Scene One:
Lewis and I practically workshopped Scene One today. The three of us weren't sure on how we should do this scene initially. Our first question was why are Jerry and Emma meeting? We thought that it was either for closure or because they miss each other and want to get back together again. After reading through the scene, we doubted it was because they wanted to get back together again, as Emma is now "seeing a bit" of Casey. However, at the same time, Emma doesn't seem to really talk about him much and says a few suggestive things and basically admits that she misses him - as she reminisces about how their lives used to be.
Ollie got us to first try this scene as if we were just wanting closure, so the scene was quite tense - I was blunt with my responses and didn't really give that much eye contact. We made the pauses quite long and awkward to achieve the attended atmosphere. We quite liked this approach, but we then thought that it didn't show enough contrast to the end of the scene where Jerry gets angry at Emma for telling her husband about their affair. We therefore thought we could try the scene as if they were quite excited to see each other and clearly missed each other, but had a sort of youthful innocence / awkwardness about them. We also liked this way of performing the scene as it worked with what we were saying, but also formed more of a contrast to the end of the scene.
However, as we managed to create two completely different atmospheres from the same text, we agreed that Emma doesn't really know what she wants - we decided that if we worked from the end of the play to the beginning of the play (i.e. in date order), we might get a better understanding of our characters and how they would really feel.
The staging that we agreed with for both of these scenes is when Jerry goes up to the bar to buy a drink. We decided to make this silence really long and quite awkward. We can make this silence as long as we want. The other part we agreed on was when Lewis would stand up and when he would sit down again during the ending part of this scene. We tried this section a couple of times to get the intended atmosphere. I have to be embarrassed when he gets up, and try to get him to sit back down again, as we are in a busy pub. Therefore, I shall look around more when he gets up and shall try to get gesture him to sit down without trying to have an argument in front of everyone. Therefore, I shall also say my lines through my teeth and quite quietly at the end.
Scene Nine:
We decided to do this scene, and work through the play backwards to help us get a better understanding of our characters, but also of our character relationships too. When we first did this scene, Lewis was already sitting on the bed, I walked in to do my hair and happened to turn round and see him - however, this didn't feel very natural so we decided to change it. We now pretend I have a mirror on a dressing table angled perpendicular to DSL. I look in the mirror to do my hair, and spot Lewis in the reflection. This felt more natural, which is a good thing as Pinter writes in a very naturalistic style by making the dialogue all very conversational and natural.
The other part of the scene that we payed close attention to was the first page of the scene with the stage direction "he holds her". We thought that this was a little too clumsy, so decided that he would go to take her hand. We then decided that it should be my left hand, as he could feel my wedding ring, and this would then spark him off on his speech about being best man at my wedding.
We also developed the monologue section nearer the end of this scene - we worked on how Lewis would be a little bit tipsy, and how I would look uncomfortable and panicky as I know my husband on the other side of the door.
Next Lesson:
It really helped doing the last scene first (doing the play in date order) because it helped us understand our characters better. However, we have agreed that we need to make a timeline of events so we know when what characters know what, as well as what happens when. Therefore, next lesson, we shall make this timeline.
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