Rehearsals - Political Performance

Rehearsals

First Rehearsal
Our first official rehearsal for this performance was 10/11/12 where we sat and read through both scripts with everyone in the class reading in all the parts whenever they had an opportunity to. We then discussed the themes and message of each of the plays and Ben laid out some of his initial ideas. We also pitched ideas on what characters we wanted to be and what play we wanted to be in. I said I wanted to be in Indulge because to me the character of Agnes was appealing and I enjoyed the dry complicated humour of the piece and how unafraid the writing was in parodying the corporate world as this world of weird unemotional and manipulative people. Though the price was also extremely smart and interesting in the way it looked at rising prices and their knock on effect on the cost of living. We discussed the themes and found both of the plays looked at money, and then we discussed the current news and money. The previous week Ben had set us the homework of reading news papers and paying attention to the news so that we were ready to contribute to the lesson. And I did just that, and found a story about the austerity cuts and protests and how this was impacting eduction with grants no longer being grants but just loans. (this was later developed in one of our improvised pieces as the education section where we looked at how education, which is vital in today's world is being slowly turned into a business that doesn't aim to teach but just create debt and whether the debt is in fact worth the degree. Class became a very clear issue in access to resources in education and this was further developed when a group was assigned education austerity cuts as their stimuli for what turned out to be one of the clearest political messages we made in our piece.

Second Rehearsal

After the first rehearsal we all were sent messages to go pick up a script as sir had assigned us our roles and sections for both of the plays. I received Agnes, in the closing part of the play which I titled "Consumption crazy". I scripted the script by highlighting my lines and also googling words I didn't understand so I could get a handle on what my character was saying and how (picture of script). In this rehearsal we were given some time to get familiar with our lines so we could run through the scenes taking direction from Ben as he watched us perform. We performed with our scripts and I found this rehearsal extremely helpful as it aloud us to see the dynamics between all the characters in the play face to face. Where as when I was at home reading the lines a lot of the meaning was lost and tension that was clearly present when we actually put my section on its feet. There clearly was a lot of tension between Ingvar and Agnes, both characters were contrasting, Ingvar was very relaxed, passive and not with it where as Agnes was very present and aggressive and continually asserted her authority in this section. And Ben aided in directing this scene to be more energetic in order to show this relationship (between Ingvar and Agnes) and the characters we were playing and what corrupt cooperation's they were representing. There was a section where I shout "get ready for the storm RED!" and after that there is a quick fire idea brainstorm between the other characters on what the company could represent and Ben suggested that to make it more effective and clear of te status that my character had (and this was also visually effective) was to have me stand on the table just before I said this line with enthusiasm and energy. And then Daniel, Anna-maria and Kit would sit on the three sides of the table facing the audience (as we were working in the round) and we would do the remainder of the play there. This was extremely effective in portraying and creating a sort f cult-like atmosphere to the characters and the business. There we made a political and clear statement to our audience we showed the company as some sort of cult and Agnes was at the head of it. There is this section which then came afterwards, where we start talking crazy about god and man and the eight and the eighth sin ad we begin to chant about consumerism and sir encouraged me to go mad at this point with assertiveness and projection to further press this idea of consumerism and how it brain washes. This   I went through the script later and added notes and feedback from the lesson.