WEEK TWO
A snapshot of our cast rehearsing the chosen songs in our play altogether.
Key for Content
Planning & Production
Problem Solving
Evaluation
Targets
24/01/2022
We started with a brief warmup at the beginning of the lesson, covering physical and vocal aspects. The benefit of these exercises was that I was able to fully release the tension in my body whilst having the opportunity to check in with myself. The significance of a Check-in with the cast is that we are able to build a connection with each other that will allow us to be responsible for each other and supportive so that we can begin the rehearsal on a good tone. I found this very helpful as it gave me a chance to centre myself whilst listening to how my cast is doing. As an area that I'm working on, being able to understand and see where they are coming from the beginning will help me greatly in the long run.
Warm-Up:
Sun Salutations
Humming
Jogging and walking on the spot
Tongue Twisters
Supportive Words of Encouragement
OUR COMPANY ETHOS
Before looking at 'A Matter of Life and Death', we focused on creating a Company Ethos as a collective. These are some of the contributions that I would especially try to keep in mind and apply during the rehearsals:
'As part of the warm-up, check in with each other and ourselves.'
'Respect the Director and the decisions made concerning your character.'
'Ask questions about the play and characters if needed.'
'Be brave, push yourself out of your comfort zone, and experiment in rehearsal.'
'Listen to everyone in the room and respect each other.'
'Be patient and ready to let things go when it is not working or there is no response to it.'
'Allow mistakes to happen and support each other.'
'Treat one another as equals.'
I think this is very important for our cast because it will help us to remember the core values that we would need to instil into our rehearsals and follow so that we don't waste time trying to behave and respect the rules that we made for ourselves.
This picture shows a poster of our Company Ethos, including contributions from the cast of different rules and behaviours we will follow during rehearsals. The ideas that I added to the list are:
Communication
Respect each other as equals and the Director
Listen to each other.
After creating our Company Ethos, we went back to looking at the play and moved on to identifying its components of it. We had a full class discussion of what themes can be found in the play and we had a light debate on each one and found evidence of it in the play. I found it especially helpful because it gave me the opportunity to hear the different thoughts and opinions of the cast, allowing me to share my knowledge with them whilst also learning from others and bettering myself. Although, I still found it a little hard to navigate because many people would be talking over whilst I and a few others would wait patiently. So, to deal with this, we would either go around the circle until it wouldn't work (due to the pace) or we pretend to 'pass the mic' so that the discussion could be opened up to more people in the ensemble. As for myself, although I know I can control myself to not chat throughout the rehearsal that could distract others, I know there are times that I do indulge others and can be talkative. So, I want to make sure that I focus on myself throughout the upcoming rehearsals rather than take part in idle chatter.
Besides this is a picture of us creating a List of Themes as a collective. Listed below are my contributions to the mind map:
Fate
Judgment
Fairytale/Whimsical
Patriotism
Supernatural
Privilege
Distorted Reality
Escapism
Consequences of Actions (Love, War, Death...etc.)
Once we had all the themes written down, we realised some of them were on a larger scale of prevalence in the play than others and many could fall under different names of themes.
Thus, we made another list that would include the specific main themes that we would use as the umbrella term for the rest of the ideas that we had. As shown in the picture next to this, I wrote down the themes below with a few ideas that I think would correlate to the events of the play:
Role of Women
Regarding the war itself, it could refer to the gender roles of the war efforts. For example, June is a representation of women in the war efforts that operated the radios. There is also the housewives that have to adapt to their husbands and the men leaving their homes to fight in the war. We would also look at the nurses and how there aren't as many specific female roles in the play unless they are part of the ensemble compared to male characters.
Time and Space
It's clear from the beginning of the play with the 'boy' talking about the universe and the woman talking about the events on the 2nd of May 1945, with a burning city and all the planes flying. Adding to this, it can relate to how the rules of time and space can change for scenes that are primarily set on Earth as to those between life and death or some that are set in the other world.
Death
An overarching theme that follows the majority of the characters. Many characters in the play are either: familiar with death, have died, are dead or evaded death in Peter Carter's case. As this play is set during World War II, no character in the play is a stranger to it, as some most work to prevent every day (like those in the medicinal field or the operators) whilst others must face it head-on (like the pilots, the dead and those with occupations in the other world).
Romance
A rivaling theme to Death as it is the driving force of Peter and June's relationship. The views of Love are touched on from multiple perspectives in the play, such as June and Peter, the women from Germany and Shakespeare. As for our discussion in class, we talked about the differences in Primary and Secondary Socialisation and how it impacts the characters as much as ourselves. (Further information can be found in my Context and Research Document.)
Meaning of Life
A question that has yet to be answered and has long since been debated. Various characters in the play have opposing views on what their 'purpose' comes from. June and the Doc believe that love in the present is part of ones' meaning, whilst Peter's father and Shakespeare believe that death gives life meaning through living in someone else's memory of them.
War
In spite of the fact that the play is set during The Second World War, events in the play show conflicts in different forms. For example, the interaction between the prosecutors and Peter Carter to June fighting to keep him alive with the help of different doctors. Additionally, it can link to the psychological battle in Peter Carter's mind, dealing with the physical brain damage that he has and the mental fight to win his court case.
Escapism
Linking to the previous theme, this is prevalent in the play as the main characters are all essentially running from their reality. June does everything within her abilities to keep Peter alive and with her when she knows he is already in critical condition. This is the same case with Peter not only trying to escape his death but in doing so, he creates a false reality that his life is a court case as a coping mechanism to the truth that he has suffered an injury to his brain.
Mortality
Taking into account the time the play is set in, the journey of Peter Carter's life is followed and explored in a short amount of time. Not applying the 21st perspective to the play, although it seems like he is older as he nears 30th birthday, his life was still shut lived. And the play gives the chance to see those lost along the way, such as Dr. Reeves, and reunite with those that were lost before like Bob and Carter's father. However, the play portrays the harsh reality of it, that death does not discriminate. This is clear when all the women of Dresden speak up and one shares the current state of her children.
GROUP PRESENTATION
Lastly, once we had agreed on the main themes of the play, we were then organised into small groups of 3 and assigned a theme that we should research and relate back to the play. Our task was to make a presentation on them with facts and different ideas that link to the theme, which in our case was War. These are the themes that we covered in our presentation:
Class
Countries Involved
Gender Roles
Impact on People's Lives
Influence on Present Day
Mental Health
Propaganda
Race
The aim of this task was to help us collate different materials of research regarding our theme so that we could clearly see the connection between that and our play. I found this experience incredibly useful to me as I was able to find out more in-depth facts about the theme that I already had some knowledge on and some covert information on topics that I didn't know about - which broadened my understanding of how it relates to the play.
As for the different subheadings that we found, I helped to assign the different themes we had to research when we finished picking the ones that we wanted to do. Given that there wasn't a lot of time for us to come together and work on the presentation as a group, I volunteered to create the presentation for our theme where we could share our ideas. I also made sure to remind them to add their ideas in time so that we would not be unprepared for the class sharing.
25/01/2022
We began this session by finding the answers to our unanswered questions about the play. In small groups, we were given specific scenes that we needed to analyse - in my case, ours was scene 7. We used Katie Mitchell's method of listing the facts and questions that we gathered from the scene and setting, which was helpful to us actors as it supported us in understanding the play and knowing why things were the way they were. Next to this is a collection of the facts, questions and answers that everyone found for the scenes they had. This task efficiently helped us to collate all of our ideas quickly whilst getting us to figure out the answer for ourselves. It gave many people who had extensive knowledge on the topic to answer the questions that other groups whilst others like myself used quick inferences to provide answers as well. Despite this, I think the cast's biggest issue right now is the lack of focus and talking over each other when someone is answering their questions.
Unrelated to the task above, we also spoke about how the events link to the themes that we chose as our main themes. The Director mentioned that there was a podcast or article that gave insight to patients that were nearing death and their responses to it. Once I have the link, I will give my input on the topic and compare the different relationships that the people have with it.
INCLUDE THE ARTICLE ABOUT THOSE NEARING DEATH AND RESPOND TO IT!!
Afterwards, we started to put the scenes of the play on our feet, starting with Scene 1. The aim of this rehearsal was to...
In the Opening Scene, we were able to involve the whole of the ensemble on the stage for the Boy's monologue. As for the action on stage, it is quite to-the-book as we are following the stage directions with the nurses riding their bikes around the stage and the soldiers coming on with the hospital beds. The nurses ride through the space and the Boy walks down the stairs of the set. Once he reaches the centre stage, an ensemble holds models of the planets as he talks about the Universe. We initially had the planets circle around him but from my peer's decision, they decided to spin around him as they walked. This would be the same place where he would say his monologue. Once this is done, it transitions to the nurses working the upturned bicycles like they are engines to Peter Carter's plane and the Woman's monologue would begin.
In this scene within the ensemble, I play one of the radio operators in our booths alongside June as she speaks to Peter. Whenever I was not on stage, I would be making notes of what was happening on stage and would work on my logbook when I had the time. The Opening was a challenge for everyone because it was busy with a lot of people on stage, so I made sure to have my script and pencil with me so that I could make quick changes to the stage directions if decisions were made to rectify the staging.
(Include a picture of the script with the notes that I made)
Despite the fact that this is the first time we are looking at the blocking of the scenes, my thoughts on the opening and the direction that the Boy is going in are quite ambivalent. As for the staging of the scene, I appreciate that we illustrate the Universe and the busy planes when the Boy and the Woman speak. However, I'm quite unsure about it because the ideas seemed very literal and to the point, as stated in the script, but I think it should have been executed differently. Personally, I would have aimed to have the Opening more abstract than how it is now as the Boy is talking about the Universe, something so vast and untamed that we could display it through physical theatre and enhance it with lighting.
Moreover, in terms of the character choices with the staging, I think that the Boy's persona should be larger than what it is now. As seen in the pic above, a question that I had about the Boy was, 'who or what is he?' 'Could he be God?' 'Or the embodiment of something like Life or Death?' These questions arose because although we know him as a boy, the language he uses is more elevated than what he lets on and I believe we could lean into that more than what is at face value. I imagined that the boy is symbolic of a higher power and all-knowing, so he could have an arrogant and mysterious aura around him that would captivate the audience from the beginning. But instead, we are going along the line of him being a child, naive and playful.
My target for my next rehearsal is that I am going to continue working on my logbooks and remember my cues for the next time we do the initial blocking.
26/02/2022
This was the first session that we focused on singing the songs that have been confirmed in the play so far. The following songs that we will be learning are: 'Talking to an Angel' and 'Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime'. Designated performers that had a strong musical background led our rehearsal and they were extremely helpful as we were able to follow their lead and I was able to ask them questions when I needed to. As a class, we organised ourselves into different vocal ranges (sopranos, altos, and tenors) and layered each song with our voices until we had the melody learned.
The significance of this rehearsal was to...
At first, as we were learning the songs together as a group, I found the experience wholesome as we worked together to learn the song whilst as was able to help my friend to find the note when needed. Nonetheless, given that session was 4 hours straight of singing with actors that are not vocally trained, challenges were sure to arise. It was hard to rehearse because of various reasons:
People lost their focus frequently.
Those with the biggest presence were the most distracting.
Everyone was talkative when instructions were being given.
Gradually everyone became tired because of our voices being pushed.
Everyone became more frustrated with each other as the rehearsal went on.
As for myself, it was very difficult to get through the rehearsal because we would have to wait for people to settle down - but we would spend more time doing that than actually singing. This repetitive problem meant that we would have to sing the same phrase continuously and would put too much of a strain on my voice. So, my solution was to not add fuel to fire when my peers would argue by not involving myself in chatter and listening to those leading the rehearsals so that we can move on to the next task. I've decided from then on that I will make sure to bring a bottle of water to every singing rehearsal that we have to avoid being irritable and not hurt my throat.
