Devising (17) - Rob and Lewis scenes

In today's lesson we tidied Rob's and Lewis' scenes and then performed them to the rest of the class, whilst filming them. We only did these two scenes today, and didn't move on to my scene or the motifs, but it was a good use of time. It was the first time we had done both of the scenes with the newly cut music.

Rob's Scene:

• Track was perfect - timing was perfect and the feeling was right for them. Changes between each piece were smooth, with the fades.
• Dialogue was good and all fit well - needs to be louder though.
• Lewis was worried that we did our last part with Rob on the table in silence - but this actually worked quite well and is in the style of contemporary theatre, so we shall keep it like this. 
• We just need to do this piece with the shoe laces, then we are complete.

Lewis' Scene: 

• All got the movements and the walking correct
• Transitions were fairly smooth from one section to another
• Script needs editing to include more interruptions, fillers and back channelling to sound more natural
• New script will need learning
• Track with the questions and noise on needs to be made so we can do our naturalistic part at the beginning.

Workshop (19) - A Little Priest

To begin today's lesson we ran "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir" into "The Contest", as we Dan in and we hadn't shown our teacher this yet and she wanted to see what we had been up to! We're glad that we went over this as we worked out what we had left to do for this song - some of us still need to learn the lyrics fully and get used to Dan so we don't laugh at him!

We then decided that we should work on songs/scenes we haven't touched yet - we decided that we would workshop "A Little Priest". This is the number where Lovett has the idea of putting people into pies and Todd loves it! The first way we tried this song was to have us both singing to each other and me getting out different pies on the counter to reference. This was okay but we felt we could be more inventive. We then tried us pointing out members of the audience whilst singing, but again this felt a little bit basic.

Dead Body:   Our favourite idea, and what we are actually using, is having a dead body on stage to interact with. We thought carefully about who we could use. Our first thought was James, as he is supposed to be asleep at this point in the salon, but we decided against him as he is in the next scene. We then considered using Henri from the year below, as he has a dancer's core strength and flexibility - meaning that we could do a lot with him... but then we realised we could use Dan! As Dan is Pirelli, and is the character that Todd and Lovett are actually singing about in the first scene, we realised that we could just use him - and he is a dancer too.

Dead Body's Entrance:   Our first question was how we were going to get Dan down on to the floor of Lovett's pie shop, as he was last in Todd's parlour. Our first thought was to try and carry him down the stairs, but we realised that this would be quite dangerous and also look a bit messy. We therefore decided that Dan could go down the hatch under the stage and be in the "cellar" as it were, which we could bring Dan up out of. This is a lot safer this way as we would be bringing him up a couple of stairs, rather than trying to get him to manoeuvre down stairs. We also debated on whether he should be on a counter or on the floor. We quickly realised that it would be best if he was on the floor, as he would then have more room to move about and there are less hazards.

Dead Dan Dances:   Dan starts on the floor and Rob seated on a chair stage right. I stand with Rob. We agreed from the start that it doesn't matter for Dan to move himself, rather than be completely limp and us moving him, as it makes the piece cleaner and the audience would just accept it. We first tried having Dan just be moved to a chair and sat down to be re-positioned in different poses and different items of clothing and props to portray the different types of people we were singing about. This worked quite well but we wanted to be a bit more abstract with it. We then got Dan to sit up, slouched over, but when we push him backwards his legs would be in the air (i.e. he was always in a 90 degree position when on the floor). As I then pushed Dan backwards and his legs came up straight, I then rested my arm on his feet and leaned on him - this automatically created the comedy for this piece. ///// As Dan is a very able dancer, we then spent some time experimenting with different ways we could move Dan, and soon realised that he can do backward and forward rolls from practically any position! We decided that we would definitely include some of these. We then experimented with what else Dan was capable of and so what we could include. We wanted to include some dancing with Dan at some point as this would be very comical (as nearer the beginning of the piece Sweeney and I do a little dance together as it is iconic for this number). We tried doing a can-can together, with Dan in the middle of us two, but it looked a little bit strange that Dan was moving so well by himself when he was supposed to be dead. We liked this idea though but knew that we would have to alter it slightly. Therefore, Rob and I put our hands closest to Dan on the back of his thigh and moved his legs up alternatively. After this I joked that he could then do both legs at the same time, but then we thought we could actually try this and see what would happen. The results were hilarious! It actually worked really well as Dan put his weight on us both. To finish the piece, Rob and I let go of Dan and step forwards to sing our last note together - meanwhile Dan drops to the floor as he is unsupported. ///// We did experiment using props during the song to show pies with labels and meat cleavers (etcetera) but decided that this would be too much visual - as the audience would then get too distracted by the visual that they are not focusing on the lyrics. We shall include some movements with pies, but I think that we could just mime the pies - as this is quite abstract, is representational, means we don't need to overload ourselves with props and still conveys what we want to convey.

Filming:   We filmed some of what we had come up with earlier on in the lesson. We were happy with the results (despite it being an early attempt and by no means the polished song), but watching it back we realised that Rob and I look down at Dan too much, thus drawing the attention away from ourselves and towards him instead. Therefore, we shall interact with each other more.

Directing (9) - Scenes 1 & 2

Scene One:   Ollie directed scene one again today, as Lewis and I had just worked on it by ourselves previously. Below is what we established in this lesson for scene one:

• The opening of the scene:   Ollie directed us to have a longer pause between Lewis sitting down and his first line. This is to make the scene more awkward initially. 
• Movement:   Ollie wanted us both to move about a little bit during the scene. We didn't really move a lot the first time we did it, so it was a bit static, so we did the scene with more movement. Therefore we tried to use our props more. We put a table in between us so we could get our spacing right. The table altered how we sat and moved. We used our glasses more to fiddle with to show our awkwardness. 
• Emma's intentions:   We discussed Emma's intentions, and whether she should be flirty or not. I personally think she shouldn't be too flirty initially, as she doesn't really know what she wants and it is awkward between them. 
• "Darling":   We discussed the purpose of the "darling" line. Lewis didn't really see the relevance of this line, but we realised that Jerry and Emma call each other this on earlier in the play (in terms of years). We think that the purpose of this was to show that Jerry has almost slipped back in to old habits. 
• Casey:  Ollie got me to do a little laugh on the line "what" after "I hear you're seeing a bit of Casey". This was to show that my character doesn't really want to talk about Casey, which is true as she doesn't give any information away.

Scene Two:   I directed the second scene today as I am not in it. I had already directed this scene when Tom stood in for Lewis, so Ollie already knew how I wanted the scene to be portrayed - all I had to do was put Lewis into it and inform him on what we had worked on previously. For example, we went over the meaning of the line "we used to like each other" - that I feel Jerry is referring to himself and Emma, and is trying to justify his actions. I also felt that there should be a bit more movement in this scene, as I thought it was quite static for a heated discussion. Therefore, Lewis shifted around in his seat a lot to show how awkward and uncomfortable he felt, whilst Ollie simply followed the stage directions, and was quite bold with his moves to show that he is comfortable and confident in himself.

Questions:   We questioned whether Robert actually hit Emma or if he was just saying this. This was an important question to think of an answer to, as not only affect what the audience thinks of the characters and their situations, but it would also alter how we play our characters. We agreed that Robert was just saying this to try and get a reaction out of Jerry - either to get him to be angry so everything is then out in the open and they can resolve it all, or to make Jerry feel less bad about the affair. Another point we came up with was that Casey's name is mentioned a lot in the second scene. We felt that Robert brought him up not to make Jerry hurt more, but as if to say that they are both ex's of Emma's now, so they should both be annoyed at Casey and not each other.

Workshop (18) - Cutting down the script

As this is a workshop unit, we don't want our version of Sweeney to be too long. We had already decided that we were going to do the movie version of the songs, as these are all a lot shorter. Therefore, our first step to cutting down our script was to cut out the parts of the songs that aren't in the movie versions.

Our next step was to try and shorten scenes that involved Dan, Tom, Taylor and Alice - as these cast members are not actually in our class and so are not in all of our lessons, we have cut the beggar woman's appearance on pages eight and nine as it is not necessary. We decided that we didn't need Todd and the beggar woman to meet, as it isn't essential to the plot (as Todd only realises at the end, that his wife Lucy lived). Furthermore, we also cut the bottom half of page 23 and the top of 24 - this is a section of a song sung by Anthony - we kept in the first verse but felt no need for the rest of it - it would only make the show longer, and more for our additional cast members to learn.

We managed to cut down a couple of lines from various scenes, but shall do more cutting whilst we are workshopping scenes - as we could work out what feels right and what isn't needed when actually working on the scenes (rather than sitting round a table with pens).

Devising (16) - Rob and Lewis scenes

In today's lesson we ran the two scenes we have so far. We thought that this would be a good use of time, as we haven't done some of the scenes for a long time. We didn't do our transitions, as we are planning on doing a lesson focussing on just these in the near future.

We began with Rob's scene, as this was the first scene we did. We had to do this scene a few times today to ensure we all remembered it, and to polish our work. Unfortunately, Lewis hasn't had the chance to sort the music for our piece as a whole yet, but he shall do this for next lesson.

We then put all of Lewis's scene, so far, together. We changed how we mimed holding a camera. We thought that miming taking pictures looked naturalistically looked a bit cliché - it looked especially weird as we were doing abstract movements with it. Therefore, we decided that we would position our hands as shown in image - this was more abstract. We edited the section of our piece inspired by our workshop, where we stood in one place but followed Lewis with our cameras - we now use our new way of presenting a camera, but we all change the angle on which we hold our cameras very slowly, to look a little bit creepy and more intimidating - changing the angle represented us zooming in and out. We also worked a lot on our walking as an ensemble section - we altered this slightly so we aren't just walking forwards. Counts one and two are steps backwards, three to seven are walks forwards, and we change direction on count eight. This made the scene look a bit more frantic and disorientating. We then tried the dialogue section - the script is a lot better, but we still need to overlap more to make it see more natural and realistic. Lewis's movements whilst this was happening was really believable.

Devising (15) - Completing the dialogue

In this lesson we almost completed our script for Lewis's scene. We still need to add in a few more interruptions to make it more natural. Lewis has decided what he shall do during this section of dialogue. He shall walk in with his suitcase, put it on the floor and slowly unpack it - folding his clothes up neatly from out of the bag.

Our piece so far:

• First motif (Mental Health) - Ollie walking in, followed by Lewis -- COMPLETE
• Rob's scene (Danny Cornelius) -- COMPLETE
• Second motif (Mental Health) - Colours changing -- COMPLETE
• My scene (Body images?) -- NOT STARTED
• Third motif (Mental Health) - Chair puppetry -- NEEDS WORK
• Lew's scene (Media) -- ALMOST COMPLETE
• Fourth motif (Mental health) - Head Movements -- NEEDS WORK

My scene:   So far with my scene we have been through a couple of ideas. We firstly tried doing a piece about abortion, but soon decided against it as it was too similar to our mock devised piece "Chasing Pavements", that three quarters of our group were in. We then explored our idea of domestic violence to see where it would take us - we liked the techniques that we tried out, but were losing inspiration. As I am the only girl in the group, we wanted to do something with this, whilst playing off the idea of being haunted. Therefore, I thought of things that trouble me personally (and other girls around my age) - one of the things that came to mind was appearance - more specifically physique. As a self-conscious girl anyway, going in to an industry where your figure is important and you are watched and judged by other people seems ridiculous! I am struggling with body confidence and dread it when I have to wear tight-fitting and revealing costumes. Moreover, thanks to the media and how body image is presented through it, many girls my age have the same worries and stress about their weight and size and general appearance. I thought that we could create a scene that presents this idea - I am aware that it is very similar to the media idea of Lewis's scene, but thought that we might be able to adapt this for my scene. 

Devising (14) - Dialogue

In this lesson we purely worked on dialogue. We discussed the idea we had previously about people having a conversation in a cafe, however, we decided against this as we felt it was drawing the idea away from the media. Although we would be presenting how the media influences other people's opinions, we felt that we could have dialogue that focussed more on the media. This brought us back to our idea of someone being on the TV that Lewis is watching. However, we then thought that this could be a bit cliché and typical. We then thought of news presenters at the beginning and end of the programme, when they are shuffling papers and talking to each other - we asked ourselves what they are talking about at this point. This question intrigued us. We then thought that we could be TV presenters having a meeting about who we were going to have in on our show. This would happen as a split screen; on the other side of the split, Lewis would be doing some movement to show that he is trying to get his life together and is working hard.

Decisions:

• To show that it is a breakfast meeting we decided that we would have someone turn up late. 
• To make the conversation more natural we would include fillers, tag questions and interruptions. In our first draf of the conversation, we didn't have any interruptions, so it didn't sound very natural.
• Use colloquial terms and more simplistic dialogue to make it seem more natural than a presentation.

We were really struggling writing the script, so we didn't write much this lesson, but we have a couple of ideas on where we want to go with it. We decided that Rob's character would be worried for Lewis' character and is basically saying what the audience are thinking, whilst Ollie and I would be symbolising what the media is really like, in how harsh it is.

Workshop (17) - Epiphany

In this lesson we workshopped pages 78 to 80. This song, "Epiphany", happens after Judge Turpin has stormed out of Todd's tonsorial parlour and Todd has sent Anthony away. Mrs Lovett runs up the stairs to see what has happened to which an angry Todd replies that it is Lovett's fault that he didn't get to kill Turpin, and he concludes that everyone deserves to die.

We are beginning this song stage left on the stage, as this is where Todd's tonsorial parlour is. We had to start it here as this is where the scene before takes place. We shall finish this song in the pie shop ready for the next song, "A Little Priest". Below are the ideas we came up with for this song:

• Use Audience - similar to film. Walk about the audience and use them as the people that Sweeney is singing to. Naturalistic to abstract to naturalistic. Similar to the film. Starting and ending naturalistically, middle part abstract as it is his dream.
• Walk through streets of London R-B-T - Create a similar scene to when Todd walked from the boat to Lovett's shop, by using the rest of the cast on the floor space to use Frantic Assembly's technique of "round-by-through".
• All be Sweeney - Have certain movements to show characters mind set Rest of cast all be Sweeney.

As we were intending on using the rest of the cast for this song, we couldn't really stage what Rob would do for the middle part of this song so we worked on the beginning. We staged this part and then he experimented with what he could do for the middle section. We workshopped what I could whilst Rob does this- the following ideas were what we came up with (though due to not having a large cast present today, we only workshopped ideas one and two):

1. I froze:   Whilst Rob moved about I tried freezing exactly where I was when he jumped out the window (as it were). This meant that I didn't draw any attention away from Rob's actions as well as presenting that Rob is in his own dream (as I, normality, had frozen).We liked the abstract side of Rob jumping out the window as it was symbolic of the audience being taken through the window to his mind and dreams.
2. Pretended he was still in room:   Whilst Rob was down on the floor, I pretended that he was still in the room with me. I did everything in mime and showed where Rob was (was in real life, whilst he is on the floor in his dreams) by my eye line and focus. I changed my focus throughout the song, got up and moved about in places, all the time looking at middle distance, to make it look as if I could see him. We much preferred this to me freezing as it looked quite interesting and clearly showed that Todd is lost in this dream state - as well as giving the audience an idea of what Lovett thought and felt about Todd's "epiphany".
3. Go on journey with him:   We shall try him taking me with him, wherever he went during the song - almost as if I were his hostage. We shall try this idea next lesson when we shall have more of the cast there.
4. Part of ensemble:   Next lesson we shall try out our ideas for the ensemble (as mentioned earlier in this blog) when we have more of the cast present.

Directing (8) - Emma and Jerry

As Ollie wasn't in, Lewis and I ran the all of the scenes that are just between Emma and Jerry.

• Scene One   -   1977   -   Pub   -   We worked on portraying our intentions by using our tone of voice specifically. We also worked on our pauses and why the meaning of certain lines (e.g. what they mean by "do you remember, I mean, you do remember?" "I remember" - their flat).
• Scene Three   -   1975   -   Flat   -   We imagined what the conversation would have been before the start of this scene to get us in to the right frame of mind. We wanted it to be really awkward and tense between us, as this is the end of their affair. Our main focuses with this scene were our intentions and body language. We directed each other for this scene. My directions to Lewis were mainly to do with proxemics - how far away from me he should be at different points - depending on what was just said.
• Scene Six   -   1973   -   Flat   -   We hadn't done a lot of work on this scene. We worked on the opening and how we would do it. Lewis and I start hugging and he kisses me on the cheek. I then break away from him and put the basket down. We practiced using my bag as a basket to work out how we would move around each other with it. We also worked a lot on our spacing and physical interaction with each other in this scene. On my lines "Do you think we'll ever go to Venice together? No. Probably not" I put the table cloth on the table. The pause after this is used for me to walk over to the chair and sit down again, and used by Lewis as if he wants to ask a question but doesn't know how. The ending is sweet, as I sit up against him I lay my head on his shoulder. This is supposed to be sweet to make the audience want them to stay together.
• Scene Eight   -   1971   -   Flat   -   We had done this scene a few times before so working more on the intentions of these lines, as we had already pretty much staged it. We need the scene to be quite awkward from my perspective as I want to tell Jerry about my pregnancy but don't know how to tell him and scared how he will take it.
• Scene Nine   -   1968   -   Robert and Emma's House   -   We had worked on this scene a lot previously so we just ran it today to cement it in our minds.

Workshop (16) - Mrs Lovett Research

The print screen shows my research and comparisons between Angela Lansbury's, Patti LuPone's and Helena Bonham Carter's versions of Mrs Lovett. I looked at different aspects of characterisation, relationships and different songs. I have highlighted what I liked from each category from each of the actresses. 

Sondheim and Wheeler's script contained the following description: "Mrs Lovett, a vigorous, slatternly woman in her forties, is flicking flies off the trays of pies with a dirty rag as she sings or hums".

Stephen Sondheim's "Finishing the Hat" contains the following description: "Mrs Lovett is not only a chatterbox, she is a glitteringly disorganized one. ... She is cheery one moment, complaining the next, and can instantaneously alternate her attention between pie and customer. Her garrulousness causes her to seem irritating but harmless."

Going by the first description, all three women were perfect in the role. However, going by the second description, I personally think Patti LuPone was the best Mrs Lovett. Obviously, Helena's version is going to be completely different as her performance was for the screen and not for the stage. I like Angela's crazy nature, but I felt it was a little too much, and I prefer Patti's voice. 

Although I highlighted my favourite aspects from each characters, I have found a couple of things that none of them did that I would want to do - firstly, I would want to focus my attention on Todd rather than the razors  in "My Friends"; secondly, I want to show two contrasting mind-sets in "Wait".

Three questions I ask myself about Mrs Lovett are as follows:

1. Would she eat her own pies?
2. Did she break Albert's leg?
3. Did she kill Albert?

I haven't decided on the answers to these questions for my character as of yet, but I shall keep these in mind as I need to remember that she is arguably the most dangerous character in the show.

Devising (13) - Lewis's Scene

During the day on Friday we had a physical theatre workshop with Annie Sutton, exploring Berkoff's and Lecoq's methods. We particularly liked the use of ensemble movement where we all walked in the same direction. We thought it was really effective when we moved forwards as an ensemble, having been moving in random directions as individuals. This was really effective with a large ensemble, so we weren't sure if it would work with just three of us, but we tried it out and it looked surprisingly good. We used this idea to show the relentlessness of the paparazzi and how intimidating we could be. However, as this was really abstract, we decided to do some naturalistic movements as the paparazzi first, as to set the scene. After we've all run round frantically to try and capture the best picture, we then go into our more abstract ensemble movement.

Whilst we are swapping between individual directions and ensemble movement, Lewis stays in one spot to suggest that he is surrounded by paparazzi and cannot escape. The three of us then form a straight line behind Lewis, who mimes eating breakfast. At various points, whilst he is trying to eat breakfast, I shall pull one of his shoulders back at a time to force him to stop eating and turn slightly - as I do this, Rob or Ollie (depending on what shoulder I pull) shall mime taking a photo of Lewis. On the last time this happens, I pull his head back and then push him forward to the floor. The purpose of this breakfast scene is to show that the paparazzi and media are very controlling and leave you unable to do daily activities (such as eating or going to the shops) without being stalked - it shows they are intrusive and powerful. 

We discussed having Lewis watching TV whilst eating breakfast. After we have taken pictures of him, we thought about somehow forming a TV and we would have one of us be a reporter, speaking about Lewis (either coming out of rehab or being spotted doing something). This would be an ideal and hopefully non-cheesy way of introducing more dialogue into this scene. We haven't decided yet how we shall do this but we shall try things out next lesson. As we were on the topic of dialogue we discussed how we could use dialogue but not be cheesy with it. The best idea we came up with regarding dialogue and sticking to our stimulus, was to use a split-screen - we would have a conversation about rumours and media presentation (i.e. what a group of people heard about Lewis's character and what they think of him because of this) and Lewis on the other side. We want what Lewis is doing on one side to be completely different to what the people are saying about Lewis (e.g. the people saying how he has just given up and is really lazy, whilst Lewis is doing a lot of writing on the other side and really concentrating on something). We shall all be thinking of ideas and discuss and try out what we come up with next lesson.

Directing (7) - So far...

Scenes:

1. Staging complete // Intentions need work on being portrayed clearer
2. Staging complete // Intentions understood // Needs cementing
3. Staging complete // Intentions understood // Needs cementing
4. Staging complete // Intentions understood // Practically finished
5. Staging complete // Intentions understood // Finished
6. Staging incomplete // Intentions need discovering // Needs a lot of work
7. Staging complete // Intentions understood // Practically finished
8. Staging incomplete // Intentions need work // Needs a lot of work
9. Staging complete // Intentions understood // Finished

Rehearsals:   We are not making a definite rehearsal schedule, as of yet, because we haven't touched on all of the scenes. However, next lesson we shall do scene six and eight, as we have done the least work on these scenes. We can leave scenes five and nine for a while, as we have completed these and they need the least amount of work. Once we have done a substantial amount of work on all of the scenes, we shall do a full run and then create our rehearsal schedule for the lessons leading up to the performance, where we shall work out our priorities.

Staging:   So far, all of our piece has been made up of just two or three chairs. Not only do we think that this may be too repetitive, but we feel it is a bit Brechtian for a very naturalistic play. We are intending on including a table that shall be used for the bar scene, the restaurant and as a coffee table at different places. As Pinter has written in a naturalistic style, we are taking a Stanislavski approach, and so will be using many props in our production where requires (e.g. glasses, the book, keys). Although, above I have written that the staging is complete for the majority of the scenes, we haven't worked with the tables or any props as of yet, so will need to do this as soon as possible. We shall incorporate the table in to every scene as to minimise the length and potential chaos of scene change. This table recycling can help form the set - i.e. by returning the table to the same place for the flat scene, helps establish the setting.

Dealing with problems:   For every scene that contains just two actors, the third person shall direct that scene. For scenes that contain all three of us, the person who is in it the least shall direct. If there are any disagreements the actor shall make the final decision, if the can justify their reasoning.

Characters:   We all have to decide on how we want each character to be portrayed, and how we want the audience to view them. We have agreed that we want the audience to be sympathetic towards Jerry and like him, but still be torn between Jerry and Robert. We want them to go between wanting Jerry and Emma being together because they seem sweet together, but at the same time knowing that the relationship is wrong so wanting Robert to find out. However, the audience would want Robert and Jerry to be friends so everything resolves itself.

Directing (6) - Scenes One, Two, Three and Four

Today we ran the first four scenes of the play. We had done a couple of them before, in date order, but we decided to run them in the order of the play.

Scene One:   We decided to run this scene as if Emma and Jerry are very awkward. The only movement that was in the scene is when Jerry goes to the bar and returns again. However, although the fact that they were sitting fairly still throughout made it quite tense, we decided that we should add a little bit more movement in it to break it up a little bit. We decided that my character, specifically, should change positions quite a lot to show that she is uncomfortable and doesn't know where she stands - as she doesn't really know what she wants (though it is evident that they still have feelings for each other). For my line, "are you jealous?", I shall be a bit flirtatious as if to attempt to break the ice. I believe she wants Jerry to be jealous as she does miss him - she has lost her husband and as lost the man she had an affair with for seven years, and is now going out with Casey on the rebound.

Scene Two:   This scene is set in Jerry's house, and shows an emotional meeting between Jerry and Robert. Pinter has written all of his dialogue in a very conversational way (by including fillers, false starts and disjointed constructions), thus suggesting he wants his plays to be performed very naturalistically. I directed this scene so it went on a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. I wanted the scene to be quite awkward and tense between them to start, to make Jerry feel more on-edge. I liked how Robert was quite angry at the beginning of this scene as it forms a contrast to the end of this scene. The first time Ollie said the line "don't call me a bastard Jerry", he said it as if he was really angry - he really raised his voice. I then re-directed this line and got him to say the line in quite a bitter way - I got him to say this line through his teeth, in a lower tone and quite quiet. The purpose of this is to show that Robert is warning him on what he says - Robert is probably suggesting that it's best off that Jerry doesn't call Robert a "bastard" for not telling him, when Jerry has had an affair with his wife for seven years. We discussed the line "we used to like each other" and who we thought "we" was. I suggested that they are both referring to other people. I believe Jerry is saying that line as if to try and justify his actions - he is trying to say to Robert that he didn't just get with Emma for the hell of it, and they did in fact have strong feelings for each other so he couldn't help it. I wanted Ollie to say the line as if he was calming Jerry down by stating that they are still friends. The line "I bumped into old Casey the other day. I think he's having an affair with my wife" is used to relieve the tension. I wanted Ollie to say the line in a way that breaks the tension, as I reminded them that despite everything that has gone on, Robert and Jerry are best friends - Robert continued seeing Jerry and didn't say anything about the affair.

Scene Three:   When we first tried this scene, we were a bit tense and awkward with each other. I had played the scene before as I was reluctant to end the affair. However, Ollie gave us the direction to think as if we had had a massive argument just prior to this conversation. This made our scene really tense to begin with. We imagined what we would have been saying before this scene - as Jerry's first line is "what do you want to do then?", we agreed that Jerry had been giving lots of suggestions on what to do, but Emma kept disagreeing with everything he had said. We have agreed that at some point in the near future, we shall all agree where things are in the flat, so we can paint the scene for the audience.

Scene Four:   We had already worked on this scene before but decided to run it so we ensured that we had remembered what we had directed. 

Workshop (15) - Anthony & Fogg

Costumes:   Would it be better to where full costumes or should we wear blacks and be representational with small items? I would have preferred to have us all in full costumes as the audience would get a better understanding of the show, the characters, and would become more engrossed in the show. This would have worked if we had a larger cast, however, as some of us have to multi-roll, we shall be taking the representational option with our costumes.

Page 112 - 114:   This scene is between Beadle and Anthony, but involves a passer-by too. Dan will be playing the passer-by, as his main character, Pirelli, had been killed a long time before this scene. Our first question was where should we set this scene. Our four options were either on the stage, under the stage, on the floor facing the audience, or on the floor facing up at the stage. We instantly decided against under the stage (as this isn't practical as it is a scene with more than one person) and on the stage (as the scene directly after this scene happens on the stage. We decided on doing it on the floor, and Tom would shout towards the audience, to suggest that the audience were in the madhouse. The other decision we quickly made about this scene was that Tom would run away at the end of the scene, rather than being beaten up by the police. We didn't think it was necessary to show Tom beaten up for this section. By getting Tom to run away, we save time, we don't need to worry about forming a convincing piece of stage combat, and we don't need to worry about multi-rolling and quick changes. We workshopped how Ollie would play Beadle in this scene. The first time round, Ollie was quick aggressive and really raised his voice at Tom. On their second time, Ollie didn't shout at all - instead he was really measured, which made him creepier. They decreased the distance between them to increase tension and to make Ollie seem creepier. 

Page 136 - 137:   This is Fogg's asylum scene. As we don't have Alice in our lessons, I stood in for Alice today. We decided that everyone (apart from Rob and I, as we are in the scenes just prior and just after this scene) would play people in the asylum. We have staged our scene starting with Dan and Tom walking down the aisle of the audience towards the stage. This therefore involves the audience in the scene - as if they were in the asylum too. The rest of the class shall be positioned randomly on the stage, but Alice would be seated on a chair on the stage (to make it easy to move about with her; to make her one of the last people to get to; to ensure she is visible the audience). The main part that we workshopped for this scene was Fogg's death. We questioned why Anthony says he "cannot shoot" Fogg. We decided that we wanted Fogg to be holding Johanna close to him, so Anthony cannot shoot because he might accidentally shoot Johanna. So Johanna could get hold of the gun, we decided that Alice would elbow Dan in the stomach to be able to get out of Dan's grasp to the grab the gun. After trying this, we thought that Johanna looked a bit too gutsy, bearing in mind she has been presented as very vulnerable and fragile throughout the show. Therefore, on the second attempt, as I elbowed Dan, I dropped to the floor as if that really exhausted me. I would then quickly crawl over to the gun, whilst Dan held his stomach. As Dan recovered and went to come forward, I would shoot him from on the floor.

Page 127 - 134:   This scene involves Mrs Lovett locking Tobias is the bakehouse, and then her talking to Beadle. As we can't do full scenes under the stage, as there isn't enough room and the audience wouldn't be able to see much, we do the scene on the floor. Instead of going down under the stage, I change all of my dialogue to future tense - e.g. I have changed "Now the bake oven is here... always be sure to close the doors properly, like this. Now here's the grinder" to "The bake oven is in there... make sure you close the doors properly! Next to it you'll see the grinder". James would then walk down the steps to under the stage, and I would shut the doors behind him and then lean on the stage, as if my heart was aching from what I had just done. To show the bakehouse scene we tried doing a split screen - one side would be Lovett's pie shop and the other would be the bakehouse. This did work okay, but we thought we could be more clever with this so decided we would use the stage. As James walks down under the stage and I close the door behind him, James would then go up through the trap door to be on the stage. When it comes to the bakehouse scene, the curtains would open on stage about halfway to reveal James using the grinder. By staging it in this way, the audience can see everything that is going on, there is enough space for this scene to take place, and it is practical as it is not in the way of the pie shop setting or tonsorial parlour. Also with this section of script, we cut all mention of pianos and bells, as it is not necessary for the script, it take up time and would involve us having to get a piano on set as well - there is no need for any of this.

Devising (12) - Developing ideas

Completing Rob's Scene:   We spent the last two lessons completing Rob's scene and trying to come up with ideas. We ran all of Rob's scene with the narration and worked out how we were going to show him committing suicide. We didn't want him to stand on a table and almost act it out, as we felt this might be disrespectful but also look a bit basic. Therefore we decided to use the laces that we had been tying together throughout the entire scene. Rob shall now sit on the edge of the table and we shall use puppetry to get him to hold the laces and lay backwards over the top of the table. The fact that Lewis, Ollie and I each played the central role (of victim) in a different scene was then symbolic for our ending - the use of puppetry (with us three dictating Rob's actions) is symbolic as it represents how our past can dictate our future.

Domestic Violence Scene Discussion:   We were still struggling on this scene so we decided to leave it until later. We have got a couple of ideas in mind from previous lessons but are really not inspired from it at the moment. We did, however, come up with ideas for Lewis's scene so we decided to complete move on from this scene for now and see what happens when we return to it.

Lewis's Scene Discussion:   We initially thought that we wanted Lewis's scene to be either about losing a loved one or the influence of drugs. We weren't very inspired by the death idea (and thought it would be too typical) so we decided on the idea of drugs. To ensure we weren't steering away from our stimulus, we decided that we wanted to show more of the after-effects and how things can haunt you. This idea then lead to discussing rehabs and celebrities that have been through them. We discussed many celebrities that have been through rehab, including Russell Brand, Amy Winehouse and Macaulay Culkin. We did a bit of research into Macaulay Culkin to get an idea of what he has to deal with - we soon realised that paparazzi are everywhere and are relentless. We discussed how the paparazzi jump to conclusions, follow people's every movement and how they often bend the truth slightly or exaggerate to sell more papers. We then discussed how the paparazzi stalk people and basically haunt them - so not only are people haunted by their past but also by their present. The questions asked by reporters and paparazzi can also haunt them - especially if someone has been very sheltered in rehab and protected by the outside world; whatever the paparazzi says about current affairs will probably be the first the person has heard of it. We thought about this, and used our research into Macaulay Culkin to help come up with questions that the paparazzi would ask. We thought that we could make a sound scape of these questions, to which Lewis would walk out from behind the curtains and we would all move about him in a frantic manner. We could also use flashes of light now and again (but not a strobe as this is too patterned and organised) to represent cameras flashing whilst we move frantically during the sound scape. We recorded us saying the following questions overlapping:

• What will you do now?
• Is it true your parents won't talk to you?
• How has your use of pills impacted your career?
• How will you recover from this financially?
• How do you feel about the studio cancelling your contract?
• Did you know your girlfriend is seeing someone else?
• Do you regret that Instagram picture?
• When will you return to twitter?
• Why was your rehab extended? 

Obviously, Lewis shall not be playing Macaulay Culkin, as it were, and instead shall just be playing a character who has gone through rehab. We are not focussing on the rehab section, and instead are purely focussing on the idea of overcoming such a hard time and how that in itself haunts you, but then the added pressure of media interrogation haunts you too.

Directing (5) - Scenes Seven, Eight and Nine

Today's lesson:   In today's lesson we decided that we would start from the end of the play and work backwards, so that we were doing our scenes in date order. Therefore we started with scene nine and worked backwards to scene seven. We did these scenes a couple of times each as we were workshopping them. We focussed on intentions and what each character knew at what point - so we kept referring back to the timeline we made.

Scene Nine:   In this scene, Jerry confesses his love for Emma. He is drunk and sitting in her bedroom waiting for her to come in so he can talk to her. We had done this scene before, but hadn't done the ending of it. The kissing section is supposed to be quite awkward, as it is not supposed to happen. Jerry is completely besotted with Emma and has built up enough confidence (through drinking) to try and kiss her. Emma does have feelings for Jerry and probably does want this to happen deep-down, but knows it must not because of her husband, so laughingly pushes Jerry away between his attempts. When Ollie comes in and Jerry tells him that he is way complementing Emma's looks, Ollie places his hand on my shoulder on the line "quite right" - as if to say that he agrees and he too loves his wife, but also to show that he is protective. We wanted to leave this scene in a way that the audience isn't sure if Robert spotted them together and suspected anything at this time or not.

Scene Eight:   In this scene, Emma and Jerry are in their flat and Emma reveals to him that she is pregnant, but says that it is with her husband's child. We hadn't done this scene before today so we discussed how they would both be feeling. We agreed that the affair started just three years prior to this (as in 1973 Emma confesses she's been having the affair for five years), so they may not have had the flat very long. We needed to see that they are very comfortable in each other's company and are clearly more than friends - the audience needs to see that they are really close - throughout the play we want the audience to be wanting them to last, though at times realising how wrong it is and hoping that they don't! We tried the beginning of the scene in a couple of ways to see how we would like to perform it. We saw two different meanings in Emma's line "I'm making this stew. It'll be hours". Our first thought was that she is implying that they have time to do whatever they like - therefore we tried the scene as quite flirtatious. However, with what happens at the end of the scene (Emma revealing that she is pregnant), we decided that we should perform the scene as if I am quite anxious throughout as I am working out how to tell Jerry. This worked better for the scene. On the second page of the scene I get quite panicky about the thought of Judith knowing about the affair, but Jerry is quite confident and a bit arrogant when saying that she doesn't and couldn't know. We brought out the comedy in Lewis's section about getting annoyed with the fact the Judith has an admirer and goes out for drinks with him. This is funny because it is so ironic and hypercritical - we got Lewis to be really irritated with this to make it funnier. I am a little flirtatious on the line "I have an admirer" as if I am attempting to calm Jerry down a bit. The other line we really focussed on was the line "I'm pregnant". We spent time on this line because we didn't want it to sound really cheesy so, for this reason, I didn't emphasise the word "pregnant", and instead jumped in with the part "it was when you were in America" - as I needed to quickly reassure Jerry that I was carrying my husband's child and not his.

Scene Seven:   Lewis and Ollie worked on the seventh scene. This scene is set in a restaurant in 1973, after Emma and Robert's trip to Venice, and after Emma has spoken to Jerry about her holiday. We worked on making Robert quite arrogant in this scene - we wanted him to come across as more cultured than Jerry (to appear more dominant and powerful), but also as arrogant and rude (so the audience almost worries for Jerry and wants him to be with Emma at this point). We presented Robert as rude by making him dismissive of the waiter and trying to get rid of him. When staging this scene, I reminded the boys that Robert knows about the affair at this point, but Jerry doesn't know that Robert knows. I wanted Ollie to really play about with Lewis's emotions during this scene - i.e. try and make him be on the edge of his seat, panicking, and also try to make him feel a bit guilty at times too. For example, when Ollie asks "how's Judith?", he really emphasises the "th" of this to emphasise that Jerry has a wife. Another section where Robert really toys with Jerry is the part where he talks about Emma and Jerry having a lot in common and also when he asks "don't you think it gives Emma a thrill?".

Workshop (14) - Pirelli entrance // Wait // Pirelli death

Pirelli Entrance:   To begin this lesson, we ran the scene where Dan appears as Pirelli for the first time. We are happy with this scene now as it is cemented and we know what we are doing with it. We wanted Dan's entrance to be very melodramatic to form a contrast to when he reveals himself as Daniel O'Higgins, for comic value.

"Wait":   As this is the next scene after Pirelli's entrance (that doesn't involve our extra cast members), we moved on to the song "Wait" and the short scenes either side of it. The first time we tried the song, it didn't feel right as Rob stayed in the chair the entire time. As the song involves me basically telling him to calm down, we are going to stage the song now with him moving about frantically and randomly, but stopping now and again when I tell him to calm down. We only ran the song once as I am still trying to develop my character fully. Since our first lesson on Sweeney Todd, I have been workshopping my characters characteristics to try to develop my own version fully. However, I have found this quite difficult - and it will affect how I perform my songs, but especially this one - therefore, I shall do some research into different ways the role has been played and then do a character profile. However, we also developed the scene with Tom that happens directly after this song. We workshopped where he would enter from - we knew he would have to run up the stairs, but we didn't know where he would enter from - therefore we tried a few ways. We got him to run in from the hall door and up the stairs. This worked well as the audience could see it happening and it was very sudden. We then tried him running from the back of the hall to the stairs, through the aisle in the audience. This worked better than the first time as it came as more of a shock to the audience and it suggested he was running through the marketplace (instead of through the pie shop).

Pirelli Death:   Pirelli's death is the first death that is shown in the play and (as far as we know) the first person that Sweeney has killed. We workshopped his death as we wanted it to be very dramatic as the scene leading up to Pirelli's death has been very tense and the death is the climatic part of the scene. Therefore, we wanted to workshop this death in three different ways and then pick our favourite, so it is the best we could possibly do:

1. Mocking:   Pirelli would sit in the barber's chair being very presumptuous calling him Benjamin Barker, and threatening to tell Beadle. Pirelli would be very overconfident by sitting there and not even turning round to bother looking at him. Sweeney, would then pick up his razor and slit his throat. This would be an understandable way for Sweeney to kill him, but difficult to look realistic with fake blood as the slitting would be done facing the audience.
2. Strangling:   We discussed a similar set up to the first idea, but instead of having his throat slit, we tried having him strangled (by the belt used to sharpen the razors). This definitely worked a lot better than the first way. Dan controls the supposed strangling by holding the belt too, with the backs of his hands against his neck and holding the belt out slightly. This means that the death scene looks realistic still but is perfectly safe.
3. Slashing:   We tried the idea of throat slitting again, but this time Dan would face Rob (and therefore have his back to the audience). Dan would then face the front (after Rob has made a slashing motion by his neck) and would hold his neck, squeezing a blood pack (that wouldn't be visible to the audience) by his neck to make it look like his throat had been split. We thought this could look really good if done right, but we felt that it could be risky as the audience might see the blood pack and it could get quite messy.

We decided that we would go with the second way we tried as it looked really realistic and was also the safest option too.