May Day

Talked through:

Choir idea – good but is it too logistically difficult?

Final idea – Reverting back to the Facts and Statistics – my suggestion – read script

Company names and Show name – I suggested: Try me on for size!

Worked Through:

Little Boxes – Decided to remove the house boxes. I felt that the boxes looked great in this scene however came out of nowhere and were problematic for the rest of the piece. Where do they stay when they are not in use etc? Pip felt strongly about them in use, and a couple others also liked them, however the majority of us felt they were too problematic and different to the rest of the piece. Others suggested other ways of making the house appear; some thought about making the piano into a giant house, I really didn’t like this idea as I like so far how we only have stage exactly what we need… a rail, coats and a piano.

Zoe Scene: Zoe comes out again pretending it is not her and talks to the audience until she is removed by the rest of us and the clothes rail.

Shakespeare Scene – I said to the group that I felt the Shakespeare scene as it stood before this rehearsal felt ‘unblended’ into the piece, it seemed like we had just slipped a Shakespeare scene in for fun. I said that maybe we need to make it more ridiculous/incorporate the coats into the scene more to help it become part of the greater piece. In rehearsal we worked with blending it into the piece more. We began by using the coats on the rail to reveal Chris and remove Zoe. I said that perhaps Dan (who is diversion) should part way through the piece ask the audience if there are any deaf people there and even if there isn’t say that there is and then come back and get one of us to translate for that audience member. We are caring for the audience but it ends up being a huge distraction. We tried this out and it seemed to work.

Pip’s French Scene – We agreed that Pip needed more to do in the performance so thought that this opportunity could be a good place for it. In the Shakespeare scene she was performing as a French translator so Jodie and Pip had talked about Pip retelling a childhood story from when she went to France and drowned in a sort of ‘sob story’ style. I said that Pip should retell the story using a French accent, we tried it and it was comically emotional so we liked it, especially as Pip played piano over the top of it. Carmen finally comes on saying ‘I think Pip just needs a moment’ leading on to…

Carmen Consoling – Carmen is another person who we wanted to weave into the piece more so we worked with the idea of a scene where she was consoling Pip, I said perhaps she could show herself to be consoling Pip but only in order to show herself off to the audience as a caring and passionate individual. So in this way she is being caring for her own selfish means. We worked with this for a while but the slow and sad pace of the text brought a real lull to this section of the performance. We tried a couple of other ways, including one where it got so boring/awkward that I blocked them off with a clothes rail in order to bring the fun up with the following magic trick. We are still in discussion about whether this section works or not.

Magic Trick – Didn’t do much work to this today, just felt how Carmen’s text would run into it.