Lesson: Thursday 15th February 2018 Vsevolod Meyerhold Meyerhold was a Russian/Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer born in 1874. His work was based around physical theatre and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting. In February 1940, he was arrested and then killed during the Great Purge conducted by the Communist leader Josef Stalin. He joined the Moscow Philharmonic Dramatic School instead of studying law at Moscow University and between 1907-1917 worked in imperial (Tsarist) theatres in St Petersburg. In 1918 after the Russian Revolution, Meyerhold joined the Bolshevik party as an official of the Theatre Division (TEO) of the Commissariat of Education and Enlightenment where he effectively nationalised theatres under Bolshevik control. He founded the Meyerhold Theatre in 1920 which was then closed down in 1938 as the Bolsheviks were against non-traditional theatre that Meyerhold had interests in and created. Meyerhold used circus style effects and was against the US Method Acting, instead he connected psychological and physiological processes together. This is where the emotional state of an actor is linked to the physical state therefore emotions can be called upon due to specific movement and gesture. He was tortured and executed by Bolshevik forces and had to 'confess' that he was a British/Japanese spy.
Meyerhold created Biomechanics which was actor training whereby the actor had to be in control of their body in order to create theatre. It forms the basis for modern day physical theatre and was forced underground after Meyerhold's death but re-emerged in the 1970's. In Biomechanics, there are Etudes which are highly stylised movement pieces which Meyerhold choreographed as exercise material for his students. During this lesson we explored Meyerhold and biomechanics and learnt the etude 'Throwing the Stone' as shown below:
This allowed us to keep control of our bodies and build up some core strength. We did this so that during the scene changes of AOAS we would be able to keep control of our movements. During the transitions between scenes, Carol, Anna, and Bonnie will remain onstage getting dressed by various other characters whilst people and props are arranged around them. Below is the first attempt at a Scene change between Scene 3 and Scene 4:
Below is the first attempt at a scene change between Scene 1 and Scene 2:
For a first attempt at transitions this is relatively good as each person in each section of the stage knew what they were doing and in what sequence to do this in. However, in order for the scene changes to work more effectively we would need to time them so that they finish at around the same time so that people aren't stood on stage awkwardly. Although, this could work as it shows that all characters are being manipulated within the transitions rather than just the three main women.
During this lesson we focused on the proxemics/blocking of Scene 6 and Scene 7.
Scene 6 is where Anna and Jamie meet to get coffee so that Anna can look at the film which doesn't happen. When Jamie (Bruce) walks on stage, I, as Anna, can feel his presence and so I turn around whilst smoking (breathing in at this point) which cues Bruce to say "Radiant" which means that it's clear from the start that Jamie didn't know what to say when he sees Anna. After Jamie has said this line, I exhale and blow out the smoke which shows how funny it is for someone to say something like that - it also adds in a comedic element. It transpired that I was saying the line "My aunt used to say radiant". I said it as though I was simply pointing out that Emma used to say radiant rather than making fun of Jamie. When I say the line "I haven't been here in ages" I was told to gesture to where 'here' actually is, potentially with large arm movement or looking around with my head. This will allow for the audience to understand where the scene is set and let them know that this is the first time in a while that Anna has come back to the city where she grew up. Anna kept away from this place because of the memories that are contained here - growing up, her mother dying, and potentially her own downfall into drugs. As Jamie begins to confess his 'love' for Anna, Anna becomes to get gradually more angry, and so looks away from him, probably beginning to smoke again to show that she's really annoyed with him - it is found out in Scene 9 that Jamie doesn't like people who smoke, so Anna continuing to smoke here would potentially annoy Jamie himself slightly. Jamie's "Anna" after he has said "I can't stop thinking about you" is therefore to get her attention - it certainly will get the audience's attention because Jamie and Carol say this line simultaneously. As Anna begins to speak after Jamie has confessed this, her words should be less fluid, allowing her some thinking time about what she's going to say hence why there are phrases such as "It is not Unpainful" and "that is not not difficult" to indicate that she's messing her words up slightly. This shows that she is romantically invested in Jamie because even when she was high in Scene 2 and dealing with an emotionally compromised John in Scene 4 with words such as "Veracity" and "facetious" being said - she can't string words together and is using less complicated words as she herself may be slightly emotionally compromised because of Jamie during this scene due to her attraction and due to her overwhelming anger.
In Scene 7 Jamie and Anna have just moved into the family house together. There were few things that needed to be directed in Anna's section of this scene because of the little amount that Anna actually does - for the majority of the scene she is painting. When Jamie and Anna hug there was an issue of where I should put my face without it being stuffed into Bruce's chest. When Anna says her line "I'm not. That's not what I" she should turn her head out to the audience - this also means that the line isn't muffled into Bruce's chest. Additionally, I was told to put both arms around Bruce (before, I had thought that my right arm would stay dangling down so that I could get paint on his leg) so that the paint roller and paint now go on his back, rather than on his leg - this makes the hug more realistic and shows that Anna is reciprocating it. When Anna goes into her spiel that starts with "She's just quite a bit closer than she's been. She's just" I pause after "She's just" in order to draw attention to the kiss between Laura and Carol that's happening on Carol's side of the stage which has repercussions seemingly with Bonnie's own sexuality.
N2C, 14th February 2018:
At this weeks N2C we focused on Scene 5's proxemics and cuing. In Scene 5 Jamie interviews Anna about how she got to the refuge and contains Anna's largest monologue. At the beginning of the scene, Jamie is setting up his camera whilst Anna is watching on until Jamie says "Hello". The assembly of the camera suggests to the audience that Jamie and Anna are going to make a porn film, especially as the audience have seen Anna get high and have heard that she's raped a 15 year old boy - they wouldn't put it past her to engage in this sort of activity. Jamie sits Anna down by assembling a light box next to her and aligning her face up to the camera at the same time as Anna is offering him a drink. When Anna says that she'll go and make the drinks she stands up. After she's done this, Jamie replies with a "No, no. I'll go." Here, Anna should have a massive reaction to what he's said because it's very weird that he would suggest he do that when it's not his house as Anna does point out a couple of lines later. When Anna calls out to him "Good luck. God speed" these should be louder as though she is shouting through a large house which immediately contrasts with her next lines which are quieter. During the quiet moments in Anna's scene when Jamie is gone from the stage, she should be nervous by looking around, showing that she is interested in him. At one point she gets up from her seat and looks at her reflection in the mirror, sorting out her hair and face. Both of these things may again suggest that Jamie and Anna are going to make a porn film. Another couple of things that we added in which further suggest the making of a porn film are that when Jamie says the line "Let me just check we're all set" he should take off the jacket that he's been wearing in the scene. Additionally, when Jamie asks if Anna has "done anything like this before" Anna's response of "What?" is punctuated with Anna uncrossing her legs. These subtle hints will suggest the making of the porn film but when Jamie begins to ask Anna about her journey and especially when Anna begins her monologue, these thoughts are interrupted - the audience may berate themselves for believing the worst in Anna but this is acceptable because of what the audience have already seen - the monologue gives more depth to Anna's character that the audience haven't yet seen.
Thursday 15th February 2018:
During this lesson we applied some of Stanislavski's methods to the play. We used Objectives, Super-Objectives, and touched upon Tempo and Rhythm.
Super Objective: The final goal that the character wants to achieve.
Objectives: What a character wants to achieve in a scene or an action.
Tempo: The speed of an action.
Rhythm: The intensity or depth of the experience.
The super objective that Bella and I chose for Anna was to understand Carol's reasons for leaving her and causing her this much pain. Anna is massively affected by Carol's death so the super objective can be seen throughout her life from when she is 16 and has just been told about Carol's death. One of the reasons why Anna began to take drugs was because of Carol's death - Anna may feel as though she is a cause of Carol's death which is somewhat true. In Scene 7, Anna says that she hasn't felt as close to her mother as she is feeling at that moment in years - this could show that although Anna doesn't fully understand the reason for Carol's death, she is beginning to accept her death which allows her to think about the good times that the two of them shared.
We also chose 3 smaller objectives that are present at certain times within the piece. These were:
1) To stop being dependent on drugs - this applies to the beginning of the play and is achieved by Scene 4 when Anna is shown in rehab.
2) To have steadiness - she doesn't actively seek steadiness as she says in her Scene 5 monologue, but we thought that she wants some semblance of steadiness that was akin to her childhood hence why she decides to go to the commune and moves into the family house. This links to the super objective because both of these places are able to reconnect Anna to Carol and therefore help her understand why Carol committed suicide. Anna achieves steadiness by Scene 7 with Jamie but this is brutally ripped from her in Scene 11 after the birth of Bonnie.
3) To be a good mother - Anna first shows this objective in Scene 9 when she lets Daisy know of her pregnancy as Anna says "I think I might be good at it, being a mother, I think I might be okay". However, Anna never gets to complete this objective as she becomes severely depressed after Bonnie is born and commits suicide before Bonnie has a chance to know her.
In order to show the super objective and various objectives myself and Bella made a movement piece. We added in quotes from the play that showed these objectives and also linked/pointed to her super objective of understanding carol. The quotes that we picked are as follows:
1) "She wouldn't have expected" - from Scene 4. This scene shows the first time in which Anna mentions her mother but this is not explicitly clear to the audience. At this point in the movement piece I grabbed Bella's arm to signify Anna's drug use - this shows that Carol didn't expect Anna to get addicted to drugs. In the play, Anna says this line to explain to John that he didn't have to keep the house but with the manipulation of the line, it takes on a whole new meaning.
2) "If my mother couldn't, then I must be an almighty piece of shit" - from the Scene 5 monologue. This is the first step into Anna trying to understand why Carol decided to commit suicide showing that she blames herself. We used this line to show that Anna has lost the steadiness that she had when she lived with Carol.
3) "She's just right here in a way she hasn't been since" - from Scene 7. This shows the super objective of Anna finally becoming close to Carol, accepting why she did what she did, and to some extent understanding why she had to leave.
4) "Line's gone. Hook's gone. Down." - from Scene 15. It is in this scene that Anna commits suicide and shows that she has failed her objective of becoming a good mother. It also shows the link to Carol who said in Scene 9 that Anna was "a fish hook pulling me up when I want to be under" suggesting that Anna finally understand what Carol was going through in order for her to commit suicide. At this point in the movement piece, Bella lowered me down gently showing that Anna wanted to be a good mother but due to her suicide in this scene failed in her objective.
We only touched on tempo-rhythm slightly by exaggerating a section of movement that we have blocked in the play so far. Despite it being abstract, the exaggeration of Anna shooting up meant that I was able to think about why Carol had decided to commit suicide slightly which would have a large impact on Anna in this scene.
During this lesson, we were directed much more fully by Chipp and Starbuck than we had been in previous weeks. In previous weeks we have blocked the majority of the scenes with little regard to the actions within them. By blocking the scenes separately, we have made it much more difficult for ourselves because we don't know how long our pauses are in between each section of speech and where our cues are coming from. I have tried to combat this by voice recording the entirety of a scene so that I know how long my pauses between lines are and so that I know what my cues are. This has been proving successful for me as I don't just know most of my own lines I know other peoples so that if they miss out a line I can easily tell what they have missed out and quickly assess the impacts that that will have on my own scene.
With Chipp, we looked at Scene 3. In this scene Carol is at Daisy's 13th birthday party, Anna is shooting up heroin, and Bonnie is removing a fish hook from Jo's hand. Although it was mainly Cast B on stage, I managed to listen to the notes that Chipp was giving to Bella who plays Anna in Cast B. As Anna walks onto the stage she should be quite quick but as she begins to prepare the heroin for injection, she should become slower and methodical. This is because she would want to get the method right and because she wants to enjoy what she's about to do - she believes that taking heroin is a nice thing to do to herself and so should be an enjoyable process. As Anna takes the heroin, she is closed in on herself but after she takes it, she opens up so that her reaction to the initial high/impact of the heroin is much more visible for the audience. It also shows that she's ready for the heroin to hit because she likes it and thinks it is a blissful, wonderful feeling. She should also feel relaxed and content after she's taking the heroin making it abundantly clear that she is addicted. The "hello" that Anna says when the heroin hits should be strong and powerful so that the audience is drawn to her and to the few lines that she says in the scene. After Anna has taken the heroin she should lie down on her side facing the audience, still completely blissful and relaxed. After a while she lies down on her back and begins to sort of dance/writhe on the floor as she becomes increasingly intoxicated with the drug. Although this may seem uncomfortable for me as an actress, it will draw the audience's attention so that they see that Anna needs help due to her addiction, which has been highlighted in the previous scene. As the build up to Anna's next line in the scene, I should become more aware of what's being said on the other sides of the stage. The line "I don't" is almost like a nervous tick. During this line Anna stays lying down but moves her head slightly before the line so that again the audience's attention is somewhat drawn towards her.
With Starbuck we initially looked at Scene 4. In this scene Carol is looking around the family home that she will buy, Anna is visited by John in rehab, and Bonnie is having an awkward conversation with Jo who's holding a fish. We only got halfway through Scene 4 before we began to look at Scene 5 because of the lack of understanding regarding cues which set us back time wise. At the beginning of Scene 4 Anna is quite stiff with her posture because she doesn't really know how to react around her father - she and John haven't seen each other since she tried to have sex with him when he had picked her up from a train as described by Anna's monologue in Scene 5. When John does begin to speak she relaxes slightly and has a slight exhale of breath which shows that she was scared that he'd never forgive her. The exhale could also be relief that he didn't take the joke - "Given that last time, last time I saw you, you said you were devastated. And there was a lot of hand wringing" - too badly as she may have expected him to. I was also told that after Anna says "Dad" I should continue to look at Marlon (who plays John in Cast A) for longer to show that she's waiting for a response from him. I initially didn't look at him for too long because I thought my head would be facing the audience too much as I have previously been told in the scene. I'll have to find a middle ground between looking at Marlon and not having my head turned away from the audience for too long. In Scene 5 Carol has just had Anna and is in the hospital, Anna is telling Jamie about how she got to the commune, and Bonnie is at a work colleague's birthday party. This scene is the longest and most complicated in the play because not only does it last for around forty pages, it also has many interjections from various parts of the stage, often only one word. This makes finding cues very hard and also meant that we didn't get too far into Scene 5 either. At the beginning of Scene 5, we had Jamie set up the camera straight away so that Anna can peer around to see what he's doing which initiates their first exchange - "Hello" "Hi" "Sorry hi" - and shows that they are awkward around each other due to their attraction to one another which can be shown through nervous smiles. At the line "Well played Sir" Anna does a gesture with her hands which makes the encounter more embarrassing/awkward than it was, shows that Anna is attracted to Jamie, and makes the audience more attached to Anna as she has shown embarrassment after the line.
Over the past week we have been set a line learning deadline from Scene 1 to Scene 10. I think that I managed to hit the deadline on time as I knew the majority of my lines, including the six minute monologue from Scene 5, and knew what my cues were.
Lesson: Monday 5th February 2018
In this lesson we read through the remaining scenes in the play which was both a relief and heart breaking especially as AOAS ends on Carol and Anna's deaths.
In Scene 13, Carol's scene is called Doctors. In this scene, Carol is talking to a doctor/therapist called Mark. Mark is much kinder compared with Felix from the previous scene, largely because he listens to what Carol is saying whereas Felix seemed to be blatantly ignoring her. Birch could be making a statement that medical care toward people with mental health problems has gotten better since the 1960's but as Mark suggests that Carol has more ECT and as Anna is having ECT done to her in the middle of the stage, Birch may be suggesting that mental health care is not yet perfect. This can be seen as ECT is still used for people with mental health problems and it works; although it is less painful than it was during Carol's time period and much more humane, the fact that ECT can completely change the way someone's brain behaves is deeply unnerving, especially as it doesn't seem to work with Carol and Anna. Carol describes the past sixteen years of her life as "a building that's been on fire" which shows just how much she wants to die and how choked she has been by society, John, and to some extent Anna as all three are the reason that she had a baby and had to keep living otherwise she'd be deemed a 'bad' person and and even 'worse' mother. During the anger of her burning building speech, Carol calls Anna "his child" as in John's child. This lack of a claim to Anna could show that Carol is trying to distance herself from Anna when she's alive so that Anna doesn't get all the societal problems e.g. people talking about her in a negative way due to Carol. As Carol says this in anger, it could show that she is showing resentment towards John as there has been a clear gap growing between them since the beginning of the play so may be using Anna as ammunition in the feud that they seem to be having, especially as it may have been John who convinced Carol to go for another round of ECT. However, this may be a simple slip of the tongue, something that makes the character of Carol much more believable for the audience as we all say things we don't mean when we're angry and as Carol corrects herself after Mark questions why she said it. Carol also mentions that Anna has lots of friends and seems perfectly happy with her life at this moment in time which is horrendously juxtaposed by Anna's ECT in the middle of the stage. It also seems to give Carol an excuse as to why she wants to leave as Anna seems happy so therefor she can leave, knowing that Anna will be fine which doesn't turn out to be true as Anna turns into a heroin addict and eventually commits suicide. In the scene, Carol's lines are relatively spread out from Mark's lines which suggest that she is trying to think about what she's going to reply. However when Mark tells her that she should have more ECT she immediately replies with "No" which shows that Carol is deathly afraid of having ECT done again, especially as Felix didn't listen before she had the ECT last time. Carol's last line in the scene and in the play is "I'll be fine" which is an obvious lie as she has shown suicidal tendencies throughout the play, the audience know from Anna's previous scenes that Carol is dead, and that she has made up her mind that she's going to 'leave' soon. It is certainly purposeful that Carol's final scene is not with Anna or John as it suggests that she is trying to distance herself from the two of them so that they aren't as emotionally and mentally affected when she does decide to leave which shows that Carol does still love John and Anna, just not enough for her to keep living - she has to do this for herself because for the past few years she has been living "For Anna" as she puts it in Scene 9.
In Scene 13, Bonnie's scene is also called Doctors and features the first contact that the audience see between Jamie and Bonnie. I think that it is significant that Bonnie and Jamie only share one scene together compared to John and Anna's four. This suggests that John had much more impact on Anna's life than Jamie did on Bonnie's especially as they seem to have a lack of communication between each other. I think in some ways that Jamie is somewhat selfish as after Anna's death he seems to have cared for Bonnie less, especially as he got a new wife and kids and subsequently grandchildren, as he couldn't face her because she reminded him too much of Anna. Although in some circumstances, this is somewhat 'allowed' I think that Jamie lost his relationship with Bonnie as he was too focused on his new wife, pushing Bonnie to the sidelines due to her resemblance to Anna. I also think its significant that we don't see Bonnie's childhood apart from the two scenes where Anna cares for her as a baby. This is because it gives a bigger shock when it's revealed about Jamie's new wife. The more practical reason is that Bonnie doesn't have any memories of her mother or of her mother's guidance hence why we saw Anna's childhood as she was strongly influenced by Carol. Apart from Jamie, none of the family members from Anna and Carol's family make an appearance in Bonnie's scenes which could suggest that Bonnie didn't have much of a relationship with them as Jamie was also reminded too much of Anna when he was around them. A point was also made that Bonnie seems to be the only 'nice' doctor that is shown within the play - the other 'nice' medical staff have been nurses and midwives. Perhaps this could suggest that Bonnie is trying to help others because her mother and grandmother didn't get the help and protection from their doctors which caused them severe pain - maybe Bonnie is trying to prevent events from the play from repeating themselves in other people's lives by 'curing' people. In the scene there is some repetition from earlier scenes such as the Carol's section of scene 8 where Emma, Toby, John, and Carol are having dinner together. The repeated phrase is "Do you need the money? Do you want me to give you some money?". This is a repetition of when Emma asked John if he needed money because he paid too much for the house. This is kind of cruel for the audience as they will be reminded of the aforementioned scene and therefore be reminded of the negative consequences that came from that. Jamie also repeats something that he said in Scene 6 - "I can't stop thinking about you Bonnie". This is again very painful for the audience as they will be reminded that Anna is dead and potentially the only reason that Jamie is thinking about Bonnie is because he keeps being reminded about Anna.
In Scene 13, Anna's scene is called Swimming and features Anna having ECT. This will shock the audience as ECT is quite horrible to watch and will remind them that Carol has had this done to her several times. It is also quite heart breaking that Anna has the same treatment as her mother, albeit with a few slight modernisations, which suggest that treatment for mental health problems was still being treated the same way as it had been over the past thirty years or so. Birch may be making a social comment about how ECT is still being used today to cure depression - it also have claims to have worked - which suggests a comment about mental health vs physical health. Physical health is certainly taken much more seriously than mental health but sometimes mental health problems can be much more devastating than physical health problems. As Anna doesn't seem to be a stable state of mind, as shown by her equating everything to swimming in this scene and also her saying that ECT "just feels like river swimming", the question is raised about who made her have the ECT treatment as she certainly seems that she can't make a decision for herself. Perhaps it was Jamie and John who made the decision together, as they are her next of kin and in the previous scene, John seemed very concerned when he saw Anna talk about the "universe on the head of a pin". Maybe this is why Bonnie holds some resentment towards Jamie as she could think that the ECT pushed her mother over the edge, if she was ever told. This may also give a clue as to why Jamie didn't tell Bonnie much about Anna as he was too guilty about what he had done and why he decided to almost 'abandon' Bonnie.
At the beginning of the scene, we staged it so that Anna was sat up in her hospital bed which would enable the audience to see her facial reactions and also so that May, the nurse in this scene, could take off Anna's shoes, jewellery etc off easier and in full view of the audience, much like how we hope to stage the costume changes (by having Carol, Anna, and Bonnie dressed and undressed into costumes on stage which would further enhance their vulnerability). In order to get the ECT process right, we watched the following video:
We more or less copied the process that is shown in the video. However, as the other sections in this scene were much longer than we anticipated, it left May and another nurse awkwardly standing at the back of the stage. It was also suggested that Anna have Velcro restraints on her wrists, which may not be historically accurate, but will pronounce the violent and brutal nature of ETC.
In Scene 14, Carol's section, Picnic, is what the audience will focus most on because it has the majority of the speech allowing for a couple of sentences on Bonnie's side of the stage. In Bonnie's section, Bonnie has just finished swimming when a woman enters her cubicle asking about her own daughter (presumably) Anna which completely decimates Bonnie, making her collapse to the ground. In Anna's scene, Anna is sat on the toilet seat staring at Bonnie as a baby in a Moses Basket. As Bonnie is in a Moses Basket this suggests that Bonnie is still very young which makes Anna's suicide much more horrific as it shows clearly that Bonnie never got to know Anna at all. In this sense, I think that Anna is definitely selfish because she didn't allow Bonnie to grow up with a mother. Although, it is completely understandable due to her wrecked mental state, presumably from the ECT. Anyway, back to Carol's section. In this scene, Carol doesn't make an appearance, instead, John and Anna are on stage at a cliff side and are about to celebrate Carol's birthday, Anna thinks with Carol. It is here that John breaks the news to Anna that Carol is dead. As Anna is so young, 16, in this scene, it shows how unprepared Anna was compared to how prepared Carol thought she was to face the world on her own. This can be seen as Anna breaks down as she begins to cry at the end of the scene due to the loss of her mother. This is the scene that we see John speak the most but he doesn't really show much emotion as he appears to be simply describing how Carol died. It could be that Anna first sees John break when they see each other in rehab as shown in Scene 4 of the play. In his speech John mentions an aquarium - "I had to go to the hospital and stand next to an Aquarium to be told she was dead" - this links back to Scene 2 when Anna mentions an aquarium to Dan whilst high. This could have been her trying to remember what she had been told about Carol's death and confusing it with Dan which makes Scene 2 seem a lot darker than when it initially appeared to be. Another link back to Scene 2 in this scene is when Anna says "I can't fully see out of this eye though" which links to Anna commenting in Scene 2 how her eyes were "a bit crap, a bit fuzzy". Moreover, Anna says that she is hungover which could be the starting point to her drug and alcohol related problems later in her life. John mentions that he has committed "numerous failures" which could be his link to his part in Carol's death - potentially forcing her to have ECT, having a baby, and not fully getting to understand her. Even at 16 Anna calls John by his first name instead of by dad. This and the fact that she had to "get on two trains" to be at the cliff side, suggests that at 16 she didn't live with her parents. Instead she may have lived with Emma, Toby, and Daisy whilst John was trying to get carol better and as Anna had a greater relationship with her mum and may have heard Emma refer to John as 'John', Anna may have copied this. This also shows why her and Daisy are so close later in the play as she seems to be one of the first people to whom she tells her pregnancy to in Scene 9.
In Scene 15 we have lost Carol's section of the stage as her story has now been fully played out. In Scene 15, Anna's section is called Picnic and features Anna with Bonnie as a baby and shows Anna killing herself. It also contains a small monologue which is reminiscent of Scene 11 where Anna was telling Lola, the midwife, about her nightmare. In the scene, Anna's speech is not as normal as it has been throughout the play which shows just how mentally unwell she is and shows that she is in no state to take care of a baby. The line "Hook's gone. Line's gone" links back to Carol's section of Scene 9 - "She's a line, she's a fish hook round my middle pulling me up when I want to be under" - which shows how similar Anna and Carol have become. It suggests that the line/hook that was once holding Carol 'afloat' has gone because Anna has also committed suicide which means that Carol is free. It could also show that now that Carol has committed suicide in the other section of the stage, that she is free from the fish hook that was Anna. It could also suggest that there is no fish hook connecting Anna and Bonnie so therefore Anna feels no guilt about committing suicide. In Scene 15, Bonnie's section is called Doctor and shows Bonnie talking to a doctor about sterilisation. I think that it's important that the doctor in this scene who's treating Bonnie is a woman because all the doctors in Carol and Anna's section have been male which shows that Birch is making a social comment about female professionals. However, Diane, the doctor, does show similarities to the other doctors in the play because she also doesn't let her patient really express her feelings or get what she wants as she suggests that Bonnie goes to counselling. This is a much better way than ECT to cope with mental health issues which may have been suggested if Bonnie was talking to a doctor during Carol and Anna's timelines. In this scene, we see Bonnie start to cry for the first time which shows just how affected she has been by the suicides in previous generations which suggests that your ancestors decisions do make an impact on your life.
In Scene 16 only Bonnie's section is on stage and features Bonnie finally selling the house. Perhaps Bonnie's decision to sterilise herself means that she can now move on from the past knowing with full certainty that the troubles of the past won't be passed on to a new generation of the same family. A woman and a child seem to be buying the house which suggests some hope - perhaps the house that lasted throughout the generations will finally see a happy, healthy family. This hope is signified in the last stage direction of the play - "The light changes. Just a little."
Meyerhold was a Russian/Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer born in 1874. His work was based around physical theatre and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting. In February 1940, he was arrested and then killed during the Great Purge conducted by the Communist leader Josef Stalin. He joined the Moscow Philharmonic Dramatic School instead of studying law at Moscow University and between 1907-1917 worked in imperial (Tsarist) theatres in St Petersburg. In 1918 after the Russian Revolution, Meyerhold joined the Bolshevik party as an official of the Theatre Division (TEO) of the Commissariat of Education and Enlightenment where he effectively nationalised theatres under Bolshevik control. He founded the Meyerhold Theatre in 1920 which was then closed down in 1938 as the Bolsheviks were against non-traditional theatre that Meyerhold had interests in and created. Meyerhold used circus style effects and was against the US Method Acting, instead he connected psychological and physiological processes together. This is where the emotional state of an actor is linked to the physical state therefore emotions can be called upon due to specific movement and gesture. He was tortured and executed by Bolshevik forces and had to 'confess' that he was a British/Japanese spy.
