The week starting 3rd November

The week starting 3rd November

This week we started running the show without scripts. We got through act one with not too much prompting needed, I think it is important we start working without scripts so the play starts to flow and we can develop our characters further getting into their mannerisms and personalities.
We also did some work on our characters and how they would walk and stand. Mrs Shears, being a middle aged women, would not be too fit and so I decided would stand with fairly hunched posture. Also as she can not had the happiest life, I thought she would move fairly slowly with not a lot of purpose. I think she is also quite a closed person so would generally have her arms crossed across her body, I also think she would not go out of her way to talk to people, especially not Christopher. After this we looked at the subtext of any scenes we were finding difficult and then identified the objective of that scene. I did Mrs Shears' second scene with Christopher and her scene with Judy. 

Thinking about how my characters would walk and act, I think has helped me to become more like my characters and have more idea about how to act them. Writing out the subtext of what I was saying was really helpful as it made me think more about the meaning of the words so I could make it sound more like the kind of conversation Mrs Shears would be having. The objective also helped me to determine how I should be speaking in each scene, for example in the scene where Christopher knocks on her door, her intention is to get him to leave her alone, therefore her tone is rather unfriendly and becomes more irritated as Christopher continues to pry. 

I really like the first part of this video with the walking patterns and think we should include our own version within the play somewhere. It clearly shows Christopher, confused and lost, in among everyone else which portrays how he feels most of the time. The organised walking is effective and simple to do so I think it would be a good idea with music backing it to add another interesting medium to the play. 

This week I think we have made real progress, giving the play more depth and really getting into our roles. Also as people are becoming more comfortable with their lines and more confident everything starts to flow and we can start running the show as it will be without stopping and falling out of character.

To improve the play I think we need to really work on the pieces of physical theatre, for example London train station, as they are quite slow moving and do not always work which could be dangerous. Also as we have got quite a lot of lifts we really need to work on the transitions otherwise it looses the effectiveness of the lifts and just looks messy.