We started to explore the relationship of our piece with letters that were sent in WW1 – specifically looking at letters between couples. We saw how it looked when we combined the walking and balancing letters on people’s shoulders with the letters being read over the top. I thought that this combination of movement and the letters created a really strong atmosphere and showed how the words were written but might never have been read as they might not have reached the wife or husband before they died.

As there is a lot of trans-like walking around we wanted to explore different planes and how the different levels enhance the stories. We started by exploring the floor and how we can move around it with our bodies and over and through each others bodies. We used the objective that we were in a double bed and in a half sleep looking for the partner that isn’t next to me in the bed. I found that doing this with the objective really drove the piece through and it gave it an underpinning emotion and storyline of which the audience could connect with and get drawn into. As an actor I found that having the objective really allowed me to get into the piece and that I could use this to drive my movement through the piece. We then developed this to finding our partner and standing up with them.

Once we were standing we explored walking around the room and the women searching for the men still. We showed this by going up to different men- that’s not our partner- and touching/moving their bodies to try and see if they are our partner. I thought that when we lived through this moment it looked and felt really effective. Within myself I found that as I went round looking for my man I became more and more frustrated and that effected my movements. I found that when I tried to find my man how I touched the guys I became more forceful with my touch as I became more desperate to find my man.

The men’s reactions to the touch of the women were that they took it all through their body, and to them it was the effects of the war. I think that this is really interesting visually as it shows the two different worlds in one place, yet the couples are so disconnected from one another that the emotional distance feels so large compared to the physical distance. The women then stood still while the men continued to feel the effects of war. I found that as a woman stood still and watch the men suffering that it was like I knew the pain that they were going through but couldn’t do anything to stop it. I think that we could explore this further and the women could try to move slightly but be forced into that space physically as they can’t reach the man. Even is this isn’t developed physically I think that it is something to look at and explore mentally and emotionally as we work through this section.

I think that our piece really shows a calmness of the piece however I feel that there needs to be more bursts of energy and tension as I think this is more representative of the issues that the couples went through. I think that the waiting and unknowing caused a lot of volatile emotions within the characters and although physically they could do much to deal with the pain and so we are representing this through the calmness. However I feel that we should show the internal turmoil in the characters and couples through more energised sections that continue to drive the piece.  

Group Piece Exercises

In this session we got put into three different groups that the duets all fell into. My partner and I were put into the group that looked at couples and how they were affected by the war. Straight away we started to look at the common themes and how we could create a larger group piece through the exploration of exercises. One of the themes that came through really strongly was a spiritual take our piece and looking at the pausing of time when one person dies and their reunion. A physical way of exploring this was through doing sections of our duet by ourselves. This really highlighted the loneliness and the huge gap that was left after the other person gone, consequently this lead into the first exercise.

Exercise one

This exercise started by us creating an Elysian Fields atmosphere within the room. This was made through us all getting complete control and focus of our bodies and walking around the room with all our bodies being connected. Once the focus and calm hit in the room and each person we all fell into a trans-like state. I think that this was really interesting and effective as it create the sense of an empty limbo between life and death. From an audience perspective I think that it would be really visually pleasing as it clearly creates another worldly feel on stage, building the tension on stage reflecting the tension within the characters waiting for their loved ones. When doing it I felt like I was moving into this trans-like state and that we were moving around in a limbo world where nothing really happens and time is frozen. It felt empty and that I was moving in a nothingness waiting for something to happen.

We then moved this exercise on to where half the group, for example the girls, stopped and did their section of the duet by themselves while the boys continued to walk in this empty world. I think that this is really shows the stories of the world that we have created and the characters and the pain that they are going through. I think that it highlighted the loss of the characters and how they have been stuck going through the motions of their life without the person they love the most. We then made the transitions from the walking to the movement sections have an objective and a meaning to it to push through the movement and give more depth to the stories being told. These meanings and stories were showing how the person died or got moved to this world, for the men it was how they died in war and as a woman I choose to use heartbreak as a driving force through the piece. I think that this really gave the sections more meaning and that they showed the development of the story so that the audiences can invest in the characters more.

Exercise 2

This exercise was also based on the Elysian Fields atmosphere and the trans-like walking. However this time half the group walked around the space while the others tried to balance and put pieces of paper onto their bodies and keeping them there through balancing. I think that this created a really interesting piece of theatre for audiences to watch and to use as symbolism as I think that it held a lot of stories and meanings within it. For me personally I think that the different pieces of paper could be written on with the labels that the men who went to war or the women who stayed at home were stereotyped with. I think that this would have shown how when they died the personal stories were lost and only the stereotypes and labels were left and remembered by the public. I think that this is really prominent for our performance as we are looking back and remembering these people but how much do we really know other than the labels.

Another idea that was seen in this exercise was that the pieces of paper were the letters that families and friends sent to one another while they were at war. Furthering this people putting the letters on looked as if they were trying to send it or say something but they were never sure if they reached there loved one and that there are so many things left unsaid. I also think that the paper that falls onto the floor holds a huge amount of emotion as it could symbolised that the letters never did reach the people. I think that this could be a really powerful section in our piece as it holds a lot of meaning and I think it could really pull the audience in to set up the piece for the audience.