Anatomy of a Suicide - Part 32

N2C: Wednesday 21st March 2018

At this session Cast A performed the first full run through from Scene 1 to Scene 13. This is a key aspect of the rehearsal process because it allowed for me to see the progression of Anna's character and to connect the feelings/emotion/state of mind that Anna was in during the previous scene to the scene that I was performing in. The run through allowed for me to see the dramatic decline in Anna's mental health, particularly in scenes 11, 12, and 13. It also showed how relentless the play is due to its nature of simultaneous lines and cues coming from another scene. Overall, I think I managed adequately, despite the stress of constantly having to be on top of where the cast is in a scene even if we have skipped large chunks of the scene. In some instances it took me a little longer to find where I was in a scene which may have led to some cuing errors for other people but I think this was largely unnoticeable. The cast forgot lines/messed up in the majority of scenes leading to prolonged silence, but this was mostly easily fixed by other people changing their own lines to catch the other person up within the scene or by someone in another section/time zone saying their next line to combat the silence. Additionally, we all need to know where silences for dramatic effect are being placed so that we don't come in with our line when someone wasn't finished with their own line or was pausing to add more emotion to a line. As this is such a difficult play, it was understandable that mistakes were going to be made but these are reasonable within the time limit. We are planning to perform the play w.c 23rd April with tech rehearsals the previous week.

Scene 2

In my opinion, this scene went well overall. There were few mistakes made for lines given that for the majority of the scene, it is a duologue between Anna and Dan with a couple of interjections from Carol. Izzy, who plays Carol in Cast A, said that myself and Peter (who plays Dan) should slow down slightly when coming to her interjections so that she can say them without being cut off by myself or Peter. The reason why Carol's interjections are often cut out in this scene is because throughout the rehearsal process, this scene has been largely practised without the input of Carol's lines, hence making it harder to remember that her lines come at random points within the scene. In my opinion, I think that I performed well in this scene as we received some laughs from the other cast members who were not performing. In my opinion, I think that I was able to effectively show that Anna was drunk and/or high whilst also showing that she didn't want to show Dan that she was as drunk and/or high as she actually is - she's trying to control herself. There were some notes given in this scene regarding tone of voice and direction. When Dan says "For what?" (why did you make me cross?), Peter should say this as though it's a test. Anna realises this and so answers the question as though it is a test, even though she doesn't know the answer. When Anna says "A friendship over. A mate, a pal over" she is referencing her earlier lines when she's discussing with Dan about what she called him when she was asking for an "IV to take the edge off (her) comedown". She should be joking with him which juxtaposes her following lines where she is angry that Dan doesn't regard her as his friend. When Dan says "When you come out of all this" he should gesture to how Anna looks and is behaving and should say this with a disgusted tone. Anna should get annoyed at this as it hurts her feelings and is potentially why she becomes much less enthusiastic in the rest of the scene.

Scene 4

In this scene, there was a large amount of skipping around lines which meant that both cues and some important lines were missed or were said at the wrong time. In this scene, Anna is happy that John has come to see her but there is still an air of awkwardness in the scene. As Marlon (as John) is stood behind me for the majority of the scene, I often feel as though I should turn around in my seat in order to talk to him. However, this means that my back is towards the audience and therefore my facial expressions are obscured from view. Although facing the front of the stage and away from Marlon feels unnatural, it doesn't look unnatural and the audience will still be able to identify that Anna is talking to John (given that he is the only person that is in her section of the stage during this scene).

Scene 5 

As we have had severe trouble with this scene in the past, it was rather incredible that we managed to get through the whole scene without major silences. However, we did skip around a lot and some cues were missed. Moreover, some conversations were happening too fast on one side of the stage which meant that all other conversations couldn't get their lines in leading to big crashes. In some instances, people forgot lines altogether and their counterpart had to fill in the line for them so that they were able to move the scene on and remind their partner what the next part of the scene would be. I had to do this once for Bruce, as Jamie - "No milk right?" - so that I could catch him up to where he was in the scene. This didn't work that effectively however, as it made him more confused. We may have to have a discussion as a cast as to what we do in this kind of situation. The monologue in this scene was done largely well despite losing my voice towards the end of it due to constantly talking. I need to power out the monologue though as it was getting increasingly hard to hear. I noticed that this is applicable to all my large pieces of speech. I think that this is because my voice gets tired after a while or that I know that no-one has a cue for a while so I'm not as loud. I also need to look up more as my eyes were focused on a patch of ground behind Bruce. Anna would probably look directly at Jamie for the majority of the monologue because he's told her to look at him and ignore the camera. It also gives a reason for Jamie to become intoxicated with the idea of Anna because he may feel as though he has a deeper connection with her. I managed to show Anna's thought process through facial expressions but I need to show this through the tone of my voice much more in order to keep the audience interested and to give some variety to the monologue. During the monologue, when Anna mentions her father - that he had picked her up from a train - she should have a physical reaction to telling this part of the story because it is a big deal - after all, she did try to have sex with him.

Scene 6 

I feel like this scene was one of my stronger scenes regarding tone and the timing of my lines. However, collectively we did still mess up on some of the timings of the scene - in some cases we skipped ahead a couple of pages only to go back to the place that we were in before we skipped. Personally, I have difficulty with lines that are at the same time as some in Bonnie's scene because they are small and don't really mean anything - they are simply Anna's thought process into the line "I'm not really sure what to do with that information. I'm sorry". On the line "I'm a whole human being"  I should act more desperate. This is because Anna wants this to be true, but doesn't necessarily think that it's true. She may not feel completely whole because she hasn't felt close to her mother in years and has just come off an addiction from heroin and various other drugs.

Scene 9

This scene was done well and from my recollection there were no major line issues. As it has been said before for this scene, myself and Maya (as Daisy) should eat more 'mime' food but as I have said before this is hard because of the lack of real food that we probably won't have until the final performance. On the speech about pragmatism, my volume should be higher - as I have previously stated in this blog, I find achieving a high volume harder on monologues and larger pieces of speech.

Scene 11 

There were major syncing issues in this scene that were similar to those described in Scene 2. In order to rectify this, we would need to communicate with one another about how fast lines should go in relation to one another and what silences we may choose to have. I think that I was able to add some of Carol's characteristics to Anna's stance, especially at the start when she's staring off into the distance which is what Carol does after she's given birth to Anna. Anna needs to be more on edge when she refers to the "blood between (her) legs" because it certainly seems traumatic. The monologue at the end of the scene needs more work because we haven't really worked on how to say specific lines before and how to act towards the midwife. I would need to be more freaked out by the prospect of either Bonnie or Carol being in her dream and having a "Big black hole for a mouth" and "little teeth" - Anna is describing a nightmare.

Scene 12 

This scene was not done well at all. We kept missing cues and in some cases missed out lines all together. There was a lot of repetition because people kept skipping ahead to other parts within the scene which led to people not knowing where they were and saying the wrong lines at the wrong time. In this scene Anna says "It's very close" - it is not clear what she thinks is very close. As she's talking about how everything turned chaotic after Carol's death, she may be saying that she feels as though she feels closer to her mother than she ever has been. This is concerning for John and for the audience as it suggests that Anna will do similar things to what Carol has done.