Transformers
I thought it was an excellent experience and a great project to be part of. The production group came to pitch their ideas, I thought all of the ideas were as good as each other. I was torn between the murder mystery idea and shadow puppetry. I quite enjoyed shadows and puppetry when we first did it in Beowulf. When we did many workshops of it, it was a fun activity to do.
In the end I chose the murder mystery idea, I liked it and I thought the pitch was enough to be convinced. Once again we performed a murder mystery show previously and I enjoyed it and I was looking for similar opportunities again. It came up and I seized the opportunity.
I was happy with the cast that did the murder mystery we gave it all our efforts and performed to our strengths.
Overall for every performance we have done there has been minor communication issues. The murder mystery production group I thought they were great, they knew what they were doing, their preparations were very well organized when it came to the (props, lighting, staging) they didn't give us too much trouble.
The idea of the murder mystery they pitched to us was to perform it in an American 1920's style, although they were interested in which ideas we as a group could bring forward to the project, they were very good that way they always asked us our opinions of what we thought and said to tell them anything we didn't like. They gave us freedom to lead the performance. We gave them the idea of doing a performance based around the game 'Cluedo' they were more than happy to go with that idea. We incorporated invisible theatre, audience interaction, pre-recorded voices, we made it so the audience are the detectives and they ask us questions and we as Characters make up our own back story, the back story shows all the characters motive to kill but there is only one killer. The technique hot seating was very important when it came to creating back stories, we had to improvise on the spot. The ending of our piece was interesting, out of all the suspects the audience pick 3. The 3 suspects they pick get told to go into the line up by the voice over. If they pick correctly the voice over will say "Congratulations you have solved the murder" and if they get the murderer wrong the voice over will say "I'm sorry you have chosen incorrectly please try again"
We came to a decision by a group vote that the murderer should be the butler over family relatives and ex wife. I thought the decision was different from murder mysteries, usually in the stories the murderers are ex wife or family relative.
I liked how the project was handled and how it was set up in the theatre. The pre recorded voice over was the only words that were scripted everything else was improvised. I think if another opportunity like this was to come up I would definitely do it again.. Although the only I thing i would do differently if we had more time is to make it more scripted, maybe base it off a murder mystery book.
End Game
I enjoyed end game it was a mini project that we only had little time to put on a show, so it was found to be quite challenging. I really enjoyed working with Claire and Leonie I thought they were great and would like them to teach us again if another opportunity was to come again. To begin with I didn't understand the story of end game at all, I was confused and lost. In the beginning of the process we were split into 3 groups and read a section of the book. As I was reading the script, I found out that it was a duologue between Hamm and Clov. Then I was introduced to more characters called Nagg and Nell. We were told it's our own interpretation of the story.
I did some research on the book and I found that it was based around post apocalyptic time. I understood the basics of the characters. With the research I had learnt that Hamm is blind and stuck in a wheelchair, Clov is his loyal servant. Nagg and Nell who are Hamm's parents lost both of their legs in the disaster and are living in the dustbins.
We did some workshops as a group to simplify the story, we looked at the themes of and some ideas of how want to perform it. We all wrote on the board some words relating to a character or the story.
Themes- Comedy, Tragicomedy, Repetition, Existence, Relationships, Love/Hate, Depression, Metaphorical, Survival.
Nag- Funny, Witty, Bad joke teller, romantic, family, optimistic, Reminiscent, Dedicated, Committed, Appreciative, Tenacious.
Nell- Depressed, Typical mother like, Mumsy, Insecure, Accepting, Lonely.
Clov- Loyalty? Guilt, Obedient, Comfortable, Depression on Hamm,
Hamm- Controlling, Bitter, Manipulative, Unpredictable, Attention seeking, Father figure towards Clov.
These workshops really helped understand more of the story and characters. The next tasks we were given is to improvise a scene of the script. Improvising the scenes motivated me to wanting to play a character in the performance. In the discussion of how to devise the performance there were choices of which role people wanted to be part of it was between acting, doing physical theatre, directing, set, lighting. I chose to act as Hamm because I wanted to play a character more than anything because I wanted to challenge my ability to learn lines. At first all together we had 4 characters I was Hamm, Amy was Clov, Jordan and Anna were Nag and Nell. Dan was in charge of the lighting and Victor was in charge of set and scenography. The physical theatre dancers were Jack, Cody and Charlotte. Throughout the whole process I was concerned about how the actual performance would work and I had to be patient and then my doubts were cleared.
We decided that as actors, and physical actors that we both perform a section from the script. Hamm and Clov perform 1 part, Nag and Nell perform another and the physical theatre dancers perform as well. The script was cut into 3 sections which made our performance shorter than our goal. The timeframe was between 15-20 minutes which mean we could perform multiple times.
Last minute as a group we had a miscommunication problem which led to a cast member leaving the process. We did the professional thing and worked around it and gave a great performance.
I think the performances were great, we performed in the black box for the first time so it was atmospherically, we used chalk and drew on the walls which I thought was a great idea, it was something new and creative. We performed 3 times and I thought some of the performances could be better. I say that partly because I messed up my lines a couple of times. Still I gave it my all, as did everyone else it was a great group effort and it paid off in the end.
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