"Dr Faustus" - Marlowe (18) (Prologue)

To begin this lesson we did a quick warm up exercise. We began by lying down on the floor and then mimed our daily morning routine (we had to do this as naturally as possible so we couldn't perform this routine, and instead had to become immersed in our own little world). The purpose of this exercise was to make us focussed and to start a fresh, as it were - by going through our morning routine, we forgot everything that had happened during the day and so could begin the lesson with a clear state of mind. Also, we were going to be focussing on rituals. A ritual is "a series of actions or type of behaviour regularly and invariably followed by someone" (according to Google). We then made up a short morning routine, as a group, in an abstract style. We picked five movements and performed them in an abstract way (for example, instead of lying however we would normally sleep, we laid on our backs in a pencil position), and we performed them in cannon. We then added sound to our ritual.

After exploring personal morning rituals, we made two mind maps to explore how we could present rituals: one about movement and the other about sound. After making our mind maps, we split into two groups to make a mini prologue each. The reason we split into two groups was so we could explore more ideas and see what these ideas look like and then pick our favourite parts. My group (Rhiannon, Lewis, Oliver and I) decided to use cannon, unison, levels and contrasting dynamics. Rhiannon and I used the wall (as if it were a flat) to mime drawing the circle part of a pentagram on it (as symbolism is very important in "Dr Faustus"). Lewis and Ollie had a section where they did the movement from a scene in the play, to foreshadow what is to come. We decided to use lines from the play itself to foreshadow events (Lewis said "Cut deeper Faustus", Rhiannon said "But at what cost?", I kept listing the sins, and Ollie read his Latin part). If we had time to add to our piece we would have included chanting. After watching each other's performances, we decided we wanted to include the following: lifts, different directions/dimensions, unison and pace. We haven't decided what sound we shall include as of yet, but we decided what music we shall use - "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpCEfrOvYC0". We searched for demonic music and found this track. We liked this piece as we thought it wasn't too over-powering, but it still set the atmosphere that we wanted to create.

Our prologue so far is as follows:

• Faustus sits in his chair and everyone is in a straight line directly behind him - (we decided to have an aisle in both sides of the audience for the flats to go in. This was so all audience members would be able to see a flat and also see all of the action around the flats. Moreover, by having an aisle, we have created another set of entrances and exits that we can use in our piece)
• James (standing behind Faustus) shall have a short puppetry section with Faustus - to show manipulation and power
• Lewis and I step out to the right, whilst Rhiannon and Rob step out to the right - to suggest a confused state of mind and to build tension
• The two pairs do different lifts to take us girls to just in front of the flats
• (I'm not certain what they are doing at this point, but Charlie, James and Ollie have a section in the middle together). Rhiannon and I draw half a circle on the flat we are by
• We run past each other to the other flat to complete the circle - the fact that we have drawn in a clockwise direction represents the passing of time and suggests that this will be significant in the play itself. 

 This is as far as we got on our prologue today. However, Rhiannon and I did have an idea on what we could include. Originally, we thought of having a short hymn hand section together before we went to draw on the flats. We thought that we could include hand symbols used in necromancy. We then thought we could be dragged away and wave at each other to make the piece more sinister and creepy. We would then draw half a circle on the flat and run towards each other. We did think of singing a nursery rhyme whilst drawing the circle to make the piece more eerie and to fit the stereotypes of nursery rhymes being used for horrors. Initially we thought of "ring a ring of roses", but decided to see if there was any nursery rhymes that fit the theme of necromancy and Satan better. We quickly researched for nursery rhymes relating to Satan, and found "The Clip-Clop Man" (http://storywrite.com/story/7929629-The-Clip-Clop-Man-by-myriad-dark). We then thought that as soon as soon as we finish drawing the pentagrams, Rhiannon and I could scream. This would be very Artaud (as sounds are being used rather than words) and this idea of screaming was actually inspired by "People, Places & Things" (as when the main character had a relapse, the multiple versions of her would run across the stage and scream). Next lesson we shall hopefully complete our prologue and film it.