Playhouse Creatures 5

Today we did some work on blocking. We decided where we'd be standing and moving to during the piece. This also included some pretty big decisions about staging. As it stands, we only have simple staging to give a feel of the different spaces. We have the Tiring Room and the Rehearsal/Stage area,where all the performances are held. To give the sense of a backstage area we just have chairs, which the actresses lounge about on and spend the majority of the performance. Whilst we have basic props to help show this most of the work will be done by us to differentiate between the spaces. We decided to do this in small ways, like our stature. Whilst backstage we are relatively well held in our bodies, as women would have been trained to be in the 17th Century, whilst on the On Stage area, we will hold ourselves differently, with more poise and stature. This reflects the acting of the time, slightly pompous and VERY overdone.

Above is a diagram of the stage and the journey around the stage of my character - Mrs Farley. We chose to have the attempted abortion scene on a chair facing away from the audience. I will sit with my back to the audience with all of the other actresses gathered around me facing the audience watching. This makes a rather graphic and intense scene a little more interesting to watch and a little less difficult to stage, r.e. making it look realistic and being historically/biologically accurate. Also, Greta made the rather true comment that it would be far more effective for the audience to see the responses in the other actresses' faces than to see me screaming for 20 seconds. I think that now days people have become quite accustomed to gore and people screaming their heads off, it's quite difficult to actually find an emotional response to something like that since we've been made immune to it. However, as a group we felt that the reactions of the other actresses told a far more important story and gave more insight to their characters and the dynamics. 

Then, afterwards, I stand at the front of the stage and direct my words towards the audience, however not in a way that breaks the fourth wall. Sort of in a way that if it were a film/TV show there'd be cut scenes between a shot of my face and one of the other actresses. It isolates me from the group, shows that I'm no longer one of them and I may as well be talking to a brick wall. It highlights both the unity of the actresses but also how volatile their relationships are and how easy it is to slip through the net.