At the beginning of this lesson we restrained someone on the back wall who was trying to get to the opposite wall. This created lots of interesting shapes as we were having to physically restraining people who desperately wanted to get to the opposite side who's faces became quite feral in some instances. I think that this can relate to AOAS in a variety of ways. For example, the restraining of people could resemble Carol being kept alive by John in the first scene of the play; trying to get to the opposite side could resemble Carol's desperation to leave and eventually commit suicide. For Anna, i think this could resemble how she wants to become healthy again and the people restraining her are her drug addiction; additionally, this could show how Anna becomes like Carol later in the play and wants to commit suicide. For Bonnie, I think that this activity could resemble how she wants her family line to stop at her (her sterilisation) and the people that are restraining her is the doctor who tries to persuade her that she'll want children later in her future. Similarly, all three women achieve their goal eventually which could be due to their shear determination.
We adapted our piece from the previous lesson to show the struggles that Carol, Anna, and Bonnie go through in the play by making many of the moves and transitions seem more as though we were struggling to break free. Below is the piece:
The lift at the start of the piece was used to show how desperately Carol is trying to escape from society and life. This is shown when Maya reaches forwards into the audience - something which all of the characters do throughout the piece - and she is restrained by the rest of the actors on stage. I think that this could show how Carol is constantly restrained of her will whereby she has to try and act normal in front of people and eventually by Anna herself, when Carol decides that she has to be a mother to Anna and be there for her as much as possible - this is forced into Carol's brain by Emma who says "You're a mother now" in Scene 5 which I think brings this fact to Carol for the first time properly.
The first freeze frame that we created is the one opposite at 10 seconds into the piece. This shows the moment when Carol realised that she was pregnant. We decided to use this image because it shows the possible moment that Carol decided to extend her life by 16 years. The other actors are in close proximity to her because they show how trapped Carol feels by the impending pregnancy and her impending role as a mother that she isn't sure she can achieve. We added in a slight struggle here from Carol because we wanted to show how restricted she is by all the other characters within the play, especially by Anna as mentioned above. It is difficult to see that Carol is clutching her stomach at this point due to the amount of people around her which could show the amount of opinions that other characters have about her pregnancy and about her attempted suicide - this is mainly by Daisy early on in the play with Carol and later in the play with Anna. The transition into the second freeze frame used some of the techniques as show by the previous DV8 video. For example, Maya was lifted onto Peter's back and I was pulled through his legs. The lift onto Peter's back showed how much Carol relies on John for support and by how much John is willing to support Carol. Additionally, it could show that John is trapping Carol by holding onto and restraining her too much which can also be seen in the first lift. The slide under Peter's legs shows Anna struggling to break free from what her parents marriage has become which is looming over the top of her as she slides underneath them. It also shows her reaching towards the audience much like Carol did in the first lift, which I think could show how they go through similar struggles as they grow older.
The second freeze frame we created is the one opposite at 27 seconds into the piece. This shows the funeral of Carol and how both Anna and John reacted to it. It's clear to see Anna's despair as she seems to be at the fore front of the image by being in the middle and having two people looking at her and gripping onto her hands. I think that this moment is the moment when Anna's life begins to go downhill because of the lack of support from her mother and the loss that she feels. The two people looking at her and gripping her hands I think represent the people that may have tried to help Anna get through such a difficult time - this may include Emma and Daisy because Daisy makes an appearance when Anna herself is pregnant. These people may have done a lot to help, especially during the first few years after Carol's death especially as Anna goes to university, but this support may have stopped which could have contributed to Anna's drug abuse. On the other hand, John's despair is not as easy to see because he is still lifting Carol up and is hidden by her body. This could show how the audience don't really get to see his grief as much as they see Anna's but it is still there as shown in the Picnic scene for Carol. The transition into the 3rd freeze frame used more reaching and more fast paced moving. I think that Anna is reaching here potentially to see her mother again or to try and find a solution to her drug abuse problem. As Anna is whipped back around by Bonnie, this could show that Bonnie wanted to get to know her mother before she committed suicide and is attempting to get to know her again through Jamie's memories but is largely unable to do so because of Jamie's mind set that Anna and Bonnie look alike. The part where Carol is pushed off of John by another character, who resembles other characters who told her what to do in the past, shows the amount of influence that they were able to have on her which may have contributed to her eventual suicide as she is removed from the play. This could also suggest that John's struggle is being brought to the audience's attention which is what is somewhat brought to their attention when John visits Anna in rehab. This may suggest that now that he no longer has to support Carol he doesn't know what to do with himself. When Anna looks at John for a long time, there is possibly a moment of orientation as they seem to be seeing each other properly for the first time since the death of Carol which the audience could recognise. When Anna pushes John away, I think that this could show that she is like her mother in the respect that she doesn't want John to be constantly watching over her every move. When Bonnie pushes Anna, I think that this could show that Anna committed suicide really soon after the birth of Bonnie, something which Bonnie may dislike about her mother, and shows that they didn't get a chance to get to know each other.
The third freeze frame at 40 seconds shown opposite shows Bonnie's decision to become sterilised by the end of the play to stop the trend of depression and suicides in her family. The people in front of Bonnie show her umbilical chord, possibly connecting Bonnie to Anna and to Carol but could also show the past that Bonnie is about to cut off and the fact that she won't ever experience what Anna and Carol went through after the birth of their children and subsequently won't ever become close to them.
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