Carol's section in this scene is called Swimming and shows Carol and young Anna going to the river to go swimming. Carol seems a lot more detached than she did in the previous scene that she interacted with Anna. This could be because she has had the ECT as suggested because she keeps "forgetting things" and having headaches both of which are after effects of ECT as described by Felix in the previous scene.
Bonnie's section of the scene is called Sleep and shows her arguing with a patients' relative, Luke. It is very clear that Bonnie is rushed off her feet as shown by the amount of people that she has to tend to because she is "running an A&E department on a Saturday night" and as we have included her tending to another patients' head at the beginning of the scene. Luke is clearly annoyed that she hasn't been taking the best care of his mother but this is because there are too many people coming into the A&E department. The question is raised about why Bonnie has decided to run the A&E department on a Saturday night. It could be because she is trying to distract herself with wok due to the break up of the relationship with Jo hence why she has taken on one of the most challenging roles again. I think that Birch has decided to include this scene because it shows how effected Bonnie is by the break up of the relationship, so much so that going to work isn't working anymore to distract her from life.
Anna's section of the scene is called Doctor and shows her in hospital with John. In the scene, it's clear that Anna is starting to show similar signs to how Carol was after she had Anna and John can see this which is why he acts so worried in the scene. We staged it so that when Anna enters the stage John is already sitting down on a chair with his back to the audience. This is mirrored in Carol and Bonnie's scene with Carol having her back to the audience on her side of the stage and the patient having her back to the audience on Bonnie's side of the stage at the beginning of the scene. This shows continuity between the generations. Anna seems to be showing signs of neurosis which juxtaposes the young Anna that we see on Carol's section who is innocent because she hasn't had all the things happen to her that the older Anna has experienced. The audience may feel slight sadness because they know that the child version of Anna is going to grow up taking drugs and have her mother die only to end up committing suicide herself. Halfway through the scene Anna sits down on the chair facing out to the audience her back to John as she describes what she feels - "profoundly lonely". This is incredibly disturbing because she asks John whilst she has her back to him if he "feels cold" and tells him that he "looks cold" despite not actually seeing him. This presents an image that Anna is seriously mentally disturbed and is approaching to what Carol felt. The audience definitely know now that the birth of Bonnie is what causes things to go horrendously wrong.
During N2C time, we worked on two scenes from AOAS which were Scene 10 and Scene 11. Out of the two scenes, Scene 10 is much easier to learn as there are fewer interjections from the other sections during the speech that Anna has in the scene. Scene 11 is much longer than Scene 10 and has a lot of speech for Anna which is mainly another monologue except from a few interjections from Lola, a nurse, and from Bonnie's side of the stage.
In Scene 10, Carol's section is titled Sleep and includes Anna as a young child. This is the first time in which we see Anna as a young child and it may be weird for the audience to see both a young Anna and an older Anna on stage at the same time, especially as the older Anna is about to give birth to Bonnie. This scene is quite nice in some ways as it shows how good a mother Carol was initially to Anna and shows how close they once were. However, it also is quite concerning because Carol is awake at 3am which suggests that she hasn't been sleeping. This would suggest that Carol definitely has depression at this point as one of the common signs of depression is insomnia/sleeplessness which Carol is demonstrating in this scene. The phrase "I'm a bit frightened" from young Anna on the last page of the scene can easily be about all characters onstage across the three generations. Young Anna doesn't know why she's scared which is something that all children experience at one time or another, especially as she is up with Carol at 3am. Young Anna may be scared because she may have sensed the difficulties that John and Carol are having in their relationship which may have made her feel on edge but as she is so young at this point she can't describe why she feels scared. Carol may be scared of life or of continuing to live especially as she has the thought that she has to keep living for Anna until she's older. This raises the question for me that if Carol had committed suicide when Anna was much younger, Anna may not have gotten so attached to Carol which would mean that Anna may not have turned to drugs or had such an adverse reaction to Carol's death. This may have impacted John more, but would have given Anna and John the chance to get closer and wouldn't have led to sixteen years of heartache for the three of them. However, it may have led to Anna and John becoming distant like Bonnie and Jamie do, as shown in a later scene, as John may have seen too much of Carol in Anna and wouldn't have wanted to look after he, something which seemingly happens after Carol's death anyway. I digress. Anna may be frightened as she is giving birth which is a frightening experience for any woman but especially as she doesn't have Carol to help her with how to be a mother. Additionally, Anna doesn't have anyone in the room with her for most of the scene after she tells Jamie to leave the room so may be nervous about how she's going to cope. Anna may also be nervous because she knows that Carol was also somewhat effected after Carol gave birth to Anna and may feel like that will happen to her. Bonnie may be frightened because she may not necessarily want to end her relationship with Jo but because Jo has kept prying into things that Bonnie wasn't ready to explain she had to end it. She may have been frightened about opening up to Jo because of the reaction that she may have gotten from Jo, especially as her family history isn't normal. Jo may be frightened of Bonnie's outburst, especially as its the first time that Jo and the audience have seen Bonnie react so negatively and hugely.
In Scene 10, Bonnie's scene is called Dinner and includes an argument between Bonnie and Jo. This is the first time that the audience have seen Bonnie show an emotion rather than indifference which could be quite shocking as they wouldn't expect that from her. Although, it could be expected from her because of Carol's reaction in her Dinner scene of tipping the dinner over which is somewhat similar to Bonnie throwing a casserole dish in this scene. It may also be expected because the anger is somewhat similar to how Anna's anger in Scene 6 which is directed at Jamie when he admits that he thinks about her. Bonnie seems very bitter in this scene, especially as she keeps saying the word "Apparently" which shows that she's not sure what actually happened in the house. This is because Jamie probably didn't tell her much about her mother or her family's past, probably because he felt that Bonnie was too much like Anna. John probably didn't talk to Bonnie that much either about Carol or about Anna because it was too painful for him, especially as both his wife and daughter had committed suicide. He may have made the link that if he was involved in people's lives then it led to pain so maybe didn't want to influence Bonnie's life that much. In previous scenes, Bonnie has been calm talking about what the house means to her and her family to an estate agent and a child. Why has she decided this moment should be where she begins to get angry about the house and what happened in it? Possibly because Jo has been prying too much into her life and Bonnie wasn't comfortable with it. She told the estate agent because the estate agent wasn't prying into her life and neither was the child. One thing that we did to show similarities between Bonnie's section and Anna's section is by having Bonnie and Jo stood in line with Anna where she's giving birth. We do this at the line "Here's where I was born. Right here. Apparently" which reinforces the relation between Bonnie and Anna . We also moved Bonnie and Jo to the back of the stage to mirror Carol and Anna's position in Carol's scene at the line "And here is where my grandmother sat and held my mother" which would again reinforce the relations onstage. By having Bonnie point out where all these things happened in the house, it reinforces how these things have already happened and that the audience are seeing the ghosts of the past and may allow a profound sadness to manifest in the audience's minds - it certainly has for me.
In Scene 10, Anna's scene is called Sex. Anna has just started to have contractions when Jamie comes in and begins to rub her back before trying to initiate sex between the two of them. Although sex can help during the early stage of labour to "help things along" (as glamorously put by Jamie), it really is a stupid move by him to even contemplate having sex with Anna when she's obviously already in a lot of pain. The scene is fairly humorous especially with the way that Anna phrases trying to give birth and with Jamie's explanation of how its supposed to help. When Jamie begins his advances on Anna we staged it so that the audience has a clear view of what he is trying to do and to enhance the comedy of the scene. We did this by having Anna look up and then look at Jamie's hands on her thighs and move slightly away from him and his face in her neck. Anna is not as aggressive in response as I originally thought - Chipp suggested that she was more astounded that Jamie would attempt this kind of thing and thinks he is stupid so her tone would be incredulous. Throughout the scene, Anna is trying to control her breath so any line that she has is between breaths. When Jamie leaves the stage, Anna's breathing becomes much faster which is because Bonnie is about to be born which is suggested by Anna's scream at the end of the scene - this could simply be a stronger contraction. However, as Bonnie points out that "they thought they had plenty of time then out I fucking shot", it may suggest that Anna does give birth after the scream at the end of the scene.
In Scene 11, Carol's section is called Doctor and stars Carol and a doctor who is trying to get her to have another round of ECT. This scene is very frustrating for Carol because she keeps saying that she doesn't want ECT and Felix, the doctor, isn't listening at all. Chipp compared it to rape because of the amount of times that Carol says no - if it were in a sexual situation, it would be illegal but because its not, it isn't. The level of violation is high because the doctors are going to mess with her mind despite how much she doesn't want to and how many times she has said no. I think that its significant that a male doctor is pressuring her to have the ECT as it suggests that men still have control of society and will force women to do things they don't want to do. Although, as Felix is adamant about the ECT it could suggest that he really thinks that it could work for her. The demand for Carol to have ECT will have probably been pushed by John. Carol mentions that "Anna will be frightened" which would be true because she wouldn't know where her mother would be - Carol may be using this to avoid having ECT. As Felix uses the word "Attempt" which Carol repeats, it would suggest that the ECT may not 'fix' her and may just make her depression worse than it was before. This proves to be true as it seems to be one of the final contributing factors as to why she decides to commit suicide.
In Scene 11 Bonnie's section is called Sex. It appears that Bonnie has had a one night stand, potentially after the break up between her and Jo. Bonnie is sat on stage by herself for a long time in the bathroom of Esther (the woman she had the one night stand) seemingly annoyed at herself for the one night stand. The interjections between Bonnie's scene and Anna's scene at the end of the scene gave me chills when I was voice recording so I could learn the lines for the scene. The lines run as follows:
ANNA: A baby
BONNIE: I'm sorry
ANNA: I had a baby. A real baby.
ESTHER: What for.
The first interjection from Bonnie could show that Bonnie is apologising for being born and for the pain that she ultimately caused Anna, Jamie, and John. Although this is a fairly big leap, the lines next to each other made me think that. The second interjection from Esther makes it seem as though she is questioning why Anna had a baby. This is because she dies only a few months after having Bonnie and isn't there for her life. It seems as though Esther is asking why should you have a baby when you aren't going to be there to look after her. This again is potentially too far a jump to make but I thought it was somewhat important.
In Scene 11, Anna's section is called Sleep. It shows the aftermath of Bonnie's birth on Anna and how she can't sleep, all of which is told to a nurse, Lola. In this scene, Anna gives a graphic description of a dream that she had after Bonnie was born. This is the first time such description has been given in the play so could be quite shocking for the audience to hear, especially as we staged it as though Anna wasn't really affected by it and is just recalling a dream that she wanted to tell. This allows the horror to happen in the audience's minds something which was previously demonstrated in the monologue in Scene 5. After pregnancy, women are often tired and 'messed up' in normal circumstances, however, Anna may be slightly more affected due to her past of depression and drug addiction. Everything that Lola confirms to be normal such as having "blood in....shit" is a normal reaction to the body after giving north which would suggest that how Anna is reacting is more normal that we may have initially had thought. There is, however, an element of trippiness when Anna begins to talk about her dream - the dream involves Anna giving birth to a baby boy and swimming to the bottom of a bath with him before squishing him between her "finger and thumb". During the lead up to her dream Anna admits that she "wanted a baby boy". This could imply that she knows that her mental health problems had been passed onto her by Carol and thinks that if she had a boy then her child wouldn't be affected by the mental health problems. During the description of the dream Anna says that "she was there" which could suggest that either Bonnie or Carol was the she in her dream as she may feel close to both of them in this section; she may feel close to Bonnie because she has just had her in her stomach for nine months; she may feel close to Carol because Carol reacted in a similar way after Anna was born. During the scene, we staged it so that Anna stays standing remaining in the same place throughout. This would show how affected Anna is after Bonnie's birth.
My longest silence up to Scene 9 is the entirety of Scene 8. In this scene, the focus is on Carol's Scene - Dinner - as there is little speech on Bonnie's side of the stage and no speech on Anna's section of the stage. The following video shows what I could possibly do in Scene 8:
In this scene Anna is getting ready for her wedding to Jamie. In the stage directions, it says that Anna is doing her make up and hair throughout the scene as well as putting on her dress and dancing with John. At the time that I recorded this, I didn't have access to a wedding dress or someone to dance with as John. Instead, I did my make up and hair. I think that during the performance, I'd have to be a bit quicker in applying make up as doing the above took me to the end of the speech on Carol's side of the stage which would mean less time for Anna to dance by herself before John comes back in to dance with her. Moreover, I don't think that Anna would wear eyeliner, as I applied in the video, as she'd want to be natural in her appearance. Additionally, my hair may already be brushed/straightened prior to this scene which would allow more time to apply make up and include the slow dancing by myself and with Marlon (as John). I may also have to reduce the amount of make up that I use as the stage directions also say that Anna should get dressed into her wedding dress onstage. However, as this is a school production I'm not sure whether we would include Anna getting into the wedding dress or start the scene off with her already in the wedding dress.
In this scene, I think that Anna would be thinking mainly about the wedding about whether its going to go smoothly and thinking about every last detail before she does get married. Her thoughts may also turn to Carol and how she may have reacted to Anna getting married as Anna may have wanted Carol with her and so that Carol could give her advice. As John appears at the end of this scene, it suggests that Anna and John have reconciled and have repaired their relationship from the awkward disaster that was Scene 4, especially as it appears that John is going to give Anna away. This would again give the audience hope that Anna is finally becoming happy and that everything will be alright. However, as Bonnie has already said that Anna has died, it again makes the audience question what will go wrong in her life.
In this lesson we worked on Scene 9 from AOAS. In this scene, the focus at the start is on Anna's scene as Anna, Daisy, and Jamie in the scene are the only people talking on stage. This allows the audience to fully focus on this scene which means that they can pick up on important thing such as Anna's impending pregnancy. Towards the end of the scene, Carol and Bonnie join in with their own conversations. I don't think that this scene is as hard to learn as the lines aren't as sporadic and make sense when they are next to one another, unlike Scene 5 which is currently extremely hard for me to learn. We also need to make sure that it doesn't seem like we are waiting in turns to speak and act throughout the silences that we have.
In Scene 9, Carol's scene is named Sex and starts off with Carol sat smoking after sex. It was suggested that the sex between Carol and John may not have been consensual as it only became illegal for a husband to rape his wife in 1991. Although, we have seen that John is not abusive throughout the play which would suggest that the sex was consensual. Birch may have been trying to make a social comment here that sex between a husband and wife was expected at that point in time. This may be the case for Carol and John and may be suggested that the two only have sex because it was expected of them, and expected of Carol to have another baby which she doesn't want. Although I think this is the correct interpretation for Carol, I think that John was genuinely trying to make love to her as he says "That wasn't about a baby" and "I just want to be near you" which shows that John is craving affection which Carol clearly hasn't been giving him throughout the play and certainly not in this scene. As Carol has been distant from John in not showing him affection and has been shown kissing other people such as Laura, this could raise the question of Carol's sexuality. She certainly doesn't want to be close to John and this could be because she is a lesbian or bisexual (or at the very least on the Kinsey Scale of sexual orientation towards the homosexual side). This would be another contributory factor in why she doesn't want to have sex with John. Birch may be hinting that Bonnie 'inherited' her sexuality from Carol and that Carol had to hide her sexuality whereas Bonnie is allowed to express hers. This shows the change of general opinion from the 1960's and 70's to the 2030's and present day as sexuality is now allowed to be expressed. This may be another reason why Carol feels constricted as she has to be the perfect house wife and is not allowed to properly express herself be that through her sexuality or suicide.
In Scene 9, Bonnie's scene is named Wedding and starts off with Bonnie sitting and reading a book. This allows the parallels between Carol and Bonnie's scenes to show, especially if they were to sit in a similar way which would reinforce that the two are related. Jo comes in halfway through the scene which is seemingly the first time that Bonnie and Jo have seen each other after their relationship had ended. How we staged this scene shows that Jo is less enthusiastic than what she was before as all the energy has been taken out of her voice. I wasn't sure if that was intentional or just a fluke but it does show that Jo has been severely impacted by the loss of their relationship. This may make the audience warm to Jo more than Bonnie as Bonnie hasn't been showing much sadness at the loss of their relationship. I think that the audience would warm to Jo much more than they would to Bonnie as Jo seems to apologetically show her emotions which attracts an audience, whereas Bonnie seems more reserved which means that the audience may not be able to relate as much to her as they do to Jo. Jo's sadness at not being in a relationship with Bonnie is also highlighted in how small her lines are compared to the other scenes, especially Scene 3 and 4 where she was talking throughout the scenes with big paragraphs. There is a section on page 152 which links directly to Anna's scene 4 where Jo says "You look well" to which Bonnie responds "Thank you" to which Jo asks "Are you?". This is very similar to the conversation that John and Anna have when Anna is in rehab which again shows the links that Birch has cleverly inserted throughout the script.
In Scene 10, Anna's scene is named Dinner and much like Carol's previous dinner scene, the focus is largely on the people having the dinner. Daisy may have been invited to the dinner so that Anna and Jamie could reveal the news about Anna's pregnancy hence why the conversation revolves around it. This scene again shows seemingly a domestic bliss between Anna and Jamie and the audience may again question why things go so wrong and when that is going to happen. They are given some clues in this scene when Daisy begins to compare Anna to Carol and puts forward the idea that Anna may develop post-natal depression after she gives birth to her baby (Bonnie). The scene is very humorous especially with the quips between Daisy and Jamie which contrast with the serious topic that Daisy keeps bringing up throughout the scene. This is the second time that we see Daisy in the play and she is easily recognisable due to her straight taking opinions and as she smokes, something that she learnt from Carol when she first appears as a child. Daisy is present in the scene to draw the audience's attention to the parallels that may begin to emerge to how Carol was after giving birth to Anna and how Anna may be after giving birth to Bonnie. Daisy may realise in hindsight that her suggestion to Carol to have a baby worsened Carol's mental situation and may have somewhat caused her mental decline - here she is trying to show that Anna may end up like Carol was if she has the baby. Daisy may feel some guilt about her part in Carol's suicide, however, it won't be something that keeps her up at night - she only mentions it because it relates to the conversation about Anna's pregnancy. She may also feel slightly guilty because she, in a roundabout way, caused Anna's hurtful experiences with drugs. Daisy is presented very much like her mother, Emma, in the previous scene. Not only do they start of their respective scenes in a similar way - "It's an awful idea" - the two are also very confident with their opinion, something which is shown in Daisy's character throughout, even as a child.
We staged the scene by having a table in the middle of our section of the stage. In my opinion, I think that we should have the same table as what was used for the previous dinner scene. This would give nice continuity and could also show a nice visual effect during transitions if we slide the table from Carol's side to Anna's side and then to Bonnie's side of the stage in Scene 10 for her dinner scene. Anna begins by setting the table and seems more intent on that than listening to what the conversation has jumped to which leaves her tone light and shows that she is happy and content with her life at this moment in time. The gaps that are left in the script when Daisy and Anna are left onstage are comfortable as we eat the crisps that are put on the table in the scene which shows that the two are much friendlier than what Carol and Emma were. This interaction between the two of them when Jamie has left the stage is somewhat similar to the conversation that Carol and Emma had whilst Carol was in hospital after Anna had been born. This continuity throughout the generations is quite nice.
This lesson was mostly a consolidation lesson but did somewhat follow from Monday's lesson. We looked at Scene 8 again in more detail and blocked Carol's side of the stage which I touched upon in my previous blog. In Bonnie's section of Scene 8 she feeds a rabbit and then leaves the stage. The rabbit is significant because Anna had a rabbit as a child. The rabbit that Bonnie has, is called "Wolf" which is what Carol, Anna, and Jamie talk about in their respective scenes which creates a link through all three eras. In Anna's section of Scene 8 she is getting ready to get married to Jamie - we didn't block this scene because it requires a wedding dress and make up which we didn't have access to in the lesson. As Anna is getting married and seems happy with her life at this point in the play, the audience may again question what and why things go as wrong as they do so that Anna commits suicide as suggested by the title of the play and by Bonnie's previous comments.
We also went over Scene 2 with Chipp which was mainly consolidating what we had done before and making sure that we were learning lines for the scene.
With Starbuck, Cast A went through the play from Scene 1 to Scene 5 which went smoothly in some places but in others wasn't as smooth as they should have been. The main issue that caused this is that often the cues come from other sections in the Scene which means that it doesn't follow on the conversation that I would be having in the Scene with characters such as Jamie. This means that we are still on book for the scenes that we have blocked. I do know some of the scenes such as Scene 2 and Scene 4 on their own in the section but when we add in cues from other sections the complications arise. I know all my cues for Scene 3 but this is because I only have five in the Scene.
In this lesson, we worked largely on Scene 7. However, before this, we did a small 'kissing workshop' whereby we were taught how to stage kiss. Intimacy is a huge part of AOAS and without it, we would lose most of the impact in the play. Carol and John share little intimacy with few hugs and no kisses within the piece, they do however, share an awkward post sex scene where Carol says that she doesn't want another baby. This lack of intimacy between the couple is could be what cause their issues or is something that itself is caused by their issues. Carol is kissed by two women within the play which could allude to Bonnie's own sexuality and could highlight the lack of intimacy between herself and John. Anna and Jamie also share little intimacy but I think this could be because the two aren't together until Scene 7 officially and in that scene they share seemingly domestic intimacy such as a kiss on the head (from Jamie) and a hug that lasts for around five or so seconds. However, I feel like their intimacy is lost from Scene 10 onward due to the birth of Bonnie and Anna's reaction to it. This is also shown because we don't see Jamie in Anna's story at all from Scene 10 onward, instead we see him in Bonnie's story much later in the play. Bonnie shares a large amount of intimacy but I don't think that it is as hopeful as the intimacy shared between Anna and Jamie. This is because Bonnie never really seems to like the people with whom she shares intimacy. The kiss between her and Jo in Scene 4 could be because she was trying to show Jo that the sex that the two of them had was only 'good'. Bonnie also seems to have many one night stands, such as the one shown with Esther in Scene 11, which doesn't seem to show emotional intimacy, rather simply showing physical intimacy. I think that Anna and Jamie show the most emotional intimacy, particularly in Scene 7 because of how content and hopeful the scene seems. As we are performing the play in a school setting some of the intimacy is lost due to some people feeling uncomfortable with it, which is understandable.
In Scene 7, Carol is at a wedding with John and with Anna who is a small child. We don't see Anna or John in this scene as John has taken Anna back to the hotel room. This raises the question as to why John would do this. Obviously, there is the fact that he is Anna's father, but there could be more to it than that. He could have noticed that Carol needed a break from being a mother and by taking Anna back to the hotel, allows Carol to have a break. Carol could have remained at the wedding to have a break or because it would be deemed socially unacceptable if she left at that point at the reception. Laura, someone who attended the same school as Carol, approaches her at the reception and attempts to make conversation. It is clear that Laura is much more confident and open than Carol is, and it could be said that this is how Laura expected Carol to turn out to be as Laura seems to have based most of her personality on what she thinks Carol was like at school. This can be proved as Laura says "God, we were all so in love with you at school". Another point of interest in this section is when Laura comments "Like a line of little ducks. Little Carol's. That time you jumped off the school roof." This would imply that now that Laura knows that Carol has had one child, she would expect that Carol would have more, as it is the socially expected thing to do. Moreover, the comment about little ducks implies that any children that Carol will have, specifically Anna, will follow Carol in whatever she does. This seems like a harmless comment, especially as these lines are interrupted by speech from Anna's side of the stage, but as Laura says that Carol jumped off the school roof, it could be suggested that Anna will follow with her mother's suicidal tendencies and will end up dead at the end of the play herself. At the end of the scene Laura kisses Carol which could link to the aforementioned line "God, we were all so in love with you at school" which could suggest that Laura likes Carol in a romantic way which can be further proved at Laura admits that she doesn't have a husband.
In Scene 7, Bonnie is planting flowers at the house when a child walks by and the two have a conversation. This could lead to the question as to why Bonnie is largely associated with children, which is one of the questions we raised in lesson. Much like Bonnie, Carol also has a scene and a conversation with a child, Daisy, but this is largely so that Daisy can plant the idea of Carol having a baby in her head to make her feel less lonely. Bonnie doesn't want children as highlighted in one of her final scenes where she decides to get sterilised. One interpretation is that Bonnie has a personality that works with children as she is indifferent to them which means that they don't have anything to bounce off of like the child in Scene 5. It could also be a buffer to stop the shock for the audience when Bonnie does decide to get sterilised as she isn't what society would class as 'normal' in interacting with children. This can be shown as she asks the Child if they have any children of their own which is somewhat abnormal, however, the audience may expect this of Bonnie because of her personality.
In Scene 7, Anna and Jamie are moving into the house. Anna is painting for the majority of the scene which will create a nice visual effect for the audience. If the back wall on Carol and Anna's side are the same for the first six scenes of the play it could show that Carol's presence is greater. When Anna paints over it, it removes some of the essence of Carol and shows that Anna is finally starting anew. This effect may be lost if I don't fully paint the wall in time but this can easily be reflected as being complete in Bonnie's side as that wall may remain the same colour as Anna's wall. The scene is quite hopeful and calm compared to Anna's previous scenes which could be because she finally feels content at her life as she has a home, a man who loves her, and she is off drugs. However, there is always the thought in the audience's mind that Anna will die at the end of the play as highlighted by Bonnie in the previous scene when she admits to the estate agent that her mother (Anna) died in the bathroom. The audience may begin to question what's going to go wrong and why it does go wrong. The comments about what pet Jamie and Anna should get in this scene seem domestic, especially when Jamie kisses Anna on the head (highlighting the intimacy that I mentioned at the start of this blog), which shows how hopeful the scene starts out. When Anna becomes slightly scared in the scene and goes off stage, Birch could be trying to suggest that Carol's "Legacy" (as mentioned by Carol in Scene 4) is still there, especially as Anna admits that she can feel Carol's presence. This gives a hint as to how Anna is going to die as Carol's presence is quite strong suggesting they both die from suicide (this is obvious due to the title of the play and Carol's previous attempts at suicide).
At the start of the scene and up until about halfway, Anna remains at the back of the stage and doesn't turn around when she says her lines. The small interaction with Jamie about the pet suggests that they're carrying on a conversation from before the scene started, which can show a Stanislavski method as Stanislavski said that the scene shouldn't start from when characters walk on stage. Anna is facing the back wall throughout her initial interactions with Jamie in this scene which could suggest more elements of Brecht creeping into the play as not facing the audience would distance them a small amount from the action onstage - this is the Verfremdungseffekt. Anna only turns around when a door bangs - presumably from Jamie in another room - and begins to look anxious, moving slightly towards the middle of the stage. This sudden movement and sound may attract the audience's attention to Anna's section of the stage allowing them to see that something has clearly troubled Anna and that she has left the stage. When Jamie enters and Anna isn't there, he moves towards the bottom of the stage so that when Anna enters and stays by the door, he can turn his back on the audience again creating the Verfremdungseffekt. It also creates a gap between the two which could show the gap that grows between the two after Bonnie is born. After this, Jamie embraces Anna which again shows hope for the audience and would make them question what goes wrong. The embrace highlights how different Anna and Jamie's relationship is to Carol and John's; Carol and John never seem to show much intimacy on stage whereas Anna and Jamie clearly do. This could suggest that Anna and Jamie's relationship is much more open which could be because Jamie already knows about Anna's previous drug abuse so she has nothing to hide from him or feel ashamed about in this section of the play. When Anna begins to tell Jamie what's wrong, she walks down towards the middle, verging on the bottom of the stage as though she's trying to envisage what impact Carol had on the house and how she's still there in some ways. This could link to how in previous scenes Carol and Bonnie both imagined what their life would be like in the house; here Anna is allowed to do the same. She says the lines out to the audience almost which would engage them more, meaning that they may become more attached to Anna's character, allowing them to become emotionally invested in her. This would make her death slightly more traumatic for the audience.
At the end of the lesson we briefly touched upon Scene 8. In Scene 8, the attention is largely focused on Carol's scene as Anna doesn't say anything in the scene as she's getting ready to get married and Bonnie only feeds her rabbit and then leaves the stage. In Carol's section, Carol and John appear to be holding a dinner party for Emma (John's sister) and her husband Toby. An argument arises between the four and ends with Carol throwing a dish full of food to the floor because the argument has woken Anna who's only just gotten to sleep. Carol potentially gets angry because she's had to put Anna to sleep and cook dinner suggesting that John has done nothing to help, fitting the role of a 60s/70s husband perfectly. Before the argument, Emma suggests that Carol should have another baby "if she's bored" which could suggest that Daisy got her opinions about Carol having a child in the first place from overhearing Emma talking about Carol. This also demeans Carol as she is now just a "wife and mother" (quoted from Laura from the previous scene) and the only thing she can do now is have more babies so she doesn't get bored.
During N2C time, myself, Bella, and Chipp worked on Anna's monologue in Scene 5 of AOAS. The monologue is about six minutes long and covers a wide range of topics from Anna's life which fill in important things for the audience. For example, it talks about Anna's drug addiction, her relationship with her father, that her mother has died, and how she ended up in the commune. As the monologue is so long, we decided to split it up into sections that included a certain topic and weren't too long so that myself and Bella could learn the monologue easier. By doing this, it made the monologue much easier to tackle and thus far I have learnt my first section and half of the second section. As the monologue is so long, it could get boring easily for the audience which is why Anna's tone must keep changing and not be miserable throughout otherwise the audience may stop watching and turn off, missing vital information about the play.
The lead up to the monologue starts on page 89 of the play. The majority of the lead up to the monologue could be regarded as filler so that the audience can focus largely on Carol's section and somewhat on Bonnie's section. The lead up is mostly Anna considering what to say and how to say it and also her mentioning her childhood and how it was like the commune. This may have been one of the reasons why she wanted to go to the commune because it reminded her of a time when everything was much simpler. However, there is one point before she goes into her monologue when she seems to be, seemingly for the first time, affected by her mother's death. She seems to avoid the concept of it by calling it "something else". This could be the first time where she's fully thought about the death of Carol without being on drugs or consumed by school work.
The first section of the monologue that I chose is her trying to explain what she was like during her drug addiction, especially as she mentions rehab and how she stayed on sofas. When she says she stayed on friends sofas, I think that shows how she was trying to make herself better and stop the addiction as she may have been with people that wouldn't want her on drugs - such as Dan as it is implied that she stayed with him for a while in scene 2. However, when she mentions that she slept on not friends sofas, this could show that she was addicted to drugs again - one such time could be after she had sex with Dan's fifteen year old brother. In this section she also mentions how she wasn't in contact with her father and reveals for the first time to the audience that Carol has died. The tone at the start of this section should begin as light and jokey, somewhat similar to how Anna was to Dan at the beginning - when I first tried to perform this to Chipp, it was noted that Anna should still be jokey and somewhat funny as that is an important part of her personality. As she gets to talking about her mother, Anna's tone should become slightly more serious, especially as she's come to the epiphany that the reason she started taking the drugs was somewhat because of her mother's death.
The second section of the monologue that I chose is Anna overdosing and going to hospital because she had an abscess on her leg. This could be somewhat shocking for the audience to hear as it is somewhat graphic as she mentions the abscess and how little she cared about her condition. The section also shows that she was ready to get help but soon she had withdrawal symptoms so wanted to get out and get her hands on more drugs. There's a part in this section where she seems to be more optimistic when she says she "could turn it into a Good Thing" which could show how much she wanted to be 'rescued' from the state that she was in. This could be what prompts Jamie to get the image of him becoming her hero which is why he becomes so fixated on her.
The third section of the monologue that I chose is when Anna is describing how she had no stability in her life. This could be her talking simply about her drug addiction but could also link to how she must have known about the tension between John and Carol when she was a child - she must have known that Carol was struggling to simply keep going from day to day. I think that Anna may hold some resentment for what Carol did to herself and to John because it broke their family up more than it had done than what it had been when Carol was alive. She may think that Carol chose to mess Anna up in the head by choosing to leave. However, Anna may not be as harsh as me, largely because she would have had a connection towards Carol. The phrase "that if my Mother couldn't - then I must be an almighty piece of shit" suggests that Anna to some extent blames herself for Carol's death. Here, she is suggesting that if she had behaved better as a child or had noticed what was wrong with Carol then she may have been able to save her from her death. In this section there should be a massive change of tone when Anna begins to mention stability because she is beginning to talk about Carol's death and the impact of that on Anna's life which is what the play is largely about so the audience should be allowed to pick up on the mention of the theme within this section.
The fourth section of the monologue that I chose was how Anna got to the commune and therefore answering the question that Jamie had asked her before the monologue had begun. The tone should again change to funny because she has realised that she's completely gone off topic and may be slightly embarrassed. However, as Jamie didn't stop her from her tangent, this shows the first signs that Jamie is infatuated with her. The phrase "I have a Degree - this was not I" suggests that Anna was going to talk about what could have been but immediately stops herself because she doesn't wan to go down that road of self pity. This phrase also shows the audience how clever Anna actually is and that Carol's death messed her up more than they may have initially thought because the grief consumed her which meant she started taking the drugs. When she begins to talk about how she hit on her dad, I could use a sad/angry tone but Chipp suggested that we use a jokey tone again because the image of someone hitting on their dad is somewhat funny. That would mean that the tragic thing that Anna is describing take place in the audience's head making them work and stay focused on what Anna is saying because of her abnormal reactions to what she's been through.
The final section of the monologue that I chose was Anna describing the commune and how similar it is to her childhood. I think that this section should be done slower to show that Anna is calming down because she isn't actually reliving the events again. I spoke about this in a previous AOAS blog.
One thing about the monologue that may be off putting for the audience is that Carol is constantly saying "a baby" throughout the monologue. This may distract the audience's attention and may even distract myself from what I'm saying in the monologue. Also, the sheer length of the monologue is such that some parts may easily be forgotten which may leave out key details for the audience.
In this lesson, we focused on Scene 6 of AOAS. Again, all three timelines are present in the scene but there is less speech in Carol's side of the scene which i think is what makes the scene easier to perform and easier to watch as an audience member.
In Carol's scene, she takes Anna as a baby to a zoo and at this moment she is showing Anna the wolves. As Carol has taken Anna to the zoo by herself, this could suggest that John has had little impact on Anna's childhood so far which can be confirmed as John works on the trains and Carol stays at home caring for the house and for Anna. There are two phrases from Carol's scene that stand out to me when I read this scene. Firstly "When a wolf dies the whole pack can call apart". Birch is definitely foreshadowing how Carol's own family is going to fall apart when she dies, something that has become evident in Scene 5 when Anna explains in her monologue that one reason why she started taking drugs was due to her mother's death. This quote also highlights how aware Carol is about what will happen when she ultimately kills herself, something which I think she is set on. I think that could show that to some extent Carol is selfish as she knows how John and Anna may react to her death and that it will cause her own 'pack' to fall apart. Secondly "No one ever regretted living So Much". Birch is obviously trying to show that Carol regrets living but this could be taken in a variety of ways. Firstly, that Carol regrets ever being born in the first place, something which can be identified in the following scene where an old school 'friend', Laura, says that Carol jumped off the school roof. This shows that Carol has always had the issues that are presented within the play. Secondly, that Carol regrets living after the first attempted suicide by Carol which is shown in Scene 1.
In Bonnie's scene, Bonnie is attempting to sell the house and is showing an estate agent, Karen, round. In this scene it is clear to see the similarities between Bonnie and Carol as they both look around the house in very similar ways. For example they both ask their respective estate agents for 'a minute' when they try to imagine what their life could be like in the house. However, for Bonnie she could be also trying to imagine how Carol and Anna fit into the house and how they lived there. On an unrelated note, the use of a female estate agent in this scene, as well as Bonnie's own profession, highlight how women are viewed in a much more professional way and shows by how much times have changed since Carol's era.
In Anna's scene, she and Jamie meet at a coffee shop (subject to interpretation) in order to discuss the film that Anna was helping Jamie to make in the previous scene (in Anna's mind) and to get to know each other better (in Jamie's mind). I think that this scene is initially quite sweet albeit a bit awkward because of how attracted they are to one another and because of how hard Jamie appears to be trying to show his affection (flowers) as is Anna (cup of tea and a cup of coffee). Despite how well they appear to hit it off in the beginning of the scene, it soon turns sour when Jamie kind of admits that he likes Anna because of her role in his film. This could show that Jamie has a hero complex where he only like Anna because he wants to save her from her past which can be later seen in Bonnie's Scene 13 when it is said that Jamie married another woman - this could show that Jamie had strong attraction to Anna but it wasn't love.
The scene begins with Anna smoking until Jamie walks in carrying flowers. I, as Anna, am sat on a chair down stage left in my section of the stage with Bruce, as Jamie, standing a little further back than I am when he walks onto stage. We made it so that Anna stands when she notices Jamie but then sits again when she makes fun of his "Unusual greeting". This element of fun in Anna's tone remains until Jamie mentions that the only good part about the film is her at which Anna becomes angry at as she feels that he may only like her because she's a "fucking misery project". Before this, however, we made a comedy-esque section to the scene whereby Jamie holds two mugs of tea/coffee and has the flowers under his arm. This will make the audience further warm to Jamie as it could be something that they themselves may have done to impress a significant other. Additionally, they could warm to him because he's showing embarrassment. Anna becomes slightly angry after Jamie tells her that he "can't stop thinking about her" which should build until her speech at the end where she may end up shouting towards the end of it. After he massive spiel, I suggested that Anna maybe should start angrily smoking to show how annoyed she is at Jamie. However, she stops the angry smoking when Jamie says the word "home" in his speech and then Anna turns to look at him. At the same time Carol looks down at Baby Anna in the pram and Bonnie looks up towards the bathroom ceiling where Anna killed herself - this simultaneous movement is somewhat like the simultaneous phrases that are said in the play.
Lesson: Thursday 14th December 2017 and 21st December 2017
In the following lessons with Starbuck we will be working on Forced Entertainment. Forced Entertainment is an experimental theatre company based in Sheffield which was set up by the artistic director Tim Etchells in 1984. The core members of the company include: Tim Etchells, Richard Lowdon (designer and performer), and performers Robin Arthur, Claire Marshall, Cathy Naden, and Terry O'Connor who have been part o the company since it began. They devise their pieces through improvisation, experimentation, and debate, sometimes focusing on current politics much like Brecht. They think that their work should look like it got thrown together - "chaotic, out of control, unintended" from Tim Etchells' book Certain Fragments. When they were working on their production of Nighthawks (1985) the company went around Sheffield and picked up loads of objects from all over the city, however, they didn't want anything in the performance to be recognisably British. Tim Etchells said "We did once think of putting Look Back in Anger with all the performers drunk on cider but, rather fortunately, we didn't pursue the idea" which I think shows how prepared the company is to break the rules of theatre in order to make a statement of some kind (or rather just to have fun). Etchells also comments that "A confident audience understand and enjoy that. An unconfident audience take it personally and think we are attacking them" which again shows that they are prepared to break the conventions of theatre to make the audience feel uncomfortable which is in some respects is similar to Artaud.
Tim Etchells wrote Status Update which was one of the plays that the upper BTECs chose for their Director's Challenge assessed piece of the course. The version that I saw of this piece often jumped from topic to topic with seemingly no relation to what the actors were speaking about before. In the play there are no characters and the actors are just relaying things that they know to the audience. We used some of this in our piece. For example, we spoke directly to the audience and listed some things that we knew about the world that we had created.
At the beginning of the lesson, we were told to write down rules, tasks, and characters that were to be presented within the piece that we would be creating. We were then given a random profile that someone else in the class had created; mine are shown below.
Task: Eat a piece of paper Rule: You are not allowed to touch the floor Character: Homer Simpson Characteristic of character: He is fat Secret Task: Touch everyone's head in the room without them noticing it's weird
My rules influenced the piece. We included eating the piece of paper as a random moment within the piece, which is somewhat like how Status Update changed from topic to topic which would remind the audience that the piece they are watching is a performance something which Status Update does to some extent. My rule of not being able to touch the floor meant that I was 'office chair' bound for the entire piece which allowed for some moments of humour (which I saw in Status Update) such as trying to move myself along the space with a crutch to the Wallace and Gromit theme tune.
We were allowed to share every rule/task/character that we had been given except for the Secret Task which we had to carry out in the middle of the piece but not tell anyone else in our group what we had to do. We were also given an additional rule from Starbuck whereby the start of every sentence had to be in alphabetical order (for example: "An apocalyptic forest in Russia many years ago" followed by "Billions") which made creating a piece much more difficult.
The group that I was put in consisted of Alex, Bruce, Hannah1 and Izzy.
The 'storyline' that we came up with was that there was a group of creatures in the Ural mountains separated from the rest of society by an electrified gate. These creatures have evident malformations - one is a werewolf, one is 'office chair' bound, one has a crutch, one has a limp and can only count in numbers, and one can only walk with their legs crossed. We talked about how these creatures were not allowed through the gate which made for a serious social message, something which was sometimes evident within Status Update, of how different (disabled, from a different country etc) people are often treated. We also added in the character of zombies which was a random element within the piece which only came about because we had to fit within the 'alphabet' rule. Despite the obvious despair that these characters have, they still "like to have fun" which is shown when I moved across the space on the office chair to the theme tune of Wallace and Gromit. Behind me, the other characters are turning into zombies which allows for humour (and I'm still not entirely sure why we included it within the piece).
Alex's Tasks etc. Task: Rule: Must always have legs crossed Character: A Russian woman Characteristic of character: She is old
This had some influence on where the piece was set. We based the piece in the Ural mountains of Russia which has an extensive forest area making the piece more believable (if members of the audience knew what the Ural mountains were like). This also allowed for a fairy tale feel to the piece which was made more evident with Hannah1's character of a werewolf. As Alex always had to have her legs crossed
Bruce's Tasks etc.
Task: Stand on a chair Rule: You can only stand on one leg for the entirety of the piece Character: Hal Characteristic of Character: Lives in an apocalyptic forest
I wrote the tasks for Bruce's piece which made it easier to incorporate the character of Hal into the piece. Hal is an original character of my own creation who lives in an apocalyptic forest (hence why we based the piece in the Ural mountains) with his so-called mother. There is an electrified gate in the middle of the forest that he lives in which separates the apocalyptic forest and the wonderful city on the other side of the electrified gate. This influenced many of the ideas within the piece. The electrified gate element of this original character was woven into the piece as a barrier between the apocalyptic forest of malformed creatures and the 'beautiful' land which lay beyond the gate. The rule of standing on one leg meant that Bruce used a crutch for the majority of the piece which added to the malformations that every character had. Hannah1's Tasks etc. Task: Rule: Has to remain standing Character: Characteristic of Character: A werewolf
Hannah1's character of a werewolf shaped the piece into becoming about how people treat others who have malformations or are different. It also added to the element of living in a forest and also the fairy tale element. One thing that we decided that Hannah1 would do whilst playing the werewolf would be that she would have a mask on when she turned into the wolf part of her character. She would have the mask on the back of her head which would mean that when she would turn into a werewolf she would turn around so the audience could see the mask on the back of her head, creating humour within the piece.
Izzy's Tasks etc.
Task: Stay in the drama office for 15 mins (which we then changed to walk up and down the steps 15 times as we couldn't make the piece 15 mins long in the short space of time we had to devise and rehearse the piece) Rule: Has to walk with a limp Character: Characteristic of Character: Can only speak in numbers.
Izzy's character also shaped the piece in some aspects. As she had to walk with a limp, this emphasised the malformations that each character would have. And as she could only speak in numbers this reduced the amount of lines that she could speak. One of her lines that she did get which was quite a clever play on words was when Hannah1 bit Izzy when turned into the werewolf. Instead of saying "no" Izzy said "nine" which sounds like the German word for no - nein. This allowed for the 'story' to be conveyed as well as sticking to the given rules.
Below is a run through of our first run through as I don't have access to the final version. Much of what was done in this version is largely the same as what was don in the final version.
I think that if we had more time for devising and rehearsal, we would have made the piece longer and more efficient. As such, we had no time for rehearsal because of the Director's Challenge performances running throughout the week which we paid more attention to, to help the Y13s.
