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.
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