♣ Spontaneous improvisation- where an idea is briefly discussed within the group, and then acted out almost impulsively.
♣ Hot seating- This involves an exercise where, one at a time, a student sits on a chair, and is interrogated by the other students. The person on the hot seat should always be in character, and answer the question accordingly to what lifestyle they have devised for their character. These questions could be personal, opinion demanding towards the plot of the play, or factual.
Debating skills- (passive discussion)
♣ Sharing of initial ideas- This is when, after the workshop sessions, the class shared ideas on what they thought were the best ideas which could be used as a basic plot for the devised piece. The elected idea was taken from the scene which involved the nervous breakdown of a woman, who devours all the Wednesday birth control pills as a response to a positive pregnancy test.
♣ Editing- This technique was used simply by watching the three “realistic actors” improvising on stage. The rest of the students observed, thought and commented. Ideas were shared and explored, they were tried out, and decisions were made. Various questions were asked during this process:
-Did it work?
-Could it be combined with another technique?
-Is this the right place where to do it?
-How can it be improved?
In what ways were acting techniques or design elements and drama forms used to achieve the intended effects?
♣Chorus- Two choruses were used in this devised piece, an on-stage chorus and a chorus of doctors. In order to distinguish between the action on stage (or the “case study” tape), and doctors, another smaller stage was added in front of the stage (left). This represented the doctor’s area.
♣Mind representation- As the characters were acting naturalistically, their minds talked and acted differently from what their character would be saying and doing.
Actor representing
Character: character’s mind:
♣ Freezes- Freezes were used on stage by both the chorus and the characters whenever the psychologist stopped the “tape” with the remote control. This was done in order to illustrate that the action happening on stage were only the images the doctors were watching on their screen.
♣ Breaking the 4th wall- This technique was used with Gio’s character as he fell from the stage. This was particularly unnatural, because not only a member of the chorus was expelled from the stage, but symbolically, he was expelled from the TV screen.
This technique was also used when the doctor chorus interacted with one of the chorus members, offstage. In this scene the three women, who have disagreed up till this point, are brought together by the feminism that is hidden within them, and they gang up against Sinan’s character. They leave their professionalism behind and take out all the aggressiveness they possess.
♣ Intertwining naturalistic/non-naturalistic elements- The audience will discover how the three elements of this play are related: The chorus of doctors are watching a TV case study (acted by naturalistic actors), and the on-stage chorus represents the inner and true emotions of the naturalistic characters.
♣ Alienation- Alienation was used under the form of breaking the 4th wall, and the addressing to the audience by the doctors (for example, when the Biological doctor asks a member of the audience “Do you remember to take the pill every say at the same time?)
How did the group plan for a range of responses from the audience?
What our group is trying to obtain, is early confusion from the audience’s point of view. The point of this production is not to serve the story on a silver plate for the audience to sit down, relax and enjoy the show.
♣ What we are trying to achieve is a variation of response from the people watching: confusion, awkwardness, shock and sometimes make them have the feeling that they know something more about some of the characters.
What is wrong with Sasha’s worker? Why is she crying?
Are Sasha and Sinan married? What is their relationship?
Who is Stephanie’s character?
What do the doctors have to do with the play?
Is this play a “story in a story”? (I.e. The doctors make up the actual plot of the play, and the “family crisis situation” is a story in their story, or vice-versa?)
What is the play trying to say? What are the morals/ themes?
♣ In this piece we are trying to imply a lot of subtext. Nothing is really said directly in the actual play, but the audience can guess what is happening.
E.g. When Sinan’s character finds out Sasha’s character is pregnant, he doesn’t say it directly, but the audience understands.
In order to get a wide range of response from the audience, we are also trying to make them feel awkward and uncomfortable. This is done in many ways throughout the play:
♣ The Chorus contribute to this by behaving very strangely; making unrealistic movements, sounds, (Monday’s child poem), having queer facial expressions, and following characters around in a sort of scary and disturbing way..
♣ We have chosen a range of disturbing music and sounds such as the crying baby music, heart beats and rewinding sounds.
♣The Doctor makes the public more uncomfortable by addressing the audience with awkward questions. (“YOU…..” pointing to female member of audience. “You’ve started your period, haven’t you?” or “do you remember to take the pill around the same time every day?”)
How did rehearsals and the production process contribute to the final performance?
Throughout this unit the class discovered that a play needs to be constantly re-edited. There is no such thing as a definite plan drawn in a week’s time; in our case, changes were made up till the last rehearsal.
♣ Everything evolved from the early stage non realistic session. In this class we were asked to explore different situations of people with nervous breakdowns/ family problems/ fixations, etc… (See question 2)
♣Later on in the unit, we had a class in which we clarified Act 1 and 2. This was done by acting a sketch run through of the naturalistic plot, while commenting and editing.
♣ When the plot was clear, we started discussing where, when and what not naturalistic elements were to be added. (See question 4).
♣Through constant rehearsing, we realised that every time, something had to be added, modified, or taken away from the sequence. For example, when writing these notes at an early stage, the following was included in these pages:
“Another affective technique which we used is to act a scene, in a different spatial perspective. This means that we give the audience the impression that they are looking down on us. This scene was thought and acted in a workshop class at the beginning of the term, but it didn’t have anything to do with this play. The scene involved a couple in a bank sitting in front of the manager’s desk. This was not done on stage, but on a flat wooden block. The top of the table was not facing the ceiling, but the audience. The couple was laying on the floor in what seemed, from the audience’s point of view, a seated position. The banker was kneeling behind the desk, with the upper body over it, so that the only feature seen by the audience was the top of the head.”
However, this particular scene was erased from the play as, later on in the rehearsal process, we found it too complicated. Also, the doctor chorus’s scenes were generally found too dull, so we decided to heat things up slightly by using in this scene, a more physical and violent approach. What was decided was that Gio’s character should be juggled, beaten and battered around by the three doctors. This actually turned out to be very affective.
Explain how research material was gathered and used within the process.
Throughout the process of evolution of the play, some students came up with some ideas which would enrich the devised piece. These ideas came spontaneously, or from memory (of a song, movies, or other plays). Some of the ideas were researched, experimented in different forms, and tried out within the plot. These were:
♣ The Monday’s child Poem- Used by the chorus as a chant of torment- The repetition of “Wednesday’s child is full of Woe” symbolized and emphasized the female character’s forgetting of the Wednesday pill.
Monday's Child is fair of face
Tuesday Child is full of grace
Wednesday's Child is full of woe
Thursday's Child has far to go
Friday's Child is loving and giving
Saturday's Child works hard for a living
But Sunday's Child is fair and wise
and good and gay
♣ The Eels- music – The song “Electro shock blues” was found closely related to the plot, and appropriate in emphasising the confusion in the character’s minds.
“Feeling scared today
Write down "I am ok"
A hundred times the doctors say
I am ok
I am ok”
♣ Marilyn Manson- A clip of a song was used where there were extremely disturbing sounds of a baby being strangled, as it was crying desperately. This was used when the chorus was tormenting by circling Sinan’s character.
Evaluate the ways in which ideas were communicated to the audience.
The techniques used throughout the play were many. These including sound effects (for example heart beats), music and poetry (see previous question), or drama techniques (see Question 4). All these elements were used to emphasise the feelings we were trying to communicate to our audience. Feelings of fear, stress, awkwardness, relief, etc.
However, some of these ideas were communicated and received differently within members of the audience. In order to illustrate the difference between the responses, I asked two students a few questions about the play they saw, and compared their answers. These students were Annabel and Dasha.
Annabel is fifteen years old, her English is very strong, and she enjoys literature and drama; in fact, she has seen quite a few live plays. Dasha just turned thirteen, and being Russian, English is her second language. She is a more scientific student, and is not very keen in reading in her free time.
Explore the impact of social, cultural and/or historical conditions on the work.
In this play we try to give as many points of view as possible about the storyline itself. By the end of the play we can see the story through the eyes of each of the three doctors, each character, and even the different reflections of each of the characters.
♣ The main storyline, however, has a universal, timeless theme:
A woman is pregnant of a man she isn’t married to. This situation can be related to any country, and to any historical era, as it has never been an uncommon incident. However, the end of the plot was only suitable if set in a western modern community.
♣ The stereotypical male character left his partner as soon as he discovered what had happened, not caring about the consequences she might suffer. This play however, would not have been logical if the characters had been members of an important family, or living in an occidental country, or in another era. If the characters were to be part of a Muslim family of a certain importance, living in the 18th century, the ending would have been non-logical and inappropriate. As a minimum consequence of this adultery, the couple should have gotten married; otherwise the woman would have suffered some terrible consequences, according to the severity of the family and society.
♣ Another factor that cannot be ignored was the way in which the audience received the message of the play. The audience present came from a mixed ethnical background, therefore the feedback was varied. However, living in a western and modern society influenced them into having more tolerant views on the theme. If this production was showed within certain communities in different cultured countries of Eastern Society, the response would probably been different, and possibly the play could have been censured.
Indicate how the influences and ideas of other playwrights and/or directors, designers and performers (i.e. practitioners) have been used.
A few of creative minds have influenced and helped us in the development of “Perspectives” because of their styles and their ideas.
However, the playwright who mostly influenced our ideas was Bertold Brecht. Brecht didn't want his audience to feel emotions; he wanted them to think, and therefore he was determined to destroy the theatrical illusion, and, thus, that dull trance-like state which most spectators fall into.
The style of Brecht is called Epic theatre. Brecht designed his plays to imitate the actions of men so that the spectator would form judgment on not only what they saw but the acts of the world outside the play. Brecht used a simple method, called the alienation device, to make his audience fear the worst. For example, in the play Galileo the observer finds Galileo alone by the end of the play, ostracized by society; Brecht uses our basic fear of separation and denial from society to make his points.
The technique and style which also helped the development of our play was Brecht’s political style which made his plays timeless.
