In this lesson we workshopped the song "Johanna", which is sung primarily by Todd and Anthony, with smaller sections sung by the Beggar Women and Johanna. At first we tried having a split stage with Todd singing on one side looking at old photographs, and Anthony on the other singing wandering the streets. The Beggar Woman would come from under the stage and sing her parts, and Johanna sitting on a chair sewing stage right on the stage. However, although this was simplistic and looked okay, we thought it was too simplistic and thought we could do a bit more with it.
To make it a little bit more abstract, as it is a dream sequence for Todd, Anthony and Johanna as they are all pining, we added in a little dance section. We begin with Johanna standing centre stage, Anthony we sing whilst looking at her, take her hands and then dance with her. When Todd starts singing he would take over the dancing with her and they would keep swapping. However, we soon realised that we couldn't do this for the entire song, so we had to come up with something else...
Rhythm: We decided that we wanted to involve everyone in this number to make the piece feel more workshopped than performed - so we decided that we would include all cast members. We decided to set the rest of the cast in Mrs Lovett's pie shop. We begin this song with a freeze frame - all characters are doing something to show their character (i.e. I am making pies, James is sweeping, and Dan drinking as a customer not Pirelli). We would all them come to life, as it were, and start doing movements as our character. We were inspired by the show "Stomp" to make noises under the song. We workshopped our rhythms and how we would create these sounds: James uses a broom, I have a bowl, Dan clinks his tankard with Ollie. I shake the bowl to mix the ingredients, but hit the bowl on the counter on counts "2, and". We wanted the noises to come in gradually, but all be on different beats. Therefore, we started with the whole beats first, and then added in the "ands" to make the rhythm more interesting. We keep this rhythm the same throughout the entire song, apart from when the Beggar Woman sings, we do the same rhythm exactly the same but double speed. The Beggar Woman enters and exits from under the stage as it is unexpected and very intruding - she walks into the middle of the setting that she is not wanted.
We did want them dancing the whole time, nor did we want Rob slitting everyone's throats because we didn't want it just to be like the movie version. Therefore, we used the Beggar Woman to form a moment - there is now a moment where Johanna and Todd are standing together and the Beggar Woman enters, forming an almost perfect family photo, but it is ironic because Todd then pushes her away and I kick her out back down the steps. To also build on Todd's happiness with his daughter, we have workshopped a section where Johanna is watching Todd shave people - he smiles as shaving them and lets them go, but when Johanna leaves, he looks on at her and slits the person's throat. Although this does add a slight comical moment to the song, it is successful in showing Todd's true feelings and intentions.
To end this number, Judge Turpin leads Johanna down the central aisle of the audience, to symbolise them both walking down the aisle getting married. The rest of the cast leave before this point as their characters.
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