More Rehersing

When we started to really explore our piece and the different techniques we could use to enhance it we started to consider juxtaposition. Most of our piece explores the breakdown of a relationship in a fairly linier way, starting with the meeting and ending with the emotional death of the relationship. We wanted to make our piece more abstract through the use of non-linier storylines and use juxtaposition to emphasis the destruction of the relationship. We did this by experimenting with how we could contrast the voice and the physicality to tell another layer of the story and to develop the relationship. We started to explore the poems that we had written in our characters and the different contexts that they could be performed in and how we could use the words and the movement in an interesting way. We used improvisation with the movements to see how they could relate to the words or symbolise them, we also started to say the words in a violent, angrier way. However from feedback we realised that is wasn’t effective keeping the emotion the same throughout the piece and actually it didn’t create another layer to their relationship as we had wanted. This is how we came to the discovery that by keeping the movements still linier with the rest of the story but juxtaposing this with softer, loving words showed the contrast as to what their relationship was before and after the war and actually emphasises the psychological effects of the war more. It also meant that as actors we could relate to the writing more as we spoke it as if it was being written at that time and it created a love that had clearly been destroyed by the war. It also created a more interesting piece of theatre to watch as it creates a non-linier storyline showing the audience flashbacks of their past and they love.

This last week that we have had to continue to work on our pieces has personally been really helpful and useful for my partner and me to really enhance our performance and to tap into the emotions of the piece more. Although our piece has been born off of improvisation and the exploration of each other and the stimuli we had rehearsed certain pieces so much that they had become over-worked and not instinctual like they had once been when we originally developed them. This last week has allowed us to revisit pieces of our performance that have become mechanical and overworked and get to reconnect to them and to understand why they are there and there relevance to the piece, the relationship and the characters. We did this by working out our objectives in our movements and what we were trying to gain and get by doing certain actions. On top of that we re-explored the reactions to the piece and why my character is reacting in a certain way to his touch and what that internally does to her and the psychological effect that it has on her. This also allowed us to look at the smaller details of the piece and to add purpose, emotions and characterisation to it, making it more believable.