performingeight-blog

[performingeight-blog]

Bibliography

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018, Alienation Effect, online resource, available here: https://www.britannica.com/art/alienation-effect    [accessed 09/04/19]

Frantic Assembly, 2016, Things I Know To Be True: Resource Pack - Family Hugs, video clip, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLlLvV41qD8&feature=youtu.be   [accessed 06/03/19] 

Hickson, E. 2011, The Evening Standard, Ella Hickson is talking about her generation, online article, available here: https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/ella-hickson-is-talking-about-her-generation-6383633.html    [accessed 04/03/19]

Hickson, E. 2015, Eight, London, Bloomsbury, online version available here: https://www-dramaonlinelibrary-com.bathspa.idm.oclc.org/plays/eight-iid-135025/do-9781784600631-div-40000008

 London Theatre Bookings, 2015, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Official Trailer, National Theatre’s performance, video clip, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVrOsXhG61Q    [accessed 06/03/19]

Mitchell, K. 2009, The Director’s Craft - a Handbook for the Theatre, Rehearsals, pg. 115, London, Routledge, online version available here: https://www.dawsonera.com/readonline/9780203889701

The Scotsman, 2008. Theatre Review: Eight, online article, available here: https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle-2-15039/theatre-review-eight-1-1085353  [accessed 04/03/19]

[performingeight-blog]

Evaluation

The performance took place on Saturday 11th May. The delivery of the monologues on the whole was believable and kept the audience captivated. The physical theatre work, when combined with the lighting design offered a clear contrast that added a deeper layer to the piece and ultimately achieving the impact I had hoped for.

As the director of this piece, I had to ensure that throughout the process I always questioned myself on why I was making certain dramaturgical choices. For example, I chose to make the transitions between the sections very unnaturalistic along with the physical theatre support during the monologues. The members of the ensemble acted more as bodies in the space, contrasting to the focal characters of the section. I aimed to make the ensemble a physical embodiment of trauma and they would enter the stage throughout the monologues where trauma was present. It was here that I realised the usefulness of one of the first exercises I led with the cast – the mapping of the emotional journey in each monologue as it allowed us to recognise these traumatic moments easily. My lighting choices reflected this with the use of stronger colours when the ensemble entered. The dramaturgy behind my choice is that I wanted to portray the idea of isolation throughout the piece, making the characters appear lost on the stage amongst the bodies. The second justification for my choices is that I drew inspiration from and aimed to achieve a version of Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Alienation effect’ (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018). With our piece being a statement about society’s impact upon a generation and having such strong themes; it was important to me to ‘keep the spectators aware of being in a theatre’ and distanced their ‘emotional involvement’ with the characters. I feel as though this approach worked well as I used key methods to achieve the effect such as the stepping in and out of characters, making the ensemble cold and emotionless, the minimalistic and unnaturalistic set, and the unusual lighting choices.

Another aspect of the piece that I thought worked well was the grid. There are several justifications for this dramaturgical choice. It served as a metaphor throughout the piece, assuming different meanings. Firstly, the grid represented society and conforming to what is ‘right’. The ensemble would grid-walk on it, creating this idea of keeping in line with the rules that society imposes and allowed the characters of the monologues to move freely to highlight their traumatic experiences. The grid would later become a method of keeping the stage space symmetrical and ‘perfect’, linking to the section focusing on body image. It symbolised lack of freedom within society; it became a portrayal of control, with the characters ‘falling off the grid’ when they lost it. Finally, it contributed to the ‘Alienation effect’ acting as not only an aid for the ensemble to stick to, but for the audience to see exactly what the ensemble were doing, following literal lines on the floor.

However, I consider the use of the grid slightly restricting. It meant that the synchronisation of the ensemble needed to be perfect and choreographing the smallest of sequences was difficult. I feel as though the impact was successful but due to a limited time within the performance space and the amount of tape we had throughout the process, it made the rehearsal process challenging. As this was part of my creative vision, it was my responsibility to design the grid which involved measuring the area and ensuring a symmetrical design. This was very time consuming, but I am happy with the aesthetic I created.

I feel as though I was a fair director. I had many roles to fill within the process such as booking rooms, organising rehearsals around the groups availability and planning what we would do within the rehearsals. I involved myself within the stages of character development and gave the actors detailed feedback. I allowed time to ‘play’ with ideas and treated each member of the group with respect. I feel as though I instilled a fair level of discipline within the rehearsal room but maintained a high work place moral. Despite saying this, I should have been more organised in terms of having a plan for progression. We worked slowly at the beginning of the process and while we were active within our exercises and discussions, we could have introduced work on character development sooner. Personal deadlines would have also helped with learning lines as I should have been more insistent on being off-script. We needed to work much faster within the last few weeks and had to meet more often. I feel as though this put added pressure upon the group as a whole. Ultimately, it was professionalism that was our weakest area. Punctuality and attendance were issues that should have been addressed as it was unfair on those who were at every rehearsal, on time. Due to the nature of the piece; it being so heavily based on ensemble work; a rehearsal without everyone was not very useful.

If I was to stage this piece again, I think I would make it more light-hearted. I would not consider all eight monologues – I would do as originally performed and allow the audience to choose 4. I think this is a clever twist that makes the piece unique and I would like to appreciate the play’s history - I would also focus more on one area/theme as I feel as though I tried to cover too many.

I have learnt from this experience is that you cannot force ideas. I recognised when we needed to stop rehearsing and when to walk away from the piece for a while; as returning with a fresh mindset helped when hitting creative blocks. I have learnt that it is very important to learn and devise through playing, especially when dealing with some of the topics that came up – when considering your place in modern day society, you need to keep it light. Lastly, I have learnt the importance of collaborating. Ideas flow better when they are being bounced off one another and it removes the pressure from one individual to come up with everything. I would continue in the future using this method of creating through play. Theatre is to be enjoyed, for those who make it and those who watch it, therefore I believe that the process should be too. All in all, I believe that I was successful within my role as the director and I am happy with my work. Ultimately, ‘the main skills required from the director are patience and long-term thinking’ (Mitchell, 2009, pg.115), and I believe that I exhibited these qualities.

 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2018, Alienation Effect, online resource, available here: https://www.britannica.com/art/alienation-effect    [accessed 09/04/19]

Mitchell, K. 2009, The Director’s Craft - a Handbook for the Theatre, Rehearsals, pg. 115, London, Routledge, online version available here: https://www.dawsonera.com/readonline/9780203889701

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Rehearsal - Step 4: Run Throughs

The final step was performing run-throughs. This was the most challenging part of the process the piece heavily relied on physical and vocal cues – should one actor not be confident in their part, the rest of the cast were affected. There was little more I could do at this point other than provide feedback, so I ensured that my notes were detailed. It was also within this step that we had to specify said cues to ensure the ensemble worked in sync. With the performance looming, and cues still being missed, tension was high within the group. However, the group continued to keep a positive mindset and eventually we reached a performance standard.

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Rehearsal - Step 3: Inclusion of Physical Theatre

After developing the main characters, we started to utilise physical theatre to explore the deeper levels of the stories. We once again played with grid walking, this time experimenting with pace and creating tension as the monologues were being performed. Furthermore, we decided on using the grid as a motif, revisiting it in different ways in the transitions between the sections. I had to ensure that the movements were stylised and emphasised key moments in the stories, whilst avoiding clichés. I looked into exercises that involved using our bodies in different ways and incorporated this into the grid walk. For example, being repelled away from some people but attracted to others like magnets. The sequences that come from this were dance like and quite hypnotic. A version of this was included in a transition that portrayed ‘loss of control’ before the final section.

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Rehearsals - Step 2: Naturalistic Character Development

The second step was developing the characters we had. We learnt a lot through ‘play’. One exercise I led helped with mapping the emotional journey of the monologues. The actors stood in a line and recited their monologues. They could then step forwards or backwards depending on the increase/decrease in emotional tension. As the director, I acted as an ‘outside eye’ - it was interesting to not only see characters who were in sync, but also those who worked in opposition. The cast had created features that defined their characters, such as different mannerisms or statues. I led another exercise experimenting with reading lines using different intentions to help the actors find the appropriate voice for the characters.

[performingeight-blog]

Rehearsals - Step 1: Establish the World

The first step within the process was to establish a script, cast characters, and decide upon our rules for the piece in general. Revisiting my first idea of including all eight monologues, it was my responsibility to edit the monologues into a ‘script’. To avoid wasting time, we discussed how we would create the world around the characters. We created a statement that we felt would help us explore the piece – “What is acceptable in order to be accepted?” We created rules; firstly, the monologues would be performed naturalistically, with the actors becoming the characters. The rest of the cast would become an ensemble, characterless bodies. Secondly, we established was that the ensemble should acknowledge the main characters, who in contrast would not see each other or the ensemble. It was important to have rules, to keep consistency within the piece.

[performingeight-blog]

Research: Initial Creative Vision/ Director’s Concept

The initial creative vision for my groups performance is to use all eight original monologues but blend them together to establish clear links between the characters. While I understand and appreciate Hickson’s choice to only show four out of the eight characters, as a reminder that for every choice you make, something is left behind; I want to use all eight as it highlights the completely different experiences within the same areas, and the impact these experiences have had upon the characters. Astrid and Mona both talk about their experiences with sexual relationships, and while both are traumatic, both reach completely different conclusions. Another prominent idea that we have is the use of a grid. This will act a metaphor, demonstrating conformity and acceptance, two of our key themes. It is a prominent feature of our set as it will be made up of tape on the floor, serving as constant reminder that the need for acceptance is forever there. Finally, we have agreed that while the character monologues should be performed in a naturalistic way, the rest of the cast is to act as a physical theatre ensemble, reflecting the trauma of each story, with their neutral but definite presence.

[performingeight-blog]

Research: What is ‘Eight’?

 ‘Eight’ is a play comprised of eight monologues (nine in the published version), that was written by Ella Hickson for Edinburgh Fringe in 2008. Taken from a review of the play’s debut performance by The Scotsman, “Hickson based her work on a survey of British twentysomethings which asked them what qualities or experiences define their generation” (2008). In the original performance, the audience were asked to choose four monologues after hearing a brief character description and only these four were performed, leaving the audience wondering what the ones that were not chosen would have led to.

Ella Hickson wrote Eight to enter a competition run by her University while in her third year. While the initial reason for making the characters so isolated was because she “didn't know how to do dialogue"(Hickson, 2011), it resonated with me, as a continued metaphor for the play itself, all the characters are part of one generation, but are somehow alone. Her decision to let the audience choose which four monologues they saw was because she “wanted them to take responsibility for their choices"(2011).

My group chose ‘Eight’ as the play we were going to produce, and I assumed the role of the director. With such a minimalistic stimulus, ours was always to be an adaptation of the original. The key themes that we identified were Relationships, Acceptance, and Conformity – all of which belong under the umbrella of Trauma due to Social Pressures e.g. maintaining a ‘good’ and ‘socially acceptable’ relationship, job, lifestyle etc.

I found myself drawn to using the work of Frantic Assembly as inspiration for my approach to the piece. Things I Know to be True holds a narrative and a plot with moments of contemporary movements that reflect the story being told such as the ‘Family Hug’ (Frantic Assembly, 2016) sequence. As for set, I was intrigued by the use of a grid in the National Theatre’s performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, as shown in the trailer for the show (London Theatre Bookings, 2015). Having already considered the themes we wanted to focus on, I could clearly link using a grid to my piece.

Frantic Assembly, 2016, Things I Know To Be True: Resource Pack - Family Hugs, video clip, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLlLvV41qD8&feature=youtu.be   [accessed 06/03/19]

Hickson, E. 2011, The Evening Standard, Ella Hickson is talking about her generation, online article, available here: https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/ella-hickson-is-talking-about-her-generation-6383633.html    [accessed 04/03/19]

London Theatre Bookings, 2015, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Official Trailer, National Theatre’s performance, video clip, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVrOsXhG61Q    [accessed 06/03/19]

The Scotsman, 2008. Theatre Review: Eight, online article, available here: https://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle-2-15039/theatre-review-eight-1-1085353  [accessed 04/03/19]