Today, we were put into small groups and given a script each. I was put in a group of three with Rhiannon and Ollie; we were given a scene from "Ten Tiny Fingers, Nine Tiny Toes". Ollie performed the role of Orderly (a nurse with no sympathy and no morals), Rhiannon performed the part Lucinda (a pregnant class three lady) and I played the character Dot (a pregnant class five woman). During this scene, Orderly injects both Lucinda and Dot and briefs them on childbirth. Dot is not allowed to keep her child as she is a class five woman, but Lucinda is also not allowed to keep her child as it is missing a toe. The women support each other through their terrible ordeal. Lucinda explains how she wants to live with Dot, whilst Dot describes how she wishes to be a higher class.
At first we began by just picking our parts and reading through the script together. We then added a different voice for our characters than our own. Once we had established our characters, we began staging our piece. Our decision was to have Rhiannon and I on two chairs each, positioned to make a bed each. Ollie walked around us and between us throughout the piece, to present his characters authority and lack of care for his patients.
15/09/15
This lesson, each group performed their scenes to the rest of the group. After each performance we used Forum Theatre to alter their piece to how we thought it should be performed. As more time was spent on other groups than expected, there wasn't much time to alter my groups piece, so we didn't get to go through the whole piece. However, we did manage to make a huge difference to our piece. Originally, Ollie performed the role of Orderly very robotically and inhumanely, to show his characters lack of understanding and care. After the workshopping, Ollie's characterisation completely changed. This time, Ollie performed the role "too happy" that it was even creepier than before! This made mine and Rhiannon's responses more natural as we were generally a bit frightened!
