'Ode To Billy Joe' By Bobbie Gentry - Week 7 (Performance Week) Entry 11: The Structure, Lighting/Sound Cues, Stage Plan

The Structure Of 'The Bridge':

My group has finally reached a stage where we have now got a complete structure for our devised physical theatre piece which we are going to be showing off to a professional audience later on in the week.

The Structure goes like this:

Introduction/Prologue (When audience sit down)

We use a projection on-stage which contains the 4 contestants' application video for the newly advertised game show 'The Bridge'. This is then ended by a creepy, sinister laugh in the background as the screen is now saying "Welcome to 'The Bridge'.

After the video has finished, the 4 contestants will walk on stage and do the 'Four Corners' physical piece whilst they are mimicking reading a letter. After the 6 moves, they all look up in unison and do a large smile to then start reading the letter which says "You have been accepted onto 'The Bridge'! Please meet at Tallahatchie Avenue, London... We then all repeat the word "today" in canon starting with Milo, me, Frankie then Sophie.

This is then followed by us clapping our hands in the same order in order to fold the letter and put it in our pockets. The order of movement reverts itself by starting with Violet (Sophie) who is now walking towards her chair on-stage, followed by Lauren (Frankie), Simon (Me) then Charles (Milo).

We then execute the 'Four Stages of Kidnapping' physical piece starting in the same order as previous. Once the final person has been reached, the piece should be in unison. When the final person has done 3 of these, everyone should now stop doing the physical piece to then sit down and start screaming.

They then proceed, whilst in blackout, to put the large sack on their heads and also hand-tie themselves to their chairs.

Act 1, Scene 1/Game 1: 'Truth or Dare'

We have our theme tune for 'The Bridge' playing throughout the theatre for around 15-20 seconds, this is then followed by loud bangs at both sides of the audiences' seats. After the theme tune stops, Cricket (Brandon), the main presenter, will jump up next to the audience to try to scare them whilst saying "Hello! And welcome to 'The Bridge'! He then introduces Theodore (Jake), his 'servant'. Cricket (Brandon) explains what 'The Bridge' is about to the audience before introducing the 4 contestants whom have been waiting patiently on-stage. The first introduction starts with Simon (me) followed by Lauren (Frankie), Charles (Milo) and then finally Violet (Sophie).

The first game 'Truth or Dare' is then introduced to the audience. Cricket explains the rules of the game and then calls Simon (me) up to the front of the stage in front of the audience. Simon (me) shows a little hesitation and gets pushed by Theodore (Jake) to enter the physical theatre piece where I fall into Crickets (Brandon) arms to then be pushed back to do the same with Theodore (Jake) and then be thrown back in the air towards Cricket (Brandon).

Cricket (Brandon) then asks Simon (Me) to pick either Truth or Dare, this decision goes for the other contestants also. This enters a little piece where Cricket (Brandon) and Theodore (Jake) repeat the words "Dare" in my ear whilst the other 3 contestants in-between each verse say "Truth". Simon (Me) reaches his decision so this then leads to a mini physical piece where he pushes both Cricket (Brandon) and Theodore (Jake) aside to then follows up by announcing "Truth".

The 'Truth' question that all the contestants must now answer is "Who was your first kiss?". This then enters into another mini physical scene where Simon (Me) is reacting in multiple ways since he's not given enough time to think. After 5 seconds, Cricket (Brandon) then commands Theodore (Jake) to hit Simon (Me) for not complying to the rules of the game, entering the next mini physical piece. This is then followed by Simon (Me) announcing "I've never kissed anyone!" and then he blocks his mouth with his two hands not believing that he just said that. Simon (Me) then gets forcefully pushed back towards his chair. This then leaves Simon (Me) to look more upset than he did previously as he is now doing physical things such as rubbing his face and hugging his legs.

Lauren (Frankie) is the next contestant to go upstage to answer the same question. This enters a physical piece where Cricket (Brandon) does an underarm twirl with Lauren (Frankie) to then push her towards Theodore (Jake) and bend over his arms so she is on her side facing the audience. Nothing more physical happens but Lauren (Frankie) is then brought to depression also since Cricket (Brandon) had brought up the subject of Lauren (Frankie) having a past romantic relationship with her uncle which had turned sour. She is then lead back to her chair by Theodore (Jake) to do similar physical actions as Simon (Me).

Charles (Milo) is up next. Cricket (Brandon) and Charles (Milo) perform their physical piece by pushing each other from side to side as though they were having a fight. Charles (Milo) is then pushed back towards Theodore (Jake) to be paced in a headlock. Cricket (Brandon) then asks the same question to Charles (Milo) to which he replies "It was a man!". He then gets lead back to his chair.

Finally, Violet (Sophie) has her turn to play 'Truth or Dare'. Cricket (Brandon) holds her hand and brings her up-stage to then enter a mini physical piece where Cricket (Brandon) gives her a twirl whilst looking at her dress after she had "Do you like my dress?". The question is once again repeated and Violet (Sophie) replies with "My dog" which excites both Theodore (Jake) and her tremendously. This is followed up by Cricket (Brandon) becoming increasing mad and shouting "THE DOG'S DEAD!". This, evidently, upsets Violet in a way as she is returned to her chair. Cricket (Brandon) then announces that there will be a short advert break and he exits stage left whilst Theodore (Jake) exits stage rights. The scene/game ends with Violet (Sophie) saying "Is my dog really dead?". Lauren (Frankie) and Charles (Milo) then exit the stage to transition to the next scene.

Act 1, Scene 2 (Advert Break): Monologue From Violet (Sophie) And Simon (Me)

During the Advert Break, both Violet (Sophie) and Simon (Me) perform their monologues to the audience. Both characters have their small moments of physical theatre applied within the words that they announce detailing their current emotions, presenting of gestures and facial expressions. This being added contributes towards our own character development which will hopefully result in us getting a higher grade in certain criteria for this assignment.

Act 2, Scene 1/Game 2: 'Obstacle Course'

Cricket (Brandon) enters the stage along with Theodore (Jake) to welcome back the audience and that we'll now be moving onto round 2: the Obstacle Course. Cricket (Brandon) calls out the four contestants who are all holding 1 bamboo stick, except for Simon (Me). Cricket (Brandon) explains the rules for the Obstacle Course before Simon (Me) would try to make his way through the dangerous structure the other contestants had constructed. Theodore (Jake) had also joined in with the contestants to create the obstacles for each contestant. When Simon (Me) starts the game, the main intro theme once again plays.

Whilst Simon (Me) is going through the obstacle created, the contestants are saying "Mis-s" and "Make them fall!". What this means is we're trying to speak out what Cricket (Brandon) and Theodore (Jake) want to happen with the bamboo sticks; they want to have someone lose the game. Each time a contestant manages to reach the end of the obstacle, they would then perform a mini physical piece where they just forcefully push the other contestant away to signify it's thier turn. Charles (Milo) is the last contestant to try and make his way through the obstacle course, but one thing to take note of is that the music has stopped playing. Whilst making his way through, Charles (Milo) becomes trapped by the bamboo sticks with no chance of escape. This is then followed by Cricket (Brandon) coming over towards the trapped contestant to then make the bamboo sticks finally fall. The stage lights turn red, and Charles (Milo) is dragged off stage, by his feet, due to Theodore's order from Cricket (Brandon). When this happens, the other three contestants run away from the stage.

Act 2, Scene 2 (Advert Break 2): Monologue From Lauren (Frankie) And Charles (Milo)

After being dragged off stage, we can hear Charles (Milo) getting beaten by 4 loud stamps. During this transition sequence, Lauren (Frankie) is performing a physical piece before reciting her monologue to the audience. After Lauren (Frankie) has finished her monologue, she would then have her sack on her head once again, along with her hands getting tied. Charles (Milo) appears on-stage at this moment dragging himself across the floor towards his area on the stage where he had sat in the 'Truth or Dare' game, same as Lauren (Frankie). Whilst Charles (Milo) is reciting his monologue, both Simon (Me) and Violet (Sophie) are being directed from backstage by Cricket (Brandon) and Theodore (Jake) to their designated spots with their sacks and hand-ties already on.

Act 3, Scene 1/Game 3: 'The Escape!

We have now reached the final challenge contained on 'The Bridge': The Escape! Once again, Cricket (Brandon) explains the rules of the game before it goews underway. Once we have started, the lights go red once more and we show a countdown timer going down from 45 seconds on the projecter screen. The whole escape sequence is a physical piece for all of the contestants as they are moving in a clockwork fashion trying to get lose from their sacks and hand-ties. The only contestant to not escape, sadly, was Lauren (Frankie). She had now lost the game, and it's time for her to be 'thrown off the bridge'.

Epilogue

Before Lauren (Frankie) is to be thrown off of 'The Bridge', Simon (Me), Violet (Sophie) and Charles (Milo) come back on-stage and start walking towards her in a melodramtic clockwork kind of walk. The audience should notice that the three contestant aren't entirely acting like themselves anymore, they're not as human as they once were. This is because we have included a plot twist: everybody dies at the end of 'The Bridge', the contestants being there are just a figment of Lauren's (Frankie) imagination as she transends into the afterlife due to jumping off a bridge. Once the three contestants reach Lauren (Frankie) in the middle of the stage, they announce to the audience that it was now "Game Over!"

We follow this up with a physical piece where every character forms a staircase for Lauren (Frankie) to ascend so she can jump off the bridge. Once reacing what would be the side wall of the bridge, every other character would hold her, swinging her back and forth to then finally throw her off the bridge. Once she has reached the floor, which evidently kills her, all the other characters will collapse as they are just husks that Cricket (Brandon) had experiemented on to do this one last thing for him since their prize was to be able to throw the losing contestant off of the bridge. The lighting goes on and off after the collapse to then be followed by a "Thank you for watching 'The Bridge'!" messege to appear on the projection screen to which all actors transision into the bowing and audience applauding.

Getting The Lighting/Sound Cues Sorted:

For the final week on this assignment, before our matinee began, we had gone through a tech-rehearsal to plan the lighting and sound cues that we had compiled over half term. Here is a detailed list of what we've conjured up for 'The Bridge':

Action on stage	Lighting state	Action on stage	Cue sound
		Start of show	Start Video "Welcome to the bridge"
End of projection video	General wash bright
Four characters sit on chairs	Black out
		Characters Scream after Black out	Circus for 25 seconds start fading song at 20 seconds
Brandon shouts "Hello"	Side lights up on Brandon and Jake side of audience left and right
Brandon says "The Game Show"	Side lights off General wash up
Brandon says "Truth Or Dare"	Spot 1 up, Spots 2-5 up very dim
Sophie says "Is my dog really dead?"	Spot 1,3,4,5 down Spot 2 lights up
Sophie says "This is just the beginning"	Spot 2 down Spot 5 up
Nathan says "The bridge is not what I thought it would be"	Spot 5 down, General wash dim
Jake says "Live in 3,7,2"	General wash up full
		Brandon says "begin"	Fade in circus, start to fade circus when Milo says "I will give it a go"
Brandon will use a stick and tap on all the other sticks	General Red wash up
Brandon says "Oh no you failed"	General Wash Red fades Spot 4 lights up
Frankie says "Please"	Spot 4 fades Spot 3 lights up
Milo says " I don't care"	Spot 3 fades General bright wash on dim
Jake says "Live in 3,2,1"	General wash bright up full
Brandon says "Begin"	General wash Red up		Start countdown video on projector
Brandon says "You Lose"	General wash Red dims
Milo and Sophie say "Game Over"	General wash red down, General wash blue up
Everyone will say "Off the bridge"	After 5th chant "Off the bridge" Black out
		After Blackout	Thank you video

We had also created a 'Stage Plan' which shows where we are going to use certain lights and also which lights that we're going to be using in the theatre for our performance.

What Have I Been Refining This Week?

Throughout the final week of this devising assignment, I've mainly been working on the refinement of my character development. These are things such as including more emotions, gestures, experessions and giving the audience a real sense of who my character is outside of 'The Bridge' in reality. I tried to show all of these things in the monologue that I perform at the end of the 'Truth or Dare' game because, since my character, Simon, is considered to be shy, he is all by himself in this scene which makes him become who he really is when he's alone which is a person who seems to entertain himself by doing simple real life things. I'd showed my ideas for the monologue to one of my lecturers and she really liked how I had included much more Physical Theatre into the scene. I felt that this was needed since before I was just sitting on the chair not really doing much movement. Doing this also makes the audience connect more with my character and it increases the overall dramatic and performance potential.

Doing this refinement on my own charatcer development really reminded me of the character of Romeo, portrayed by actor Leonardo Di'Caprio, in the 1996 Baz Luhrmann adaptation of 'Romeo and Juliet', created by the famous playwright William Shakespeare. Sometime around the beginning of the film, we can see Romeo's character appearing to be shy as he doesn't talk to anybody and just mopes all day. As the movie goes on, he gets progressively more in tune with several emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, hate and anxiety. This is some inspiration that I've taken to help improve the development of my character, Simon, whilst performing on 'The Bridge', especially when I'm performing my monologue after the 'Truth or Dare' game in Act 1, Scene 1.

Final Bits Of Feedback:

Before we could show our devised piece to our main professional audience members, we needed to have feedback sessions in order to make our performances top standard.

Here was the final piece of feedback we had recieved for our devised piece before the evening performance:

Group Feedback:

The only real problems we have left which needed to get sorted was to work on the overall pace of the show, especially in the 'Truth or Dare' section of the performance as well as trying to get our timing right with the more physical pieces that we had devised previously.

Individual Feedback:

I needed to work more on the overall pace of my monologue. I did have some great bits of physical theatre within it, but my lecturers felt that this all needed to be placed together instead of doing one thing and then after a few seconds doing something else.

The overall improvement for the gestures and facial expressions used were very good, but they had asked me to try and include a little bit more.

When expressing all of my characters emotions to the audience about the concept of 'The Bridge' overall really made my lecturers like the piece even more.

Conclusion: Did I Think Our Main Performances Were Good?

If I'm going to be completely honest, I thought that our devised piece was the best out of all three groups in this assignment. I don't say this just because it was my group/performance, but because 'The Bridge' itself is so dynamic as it's constantly changing through progression for the entire performance. There was never one slip up and or pause in dialogue. Each member of our group were positive in attitude and vigorous in order to pull off the most physically effective performance. I felt that we really pushed the boundries of physical theatre in our performances because of these reasons and the fact that we had taken creative risks.

The monologues were also a nice touch to include in the performance as they're all so vivid. Each of them appear so lifelike and rich in dramatic value. I found mine to be more impressive as it's more picturesque in a way of me creating a picture, being Simons house, for when he's telling his story on how he had initially found 'The Bridge' in the first place.

How we had mixed the styles of both Steven Berkoff and Frantic Assembly made the piece that much more effective. Having more fluid, naturalistic movements to go alongside the melodramatic clockwork-esque movements really made the dark and sinister side of our performance appear more realistic and thrilling. It's definitely an interesting and striking image to witness.

Going back to why I thought our group had the best performance is due to the fact that we had the biggest applause out of the three. Before the main performances, I had created a blurb for 'The Bridge' which is to let the audience know, in basic sense, what our performance consists of. The only thing I hadn't mentioned in this blurb was the dark and sinister side of the performance as I wanted the audience to not expect it, making the performance even more exciting and dramatic overall.

This is the blurb I had drafted before giving it to my lecturer:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the first official showing of the new game show called 'The Bridge'. In this game show, our contestants must go through a series of three different games which will challenge them both mentally and physically. We hope you enjoy the performance!"

This was later refined by our lecturer to read:

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Welcome to the first offical broadcast of this new game show.... 'The Bridge'! In this game show, four contestants must compete in a series of three different rounds, which will challenge them both mentally and physically. We hope you are able to sit comfortably..."

If I was a critic giving our show a rating out of 5 stars, I'd give 'The Bridge' 5/5 stars. I give this rating because of everything I've mentioned above. The whole atmosphere of the show was also brilliant, this comes from mainly the sounds we had used but the lighting does make the performance appear more developed and refined to give the piece more meaning.

'Ode To Billy Joe' By Bobbie Gentry - Week 5 & 6 (Half Term) Entry 10: Final Devising Sessions Before Performance Week - Working Upon Feedback

Receiving Group Feedback - Further Refinement For 'The Bridge':

This week was the last time we’d be rehearsing before half term begins. This was the time to show back our devised piece to the other groups for any possible areas of improvement that’ll become crucial to the final result of our performance. The feedback we’d gained was mostly about the pace of the game show. Pace is a key moment within our piece because the audience may lose their concentration on what's really going on, especially where the contestants are concerned.

There was also notes about the relationship between the two hosts of ‘The Bridge’, Theodore and Cricket. Theodore is of a lower status compared to Cricket since Theodore acts as a sort of servant towards his master, much like the Pantalone and Zanni Stock Characters from Commedia Dell’Arte which these two characters were inspired by. It’s Theodore’s job to further explain the games being shown as well as providing some commentary alongside Cricket.

We also showed off our new idea of the monologues to the audience. We’d thought of implementing the use of advert breaks between each game in the show to provide some insight into what each character is thinking at that present moment. This is great as it allows us to break the fourth wall further by actually having a conversation with the audience members. We’ll be further refining these scenes to include more Physical Theatre work since, at present moment, we’re just simply sitting on our chairs. I was thinking that maybe we could play with the lines we’re announcing such as me saying that “being on ‘The Bridge’ feels more like a crazy circus act rather than a game show”, for this I could maybe play around dangerously with my chair such as lifting it up in the air and performing some sort of stunt with it.

It came to our attention also that the contestants are already so scared when starting the first game. Being too scared early on means that the contestants have nowhere to go in terms of emotions. After receiving this feedback note, we had changed the beginning scene to have the contestants appear more excited since they realise that they are now on ‘The Bridge’, which is what they've been waiting for since they had signed up for it. Personally I like the new version of this part of our piece as it is more of a clear structure to follow, plus we have added some physical theatre in the beginning bit instead of skipping to the contestants being tied up.

The Physical style of Steven Berkoff has been added into this piece along with the exercise of 'Four Corners' from 'Frantic Assembly' to make it look much more weird and mysterious because it looks as though the contestants are connected to the letter that was handed out to them. The letter is written to all the contestants saying that they have been accepted onto ‘The Bridge’ and that they have to meet at Tallahatchie Avenue, London. Before this, we show an application video being played introducing our characters and the reason why they want to be in the show, doing this gives the audience something to feel and be a part of for our performance. There is another part of the Physical Theatre piece that introduces the kidnapping of the contestants. Doing this does make the piece have a more grotesque and melodramatic feel for it, which is what we had intended to happen.

We had refined this piece by adding in some sound scape to bring more tension within the scene. The speed of the piece will also grow more as the movements pass on to each one of the contestants. Having naturalistic sounds and grotesque movements blending together really builds up much more suspense and looking back on it from a video perspective makes it look more dramatically pleasing. 

Here is a video of both the Physical Theatre piece as well as the link to application video we’ll be showing in our main performance:

Application Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVFGcB1N8sI&feature=youtu.be

The game show format we have chosen for our devised piece splits into 3 different parts. The introduction to the game show which requires explaining the game show, the rules of the games being played and finally introducing the contestants and who will play the game being shown off. 

Game shows such as ‘The Crystal Maze’ shows off this format repetitively throughout its air time. The hosts are also going to be working the same way as the host on that show as they’ll be providing commentary as the contestants make their way through each game.

I think that this links to the stimulus strongly as the audience will think that this is a generic game show about winning money for your charity and having fun, but they will be shocked when they come to realise that it isn't as they had hoped as its more along the lines of trying to escape and of course survive the show.

When creating the Physical Theatre piece that I've included above, we had wanted to focus on the aspect of fear for ‘The Bridge’, so this is when we all played the game ‘Wink Murder’. The reason we did this was to make the actors feel more uncomfortable in a quiet atmosphere. When someone dies in the game, they give off a loud scream which scares everyone and makes them jump naturally. This is something we had included for the end of our devised piece before the first game begins and I think it looks really effective because it links back to the stimulus in terms of its themes and also to fit along with the Berkovian style we had wanted to use. This exercise also helped the group get to know a little bit about what makes them get scared.

We had finished this session by adding some further refinement on the 'Truth or Dare' game by adding in more Physical Theatre. These were things such as:

Me: Being pushed forward towards center stage to fall backwards into Jake's arms and then pushed back to Brandon to then be brought to the middle finally.

Frankie: Does a little twirl dance with Brandon and then does a fall into Jake's arms sideways.

Milo: Has a moment of being beaten by Jake and Brandon to then be brought into a headlock.

Sophie: Swings around towards center stage with Brandon.

Our targets for our next session are to create a lighting and sound plan and think of cue times alongside. We’ll also be focusing on the transitions for our performance so we can make it more fluid and professional for when we come to perform it to a professional audience.

After the returning to college for the last week before the main show begins on Thursday, me and the rest of the groups had shown off what we had rehearsed and developed/refined more of in our devised pieces.

My group had a great response towards 'The Bridge' this time because of the emotions of betrayal, loneliness and fear revealed throughout the performance. The opening scene with our Physical Theatre piece had created a massive response to our audience since it was so sudden after a calm atmosphere. As a whole, they all really liked the level of energy at certain moments, such as this one. The kidnapping makes the piece much more exciting and suspense filling.The monologues were a great touch but the main feedback we had received told us that that there was too much going on behind the monologues since we had included the 'Swerve and Duck' exercise used by 'Frantic Assembly'. They had suggested that this may needed to be slowed down in order to make it work more for the audience so they are sure to focus more on the monologues. We had instead neglected this idea and just cut the movement piece entirely from the monologue scenes as it may still create a hassle fro when we actually come to perform to our professional audience on Thursday. The audience also picked up that the character Violet, portrayed by Sophie Nickerson, should be played younger that 14 years because Violet appears more innocent and child-like, especially when we reference things such as the death of her dog. We had a suggestion that maybe she should be 11 instead of 14. We had all agreed to this idea and made the necessary changes to fit the character more. Our ending to the performance needed to include more clockwork based movement, especially when exiting the stage, to keep to the style of Berkoff.

Feedback from our lecturers told us that our piece still looked as though it was mostly improvised.

Our targets for the remaining time over half term is to rehearse the whole piece so many times to get used to it and make it muscle memory so it doesn't appear to be improvised theatre. We'll also get the chance to do a tech-rehearsal involving our plans for the lighting, sound and projection we're going to use for 'The Bridge' ready for our main performances later on for the main performances.

'Ode To Billy Joe' By Bobbie Gentry - Week 4 Entry 9: Devising Session 4 Evaluation

Scenario/Introduction:

For this ninth entry for the fourth week on this assignment, I'll be covering both the Strengths and Weaknesses that came out of the session. They will both be covering the whole group as this is a collaborative process that must be evaluated constantly to hopefully improve once the performance date is near.

The Strengths:

Strength 1 - Deciding The Style Of Physical Theatre To Work With: After many trails and errors with nearly all Physical Theatre practitioners that we've studied on this course not working very well with our game show idea, other than Frantic Assemblies, we have a now official style of Physical Theatre that we want to follow for our performance of ''The Bridge'. As I'd mentioned in the blog for this session, we'll be combining the inspiration we had gained from 2 very different Physical styles: Frantic Assembly with it's playful, intelligent, vivic and dynamic theatre along with Steven Berkoff which comes with a more grotesque, melodramatic, clockwork piece. I think that these 2 styles of Physical Theatre work very well with each other since we can work with both slow, clockwork like movement (Berkoff) to then transition into fast paced movement (Frantic). This is something which I feel will be most prominent for the final game of the show, being the escape from 'The Bridge'. We've planned to have a countdown timer which lasts for 45 seconds so we can use the clockwork movement to start off with to then quickly change into more fast paced movement once the timer reaches near zero. This is a theatre device which I think works very well and I'm sure it'll be a good thing to include to hopefully improve our grades for this assignment.

Strength 2 - Beginning To Refine Our Devised Piece: As I'd previously mentioned in the blog for this session, we had done some refinement for the Obstacle Course and the intro within our performance. We had added the use of bamboo sticks to create a more imaginative obstacle instead of using our bodies, which would just make it hard for the audience to see what's going on. We also came up with a theme tune to start off 'The Bridge' with. The song is one that is commonly heard at a circus and I felt that it matches the overall concept of 'The Bridge' effectively since it's a dangerous show which involves risks, much like a circus in reality.

Strength 3 - Creating Effective Characters For 'The Bridge': In this session, we had began work on our individual characters for our performance of 'The Bridge'. The characters mostly seemed to match our own personalities but that doesn't really matter in my opinion since this is meant to be a more physical theatre performance and if we know how to act as a certain personality, it'll be easier to conduct physical theatre with things such as gesture, stances, expressions and reactions. The Hot Seating session was also a good idea just to get us more in-sync with our characters.

The Weaknesses:

Weakness 1 - Lack Of Focus From Some Members: Unfortunately, the streak of 'No Weaknesses' has ended due to this weeks session. Sadly Milo and Jake and a little from Brandon had seemed to have a lack of focus during the session, especially during the Hot Seating portion. I saw them not being very serious about their character and just took it as a joke instead. The fact that we had spent a very long time trying to do one simple thing just left me frustrated but we had still achieved what we needed by the end of the session.

What Did I Think Of The Session Overall?

For a rating out of 10, I'd give this week a 10/10. I say this because we have now gotten a pretty good idea as to what our performance structure is going to consist of. When we have the addition of character monologues, I'll make a structure plan which details what goes where and a rough idea as to how long it lasts and hopefully it'll reach the 20-25 minute mark as we need that for our performance when following the assignment brief as that is required in order to pass.

'Ode To Billy Joe' By Bobbie Gentry - Week 4 Entry 8: Devising Session 4

Developing Upon Lecturer Feedback and Selecting Another Style:

For the start of this week, we had previously gained some feedback from one of our lecturers. She had stated that maybe we should take this game show idea with a more dark and sinister approach to link even more with the stimulus and it could also make it more dramatically pleasing. We had taken into account what she had said over the weekend and did this exact thing for this session. The game show, still titled 'The Bridge', has now turned into a life or death situation. We had decided to get rid of the couple idea we have been using and tried experimenting with just having 4 contestants who don't know each other. Doing it this way allows us to show more about each character and develop relationships whilst on the show. The first game has now changed to 'Truth or Dare' in which the hosts threaten the contestants with violence and personal questions to make them scared. We did have some positive feedback alongside on certain parts of our piece from before, such as the chair duets, with suggestions on how we could progress further with them.

Now that we were having to work with a more darker and sinister approach towards our game show idea, we all thought that the Physical Theatre style of Steven Berkoff would be of great use. Berkoff's work in theatre is enthralling, grotesque and very unique as it also has use of mime and melodramatic style movement, mostly clockwork. The clockwork style is so unique to this style of theatre that each movement is very static and has no flow. This style also has the ability to break the fourth wall, which means looking out and talking to the audience. This element will be great for the game show in this grotesque style of theatre because it’ll make the audience feel very uncomfortable as they watch more of it and they are certain to remember it post performance via its both dramatic and performance potential. Another great method by Berkoff is the lack of facial expression when talking to the audience as they don't know what the character is feeling resulting in them to look less human. This is something that we’re not going to be following however since we want to have the audience feeling sympathy for our characters on this adaptation of ‘The Bridge’. His work has been described by critics as “The language is usually filthy”, “At its best, this kind of theatre is so powerful, so visceral, that it forces the audience to react”. This is a great description of Berkoff's style because it’s so unseen and it really pushed the barrier of modern theatre and this is why we want to use this style of theatre for ‘The Bridge’. We still also want to use the Physical Theatre style of ‘Frantic Assembly’ also as they use both music and sound to help build the atmosphere of a performance and since we’re doing a game show, this will help tremendously.

Development On The Intro And The First Game: 'Truth Or Dare':

Originally we had an idea about bringing the contestants out from the audience. This was to make it seem as though we might use an audience member as part of our performance but in reality it's just the rest of the group scattered around the audience. However we have changed the opening slightly to have the contestants to open the piece mainly to save time and create more of a story for the contestants and how they came into 'The Bridge'. Also the contestants will have full head masks on to restrict one of their natural senses to feel even more uncomfortable as they don't know where they are. Having this as the opening scene will make it appear more physical and it gives us a chance for the contestants to properly introduce their character in a more physical approach rather than walking on stage naturally.

We have now reached a stage were we have completed what we can for the first game on 'The Bridge': 'Truth or Dare'. This was a great opportunity to work with as it's the main starting point of the story-line we want to later consider using. The main concept of the first game is to allow each of the characters to show a personal weakness about themselves to the audience. For example, the personal question we had chosen to use is: "Who is your first kiss?". The contestants will all answer this question with a different answer which mostly shows off their personality and this reveals to the audience about their character. When asked the question of who my character: Simon had first kissed, he appears to try and show off his more confident side by saying he's kissed many women and he can't remember his first one. This then leads to one of the hosts of 'The Bridge': Theodore to swing his large arm towards Simon upon Crickets command. This then forces Simon to react with him revealing that he'd never kissed anyone ever. This then leaves him in an unhappy state as he cowers up when brought back to his chair.

Brief Character Profiles:

Simon (Portrayed By Me):

My character for this performance is named Simon. He is a very shy and self centred person. He is 23 years old. The reason Simon signed onto 'The Bridge' is because he wanted to improve his overall confidence when talking to other people mostly and to make him feel more comfortable in public situations. He thought that because game shows are meant to be fun and team working that he'd forget all about his lack of confidence and be more used to doing public things post game show. He couldn't be more wrong to think this.

Lauren (Portrayed By Frankie Howard):

Frankie's character, Lauren, is very hyper and enthusiastic. Lauren is also around the same age as Simon. She loves playing games, the main reason as to why she had signed up for 'The Bridge'.

Charles (Portrayed By Milo Welch):

Milo's character, Charles, is a 19 year old rich snob that thinks he deserves to win 'The Bridge' without having to even do anything. He acts big about himself and annoys the two hosts constantly because of this.

Violet (Portrayed By Sophie Nickerson):

Sophie's character, Violet, is 11 years old. One of the hosts, Cricket, thinks that Violet is too young for his liking to be competing on 'The Bridge' but, instead of getting rid of her, the two hosts act more gentle on her compared to the rest of the characters. She evidently has a very child-like nature not really thinking about what she says and has her cute moments alongside.

Theodore (Portrayed By Jake Colley):

Jake's character, Theodore, is the Co-Presenter of 'The Bridge' and acts as a servant towards Cricket, whom is the main presenter. Theodore is very tall and has a hunchback, he resembles the Stock character of 'The Zanni' from Commedia Dell'Arte. He appears to have some sort of disorder, possibly brain damage because of his more child-like actions even though he's meant to be much older. He has a romantic interest towards Frankie's character, Lauren.

Cricket (Portrayed By Brandon Timson):

Brandon's character, Cricket, is the main presenter of 'The Bridge'. He acts very grotesquely towards every character and beats his partner, Theodore, for doing things wrong. He has very familiar characteristics towards the 'Pantaloon' Stock Character from Commedia Dell'Arte because of this. He has a large scar on his face of unknown origin. Cricket could be in his late 40's-early 50's.

Development/Refinement On The Three Games And Characters:

Before the 'Truth or Dare' game begins, we are going to play a theme tune for 'The Bridge'. here is the intro song we have chosen to use: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsA-qIUVhRo

Sophie had brought up some of the extra ideas we had from last session. She had wanted to experiment having a way to introduce the contestants in a physical approach. The performance starts with four chairs. The four chairs have all four contestants with full head masks and they are tied up with rope. The theme tune starts and the four contestants try to burst their bubble by doing the 'Stretching The Personal Bubble' exercise. This approach to the darker side of 'The Bridge' is a good way to show how it is very sinister and continues to do so here-after. 

After finishing the 'Truth or Dare' game, we then moved onto the Obstacle Course. We originally had four people to make an obstacle using their body and one of the contestants had to go through the obstacle to reach a prize on the other side. To save time, we thought that instead of all four contestants go through the same obstacle at one time, we instead thought that we would make one obstacle for each contestant and then transition between each contestant. 

This was until I had thought back to a workshop session we all had earlier on in the year where we had used bamboo sticks to create an obstacle to go through. We all thought that this was an even better idea to go along with, so what we did was that we had refined the obstacle course portion of our performance to use bamboo sticks instead of our bodies to create the obstacles. We still used our bodies to create to make it a little more difficult to go through but it's mainly the bamboo sticks. Bamboo sticks are there to make even more interesting shapes resulting in a harder course for the contestant to go through and beat. As you can see in the photo below, the sticks make the image more interesting as it is an imaginative approach to go through rather than using people. Also there is more space for people to be more creative because you can create many more levels and more teamwork is required. 

The third game is very exciting, especially as it ends the whole performance. The aim of the final game is to get out of a rope whilst blindfolded on top of an actual bridge. The third game brings so much suspense and tension since the audience won't know who lives and who dies. The setting leads right back to the title of the game: 'The Bridge' and also fits into the stimulus about how Billy Joe jumped off the Talahatchie Bridge. We are going to be adding a projector for footage. The video will include the contestants being driven to the setting of a bridge so it'll shock the audience and it'll make them think if someone is going to die. Death is an obvious scare for everyone so this is something that we're going to really try hard to make in terms of dramatic effectiveness.

Now that we have the games mostly sorted, it was time to work on our characters since we want to add in some monologues to have audience interaction and relation. This also goes along with the Physical Theatre style of Steven Berkoff as he always breaks the fourth wall in his productions. We had resulted to use Hot Seating in order to do this. Hot seating is a great technique to use for getting to know your character because it allows you to think about what your character would say and how they would show themselves physically. Some members of group, such as Milo, struggled with this task as he wasn't focusing enough and it didn't look believable. Me and Sophie were trying to help each member of the group to remain focused and come out of this session having a believable monologue from each character.