When Kat says her line "with a violent jerk", we get up off of our chairs and move to two parallel lines but groups in pairs - one member of the pair faces the front, and the other member stands directly behind them facing the back. Kat and Charlie are a pair, Rhiannon and Lewis are directly behind them, and on the opposite side are Ollie and James, and then me and Oliver. In these pairs, the person facing front stands on their right leg (bending this leg as if they are sitting down, with the left leg crossing the right leg). The person facing back is supporting the "sitting" person, by having their back against the "sitting" person and by putting their hands behind them so the "sitting" person can put their elbows on their hands (as if it were arms on a chair, and to also help with balance). When Kat says the line "round her waist", the "sitting" person swaps their legs over. This was inspired by Dv8's move in "Can we talk about this?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNVPumETpuA - 0:56) The purpose of this section is to make it look like we are sitting in a café. We wanted the two lines to be straight so we look uniformed and regimented to portray the control Big Brother has. This also emphasises that Winston is the odd one out (as he is sitting on a literal chair at the front of the line stage right. On the line "and now she was looking at him", we all stand up straight and look at him, to make him feel more isolated and targeted.
When the stage direction mentions the "buzzing sound" and the lights flicker, we perform a very short round-by-through section to get us back to our chairs. The round-by-through creates a confusing and busy atmosphere to reflect Winston's confusion in asking the question "what did you say?". We then follow the stage directions by frantically searching through our bags for our phones. As we are performing in C5 and we can have a total black out, when the lights go off, we all run and hide behind the curtains, so when the lights come back on, only Robert is left on stage. Oliver walks out from the curtain at the back centre and talks to Robert. This makes Oliver's character even more sinister and mysterious as he just appears from nowhere.
The second part of this lesson was spent asking questions about the play in general. These questions are perfectly fine to be left unanswered and are mainly just to consider. The question we asked were as follows:
- Is the play a book club reading the novel, 1984? When the phone rings, is this the book club themselves getting distracted and then they go back to the story?
- Is Winston imagining everyone, or is everyone imaging him?
- Is the whole story Winston's interrogation and he is drifting in and out of consciousness?
- Is the whole story in Room 101?
- Is Julia undercover? Is she trying to use the system to get her way? Is she real? Is she a concept? Is she Big Brother?
- Is O'Brien the embodiment of Big Brother? Is he acting as the powerful man to protect the real leaders?
- Is the Host the leader of the book club? Is the voice just someone reading in the book club?
- Is the reason Winston can't remember the end of "Oranges and Lemons" because he is the last man standing and so the "chopper to chop of his head" his is fate at the end?
- Is Orwell Winston's son? Could Winston have known he was going to be killed, so told his son (Orwell, also son of Julia) everything that happened to him, so Orwell wrote down everything he was told? Therefore Winston was not forgotten, even if he was deleted/unpersoned.
