Since we started devising, I really enjoyed getting to work All Messages Deleted and it’s a great way to round up all the stories and give the audience a hint of what's to come. It’s a brilliant way to set up each story and I like how this play has a conclusion scene at the beginning instead of the end. However, as much as I love the scene, I’m currently struggling to find my character within this story and how I can link this character to the one inside of Strangely. I understand the story behind this moment and that the character should hold a lot of authority and be very threatening towards Anne, and I want to use rehearsals to play with different attitudes and traits that this character might possess. Also, as I’m playing the role of Anne at the end of this scene I want to make these two characters as different as possible, I’m happy how I’m using both characters to create different connections with the audience. For example with my first character I want them to feel curious about the situation I’m discussing and why I am being so threatening towards Anne, I like the idea of the character being closed off to the audience and the rest of the characters, she’s in her own world and will only see what she wants to see, whereas with Anne, I want her to feel more open but show that these first attempts have hit her hard, so much thats she hiding away from the people around her, but I also want it to feel like she's trying to embrace all these moments even though she’s isolating herself, and that moment where she takes a breath with the audience is like she’s looking in a mirror at all her flaws whilst listening to these messages, and she’s being pulled and pushed by those around her, and if we could create a visual for that, it would be to represent how Anne would be feeling in that moment, but then comes to the conclusion of only needing herself. I think All Messages Deleted is a very strong start to our piece and I hope it leaves the audience feeling curious about each story, diving deeper into each character and seeing if they can find similarities further into the piece.
A scene I really struggled to get my teeth into was Faith In Ourselves. I liked getting to create the world around Anya's tree and how sacred life is to this community, and I enjoy the moment where the atmosphere transitions from peace in the community to devastation and families turning against each other, but I struggled to get as physical as possible with the scene and replicate the emotions of someone in this scenario who is watching their family be murdered. I think this mindset will come from researching case studies and immersing myself into the story completely, so I’m able to feel the loss of every grieving mother who has watched their children suffer and die right before their eyes, and exploring any techniques or images that make me tap into the emotion that Anya would be feeling at this point in the scene. She goes on a big character development process throughout the story and we see her in different periods of time. During the devastation, before and after the dust has settled, and I want to go away and look into how I can showcase the anger she feels at the end of the scene. Since we started to devise this story, I’ve really struggled with tackling Anya’s speech towards the camera and I need to work on which way works best for me to showcase this emotion and do Anya justice from the beginning to the end of the scene.
A character I really enjoy playing with is being a production assistant, and sometimes paparazzi in The Camera Loves You. I love how exaggerated each moment is and as the actor, I’m really feeling sorry for Anne in this moment and her journey throughout the story, so I want to look at how I can use this feeling to make her feel uncomfortable and awkward with us surrounding her, but also looking for our approval and willing to please everyone to make her dreams become a reality. It’s really sad to think about and I hope we’re able to handle the topic with care. I really wanna make this character crazy, I think of her as someone who eats, breathes and sleeps acting and has an ever growing passion for being both behind the camera and in front. Unlike the other characters, mine doesn’t hide the truth from Anne, as she is disappointed with her performance and considers recasting the actress, but has her mind changed once she sees Anne’s full potential. I like the idea of the quick change in the scene and pulling and pushing Anne at the end of the scene until it gets too much for her and she realises what’s going on behind closed doors, but I think we might be taking it too far by exposing her body and pulling her dress apart, I feel like it loses the meaning and we’ve seen a lot of Anne being thrown around is this scene already, I think the audience would already have created an idea of what Anne’s life is like off screen. I’ve really enjoyed developing a character with traits that I haven’t looked at in previous projects, and I want to use this show to create a profile of as many different characters as possible, which will help me develop my versatility and skill set. This scene is very similar to the short film I wrote called Bruises, which looked at sexual harassment in the workplace based on the set of a TV show, and the character Mia was rehearsing for in that was similar to this portrayal of Anne which I’ve enjoyed watching her develop.
Mum And Dad is very similar to Strangely! In the idea that we didn’t start devising until very late in the rehearsal process. The scene is very wordy and although the blocking is very simple for this story, we needed a lot more time to get our mouths round the words, and be able to distinguish the difference between each character group but also find a way to bring them together at the end. I like the idea that everyone is separated by location but are brought together by a disgust and ignorance for Anne, and I really like the dynamic between mine and Chloe’s character in the story. I’ve always been set on going for a chavvy but overdramatic character for this scene, and I really enjoyed getting to play with this throughout our first look at the scene. Something I’ve really struggled to get into during this story is representing the countries were mentioning, I enjoyed coming up with a movement to go with each country but I’m struggling to commit and take my space whilst going for it as it’s very chaotic, but I want to build up more confidence in this moment like I have in the rest of the story, and I want to avoid making anything offensive. I feel like a lot of my characterisation for this scene comes from the jacket that I wear, it makes me feel like I’m in a bitchy school clique which is definitely what I want for the story, and I’m really enjoying bouncing off of Chloe’s energy and seeing what kind of duo these characters can become.
One of my favourite scenes to devise was The New Anny as we’ve included lots of movement and dance relating to the idea of a sexy car using four women physicalising each car part or the description that is mentioned. I also think it’s a great idea turning the dialogue into a rap as it makes it more exciting and relates to the idea of the scene being like an advert for a new car, this way the dialogue sounds more like a jingle or something catchy that could be used to promote a new product, rather than it just being spoken. I really enjoyed helping to choreograph our movement piece, iit took us some time to incorporate the car parts being mentioned in the rap but once we were able to turn them into sassy moves that would showcase the car, the meaning behind the story and our interpretation it was very easy. However, it was easy enough when we were creating the choreography by just reading the lines and listening to the beat of the music, but once we put it together with the rap, we realised that we should’ve sped it up by listening to their piece rather than just the beat of the music. Moving forward, I want us to go away individually, listen to the way the dialogue is timed in the rap and adjust the timings of our movements to make sure we’re physicalising the right line, and fill in any gaps where they repeat any lines. Since we developed the first idea we had for The New Anny, we’ve changed our characters to make them seem more pretentious, not too dissimilar to the ones we’ve created for Untitled and we’ve made the movements more static which I really enjoyed playing with and seeing how different I can make this character from any others. With this new layout and the idea of taking the rap more seriously, it makes the two styles used within the piece more of a juxtaposition and we’re able to find a balance between them where it works and the comedy will land better, which is really important for this story.
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