As the creative process of Four ways to speak out made the transition from the ‘V’ to the ‘P’ stage of devising, everything suddenly began to feel real. Up until that point in the process, I did not feel as though I had a character, and I did not feel as though I had been on any sort of journey. I was concerned that as a group we would then reach the performance, and I would not have a journey to experience through each show. Once all of the sections of Four ways to speak out were pieced together, and the process turned into a performance, I was suddenly thrown into a journey that I had never imagined, a journey that triggered many different emotions and made me understand who my character really was. Oddey writes that “The significance of the process is that it determines the product, and is a unique experience for every different group of people working together.” (Oddey,1994,P11) This was certainly the case during the creative process of Four ways to speak out, at times I questioned the purpose of the process and became extremely impatient with it, but without it, the performance would not have been what it was.
As we moved to the performance stage of devising, we were encouraged to not only explore our own characters, but the relationships we had with others. After conducting exercises which would allow these characters to emerge from within us, the majority of the group began to feel the same hatred and disgust towards Andy. As the story was merged together and played out in front of our eyes, a protectiveness over this woman who was missing from the community began to evolve, and hence a hatred for the reason of her disappearance. Oddey states that “Central to the devising process is the creation of performance personas who will inhabit the stage world and give rise to its action.” (Oddey, 1994, p92) Andy had developed a persona for his character which in turn had dominated the space, causing other performers to either hate or fear him. The community had realised the severity of the situation, and the abuse she had been subjected to both physically and emotionally. “Emotional abuse is designed to make a person feel beneath their abuser, keep them from realising their own self-worth and control them.”
< http://www.famouspeople.org.uk/10> [cited 26th April 2010] Andy’s character was desperate for control, and attempted to control other members of the community throughout the piece. For example, Dawn during ensemble 2. This then forced the community to stick together and protect each other. Although we all had individual journeys which we experienced during the piece, this overall hate and fear from the group had strengthened our relationship as an ensemble, and weakened our relationship with Andy. We were then tied together through this experience.
Question 2
When the ensemble was moved from the drama studio to the theatre space, the piece finally connected and the story of the missing woman felt real. This move into the actual within which the final performances would take place, a fresh level of excitement ran through the ensemble. We had been working in the drama studio for what felt like forever, and the only vision of this woman’s life was in our imagination. To then be able to work with a real set was extremely exciting for all of us. But the theatre space was far bigger than the rehearsal space, the width of the space was around the same as the drama studio, but the depth of the space was much larger. We had to then consciously use this extra space which we had been given. This posed as a problem during the first day of rehearsals, as performers we had convinced ourselves that we could not be seen at the very back of the space by the audience, and so avoided using it and remained within the area where we were sure we would be visible. Our theory was of course incorrect, and all performers could be clearly seen. The initial stage of the move was to become accustomed with the space and everything in it. “Commanding the stage demands a control of the space. [...] the actor has to ‘read’ the space. But in order to do this s/he has first to really ‘see’ it, to create parallels of attention so that the whole space becomes their field of vision.” (Callery, 2001, p79) The rehearsal space had been an empty space, so moving to the theatre space where there were now objects within it, out awareness had to be far better so as to avoid injury by members of the ensemble walking into or falling over pieces of set. Oddey writes that “Practical problems arise throughout the devising process and preparation for any site-specific product.” (Oddey, 1994, P145) Although Four ways to speak out was not necessarily a site specific piece, we were still faced with problems to overcome practically.
There were several occasions where movement which had been produced in the rehearsal space had to be adapted to the theatre space. For example, the piece of movement myself, Lauren and Naomi had rehearsed was performed on chairs. Once we began rehearsing in the theatre, we were informed that we would have to use bar stools, as they were the only type of chair that would be used within the set. As a result, we had to alter parts of our movement to accommodate for the fact that we were now a lot higher from the ground than we had originally thought. Entrances and exits were the second thing we had to be aware of. All but one or two members of the ensemble remained on stage at all times, so we had to decide where we would enter and exit from and the beginning and the end of the performance. But the bar section of the space was located immediately next to one of the exits, so all members of the ensemble had to be conscious as to not block the exit with any pieces of set once the time came for us all to exit the space.
Question 3
Four ways to speak out grew throughout each performance, with the final performance being the strongest and emitting the most emotion from the ensemble. We had an extremely successful dress rehearsal, and I feel that this success had given us perhaps too much confidence, and as a result we assumed that we could be just as successful if not more once it came to the actual performances. This was not the case, and we had lost a lot of the intention throughout the matinee and the first evening performance. This could have been due to the fact of us performing three times in one day, which had never been done before. We had all become very tired, and this began to affect each of us. I personally was extremely tired, and the times during the piece where I was a spectator to the missing woman’s story, I felt almost disconnected to the action. I struggled to find the emotion and energy within me to react to what I was seeing, and I became almost another member of the audience rather than a member of an ensemble. “Physical Theatre exploits the intensified energy of action on stage to forge a strong link with the spectator.” (Callery, 2001, p27) As the levels of energy were rapidly decreasing, audience members were struggling to make a connection with the ensemble who were looking on when flashbacks from the woman’s life were played out to us. It was also important for us to be able to remain silent or in complete stillness and be able to communicate with our audience as effectively as if we were taking physical risks:
“We cannot have movement without stillness, we cannot have sound or words without silence. Both physical stillness and silence have to sustain a dynamic presence if the words and movement around these are to have any meaning beyond the colloquial.” (Murray and Keefe, 2007, P171)
There were points within the piece where movements had lost their intention. For example, the duet between Andy and Dan where they fight over the suitcase had reached a point where both of them were merely going through the motions, and the actual point behind the confrontation had been lost.
The RSVP process of devising certainly still applied throughout the three performances, we would constantly be realising new things about the issue of domestic abuse, and about our own characters. When talking about The People Show, Oddey writes that, “Every show was a unique devising experience, resulting in an original product which changed with every performance.” (1994,p6) This was also the case with Four ways to speak out, each of us went on a different journey throughout each performance, as each audience will have had a different experience to the last.
There were points within the first two performances where I felt as though my character was fading away, and the true emotions which I felt towards this woman were not being shown to the audience. I then had to work to get these emotions back, and to feel a connection to the story once again in time for the final performance. Void Physical Theatre “Wish to give students the opportunity to grow both physically and emotionally through issue based theatre.”
Bibliography
Callery,D (2001) Through the body: A practical guide to Physical Theatre London:Routledge
Keefe, J & Murray, S (2007) Physical Theatres: An Introduction London: Routledge
Oddey,A (1994) Devising Theatre: A practical and theoretical handbook London:Routledge
Other sources
Domestic abuse (no date) Emotional abuse [online].[cited 26th April 2010]
Void Physical Theatre (no date) Education [online]. [cited 25th April 2010]
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