Evaluation

We began the day with a dress/tech rehearsal in the CYT. After an energetic warmup, they rehearsed it while I helped William Hall with my lighting and sound cues. I decided to have no lighting changes during the piece as I thought it may become distracting. I went through the music and the sound effects until I was satisfied that they were at the right volumes. After the first runthrough, Amy Legge gave some feedback to my cast, saying that everyone needed to be more energetic, there needed to be better pacing and that Eleanor had to project, not rush her lines and make better use of physicality.

I then did another run-through, in which my cast did their best to take on board Amy's notes. Eleanor was still however very quiet and closed in. I noticed a few small specific bits that needed work and decided to take my cast to another room to rehearse some more. The first thing I wanted to improve was the beating scene. I thought that it looked a little slow and gentle, so I tried to coach them into making it appear more aggressive and as though the abusive foster parents were enjoying it more. I did my best to make Conor and Eleanor more confident that they wouldn't hurt Chelsea if they made it appear more aggressive. Eleanor was making it difficult though as she made it clear her reluctance to rehearse. There was one instance where she walked off of the area we had designated the stage saying: "I can't, I just can't". I tried to talk to her about what was wrong, but she refused to give a clear answer.

The next thing I wanted to improve was Chelsea's delivery of the line: "No, I don't want to be like Jesus. I fucking am Jesus!". I thought that it could be a lot bigger and could work with a small gap between the two sentences. I also helped her time her line, "Hello" when the foster parents return, to be between two of Lewis' sentences so they aren't distracted by Lewis or see Chelsea's line as a distraction.

A couple of hours later, they performed they play in front of an audience. In Scene 1, Lewis began well, speaking in an unsettling voice while keeping pace. Unfortunately Eleanor still appeared to be very inexpressive physically. The audience laughed at quite a few parts in this section, such as when Conor and Eleanor become the 'Abusive Foster Parents'. It was not long after this section that Lewis got one of his lines wrong and then proceeded to jump forwards and backwards in the story until he got back on track again. One of the things lost with this mistake was the improved beating scene. The two small bits I had practiced with Chelsea I noticed had improved greatly and got large laughs from the audience.

They soon went on to Scene 2. I had trouble hearing Eleanor's lines throughout the play as her voice had become very quiet and faint. Various people told me the same thing after the play had finished. I think that the other actor's performed very well in the rest of the scene and kept it a very watchable story.

When Scene 3 began, the responsibility to tell the story became mostly Conor's. I believe that he pulled this off exceptionally well because I could tell that the audience were hanging on to his every word. They laughed at certain points of his story and were then transfixed at more serious parts of his story. I received feedback from various people after the show saying how well he had performed the story. When the play was finished, there was a large round of applause for the entire cast.

Overall, apart from a few mistakes, I think the performance went very well. It entertained the audience and hopefully immersed them in the stories to some degree, which was what I was hoping to achieve with this play. One of the things that went really well was Over-the-top portrayals of characters such as Conor's abusive foster father and Lewis' little bot. One of the things that didn't go so well was Eleanor's lack of physical and vocal performance.

18-19/04/13 Individual rehearsals

Over the past two days, I have had individual rehearsals with all the actors with a monologue. I began with Lewis.

I've noticed that Lewis often paraphrases the lines and has trouble with words and phrases such as 'find neither hide nor hair of her'. I decided that I would go through the whole monologue with him, unlearning some of the lines he had learned incorrectly and replacing it with the proper wording. I did this in small sections and did other activities inbetween so it wouldn't become boring and tedious. These activities included asking him to tell me the story of 'The Little Jesus' in his own words and performing the monologue to ensure that he had taken on all he had learned. Another thing I did was help improve his timing on some sections, such as: "And so she was sent off by the state to live in the forest, with some...abusive foster parents...........Who hadn't informed the state that they were abusive, on the form." I felt that I needed to help him insert pauses in sections like that to improve its comic value. All these exercises were helpful as the next day, I noticed that he had almost completely relearned the script without any stuttering or hesitation.

The next day, I did exactly the same exercises with Conor as he too was paraphrasing. He is already very good at using pauses for dramatic and comedic effect, so I thought that time would be better used relearning the script. I will see in the next rehearsal if Conor has taken it all in.

Finally, I worked with Eleanor. I did the same exercises as I did with the others, but we were finished so quickly as she already knew the speech perfectly word for word. So I decided to go through the speech with her a few times, helping her slow it down instead of rush it, and help her find points where dialogue could be slowed down even more. We then practiced her physicality for 'The Little Jesus' to try and make it larger more obvious and more caricature. She has got a lot better at it in recent weeks, but I believe she can improve even more.

Character Word Count

M1: Lewis - 1020
M2: Conor - 1228
F1: Chelsea - 91
F2: Eleanor - 626

22/03/13 Evaluation

I began the rehearsal with an improvisation game where two characters find themselves with a mundane dilemma and must sort it out in the most exaggerated, dramatic way possible. I did this to try and help my cast be more caricature and deliberate in the first two scenes of my extract. I was quite pleased about how well this worked as my cast both enjoyed it, and I noticed a difference in how they performed the scenes.

I asked that they perform a timed runthrough of the play to ensure that it was within the time restrictions. I believe that the runthrough went exceptionally well with the notes given yesterday still being taken aboard. I timed it at about 18 and a half minutes which is perfectly acceptable. I started off with a general note to my cast that from now on, they should not be coming out of character if they make a mistake. Instead, they should do their best to carry on. For scene 1, I gave praise to Eleanor for her use of facial expressions, praise to Conor for his evil foster parent posture, praise to Lewis for his priest impression and praise to Chelsea for the funny way she delivered on of her lines on the cross. One thing I noted needed improving was the way the foster parents beat Chelsea. In that rehearsal, it seemed a little fake and slow and Eleanor appeared to be too gentle.

I had much to praise and very little to criticise about the second scene as it had been performed so well. One thing which I did bring up however was that the performers were sometimes not anticipating what came next and rushed to positions, slowing the pace of the scene and making it look unprofessional.

I also had very little to criticise about scene 3 either. The main issue was that Conor did not know the speech well enough and that he often made errors with wording, dynamics and inflection. Hopefully he will be more familiar with his lines after the Easter holidays. Another thing I want to improve is Eleanor's characterisation in this scene. Her character compulsively corrects Conor throughout the scene, but Eleanor appears to be playing her as bitchy, which slightly spoils the atmosphere of the scene. Instead, I want to guide her into being more passive aggressive.

Phil Green provided some feedback, almost entirely on scene 1. His main point was that it should be "be much bigger and more deliberate." I agree largely with this and intend to guide my actors into playing much larger and precise characters. He also noted that Lewis could be more 'unsettling' when narrating. Phil gave us a sheet on Melodramatic gestures which describe cliche ways of expressing emotions on stage. I encouraged my actors to act it all out to help them understand what I'm trying to achieve better.

Afterwards, we did another runthrough and I noticed a positive effect that mine and Phil's feedback as well as the exercise had had.

21/03/13 Evaluation

I began the rehearsal with a few warmups to prepare them physically. We were pressed for time, so I did no linguistic warmups. I was hoping that we would be able to do a timed run-through today, but this was not the case however as Lewis and Conor know the lines, but often forget or pause before them.

I asked them to perform Scene 1 which I planned to make no notes on, although I gave a few important ones at the end. I told them that Chelsea needs to have more energy when playing the little girl, Eleanor needs to be more loving as the parent and more cruel as the foster parent and that Lewis needs to go over his lines a few times at home.

After being thrown out of the suitable quiet room we were in, we were forced to rehearse in the corner of the noisy, overcrowded G50. I asked them to go through Scene 2. The performance went very well and the only notes I had to give were that Eleanor had done exceptionally well learning and narrating the lines, but needed to go over them so as to avoid unnecessary pausing.

I then asked them to perform Scene 3 while I took notes. It was performed quite well and I gave a detailed list of notes at the end. I told Conor that he should not cross his arms while narrating as it makes him look like he isn't enjoying telling his story. He was also using an unusual inflection on a rhetorical question, which I asked him to correct. However, I did praise him for the brilliant voice he did for the little girl. I noticed that Chelsea appeared to be focused elsewhere in the scene, so I told her that next time we rehearse scene 3 that she needs to be enchanted by Conor's story.

We finished by running through the whole play again to make sure that they took on board the notes I gave them.

21/03/13 Plan

Today, I simply want to do a quick warmup and then run the play from the beginning and take notes. If it goes smoothly enough, I want to do a timed run-through.

15/03/13 Evaluation

We started with minimal warmups as I wanted to start going through the scenes. We went round in a circle doing various exercises and then stretches. I was also concerned that during previous rehearsals, the performers were using cues from the narrator to advance the story instead of synchronising the actions with the words. So I asked the group to go round the circle, each telling the stories from the play in their own words one sentence at a time. I believed this helped them know the stories better and helped stop them viewing it as merely words on a page.

We then rehearsed all of Scene 1. Lewis has now learned most of his lines so it went fairly smoothly. Lewis is still deviating from his neutral character and I would like to work on that at a later date. The performers were still occasionally taking cues from the narrator which I pointed out after they had finished.

We then rehearsed Scene 2. Now Eleanor has memorised almost the whole story, I can see that she narrates the scene exceptionally well. The rest of the cast occasionally missed cues though. However, I believe that this will fix itself as they rehearse it more.

We then went onto Scene 3. Conor had tried to learn it all, but often stumbled on lines, missed lines or paraphrased too much. I have encouraged him to work on his lines more over the next week. I also felt that Chelsea and Lewis were being too over the top with their characters in a scene that I want to be calmer and more natural. I had a quick talk with them on this subject, but I believe I can do more with them over the following weeks.

15/03/13 Plan

After the usual warmups, I want the cast to go through the stories in their own words. This is because I have noticed that they are often treating the stories as just words and not as literature.This will be easier once they see the stories from a different perspective. I also want to try and help them feel empathy for the character's in the story to make their performance of it feel more personal. Another problem I have noticed is that in scene's where actor's have few or no lines, they tend to forget what comes next in a story and are late with their cues. I'm going to tell them to focus on this to keep up the story's pace. I also want to make scene 3 more tranquil as some of the actor's are treating it too similarly to the other two scene's and using exaggerated voices and gestures.  

14/03/13 Plan

I will begin the rehearsal with the usual warmups. I will then do the game based on 'that's right Bob' to allow more storytelling practice. Afterwards, I want to try another amendment to the 'magic rock' game. In this version. I will shout out an entity, and my cast will become a naturalistic version of that entity. Every few second's, I will shout 'and bigger' to which they will exaggerate their portrayal slightly until they have made their creation massively exaggerated. I am hoping that this will aid Eleanor in improving her physicality in the performance. I then want to go over scene 3 again, because we haven't rehearsed it in a while. I then want to try and make scenes 1 and 2 much more abstract and unreal after feedback from John last lesson.

08/03/13 Evaluation

We began with warm-ups as usual. I got my cast to play a game of word association to help them warm up cognitively and to try and help them become more spontaneous in rehearsals. This worked well as after a few times around the circle, the words came quicker and were often more creative. We then played the same physical exaggeration game I played yesterday. It worked for most of the cast but today, Eleanor struggled. I identified the problem as Eleanor having trouble creating when put under pressure. I will tweak the exercise yet again to account for this. I will now do a version where I call out an entity and my cast create a naturalistic version of the entity. After a short while, I will then prompt them to exaggerate it slightly. And then again, after a short while, I will prompt them to exaggerate it even more, until it is as big as it can possibly be. I predict that the other cast members will reach the peak of exaggeration before Eleanor, so I will have to find some method of pacifying them until Eleanor has had time to fully exaggerate her character. I may do this by setting simultaneous tasks to individuals, eg. recite the alphabet backwards while performing the exaggeration.

We got through what we had rehearsed previously very quickly and very accurately. Conor and Eleanor make very convincing and scary foster parents, which I made them aware of, highlighting their great performance. I also had a quick talk to Chelsea about making her character much larger and more melodramatic. We managed to block all the way through to the end of scene 1, meaning that we have now blocked the entire extract. I let them know what a great job they had all done.

I got feedback from John, that I should try and step away from naturalism as much as possible.
In further rehearsals, I am going to try to make scenes 1 and 2 much larger and more Brechtian/Artaudian. I want scene 3 to be much calmer and sweeter, so I want to keep it less animated and a little more natural than the other scenes. Now that the whole extract is blocked out, I don't have to be worried too much about linearity while rehearsing.

Why I chose The Pillowman

When I first conceived my ideas for Micro, I had the idea of doing a stage version of Aronofsky's 'Requiem for a dream' using extracts from the screenplay and focusing entirely on Sara Goldfarb's descent into Amphetamine Narcosis. I wanted the play to start off naturalistically and then become more abstract as she becomes more and more addicted. Meeting the first years for the first time, I began planning who would be most suitable for what roles. However, I later found out that I was not allowed to create a micro based on a screenplay.

I then had to completely rethink what I was to direct for Micro. I then remembered a play I had seen in 2009 called 'The Pillowman'. It is a naturalistic play about a writer called Katurian living in a totalitarian state, being interrogated by Police over the content of his short stories and how they appear to have inspired a recent string of child murders. I began to conceive how I could perform extracts of it in 20 minutes. My first idea was to do the first twenty minutes of the play, but the problem was that this section was purely backstory to prepare for the later plot. I thought that this would be boring and unfulfilling. I went through the rest of the play trying to find a twenty minute extract that would work well on its own, but I couldn't find any. But throughout the play, Kautrian tells 4 entire short stories: The Writer and the Writer's Brother, The Little Green Pig, The Pillowman and The Little Jesus. I thought that it could be interesting to exhibit these stories in a non-naturalistic way using four actors; one narrator for each story.

To make it easier for my cast to understand, I typed up the stories myself adding stage directions and giving lines that are said by characters within the story to actor's other than the narrator. After I did a word count, I estimated that if I did all 4 stories, it would be about twenty-five to thirty minutes long. I also had an idea of creating a Meta-narrative, so I decided to cut The Little Green Pig as it did not fit in. My ideas on the Meta-narrative changed quite often, so I will only write about my final concept. I decided that 'The Little Jesus' and 'The Writer and The Writer's Brother' would be closely linked by the content and style while 'The Pillowman' would be completely separate. I divided the first two stories into Act 1 and 'The Pillowman' as Act 2.

Act 1 has a centralised theme of parents abusing their children in a way that is pointless and reminiscent of Grimm's fairytales. I wanted the stories to be narrated by one narrator with vocal input from actor's playing characters in the story. The other actors would overplay the characters in the story to a comic degree while music that was highly unsettling played. I understood that this play was a black comedy, and I thought that the best way to express the humour was to take it as seriously as possible. That way, actions and lines that are so unusual or bizarre become funny. I was initially unsure of what order to perform them in, but then I remembered a quote about the Israel/Palestine conflict: "The oppressed have become the oppressors." I thought it might be interesting if the actress playing The Little Jesus becomes the abusive foster mother in 'The Writer and The Writer's brother.' I also remembered a psychological theory that abused children grow up to marry someone like their parents. As I had the same actor playing the abusive father in both stories, my play would have alluded to this too. However, I knew that these thing were not the most important things to focus on, so I did not emphasise them.

I wanted Act 2 to focus on the story more than the action and have a much slower pace. In the original script, Katurian is telling the story to his brother Michal. Michal often makes small interjections in the story. To make use of the other three actors, I decided to split all of Michal's lines between them. I noticed that I could put all of Michal's lines into three groups: accepting, declining and correcting. I decided one of these groups to each actor and would have them create a character based on those groups. I wanted to use piano music that had a slow and uplifting feel, which would greatly contrast the music from Act 1.

08/03/13 Plan

I want to start the lesson with the usual warmups before going into exercises to build up their imagination and physicality. I did well in the last session in helping Eleanor express herself, so I will try and continue that in this rehearsal.

I want to continue blocking scene 1 and 2 as we have got through it so quickly. Once I have the skeleton of my piece created, I want to build on it by guiding them over voice and physicality. I also want to talk to them about the transitions between scenes.

07/03/13 Evaluation

We began with the usual warm ups to prepare them physically and linguistically.We then played a game where the cast told a story each saying one sentence, so that it created a whole narrative. They created a solid story and were very imaginative. I believe that this helped them create some of the material produced later in the rehearsal. We then played a game I conceived earlier where one person comes up with an idea for an entity and creates it in a physical, natural way. The next person then exaggerates it slightly, then the next person exaggerates it slightly until it is as big as it can be. I took this opportunity to help Eleanor develop exaggerated shapes and praised her when she did. I also learned Lewis has an odd preference for standing on tables and chairs.

I introduced music to the cast which I want to use in the production. For the first scene, I have used an unsettling synthesizer score which I think suits the plot and references the religious imagery. When we rehearsed this, I noticed that Lewis was narrating in a much more serious way, which is what I was aiming for. He had also learned a large number of his lines. I praised him for both of these things. We then practiced some more stage combat, with the help of Amy Legge. Amy showed my cast a few moves in stage combat and emphasised that the person who is being attacked is the one in control. They used some moves like headlocks and stomach punches to create the short section it's needed for in the script. I want to refine this in later rehearsals.

We then moved on to the next section with music. I chose a disturbing piano/xylophone duet as it created atmosphere and reflected the childish nature of the story. Eleanor came up with some good blocking ideas for which I praised her for and which I could see she was taking on board. I thinking I am beginning to overcome her confidence problem. Conor created some brilliant facial expressions when creating his loving/scary parent. I will try to get Eleanor and Chelsea to draw inspiration from this when they play the parents.+

07/03/13 Plan

Again, I want to start with physical and vocal warmups. I then want to try a game based on 'That's right Bob' where instead of a topic, they have to create and continue a random story amongst themselves. I want this exercise to further help them develop storytelling skills. As Eleanor was being very reluctant to express Over-the-top physicality, I want to try a game similar to Magic rock where the whole group is in a circle and one person creates an entity in a naturalistic way. The person on their left then has to copy the entity, but make it more exaggerated than the previous person's version. I should have music by this rehearsal, so I want to practice what has been blocked so far with the music. I'm hoping that the music will help set an atmosphere for this performance. Hopefully, we can finish blocking completely by this rehearsal.

01/03/13 Evaluation

The warm-ups went brilliantly and warmed up my cast both physically and mentally. We began to play 'That's right Bob' in which my cast improvise a short monologue about a given subject before passing it on to another person with a similar related topic. I believe that this gave my cast the opportunity to stretch their imagination and express it vocally. I tried to accomplish the same with physicality with the game 'Magic Rock'. This is where I say the name of some sort of entity, such as an acrobat or a pencil, and they have to transform into that physically. However, I found that they tended to become the most conventional version of the entity in its least physically exaggerated form when I need them to make more of their physicality. I have an idea now for a game next week similar to 'Magic Rock' where one person comes up with an idea for an entity and creates it in a physical, natural way. The next person then exaggerates it slightly, then the next person exaggerates it slightly until it is as big as it can be. I noticed during these exercises that Eleanor was having difficulty speaking about a subject, or not expressing her physicality fully, often looking to others for support. I believe that this is a confidence issue and I will speak to a tutor about the best way to help her improve.

We then went over what we had blocked the previous day. My cast remembered it with high accuracy, which suggests that it can be blocked very swiftly.We then blocked out huge sections of Scene 1 and 2 and the entirety of Scene 3. I think that a lot of this blocking will change as the process continues, and the cast think deeper into the text. Near the end of the session I tried to block out a section which involved stage combat. No-one but Lewis had any stage combat experience, which made it difficult to block out what I wanted. I may bring someone in to help teach them more about it. I ended the session by asking them to research Melodrama, as I want them to take inspiration from it's exaggerated emotions, and to read a fairy tale by The Brother's Grimm, as the tales in the story appear to be inspired by these fairy tales. I also reminded them to start learning their lines.

There is a lot of work I want to do on the vocalisation in the performance, but I don't want to get too into that until they know the lines better. I am also going to bring in my first thoughts on the music to have, which may help set a tone for the play. My feedback from Phil Green included a few key notes: 'Feed' during the exercises to try and improve specific actor's skills, highlight the purpose of the exercise, put the script down when watching the actor's perform, and bring someone in to help with lifts and stage combat.

01/03/13 Plan

I want to begin this rehearsal with another Vocal and Physical warm up to prepare for the rehearsal. I also want to play a warmup game called "that's right Bob" where my cast will improvise on a topic selected by someone else. This should get them familiar or refamiliarised with storytelling and making that story clear to an audience. I then want to play the warmup game 'Magic Rock' where I shout out an entity of some sort, e.g. a pirate, and my cast have to create a larger than life interpretation of that character. We came up with some good material yesterday for scene 1, so I want to go over that again, and hopefully, we can create material for scenes 2 and 3 as well.

28/02/13 Evaluation

The first rehearsal went exceptionally well. We began with a game of zip zap boing to get the cast energetic and ready to work. I also go them to repeat a few tongue twisters to aid them vocally. We then played an improvisational game I invented called 'speed dating' in which they came up with a fictional identity for themselves and went on fictional dates with each other. This helped the cast build a fun working relationship with each other and allowed them to express their creativity. We then did as read-through of the script. I requested that my actors stand when they speak to help emulate the feeling of being a narrator. Afterwards we had a good discussion about the play which I believed helped them decide how they would perform the play. I realised that I had fulfilled all my objectives for today and decided to begin blocking the beginning of scene 1. The play came naturally to my cast and great ideas from them became incorporated into the beginning of the blocking. Afterwards, I asked if they had any questions, to which Chelsea asked what my ground rules were. I explained that they were very basic rules to which they should do normally anyway, eg. text me if they will be late or absent. I thanked them for a great rehearsal and set a deadline of 21st of March to learn their lines. I received great feedback about my rehearsal from Amy Legge including "Lovely rapport with your actors creating a really positive rehearsal process."

I also realised a few things I would need to work on specifically with my cast. At the moment, Lewis is narrating and trying to make the script funny. However, what makes the script funny is the fact that the narrator portrays it seriously. I will try to work with him on that. Eleanor isn't putting as much effort into physicality as I need her to. This may be a confidence issue which I will try to correct soon.

28/02/13 Plan

I want to begin my first rehearsal with a few physical and vocal warmups to get them focused for the rehearsal. I then want to try out a game I invented called 'Speed Dating' where each actor invents a bizarre Over-the-top character and goes on a catastrophic dinner date with someone. I want to do this so my cast and myself become more familiar with each other. After that, I want to do a read-through of the script and then have a discussion about it afterwards. I want to make sure that they are familiar with the story and understand it well enough to discuss it with each other.