AAS (33) - CIDNT - Voices, lifts & final scene

Unfortunately James wasn't in this lesson but, due to a tight time schedule, we had to continue blocking our scene, but would add him in next lesson. We skipped the beginning paragraph that Christopher speaks and the "left, right, left, right"'s; we continued with where we left off with the first voice section. Our movement for the first voice section is as follows:

• Ollie M's shoulder goes under James' armpit (as James moves towards Ollie and lifts his arm to form this position). James picks up Ollie and move him round from facing the back to the front. -- This disorientates Ollie and symbolises the fact that he is being forced to face something he hasn't had to deal with before.
• I push Ollie round in a circle whilst miming to be on the phone. -- I am being a typical Londoner. Lives up to stereotypes. Shows commotion. Disorientation.
• Ollie ends up facing stage left, and is pushed by Kat into Oliver Kelly's back. -- Shows danger of London.
• The two Ollie's do a lean, where Ollie is leaning backwards on Oliver's back. -- Shows support.
• Ollie is pushed forwards into me. We all do the lift that I explained in the previous blog.
• As Ollie is put down, I move round so we are back to back and we both have our knees bent. -- This is supposed to symbolise us both sitting on a bench.
• Oliver then walks through the middle of us both, causing both Ollie and I to fall to the floor. Ollie falls as his character but I fall and then mime holding a cup to suggest I am a beggar. Oliver stands stage left holding his arm out straight to the side. He is then pushed round in a circle as if he is a ticket barrier.
• We then have a pair section (Kat & James, and Oliver & I) whilst Ollie walks around and between us. As I am on the floor being a beggar, Oliver walks past and throws an imaginary coin into my cup as he then helps picking me up. He then turns around and becomes a busker and as I turn, I throw the same imaginary coin into his cup. I then become a tourist as I mime reading a map and being lost. -- We all wanted to keep changing characters to show the diversity and range of different people in London.
• We all then walk round Ollie in a circle, at different speeds, different directions and to different places. -- The purpose of this was to disorientate Ollie and to re-create the hustle and bustle of London.

We then moved on to creating a lift where Ollie would be up high in the air and everyone else perfectly still for the Information section. We tried doing a pencil lift where Kat and I lifted Ollie's legs and he had to hold his core perfectly straight. Kat and I then had to hold this lift for the entirety of the Information section. We had some difficulty with this lift as we had to hold it for so long and we were all struggling to keep him still. Therefore, we decided to change it - Oliver bent down between Ollie's legs and then stood up so Ollie was sitting on Oliver's shoulders. This meant that Ollie was then sitting down and didn't had to focus so much on staying perfectly still. It also meant that Kat and I didn't hurt our hands! To get out of this lift, Oliver bends his knees slightly and leans forward, giving the effect of throwing Ollie off of his back - Ollie jumps forwards and lands in a crouched position. We wanted Ollie to be lifted to suggest that he is mentally far away from this place and his head is "in the clouds", as it were.

We then skipped the section with Ed in, as James wasn't in, and instead moved on to the scene with Punk Girl and Man With Socks. However, we did create a short movement section for the "train coming, train stopped, doors open, train going, silence" part. For the "train coming" line, we all look to our left as if we are watching the train coming towards us. For "train stopped" we all look back to the front to show that the train is directly in front of us. For the line "doors opening" we step back slightly, look frightening, to show that we don't want to get in the way of the doors. For "train going" we all look to our left to suggest that the train has just left the station. For the word "silence" we all look to the front and sigh a breath of relief. These five movements are repeated every time this line is repeated.

Throughout the entire scene, we were planning on having two pieces of steel decking at the back of the stage. Everyone would then stand on this steel decking for this scene to show that we were on the tube platform. This gave us a higher level, enabling Ollie to jump down to the floor for when he is looking for Toby on the tracks. We perform this scene in a naturalistic manner. We thought this would be interesting as it is the most critical and shocking scene, but it is done naturalistically. This reflects how Christopher would not see anything wrong or shocking with his actions as, in his mind, he is simply looking for and trying to get back his pet rat. The contrast of the everyday scenes performed in creative physical theatre styles with the shocking scene performed naturalistically emphasises how Christopher finds the everyday London scene of crowds terrifying and disorientating, but the madness of being on a tube track perfectly understandable.

Next lesson, we shall put James in to what he has missed, as well as hopefully completing our entire piece.