Sinbad Scratch Performance Feedback

After our performance we had group feedback on our performance as well as how it would fit into the Arabian Nights show at the end of term.

The lecturers said that we had a great balance of music and action and performed with Gusto! They thought we had great spacial awareness but needed to consider our audience as I mentioned in my previous entry. The painted cloth was a nice touch as well.

For future references they said we needed to make a big physical queue before a line was delivered in order to pull focus. We needed to work on projection in some stories.

However, due to how different our performance was compared to the other groups, it was being cut. Instead, we will be playing the sailors and the narrators that lead the audience through their journey across Coombe Abbey. I was happy with this decision, during our scratch performance my role was only minor anyway as I wasn’t a sailor.

In order to fit into the rest of the project with the other groups, we had to choose three stories that we wanted to keep. Because of this we picked the Cannibals, Cyclops and the Whale. All stories that we enjoyed performing and each with different elements within them that would keep an audience interested.

Sinbad Scratch Performance

As part of our New Landscapes module, the year was split into groups with a different story to tell. Ours was “Sinbad and his Seven Voyages”. The other groups were given more straight forward stories with a beginning, middle and end, such as “Aladdin”. In our attempt to make “Sinbad” more of a flowing story, we looked at all seven of the journeys and managed to splice them together to make one epic adventure. Personally, I found this easier to work with, especially as we had managed to cut so much out of the voyages that wouldn’t have been missed by an audience. Sadly, after our first rough performance, it appeared that we had cut too much and the audience had expected to see different voyages, rather than one big one. They also thought that even though the piece was named after our main character, we didn’t make the most of him and needed to define him more.

In our next rehearsal we began looking at the original story, plus the smaller version we had created and decided which of the voyages would be most interesting for an audience to watch, as well as which ones would be most effective in an outdoor space. In the end, we decided to portray all seven but using different theatrical techniques to create them so that the audience wouldn’t get bored.

Voyage One: This was the introduction to the piece and because of that, we used this time to introduce Sinbad as the main character and establish him more than we did in our original performance. We also included songs, written by James, Alex and Emma C as we knew that this would be a large part of the Arabian Nights performance at the end of the module. This voyage consisted of the whale story in which Sinbad lands on an island that is in fact the back of a giant whale. Originally we wanted to make this part very acrobatic based, as Sinbad is flung in the air via the whale’s blowhole, and in our shortened version of the story we had him summersault over someones back to give him the height he needed. In the rest of this story, the crew tie themselves on to the leg of a bird and then land on a different island, leading in to voyage two much like we did in our rough performance.

Voyage Two: This was the Cyclops story, but for convenience purposes, the Giant story as we didn’t have the appropriate one-eyed mask. In this story, Sinbad and the crew enter a creepy castle that is inhabited by a carnivorous giant that captures the crew and eats the captain.

I played the Giant and was quite happy to as it allowed me to take my new stilts out for a test drive!

This was the first performance I’d used them for since the Fabularium project in 2012 and because of this I spent a lot of time practising on them in different weather conditions

and landscapes as at this point we hadn’t chosen a location to set the piece. I found walking around in the woods very useful as the ground was so unsteady and I had to practise keeping my balance a lot more than I would have when I was on a flat surface.

The location for this scene was between two trees that were slightly raised so the ground sloped more than usual. This, mixed with nerves, made me a little wobbly and I wasn’t as steady as I could have been.

Voyage Three: This was the cannibal story in which Sinbad’s crew are eaten alive after being drugged. This was one of the stronger stories, I found as we all seemed to have fun with it. We made it a bit more cartoon-y than the others so the cannibals were more like the Hyenas from “The Lion King” rather than sinister villains. I spent most of this story behind a tree getting my stilts off and changing in to my next costume so unfortunately can’t comment on what was done.

Voyage Four: Again, I found this to be another one of our stronger performances. Sinbad is offered the hand of a Princess and then accepts without hearing the consequences. For this, I choreographed a little dance routine for the girls to do that was simple yet did the job of establishing them as the Kings beautiful daughters. We also included more acrobatics in this scene to show Sinbad’s escape from his cruel fate.

Voyage Five: This story was mainly a duologue between Sinbad and an Old man but throughout it, the rest of the cast accidentally ended up acting as a present chorus, we all watched the action intently ready for the next voyage.

Voyage Six: This was not an theatrical voyage, instead, I had created a mural on cloth that was inspired by this depiction of the hobbit by ‘breathing2004’

I used the same shape and method of colours fading into each other. Unfortunately it wasn’t as detailed as this but each image was clear and large within the piece. This was accompanied by Alex narrating the adventures as if he were deciphering a ruin. This painting was definitely a different element in not only our piece, but throughout the performances and hopefully the audience enjoyed the change.

Voyage Seven: This was the final journey and consisted mainly of an acrobatic fight scene that was a group effort to choreograph. Because our Sinbad (Radu) was a flyer, it was easy to create effective scenes with him leaping and bounding off different pirates, taking them all out. I am a base and once Sinbad had defeated several of the pirates, we were left to battle two on our own. This was one of my favourite points within the piece as it was energetic and just fun to be involved in.

The location we chose was a grassy square lined with trees that were thick enough to use as “off-stage”. The audience were meant to stay central as each scene was laid out in a circle around them, this didn’t really work as the audience gathered around each scene. We didn’t anticipate that they would move as much as they did. If we were to do it again, I would have prefered to make it a definite promenade performance rather than the audience merely having to turn 360 degrees around one spot.

Because we had to make several different short scenes, our piece was longer than everyone else’s but was still entertaining enough that we got away with it!

Experimental Performance

After the few scratch performances that we were working on, we were given larger groups to work in in order to create an experimental piece of theatre based on what we had created in the last few weeks. I was in Red group. This was a group in which each individual had specified that they would like to work towards a promenade piece, and that’s just what we did. We performed in the War Memorial park in Coventry late at night and gave the audiences torches, as well as used fairy lights in certain areas to create a mystical forest. We met our audience at the main gates (highest star on the map) where we handed out torches to each individual, we then led them to the next star, the rock gardens. The play began with an exert from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this was performed in full costume with instrumentation and fairy-lights.

 

We then twisted the plot into a ghost story by implying to the audience that a cast member from the shakespeare scene had gone missing. At this point, some people began to clock on that it was all just part of the performance. We had hoped to keep them going for longer that the ghost story and the disappearance were real. In order to keep up the illusion, we used the fact that I am a local to the area to our advantage and made the ghost story specific to Coventry. Connor and I then led the group up the path whilst the rest of our company “waited in case Steph came back”. Again, the illusion was lost as Connor and I had scripted an argument, trying to blame someone for Steph’s disappearance as well as whether my ghost story was real. Because we performed this in front of our friends, they knew that we would never fight in the manner that we did, again shattering the glass. If we were to do it again in front of an audience of strangers we could have been considered more believable as they did not know our relationships with each other, or our personalities.

 

The ghost story happened at these two stars at the bottom of the map in a split screen- before the woman’s husband went to war, and after he returned. I narrated this part of the performance and unfortunately we had some difficulties, again because people knew us and found odd mannerisms amusing, taking away from the sinister story we were trying to tell. Also the violin we had accompanying the performance wasn’t loud enough. This narration was abruptly interrupted by a scream from the other side of the memorial tower, we then ushered the audience to follow the scream, revealing Jessie who had just seen the ghost will a man to hang himself. For this we used a mannequin that was not very effective. We hung him from the only tree without a dedication attached to it out of respect for the venue. Unfortunately this tree was very far from the audience and they couldn’t quite make out what they were meant to be looking at. After this the ghost appears and warns the audience to leave! This worked really well, Steph played the ghost and wore a dress that almost had its own glow in the dark. The only problem we had with this section was how to create a clean and obvious finish to the piece. We told the audience to run back to the entrance but as they did, we all slowly came out of character and verbally signalled the end. From what we heard from our audience, they wanted the adventure to continue and felt that that was an odd way to bring it to a close, which we agreed. 

The process itself was very long, we had two weeks to prepare it. During this time we all became very frustrated with the concept and ideas and logistics of the performance. We only visited the venue three times before the performance because of the terrible weather we had at the time. Another bump in the road appeared in the form of our City Council wanting to close off certain areas of the park. This news was given to us 24 hours before the performance. Luckily, our route was not effected, but if it had been, this could have meant reworking the entire thing as each part of the piece was site specific.

 

Experimental Theatre Scratch Weeks

During the scratch weeks, we looked at all different aspects of creating an outdoor piece of theatre. At first, we were told to look into creating a proposal to perform at an imaginary festival in Barcelona. We looked at poster designs, a message we were trying to convey and inspiring theatre companies that have done something similar. The theatre company that we were particularly intrigued by were an Australian company called “Strange Fruit” who stood on long bendable poles and created graceful pieces of theatre that worked around balance. During the research I also found Kamchatka, Osadia and the Godiva Awakes festival, each of which involved elements that we entered into our proposal. Our final proposal turned into an eco-friendly admiration of nature, and the forest taking back its home, with the use of collapsable towers and acrobats. Personally, I found presenting the ideas difficult as we had spent lots of time developing the idea and not compiling a coherent proposal.

The next few weeks we looked at work in a black box, where one person sits in a box with three panels in front of them, each with a window in that opens and closes manually. Our group presented the story of Goldilocks and the three bears. This was one of my favourite projects. We played with perspectives and areas in the space that the occupant of the box couldn’t see and how to enter the windows with this in mind. Each performance was 1 minute long and very hectic to create. Resetting each time was a hassle, but once everyone had created a routine for themselves it worked out fine. I felt sorry for our three bears, as they had to do the most running around to each of the different windows whilst wearing huge fur coats and hats. Unfortunately I have no images for this project to include, and the videos we took from the booth were lost, but you can take me word for it that it was a very enjoyable piece of theatre.

After this, we looked at promenade performances, my overall favourite of the three. The concept my group created was for young children and families. Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz wants to invite fairytale creatures to her birthday party. We took the audience on a journey through our university campus to visit Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Puss in Boots and Snow White. Some where inside the buildings, some where up on fire escapes and some where stuck in fenced off gardens. I really enjoyed performing in this, our group really worked well together too. We made sure the the journey we created for the audience was short but interesting and that there weren’t any long intervals in which nothing happened. The feedback we were given was positive as well. People enjoyed the audience participation (we made someone responsible for each characters invitation) and that the journey was an acceptable length. However, they said that the Scarecrow, who led the audience to the different characters needed to feel more urgency and excitement about getting the audience to the party. If we were to perform it for a real audience and not just one of our peers, then we would like to have a real tea-party at the end for the children to enjoy.

“The Animals and Children Took to the Streets” by 1927

I’m going to start finding it difficult to write reviews that don’t all sound exactly the same. It seems whenever I go to the Warwick Arts Centre, they have a performance on that is utterly brilliant, with elements in it that would be classed as experimental, and not just your typical scripted play.

Last night, I went to see “The Animals and Children Took to the Streets”, a performance in which the main theatrical device was actors interacting with animated film projected on to three white screens. The cast was small, one woman accompanying the performance with music and two actors on stage, the rest of the cast were cartoons within the animations as were the creative Russian themed sets.

The use of multi-roling was done well, each character bared no resemblance to any other, making it easy to follow their individual journeys. The Care-taker was my favourite character. His story was told through a series of voice overs reading aloud from his journal whilst the actress on stage would reenact his tale. The props the the Care-taker used were all 2D cut-outs that, quite comically, had their names written on them. This, along with the rest of the jokes in the piece, was one of the elements that made it light-hearted and subtly funny.

The music captured the atmosphere of the Bayou nicely, it was playful yet creepy, not to mention, it was so catchy that I still find myself singing it at home.

As I mentioned at the start, the main element of the performance was the interaction with the animations. This was done very cleverly, even from the very start in which a tenant flicked a bird into an air vent. All of it was tight and performed very precisely, there was not one moment where the animations and the people were out of sync with each other.

There are so many more things I could say about this play, but instead, I recommend watching a clip of it on youtube, or even better, catching their national tour.

“Ubu Roi” by Cheek by Jowl

 

 

 

 

Cheek by Jowl’s production of Ubu Roi was utterly brilliant! I was skeptical at first when the play began in a completely naturalistic manner with Ma and Pa Ubu preparing for a dinner party, however, my mind was put at rest as soon as the stage flooded with green lights and the cast became these grotesque figures speaking in overly emphasised phrases.

When they became these characters, they used items that would normally be found in a living room for props, for example, a lamp shade was used as a crown and a salt shaker for a sceptre. This idea worked really well, it could have been over done, but I felt that it was used just the right amount.

The cast were all magnificent as well. There transitions between their normal naturalistic characters and their exaggerated Ubu characters was done so smoothly that the mere change itself was hilarious, of course this was helped by the music and the lights, but even then, it was so drastic that it made the auditorium burst out laughing.

When I arrived, I didn’t realise that the piece was going to be done in the original language it was written in- French, or that it would be subtitled. This worried me at first, but when the dialogue began, it seemed to be perfect. The actors would elongate certain words to fit the nature of their characters, and after seeing it, I can’t imagine it working as well in English as it did in French. However, my concern came with the subtitles. They were projected onto the back wall and from where I was sitting, reading them became quite a nuisance as I had to look in two different places and would always miss something. A friend of mine watched the play from the centre of the auditorium and said that the subtitles were in the perfect place and he got to take everything in at once. This was the only problem with the play, if the subtitles had been either larger or in a different place, I may have bean able to take more from it.

 

“Marriage” by Nikolai Gogol

After watching “Marriage” at the Belgrade with some fellow theatre goers, we left with mixed opinions. Some of us felt a strong dislike towards the actor playing the main character; some of us had spent most of the play connecting the gesticulations of the cast to famous British comedians; and some of us, dare I say it, enjoyed ourselves. I was one of the later and found the play to be quite entertaining. I think that we as a collective would have enjoyed it more if the audience had been a little bit larger as well, more laughs from other people would have prompted some from us, I hope. 

Anyway, on to the production!

On arrival at the venue, there were two musicians- one playing piano and singing, whilst the other was on the clarinet. They created an appropriately cheerful atmosphere that prepared us for what was to come. They sang several different Russian folk songs and as we walked into the theatre, they followed us shortly after, and sat on the stage directing our attention to the living room setting that was before us. 

As I mentioned before, I am a sucker for set design, and this one certainly had me smiling! It was as if a small doll’s house living room had been placed on stage with the skeleton of a roof above it. There were large blue doors, frosted glass windows, and my favourite part, a canary sat in a little gold cage in one corner. The costumes fit the era as well, always a good start.

The play itself was new to me, I hadn’t read it before so all of the plot twists and the jokes were a delightful surprise to me. It was a light hearted comedy based around the world of marriage and match making in 1800 Russia. All the characters were distinctly different from each other, taking their personalities to the extreme, for example, Zhevakin, the retired Navy lieutenant, can be described as nothing other than utterly mad, in comparison with Anuchkin who was portrayed as a jittering, stiff backed gentleman.

As a group, we found that the one opinion we all shared was that the actor playing Kochkaryov was the strongest in the company. His character was possibly the most ordinary out of the whole company and yet he still managed to remain animated and captivating throughout the piece, even when performing opposite the lead character.

This version is an adaptation of the original so I’m not sure which parts the writer had taken from it and which parts they’d added, but throughout the play, several different characters delivered monologues to the audience, accompanied by the band playing some sad music. The one thing I would say that let this piece down would be that these monologues were often either too long or just entirely unnecessary. The two I felt were at all appropriate were the final one in which Podkolyosin delivers to the audience before jumping out of a window and Kochkaryov’s explanation for why he wants his friend to marry so urgently (possibly due to the actor rather than the writing).

To leave on a good note, I found the performance thoroughly enjoyable. The music helped enhance the piece, the jokes were all subtle but funny and the company themselves all fitted together nicely.

 

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“The Zero Hour” by Imitating The Dog

Sadly, I begin my blog with a bad review.

Upon entering the theatre to watch the play, I was intrigued by the lack of set, I’m a huge fan of set design and am always put in high spirits when I stumble upon a particular interesting one. Tonight however, there was, as I mentioned, no set, and in its place was a large black screen that appeared to have three windows in the centre.

When the play started, a man was projected onto said screen and began delivering a lecture that seemed to be on the scientific properties of a train. His face made an appearance several times during the play, each time, however, I felt a little bit more confused about his connection to the rest of the plot. This was probably not helped by the fact his face on the screen would sometimes have white lines crossing through it, which distracted me from the words he was actually saying.

The set up of the piece seemed to be the filming of a fictional movie based around World War 2. The audience got two different views at once. The actors were placed behind the screen and performed in front of two camera’s operated by fellow actors disguised as camera men. A director wandered in between them, giving the impression of an actual filming, sadly I found he became quite a distraction towards the middle, well, not him exactly, more the actors reactions to his directions at the end of a scene. The second view was from the cameras themselves, and we as the audience got to see the live footage from the cameras on a large screen, and behind it, the production.

This idea was new to me, something I had not seen before in theatre and I quite liked it, however, there were elements of the piece that I felt let it down.

Like in most filming situations, not everything is done in a linear order, and this method was put into practise in the play. Actors would come on, perform their scene in character, then break from their emotions as soon as the director said “Cut”, then move on to the next scene that would be completely unrelated to the last. At one point in the play, this ruined the mood as a character was weeping over the loss of her husband, then the moment the director yelled “Cut”, her face turned stoney, causing some audience members to nervously laugh.

Occasionally, different scenes would be repeated, either in different points in the play, or done several different times at once with a slight change in each run. A friend mentioned on our journey home that this was meant to represent different universes and what happened within them after the siginficant event that the piece revolved around. I had not made that connection at all, in fact, parallel universes were the furthest thing from my mind as I left, but looking at it, I suppose it made sense. I did ask myself during the production why one particular character had been shot almost five different times in different circumstances and managed to survive each one only to be killed again moments later.

If this was the intention behind the piece, then it was not portrayed clearly at all. True, they did use subtitles to depict the time and place, but by the time I noticed each one, they were already fading from the screen before I had the chance to read even the first word.

Another element used within the production was a piece of music written by Jeremy Peyton Jones, a beautiful instrumental track that had an essence of drama/tension in it, but was used way too often for me to enjoy it. The track was played during every scene change and not the filmed action itself, which I thought made the scene changes seem a little bit over-dramatic and, if I’m honest, the rest of the piece. I was waiting for some large build-up because of this music, but the whole thing was essentially on one level.

Overall, I thought that the technique used to portray the plot was fascinating, but the plot itself, was very confusing and too fast paced for me to properly understand it. If each of the scenes had been “milked” a little more, then maybe the plot would have become clearer.