What a busy, fun-filled and productive week – everyone really got to explore their characters and Tanya now has the enormous task of taking all of your ideas, characters and stories away and threading them together to resemble a play – good luck Tanya!
Anyway… we started on Monday with an exercise that would stretch the duration of the week – writing a diary entry, for your character, before, when and after their advertisement had been placed. Vik then led a physical warm-up (jeans really were cumbersome and there was plenty of puffing and complaining!) and everyone was then asked to find a space in the theatre and individually explore their character’s bedroom. Everyone was aksed to come up with three movements that could be repeated, and then exaggerated, to suggest how they might spend time in their own space. Vik also reminded the group about the French word for rehearsal – répétition!
We next repeated a quick warm-up exercise from LAB 4, where participants had to recreate a variety of objects using their bodies, from an umbrella to a desk; and a pair of shoes to a duvet. The duvet was particularly inspirational and we found ourselves coming back to it again and again over the course of the week.
After lunch, we hot seated Alex, Grace, Shanice and Chloe’s characters and then finished off with some focussed improvisations – Naomi (or Veronica) and Raz crossing paths but always missing each other; Grace and Ben being visited by a social worker; Shanice’s parents turning up out of the blue; and Alex and Jack discussing Alex’s encounter with a chav.
Tuesday again started with the diary and we re-capped everyone’s character profiles and shared homework tasks. Vik again led a physical warm-up – this time teaching the group the Lindyhop. We then worked on putting two of Monday’s exercises together – working on Grace and Ben’s room and Mollie’s room, but with additional actors becoming the objects in their rooms. The group were encouraged to personify the objects as much as possible and breathe life into the inanimate furniture and objects. We then went on to hot seat Yaz, Naomi, Raz, Mollie, Desara and Grace (again). Again, the time after lunch was spent on specific improvisations to help move the characters’ stories forward. We spent time physicalising Aisha’s monologue to strangers on a train – playing around with the difference between what happened when they responded to her compared to what happened when they ignored her; and we also worked on physicalising Leila’s encounter with the tree. Leyla’s monologue is great – but we decided to play around with her having more urgency, even being angry at the tree. It was great to see how the tree responded to her woes.
Wednesday – and mid-week – again we started with diary entries and the Lindyhop. We then went straight into hot seating Eliza, Leyla and Aisha, before working again on pysicalising objects in relation to characters. Chloe worked with a group to show her using a PC to communicate with the outside world; and Aisha worked with more people on physicalising the train. We then presented homework tasks – participants were asked to bring in photographs or pictures that suggested memories for their characters. They had to describe them to the rest of the group being as specific and detailed as possible. We then extended this, as a writing task, asking participants to create a poetic response reflecting the tone of the memory for them. The afternoon saw more work on the train, expertly choreographed by Vik. We also had a marketing meeting with Doug, Head of Marketing here at the Almeida, to discuss strategies for how LABBERS can promote the show.
On Thursday, we went straight into some hot seating, followed by some focussed improvisations. Alex and Desara worked on their encounter in the park, where Alex is offering £100 to get his phone back; Leyla worked further on her confessions to the tree; and Eliza and Raz worked on a scene where Raz confronts her about stealing his sister’s jewellery. Raz and Eliza played the scene quite realistically, but then we gave Raz the challenge of not speaking, but showing his feelings through actions. After lunch, we hot seated Pius and worked on two further scenes – one with Pius selling love, and the other physicalising Grace’s notes for the supermarket notice board. And on Thursday evening, Mike Attenborough came to talk to the Young Friends about In a Dark Dark House. It was a fantastic two-way exchange with Mike talking about the process of getting the play from page to stage and the young friends sharing thier throughts about the play. A real treat, so thanks Mike.
Friday already? The week really flew by. We started with the Lindyhop again and then shared our character name poems and diaries for the week. Luis was hot seated and the group was split in half to work on two improvisations – the first, an encounter between Leila and Zain (Luis) by the tree; and the second, Yaz pinning her fortune-telling advertisements to some trees. Vik then choreographed a scene to Lonely, by Akon, where everyone made a simple move that reflected their character before moving into a scene where Raz and Veronica wake up simultaneously from their duvets and move around their rooms.
After lunch, we worked on improvisations in pairs: Naomi and Raz on finally meeting at a newsagents in Highgate; Mollie and Shanice both selling on the internet; Desara and Alex on the way to a party/dance class on the bus; Louis and Leyla meeting for the first time on Leila’s wedding day; Jess and Chloe – the former talking to an imaginary friend and the latter to a real friend on the internet; Aisha and Eliza meeting on a train; and Yaz and Pius responding to each others ads. We then finished by hearing some ‘words of love’ from Pius and by hot seating Eliza (whose character has now changed considerably).
All in all a considerably productive week – I’m really looking forward to getting into rehearsals for the new play.
No comments:
Post a Comment