The audience space was formal – all rows of seats were facing the same direction. Therefore; every member of the audience received the same view of the performance. The actors used the audience as a fourth wall – imagining that they weren’t there and there was something else instead of the audience. For example - a very loud piercing whistle emerged from the back of the theatre (behind the audience) which the performers seemed to respond to in such a way that it gave us the impression that the actors were unaware of us as an audience. The performance space was large, and it was used in its entirety by the actors throughout. Chapter Arts Centre often adapt the layout of their theatre to be appropriate for a particular performance, therefore the production must have been developed with the performance space in mind. The advantages of the space were that the performers had a lot of space to move, particularly during scenes with dancing, as many of the dance moves were large and elaborate.
4. The set
This is a sketch of the layout of the theatre:
The set was moved around quite a bit during the performance; however this was done fairly subtly. For example the focus would be on the front of the stage, while in the background the other performers were making appropriate adjustments to the set, such as moving the chairs around etcetera. The set didn’t vary that much during the performance, ie, props were not carried on and off stage. The set wasn’t very elaborate, as the main focus was to be on the actors themselves rather than the set. However each object on the set contributed to the overall performance. One example being the end of the performance included the bathtub, which was also referred to towards the beginning of the performance. The audience were very clearly a fourth wall as the actors responded to activity beyond the audience. As an audience, we were not informed as to what the off stage world was, as there was no reference to it during the performance, the actors remained on stage the majority of the time and all the action happened on stage, none off stage.
5. Lighting
The lighting equipment/illumination sources were constantly in view during the performance and there was no attempt to hide them. The lighting at the end of the performance was the most noticeable; as the red light gave the entire theatre an eerie feel to it. Generally the lighting was light in some places and dark in others. What I found was that the lighting was more noticeable when the music or mood changed. Projections were sometimes used to emphasise the movements of a particular character at one time, bringing all the audience focus to them. At the beginning this was very effective as it was used when a woman character answered the phone and the projection displayed a close up image of her face. Sometimes the projection would freeze on a particular actor’s movement, while they continued to move. These projections were grey-style which was a blatant
Contrast between colour and black and white.
6. Sound
There was one musician who was at the back of the stage, on the left throughout the performance in its entirety. He mainly played the guitar but did occasionally play the piano/electric keyboard during the performance. The musician was rarely spoken to, except for once near the beginning, where he was referred to as ‘Frank’. The music evoked the atmosphere was particularly noticeable when the mood or lighting changed. The fact that the music was live was a major aspect in enhancing the entire feeling of the play, as live music usually sounds better than recorded music. Much of the music reminded me of artists such as Nick Cave.
7. Costume
Every cast member appeared to be wearing black or white, including the musician, the men wore black hats and one woman wore a flowing sleeveless dress throughout. Another woman went off stage to change a couple of times during the performance; this woman constantly looked quite glamorous, for example she wore bright red lipstick. In my opinion the costume suggested that the characters were all of middle or high class and that the play was set during the middle of the twentieth century, however there were many references to very modern things during the performance, such as modern movies. The costumes worn by the actors had to be comfortable as there was a lot of dancing involved.
8. The actor and his/her performance
The relationship between the performers on stage differed, sometimes they were very close and quite sexual whereas other times they seemed very distant from each other, this helped to emphasize the main theme of the play, which was ‘escape’. There wasn’t much speech, as most of the feelings of the actors were represented by music. When the actors did speak they used neutral accents/received pronunciation. While the actors were dancing, their facial expression was permanently that of a smile. The actors do not acknowledge the audience through the entire performance. The actor continually mentions moving to Paris, towards the end of the performance he speaks French, however he speaks nonsense which I think is a representation of the characters idea of moving to France.
9. Directorial Interpretation
There was no text for this performance, as it was completely devised drama. This means that the performance is there for member’s of the audiences’ personal interpretation. The programme handed to us upon entry to the theatre was somewhat informative; it mentioned the theme of escape which I may not have picked up upon without aid of the programme. Much of the performance was darkly humorous, similar to that of Bill Hicks’ comedy. The performance used similar techniques to films directed by Quentin Tarantino, particularly by the use of music to represent mood, horror or shock. This was brought forward by the mention to the ‘Kill Bill’ films. Some of the artistic techniques were also influenced by Tim Burton.
10. Overall Impact and Audience Reception
I personally enjoyed the performance as I find physical theatre very intriguing and different to many famous/classic plays. I think of physical theatre as an alternative to ‘regular’ theatre. At first I was enthusiastic about watching the play, as I found it quite hard to comprehend the storyline and plot. However, towards the end of the performance the storyline became more clear which made it more enjoyable. At the end of the performance I felt happier that I understood the main plot and storyline and after reading some background information on the performance I felt a lot more comfortable with some of the scenes which I had before found very hard to understand. The most memorable part of the performance was the end where the storyline began to unravel and I didn’t feel that the story all of a sudden finished, I felt that it finished quite slowly as if to explain things to the audience as the performance moved on, particularly towards the end of the play. I was found the performance genuinely interesting and inspirational, my favourite aspect being the dark humour. I found the dancing almost memorizing, however I didn’t enjoy that fact that some of the dancing seemed to last too long, and although it was very effective, some of the scenes could have been a little bit shorter, this may have enhanced the viewing pleasure of the audience. I generally enjoyed the production very much.