We then moved on to the Development phase. This started by us performing a scene based on symbolisation. Our aim was to try and portray a significant action scene where the main character was the bride. Our group decided to make the scene focus entirely on the bride and only slightly on other characters. Below is the layout of the scene we had:
The scene we laid out was to have each of the emotions come in with a character. First, the Bride entered with Despair. Then after the bride had acted in a despondent manner, Leonardo entered with anger, and desperately tried to pull the bride away. After Leonardo came the Bridegroom with confusion. He was reasoning with the bride, as he did not understand the situation. This continued until the bride gave in to despair and hugged the bridegroom, and then Leonardo. Below is a table of feelings, actions and their symbolisation.
The task showed us how a large range of emotions could be very significant in the circumstances, but also how the emotions ranged and some were more relevant than others (e.g. Confusion or Torment) were. Other groups played more on the element of having their emotions act as characters in the play, and it was laid out almost in the form of a scene. The second task we had to do was one in which we had the mother and another character discussing the deaths of her relatives, including the dramatic device of flashbacks. Our group chose to perform by having the characters in the foreground talking to each other and the murders happening behind them whilst they froze. It once again helped us to realise what we were aiming to achieve in the understanding of how the characters act how they act around each other. Also we were asked to write about what effect adultery would have had on them.
“Leonardo and the bride have many options open to them. Leonardo has his family to be with and his children to look after. Although he appears to not love his wife, he cares that he would be leaving her for the bride. The bride has choices too. She can stay and settle down with the bridegroom that she is marrying, or she can run off with Leonardo. When she is married, such a thing would be to commit adultery and at that time in Spain, marriage was a sacred contract, to be broken only by death. And Death is the price that Leonardo pays for leaving his wife for the Bride.”
The next phase was Evaluation. We started with a task where we had to use many different dramatic devices to come up with the entire part of a scene. The scene was where Leonardo and the Bride are being hunted through the forest. The groups were given a device to use each. One group was given Thought Tracking, one Frozen pictures, and the last was given free use of all. Our group used Mime and significant action. We used the idea of having the woodcutters walking through a forest and having the actors as the trees. Then after the woodcutters left, the trees formed a circle with the Bride and Leonardo running through the trees and miming talking to each other, then they stopped and recited the text. The scene ended with the beggar woman walking onto the stage and opens up her cloak to the moon as two screams are heard.
The entire group put these individual scenes together to create a single scene that ran from the start of the scene in the text, to the end. The characters in the scene had a wide variety of emotions, some of these were best expressed in mime form, or with a frozen picture so that the audience could take in what they were trying to show. This scene really showed us how the characters did not always have to be speaking or using large amounts of significant action to get their emotions across to the audience. Our final task in the evaluation phase was to create a script based on how Leonardo and the bridegroom die. In this scene, it was necessary to show how the raw emotions of the two characters were exposed by what was happening. Some groups brought the character of the moon or the beggar woman into the scene to show that it was a continuation of what had happened before, and so that it would be easier to follow on from the forest scene. Our group chose to have the character of Leonardo bragging about how well he had done, only to be suddenly caught off guard by the Bridegroom and stabbed to death.
Script based on the death of Leonardo and the Bridegroom:
Enter bride and Leonardo
Bride: Where are we going to go?
Leonardo: Wherever the wind, road or the path takes us.
Bride: What if our families find us?
Leonardo: Trust me, they will not. We will run away fast so they will not catch us.
Bride: Yes, but I do not want to live my life in fear, to keep turning around to see if they are there.
Enter Bridegroom
Bridegroom: Leonardo!
Leonardo: Run! (Worried tone) Save yourself my love!
Bride: You promised that we would fight through this together!
Leonardo: Run, Just run. Save yourself and do not worry for me.
She runs and hides slightly offstage, in view of audience but not of Leonardo or bridegroom.
Bridegroom: I knew I would find you here in the deep forests.
Leonardo: Well here I am. Do what you will, but you shall never feel the love that is shared between the bride and me.
She should be mine still! Your family paid me off.
Bridegroom: You should not have taken the money then.
Leonardo: I was young, I needed the money.
Bridegroom: You should not have done it.
Leonardo: If I had the chance now I would chose her over everything
Bridegroom gets out a knife and holds it defensively
Bridegroom: We must fight.
Bridegroom runs forward in an uneasy manner and plunges the knife into Leonardo's stomach. Leonardo then staggers forward and grabs the knife from the Bridegrooms hand, and in one motion, he stabs the knife deep into the Bridegrooms back. They both fall to the floor, dead.
The purpose of this script was for us to try to understand how the characters would react to each other in a devised situation, and how any of their personalities would overcome the situation they were in. It is important to note that the characters in the scene should behave normally. The declamatory manner that is normally portrayed by characters in this situation is completely inappropriate. The characters would behave in a much more emotional manner that reflected their states of mind. The progression from the response phase is notable, and also is the fact that during this progression, a deeper understanding of the actions of the characters has developed. Basic meaning like the fact that everything is caused by something is very greatly applied to this situation, where you have a wide range of emotions from all the characters creating a completely unexpected situation.