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.