the upkeep of the family, stereotypically, at least, because this is becoming more and more outdated as society progresses and mothers begin to branch out more.

We then began to talk about if the mother was absent from the family relationship or the family relationship had been split up from a separation either by the mother herself, or via a divorce. the impact of a divorce can be emotionally scarring for any and all children involved, especially as they become more aware of the people and situations around them. The family balance may also be upset if there is a break in the family.

In relation to Anatomy of a Suicide we thought about what would happen if the mother was removed from the family but by suicide and the repercussions that may have on the children and also the husband if she has one. We said that if a child was young when the mother commits suicide
then they probably wouldn't have any memories of her so wouldn't have had as much emotional support as they should have done, the responsibility then falling to the father, who stereotypically wouldn't be as emotionally inclined as the mother. This could cause some problems to the child as they grow up because they wouldn't have had a mother to support them emotionally, domestically, and socially as shown in the Venn diagram above. If a child was older, at around 16, they may feel more emotions because they would have suffered a heavier loss as they actually knew their mother. There also may be some doubt and anger at themselves because as an older person, you should realise when people are hurting and if they can't see that in their mother and she does commit suicide then this is going to weigh heavily on their mind for the rest of their life. They could also understand the feelings of suicide.

We also investigated the thoughts of society after the suicide and even years later. Society could become angry at the mother's selfish actions at the choice to abandon her children, especially if they're young as they will grow up without a mother's influence. At this time, other women such as close friends or family become much more important because they will become the mother type figure towards the children left behind.

In order to show the impact a mother has on the family and her children we created the freeze frames below:




The first freeze frame that we created was to show that a mother is a role model. In the freeze frame, we used dance to show how a mother would teach her children. We used different levels to show the ages of the children and as the line goes down, the ability to dance is reduced but the mother still seems to be caring for them. in the transition between this freeze frame and the next one, all the girls within the piece became the mother and Joel became a chid of our own. We wanted to show the impact of the absence of the mother so when Joel attempts to grab Kathryn's hand for comfort she ignores him and grabs my hand instead (and then I grab Leah's hand who grabs Bella's). This was to show that mothers will still bond together even if they aren't there to physically help their child.



The second freeze frame showed Joel, the collective child, throwing up. Initially we comforted Joel but when we wanted to make it look as though the mother was absent from the situation. We only put our hands on Joel's back for a second before turning away which symbolised how isolated a child could become after their mother has gone. It also showed how vulnerable a child could become. During the transition from this freeze frame to the third freeze frame, we pushed Joel to the floor which symbolised the hurt that he was feeling towards the death of his mother. We wanted to show that a mother has unswerving love as a mother could get angry if their child is sick on something important but they will still comfort their child.



The third freeze frame shows the way a mother would react to violence. Initially we had Joel and Leah in a fight with myself, Kathryn, and Bella as the mother trying to break it up as mothers are stereotypically not a fan of violence. Leah positioned herself over Joel to show how much more emotionally weaker a child would be without their mother. This also showed how a child could feel angry at themselves if their mother has committed suicide, especially if the child is older and more aware. In order to add to this aspect of our piece, myself, Bella, and Kathryn all 'pinned' Joel to the ground whilst Leah had 'hit' him which symbolised again, how a child could pin their anger on themselves. At this point, I didn't get round to Joel's arm quick enough which made my own performance within the piece look messier and as though I didn't know what I was doing. In the future, I'll be sure to move quicker in order to get to my position within the freeze frame. During the transition of this freeze frame into the last one, Leah extends her hand to Joel and then lets go which showed that the mother still wants to be there for her child even though she has slipped away from him. After Leah lets go, Joel slightly falls back which leads to the rest of us to pick him up; this shows how important other female members of the family or close female friends are when a tragedy like this happens, to take care of the children.



The final freeze frame initially showed how a mother is family orientated. At first Leah had her arms around all four of us and we were all tight together which showed how tight a family we were, supported emotionally and physically by the mother. But when the mother is removed as shown in the freeze frame, the children seem more isolated even though they're all crouched together in a similar way to the way they were when the mother was there to aid them. The mother is standing far behind her children in this freeze frame to show that she is separated from the family due to her 'selfish' choice to take her own life. I thought it could also show that the mother still looks on after her children even in death, which would fit in with the stereotypes that a mother has unswerving love (even in death).

The lighting and music also helped us to tell the story of the mother. The lighting, as shown in the image, was a bright white spotlight and in the background had a red light. The white light, I thought, showed how innocent the children were initially to their mothers pains before she committed suicide. The red light, however, suggested to me that the children's innocence has been tainted by their mother's selfishness; it could also give hints if the mother lost blood during her death. The music was sad in nature which affected me emotionally because it made the performance seem more real and as though the mother had actually died.

Stanislavski

Lesson: 25th September 2017

Emotional Memory Work

We started off today's session by talking about the play that we will be performing as a group in the style of the practitioner, Stanislavski. The play that we will be studying is "Anatomy of a Suicide" by Alice Birch where the main themes are inherited suicide and what it takes to be a woman. I will be going further into this in later blogs when we begin to work on the play itself.

We then did a Stanislavski type 'workshop' where we looked at one of his main ideas; emotional memory (or affective memory). This is where actors to call on the memory of details from a similar situation (or more recently a situation with similar emotions) and import those feelings to those of their characters. Instead of applying this to a character, we simply thought of a memory that had a strong emotion attached to it. I thought of a memory that made me feel quite sad but also panicky; most of the other people within the class also chose a sad memory that gave them a strong physical reaction, for example, I started crying. If this was done during a piece of Stanislavski inspired theatre, it would have allowed the audience to see how upset the character would be.

After a while of simply thinking about the memory laid in a space of our own in the dark in the semi-supine position so that we could concentrate on our own feelings/breathing and not another persons, we were told to sit up and write a letter that voiced our feelings about the situation that we had chosen. At this, I began to grow more emotional as I got more invested in the emotion and situation that I was remembering. At this point, other people began to become so upset that they had to leave the room in order to reign their emotion in.

After 'writing' our letter, we were old to reread it and then fold it up and continue to sit in the dark. This made me feel quite isolated even though I was in a room with a group of people that I feel fairly comfortable with. Additionally, my emotions were become more and more physicalized as was, I suspect, the remainder of the class.

Chipp then used lighting in order to create a sort of scene whereby he would 'read' the letter that we had 'written' describing how we felt in that moment of the memory that we had remembered. As he didn't know what was 'written' on the letter, his reactions, although fairly similar, meant different things for each person. The light that was used, pictured to the right, made me feel quite isolated and on the spot as Chipp 'read' my letter. The lighting also made me feel quite exposed to the rest of the class. Chipp's reaction to the letter made my emotions even more physicalized due to the nature of what was 'written' on the letter as he reacted with disgust. This section was the section of the lesson that seemed most fake because it was the most that was similar to a scene within a play.

I felt that I could express my emotion well more during the part where we were laid in the dark in the semi supine position. This is because I was able to focus more on the memory rather than on what Chipp's response was to the letter and was able to immerse myself more fully into the memory.

After, we all comforted each other as most of us were distraught by the memory that we had used.

 Stanislavski and His Method

Stanislavski was a Russian actor who developed the drama that we recognise today by using realism. This was introduced by him in the early 20th century and included the aforementioned emotional memory. He said that an actor's entrance on stage should be a continuation that precedes the situation presented on stage. He also said that an actor should train his senses so that he can respond freely in the stage environment which would create a wide emotional range. He said that the stage should be an addition to the real world which contrasts heavily with the style of Brecht.

Three core Elements
Stanislavski said that there were three core elements that an actor should use to understand their character. First the actor would go over the script carefully to, secondly, find out what the character wants. They would then determine the given circumstance of the scene such as the setting from subtext within the script.

Objective
The objective for a character is what they want to achieve from any given line/scene/from the entire play. This can be done by breaking a scene into beats that end with the change of subject which could be based on a change of emotion. The actor must also work out the key motivation between each line.

Magic "If"
The Magic If enables actors to get in the mind set of their character at a point within the script which enables an actor to ask "What if this situation happened to me?". This enables an actor to think like their character.

Obstacles
Obstacles are things which prevent a character from their objective. This can be dealt with through:
1) The character gives up their objective.
2) The character finds a way to go around the obstacle.
3) The character plunges along regardless.
This can give an actor an insight into how the character behaves at any given situation.

Internal Monologue
Stanislavski said that people have a semi constant flow of thoughts which would mean that the character and therefore the actor would have a stream of thoughts. This helps the actor as it makes them believe that each action is happening spontaneously. This also prevents the scene from becoming dull after a while.

Brecht: Part 2

Lesson: 21st September 2017




We performed our full performances to the class and in doing so, we easily found things that needed to be improved and which parts worked well within the context. Our issue that we explored was Climate Change and we explored this in a Brechtian style using many of his ideas I highlighted in my previous post about this Brecht performance.

We have three scenes in the piece and the timings are approximately as follows:
Scene 1: 0.00-1:53
Scene 2: 1:53-2:37
Scene 3: 2:37-4:09

Scene 1

Up to about 10 seconds in, the other actors in the group commented on a specific audience members hair which shows a Brechtian technique of interacting with the audience and breaking the fourth wall. It also reminded the audience that they were watching a performance and not a real life issue. While this was occurring, I was setting up the image of the world from Google Maps that was projected onto the floor. As this was done while the audience was watching the performance, this presented no illusions to the audience, another Brechtian technique. The Google Maps image was commented on by Maya ("You've left Google Maps on.") which again showed the audience that this is a performance by coming out of character.

The lighting that is shown in the first scene is kept the same throughout - a bright white light that didn't hide anything from the audience. This enables the audience to see any costume or scene changes which again shows that there were no illusions, keeping with the Brechtian technique.

At around 25 seconds Izzy and Alex burst out into songs of contrasting nature. Izzy sang songs about the sun (such as "Sunshine, Lollypops and Rainbows") and Alex sang songs about the night (such as "Rhythm of the Night"). I thought that this could represent two differing opinions  on climate change; one that climate change is not real, hence why the sun is cheery about everything as the sun doesn't believe that anything is wrong with the world; another that climate change is real, hence why the dark seems miserable in comparison to the sun, as the dark knows that climate change is negatively affecting the world.

At 39 to 48 seconds we presented the weather, but instead of presenting the weather 'normally' like what we did in our original piece, we decided to exaggerate camera angles and exaggerate the role of the CameraWoman played by Izzy. Not only did this present multi-role for Izzy (the Sun and the CameraWoman) is also presents the Brechtian technique of 'spass' which pokes fun at the issue in the scene. This meant that the scene was more satirical than just presenting the weather normally.

At 1:09, we tried to show the weather being sarcastic towards the NewsPresenters which showed spass towards the issue. We used phrases such as "75 mile an hour winds, lets go 185" from the Wind (played by myself) and "Nice try b*****s" from the Rain (played by Maya) again showing the use of multi-role. This also presented archetypes and guestus of weather through the movements that we did as Sun, Rain, and Wind, as we showed them as stereotypes. This can be seen at the Rain's aforementioned line, as it shows that Rain always ruins Sun.

During the Transition (1:37-1:53) between Scene 1 and Scene 2, we used grey cloths (to signify the hurricane) and are planning to use more props such as sun cream, a model house, and general items that would remind the audience of the Wizard of Oz.. This again shows spass as it suggests that Hurricane Irmak, as mentioned in my previous entry about this topic, is akin to the twister shown in Wizard of Oz. It also remind the audience that this is a performance because they aren't watching a production of Wizard of Oz so may be slightly distanced from the action on stage (creating a slight Verfremdungseffekt) due to the familiarity of the objects flying past their faces. This section is supposed to represent the hurricane entering so we wanted sound effects that sounded like a hurricane. Instead of using sound effects pre-created, Lauren was able to make hurricane type sounds which reduced the amount of illusion and also broke the 4th wall.

A positive of this scene was that we immediately used a lot of Brechtian techniques which shows the audience that the performance is in the style of Brecht, even if they don't necessarily know who Brecht is and what his style is. In addition to this, this scene was a massive improvement from the first performance of this scene, as we could easily hear what all people were saying and we were more sure of what we were doing during this scene.

However a negative of this scene was that the pace was way too slow as there was lots of stopping and waiting for things to happen. To improve this we will probably move from each line slightly quicker, in order to keep up the pace of the following two scenes.

Scene 2 

Scene 2 consisted entirely of a dance break from 1:53-2:37 and included music, both of which are Brechtian techniques. I had to turn the music on myself which showed the audience again that there were no illusions. During this scene we were trying to show the hurricane in full force hence why there are two lifts which show the hurricane picking things up and killing people in the process. During this scene we showed spass again when we said "die" and consequently died for 8 beats of the song and then did jazz hands. This juxtaposed the seriousness of the scene which again reminded the audience that they were watching a performance and not a real life situation. To improve this scene we could add dispassionate narration to part of it, which is another Brechtian technique that I don't think we used properly in the final scene. Moving it here would make the scene fit more into the overall performance as I think, at the moment, this scene is awkwardly placed and the transition into it doesn't really fit either.

Scene 3

One negative at the beginning of this scene was that the music didn't stop after the previous scene at around 2:40. I had to run off and stop the music. The loudness of the music coupled with my unexpected exit may have distracted the audience and missed part of Trump's (played by Izzy) speech.

At the beginning of the scene, Maya and I, rolled out a black cloth for Trump to walk on as it makes him seem 'important' because he believes that he's one of the most important people in the world, just because he is the President of the USA. We decided to include a satire of President Trump in our performance because he doesn't believe that climate change is as much as a global threat as other nations are making it out to be. Trump has pulled the USA out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement in July 2017, something that was signed during the Obama administration, which agreed to limit the amount of carbon being emitted from each country. In addition to this, I wanted Izzy to play both the Sun and Trump because they don't believe that climate change is real and that things will be alright if they don't pay attention to climate change.

At 3:14, Trump mentions Obama and the crowd which is current political satire and spass as Trump mentioned the large turnout at a speech of his which took place in support of Hurricane Irma to see what the President would say about the issue at hand.

At around 3:22, Trump mentioned "fake news" another current topic related to Trump and climate change as Trump could believe that climate change is fake news. At this, I exploded one side and Maya mourned me, and Alex exploded the other side and Lauren mourned her. This presents a sharp contrast between the comedy of Trump and the deaths that occur around him. It also shows Trump's obliviousness to the current situation of the deaths of Hurricane Irma and climate change in general.

At 3:43 Trump mentions a Wall and that the Wall "could have stopped the hurricane". This relates to politics and again using spass because one of Trump's main election points was that he was going to build a wall between Mexico and the USA. Trump literally breaks the 4th wall by stepping through the wall created by our bodies and immediately speaks to the audience. Trump also breaks the 4th wall by directing his speech towards the audience. To make this more obvious, we will need to include placards that specify that the other actors are playing the Wall.

A positive about this scene was that there was lots of spass and humour by the exaggeration of Trump. This also created guestus because Izzy made a stereotype of what Trump is usually like during his speeches. This was something that the audience can relate to but by using ourselves to make the Wall, it reminded the audience that this is a performance.

A major negative about this scene was that it confused the audience as to what the issue being presented was. Trump didn't mention anything about climate change only about politics involoving Trump. In fact, this was an issue throughout the piece as it wasn't made clear what the world issue was and didn't really leave the audience thinking. The world issue could have been about climate change, hurricanes, or US politics. To improve this, we would need to make the world issue slightly more obvious, but not so much that it is blatant.

Multi-Role

Me: NewsReporter, Wind, Wall
Izzy: Sun, CameraWoman, Trump
Maya: NewsReporter, Rain, Wall
Lauren: NewsReporter, SoundEffects, Wall
Alex: Night, NewsReporter, Wall

We will use placards to identify these roles which is another Brechtian technique.

Set

The image opposite is what our set looked like for the majority of the performance. The Risers gave height and also mad it easier to see people as they were acting. They also made it easier for Trump to be higher than all the other actors during the final scene. We did this because trump often presents himself as though he feels as though he is more important than everybody else.

Overall Improvements

In order to make this performance more Brechtian we would need to add in more of his techniques such as dispassionate narration and a more clear addition of the Verfremdungseffekt. We also need a more serious moment in the middle of the performance. For example, the scene could be about someone who's lost everything in the hurricane which would be juxtaposed by the comedy of Trump.

Brecht: Part 1

Our practitioner for the next three weeks in our lessons with Miss Starbuck is Bertolt Brecht. Brecht is one of the most influential practitioners in theatre in the 20th century where his main idea was to distance the audience from the piece and to constantly remind them that they were watching a piece of theatre and not a real life situation. He wanted to create a social or political message in each of his works as well as incorporating songs, dance, and breaking the fourth wall through dispassionate commentary and by addressing the audience directly, all to remind the audience that they are watching a piece of theatre. Brecht also used guestus where an actor creates a stereotype of a character.

 

We had to create a Brechtian performance using the above criteria creating two to three different scenes based on this. Brecht often used the news in different situations; for example one Brechtian performance included Hitler's rise to power but based around the vegetable stock market.

In groups, we used current newspapers to decide on a topic that interested us, and could also be manipulated into a Brechtian style. For our topic, my group chose climate change, due to recent events such as Hurricane Irma and Donald Trump's reluctance to accept the changing climate and his insensitivity to people affected. We also wanted to explore other people's reactions to climate change and to Hurricane Irma.

Initially, we assigned each member of our group as a type of weather (sun, rain, wind, snow, storm) and attempted to personify them as though they were 'people'. This would remind the audience that they were watching a performance, as well as bringing in guestus as the weather was stereotyped, for example, the sun was joyous. Instead of this, however, we decided that two types of weather should be changed into news presenters and keep the weather types sun, rain, and wind, as they are traditional types of weather. At the moment, we have minimal multi-role, with Issy the only actor to have two roles, but we will try to incorporate more of this into the piece.

We then tried to make our idea into three scenes that would try and get our main point across, without being too obvious, in order to make the audience leave thinking about what they have seen, another Brechtian technique. We tried to sandwich the 'serious' part of the performance in-between less serious parts that could be regarded as comedic, such as adding in an over-the-top caricature of Trump and making the personification of the weather extreme.

We created the first scene with ease, using the initial characters mentioned above and exaggerating them to remind the audience that this was simply a piece of theatre. We decided that there should be a world map projected onto the floor, so that actors playing the weather could do so over the area of the map that they are most prominent. For example, the sun would be mainly over the equator, particularly around areas of desert. This projection would be in the centre of the 'stage' and aforementioned news presenters would be off the map off stage left. When we performed this section back, it was brought up that the news presenters seemed to not be part of the scene, we could place them on the map, maybe where the most weather 'damage' would occur.

In addition to the first scene, we suggested that the news presenters should comment on one of the audience members. This would break the fourth wall, a Brechtian technique, and cause interaction with the audience. This would again remind the audience that they're watching a piece of theatre and not something that is real.

For clothing choices, we have decided to go for something simple, such as we will all wear black trousers/leggings. We initially decided that each weather should wear a different coloured shirt, but as not all the actors are weather, we may have to adapt this idea in later sessions. This was supposed to represent that climate change is something that different people have different opinions on, hence the different coloured shirts. This would also switch characters easily without the need to change costume. To aid this, we could use placards with our character's names on (another Brechtian technique) which would highlight what role we would be playing.

During the mini performance, I felt that we didn't all know what we were doing, possibly due to slight lack of communication, or we didn't know what lines to say, which may have negatively impacted the overall effect. Although, we all exaggerated our characters; for example, because I was the wind, my movements were large but fluid, something which I think got across to the audience.

In sessions to come, we will hopefully make more scenes and improve on the scene that we made int he first Brecht based session. We will also try to incorporate more Brechtian techniques such as dispassionate commentary and use more media such as news videos about climate change.

Frantic Assembly

Frantic Assembly was formed in 1994 by Scott Graham, Steven Hoggett, and Victoria Middleton, who all attended a university in Swansea, Wales. Although they weren't performing arts inclined, having no drama or dance experience, they were willing to learn and pass on what they had learnt to others. 

They were inspired by other theatre companies e.g. DV8. The main style of the company is that of physical theatre combining movement, design, music, and text, of which they have incorporated into many stage shows such as the renowned "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time". 

One of their most famous activities are "Chair Duets" which usually incorporate two people and two chairs creating movement, and sometimes a story from the simple movement they have created. 

They also provide "Ignition" which is a training project for young men aged 16-20 in the style of Frantic. 

They also travel around the world in order to deliver their style of theatre to more people through workshops. 

DV8

DV8 (pronounced "deviate") was founded in 1986 by Lloyd Newson (choreographer and artistic director from the beginning), Michelle Richecoeur, and Nigel Charnock. It is a physical theatre based company in Arstsadmin, London, but has toured the UK and 28 countries worldwide such as the US. They use dance, naturalistic movement, videos, circus skills, and text to present their stories. 

Their total of 18 shows created for stage are critically and often tackle social issues. The first show that was written and performed by them was called "My Sex, Our Dance" which tackled the emergence of AIDS, as well as the emotional and physical needs of a gay couple. 

In January 2016, Lloyd Newson took a break to think about his future. In response to this, the company have paused the production of new work indefinitely. 

Blood Wedding

The focus of this lesson was to look at a scene from the play "Blood Wedding" by Federico García Lorca.

"Blood Wedding" is based around two feuding families, one the Felixes and another that didn't specify a name. The play begins with the Mother and the Bridegroom, which was the section of the play that we looked at and performed, where the Bridegroom is trying to persuade his mother to give him a knife to cut olives. At this, the Mother goes into a trance of sorts, and starts ranting about weapons and how her husband and son died - at the hands of the Felixes. The Bridegroom also tries to persuade his mother to go and visit the family of the girl he wants to marry, which was custom at the time the play was set in rural Spain.

Eventually the Bridegroom marries the Bride but unbeknownst to him, she is also in love with Leonardo (the only named character) who is part of the Felixes. On her wedding night, the Bride runs away with Leonardo which caused the Bridegroom to chase the Bride and Leonardo.

When the Bridegroom catches up to Leonardo and the Bride, the Bridegroom and Leonardo fight (which is also fueled by their families' rivalry) which ultimately results in both of their deaths. The bodies of both men are brought back to the village where the Mother and the Bride begin to prepare their bodies for burial. This links to part of the speech that the Mother says in the scene that we looked at, where she describes preparing her husband's and son's bodies for burial.

Federico García Lorca was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director who introduced European movements into Spanish literature. He was executed by nationalist forces at the beginning of the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War. During his adolescence he was more musically inclined rather than literature where Spanish folklore became his muse. In 1921 his first poems were published, with themes surrounding religion, isolation, and nature. He also challenged the role of women in society and explored taboo subjects such as homosexuality, which may be a reason as to why he was executed (due to his sexuality).

To explore this play, we were first led into the drama space one by one and told to create a still image of what the atmosphere felt like. Upon entering the space, there were sounds of crickets or some sort of insect chirping which gave off a jungle or forest type feeling. In the middle of the space was a table and on the table was a knife which links to how in the first scene in "Blood Wedding" the Bridegroom asks for a knife from the Mother and also how the Mother suggests the way that her husband died. The lights were very dim which suggested that the scene that was perhaps about to unfold was set during dawn or dusk.

In pairs, we then created a scene where one person wants to take the knife, potentially to injure someone, and one person wants to prevent them from taking the knife. This links to the scene from "Blood Wedding" because in it, the Mother tries to prevent the Bridegroom from taking the knife for fear that he could be killed by a Felixe or could kill a Felixe, all rational fears to the Mother, despite the Bridegroom claiming he's only going to cut olives.

French knife


Extract:

Scene 1

Room painted yellow.

BRIDEGROOM (entering). Mother.

MOTHER. What?

BRIDEGROOM. I'm going.

MOTHER. Where to?

BRIDEGROOM. To the vineyard. (He starts to go out).

MOTHER. Wait.

BRIDEGROOM. Do you want something?

MOTHER. Son, your food.

BRIDEGROOM. Leave it. I'll eat grapes. Give me the knife.

MOTHER. What for?

BRIDEGROOM. (laughing). To cut them.

MOTHER (muttering and looking for it). The knife, the knife ... Damn all of them and the scoundrel  who invented them.

BRIDEGROOM. Let's change the subject.

MOTHER. And shotguns ... and pistols ... even the tiniest knife ... and mattocks and pitchforks ...

BRIDEGROOM. Alright.

MOTHER. Everything that can cut a man's body. A beautiful man, tasting the fullness of life, who goes out to the vineyards or tends to his olives, because they are his, inherited ...

BRIDEGROOM (lowering his head).Be quiet. 

We were told to memorise the above scene within 20 minutes and then to perform this extract to the rest of the group. I played the Mother, and Kathryn played the Bridegroom.

Positive: captured the trance like ness of the mother through gestures such as excessive hand motions (although they may have been a bit too excessive), could easily see point where I was snapped out of the trance. Kathryn captured the boredness od the Bridegroom well at around the 36 37 second mark

One positive of my performance in this piece was that I managed to capture the trance-like-ness of the Mother through excessive hand movements, although at some points they may have been a bit too excessive bordering on exaggerated. It is easy to see where I, as the Mother, snapped out of the trance like state. In addition to this, Kathryn captured the 'boredness' of the Bridegroom at around the 36 and 37 second mark which shows that the Bridegroom has to listen to this speech from the Mother constantly, perhaps every day or every other day.

We changed the slam of the crate to a gentler one. Originally the harsh slam was meant to be that of a cupboard door being slammed but as this was done with a crate, it didn't look as effective. However the smaller slamming of the crate between 53 and 54 seconds was more effective because it showed that the Bridegroom didn't want to fully frighten his Mother but showed that he knows exactly how to calm her down. This suggests that he has to calm her down, possibly from the same rant quite regularly.