Saturday 20 December 2014

contemporary Theatre performance evaluation

What went well?
The blocking was strong at the start of the performance we all knew it very well it flowed very well, props were effective like the diary for example we passed it around to the person who was playing Rachel, my lines were delivered strong and with character. The way we told the story was c,ear and told in an abstract physical theatre style which is what made our performance different and strong.
What went wrong?
Towards the end the blocking became weak but that is because certain members of our group didn't come to rehearsals to help create new blocking that would have been stronger but they didn't remember the new blocking I gave to them, all of us had to have our scripts on stage with us, which showed weakness. We also had a member missing from our group, Shaine she had an accident and wasn't able to attend the assessment so we had to miss her parts of lines.
Overall on the performance?
The beginning was strong characters was strong the story we was telling in our own perspective and blocking went well and you could see this clearly. Our abstract physical theatre was strong and clear through the start, we should of worked on the end scene more but it was difficult organising rehearsals.
What would you do next time to make it better?
I think I would of rehearsed my lines more so that towards the end I was more confident with them, as a group we should of tried to organise more rehearsals so that our blocking would have been stronger throughout the performance and I think we know that as a group, but we still tried our best and tried to perform it as our characters to the best of our ability which I think was strong even though we had a group member missing.

contemporary Theatre 9

On pages 38 and 39 we repeated again the 'perfect' American garden scene with rachels mother and father played by sky and Chris is in the garden reacting to the email rachel has sent back to them they both comfort each other clearly showing the relationship and how they are worried for rachel.whilst this is happening Montana is typing up the email to the mother and father,  this scene is a split scene between the mother and father and rachel.
On the last paragraph on page 38 rachel is talking to her dad saying if he wants to pretend she's actually living a happy life then do so because that's what she likes to do to distract herself from the recurring horror in Palestine, whilst this is being spoken by me Chris is putting members of our group into different positions with the examples rachel has been giving him for example "I am in a Hollywood movie, or a sitcom starring Michael J fox".
The very last scene we worked on was all about rachel going to the bought pantry with her friend Colin,  ifs all about the 9/11 incident in America she hears this in a shop on the radio whilst in Palestine to show this we simply had everyone shopping around whilst I was talking then we all shared the lines from "I convinced Colin" up to the line "I figured if it was world war III" when we each say these lines we sit on the floor in a line  as if she was sitting on the pavement out side the shop looking very concerned and shocked with Colin, we paused for 3 seconds and then all shrugged. That's how we ended our script to really give that final message of the terror that Rachel is trying to stop and how maybe she's beginning to become used to terror having been in Palestine for so long.
I think this ending is strong we hope to give an impact on our audience.

contemporary Theatre 8

So we started off from where we left off on page 36 and 37, this scene is all about rachel making a check list and asking her friend to come and visit her, so Emmy who at this point is playing Rachel is making a check list on the things she has to either set up of do so as Emmy is saying her lines standing central all of us in the back or round the side act out the errands she needs to do.
The next scene which we also recreated at the rehearsal was page 37 which is all about the water supply for Rafah being shot at to workers and activist and receiving an email from her father, so we thought to repeat the scene from page 29 but instead of civilians being knocked out instead they are shot out to show the progression of terror through the play, this scene are my lines which I read out and the repeated scene is at the back of me, we thought that repetition would be f festive especially since the next time it's worse.
The next scene was rachels dad email, who is played by Chris he plays the father who has more of a close bond with rachel and let's her make her own decisions unlike her mother who worries a lot about rachel which doesn't mean the father doesn't, anyway Chris says all this whilst drinking a bear and having a barbecue with the mother on the hammock just like the previous scene this is again to highlight different world's through blocking.

Contemporary Theatre 7

Contemporary Theatre
Originally our blocking for pages 34 and 35  which is all about the emails that Rachel sends to her mother and father so we wanted to keep it quite simple  at first it was going to be me  sitting in the middle  Shaine to my left and sky to my right, I was going to react to the emails from Rachel’s mother in this scene played by (Shaine and sky) and then respond and they would do the same with my emails I think we may have had a small scene playing in the background acting out the emails but we changed that in rehearsals we changed the whole next scenes after page 34 and 35 which didn't really go well because of people not turning up to rehearsals, in rehearsals which me and some others of our group turned up to we changed the scene completely we wanted to show the difference between Rachel's parents world and  Palestinian world . So in the new blocking we had Sky and Shaine in a 'hammock' living in a luxury world talking to Rachel and with her husband having a barbecue. Me and Montana who was playing Rachel who at this point in the script are staying with family's in Palestine who offered to take her in and care for her, she talks about how she and a family who she is staying with have to all share a a room with the parents so to show this we had all of us from our group apart from Shaine and sky to bundle up and be asleep to represent the squished room, So because me and Montana hare lines in this scene whenever one if us spoke we would sit up and pretend to be on our computers replying to our mother, We thought this would be realistic and really dynamic with how we were showing two types of world's.

Thursday 18 December 2014

contemporary Theatre 6

In this lesson we wanted to continue with the blocking so we started with Montana small scene in the script to summarise she is talking about life and death and the different lives people live terror wise to show this we had two cloths to symbolise life and death for death we had a black Cape which Gian luca wears and we had a white Cape to symbolise life which Chris wears. Montana stands in the centre reading her lines Chris is to her left Gian luca to her right on the line "the difference between Hitler and my mother" Emmy steps forward symbolising the mother, on the line "the difference between Whitney Houston and a Russian mother" me, Shaine and Sky stand forward I pose signing symbolising Whitney Houston and Shaine and Sky play the Russian mother and her son dying we hold these positions until my line "And I knew back then" in which everyone circles round me shrugging and shaking there head because my lines is rachel talking about how she knows that her whole life is going to amount to one shrug so we thought it would be really effective that the whole group would circle round me to stress and add more of an effect to the message we was trying to convey about the shrugging because we feel that Rachel felt quite strongly about how people in Palestine reacted to the terror with a sort of shrug attitude.
The next scene we worked on was all about the tufah checkpoint  which is all about  the citizens wanting  to go  through  and start there jobs or who have errands to do it's to show to the audience how long people have to wait just to go to there jobs  which they should have the right to do , so we created a simple spread out licking to show this chris stands in the centre if the room to represent  the checkpoint which let's citizens through he wears a white cloth to create a wall through his body, to represent the wall  and a soldier.  Me, Emmy and Shaine play the women  we stand on the right hand side of the stage because Rachel in the script says "women and kids on right men on left" so of course we put Gian Luca, Sky and Montana on the left to play the boys and the lines on page 32 was our  wue lines to either go through or wait, for example "the women kneel, stand up again, and return " on this Gian Luca runs forward miming a yell to us the women and we kneel the. Stand up and go back to our original positions. After this short sequence me, Sky, Gian Luca  are trying to reach over chris looking in the other side to resemble  the people who want to  to visit families or go to there jobs and university's you can see this when Rachel says "this means that Palestinians who want to go and register for their next quarter at university can't."  Whilst we are on the side of begging to go over Montana , Shaine  and Emmy are looking back at us or trying to look over the wall upset and missing lived ones , we thought it was interesting to show it from this perspective because your seeing both point of views  and how it's effecting everyone with the checkpoint.
The last scene which follows straight after the checkpoint scene on pages 32 & 33 Emmys lines are next and her scene is all about how she has left rafah to stay in Palestine she talks about being I'll and a family taking care if her especially a woman who reminds her to keep in contact with her mother we showed this by Shaine who plays the woman comforting Emmy. Emmy is playing a sick Rachel in this scene and we showed this by Shaine simply walking her forward from the check point comforts her and cares for her and walks away this is all during Emmy's lines
Next lesson try and get more scenes blocked keep trying hard

Contemporary Theatre 5

Contemporary Theatre
We started to develop more blocking this lesson on Emmy’s scene on the  new IDF tower in Rafah, we obviously wanted something to symbolise the towers so we had Sky and Chris as the towers and Gian luca as the new tower, we wanted to show how Rachel (Emmy) was slightly scared and worried about the new tower so to show this we had Gian luca stand with a white sheet over him and Sky and Chris reveal him to the public whilst Emy reacts to this me and Shaine who are doing our laundry are just shrugging it off and confused to why she is reacting the way she is, this is to put more emphasis on the fact of how used to all this terror the citizens of Palestine are, also while this is happening Montana walks around hanging round banners as an activist with Emmy.
The next scene which is Sky's lines is all about how at 10pm people get shot down to show this we had Montana as the shooter watching over me, Emmy and Gian luca as if I was conducting an interview meaning I was playing Rachel and interviewing some citizens, Chris and Shaine symbolise the clock striking 10 on the line "but after about 10pm" that is our ques to check our watches and run out of the interview, when I run out I don't get shot obviously because I'm playing Rachel but Gian luca and Emmy do, after that scene ends we all end with a shrug with is something we do for the continuity for the play.
The last scene that we worked on was Shaine's lines, to summarise this part it's about how the media is telling everyone how people have been protesting in the UK and the USA we showed this by Shaine watching the TV reacting to me reporting on the TV the staging for this was all of us facing the front, Sky, Emmy and Gian luca protesting representing the USA and UK citizens, Chris creating a background by holding a white sheet behind me, and Montana played the person recording me, who was the only one with back to the audience this scene was very spread out.
This lesson was very productive we got a lot done and we plan to get much more scenes blocked next lesson

Contemporary Theatre 4

Contemporary Theatre
The next scene we started to focus on was Gian luca’s lines which focus on the water supplies of Rafah and how it is taken for granted, so we all discussed how we was going to show how soldiers are taking the water and how it’s unfair and wrong that they are able to control the water supplies, so me and Chris play two soldiers, Montana and Shaine play soldiers who are guarding the well and Gian luca, Emmy and Sky play the citizens begging for water. Me and Chris walk up to the well and ask permissions to be let through we drink the water handsomely and walk away and chuck the water on the citizens to mock them and we then knock them out this shows the power the army have over the citizens by levels with the citizens being on the ground below them, after this scene we then show in a more abstract way how the government and the army are taking the water. So Shaine and Montana are crawling to drink the water and me and Chris again are taking the water by using a blue cloth to symbolise the water Emmy and Sky are standing behind us with their hands to show how the government control and influence the Israeli army. We shrug in this scene towards the end of each of them we really thought it would be effective to keep shrugging every time something wrong and terrible happens to show how things like this is an everyday thing and how it’s become normal something terrible or wrong was happening to show people in Palestine and Rafah

The next part is Chris’s lines where he explains how homes are destroyed and there’s rubble everywhere because of the bulldozers, to symbolise the 12 meter high wall that Rachel (Chris) is witnessing in Rafah me and Emmy use a plain white sheet to show this which then later turns into a tank to shoot the children who are playing in the street sand bulldozing homes, the people who play children/protesters are Montana and Shaine and me, Emmy, Gian luca and Sky are the bulldozer/tank. We knew this scene was important because we wanted to show how homes are being destroyed and that the army is careless, we also stomped our feet to symbolise the bulldozers loud noise because realistically it sounds loud and scary and that’s the sort of impact we wanted on our audience.
Next lesson: focus on getting more scenes done for script

Contemporary Theatre 3

                                                        Contemporary Theatre
In today’s lesson we focused on casting and lines, playing Rachel is me but her lines are shared out to our whole group so it’s from different views and it’s more abstract because there isn’t many roles especially when there is 6 of us and basically only 3 speaking parts in the whole script which is: the mother, the father and of course Rachel. We took two lessons to do this only because the lesson after we was added a new member to the group. So everyone basically has parts of Rachel’s lines, but I in a way play the main part of Rachel physically, Chris plays the father of Rachel. Sky and Shaine play the mother, John luca, sky and Emmy share some of those lines. I’m quite pleased with my lines and I think the way we’ve set up the lines are going to be effective for our audience because it’s not only going to be focused of one person per character it’s going to be different people.
Next lesson: focus on developing more scenes from the script, try and devise them to become abstract.

Contemporary Theatre 2

                                                       Contemporary Theatre
In this lesson we were given a new member to the group, Montana we explained to her the moral of the story that we are doing for a play and showed her one of the scenes we had done. We all then thought of what we could do for our next scene and make it abstract because we didn’t want it to look GCSE we wanted to show the story through our bodies. So we started with the opening scene, we wanted to sum up a part of the start from the line “I rode on the bulldozer as it repaired the road throughout the day” up to the line “I don’t know if many of the children here have ever existed without tank- shell holes in their walls” but we didn’t add speech we only added in movement because Miss. Day wants us to layer our pieces so we understand each key element to put together a scene which is important to do so we value each element in our pieces for the play which will become more in depth and well thought through, so we all stood together and said ideas of what we could do for the scene and how to make it abstract, we started it off with me and Montana standing doing a sequence with our arms to show that we are protesting, because me and her are playing activist and I’m playing Rachel. Whilst we are protesting Chris, John Luca, Emmy and Shaine who are playing soldiers are driving by and watching us, they stop and get out of the car march in a straight line in front of us and shoot us they stamp their feet they stand up shrug and March away. We originally had them shooting with fake guns with their hands but Miss. Day said what would happen if we took that away, instantly it becomes more abstract so instead they just stamped there feet symbolising gun shots, we really wanted the stamping to be loud and deep because we want to shock or try and scare our audience to the reality of what a gunshot may sound like or how it might feel hearing a gun shot, whilst this is happening me and Montana are falling down in a slow, fast dynamic movement and showing facial expressions in slow motion after being “shot at” I’m hugging Montana’s lifeless body on the flow and the scene moves to the part of me putting Montana’s dead body under a blanket which is when it then turns into a child sleeping in bed I’m tucking her in when all of a sudden there are banging noises in the background symbolising the shots fired from a tank, I’m reacting badly to it worried for the child’s safety, whilst Montana (the child) is thinking what is she doing why is she acting like this. At the end of it I try and comfort Montana when she shrugs it of as if whatever, which is our groups message from this play that the war has made people become used to tragedy like it’s a shrug of the shoulder for them because they get tragedy everyday which is mentioned in the play.
This lesson I think it was very productive, we had a lot of creative ideas from everyone which is going to be useful for the other scenes and hopefully make this play more abstract and different so it has an effect on our audience. Next lesson we are highlighting our lines and officially casting people with characters.

Contemporary Theatre 1

Contemporary Theatre
So Miss Day introduced a play to us about a woman named Rachel who was an activist and when to Palestine in the middle of the Palestine war to protest that the Israeli stop what they’re doing to Palestine there enemies, we read through the script and I really felt attached to the main character (Rachel) until in the end Miss Day revealed that she was murdered by an Israeli tank, Rachel parents tried to sue the Israeli government for murder which didn’t work because the driver of the tank which ran her over claimed that it was an “accident” that he ran her over four times. This started off a class discussion on how silly war is and that it’s so unnecessary, I really liked this because I think this cold tell how passionate we were about this play and that we wanted to talk about it. After we split off into groups to start devising a piece for the play because we was going to do an abstract version of the play, my group started off with devising the water scene it’s when the Palestine are queuing for water but the Israeli can walk right through me and Chris played the two Israeli citizens being smug to the Palestine citizens that they get the water no problem, we showed this by John luca and Emy queuing for water and Shaine as the guard Me and Chris walk through and Shaine attacks the two citizens who become angry at our selfishness, we all walk away together and shrug because that’s our groups message and what we got from the play at how in the Palestine war, war happens every day and how it’s like a shrug of the shoulder, we really felt like this conveyed a message about the war and the citizens of Israeli and Palestine. We tried to make it abstract but I think next lesson we will work on the scene or maybe move onto another scene and try and make it abstract and different.
Overall I’m excited about this lesson and this subject, I think we can really make this play abstract and different one that draws in an audience.