Working on FMP Log Book Part 3

Only a week left until we break up for Easter Holiday so until then we have to polish every single aspect. LAst week we ran trough the whole play, working on the bits which needs to be worked on. After each rehearsal time Sharon and Rob gave us plenty of notes on what we should improve:

• Mark sections. (There are 7 sections in total, which should be separated one from another) It can be done by using freeze frames, title, changing seats. Everyone really liked the idea of changing seats and using the freeze frames. 
• Set up the scenes. Even in the imaginary way. For example, for God`s scene we decided that it should be a supermarket but it is not clear for the audience. So this morning we were working on it. We came up with idea walking around in circles and then standing in 2 queues and buying products. Meanwhile, Matthew pretends he is speaking with everyone but every body tries to ignore him, finally he reaches the end of the queue and start talking with Toya. 
• Take our time. We are too quick with the scripts and the audience need time to understand what`s happening next. 
• Fan scene is very good but Sharon suggested maybe we could mime something while standing on the chairs. For instance, we could pretend to be the statue of Freedom in New York, or eating something, etc. 
• All the scenes have the same pace. God`s voice seems too slow and doesn`t stand out from the other scenes. We though that we could all be praying in different ways: like a Christian, Buddhist, Muslin, etc. 
• For the scene Child Who Didn`t Know pain Divina suggested using Trestle masks instead of miming the emotions and then play the particular emotion. 
• In the Wedding Video people who has got on couple of lines should be miming eating popcorn in slow motion. We also changed some people lines just to make in in the right order. 
• Learn the words you don`t know. I wasn`t too sure about the word Savant, which is the name of the scene in which I am in. So as I researched that means a learned person, especially distinguished scientist. 
• Mainly, we need to work on sections 5 and 6 as the energy drops to a low level as this is the longest part in the middle. 
• Wife scene location wasn`t clear enough. As I suggested Jerome should be in the hospital, waking up and his wife (in this case wives: me, Toya and Melody) standing behind him and looking at him. As he stands up and walks around we follow him with our eyes. There might be a doctor who comes to check his pulse or drip at the beginning. 

Me and Ria rehearsing The Star

This week we started working on the scene running order to be smooth. People had to stay the first line and the last line of their scene and then the action moves to another scene. Sharon was watching us and reminding about 10 seconds freeze between the sections which we decided to do last week on Thursday when rehearsing in the theatre. I think that works really well because firstly, it looks very Brechtian and secondly, it is much clearer in between the sections, and just to remember what scenes follows next. 

Caryl Churchill

About the Author

Caryl Churchill born 3 September 1938. She was born in London, England, later on her family emigrated to Canada She is a British playwright known for her non-naturalistic plays, highlighting the themes of sexual politics and feminism. She is a follower of Bertolt Brecht techniques of Epic theatre, exploring issues of gender and sexuality.  She attented a girl school in Montreal, as her parents moved to MOntreal, Canada when she was 10. And later on she returned to England and graduated Women University of Oxford. After the explosion of A Mouthful of Birds she began experimenting with dance-theatre, including the teachniques taken from `Theatre of Cruelty` by Antonin Artraud. 

                                                                                             About LOVE AND INFORMATION

It is a freshly baked play which was released at the Royal Court House, London in September, 2012. It has 7 sections, which makes total of 57 scenes with as much as 100 characters throughout the play. It portrays everyday situations that people face in real life. However, it may only require 2 actors to act but the best option would be 12-15 actors. Impressive that some of the scenes takes no longer than 25 seconds. Moreover, the scenes are not related one with another but has the same meaning behind them. Basically, it is a play about modern society, the love, overdose of virtual life and connection between each other.


The main themes 

• Virtual communication/information. The author portrays that very well, especially in the Virtual, where a man falls in love with the computer and believes that it is a true love. It shows how the society has changed and fallen for the technology. But does that really affect us in a good way? It seems the technology starts taking over our lives and even commanding how to live. People became less confident in talking to each over and more attractive to corporeal things. There are just too much of information given to us.
• Love. We forgot how to communicate and appreciate things that actually breaths and exists. Everyone seems focused on their own stuff, forgetting that the love is most beautiful thing in the world and that makes people happy.
• Memory. There is the whole section which focuses on the memories. Section 5 includes the scenes such as Memory House, Wedding Video, Flash Back, etc. All our experiences shape who are we now, depending on what we had to go trough. It reminds that every single one of us survives the times that could hardly be survived and when we happy we have to share it with everyone. 

Final Major Project Love and Information Log Book 2

The last few weeks on working on final major project were great. You can see how everyone is working hard and doing they best. This week we improved a lot on analysing our characters and trying to run over the whole play.

After a week of absence I was little bit confused about the Fan scene as everyone are in it and Isabella gave a short notes of what to do and we performed in front of the other half of the class. Each of us were paired in two with those who playing in blue room. I was in pair with Shaday.

In her notes she mentioned I would need to improve on:

• Energy levels because it has been little bit low so far.
• characterisation just be clearer about my playing characters because now its just line reading 
• make sure to stay in character even though I dont have any lines. For example, when other people are in the scene and I`m just sitting on a chair in the background make sure my legs are down and I`m focused. 
• Be more faster with my lines. I believe that will come when I learn my lines and will be off bok by the next week. 
• projection. I have setted a target to do work on OO - OH - OR every morning. 

In Rob`s class we did a quick warm up before we kicked on rehearsing. In the afternoon we split in two groups: Blue Room and Love and Information. Blue Room went rehearsing first, we followed after. Mainly we focused on the last acts: 5, 6, 7 and scenes which are in it, including the last one. I appreciate how everyone is throwing ideas and giving it a try. For the last scene, we thought of making like a TV show with two presenters: Katie and Ryan. There will be two groups, each competing whose answer the question first. It`s more like a smart question game "Who`s going to win a million?". As the last question comes up everyone shouts out at the same time, Ryan and Katie hugs and everyone freezes, black out.

Sharon helped us to transform from one character to another very quickly which is very helpful as in love and information we have multiple characters. For instance, I have 5 different characters. Moreover, all the time we are on stage so there is no time to relax. The focus has to be kept all the time because even a tiny mistake can make a huge difference.

At first we were walking around in circles, changing direction. Then, Sharon gave us a task to draw a circle around ourselves, starting from the ground and slowly going up. Once, we are back in our normal position, back straight, we have to become the character from the play. I have chosen a school girl from the Lab scene, which is very curious about everything. When Sharon raised her hands up the character had to be exaggerated up to maximum, when she slowly lowered her hands the character is very close to neutral position but the energy has to be kept the same.

Following task, required to get into pairs and interview each other. But interview a character, asking questions such as, who are you, what is your favourite colour, do you have any siblings, where do you live, etc. Personally, that helped to create the actual life for my character and believe that she truly exists which was hard to understand beforehand.

The setting is quite an usual as well as simple. It is very close to Brechtian theatre style as we don`t use much of furniture neither decorations. Just chair, setted like they are mirroring each other. It is really important to mark on the script where and when we change seating just to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.

On Thursday morning in Sharon`s class it was only me, Jerome, Isabella and Ria. The theatre was free of use so we used the opportunity to run over the scenes in a theatre. Mostly, we worked on the scenes in which at least one of us are. However, working in a theatre was very useful, just to get used to bigger space than we used to rehearse in small drama studio which I believe affects on our projection as we tend to speak quieter.

As we had more time, I had a chance to annotate my scripts. I marked and crossed all the scenes we are in and sticked a paper tape with a name of the scene and number. It took a while but it is very helpful in rehearsal, especially in s play like Love and Information when it is so easy to get lost.

In the afternoon, was the first time we ran over the whole play twice. Tired and exhausted, we felt we done really great this week and worked very hard. Of course, it worked well because all the group members were in so we did not need to read in for anyone. Hopefully, for the next week we can be off book and ran over the play as many times as possible.

Working on Final Major Project Love and Information Log book 1

So we finished off with Noises Off and moving on to the next stage final major project. We looked at both plays : love and information and the blue room. Myself I would prefer playing in the blue room because I found it more changeling as we are not used to perform sexuality on stage and I think that would be a great experience. On the other hand, love and information is a very `free` play which means we can play it as we like it. We can interpret how do we think it should be. Also there no specific characters so we can have as many characters as we want in scenes. Let`s the scene can be played by 2 or 5 actors and it is going to be completely different.

As I found out I am in love and information I was that upset even though the play is not the greatest one we have to give it a try and as I could say we are nailing it. All of us giving a lot of suggestions about the setting, transactions, scenes and characters. Yet some people are really not happy about the play everyone is doing they best and trying to be a part of it. Moreover, we have only 5 weeks to go until the actual performance and technical rehearsals so really need to get on with it.

To be honest, the more I read this play the more I like it. That`s why because we put ourselves into it and start devising it. At first, we have chosen the scenes we like. Important to mention we are going to do all the scenes people wanted to do. Also we all the people who wanted to do a particular scene are going to do it, no matter if it`s 2 or 6 people. In order to make the scenes more Brecht and interesting we double up voices. Let`s say 3 people including me, Jerome and Isabella wanted to play Schizophrenic so me and Jerome reading the same lines at the same time while Isabella reads alone.

The play itself is more like Brecht style which involves a lot of actions which is not likely to happen in real world. For example, in a first scene when Divina tells the secret to Toya we all stretch our ears and go `pshpshpsh`.

As probably everyone noticed the play has 7 acts with 7 scenes in each act which makes total of 49 scenes. We thought we could somehow highlight the title of each scene. For instance, Dream, someone can stand up, shout out DREAM! and everyone else can repeat it or we go straight into the scene.