One element we wished to incorporate into our piece was
multirolling and so everyone had one main character and then we also undertook
some multirolling. My main character was Goldy and I found developing this role
easy and fun. Having started by looking at Fiona from “Shrek” I then went and
begun to choreograph the ways in which I imagined Goldy would move. Once I had
developed the quick paced movement that portrayed Goldy’s personality I worked
to ensure that in every scene the movement I used was larger-than-life and that
I was never static. The best way I would describe Goldy was hyperactive and
manic and so the movement had to match that. This was the same for voice work.
I knew from the offset that Goldy would be quickly spoken and so I rehearsed my
scenes often to ensure that my diction was clear. I found Goldy’s first scene
with Scarlett the most fun to create and perform as the fast pace of the scene
meant that Shiquerra and I were able to bounce off one another and so we always
performed with high energy.
My other role was Gretel who visited Mr Pig after his run in
with the wolf and he needs someone to talk to. Initially this role was played
by Sam but after she had taken on the role of one of the Pig sisters I took on
the role of Gretel. This was one of the scenes when we made a subtle reference
to a fairytale character, much like how Scarlett’s mother was Sleeping Beauty
and this was shown through her tiredness. Gretel first started as a therapist but
it was felt that we needed to place less emphasis on the therapist role and
instead she was a friend. During our last rehearsals more dialogue was created
between Mr Pig and Gretel to further clarify that she was Gretel of the famous “Hansel
and Gretel” and she conversationally mentions how she used to live in a
gingerbread house when Mr Pig talks about the Wendy House. Just this simple
reference was a clear clue for the children to guess who she was. As Gretel was
a friend to Mr Pig she had to sound friendly and approachable but I had to be
careful not to slip into Goldy and so I made Gretel more reserved and less
energetic to ensure that she could not be mistaken with Goldy.
Evaluation of the process and working as a company:
As a company we worked really well together and were one of
the only groups that avoided any major disagreements. At the beginning I felt
as if some people were putting more into the devising process than others but
after we had a few group discussions we were able to competently clear up any
fears or worries. The majority of our group took on a directing role at some
point, whereas others were more comfortable when being directed. This was not a
major issue though as everyone was willing to put in the time and effort for
our piece. I felt particularly comfortable taking a directing role as I
previously devised pieces in both GCSE and A Level Drama. I felt as we got
further into the development and rehearsal process we became more comfortable
with one another and so were able to be more critical with one another so that
we could all excel our performance skills, this was important in the scenes
such as Farmer McDonald because the pace of that scene needed to be picked up
and so it meant a lot of running through lines to achieve the fast pace needed
for the scene.
One of the difficulties we faced as a group was maintaining the
energy in our characters and our piece, I think this was more difficult for
some as their roles weren’t as physically demanding as others (for example
Goldy). However we worked to rectify this by going over scenes repeatedly to
try and lift the energy of certain scenes. As a group we were really cooperative
in terms of helping one another if one person was uncertain in something, we
always ensured that we worked as a company rather than letting any individuals
struggle on their own.
I feel our weakest point as a group was our work ethic in
rehearsals. We spent a lot of time doing extra rehearsals from early February
and so we were creating and developing at a steady rate. However there were
often moments where as a group we would get distracted and then it would take a
while to get back to work. This wasn’t such an issue in the earlier weeks but
when we only had two weeks before the tour I would become stressed at how
easily people would get distracted. I found myself often having to direct large
portions of rehearsals to ensure that we weren’t losing valuable time. Our work
ethic didn’t prevent us from rehearsing all the time though but at moments when
we were meant to be tightening up scenes it would generally result in a quick
run-through or two and this lack of preparation at times was where I weakness
lay. We also had to deal with the possibility of not making it out on tour and
I think this worry made us work harder as a group and this determination was
what ultimately helped us improve the energy and pace of our piece.
For the most part we were quite organised and our piece was
mapped out very early on so we always had an indication of the direction we
were heading in. Our lack of organisation was in our set. Having seen “Grandpa’s
Railway” we wished to replicate their set of using a washing line, but we left
it very late in the rehearsal process and then had to run around and solve our
issue with set. Eventually we found a board that we were able to use as a
backdrop and it was found to be effective but the lack of preparation meant
that we were still adjusting to our set in our final rehearsals and this could
have led to possible disastrous results when on tour.
Despite our weaknesses I found that our group was really
successful in creating a strong piece of Children’s Theatre and as a company we
really threw ourselves into the devising process to create a funny story that
we hoped the children would really like.
Evaluation of the performance and the potential of the
work in professional terms:
Our school tour was treated much the same as any
professional touring show would be treated. As we were going into schools we
had to ensure we didn’t mess around and gave ourselves and the college a good
reputation.
As we wished to work in professional terms we had to behave
correctly on stage and off stage as we would have behaved when doing our
pantomime.
As our set was a fold-out notice board we had limited space
when offstage and in some schools the audience was large enough that the front
rows were able to see around our set. To effectively deal with this issue we
remained quiet and neutral when offstage so as not to attract any attention to
us. Due to our small set we also had to remain in character until we were fully
hidden behind the set and the same for going into character before you made your
entrance so as not to break the illusion of the story.
As with any show we had to professionally and efficiently work
through any issues we may have been faced with. One issue occurred during our
performance at the Valley School on Friday 21st when our set nearly
fell down and we had to quickly rectify the issue without drawing attention to
ourselves. It was a humorous moment as Tenda had fallen into Luke who had then
fallen into the set but as we were doing a show we had to remain professional
and fix the issue without bursting out in laughter and ultimately ruining our performance.
The other group with us at the Valley School noticed that the set moved but
said that it didn’t detract from the actors on stage, which was what we had
hoped to achieve.
Another small issue we had to deal with was performing in
small spaces as in rehearsals we had an awful habit of using more space than
would be available to us at the schools. We were able to deal with the spacing
issue effectively and so in some schools we would move out more rather than moving
forward to avoiding coming into contact with any of the children.
The strong elements in our piece were the “slapstick moments”.
Our audiences reacted really well to the “Chariots of Fire” chase and the “Star
Wars” fight as well as Goldy’s fighting. We spent a lot of time choreographing the
chase so that it worked effectively and didn’t look like an unorganised mess. Luke
and Matt also spent vast amounts of time choreographing their fight so that it
would be entertaining and funny. The children seemed to react really well to
Goldy’s fighting moves and there were often children copying them after our
performance. I think because the moves were so ridiculously big the children
found it really funny and the moves would come after dialogue and so would
change the pace of a scene, and David Wood has stated how changing the pace of
a scene helps keep the children’s attention. The bears weren’t initially meant
to have such a big role in our piece but that changed and we found that they
were one of the most talked about characters in our piece, showing that something
as simple as hand puppets making stupid sounds can be as funny, if not more so
than a joke.
The weakness in our performances as the energy delivered
when on stage. However we found that this was the result of having a quieter
audience, but as we were doing a tour of professional quality our energy should
not have slumped because one audience was less reactive than another. We found
that on our first show on Friday we had become slightly complacent as so we had
to bounce back and put in lots of energy for our final show of the tour. Our last
show performed at a school and our performance at the college were two of our
better shows as we went out with so much energy that we were still buzzing
afterwards. I think as we had been working consistently on our piece for a
while we slumped in the middle of the week due to exhaustion and we really had
to pick up the energy as each audience deserves the same level of performance.
Another issue we had was diction as we developed a habit of
speeding through dialogue and so this meant that the audience was unable to
hear what we were saying, and dialogue that was funny was getting lost. I had to
work particularly hard on my diction as Goldy spoke uncharacteristically fast
and so it was important that I had good diction otherwise none of my dialogue
could be understood. I felt that our diction as a group improved throughout the
week and by Friday evening we had vastly improved from the beginning of the
week, and I’d even say we’d made an improvement from Friday morning’s performance.
On the whole I think our piece and the schools tour was a
success. As with all shows we were re-working scenes in the morning before
shows to ensure that we were giving the schools the best performances we could
deliver. The feedback we received was that our piece was on par with
professionals that have visited the schools. This was nice to hear as it made
all the long rehearsals that much more worth it. Having spoken to parents after
our performance on Friday evening a lot of them felt that our piece was really
funny and they felt we’d done a good job of providing something for everyone. If
I were to do Theatre for Children again I would want to look at more stimulus
as you can never have too much knowledge on this style of theatre. I would also
want to film more rehearsals as our group were often struggling with the pace
of scenes and levels of energy so if we’d had more footage to look at it would
have made it easier to re-work scenes. Despite the stress of having to devise
something from scratch I thoroughly enjoyed the project and found it very
rewarding to get to go out on tour and perform “The Big Bad Who?”.
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