Our main focus over the past couple of weeks has been reading through each moment of our story, unpicking each line so we can understand the meaning behind it and start getting it up on its feet. I had a lot of fun seeing where we could take each scene whilst being as physical as possible with each character and making them all different. I’m currently struggling to engage the rest of my body and it’s taken me a lot of time to become comfortable enough to exaggerate every character, I was very nervous about this but I made sure to check in with myself, feel the floor below me and tell myself “what’s the worst that could happen?”. With this mindset, I started using my body to its advantage and experimenting with my voice to see if I could find something that fits that character, and I ended up really enjoying our read throughs and seeing which characters and dialogue everyone is right for. However, I’m currently struggling to go away and unpick each story by myself and cultivate my own vision for each of them. It’s very helpful getting to come together as a company and look at every moment line by line, but I want to become more independent in my ability to understand and dissect text as its important for me to use this skill when looking at monologues, and I want to use this process to help me develop how I work as an individual when learning dialogue or understanding a piece for a future project, as well as working in a company.
One of my favourite scenes to put on its feet was Porno, and it speaks a lot about the separation of both women and men and their views on the porn industry. There’s some dialogue in the story where the women say “I can’t” and begin to help each other out of these scenarios they’ve been pressured into, and as they’re helping this young girl there are a few lines talking about the opportunities that porn can give someone, which I can see the male actors saying whilst the females come together and help each other and save one another, new careers and worlds where they can be safe and away from this industry. The ladies then speak a lot about changing the world, ending suffering and saving the future generations, and I believe this highlights the idea that other women coming forward and speaking out about their experiences helps other women to feel like they’re not alone when talking about these issues. It shows that many voices help fight a strong silence and if we create a safe environment for people to talk about these issues, we won’t have to suffer in the dark anymore. Porno is one of the few scenes that looks at how the entertainment industry treats young girls, very similar to The Camera Loves You, so I decided to look into this further, starting with the #MeToo movement.
The #MeToo movement rose to prominence when activist Tarana Burke spoke about her experiences with sexual assault and harassment, which she announced on MySpace in 2006. The phrase has since been used as many women have become more open with their experiences with assault and harassment, and the hashtag became even more popular after Harvey Weinstein was exposed for numerous counts of sexual harassment and rape. The actress Alyssa Milano, who is known for her activism in this subject, stated that "if all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote 'Me too' as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem" which gives a rough idea of how many women have experienced this. As more and more women become open with their experiences, this exposure has led to many high profile men being removed from their positions, such as Hollywood executives. Half of Facebook's users in 2017 were or knew someone who had been sexually harassed. As well as this, some countries that are mentioned in Mom And Dad (Brazil, Cuba, India) that view sexual harassment and assault as the norm and it is something that should be done, very similar to some African tribes that view rape as a coming of age ritual. In many places sexual harassment is promoted and isn't seen as a bad thing in many cultures, as women are seen as inferior and shouldn't be in the workplace at all. This is a way to get them out of work and make sure they don't secure high up positions in companies. This research into the Me Too movement was really useful for understanding more about how women have gained more confidence and are able to safeguard each other, as well as share stories without fear of being judged or belittled. Women are strongest when there's more of us and this relates back to the moment where the women come together and prove that Anne can be so much more than this world she’s got lost in.
A scene that I’m struggling to understand at the moment is the final scene of the play, Previously Frozen. The scene feels like a stand alone moment as I don’t feel like it fits in the story after the previous scene, which happens to be Porno, a moment of unity between women, as this scene focuses on mocking Anne and putting her down as we conclude these attempts on her life and how they’ve made her lose who she truly is. I like how, similar to The Occupier, it can be used inside our vision as a casting of some kind and choosing which actress has got the part, and no matter what Anne does or where she goes, she will never be right for the role. It feels to me like an anti - climax after bringing everyone together and then separating them again going into the final scene, even though this relates to the whole idea of no one being on Anne’s side and thinking she is crazy at many points, even after coming together they’re still mocking and undermining her, nothing will ever be able to stop the horrible feelings that are constantly piling on top of her, weighing her down like the big red bag of stones. I like the vision for Previously Frozen and there are some elements inside it that help to conclude the piece in the right way, but I’m still struggling to understand where it sits as I feel like it should be a scene earlier into the performance. I’m not sure how I feel about this scene and whether it’s something we can move to an earlier point in the show, hopefully with another read through and being given our casting will help to bring these thoughts together and I’ll start to understand more about this conclusion of the piece.
Overall, our first read through of the play gave me lots of ideas and inspirations for any potential characters I’m given but I know that I need to go away and look over some scenes that I haven’t fully grasped yet, and I need to find the right method for me to understand these moments in my own terms. I’m very proud of how I worked through this read through and was able to pick up the concepts and complex dialogue quite easily compared to our first look at the scenes. However, I still have plenty of work to do over the scenes I am unsure about and once I feel confident enough, start to create my own vision and interpretation of the piece so I can feedback with these ideas next week!
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