As of 24/02/15, which was the first day back after half term, we have begun using the script as a stimulus for similar work to before but more directed in the area of the performance.
In the morning session we divided into small groups and chose scenes from the script to use as our particular stimulus. After discussing this for about 30 minutes we worked on some slapstick comedy; an area we hadn't gone over since the physical theatre unit.
In the afternoon session we discussed the themes of the play, creating four separate pieces relating to the theme of 'ritual'.
My group has decided on this as a rough schedule for the rehearsal process.. The first few weeks will be quite improvised and unstructured to see what comes of it, experimenting with several ideas which have come out during group discussions. In these rehearsals we will alternate week by week which scene we are working on. The two scenes we have picked as our stimulus are 'Mary hears of the sentence imposed on her son'; in which there are 5 female roles which will all be played by male actors, and 'The fool beneath the cross, laying a wager'; which is about a fool gambling with several soldiers with the intention that he may buy Christ's freedom.
02/03/15 We began with the first workshop ran by a peer. After we warmed up we split into two groups and did two improvs. For the first one, a number was called out and we had to have that many points of contact on the ground. For the second a letter was called out and in our groups we made something that begins with that letter. These exercises were to help with spontaneous improvisation. After that in our 2 groups we made an improvisation following these rules:
Make a small improvisation on three of the seven deadly sins.
Envy - A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities or luck.
Pride - A feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, the achievements of one's close associates or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.
Gluttony - Habitual greed or excess in eating.
Lust - Strong sexual desire.
Anger - A strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility.
Greed - Intense and selfish desire for something especially wealth, power or food.
Sloth - Reluctance to work or make an effort. Laziness.
This improvisation has rules:
1) Everyone must come into contact with everyone in their group at one given time in the piece.
2) Nothing is to be taken literally, everything must be abstract.
3) Every person has a three word limit.
These exercises were well thought out and helped everyone get back into the mindset of improvisation. It was also linked to the themes of the play showing thought had been put into it.
In the afternoon my group talked through a few more details that we hadn't decided on.
Whilst the material that was created in this session was not used for my intended work the act of improvising anything at all has helped get me in the mind set for future sessions to create improvised little things that we can then find ways of using.
03/03/15 The entire class participated in a workshop ran at Edge Hill University. This was ran by Olly Cricke who is currently working on a book about commedia dell'arte. After a warm up and stretching out session we did a technique by which we undulated our bodies over and over again. At certain points during this process Olly would instruct us to freeze. Staying in the current body posture we would move around deciding what physicality a person with that posture would have and what speed they would walk with. We then would change the speed going from normal to double speed or half speed. To begin with it was simple but when we started changing the speeds I struggled. By the end of the exercise I could not stand up, I was swaying side to side unable to breath normally and my heart hurt. This was mostly because of my weight but partially because of the fact that I had a bad cold that was just making everything harder than it needed to be. I tried to join in on the next activity after I was able to breathe a bit easier but was unable to, so I watched as the others experimented with the position of their head and how it affects the personality of the character whilst they moved around the room. Unfortunately I was not around for the next bit as I took a turn for the worse and had to step outside for air. This next bit will be what I was told they did whilst I was outside. Following the similar set of instructions they moved around the room with a certain body part in a particular position eg. hips forward or backward. They were then instructed to split into two groups; one taking one particular position and attitude and the other instructed to do almost the exact opposite. So we had 6 people walking around with their hips forward eager to greet people and say hello and 6 people walking around very nervously and quick to excuse themselves from the conversation.
In the afternoon we learned about a whole lot of the stock characters and their motivations.
I learned some stuff in this workshop but it wasn't as effective as I thought it would be. The main thing that I took away was to be aware of the placement of my head, shoulders and hips when creating these characters.
9/3/15 My group used this session to have a run through of all the lines for the scenes. We tried out several accents and we also tried out some more leaps and slapstick material. We came up with a bit were one person ran at another and flew over him and fell on to a crash mat.
In the afternoon we had a workshop ran by Hope University students on the subject of commedia dell'arte. I paid close attention, trying to bear in mind the characters for the fool beneath the cross laying a wager, so that we could make a decision as to which stock character fits which role. This workshop was a lot more effective for me personally to make decisions. I took what I learnt in this session and used it the next day.
10/3/15 We began with a workshop ran by a peer. The ideas were interesting but seemed to lack the follow-through to accomplish what we intended but one of the exercises did give me chance to examine what type of character my character 'second crucifier' is. I concluded that my character is more interested in games and gambling than the job at hand. After we finished this workshop we worked on different characters from the play. We did an exercise by which we learned to act intoxicated. After we'd finished that exercise we moved on to acting blind.
In the afternoon session there was a particularly well thought out workshop ran by two peers which mainly dealt with things relevant to their scene. After the workshop the two of us from my group who were present continued to work on the physicality of our roles. We came up with two contrasting bodies; the first crucifier's body was quite straight with feet turned inwards, shoulders back and head forward. As the second crucifier, I contrasted this with a back arched forward, hips pushed back as far as possible and head forward. The physicality would be that of Zanni. Zanni is a mostly upbeat and curious character but non the less foolish. We used these bodies to come up with voices for the characters. Crucifier one's was quite pompous whereas mine was quite docile and melancholy at times. During this process we stumbled across a slapstick routine were one member of the cast says the line 'hand me a nail', another offers him a hammer. He then say 'no, I already have a hammer'. When he is given the nail he snatches it with his right hand and slaps the other person with his left. We then later worked on this with another member of our group when he arrived. We made it better and longer. After he takes the nail and slaps the first character he then turns around and is slapped himself by a third character, who then walks away and drops the hammer on his toes. The three of us also then worked on the entrance and also we discussed how we were going to make the penis-size jokes with the hammers. In earlier discussions we had decided we would make a joke about using different sized hammers as if representing the size of the characters genitals. Even if the reference of the genitals goes over the audiences heads, someone with a small hammer and someone with an oversized hammer will still be funny. We also have a bit in a similar style about erectile dysfunction. In this bit someone will come on with a large inflatable hammer holding it tightly with two hands so it is completely upright but when they let go of one hand the partially inflated hammer will droop. We worked on a few other things but these were the main points.
16/03/15
Today my group ran through all we have up to now. We went on past that and we came up with a new bit by which the chief crucifier scolds the fool and pushes him on to the crash mat and continues to berate him. He then is startled by the first crucifier. They then yell back and forth until the chief crucifier falls back on to the crash mat, the second crucifier and the fool cover him up and they grieve for him until he sits bolt up right and proclaims "I'm not dead." The first crucifier yells 'Ahh Zombie' and leaps at him as the chief crucifier side rolls.
In the afternoon we took part in another work shop ran by Hope university students, we ended up working on the same scenes we worked on that morning.
17/03/15
Fixed point- 'This may be more commonly referred to as 'pointe fixe', however that is simply the original French wording of 'fixed point'. This is an incredibly simple idea: The mime locates a point with his body, and then keeps it motionless in space. This technique is the basis of all illusions a mime can create.' http://www.mimeartists.co.za/mimeartistsperformance.htm
As a class we worked on the set. After this many of us experimented with the new placement of the crash mat and the trampette. My group came across a gag that we believed was good enough to go into the performance. We worked on how to integrate it and have it as part of the opening of our scene. It's basically the three crucifiers march on during the fools speech. We march back and forth on the stage then one by one we jump onto the trampette over a stage block and land on the crash mat. I as the last one to do it don't jump over the stage block and stay on the trampette as if it has stopped working. I will use fixed point here to increase the comic effect. The other two march around the stage and I join the back of the platoon, we then do another lap marching back and forth. Then the others jump off the trampette, land on the stage block and do a front flip onto the crash mat. Again, I jump onto the trampette but don't bounce off. Again, here I will use fixed point. Whilst the other two continue to march back around I climb onto the stage block and tentatively walk towards the edge and peer over as if about to try a flip. Then the chief crucifier jumps on the trampette up onto the block behind me, I then fall off the block onto the mat. Then the first crucifier bounces onto the trampette behind the chief, we then all look to the audience with different facial expressions and reactions to the situation as we freeze in a comedy sexual position as we all use different moments of fixed point.
In the afternoon we worked with the cross for the first time, quite a few jokes came out around it but we thought them through as we didn't want to make fun of Jesus and we wanted to be respectful to that part of the story. We were bearing in mind that the themes of commedia dell'arte are not intended to make fun of the religious aspects but to make fun of the hypocrisy aspects of the church and military. We wanted the jokes to focus on the stupidity of the soldiers. We debated for a while whether we would be able to stand the cross up with someone lying on it, after a short while we decided to just try and see if it worked. It was surprisingly easier than we thought it would be. We then put the cross aside for a bit and continued to work on where we left off yesterday. We made a few alterations to the annotated script to account for the changes since yesterday moving things to earlier parts so that it worked better with the new material.
18/03/15
Three of the four of us took some time aside to look through the script to make some decisions on what we hadn't decided on. We then walked the fourth member through our decisions. We removed a large bit of the script where the soldiers recount Jesus' own words back to him as they nail him to the cross. We decided that although what was said was good it was a little bit gruesome, we decided to go for a more stylised way of portraying it. We annotated previous decisions onto the script and we added a couple of lines for a joke here and there. We also removed a few words here and there to make it fit our scene better.
For example we edited the line;
'And you too, Matazone. Climb up on top of the ladder so that you can be ready to hold it'.
So the new line would read;
'And you too, Matazone. Be ready to hold it'.
We have done this as we are not going to have a ladder in our scene and we will have stage blocks that will give height.
23/03/15
After a warm up work shop my group went back to working on the 'Mary hears of the sentence imposed on her son' scene but we all agreed that it had no life; the jokes weren't funny and our ideas weren't helping the scene along compared to the other scene. It sucked so we scrapped the scene and began to work on the other scene. We encountered a small problem with a part of the script that didn't seem to make sense. We spent most of the lesson trying to work out how to work with it. Some of us understood how it fits and what was intended but it didn't quite make sense non the less. In the afternoon session we continued to work with the students from Hope University. They observed our current work. They were mainly looking into the physicality, which is something that we have spent quite a lot of time looking into, pretty much dedicating a whole early session to deciding upon the physicality features of the characters. We took influences from the workshops ran by the students themselves from previous weeks as well as the one ran by Olly Cricke. The feedback we received was that the physicality of all four of us was pretty good but the timing and our lines needed to be worked on. We all agreed that the timing was something that had been ignored during rehearsal.
24/03/15
Bearing in mind the feedback that we received from the Hope students we got to work straight away editing the scene that we had already been working on so that the timing would be more precise. We edited the bit that we all agreed wasn't working in the previous days morning session, removing most of the section. Unfortunately, this meant that we lost 2 or 3 jokes that were quite funny. This process took most of the session though.
In the afternoon we had a workshop with the main intention of creating an ensemble piece to help with the scene the girls who ran the workshop were working on. We worked a little more on our scene after we finished the workshop but its beginning to feel at this point like we can get past the point we are up to no matter how hard we try.
30/03/15
So today I ran my work shop. My main aim was to get everyone into a chorus, as my scene and a couple of the others need them. This is what I worked up:
My Workshop
-Shake out /loosen up
Stretch out
Breathing
Count to 20
-Split into 2 groups
of 6
Walk in a chorus
following my directions
Walk Forward
Turn right and keep
walking
Take 3 steps back
Walk in a circle
Stop
Wave your right hand
-Shoal of Fish
Now walk around the
space in your groups and don’t break Apart- I’m not giving directions!
As a chorus say this
poem:
Group 1:
I know I will love
death.
Why?
Because death too
Is God's creation
And because death reminds me
Of the existence of her sister:
Infinity's Life immortal.
Why?
Because death too
Is God's creation
And because death reminds me
Of the existence of her sister:
Infinity's Life immortal.
-Group 2:
Hope abides;
therefore I abide.
Countless frustrations have not cowed me.
I am still alive, vibrant with life.
The black cloud will disappear,
The morning sun will appear once again
In all its supernal glory.
In my opinion it went better than I had planned as things that spontaneously happened were really good.
After my work shop we continued to work on our scene. We made a little progress but the lack of a set hampered us greatly. We are not getting through the scenes fast enough for our tutor; however I don't wholeheartedly agree that we should be finished. I would like to be further ahead but we keep going of on tangents.
31/3/15
So today we made a big effort to get to the end of the scene. We did get to the end but what we did was a bit lack lustre and rushed, at least compared to the beginning. We added a couple of lines after the chief crucifier says 'Have you released the ropes from his wrists?' I as the second crucifier 'um and ahhh' and eventually the chief crucifier says 'you haven't done it have you? I respond with 'yes'. He then says 'You've done it!' which I respond to with a 'no'. He then repeats 'no' and I respond 'yes'. He then breaks down and says 'have you done it or haven't you?' and I respond with 'done what?'
In the afternoon we came up with a bit that I'm quite proud of. With the latter half of the performance being lack lustre, it needed a few jokes putting in, so after the fool mentions the money that Judas threw into the bush I, as the second crucifier, charge off stage and come back on several minutes later with my arms and face wrapped in bandages and with a slight repeat of the earlier yes/no gag.
20/04/15
We came back with a renewed sense of vigour and my group began by refreshing ourselves with what we came up with last term. After break my group had a full run of our scene and we decided to cut a bit where the chief removed his belt and the other crucifiers tied it to Jesus, then the cheif pants would fall down, if his pants did not fall the fool would kegs him. In the end we just cut that bit for several reasons one of which being the chiefs modesty. We also replaced the person playing Jesus because he never had time to rehearse. Megan volunteered as her partner for her scene was off and she did not want to waste a session doing nothing, she volunteered to be Jesus in our piece.
I have made the 3 Deal or no Deal boxes for our piece, I tried to make them the same as the TV show but I made the inside red not white by mistake, other than that they turned out pretty good.
21/04/15
We had our first full run through and each group got feedback, this is my group feedback:
Dan' monologue needs to be the audience - some of it is direct to them.
Adam - "Zombie!" 1 word. loud and clear.
How are you really getting Jesus on?
Hammer - use a real one.
Hammer thumb - hit the stage.
X-ray picture on a sheet?
Wine props.
Commedia Physicality all except Andrew needs painfully extreme physicality.
Final monologue and an ending - it ends in a floppy way, nosedives, needs to end on a quick but definite bit of slapstick.
27/04/15
To day we took the class down to the Kingsway site and we had rehearsals there. We all worked on the ending 'You are the Jongleur'. It still a little rough but came together quickly. We worked on little individual bits and later on I got the whole group together to work on the beginning and the chorus work for my scene. Everybody got the idea of what was needed but we'll will work on it more when we do run-throughs in later weeks.
28/04/15
We worked on individual bits in the morning. My group spent most of the morning trying out ideas with actual. Up to this point we had been miming, making sure they worked as intended. We worked on a couple of group bits such as a group song and some work in other people's scenes. The number that has been chosen is Summer Lovin' from Grease. To put a twist on it we have decided to have all the girls dressed in costumes reminiscent of the guys singing the guy's part and all the guys in costumes reminiscent of the girl's costumes and singing the girls' parts.
05/06/15
As a class we worked through the many transitions between the individual scenes. We then continued to work on the Grease ending and the wedding scene. We also worked on the Timewarp for the 'beggars' scene.
11/05/15
The Army jackets are here so we spent some time trying them on and seeing how they fit and how we can and can't move in them and after that we began to discuss the ending of our scene.
In the afternoon we put all the ideas into action we started off after the fool leaves and the first and second crucifier come back on.
first crucifier: 'where is my cut '
chief crucifier: 'wot you would be lucky to get paid'
{first crucifier: hits chef with a slap stick}
chief crucifier: hits first crucifier with a slap stick
second crucifier: enters and separates the two of them 'why can't we share it'
first /chief: 'yes ok'
second crucifier: 'who wants this'
first/ chief: 'I do' they fight over it
We all throw it up the first/chief fights and second takes the bag and looks in it and smiles at the audience and sneaks off with the bag as the other two fit till they both fall.
12/05/15
14/05/15
We went over the blocking to make sure that they flowed smoothly. We also worked on a few little gag here and there, like a Scooby Doo armed jump.
We worked with full props to make sure all the movements were correct with our jackets on.
As a class we worked on the Grease number, it has improved but we all could work on our projection. After that, we looked at the blocking and characteristics of the Wedding scene. To finish off, we got Jesus to stand where the cross will be; to give the Fools an eye line for his monologue
18/05/15
So we continued to work on Grease number. Most of us have costume pieces and we used them during the rehearsal.
We all agreed that we needed to work a bit more, to go through number 5 and 6 in the Jongleur introduction so that we can get the audience into their seats; and we chose to use Circus music as it is recognisable to the average person and conveys that we will be clowning and being physically expressive.
Countless frustrations have not cowed me.
I am still alive, vibrant with life.
The black cloud will disappear,
The morning sun will appear once again
In all its supernal glory.
In my opinion it went better than I had planned as things that spontaneously happened were really good.
After my work shop we continued to work on our scene. We made a little progress but the lack of a set hampered us greatly. We are not getting through the scenes fast enough for our tutor; however I don't wholeheartedly agree that we should be finished. I would like to be further ahead but we keep going of on tangents.
31/3/15
So today we made a big effort to get to the end of the scene. We did get to the end but what we did was a bit lack lustre and rushed, at least compared to the beginning. We added a couple of lines after the chief crucifier says 'Have you released the ropes from his wrists?' I as the second crucifier 'um and ahhh' and eventually the chief crucifier says 'you haven't done it have you? I respond with 'yes'. He then says 'You've done it!' which I respond to with a 'no'. He then repeats 'no' and I respond 'yes'. He then breaks down and says 'have you done it or haven't you?' and I respond with 'done what?'
In the afternoon we came up with a bit that I'm quite proud of. With the latter half of the performance being lack lustre, it needed a few jokes putting in, so after the fool mentions the money that Judas threw into the bush I, as the second crucifier, charge off stage and come back on several minutes later with my arms and face wrapped in bandages and with a slight repeat of the earlier yes/no gag.
20/04/15
We came back with a renewed sense of vigour and my group began by refreshing ourselves with what we came up with last term. After break my group had a full run of our scene and we decided to cut a bit where the chief removed his belt and the other crucifiers tied it to Jesus, then the cheif pants would fall down, if his pants did not fall the fool would kegs him. In the end we just cut that bit for several reasons one of which being the chiefs modesty. We also replaced the person playing Jesus because he never had time to rehearse. Megan volunteered as her partner for her scene was off and she did not want to waste a session doing nothing, she volunteered to be Jesus in our piece.
I have made the 3 Deal or no Deal boxes for our piece, I tried to make them the same as the TV show but I made the inside red not white by mistake, other than that they turned out pretty good.
21/04/15
We had our first full run through and each group got feedback, this is my group feedback:
Dan' monologue needs to be the audience - some of it is direct to them.
Adam - "Zombie!" 1 word. loud and clear.
How are you really getting Jesus on?
Hammer - use a real one.
Hammer thumb - hit the stage.
X-ray picture on a sheet?
Wine props.
Commedia Physicality all except Andrew needs painfully extreme physicality.
Final monologue and an ending - it ends in a floppy way, nosedives, needs to end on a quick but definite bit of slapstick.
27/04/15
To day we took the class down to the Kingsway site and we had rehearsals there. We all worked on the ending 'You are the Jongleur'. It still a little rough but came together quickly. We worked on little individual bits and later on I got the whole group together to work on the beginning and the chorus work for my scene. Everybody got the idea of what was needed but we'll will work on it more when we do run-throughs in later weeks.
28/04/15
We worked on individual bits in the morning. My group spent most of the morning trying out ideas with actual. Up to this point we had been miming, making sure they worked as intended. We worked on a couple of group bits such as a group song and some work in other people's scenes. The number that has been chosen is Summer Lovin' from Grease. To put a twist on it we have decided to have all the girls dressed in costumes reminiscent of the guys singing the guy's part and all the guys in costumes reminiscent of the girl's costumes and singing the girls' parts.
05/06/15
As a class we worked through the many transitions between the individual scenes. We then continued to work on the Grease ending and the wedding scene. We also worked on the Timewarp for the 'beggars' scene.
11/05/15
The Army jackets are here so we spent some time trying them on and seeing how they fit and how we can and can't move in them and after that we began to discuss the ending of our scene.
In the afternoon we put all the ideas into action we started off after the fool leaves and the first and second crucifier come back on.
first crucifier: 'where is my cut '
chief crucifier: 'wot you would be lucky to get paid'
{first crucifier: hits chef with a slap stick}
chief crucifier: hits first crucifier with a slap stick
second crucifier: enters and separates the two of them 'why can't we share it'
first /chief: 'yes ok'
second crucifier: 'who wants this'
first/ chief: 'I do' they fight over it
We all throw it up the first/chief fights and second takes the bag and looks in it and smiles at the audience and sneaks off with the bag as the other two fit till they both fall.
12/05/15
14/05/15
We went over the blocking to make sure that they flowed smoothly. We also worked on a few little gag here and there, like a Scooby Doo armed jump.
We worked with full props to make sure all the movements were correct with our jackets on.
As a class we worked on the Grease number, it has improved but we all could work on our projection. After that, we looked at the blocking and characteristics of the Wedding scene. To finish off, we got Jesus to stand where the cross will be; to give the Fools an eye line for his monologue
18/05/15
So we continued to work on Grease number. Most of us have costume pieces and we used them during the rehearsal.
We all agreed that we needed to work a bit more, to go through number 5 and 6 in the Jongleur introduction so that we can get the audience into their seats; and we chose to use Circus music as it is recognisable to the average person and conveys that we will be clowning and being physically expressive.
