We felt that by using ideas from ‘A Doll’s House’ by Ibsen, we would show one of the first real moments in theatre of a victim of blind love opening their eyes and taking controversial action. Productions of the play were banned when it was written in 1879 because the concept of a woman walking out on her husband seemed absurd. Many tried to persuade Ibsen to change his ending – changing the entire concept of the play, and more importantly for our piece, eliminating any vision Nora had. Here, Nora completely opens her eyes to the reality of her situation, almost unheard of in Ibsen’s society. Using this text showed that if someone in a male dominated, highly bound society such as Nora can acknowledge the truth, anyone can. Although the final scene is no longer shocking to audiences in the 21st century, it still had the ability to inspire as it shows the bravery of someone willing to take a risk and truly open their eyes.
When a more modern piece, ‘The Positive Hour’ was written, homosexuality was not nearly as taboo a subject as it was in say, Ibsen’s society. By using the character of Roger leaving his wife to go to a “men’s group”, we were showing the range of acceptable behaviour within relationships across time, and more importantly, how very possible it was to leave a relationship. Nora in Ibsen’s play, and Roger in De Angelis’ both leave relationships due to sexuality, frustration and repression. Love is not meant to restrict, and these two plays emphasise this.
The context definitely shaped how we used the different texts; ‘Hedda Gabler’ was one clear example of this. Because their discussion on their affair was obviously littered with sexual innuendo, Josh, Steph, Nicole and Sam over-exaggerated this as it seemed so amusing in hindsight. There was almost a sense of mocking the very strict attitude of the time, particularly with our own version of that scene placed later in the production “Will you shag me now?”
Beauty and the Beast’ shows a fictional example of someone seeing below the surface of a relationship. The idea of a woman falling in love with a beast, despite their grotesque physical appearance is a classic, though improbable example of our concept. Written in the 18th century, the play aimed, similarly to ours, to strengthen the audience’s understanding of shallow beauty. An audience now is less likely to immediately be inspired and change their perspective on love, and although the strong moral element is transparent, it shows the most clear, extreme example of open eyes “See with more than your eyes”.
The work of playwrights and drama practitioners played an integral part in the creation and development of our performance. As we used two plays and a sonnet of William Shakespeare’s, his style of language and character was a strong influence. The depth of his characters was crucial to maintain in our piece, and playing Helena from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I found that understanding the motivation behind every behaviour was essential. Helena seems completely besotted with Demetrius, and is often portrayed as desperate and naïve. The audience develop a sense of frustration with her character as she seems to have an inability to see Demetrius’ disinterest “I am sick when I do look on thee”. However, through looking at Helena’s other lines in the play, other than the scenes we were specifically using, there is the indication that her love was not always unrequited “For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne/ He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine”.
Keatley’s ‘My Mother Said I Never Should’ indirectly influenced our production. We had studied it in detail in Unit one, and although none of the text was used, the structure of juxtaposing contrasting scenes of tone and setting was definitely an inspiration. We wanted a similar effect to be created, and saw how this had worked successfully in the play. By doing this, it allows a contrast of the different circumstances of each scene, and creates tension for the audience; the Positive Hour scene starts just before Gerald and Madge kiss in the Time and the Conways scene for example. It also allows us to compare time periods and tone, like in Keatley’s play, the scenes are not in chronological order, nor increasing or decreasing in emotional intensity. This unpredictability means the audience are constantly engaged, as every scene is different, and can either contrast or complement the next.
We fortunately had the opportunity to take part in a Berkoff workshop run by a touring theatre company which was hugely beneficial. “His fierce and unrelenting exploitation of all the elements of theatre, especially with regard to the physicality of the actor in all its manifestations”; the exaggerated characterisation and use of body language typical of Berkoff was a definite influence, and used particularly in scenes such as Hedda Gabler, Time and the Conways and Beauty and the Beast. In order to successfully communicate our concept of blind love to the audience, and the unwillingness to look closer, the characters’ intentions has to be very clear. The Beast was physically formed by six members of the group, and in order to make the Beast really animalistic, we used all of our bodies and vocal skills. If any element or group member was not a hundred per cent committed to the role, we would have run the risk of appearing comic when it was not intended.
