With this storyline we decided that there would be two distinct friendship groups; myself and Emma being friends, Stephanie and Megan being friends and with Adrian being Emma’s boyfriend.
We decided that we would show how Emma and Adrian’s relationship fell apart after she caught him heading towards a bedroom with Stephanie.
Our storyline then later developed from there with the improvisation then fast forward into adulthood, beginning with the audience being shown what career each character ended up in.
From this outline we intended for the audience to see how each character and friendship has changed and fallen apart.
Adrian adopted the role as Emma’s Boyfriend during their teenage years, however through fate, Adrian ends up marring Stephanie. Stephanie adopts the role of a teenage girl who is in love with Adrian and is determined to sabotage his relationship with Megan’s help, however when all the characters become adults she ends up marrying Adrian. Megan adopts the role as Stephanie’s best friend; she is also in love with Adrian and supports Stephanie in her plan to destroy Adrian and Emma’s relationship.
Emma plays the role of Adrian’s teenage girlfriend and is also Stephanie’s arch rival.
Marian plays the role of a D-J during her teenage years and also adopts the two roles of a police officer and a councillor during her adulthood.
I personally adopted the role of Emma’s best friend and sidekick during my character’s teenage years but then later become a drug dealer.
With each character our aim was to show how they all turned due to the way they were influenced while they were younger.
Before we performed our improvisation we were assigned the task of choosing three tableaux that we felt were the most influential and significant scenes in our improvisation to show to the class. Once we showed each tableau to the audience we had to 'thought track' each person.
The first tableaux we chose was the party scene in which myself, Megan and Emma are in a dancing line and looking on at Stephanie and Adrian heading to the bedroom. We used this scene as our first tableaux as it was the final scene in which we are teenagers and in a sense also makes the audience think about what effect Stephanie and Adrian’s actions will have on everyone in the future.
Our second tableaux showed the audience what each person had achieved through their job status. In this tableaux Adrian was a counsellor, Megan was a secretary, Stephanie became a barmaid, Marian was a police officer (chasing Emma) and I was a drug dealer. To emphasise the effect we were trying to create we included the use of levels to show the differences in status between each character. I felt that this added to our tableau giving it a great edge as well as great stage craft and spacing.
Our final tableau was from the scene between Stephanie and Megan at Stephanie’s house. The tableaux we took from this scene was when Megan smashed Stephanie’s mirror. This tableau is the most important as the smashing of the mirror marks the change of events in the lives of everyone. This tableau can be compared to the ‘shoes on the table’ scene between Mrs Johnston and Mrs Lyons as superstition becomes the most prominent theme in both.
After we had all shown our three tableaux to the class, we sat as a group and discussed each groups tableaux’s and what we all found effective.
In our improvisation we decided that our opening scene would also be the same as our final scene; this scene also acts as comparison to the Blood Brothers production as both performances have identical first and final scenes.
The second scene of our performance began with Stephanie, Megan, Adrian and Emma all sitting at a table together. In this scene Emma questions Adrian about where he was on the previous night and he justifies himself by complaining that she doesn’t trust him; in this scene Stephanie and Megan are talking to each other about their love for him and how they wouldn’t behave like Emma if they were to be his girlfriend.
The second scene involves Emma and I talking about her relationship with Adrian before Stephanie and Megan arrive on the scene for a confrontation. In this scene Emma and Stephanie exchange remarks and insults to each other before Megan joins in, at this point my character also gets involved stating to Megan that this confrontation is purely between Stephanie and Emma. The confrontation then continues with Megan making a remark to Emma about Adrian stating that Emma doesn’t even know where Adrian is in the evenings, before Emma continues my character leads her away by saying it isn’t worth the bother. In this scene Stephanie and |Megan have the higher status as they ended the confrontation on a high point and with the most effective comments.
The next scene was the Party, in this scene Emma and Adrian are arguing, as my character was left alone I went to talk with Stephanie and Megan. Emma continues quarrelling with Adrian and then decides to leave Adrian sitting on his own and join myself and Megan. At this point Stephanie walks away from the rest of us while Megan Emma and I dance together (in a conga line) until we are left at a standstill when we see Stephanie and Adrian heading towards the bedroom together.
The next scene was a developed version of the tableau with each of us in our occupational positions. In this scene we used great amounts of dramatic mediums like use of levels and use of space. In this tableau Adrian was a councillor, Megan became a barmaid, Stephanie was a councillor, Marian was a police officer and I became a drug dealer. To portray our vast differences in status each person was at a different level according to their occupation; the greater the level the higher the status. In this scene each one of us acted out our scene while the rest of the group were in a freeze-frame.
The next scene is when Stephanie and Megan meet again at Stephanie’s workplace; as they have a great time re-establishing themselves with each other Stephanie invites Megan to her house. Once they both go back to Stephanie’s home the two have a great time sharing their stories and experiences until Stephanie reveals to Megan that she’s married Adrian and they’ve been together for a few years. When Megan hears this she become extremely hurt and angry exclaiming that they had both made a pledge tat none of them would have him however Stephanie justifies her actions by claiming that they were in high school and that shouldn’t mean anything to her. Though Stephanie believes this Megan believes that it was a betrayal of friendship and as the anger heightens in their confrontation Megan smashes a mirror. At this point the dramatic tension in the scene reaches an extremely high peak with Stephanie exclaiming “look what you have done”. Stephanie continues by screaming frantically that they’re both going to have seven years of bad luck however Megan angrily screams at Stephanie that what she’s saying is just stupid and untrue superstition and that she’s extremely neurotic. When Stephanie hears Megan’s comments she’s so outraged that she orders Megan to leave, Megan then storms out screaming that she wouldn’t have stayed any longer anyway.
However before the argument with Stephanie and Megan ended, myself and Emma are in a scene in which she is desperate and pleading for more drugs, however as my character is angry that she hasn’t paid off her debt, I warn her that if she doesn’t pay the money back within a certain amount of time, she’d be in serious danger.
Once Megan storms out of Stephanie’s house my character is aiming the gun to shoot Emma however as Megan obstructs the bullets course she is accidentally shot dead instead. As my character is in complete shock and disbelief at the mistake I’d made I run away from the scene, leaving Stephanie to find Megan’s dead body.
Adrian and Marian soon arrive on scene and Marian interviews Stephanie, asking various questions about both herself and Megan.
After Megan’s death Stephanie becomes convinced that this is because of the smashing of the mirror and that fate intended for both Stephanie and Megan to die on that fatal night but as Megan left the house without Stephanie, she cheated death. Due to her beliefs about superstition Stephanie turns into a character plagued with guilt and on the brink of losing her sanity.
Other scenes involve Adrian consoling Stephanie and convincing her to move on with life and consider seeking help. Another more peripheral scene involved my character being confronted by a drug addict pleading for more drugs.
Following these scenes Stephanie is walking and meets Emma again in a supermarket. Though both characters weren’t friends during their earlier years, Emma sees Stephanie in distress and decided to have a drink with her. After Stephanie tells Emma about recent events during their lunch they both leave together. Stephanie and Emma then part their separate ways and as Stephanie makes her way towards the roadside to cross, Emma calls her name and tells her to take care of herself. After she acknowledges Emma’s kind gesture she walks across the road unfocused, Emma yells at Stephanie to look out but is too late, Stephanie is run over by my character and falls to her death.
My character is once again guilt ridden as I have managed to seriously injure a second person therefore I decide to check if the injured person is still alive out of hope. Once I get to Stephanie I sit beside her and touch her hand before being summoned away by her husband Adrian. I exclaim to Adrian that I am trying to do the right thing; then Emma arrives at the scene after calling for help. At this point Adrian and Emma recognise each other and I am once again summoned away by both as Emma also knows who I am. I then get back into the car while the other two are by Stephanie’s side, this scene being the finale of the improvisation is ended with a freeze frame.
Throughout the improvisation though my character was in a negative role of employment and status I sympathised her as each of the deaths she created were comp[lately accidental but due to her past and who she is she can’t fully express her sadness and her true feelings about the situation
In my personal opinion I believe that the final scene was the one in which every character was in role and free of inhibitions.
In our improvisation we used various dramatic mediums and elements such as use of contract between the characters and their careers and use of space and movement.
In our improvisation we also used a great amount of cross-cutting in the sense of moving from a scene between people to a scene with others.
In my honest opinion though there were many positive points there were also a considerable amount of negatives.
I feel that the negatives were that we had chosen far too many themes to focus on and it therefore became extremely hard managing to fit each theme in.
I also feel that as we had such a strong group that liked to voice their ideas and opinions that this actually rather acted as a hindrance rather than an advantage as the preparations for our improvisation progressed. This is because we all were trying to input different ideas in and instead of listening t each others ideas and opinions we rather ignored them and insisted upon our own. This eventual lack of communication also lead to some f the group eventually withdrawing themselves from voicing their opinions and ideas as they felt they’d be ignored.
Another negative about the preparations was that as we all wanted strong roles, those who voiced more ideas ended up with roles of greater relevance and importance. This resulted with some of us left with peripheral and sometimes pointless characters to play, therefore not allowing us to explore our characters and reducing our capability of adopting and sustaining the role with complete success. For example I felt the roles of Marian and I were particularly weak as there was no real character history or reason for our presence. Marian only appeared as a DJ during the teenage years and later as a police officer with limited things to do however though this was the case I felt that in the scene showing each character in their career that Marian’s portrayal was the most effective and successful. This is as she sustained a high level of involvement, used a great amount of movement and portrayed the actions of a police officer with great success as she managed to convince the audience of her role.
I also feel that my character was a fairly weak one as apart from acting as Emma’s friend in the teenage years and a drug dealer in the later years. The reason why the role was fairly weak was because though the deaths of the characters I killed were accidental I fell there was no strong storyline linking myself to Stephanie or Megan as I wasn’t their enemies during their earlier years nor did I have any significant contact with the characters. However I feel that my character did manage to have a realistic amount of depth in the scene that Stephanie is run over in.
My belief is that because of the issues within our preparation it reduced the impact and success of our improvisation and performances.
The negatives of our improvisation are that we didn’t manage to successfully link each scene together and our use of the dramatic element of cross cutting didn’t always prove to be a complete and smooth success during the audiences evaluation and ‘hot-seating’ of our improvisation all of the audience seemed confused and often commented that they became lost in the often confusing and cross-cutted plot. Another negative is that I felt that our plot was at times slightly melodramatic
However though these negatives hindered the improvisation there were also many positives that counterbalance them.
One of the positives is that when we did work together as a group we were all extremely focused on what we had to prepare and had a great level of co-operation.
I also feel that though we had problems with our improvisation that we all managed to sustain a high level of involvement as none of us came out of role. I also feel that we all complemented each others acting on stage and therefore helped ach other sustain our involvement level and this therefore helped us believe in our characters even more. I also feel that our performance had great strong points like our use of levels and space to create differences in status and contrasts between the characters.
Another success of our improvisation was that our play was extremely creative, unique, imaginative and adventurous.
I also feel that though our improvisations had its problems the general level of involvement and acting was very high. I also feel that we ha excellent voice projection use of body language and facial expression and a great level of interaction. Another excellent point of our performances were that they all had a great dramatic atmosphere full of tension in confrontational scenes as well as the use of great emotion during both the deaths of Megan and Stephanie.
Once we explored our improvisation through evaluation I felt with the audiences views and opinions that if we were asked to improve our improvisation that we could do so with great success
Therefore to conclude I believe that the task of creating an improvisation based on Blood brothers proved to be successful as though there were weak points the positives balance and manage to outweigh the bad. I also feel that this prepared improvisation has helped me develop a greater understanding of many things. Firstly it has helped me learn how to co-operate with a group of people with great confidence and strong views. My improvisation has also helped me understand friendships and contrasts between people with greater compassion and has also broadened my understanding of the Blood Brothers production to a new level.
