Love and Information
Love and Information
The play we are working on for our Unit 8 project is Love and Information by British playwright Caryl Churchill. The play is split into seven sections and focuses on different types of relationships and social situations. Within the play, there are over 100 characters although none of them has names and is described fully, so it is mainly up to the actors and directors to decide on the setting, backstory and production behind the scenes. This gives a lot of creative freedom to those involved when it comes to deciding on the situations that occur within the dialogue spoken.
Context
We were first given the script for Love and Information before the Easter holidays so, during this time, I researched on who Caryl Churchill was and looked at videos and reviews of past Love and Information performances to get an idea into what it looks like. Love and Information has been performed in many different ways in many different settings. It is a play that is very open to interpretation and that is why when researching the play, I found that I could be very creative with my decisions. I learnt while doing my research that Caryl has created and written a plethora of plays. For example, she has written a play called Top Girls which is about a career-driven woman deeply invested in women's success in business. It examines the roles of women in modern society and explores what it takes for a woman to succeed. Feminism is a common theme in Churchill's work and appears on most of her play. I realised that, while reading through the script, this theme seemed to be prominent in Love and Information too. To help understand Churchill's common topics within her writing, I decided to research into how important these themes are for her. In an interview, Churchill once said: 'For years and years I thought of myself as a writer before I thought of myself as a woman, but recently I’ve found that I would say I was a feminist writer as opposed to other people saying I was. I’ve found that as I go out more into the world and get into situations which involve women what I feel quite strongly is a feminist position and that inevitably comes into what I write.' Churchill has obviously established herself as a strong female writer and seems to have always got on with what she was doing, not caring about what others thought of her. While dissecting our script, I found many areas alluding to and including feminism and sexual politics. The script as a whole, I think, is meant to connect performer and audience to understand the importance and meaning of relationships in the modern age but also could connect Churchill (a female playwright) with a female audience member, actor or writer. There are no genders given to the performers of the lines- and no real character detail either- so, can be used and explored by just about any director and actor, including a feminist writer who would like to use the script as symbolism for the position of females in relationships. As I enjoyed the idea of the script being very open, when discussing possible ideas with my group, we pondered over the thought of changing the order of the play entirely. Love and Information has an episodic structure and the dramatic form means that there is a lot of creative freedom for those involved so, using these elements to our advantage, we reordered the scenes so that they fit our purpose. Although Churchill's scenes are quite standalone and solitary, we did our best to link the scenes up as best as possible to create some sort of the connection for the audience to enjoy. With a smooth transition between scene to scene, it would make the piece more enjoyable and satisfying for the audience to watch.
Proposal
Section 1 – Rationale (approx. 100 words)
This section provides an opportunity to reflect on, review and summarise your progress and achievements through the first seven units. It also offers a chance for you to take stock of the knowledge, skills and understanding you have acquired, what you know now, compared with what you knew and could do before you started the course, and how this has influenced your choice of pathway and your project proposal.
Throughout the course so far, I have definitely become more confident within my work and have become a lot more willing to participate in group activities and performances. During Greek Theatre, I learnt a lot about the history behind the era as well as, during the performance itself, used this knowledge to help build my character in Trojan Women. In Cherry Orchard, I worked on my circles of attention when performing and made sure to react to what my fellow actors were saying. On the course, I have also had the opportunity to work with different theatre companies and actors during workshops to help improve my skills as a performer, for example, working on realism within acting and improvisation techniques. I believe these sessions have really benefited me in the long term as, at the start of the term, I found it very difficult to work with people I had never met before (especially industry professionals) but now I feel confident that I could participate within an activity in front of my class. We have worked with Broken Hearted Youth Theatre Company several times who, in two of their sessions, helped us write and create our own script which was then performed by the actors at the theatre company themselves. This was a great experience for me as, as someone with a love for writing, I found it very exciting to watch my own work be brought to life. During the Macbeth process, I learnt how to use my voice to fill a space and, furthermore, learnt how to tackle a lot of lines whilst reacting to other characters. Something I am looking forward to bringing into my next project is my use of realism within my acting. Love and Information is a very realistic play in which lines are spoken over each other, just like real life conversation so I intend to make sure my performance is as realistic as possible.
Section 2 – Project concept (approx. 200 words)
This section provides an opportunity for you to clearly explain the concept and aims of your project. This should include what you anticipate producing, the research and ideas that will support its development and the levels and types of resources that you will need to complete and present your project realisation within the allocated timescale. You should include the names of anyone you will be collaborating with and/or those who will perform in your piece.
For our project this term, we are doing Love and Information by Caryl Churchill. Love and Information is a series of short scenes/stories to do with relationships and different types of love. It differs from many other plays as it has no stage directions, character names and very limited punctuation. The play includes over 100 different characters and needs a big ensemble so multi-role will be used. It will be a good opportunity for us to work as a group when it comes to the final performance but also to go off and work on our individual scenes, as a duologue or even a monologue which we have yet to do properly within our course yet as we tend to only work in big groups. This project will allow us to think about our character’s objectives and super objectives for our performance. As we have little information on the background of our characters, creating an objective will be very helpful during our creative process as it will be our main base for our character’s personalities. Using these objectives, we can bring that into the performance by creating a setting and situation for our scenes. This will help the audience understand the play and bring more context into what we are doing to make them comprehend the topic of love and relationships more. As the play is very much up to interpretation, I am looking forward to making different creative decisions when deciding how the play will be set and how we will order the scenes. To do this, I am planning on researching different past productions of Love and Information and reading reviews on the performances. To create a successful performance, I will use this research to gain inspiration about the many different versions of the play and create decisions based on this. As Caryl Churchill’s writing contains many themes such as feminism and sexual politics, I really want to bring these across to the audience and help them correctly identify the common topics within Love and Information so that they can connect with our performance. I want to bring a lot of Stanislavski techniques into this project as he mainly focuses on realism and naturalism in theatre. As this play centres around real-life relationships in the modern day (it was published in 2012), I want it to look and be as realistic as possible. Some of Stanislavski’s techniques included the Magic If, which involves the actor putting themselves into the role of a character and asking ‘what would I do if I was in a certain situation?’. By doing this exercise, the actor can have a lot more understanding of the thoughts and emotions of their character and can use this to help elevate a scene. I think we could use this technique in our warm-ups and before performances to help us be able to successfully portray our subtext across to the audience.
Section 3 - Evaluation (approx. 50 words)
This section provides an opportunity for you to explain how you will reflect on and self- evaluate your work, as both an on-going activity and at the conclusion of the project.
You should describe how you intend to record your decision-making and how you will document developments as the project progresses. This evaluation should reference your stated aims and be reflective and analytical rather than a description of actions completed.
For my evaluation of this unit, I will be documenting my developments and progression through my blog and through notes. At the end of each day, I will write down what went well, what didn’t go well and my plans for the next lesson/final performance. I will also discuss with my group at the end of the lesson about their ideas and opinions of production ideas, staging etc. but also on how we can improve productivity in our rehearsals, even more, to get our performance to be the best it can possibly be. For me, asking others what they think will be very helpful as it can give me another viewpoint to look at a situation from and could also open my eyes to new ideas. Furthermore, asking for constructive criticism and peer evaluation would be essential for our group to help us improve our performance. As we want the audience to connect with the play as much as possible, getting honest critiques from someone watching (even in the first stages of rehearsals) means that we can adapt and ensure our play works for those watching in the final performance.
Proposed research sources and bibliography (Harvard format)
Record your intended research sources, both primary (from your own first-hand experience e.g practical studio research) and secondary (from other sources), in this section. Sources of research should be as wide as possible and may include: libraries, museums and galleries, books, film, magazines, TV, radio programmes, websites etc.
Where appropriate you should use the Harvard system of referencing. The bibliography should be continuously updated as the project progresses.
For our production of Love and Information, I am going to research and watch previous productions on Youtube and other sites such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17eg13lOCyE. I will also be researching reviews of various performances via newspaper articles and magazine exerts, for example, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/sep/15/love-and-information-royal-court-review. I am also planning on watching some interviews with the Love and Information cast to help learn more about their creative process and their journey with the play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3tjFzONhRQ.
I also am aiming to research Stanislavski techniques to help bring some realism and naturalism into our performance, with the book: A&C Black; Reprint edition (5 Sept. 2000) An Actor's Handbook: An Alphabetical Arrangement of Concise Statements on Aspects of Acting (Performance Books) by Constantin Stanislavski.
Rehearsals
During the collaboration process in rehearsals, I gave a lot of production ideas and constructive criticism to those in my group. When others fed back to the class with their scenes and performed to the rest of us, I was never shy to give them some advice on how they could take their performance to the next level. I believe this really helped as it gave people something to focus on and be mindful of during rehearsals and made sure that their scene was polished and to a high standard. I think that, as my confidence has grown over the past year, I can now successfully give criticisms and praise to others without feeling hesitant or unsure like I used to. Furthermore, during the collaboration process, I was extremely organised and managed to contribute a lot to the production ideas for our project. Love and Information is a play very much open to interpretation with no desired set or props- just our own ideas. I like this type of creative freedom when it comes to projects because I enjoy having a blank canvas that I can colour to be my own. So, when it came down to the means of production, I felt as if I could really aid with the process. With my partners, I discussed with them individually what we thought would suit our scenes best. For one of my scenes, Secret, my partner Daniella and I had many different ideas and designs for this as there is very little subtext to the scene (we would have to use production to bring the subtext through) so it was open to all. I suggested, during a discussion, that perhaps Secret could be set at a sleepover, with two young adults eating food and watching TV. We trailed this out a few times and when we performed to the rest of the class, the feedback was amazing and mainly all positive so we knew then that that was the right setting for our scene. I tried to do as much research as possible for production ideas to do with Love and Information as, although we wanted ours to be unique, seeing other ideas and set designs can often trigger stemmed ideas off of that and help with our process. When researching I found out about an Australian production of Love and Information performed by the Sydney Theatre Company. I was mostly intrigued by their set design, an adaptable white set which encourages the audience to use their imagination. The set was designed by David Fleischer and is made up of white blocks that can be moved around the stage area to give a suggestion of a place. I really loved the idea of, instead of having tables and chairs, having white blocks that can be used as furniture, scientific equipment, pillars etc. My group and I discussed this and decided that this was perfect for our performance. In the Sydney production, there were about 20-30 blocks on stage, all quite large and some even big enough to represent a wall. We, however, went for a slightly toned down version of that with 4 blocks on stage which were enough to achieve what we needed to do.
A skill I drew on during the rehearsal process was the ability to work well in a group. This is a skill that wasn't as established at the start of the year but now I am very confident in speaking within groups of people and debating ideas. I needed to have this quintessential skill as most of the rehearsal time was spent in our large group. During rehearsals, there were a few times in which people disagreed and a problem wasn't solved properly so we had to all sit-down and try methods of compromise in which to solve it. A skill of mine that worked well in these circumstances was my good conflict resolution skills in which I can try and find a peaceful agreement between two parties over a matter at hand. In this case, it was a debate over the order of our scenes. As Love and Information can be rearranged into any order suited to the group, we created an order that we believed worked for us best and connected between each other to help the audience understand the play a little bit better. However, we did have a few problems in this process as some scenes that were next to each other involved the same person and so even a quick change wouldn't have been possible. In one case, somebody in my group didn't like the order and another did, so I helped them resolve the issue with a compromise: we changed the order so that there were no overlapping scenes but gave the other person more creative freedom when making decisions about other scenes as they were keen to direct. This ended up working well within our group and the choice meant that there were no more arguments or conflicts. My conflict resolution skill developed due to this work as this successful and positive experience meant that I now feel more confident about resolving problems and I feel like I could do so again in the future. It is a very useful skill to have, especially in the acting industry and I think that now I can use compromise more in my work.
My additional role in the process, as well as performing, was probably being the main organiser of the group. During the rehearsal process, I made sure that everybody was doing what they were meant to be doing and if I saw anyone off track or not focusing, I would tell them to get back to their work. Furthermore, I also helped organise the lighting and sound cues for everybody's scenes in rehearsals and went round to make sure everybody had learnt their lines and was on track for the final performance. I feel as if this was very beneficial as I had watched, given advice to and kept everyone focused when it came down to the final show, people were prepared and ready to perform, not panicking or unsure of what they were doing. Also, the technical team knew a week in advance what they would be doing for our performance which meant that the lighting and sound was an overall success in our final show. I think that my organisational skills contributed to a lot of the performance and helped others out especially. Another example of this was that I created and printed off many running orders and cast lists for our show and pinned them all up backstage so that transitions and time between scenes were smooth and without fault. Being organised and ready is one of the biggest roles of them all in acting, I believe, and if you're not prepared to be organised, then you're not prepared to perform.
As a collaborative performance, I believe that it was extremely successful. We all fed off of each other's energy and when performing duologues we bounced off of each other really well. For me, working in my group was a very successful and positive experience. We all got on well and all of our ideas together created something amazing. In the final performance, I felt as if this really came through to the audience. Not just the subtext (which was successfully introduced) but also the fact that we were enjoying ourselves and were passionately putting our all into the show. There was a scene in the play's denouement where we are all situated onstage and watching back a Wedding Video (a continuous scene throughout our performance that concludes right at the very end) and this scene is the only time everyone is onstage at the same time. While being the last moments of the play, it still connected with the audience as a warm moment for them as it perfectly wraps up our show and has a feeling of togetherness and joy. In rehearsals, we decided that having the whole cast on stage at the end of the show was a necessity in putting the performance to a close. We only came to this conclusion at the end of our rehearsals- beforehand it was just four actors. The reaction of the audience to our performance, I think, was very positive, with lots of laughter during our more comedic scenes and a lot of focus for our serious scenes. After the performance, I talked to an audience member who said that they thoroughly enjoyed the performance and liked the way that we got across all the different types of relationships (platonic, romantic, friendships etc) to them. As our main goal was to successfully connect with the audience, I believe our group did that very well.
What I've learnt from the experience is that teamwork and organisation are essential for a successful performance. Working well with your group in rehearsals leading up to a show and finding compromises is the key to the end product thriving. I am happy with the way I organised things during this project and wouldn't change anything I did as it led to a great final result. Something else I've learnt is to always research your project thoroughly and listen profusely to other people's ideas. Researching and entertaining all possibilities is the best way to work as it means you are open to all suggestions and are knowledgeable in the area you are performing in. In the future, I will take all of these new skills and realisations on board and, now that I have them, I can continue to refine and develop these and other new methods of assignment to improve all areas of expertise such as listening, communicating and problem-solving.
Evaluation
Compared to my proposal, I'd say I have stayed on track with what I originally set out to do. I documented all of my developments and progression through notes as I said I would and wrote down everything that did and didn't go well in rehearsals. However, one thing that altered a little was that I documented everything at the end of each week rather than each day, nevertheless, I do not think this affected my work in any way. When it came down to self-evaluating, I had multiple conversations with my group about production ideas and successfully met my proposal in the fact that productivity was improved in rehearsals and this shone through in the final performance. I asked for lots of feedback and constructive criticism during the process and it helped us improve the performance for audience viewing, making them connect with our project. Someone watched each rehearsal and run through we did and gave us notes afterwards, which I planned in my proposal, and that really aided us in the final performance by giving us points to work and focus on- having a different set of eyes really worked.
On Thursday, I feel as if both of our shows went very well. The first show, I believe, was the best of the two as we were adamant to get it right and we all had an adrenaline surge to make our show as perfect as possible. I feel as if we were all very focused and work orientated and, consequently, that is why everything went smoothly with little to no mistakes. As an individual, I felt as if I did the best job I could have possibly have done in the first performance and made sure I took on notes from the previous dress rehearsal. One of those, for me, was to project a little more towards the back of the theatre. As we did not have mics, we had to ensure we could be heard and understood throughout the whole play so that the audience could understand what we were saying but also so that they didn't lose interest and focus on the action onstage. Backstage and before the show, I was definitely more nervous than the second. However, as soon as I stepped on stage, the nerves disappeared. My first scene was Mother with my partner Diogo, a scene in which a sister tells her 'brother' that she's actually his mother and she had him at a very young age. We decided that my character should be around 26 and Diogo's to be 13 due to the fact that the audience finds out, shockingly, that I was 13 years old when I gave birth to him. We did this so that, for subtext for Diogo, he can feel disgusted as he himself is 13 and his character couldn't ever imagine being a parent at that age. We performed this scene very well and the transitions either side happened smoothly and with no empty space left on stage. The next scene I was in was as a scientist in The Boy Who Didn't Know Pain. It was a non-speaking role and a role I volunteered myself forward for. Me and two others observed a boy who, his whole life, could not feel any pain at all. My role, although small, was very important as it showed the boy was in some sort of lab and his every move was being watched. We successfully got this across to the audience and, watching it back, it seemed clear from their point of view. My next scene was Secret with Daniella, where one person has a secret and the other is trying to get them to tell. We decided over long deliberations that it would be set at a sleepover with real popcorn and snacks on stage and we'd be covered in blankets. Automatically, the audience knew it was at a sleepover and so we successfully got that setting across to them. I believe that we performed the scene well and I showed my change in emotions for funny/happy to scared/angry very well and left everyone watching wanting to know more about the secret. My last proper scene was with my partner Madalina and it was called Fan, in which two girls trespass into a boy they like house and begin to rummage around for things to steal/make a shrine out of. For this scene, we wore black hoodies and sunglasses so that the audience knew straight away that we were burglars. We entered the stage by doing two forward rolls which the audience really liked as it was different from any of the other scenes they'd seen previously. For our props, we had a large cardboard box with a sign on the front that stated 'Personal. Do Not Touch' which received a laugh from the audience due to the irony of it all. We were very slick with our exits and entrances also and they smoothly led into the scenes on either side. Throughout the performance, we all partook in at least one Wedding Video scene, a recurring scene that takes place in random intervals of the show. It's about a group of people watching a wedding video and commentating on what's going on. The scene was originally a normal, full scene, however, we decided to split it up into seven different individual scenes. This was done to represent the original seven sections of the play, Love and Information. This worked really well as it split up the action successfully and gave the audience something familiar every so often so they would never feel out of the loop or unsure of anything going on.
Our set is something that we are all extremely proud of. Throughout the scenes at some intervals, quotes to do with love were said from offstage while the stage is dimly lit to represent the 'Love' part of Love and Information. For the second part of the name, for our set, we scattered hundreds of pages from newspapers around the stage to show the 'Information' side of it. Although this was quite a last minute decision, I believe it really heightened the piece and made it more interesting for the audience to look at.
In the second show, I think that although we relaxed more into the performance and were a lot more playful with the way we portrayed the show, I felt as if we took more risks, probably as we had already performed it once and knew what to expect properly. As an individual, I think that I improved from the first performance in terms of reacting to my fellow actors but I wasn't in the mind of my character as much as I was in the first performance. We all agreed as a group that we weren't as polished and together compared to the prior show, however, our transitions between scenes were all still smooth and we never broke character. Since the performances, I feel like my opinions have roughly stayed the same about our overall success and efforts although now, I feel as if, in some places during the show, I could've been a little louder, especially in Mother (my first scene). I watched back my performances and thought that as the show went on our overall energy went up so next time I perform, I am going to make sure the energy is up from the beginning and to keep my diction clean and clear.
In conclusion, this project has been a very educative, exciting and enjoyable process to go through. I have learnt a lot about myself personally and professionally, mainly that I have a lot more confidence in myself than I had originally thought and that I thoroughly enjoy working in large groups, something that I didn't like at the start of the year. I feel as if both the performances and the continuous evaluation of the performances have been a huge success. The research process was probably the most interesting part as I was educated on a lot about previous productions, different theatre companies and most importantly, the playwright Caryl Churchill. My understanding of her work and how you don't necessarily need stage directions and characters to create a successful play has been heightened and I believe that this project has been beneficial in opening my eyes to new ideas and possibilities. For future development, some key points I will definitely know and use now is to always keep my mind open to everybody's ideas. Not everyone is going to agree on everything but, to have a certain degree, you can always find a way around it via compromise. Another key point is to communicate with your group properly from the beginning. Don't hold any constructive criticisms back at all as they can be essential towards the success of a performance.
Context
We were first given the script for Love and Information before the Easter holidays so, during this time, I researched on who Caryl Churchill was and looked at videos and reviews of past Love and Information performances to get an idea into what it looks like. Love and Information has been performed in many different ways in many different settings. It is a play that is very open to interpretation and that is why when researching the play, I found that I could be very creative with my decisions. I learnt while doing my research that Caryl has created and written a plethora of plays. For example, she has written a play called Top Girls which is about a career-driven woman deeply invested in women's success in business. It examines the roles of women in modern society and explores what it takes for a woman to succeed. Feminism is a common theme in Churchill's work and appears on most of her play. I realised that, while reading through the script, this theme seemed to be prominent in Love and Information too. To help understand Churchill's common topics within her writing, I decided to research into how important these themes are for her. In an interview, Churchill once said: 'For years and years I thought of myself as a writer before I thought of myself as a woman, but recently I’ve found that I would say I was a feminist writer as opposed to other people saying I was. I’ve found that as I go out more into the world and get into situations which involve women what I feel quite strongly is a feminist position and that inevitably comes into what I write.' Churchill has obviously established herself as a strong female writer and seems to have always got on with what she was doing, not caring about what others thought of her. While dissecting our script, I found many areas alluding to and including feminism and sexual politics. The script as a whole, I think, is meant to connect performer and audience to understand the importance and meaning of relationships in the modern age but also could connect Churchill (a female playwright) with a female audience member, actor or writer. There are no genders given to the performers of the lines- and no real character detail either- so, can be used and explored by just about any director and actor, including a feminist writer who would like to use the script as symbolism for the position of females in relationships. As I enjoyed the idea of the script being very open, when discussing possible ideas with my group, we pondered over the thought of changing the order of the play entirely. Love and Information has an episodic structure and the dramatic form means that there is a lot of creative freedom for those involved so, using these elements to our advantage, we reordered the scenes so that they fit our purpose. Although Churchill's scenes are quite standalone and solitary, we did our best to link the scenes up as best as possible to create some sort of the connection for the audience to enjoy. With a smooth transition between scene to scene, it would make the piece more enjoyable and satisfying for the audience to watch.
Proposal
Section 1 – Rationale (approx. 100 words)
This section provides an opportunity to reflect on, review and summarise your progress and achievements through the first seven units. It also offers a chance for you to take stock of the knowledge, skills and understanding you have acquired, what you know now, compared with what you knew and could do before you started the course, and how this has influenced your choice of pathway and your project proposal.
Throughout the course so far, I have definitely become more confident within my work and have become a lot more willing to participate in group activities and performances. During Greek Theatre, I learnt a lot about the history behind the era as well as, during the performance itself, used this knowledge to help build my character in Trojan Women. In Cherry Orchard, I worked on my circles of attention when performing and made sure to react to what my fellow actors were saying. On the course, I have also had the opportunity to work with different theatre companies and actors during workshops to help improve my skills as a performer, for example, working on realism within acting and improvisation techniques. I believe these sessions have really benefited me in the long term as, at the start of the term, I found it very difficult to work with people I had never met before (especially industry professionals) but now I feel confident that I could participate within an activity in front of my class. We have worked with Broken Hearted Youth Theatre Company several times who, in two of their sessions, helped us write and create our own script which was then performed by the actors at the theatre company themselves. This was a great experience for me as, as someone with a love for writing, I found it very exciting to watch my own work be brought to life. During the Macbeth process, I learnt how to use my voice to fill a space and, furthermore, learnt how to tackle a lot of lines whilst reacting to other characters. Something I am looking forward to bringing into my next project is my use of realism within my acting. Love and Information is a very realistic play in which lines are spoken over each other, just like real life conversation so I intend to make sure my performance is as realistic as possible.
Section 2 – Project concept (approx. 200 words)
This section provides an opportunity for you to clearly explain the concept and aims of your project. This should include what you anticipate producing, the research and ideas that will support its development and the levels and types of resources that you will need to complete and present your project realisation within the allocated timescale. You should include the names of anyone you will be collaborating with and/or those who will perform in your piece.
For our project this term, we are doing Love and Information by Caryl Churchill. Love and Information is a series of short scenes/stories to do with relationships and different types of love. It differs from many other plays as it has no stage directions, character names and very limited punctuation. The play includes over 100 different characters and needs a big ensemble so multi-role will be used. It will be a good opportunity for us to work as a group when it comes to the final performance but also to go off and work on our individual scenes, as a duologue or even a monologue which we have yet to do properly within our course yet as we tend to only work in big groups. This project will allow us to think about our character’s objectives and super objectives for our performance. As we have little information on the background of our characters, creating an objective will be very helpful during our creative process as it will be our main base for our character’s personalities. Using these objectives, we can bring that into the performance by creating a setting and situation for our scenes. This will help the audience understand the play and bring more context into what we are doing to make them comprehend the topic of love and relationships more. As the play is very much up to interpretation, I am looking forward to making different creative decisions when deciding how the play will be set and how we will order the scenes. To do this, I am planning on researching different past productions of Love and Information and reading reviews on the performances. To create a successful performance, I will use this research to gain inspiration about the many different versions of the play and create decisions based on this. As Caryl Churchill’s writing contains many themes such as feminism and sexual politics, I really want to bring these across to the audience and help them correctly identify the common topics within Love and Information so that they can connect with our performance. I want to bring a lot of Stanislavski techniques into this project as he mainly focuses on realism and naturalism in theatre. As this play centres around real-life relationships in the modern day (it was published in 2012), I want it to look and be as realistic as possible. Some of Stanislavski’s techniques included the Magic If, which involves the actor putting themselves into the role of a character and asking ‘what would I do if I was in a certain situation?’. By doing this exercise, the actor can have a lot more understanding of the thoughts and emotions of their character and can use this to help elevate a scene. I think we could use this technique in our warm-ups and before performances to help us be able to successfully portray our subtext across to the audience.
Section 3 - Evaluation (approx. 50 words)
This section provides an opportunity for you to explain how you will reflect on and self- evaluate your work, as both an on-going activity and at the conclusion of the project.
You should describe how you intend to record your decision-making and how you will document developments as the project progresses. This evaluation should reference your stated aims and be reflective and analytical rather than a description of actions completed.
For my evaluation of this unit, I will be documenting my developments and progression through my blog and through notes. At the end of each day, I will write down what went well, what didn’t go well and my plans for the next lesson/final performance. I will also discuss with my group at the end of the lesson about their ideas and opinions of production ideas, staging etc. but also on how we can improve productivity in our rehearsals, even more, to get our performance to be the best it can possibly be. For me, asking others what they think will be very helpful as it can give me another viewpoint to look at a situation from and could also open my eyes to new ideas. Furthermore, asking for constructive criticism and peer evaluation would be essential for our group to help us improve our performance. As we want the audience to connect with the play as much as possible, getting honest critiques from someone watching (even in the first stages of rehearsals) means that we can adapt and ensure our play works for those watching in the final performance.
Proposed research sources and bibliography (Harvard format)
Record your intended research sources, both primary (from your own first-hand experience e.g practical studio research) and secondary (from other sources), in this section. Sources of research should be as wide as possible and may include: libraries, museums and galleries, books, film, magazines, TV, radio programmes, websites etc.
Where appropriate you should use the Harvard system of referencing. The bibliography should be continuously updated as the project progresses.
For our production of Love and Information, I am going to research and watch previous productions on Youtube and other sites such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17eg13lOCyE. I will also be researching reviews of various performances via newspaper articles and magazine exerts, for example, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/sep/15/love-and-information-royal-court-review. I am also planning on watching some interviews with the Love and Information cast to help learn more about their creative process and their journey with the play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3tjFzONhRQ.
I also am aiming to research Stanislavski techniques to help bring some realism and naturalism into our performance, with the book: A&C Black; Reprint edition (5 Sept. 2000) An Actor's Handbook: An Alphabetical Arrangement of Concise Statements on Aspects of Acting (Performance Books) by Constantin Stanislavski.
Project action plan and timetable:
| ||
Outline your planning and organisation over a period of weeks and the activities you will need to carry out in order to successful complete your project within the agreed timeframe. It is important that your proposed output is realistic so ensure you consider ambition and time when completing this section. Make sure you include what you are going to do, how you will do it and by when. The more time and thought you give to planning your project the more successful it is likely to be. Remember to include time taken to visit sources, sourcing materials, questionnaires, access to workshops, tutorial and peer group feedback opportunities, as well as when you will incorporate independent study.
| ||
Week no
|
Tasks
|
Notes
|
1 01/04/19
|
Receive our scripts and begin to read through them.
|
We will need our scripts.
|
2 22/04/19
|
Start doing research on Caryl Churchill and previous productions of Love and Information.
|
We will need our scripts and a computer to start researching on.
|
3 29/04/19
|
Receive our assigned groups and scenes and start to work off in pairs.
|
We will need a full group and scripts.
|
4 06/05/19
|
While rehearsing scenes in individual pairs, discuss production ideas, set and props
|
We will need our scripts, any notes we may have and research from the previous lesson.
|
5 13/05/19
|
Start to piece the scenes together and do a rough run through.
|
We will need a full group, running order, scripts and someone watching to give peer feedback.
|
6 20/05/19
|
Do a full run through, no scripts, with props.
|
We will need a full group, prop list, and someone watching to give constructive criticism.
|
7 27/05/19
|
Have a technical run and have the final performance.
|
We will need all necessary props and costumes, a cue list for lighting and tech, a running order for our backstage area and the theatre space for performing.
|
8 03/05/19
|
Watch back performances and start evaluating work.
|
We will need the video of the final performance and notebooks/computers for note taking while watching it back.
|
Rehearsals
During the collaboration process in rehearsals, I gave a lot of production ideas and constructive criticism to those in my group. When others fed back to the class with their scenes and performed to the rest of us, I was never shy to give them some advice on how they could take their performance to the next level. I believe this really helped as it gave people something to focus on and be mindful of during rehearsals and made sure that their scene was polished and to a high standard. I think that, as my confidence has grown over the past year, I can now successfully give criticisms and praise to others without feeling hesitant or unsure like I used to. Furthermore, during the collaboration process, I was extremely organised and managed to contribute a lot to the production ideas for our project. Love and Information is a play very much open to interpretation with no desired set or props- just our own ideas. I like this type of creative freedom when it comes to projects because I enjoy having a blank canvas that I can colour to be my own. So, when it came down to the means of production, I felt as if I could really aid with the process. With my partners, I discussed with them individually what we thought would suit our scenes best. For one of my scenes, Secret, my partner Daniella and I had many different ideas and designs for this as there is very little subtext to the scene (we would have to use production to bring the subtext through) so it was open to all. I suggested, during a discussion, that perhaps Secret could be set at a sleepover, with two young adults eating food and watching TV. We trailed this out a few times and when we performed to the rest of the class, the feedback was amazing and mainly all positive so we knew then that that was the right setting for our scene. I tried to do as much research as possible for production ideas to do with Love and Information as, although we wanted ours to be unique, seeing other ideas and set designs can often trigger stemmed ideas off of that and help with our process. When researching I found out about an Australian production of Love and Information performed by the Sydney Theatre Company. I was mostly intrigued by their set design, an adaptable white set which encourages the audience to use their imagination. The set was designed by David Fleischer and is made up of white blocks that can be moved around the stage area to give a suggestion of a place. I really loved the idea of, instead of having tables and chairs, having white blocks that can be used as furniture, scientific equipment, pillars etc. My group and I discussed this and decided that this was perfect for our performance. In the Sydney production, there were about 20-30 blocks on stage, all quite large and some even big enough to represent a wall. We, however, went for a slightly toned down version of that with 4 blocks on stage which were enough to achieve what we needed to do.
A skill I drew on during the rehearsal process was the ability to work well in a group. This is a skill that wasn't as established at the start of the year but now I am very confident in speaking within groups of people and debating ideas. I needed to have this quintessential skill as most of the rehearsal time was spent in our large group. During rehearsals, there were a few times in which people disagreed and a problem wasn't solved properly so we had to all sit-down and try methods of compromise in which to solve it. A skill of mine that worked well in these circumstances was my good conflict resolution skills in which I can try and find a peaceful agreement between two parties over a matter at hand. In this case, it was a debate over the order of our scenes. As Love and Information can be rearranged into any order suited to the group, we created an order that we believed worked for us best and connected between each other to help the audience understand the play a little bit better. However, we did have a few problems in this process as some scenes that were next to each other involved the same person and so even a quick change wouldn't have been possible. In one case, somebody in my group didn't like the order and another did, so I helped them resolve the issue with a compromise: we changed the order so that there were no overlapping scenes but gave the other person more creative freedom when making decisions about other scenes as they were keen to direct. This ended up working well within our group and the choice meant that there were no more arguments or conflicts. My conflict resolution skill developed due to this work as this successful and positive experience meant that I now feel more confident about resolving problems and I feel like I could do so again in the future. It is a very useful skill to have, especially in the acting industry and I think that now I can use compromise more in my work.
My additional role in the process, as well as performing, was probably being the main organiser of the group. During the rehearsal process, I made sure that everybody was doing what they were meant to be doing and if I saw anyone off track or not focusing, I would tell them to get back to their work. Furthermore, I also helped organise the lighting and sound cues for everybody's scenes in rehearsals and went round to make sure everybody had learnt their lines and was on track for the final performance. I feel as if this was very beneficial as I had watched, given advice to and kept everyone focused when it came down to the final show, people were prepared and ready to perform, not panicking or unsure of what they were doing. Also, the technical team knew a week in advance what they would be doing for our performance which meant that the lighting and sound was an overall success in our final show. I think that my organisational skills contributed to a lot of the performance and helped others out especially. Another example of this was that I created and printed off many running orders and cast lists for our show and pinned them all up backstage so that transitions and time between scenes were smooth and without fault. Being organised and ready is one of the biggest roles of them all in acting, I believe, and if you're not prepared to be organised, then you're not prepared to perform.
As a collaborative performance, I believe that it was extremely successful. We all fed off of each other's energy and when performing duologues we bounced off of each other really well. For me, working in my group was a very successful and positive experience. We all got on well and all of our ideas together created something amazing. In the final performance, I felt as if this really came through to the audience. Not just the subtext (which was successfully introduced) but also the fact that we were enjoying ourselves and were passionately putting our all into the show. There was a scene in the play's denouement where we are all situated onstage and watching back a Wedding Video (a continuous scene throughout our performance that concludes right at the very end) and this scene is the only time everyone is onstage at the same time. While being the last moments of the play, it still connected with the audience as a warm moment for them as it perfectly wraps up our show and has a feeling of togetherness and joy. In rehearsals, we decided that having the whole cast on stage at the end of the show was a necessity in putting the performance to a close. We only came to this conclusion at the end of our rehearsals- beforehand it was just four actors. The reaction of the audience to our performance, I think, was very positive, with lots of laughter during our more comedic scenes and a lot of focus for our serious scenes. After the performance, I talked to an audience member who said that they thoroughly enjoyed the performance and liked the way that we got across all the different types of relationships (platonic, romantic, friendships etc) to them. As our main goal was to successfully connect with the audience, I believe our group did that very well.
What I've learnt from the experience is that teamwork and organisation are essential for a successful performance. Working well with your group in rehearsals leading up to a show and finding compromises is the key to the end product thriving. I am happy with the way I organised things during this project and wouldn't change anything I did as it led to a great final result. Something else I've learnt is to always research your project thoroughly and listen profusely to other people's ideas. Researching and entertaining all possibilities is the best way to work as it means you are open to all suggestions and are knowledgeable in the area you are performing in. In the future, I will take all of these new skills and realisations on board and, now that I have them, I can continue to refine and develop these and other new methods of assignment to improve all areas of expertise such as listening, communicating and problem-solving.
Evaluation
Compared to my proposal, I'd say I have stayed on track with what I originally set out to do. I documented all of my developments and progression through notes as I said I would and wrote down everything that did and didn't go well in rehearsals. However, one thing that altered a little was that I documented everything at the end of each week rather than each day, nevertheless, I do not think this affected my work in any way. When it came down to self-evaluating, I had multiple conversations with my group about production ideas and successfully met my proposal in the fact that productivity was improved in rehearsals and this shone through in the final performance. I asked for lots of feedback and constructive criticism during the process and it helped us improve the performance for audience viewing, making them connect with our project. Someone watched each rehearsal and run through we did and gave us notes afterwards, which I planned in my proposal, and that really aided us in the final performance by giving us points to work and focus on- having a different set of eyes really worked.
On Thursday, I feel as if both of our shows went very well. The first show, I believe, was the best of the two as we were adamant to get it right and we all had an adrenaline surge to make our show as perfect as possible. I feel as if we were all very focused and work orientated and, consequently, that is why everything went smoothly with little to no mistakes. As an individual, I felt as if I did the best job I could have possibly have done in the first performance and made sure I took on notes from the previous dress rehearsal. One of those, for me, was to project a little more towards the back of the theatre. As we did not have mics, we had to ensure we could be heard and understood throughout the whole play so that the audience could understand what we were saying but also so that they didn't lose interest and focus on the action onstage. Backstage and before the show, I was definitely more nervous than the second. However, as soon as I stepped on stage, the nerves disappeared. My first scene was Mother with my partner Diogo, a scene in which a sister tells her 'brother' that she's actually his mother and she had him at a very young age. We decided that my character should be around 26 and Diogo's to be 13 due to the fact that the audience finds out, shockingly, that I was 13 years old when I gave birth to him. We did this so that, for subtext for Diogo, he can feel disgusted as he himself is 13 and his character couldn't ever imagine being a parent at that age. We performed this scene very well and the transitions either side happened smoothly and with no empty space left on stage. The next scene I was in was as a scientist in The Boy Who Didn't Know Pain. It was a non-speaking role and a role I volunteered myself forward for. Me and two others observed a boy who, his whole life, could not feel any pain at all. My role, although small, was very important as it showed the boy was in some sort of lab and his every move was being watched. We successfully got this across to the audience and, watching it back, it seemed clear from their point of view. My next scene was Secret with Daniella, where one person has a secret and the other is trying to get them to tell. We decided over long deliberations that it would be set at a sleepover with real popcorn and snacks on stage and we'd be covered in blankets. Automatically, the audience knew it was at a sleepover and so we successfully got that setting across to them. I believe that we performed the scene well and I showed my change in emotions for funny/happy to scared/angry very well and left everyone watching wanting to know more about the secret. My last proper scene was with my partner Madalina and it was called Fan, in which two girls trespass into a boy they like house and begin to rummage around for things to steal/make a shrine out of. For this scene, we wore black hoodies and sunglasses so that the audience knew straight away that we were burglars. We entered the stage by doing two forward rolls which the audience really liked as it was different from any of the other scenes they'd seen previously. For our props, we had a large cardboard box with a sign on the front that stated 'Personal. Do Not Touch' which received a laugh from the audience due to the irony of it all. We were very slick with our exits and entrances also and they smoothly led into the scenes on either side. Throughout the performance, we all partook in at least one Wedding Video scene, a recurring scene that takes place in random intervals of the show. It's about a group of people watching a wedding video and commentating on what's going on. The scene was originally a normal, full scene, however, we decided to split it up into seven different individual scenes. This was done to represent the original seven sections of the play, Love and Information. This worked really well as it split up the action successfully and gave the audience something familiar every so often so they would never feel out of the loop or unsure of anything going on.
Our set is something that we are all extremely proud of. Throughout the scenes at some intervals, quotes to do with love were said from offstage while the stage is dimly lit to represent the 'Love' part of Love and Information. For the second part of the name, for our set, we scattered hundreds of pages from newspapers around the stage to show the 'Information' side of it. Although this was quite a last minute decision, I believe it really heightened the piece and made it more interesting for the audience to look at.
In the second show, I think that although we relaxed more into the performance and were a lot more playful with the way we portrayed the show, I felt as if we took more risks, probably as we had already performed it once and knew what to expect properly. As an individual, I think that I improved from the first performance in terms of reacting to my fellow actors but I wasn't in the mind of my character as much as I was in the first performance. We all agreed as a group that we weren't as polished and together compared to the prior show, however, our transitions between scenes were all still smooth and we never broke character. Since the performances, I feel like my opinions have roughly stayed the same about our overall success and efforts although now, I feel as if, in some places during the show, I could've been a little louder, especially in Mother (my first scene). I watched back my performances and thought that as the show went on our overall energy went up so next time I perform, I am going to make sure the energy is up from the beginning and to keep my diction clean and clear.
In conclusion, this project has been a very educative, exciting and enjoyable process to go through. I have learnt a lot about myself personally and professionally, mainly that I have a lot more confidence in myself than I had originally thought and that I thoroughly enjoy working in large groups, something that I didn't like at the start of the year. I feel as if both the performances and the continuous evaluation of the performances have been a huge success. The research process was probably the most interesting part as I was educated on a lot about previous productions, different theatre companies and most importantly, the playwright Caryl Churchill. My understanding of her work and how you don't necessarily need stage directions and characters to create a successful play has been heightened and I believe that this project has been beneficial in opening my eyes to new ideas and possibilities. For future development, some key points I will definitely know and use now is to always keep my mind open to everybody's ideas. Not everyone is going to agree on everything but, to have a certain degree, you can always find a way around it via compromise. Another key point is to communicate with your group properly from the beginning. Don't hold any constructive criticisms back at all as they can be essential towards the success of a performance.
Comments
Post a Comment