Form

Review of the performance

Sally Nix

Well, that’s it, Dramaturgy is now over apart from this blog. The performance has been done, and now all that’s left is to reflect upon it and progress into Theatre Company. So here it is, the review of our performance; outlining the parts that were good, bad, and all the other stuff that goes with a review.

To start with, we’ll look at the technical side. To be completely honest, that could have gone a lot better. The lighting in the studio was on cue and very effective, highlighting the right parts of the performance at the right time and also creating the right atmosphere, as one lecturer described afterwards when giving feedback; he stated that when he came in it seemed like he was entering “an asylum”. This creepiness and sense of unease was sustained throughout the performance in accordance with how we wanted the audience to feel. However, as much as the clinical lighting in the studio worked well, other lighting effects didn’t. To be fair on us though, that was completely out of our control. To put everything straight, we had planned for the lighting outside the auditorium to go out (apart from two standing lamps) just before the performance, followed by a continuation of the blue and green colour scheme with green and blue floor lighting on the stairs leading up to the upstairs corridor. These planned lighting effects didn’t happen due to the fact that security switched the lights off. Unfortunately, because the lights went out, the two performers waiting for that very thing to happen assumed that that was the cue to start, and that meant that the rest of the group was still preparing props upstairs, and that noise carried down to the lower floor while the performance was going on. Thankfully, this did not affect the performance that Braden and Martyn gave, and by the time they were half way through the scene, everyone upstairs had finished their preparations and were ready to carry on. While the problems with the lighting were completely out of our control, the sounds weren’t, and the faults with that were entirely of our own making, as we hadn’t practiced enough with the equipment, and so had no idea of the effect produced by a ukulele and an iPod playing music at the same time. The second mistake with the sound was purely technical in that, for some unknown reason, after pressing ‘play’ on the iPod, there was a gap of a few seconds before the music began to play. The third music cue in the studio went well, and contributed effectively to the scene. To solve the technical problems, we just have to practice with the equipment, and make sure that all the security staff are completely cognisant of our plans.

Another aspect of our performance that could have been improved was the scene on the stairs; as it was, we had no idea of the sheer number of people that were going to turn up to watch our performance. Regrettably, because we hadn’t planned for that amount of audience, some of the audience who were situated at the back of the crowd couldn’t see what was happening on the stairs. Although in that way we could have improved the scene by planning better, those that did see the scene said that the way we had staged it was very effective.

Overall, the promenade style of performance was well received, and was seen to suit the piece well. Our style of acting was; “spot on”, we didn’t “overact or underact” but performed the roles well. The choice for splitting the Doctors’ role into two parts was enjoyed, as the text lent itself to be split in such a way.

In terms of expanding it, we’ve had several ideas, and not just for expanding it, but for improving it as well. One of which was the furthering of the fairground theme, with more, as I’ve called them, ‘grotesques’. This would not only create more roles for the women in our piece (one of the contributing reasons that we chose the scenes we did for this performance) but would also give more chance for experimentation within the piece itself.

We might even decide to create our own ending…

All in all, our version of Woyzeck was enjoyed by everyone that watched it, with great anticipation for what we’re going to produce for our performance at the end of the Theatre Company module which leaves me with just one last comment to make.

Well done everyone, and I can’t wait to get started on the expanded version!

Signing off for now,

Sally.

What If…

Martyn Horner-Glister

Further to the comments left on my earlier post on the great poem If, I’ve been doing some thinking.

 As our piece is to be performed in a promenade style I think it would be a great idea to have certain words and phrases from the poem stuck up around the building as we perform. If we couple this with the idea of weaving in certain words and lines of the poem into the play text, I think this would work on a level that would affect the audience on a subconscious level – they may not even notice the words on the walls.

 Prime example, at least for Dramaturgy and selfishly for me, would be in the shaving scene where we talk about time being wasted. The Captain could utter ‘Fill the unforgiving minute’.

 Any thoughts?

 Martyn.

If… By Rudyard Kipling

Martyn Horner-Glister

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Dramaturgy Performances and Promenade Theatre

Jimmy Morehouse

In a recent rehearsal for Woyzeck our group decided on the scenes we would show for our dramaturgy performance. Whilst the selection of the scenes themselves was not set in stone we spent time discussing how we could present them to the audience. We wanted to try and perform our scenes as promenade theatre; this was inspired by a recent study of spatiality in millennial dramaturgies.
Woyzeck is a play that is open to dramaturgical study. Having being uncompleted by the author, Georg Buchner, before he died the play has no set scene order other than what previous writers have put together in an attempt to finish the play. Our group, wanted to make a more contemporary performance and so applied millennial dramaturgical theories to the play regarding spatiality, “we see a number of works in which spatial, rather than chronological principals are fundamental to the dramaturgy” (Behrndt & Turner, 2008, pp.195). With this in mind we could move away from just relying on chronological aspects but more on the spatial, allowing us to perform our chosen scenes as promenade theatre.
The group then selected the scenes that we were going to perform. We needed to make sure that each performing member of the group had a respectable amount of input to ensure their practical participation was noticed. With this in mind we set about choosing the right scenes to perform. We put a selection of four scenes together; making sure each performer had a decent amount to perform. However, Martyn did not have a character to perform on the few scenes we chose, so we decided that his character could lead the audience where we wanted them to go, thus making sure that we keep tight hold over what the audience see, rather than allowing them to wonder through each scene freely; this also allowed us to remain the dramaturges of the piece. “It is possible to follow the story of the performances, by following an actor through the various scenes.” (Behrndt & Turner, 2008, pp. 195). The scenes may not be able to tell the audience completely about the play it will give them some idea into how the character of Woyzeck is feeling, allowing them to draw their own conclusion about why we chose the scenes we performed, and why we chose to perform them the way we did.

Works Cited.
Behrndt, Synne K. & Cathy Turner (2008) Dramaturgy and Performance, Palgrave Macmillan: Hampshire