Pathways - Composition Viewpoints

Although I am slightly late in talking about composition viewpoints (8 weeks to be exact) it is still something that has helped our devising, for something so simple. The aim was to get into groups, half of us would watch and the other half would participate, we were given a number 1-3 and told which order to enter the stage, dramatic music was picked and played and we had to walk around in without communicating, reacting of each other using only 4 simple movements, walk, jump, stop and sit, however the overall composition created was an intense, dramatic, silent yet hectic piece of theatre that told a story completely out of nothing, with no organisation or previous planning. It was interesting to see and feel how different movements and music could create a stunning 3 minute piece of drama that didn't take any configuration, this will be incredibly helpful for when the inevitable happens and we reach dead ends in our devising pieces, by simply playing music that fits our theme of conflict we could easily create either a new scene or at very least the stimulus for a new scene.

"Anne"

We started the lesson by picking a scene from the ones we had read last week, we decided on Scene 12. We then had to walk around the space asking our self questions, where are you? who are you with? how old are you? etc. these were to help us with characterisation. We then did a short hot seating, where one person from each group (both groups picked different scenes) asked questions about their characters, this was really useful as it allowed us to see the different stages of "Anne" and not only that but the questions we asked we could relate the answers back to ourselves and help us to build our character further. We were then told to create a monologue in 3 minutes about how us as our character was feeling, this again was really useful as it allowed us to help shape and form a character that we can definitely develop further.

"I am alone, more often than not in my life I am alone, the city I live in, the city I grew up in is not really a city anymore but for some reason I still head to the airport, it's difficult the road I take is no longer a road, but, my car will protect me, and if I get to the airport I can protect my daughter. My daughter is lost, well parts of my daughter are lost but that's not important, I can fix my daughter as long as I get to the airport. I am not alone anymore, there are men with guns, and they are stopping me"

 Within our monologue we then highlighted 2-3 key sentences and then actioned them to represent how our characters would play them. I played my version of the character very on edge and isolated, as if no one else opinion could inflict her thought process.

"The Enemy" - Using Verbatim

Last lesson we were given a sample of the script, "The Enemy"

"Freedom to think, freedom to act, the rule of law, intellectual development, equality of opportunity, eradication of corruption, a free market, freedom to worship freedom to express your opinion if it does not inhibit other opinions, equality of men, equality of women, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, the separation of church and state, the ability of every citizen to vote in free and fair elections to decide their own government, these thing's don't come free, these things have to be earned with war and blood, it's the only price. They said my sister was killed by the blast as the plane hit the building, they think she died quickly and I don't know I won't ever know for sure about that, but what I do know is that the man who ordered my sisters death did not want anything I could give him. I know that he was, according to the criteria I've laid out for you the enemy. He was the enemy of everything that allows you to do your job and everything that keeps you safe and gives you life. He ordered the attack as a retaliation, yes, but not against the bombs or bullets but against music, and movies and sports and life. And my sister loves those things. I didn't kill him because he killed my sister, I didn't kill him because of the country he came from or what he believed, I killed him because I know what the enemy looks like and it had his face."

The play was interesting when working on verbatim because the whole play used last phone calls, letters, witness reports, accounts from loved ones, of the events of 9/11, making it more realistic. As a group of 5 we read through the monologue and decided on lines that we thought we're important and then each took a line. We brainstormed several ideas, including re-creating a scene from inside and outside the building in a split screen fashion, we played with the idea of creating a bomb using physical theatre and then focused on terrorism and stereotypes, this linked us to the London bombings, something closer to home for all of us, and the idea that for the months after this people were very wary of people expressing their religion, or wearing rucksacks.

We decided to go with the judgement of people wearing rucksacks and set it on a tube, we each took different characters, I played a child with my mother to show how children can be so easily influenced by their parents opinions, a business man, and a commuter. We decided to use the practioner Artaud and involve the audience. Because it was on the tube we created spare seats that we we're going to push the audience into to create the busy hustle and bustle of a morning commuter train. At the "next stop" Rory entered the train, playing the victim, wearing a rucksack. As he entered the carriage we immediately spun our attention to him and moved towards him saying "I know that the enemy looks like and it had his face" we choose this line because it's extremely powerful and helped to excel the sterotypes further, we repeated this line 3 times until Rory removed his bag, the we returned to our starting postions and repeated a line about freedom (mine is highlighted above) to convince the victim he was free to express in any way he wanted. When Rory put the bag back on we repeated the process twice, until the final time where we gathered round Rory to hide his body from the audience a made a shooting noise to represent the fact that either we killed him, or  he eventually killed himself. We immediately turn around and add the extra words "I killed him" to add more intensive intensive power and return back to our seats, at the next stop Jack steps on wearing a rucksack and we turn our attention to him as if to signify that the whole process will continue to repeat itself and then the scene ends.


I was particularly proud of the way we worked together as a group and produced this piece of work, I think it linked well to the stimulus we were given, it represented conflict, inner and global and is defiantly something I would use in my final piece. 

Viewpoints 2

After giving up P.E at GCSE I never realised how much I would regret this decision when starting viewpoints at A2 Drama. There is the never ending urge from your body to give up and lay on the floor, especially as the summer weather decided to be kind for once. Viewpoints in a nutshell is all about silencing your voice, something easier said than done in a room full of Drama Students. Again we start with the series of yoga moves "Salutation to the Sun" always being told yoga was a "relaxing inner body experience" has taught me to not always believe what people say. The movements push your body to it's very maximums, and although amongst sweat, persistence and tears it helped to focus my mind and clear the thoughts or irrelevant things from my head.

As a group we also tried 12,6,4, a series of repetitive movements, being jumps, stops, and changes of direction, with the aim to bring the group together in a collaborative way, the first 4 times we failed miserably, but as the weeks passed it is very obvious to see the improvement that even if we say we can't, we can actually work together as a team if we focus our minds to it.

Then to make sure we were fully exhausted and couldn't move to full potential the next day, another exercise was introduced. At first this was simple enough, experimenting with a particular movement before it became boring and as drama students we felt the need to change the direction, tempo, or levels, however there is nothing simple about dragging your body slowly across the floor just because your attempt at regaining your breath and walking slowly backfired and you even eventually got bored of it. Overall though it helped us to see that on stage an audience can become bored of seeing you standing and walking slowly and that a piece of work will benefit much more from experimentation rather than familiarity.