The playwright, Caryl Churchill, is who wrote Heart's Desire in 1997 as part of the Blue Heart series which contains two one-act plays which mainly experiment with structure and prose. Churchill was born in 1938 in London, moving to Canada after WW2 with her family. She is most known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her non-naturalistic techniques, exploring sexual politics and for her feminist themes which can most certainly be seen in her play, Top Girls. She was inspired by Brecht's use of Epic Theatre, which was, therefore, one of the influences for performing Heart's Desire in a Brechtian Style, as she could use his style to explore gender and identity. From the 1980s onward was more inspired by Artaudian techniques as shown by her experimentation in dance theatre which maybe is something that should have influenced the piece more.
In 1960 she graduated from Lady Margaret Hall, a woman's college at Oxford University where she gained a BA in English Literature. This is potentially where her feminist themes began to develop as she was constantly surrounded by women who wanted to make a better life and thus needed some feminist theory to help get them there due to misogyny. Hence why I think there's an element of feminism within the piece concerning Alice. It is at Oxford that she began to write plays with her first four being performed by a student theatre ensemble from the university.
In the 1960s/70s, she wrote short radio dramas for BBC Radio and TV plays for the BBC. Between 1974-5 she was the resident dramatist at the Royal Court Theatre which shows that she was experimental as the Royal Court allows young experimental playwrights (such as Alice Birch who wrote AOAS) to write plays for them.
Why were they writing?
"The prolific Churchill continued to push boundaries. In 1997 she collaborated with the composer Orlando Gough to create Hotel, a choreographed opera or sung ballet set in a hotel room. Also that year her surrealistic short play This Is a Chair was produced." Source
It would, therefore, appear that Heart's Desire is a continuation of the surrealist style that Churchill appeared to be following in that year. Certainly the adjustment to a traditional play's structure can be seen as absurdist but I do think that the structure does show an element of the Verfremdungseffekt - it tilts an audience's perspective on how a play should traditionally be performed (traditional in this sense is that of Stanislavski's naturalistic style which most would be familiar with).
There is limited online and offline material about Blue Heart as a whole and this is one of the reasons why I think we found it hard to give the play a solid political meaning until much later in the rehearsal process. In some ways I do feel that the rehearsal process was similar to AOAS - attempting to get used to the structure and then add meaning - does this suggest that AOAS was more absurdist than naturalistic? I digress.
Due to the limited material, and the fact that the play has only been performed minimally professionally (notably in 1997) because of the structure it was highly probably we were going to deviate from Churchill's aim which I will explain below:
The Aim:
Rather than having a political message it would appear that Churchill is pursuing a social message and perhaps a message within the playwriting community. The social message that is clear and was clear to me at the start of the rehearsal process was a comment on social family roles and how the unsaid can be transformed into something much worse i.e. the breakdown of family roles and the family unit. Rather than pursuing a solely social standpoint, Churchill seems to be toying with the idea of writing to explore the structure of a play. Maybe this is why we found it hard to approach the play from a Brechtian angle - as said before, Churchill seems to be writing in an absurdist fashion in 1997 and so the Brechtian style wouldn't really fit with Churchill's aim.
The extract in context:
As is clear from Churchill's aim. we have deviated from this slightly in the final performance. Our decision to pursue a social message of family tensions in differing social classes is somewhat different from Churchill's aims. Although it does show Churchill's minor aim of showing family tensions, the major aim of her experimentation of structure is limited. Perhaps the extravagance of having scene changes and different people playing the same characters detracts from this major aim. In some respects it takes away from Churchill's minor aim as well - in original productions, the same actor would play the same character but due to the number of people we had in our group we found this hard. Maybe we should have not focused on the Brechtian element as much when choosing the play.
After the discussion in the previous lesson, we all believed that we had a great grasp on character and therefore a grasp on the piece as a whole. For this rehearsal, it was suggested that we learn the majority of our lines and I take pride in that I managed this task before anyone else. Although I was still shaky with some lines, this allowed me to act without script in hand and explore the section we are doing much better. The video below shows our piece from this lesson:
The next video is my analysis and explanation for the above video (unfortunately the audio from the above video in this version has been cut out):
We performed the above version for Chipp which resulted in a conversation concerning the message of the play - or rather, the message that we understood from the play. From Chipp's understanding, due to the changing of roles (which was initially just a way to incorporate everyone into the play) it resembled different families with different backgrounds - it appeared we were commenting on class alongside family tensions which we weren't initially trying to portray. He also commented on the layering of props - the jackets and books - and suggested if we were going to layer these items it might be best to layer other items, such as the cups, in order to show that this was a constant thing rather than it being for technical reasons. In this conversation, we discussed how we could include the idea of social class into the piece which would give the political/social class more meaning rather than having the other broad term of family tensions. This focus allows for characterisation to be more effective and gives the piece an overall purpose.
It was found that the Brecht style of the piece is made by the constant rotation of character and introduction of extras - such as the section where children run onto the stage, or the family are killed by assassins - applies spass to the piece, as does Maisie, which allows a contrast with the overarching emotional situation. We can't have the same message of Churchill - of which we had yet to discover - because of how we designed our version over the script text.
The major changes to be made is to apply the play to different classes (working, middle, and upper) which the choice of costume/props, a change in accents, and to play with levels of emotion. This is something that will be talked about in further blogs from rehearsals. I will dedicate a later blog to Churchill's aims.
In the rehearsal, we found ourselves getting bored with the piece because we had blocked all of it and spent a portion of time on Thursday 'perfecting' it and getting all our transitions in with the added costume. The repetition of the piece doesn't help and thus we all felt that we'd lost our way in blocking the piece and making sure that our characters were all similar in tone and in movement/stature. In order to combat this boredom of the piece and also try and make sure that what we were doing fits with each other we decided to have a discussion about the characters within the piece and what motivates them. This discussion can be found in the following videos:
Left out of these videos is the reasoning we gave to why Churchill wrote the piece. We suggested that the piece is to do with family tensions and how these can play out in different possibilities with the possibilities getting more and more absurd each time such as gunmen bursting in and killing all the characters. The play does focus on a social element of how different family members are treated within the family. Taking into consideration Churchill's background of feminism, its clear to see the links between how Alice is shown and talked to and feminist ideas of how women should be treated - that is equal. In this sense, Alice's involvement in the argument is at level terms with Brian's involvement. This discussion as to what the play is about will be discussed in more detail in the next blog concerning Heart's Desire which will include a conversation with Chipp and the whole group about how Brechtian the play is and what we can do to get the political/social message of the play across.
A major part of the discussion after the first performance of the piece on Monday was that of differentiating the characters and how we use the props that are specified within the piece. In sticking with the Brechtian technique that we want, we decided that simplistic costumes should be the way forward with major characters having simple but defining costumes/props that add to their character.
For Brian, this was made easy because it says in the script that he either enters wearing a cardigan or jacket of some kind and thus we procured a variety of jackets from the store cupboard. The major issue that we have is the number of people that enter as Brian with a jacket throughout the piece. Not only does this render us incapable of having the exact same jacket each time as this would complicate transitions, but it also means that there is a build up of jackets/cardigans on the chair that Brian sits on. The idea behind this as well as from a technical point of view was to show the alternate realities crashing into one another, reminding the audience of what has happened before. Moreover, it creates an element of spass because the actor playing Brian has to sit on a mountain of jackets in later scenes.
For Alice, we wanted something quite feminine and thus chose the prop/costume of a scarf. The scarf is much more transferable between scene changes so the technical element is all sorted. It also clearly defines the character just as simply as Brian's jacket does and allows Alice to throw the scarf around her shoulder at some points and have something to straighten out.
For Maisie, we chose to use glasses and a book. The book is significant because when Marlon is Alice for the first time, Alice talks about platypi and thus we assumed that she was reading from a book about animals. In hindsight, this may not have been such a good idea because it ignores the stage directions that Maisie is fretting about the room. Moreover, in the script, it never mentions anything about the use of a book. However, it should be noted that the task is to have a piece that is script motivated and thus there is the ability to have some level of devising. The glasses provide an interesting touch as they are often perched on the end of our noses which allows the audience to see Maisie's age. However, the glasses may suggest that Maisie is older than Brian and Alice which is not exactly the case so something should be done with trying to make Alice and Brian seem a bit older which is something we can incorporate in later rehearsals. We also added a chair for Maisie downstage left for Maisie to sit on as it felt awkward having Maisie stood at the bottom of the stage alone.
In this rehearsal, we managed to block the last portion of the play. In this, we added the sound effect of a ding using a phone which shows a Brechtian technique of using modern technology. Whenever the ding sounds, we are to pause what we are doing in/out the scene, turn and look at the phone and then move which allows better synchronicity when transitioning. Unfortunately I don't currently have access to the video but these elements will be seen from future rehearsal videos.
The next unit that we are completing is that of the Contemporary Theatre Unit whereby we must perform 10-minute extracts of contrasting contemporary practitioners. Practitioners may include: Brecht, Artaud, Kane, Churchill, Frantic Assembly to name a view. The performances must be entirely text driven which leaves little room for devising. The group that I will be working with for both of these productions are as follows:
Kathryn, Izzy, Leah, Lauren, and Marlon.
The first play that we attempted to explore was Vinegar Tom by Caryl Churchill which is based around the Salem Witch Trials where we would be doing this in a Brechtian style as her technique is very similar to that of Brecht - songs, the Verfremdungseffekt (tilting the audience's perspective) and having a social or political point. Vinegar Tom has all of these aspects hence why we wanted to explore the play. However, as we began to work on the play we found the play boring compared to the Churchill play of Cloud Nine we had worked on before. It was in this state that we decided to move onto another play by Churchill - Heart's Desire. Before I move onto discussing Heart's Desire I would like to draw attention to the debate that the group had surrounding what practitioner and what play to explore next. Initially, we were going to work on Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis which I think would be the most suitable candidate, apart from a Frantic Assembly play, for our group. However, the majority of the group didn't like this idea and thus our attention moved onto physical theatre, most notably DV8 who are much more dance-orientated than Frantic Assembly. This dance element alongside the lack of available texts worries me slightly and I do think that we would be much better to focus on a Frantic piece as we have explored this practitioner in class.
Heart's Desire is the first in a duo of plays in the book Blue Heart and is written by Caryl Churchill. It is an interesting play to read because every so often the play will restart to the beginning or toa significant point previously in the play and at every restart, something either significantly or discreetly changes such as differing speech. The action on stage should remain the same in order to emphasise the change at the end of the scene - such changes include gunmen bursting in and a group of children running across the stage. The basis for the play can be defined below (source):
The first play in the piece, Heart's Desire, is about a family waiting for their daughter's return from Australia. Her father, mother and aunt play through the same scene, time and time again, a few seconds at a time, with variations. Some variants appear to be wish-fulfilment on the part of one character or another; some to represent a collective attempt to settle on a mutually acceptable compromise account; some include random intrusions from, for instance, a group of armed paramilitaries or an angry emu. With a more or less definitive version of the daughter's arrival, the play ends in mid-sentence.
It would appear that Churchill is playing on the tension of family dynamics as the whole play does appear to focus on an ongoing family argument, something which doesn't appear to be resolved fully at the end of the play. Moreover, as Suzy only appears at the very end of the play, it would suggest Churchill is trying to show the hidden family dynamics and thus would give a social issue which hints at the Brecht style we would be trying to achieve. Additionally, as the dialogue keeps changing each time the play resets, it gives differing views and interpretations of the same scene which can be related to the Verfremdungseffekt as both allow for a tilting of an audience perspective. As there are only three main characters within the play - Brian, Alice, and Masie -, two secondary characters - Lewis and Suzy - and many other characters - school children and gunmen - we immediately found it necessary to have multi-role. So, we decided that we must go around the characters in a rotation which reminds the audience they are watching a play with multiple actors. This reminder that the audience is watching a play is dotted throughout as shown by the repetition of scenes and lines. As Chipp and Starbuck are unfamiliar with the play, it means that we won't have as much support in this aspect. Despite this, I do think that we are more than capable of pulling it off if we incorporate more Brechtian techniques and discover what Churchill wanted to achieve from the play.
I don't feel that at this stage of the process that we have grasped the characterisation of the characters and thus will give a suitable character analysis is future blogs.
The photos below show the extract of the play we're doing with blocking annotations:
The video below shows our first attempt at blocking part of the extract:
For a first attempt at this kind of play structure and the various multi-rolling throughout, I think that we did okay but from the video above its clearly evident that we need to find a stronger grip on the style. Despite this, we have already blocked half the time that we need and so we can dedicate more time to focusing on character, finding out what Churchill wants from the play, and how to include more Brechtian techniques.
Positives
- repetition of voice and movements very similar in order to show the audience they are the same characters. It would make sense to accentuate characteristics more to make this much more obvious.
- 3:15: the use of modern technology which Brecht would have wanted within his piece. Moreover, the use of technology was visible and the head movement out to the audience broke the fourth wall slightly.
- 5:17: there's a slight difference as Kathryn doesn't walk across the stage. Is this slight change something an audience would notice? It brings in the tilting of perspectives - verfremdungseffekt.
Negatives
- the usage of books instead of photocopying scripts made the transitions messy and confusing. This can be easily solved by the following lesson.
- no defined character traits.
- the transitions were messy and there was no pause to define the moments before and after transitions.
- there is a lack of movement.
- my walk at c.3 mins had no purpose and so we should incorporate this into the piece.
- 3:25: Marlon stood at the side so had limited focus. To improve the focus he should move to the middle of the stage.
- 4:23: the massive speech - we all have an issue with it so to combat this we should break it up and try to think about what the words actually mean and why Brian is saying it.
- 6:20 - "daddy always knows where Suzy is" - Marlon didn't say it in the way that implies something related to Lewis' alcoholism. Marlon should say it as though he's jealous because of course Brian would always know where Suzy is because she's the star child - Brian appears to have given up on Lewis, something which is more evident in later scenes.
On the Monday lesson and at N2C we changed the introduction of the piece and made linking scenes between each smaller piece. Unfortunately, I don't have the video of the rehearsal process on Monday but I have the video from N2C where we performed to the Baby BTECs and returning MeganOG and HannahOG. The video of the piece can be seen below and my analysis video is also below:
The major positives of the piece was that we managed to incorporate much of what we had taken from the workshop and adapt it for our needs. The additional lifts that we included were impressive and allowed for there to be a sense of danger present within the piece, playing to Frantic Assembly's style. Although, as the majority of us had a constant blank expression which is something that Frantic wouldn't want within a piece, it took away from the emotion and the impact that we were trying to make on the audience. I do think that I tried to have less of a blank expression in the above performance due to the presence of an audience, however, this could be improved the next time we show the piece which will be our final performance.
After we showed this piece we were shown the lower BTECs and their version of the Frantic piece, one of which will be used in the school musical. These performances can be seen below. During these pieces we were told to imagine that these stories related to our own stories that we had made. I found this quite hard because I felt that these stories were not reminiscent of the one that I was in in the big BTEC piece, mostly because they both involved cheating whereas mine was about trying to find a true love. In some ways this could be related but in my own opinion I felt that they were completely different and thus hard to relate to.
We were then split into groups which would support the lower BTECs performance allowing them to have the major focus and with the inclusion of the table. The group that I was with consisted of: Megan, Disney, Imogen, HannahOG, Izzy, Marlon, Leah, Maya and Peter. The final product can be seen in the video below:
The story portrayed in the piece and how we were told it was showing was completely different to what I originally thought which was that Imogen was cheating on Disney with Megan. The story differs because it shows how Megan sees the relationship of her parents, Imogen and Disney, in the past to how it is now, the tensions of which have been caused by Megan herself. The main theme therefore is that of a parental relationship breakdown by that of a child which in some respects is similar to AOAS.
The initial major change from the piece before was that Imogen and Disney are standing on a table which altered their movement slightly but allowed for Megan to view their relationship on a pedestal. It is therefore significant that Imogen and Disney come off the table/pedestal later in the sequence showing that Megan no longer views their relationship as something good and something to be worshipped. The slow movement at the beginning of the piece is done to show this true love (which is somewhat similar to my piece in the big BTEC performance) which would therefore allow an audience to describe their movements as tender. Megan's facial expressions are clearly seen throughout the piece which is a major strength of hers - the ability to perform Frantic Assembly but also use large and visible facial expressions that add another layer of depth to the piece.
At 31 seconds, Marlon and Izzy walk in and are representative of how Imogen and Disney met. the two are looking down on their past selves and are seeing how happy they used to be before the birth of Megan. When I enter the piece, I do think that this is representative of Megan's presence within the piece especially because Izzy seems completely in love with the prospect of myself as shown by my finger being moved under her chin which is the same movement that we do in our piece in the big BTEC performance. This effect on their relationship by the presence of a child is further shown as we lift Imogen off the table which includes her stretching over to Megan to draw this 'nerve' into her stomach.
At 1:10 when Disney and Imogen face each other I feel that its supposed to represent Imogen telling Disney about the baby which he then leaves because he can't face the pressure as shown by the following lifts and when we cover him up. The mid-air walk that Disney does at 1:40 which we have used in my Berkoff piece shows Disney re-joining the family and the subsequent issues this creates because he's been absent for so long Imogen has a much stronger attachment to Megan than she ever had with Disney. This lack of a family unit gives a negative impact on Imogen's wellbeing and thus she is much more nervous when Disney touches her than what she was like before which is potentially also caused by the abusive relationship which she is then thrust into which may have started with the influence of Megan - Disney doesn't feel as though he's needed and thus must do anything in his power to keep his grip on the family unit.
The rapid movement of the table at 1:46 and the movement we do with the table after this, is supposed to represent Imogen and Disney's relationship metaphorically as we handle the table with violence and don't care what happens to it which is similar to the story-arc that appears within the toxic relationship at the front of the stage. At 2:10 after the use of the table we take the watching element from our piece and apply it to this piece, potentially to show that society is watching this family and is disgusted which is pronounced when we turn away from the relationship a little later in the piece. This turn is in time with when Megan enters the piece which further demonstrates how society may think that a child has ruined this perfect relationship from before - she has fractured the relationship beyond repair. Disney and Imogen's movements are much faster in this sequence to show the lack of love that is between them - they are now simply just going through the motions and thus this has a large impact on Megan and how she would perceive their relationship.
After c.10 seconds, the people behind the main sequence begin to do nerve work taken from Leah's piece from the main performance. We begin doing them fast at first but slow the pace down as we get exhausted to represent how the relationship at the front of the stage has started to decay and fall apart/not work properly over time. It also allows for the baby BTECs to have the best possible view for the audience to see them allowing them to have much more focus, grabbing the audience's attention, which allows the original piece to show through.
The day after the Frantic Assembly workshop we had a 3 hour lesson in which we had an opportunity to take what we did in the workshop in order to apply them to our own performance. The image to the right is the things that we remembered doing in this workshop or in the workshop in July 2017. We also included what frantic assembly would add to a piece to make it more complex and add more character which include music/tech/stage design as well as the ability to maintain focus and the ability to be synchronised in our movements.
This image is the parts of the workshop which we really liked and wanted to include in our final group piece of the Big BTECs. As is visible, it would be impossible to include all of the pieces on this board into a small performance so it was vital that they fit with the relationship theme that we decided to go with. The themes that we wanted to discuss can be seen at the bottom of the board which include how relationships change over time and the loss of identity apparently all within a high rise building. This high rise building idea was suggested because all the pieces that we suggested appeared to be of different relationships and thus it wouldn't make sense for the pieces to be mashed together - it is important to maintain the piece integrity of what we had already worked on to maintain the level of emotion that we had in the workshop.
We then discussed the high rise building theme in greater detail by discussing the set that we could have. Although this is not really in Frantic Assembly's style it did give us a starting point for the introduction for the piece which I will discuss later in this blog. We discussed that the set of the risers would represent the windows and a climbing frame for the high rise building so that we could do various lifts after climbing up the risers. Additionally, as the three pieces that we would use - Marlon and Jade's, Hannah1 and Leah's and Maya and Bruce's - all appeared to be in different time zones, it was suggested that each riser step would be in a different time zone. The photo opposite details what we were going to complete in terms of improvisation for the first attempt at an introduction to the piece that will be discussed later in the blog.
The first thing that was done was that we were put into groups so that we could learn the movement that we wanted to use from the workshop. The usage of the title of the music is how I will define the groups:
The Very Thought Of You (TVTOU) - myself, Marlon, Bella, Lauren.
Time - Maya, Bruce, Alex, Izzy, Kathryn, Joel.
Sex for Breakfast (SFB) - Hannah1, Leah, Peter.
It was Marlon and Jade's piece that we used for TVTOU. As seen in the video opposite, Marlon was partnered with Bella and I was partnered with Lauren initially because out of all of us in the group, myself and Marlon are probably the strongest and heaviest, both of which contribute to the lift. I found it somewhat easy to copy what Marlon was doing with Bella but in some respects (i.e. where to put Lauren down after the lift) were harder to remember. The switching parts were done to highlight Marlon's role in the piece because he dances with all females in the group. This links to what I was saying about Flirty Disco in the previous blog whereby the movement could be showing someone going around a club and hooking up with every person - this is the vibe that we were trying to achieve with this piece. However, with the music and as our piece is the earliest in the History of Romance (potentially the name of the piece which hasn't been strictly confirmed) it didn't fit with the time period. This theme that we were initially trying to go for is enhanced by Marlon walking away at the end of the video, leaving myself, Bella, and Lauren alone. To be honest, this didn't work very well as Bella and I continued with the movement even when Marlon had moved onto 'dancing' with Lauren. For me, the hardest part of the piece was having to learn both parts of the movement as I move from being the man within the piece with Lauren and Bella, to having the woman's role with Marlon. I think that in future rehearsals this, alongside trying to shorten the length of the piece down and adapting it slightly to show romance in a much more positive way, should be something that we try to improve.
The next piece in the performance we thought should be Time as it has elements of old style dancing and a modern interpretation so we thought it would be an appropriate linking sequence between TVTOU and SFB. The use of three pieces occurring at the same time not only allows for a quicker rehearsal period, it also has more movement, keeping the audience entertained for longer. A major criticism of the piece would be that the three couples hadn't managed to coordinate where their impressive movements would be and thus some of these would not be seen by an audience. I do, however, like the way that different relationships are portrayed. It is clear that Kathryn's and Joel's results in tragedy even though their relationship is loving. Izzy maintains her cruelty and manipulative behaviour with Alex, her grip becoming stronger with each movement - this clearly shows an abusive relationship and shows how romance can turn sour. It appears that Bruce and Maya's piece is the one that lasts even though there was a lot of both of them trying to leave but staying to make the relationship work which it clearly does. In order to maintain the impressive movement on the wall by Kathryn and Joel it would be important to have a Promenade theatre whereby the camera would have to move around to capture this movement.
The final piece in the performance is SFB which is shown in the video opposite. Leah and Hannah1 had to teach and adapt their movement around Peter and thus have created a rather impressive cheating storyline that also uses some of the workshop parts from Maya and Bruce's line drawing exercise (as they work-shopped their piece on the floor and this can be seen in this piece at the end where Peter rolls over Leah). This piece brings a much faster paced piece of action compared with the slower pieces before it which alters the pace of the emtire performance. Moreover, with the implementation of this piece, it allows for another interpretation of a relationship to be shown as mentioned above. This means that a large number of different interpretations of relationships will be shown and thus the performance will appear to tell the story that we want it to tell. We decided to put this piece last because the music sounds much more modern than the previous two pieces of music.
After a break, we experimented with the introduction to the entire piece. This was the hardest thing to create because, not only were there a large number of us, there were also many conflicting ideas about how to stage the piece which comes with the discipline. We now all realise that the introduction opposite wasn't in the style of Frantic Assembly and seemed much more planned than what Frantic would put on. It also felt like we weren't experimental enough as we used set too much before we had tried to build up an introduction that we wanted.
We started with the slow movement as seen in the video because we wanted a variation in pace to come throughout the piece. Additionally, we were all spread around in interesting shapes that didn't add much meaning to the piece. It felt too rushed and not at all like the workshop we had done the previous day. In the next few rehearsals we will need to severely adapt the piece not only to suit our means but to suit the style of Frantic Assembly much more than we have been doing.
Frantic Assembly was formed in 1994 by Scott Graham, Steven Hoggett, and Victoria Middleton, who all attended a university in Swansea, Wales. Although they weren't performing arts inclined, having no drama or dance experience, they were willing to learn and pass on what they had learnt to others. They were inspired by other theatre companies e.g. DV8. The main style of the company is that of physical theatre combining movement, design, music, and text, of which they have incorporated into many stage shows such as the renowned "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time". One of their most famous activities are "Chair Duets" which usually incorporate two people and two chairs creating movement, and sometimes a story from the simple movement they have created. They also provide "Ignition" which is a training project for young men aged 16-20 in the style of Frantic. They also travel around the world in order to deliver their style of theatre to more people through workshops.
This was my second opportunity to workshop with members of Frantic Assembly which I think gave me an advantage in confidence and ability to complete the tasks that were set out. I loved this workshop much more than the last workshop I attended in July 2017, potentially because I have gained confidence throughout the BTEC course and as I know the majority of the people in the small drama community very well and thus can interact much better than in July 2017.
The first thing that we did was a warm up, engaging our bodies and minds. Shaun (the member of Frantic Assembly who led the workshop) suggested that one of the reasons why its important to do a warm up alongside making sure we wouldn't get injured, was because in a rehearsal process it can feel as though nothing is getting achieved, but you can set yourself some goals in a warm up and then you feel more successful.
The first major exercise that we did was Slalom where chairs are used to create a running pattern. We had to maintain the same running speed as our partner so that we reached the same points on opposing sides at the same time - this calls for compromise because you shouldn't go at the slowest speed or at the fastest speed and thus this allows for more teamwork. Shaun then added two more chairs to the slalom which made the movement more complex and look more visually interesting. The chairs were then removed but we still had to keep the places where the chairs were in our movement. This demonstrates how Frantic Assembly works in that they start off simply and then make their piece more complicated by adding text. After this, we talked about what this sequence could relate to in terms of scenes - a hospital, restaurant, an actual race all of which were ideas accepted by the group. In order to define this I suggested adding text - this would come much later - as well as costume, props and manner of movement.
A major part of the Frantic Assembly devising process is that of the world before, during, and after any contact made. This allows for an audience to understand the relationships between each character - for example something as simple as holding hands or removing a hand from a shoulder can tell the audience a relationship immediately. A lingering touch after the contact can suggest that the two people don't want to leave each other - it is this concept that i feel defines the majority of their work and therefore will shape our work in this part of the Physical Theatre Unit.
This concept can be seen in the partner work that we did initially with lifts especially when developed into a full piece which we hope to achieve by the end of this unit. We were told to label ourselves A and B - I worked with Megan from the lower BTEC class for this section of the workshop and tried to work with different people at every part of the workshop - and did the Push Hands exercise, which can be demonstrated by the video below (although not of my class it does show the basis for what this entails):
After this we discussed whether having our eyes open or closed was better for this exercise. Personally, I felt that having eyes closed was better because it allowed for less prediction making movements better. The person leading (with their hand on top) has ultimate control and this allows for development of trust which is important for the next lifts and group lifts that we did later in the workshop. The key points of these lifts is that the partner that you're working with is the same height and that throughout the lift a great deal of surface area is maintained.
The first 'lift' that we tried was the Balance Lift whereby the partnership leans into one another with their hips at the same height and feet at the same place. In this lift, and indeed in all the lifts, it is important to maintain as much surface area with the other person as possible as this allows the leaning to be much more supported. As shown in the photo to the right from last years Frantic workshop, when the balance is correct the middle legs of both partners will begin to rise. Megan and I found this lift the easiest to do as it required little strength which was detrimental to the next lifts that we attempted.
The video to the left demonstrates the first proper lift that we tried (video taken from Megan Allsop who was a BTEC on the course last year and attended the previous Frantic workshop in July 2017). In preparation for this lift, it is vital that the person lifting has their knees bent and has their hip below the other person's hip. First we tried this without the movement demonstrated in the video. This meant that the person being lifted would only move in the air. The pivot was added by some partners later, but Megan and I found this hard as we are both incredibly weak and thus felt as though it would be better if we were in a partnership with someone who was stronger and was more able in lifting.
Another lift that we tried is the one demonstrated to the right, again taken from Megan Allsop. The person lifting has to bend down so that the person being lifted can put their hands on their partner's hips. It is important that the person lifting has a straight back as it will become increasingly harder if they have a bent back as they won't be able to lift the other person. As the person lifting stands up, they support the other person's legs.
The Clamp Lift can be seen as demonstrated by Bruce and Peter below. The partner stand in a T-shape with the person lifting being the top part of the T. The person being lifted puts their arm over the other person's shoulder and squeezes tightly to maintain as much surface area as possible. The person lifting again has bent knees and a straight back with an arm wrapped around their partner's waist for support and to again maintain a greater surface area. If the person squeezing is tight enough then the person lifting will only need to stand up to move the other around and complete the lift.
After a 15 minute break, we needed an activity that would get our energy levels back on track whilst also maintaining the frantic principle of the world before, during and after contact. The ideas that we got around the topic of Flirty Disco was that of a nightclub sequence where we have someone going around everyone showing that the person is indeed flirting with everybody. This would come with character sequencing and development, but I do think that this is something that we could put in the Big BTEC final piece at the end of the physical theatre unit.
The major exercise that we did next was a Line drawing one. I was in the only group of 3 with Nasifa and Grace so our instructions had to be adapted so that it would fit the same time frame of that of the other pieces. We had to find 3 places on each other and repeat these in a sequence that makes sense while drawing lines on each other hence why this exercise is called Lines. We then had to link all the points together by adding movement such as round by through or by just moving but maintaining the physical connection with other people in the group. After practising this for a bit, we were told to add a lift into the piece if it come naturally and to loop the piece. The video is the entire group's pieces - mine appears at 3:14 to 4:17. I think that our performance could have gone a bit better than what is seen on the video - something that affects how effective the piece was is the camera angle which hides the lines that we were drawing and effects the perception of the piece. I do think however, that there was a lack of practise involved in the rehearsal time because we had to include 3 people into the piece rather than just 2 like everyone else. The inclusion of 3 people did allow for a story-line to develop - for me, this story-line is that we were all cheating on each other with each other which meant that we were constantly pushing each other away to the other person because we felt bad. This can be seen as I move Grace's hand to turn Nasifa around and because I lift Grace towards Nasifa potentially showing the guilt that my character may have had.
We then work-shopped some pieces:
Izzy and Imogen:
The storyline that I understood for this piece was that Imogen was in an abusive relationship with Izzy. This was seen in the initial video above because Izzy's face seemed to be stone-like and cold whereas Imogen's felt more warm. Shaun decided to enhance this feeling by slowing the movements down and by having Imogen's touches be light and Izzy's have more of a grip, maintaining as much contact with Imogen as possible. Izzy was to maintain a predatory gaze whereas Imogen's was to maintain as to what it was before. During their sequence, Shaun asked me that when he changed the music (seen at 1:35) I was to stand to the edge of the piece and keep eye contact with Imogen and she should keep eye contact with myself. This brought more to the storyline and suggested that I was trying to get Imogen away from the abusive relationship be it romantic or purely platonic. For me, it was easy to keep the eye contact with Imogen and therefore my focus mostly because myself, Imogen, and Izzy are very close friends. This already close friendship allowed for the onstage relationship to be much stronger. The change in music to something much more slow and soft allowed for a softer storyline to be seen between myself and Imogen even though Izzy was still using her harsh touches.
Jade and Marlon
The major change between this performance and the group performance above was the change in music which allowed for a time frame to be explored. The use of the song The Very Thought Of You allowed for the time of the piece to be placed in wartime Britain which holds some sort of nostalgia. As a group, we compared this performance to the start of the film Up and this is enhanced when Jade was told to leave halfway through the piece, leaving Marlon to dance by himself for a while. As Jade did come back at the end of the piece this allowed for multiple storylines to develop. My favourite of these was that in the first sequence Jade represented Marlon's wife who died and thus when she came back was actually showing Marlon's daughter or granddaughter - he was teaching the dance to later generations. It was suggested that this would be much better achieved if Jade was replaced by someone else who looked younger which would reinforce this idea. Another suggestion that was given was that Jade had again died but when Jade rejoins Marlon it shows that they are both in heaven dancing together because Marlon has also died. The continuation of Marlon without Jade shows that Marlon continued with his life as though Jade was still in it which in some ways made the piece even more sad than previously intended.
Bruce and Maya
The major change that was made to this piece was that Bruce and Maya were told to do the performance on the floor without changing much of the piece. This allows for an audience to see that the two are in a bed without there actually having there be a bed onstage. Not only did this change become much more physically draining for both of them, it seemed to be much more tender than what they had performed before. The storyline was enhanced when Shaun instructed Bruce to either look at Maya or either look away. The major storyline that we got from the piece was that the two were young lovers who were just coming to terms with their love. It was here where I started to see a theme as to what our big piece could be about - potentially how relationships change over time.
Bella and Hannah1
Their initial performance in the main group sequence above was reminiscent of someone going to space as the music that came on was someone talking about flying away. Certainly, within a tech heavy piece about someone leaving this would be very effective. The change of music I think for this piece was much less effective and thus I feel that the previous music would have suited this piece a lot better. The use of the paper airplane and then it being turned into a piece of paper was reminiscent of the passage of time. Maybe Hannah and Bella were in a relationship that was fun at the start but quickly fizzled out when Hannah got a new job. Or maybe it shows how Hannah grew up leaving Bella behind, their childhood's forgotten in a mess of adult responsibilities. Whatever the interpretation, the moment when Bella stops touching Hannah when drawing the lines marks a distance in their relationship from Bella - Hannah had already shown this before, but when Bella does it, it severely shows that their relationship is broken beyond repair. The use of the paper airplane is something that I would like to use in later performances.
The next few tasks involved major group lifts. including the Calippo, forward and backwards, all shown in the photos below:
This photo is Leah mid-Calippo lift. In essence it is similar to that of a Calippo lollipop hence its name. Those at the bottom (lifting) all push on Leah's legs the force of which allows Leah to be pushed into the air. Leah must stay straight in body in order for the lift to be fully accomplished.
The image opposite shows Joel in a forwards lift. This is the lift that we have done the most of in previous physical work - my group used this lift in our Berkoff piece because both myself and Marlon had been to the Frantic Assembly workshop last July. Alex, the person who Joel is putting his hands on is the rock and is the person that Joel uses to stabalise himself whilst other people hold him by the chest, waist and knees for maximum support. This allows Joel to be easily moved around and manipulated whilst in the air.
The photo opposite shows us in the middle of a backwards lift. The person being lifted is this time supported by 2 rocks whom they put their arms around to begin with so they can be lifted initially. Other people support this lift by grabbing the areas mentioned in the previous lift. When the person is in the air, as shown by Bruce in this photo, they can take their arms off the two rocks and this allows for maximum movement.
The photo opposite is mid-crowd surfing Leah and shows how simple lifts like the ones above can easily mould into the lift of Leah curling into a ball. We also experimented with flipping Leah mid-air which actually worked pretty well all things considered.
After a 30 minute break we applied the group lifts to smaller lifting in the form of an exercise called Bodyguard. As stated previously Frantic Assembly start off with something simple and in this case the simple thing was that of following a person round and when they stop, they fall in a creative way. The challenge is to get the person as low to the ground as possible generating risk which is another way in which Frantic Assembly like to experiment. We then chose someone to pick 4 spots in the room in which they would fall in a creative way to which we would then transform into a lift. The video below shows our (Alex, Imogen, Kathryn, and myself) final piece:
The main thing that we were trying to show with this piece was that Imogen was the main character and thus everyone else was trying to protect her in some way. This developed into Kathryn always being the one to catch Imogen, Alex the one to always take Imogen off Kathryn and myself to always push Imogen away from Alex - this was done somewhat because I felt that I was too weak to do much heavy lifting. Imogen wouldn't look at anyone in the piece, her only focus being on her next point. In the rehearsal process Shaun asked for there to be an element of risk whereby Imogen would fall and at the last second Kathryn would run in. This effect was lost on us even though I tried to stay away from Imogen when she was walking to her next point. This was because I didn't have the responsibility of catching Imogen so in a sense I could take more risks than any other member of the group.
As with the Line drawing exercise, we workshopped a piece. The piece that we workshopped is the one seen below and is the Bodyguard of Disney:
The major change was that the piece was now in the dark, the lifts of Disney only being illuminated by Shaun's phone torch. This was majorly effective as it hid the people who were lifting Disney allowing an audience to only see the movements being made by Disney. Another thing that evolved from this piece was the use of shadows for effect. The main shadow that was the most effective appears at 25 seconds in. This easily shows the effect that shadows can give to a piece and was reminiscent of Gecko's The Wedding (a description of this performance can be found here). The story-line that was produced was something akin to someone being born - perhaps a baby in the womb - portrayed as such potentially due to Disney's newly shaved head. In contrast, the piece could represent drowning due to Disney being brought up and down and only being visible when he was being lifted. this could be emphasised by his facial expressions and by windmilling his hands around as well as the music that could be played to show this.
The final exercise that we did was something called Nerves. The video opposite shows the group practising their own nerve movements about three minutes into the exercise. We were told to turn around as to not feel as self conscious when we were doing the movement which would further enhance our movement to be to the standard of what was achieved. Firstly we were told to experiment with 'pulling' nerves from parts of our body to the heart. Then to find a pattern that we could repeat with a slow, outward movement, one movement where on nerve jolts out and you have to catch it and the other two similar to what we had done in the first part of the exercise. After we'd perfected our sequence we were put into a group of three and told to learn each other's sequences to put them into a performance. I was in a group with Marlon and Lauren and feel as though we all easily grasped the movement. Once in the group it was suggested that we play with the pacing of the piece which is something that Frantic Assembly develop in their own pieces - making something more complex as we go along.
The video opposite shows our final performance. I think that for the most part our movements were in sync where we had planned them to be and in a canon sequence such as the head throw in the second sequence that we did. The constant changing of where we were sat/laid and the use of having back to the audience at some points was very effective because it stopped the piece from becoming too repetitive. The chair was used to give one person their own 'starring' moment. I think that the conclusions drawn from the piece by the audience were excellent as I hadn't really thought of the piece in that way before. For example, someone suggested that we were all the same person going through solitary confinement and were just trying to find ways to pass the time. So the other people in the sequence who were not in the piece were either the future or past self of the character assumed in the piece. Another story that was suggested was that we were inmates in a prison and were bored with how time was passing - perhaps it shows how people commit the same crimes again and again which would allow for the past/present characters would have more relevance. The inmate suggestion was called from the moment in the piece where we pass a nerve to and from each other which was suggested to be people passing notes to pass the boredom.
Overall, the workshop was an incredible experience and hope that in the future I have the opportunity to partake in another Frantic Assembly workshop.
