Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Monday Session. Key Images.
Over the course of the afternoon we have arrived at four groups each working on their own scene. Group A has charge of An Evening in the Public Park and Interlude. B has The Opening and Tobacconists shop. C the Pregnant Scene. Team D the Courtroom Scene 10.
We did two things this session. Firstly we storyboarded the scenes in Groups. And then showed them to the others.
The main issues to arise out of this were:
The storyboards need to give a strong sense of the stage that they are meant to represent. Yes, by all means draw matchstick men and women. But it needs to give us a sense of the stage picture, the groupings and how the picture will change from unit to unit. Thus, for example, Group three were charged with picturing Scene 7 which starts with a washing line with two characters taking down washing.
They had 'chosen', though, in their storyboard to have the washing line across one corner of the stage and with the women stood close together.
This seemed to miss a golden opportunity. The visual image of a washing line right across the stage and the two women at either end of it seemed something too good to miss. And a way to demonstrate the scene in a public place rather than to make a chamber piece of it.
Once corrected, the resulting work was very strong, served as a foundation for the rest of the scen and contained a number of key images that still remain in the mind a week later, including the Carpenter coming between the washing to give Shen Te the cheque, Shen Te's stagger prior to the revelation that she's pregnant and the beginnings of the scene in which she begins to show her unborn child the tree until the arrival of the real child.
There still was an 'idea'in the staging of the scene, though, as they'd chosen to have a real actor for the imaginary child - an actor that becomes the real child.
Now while that may work as a bit of staging, Steve was suggesting that that belongs to another stage of the process.
He was asking that in the first place the actors should simply 'show' the scene in its simplest form, just so that the structure could be seen VISUALLY.
The point of this work was to CLARIFY the scene for the actors and director. To see how it broke down into units etc. To map it. A sketch map of the ground.
Interesting things came from work that the Public Park group were doing. In putting the fairly thorough storyboard onto its feet, the actors - particularly Peter and Toni - were not demonstrating the picture. They were simply putting their bodies into the spots that they'd marked on the map, without any sense of the physicality or story that those bodies were meant to convey.
The moment they changed this, however, they created a memorable set of images to act as building blocks for the scene. The Pilot reaching for the stars. The 'Madonna' Shen Te kneeling over the body of the sleeping Christ/Sun.
The other two groups had some nice elements but perhaps lacked the simple and killing details that characterised the others just mentioned. Perhaps they were just scenes with less instant 'emotional/visual' impact and therefore more difficult to find the 'key images' for. We, for example, didn't see Tom Chandler's faint as Shen Te as strongly as we should. Because of a staging 'idea' - having the actors in a line across the back of the stage - it wasn't as clear as it ought to have been VISUALLY. It wasn't 'seen' as well. It wasn't shown.
But the work was good and it was particularly good that we say all of it together and discussed all of it together, talking as we did about ideas and resisting ideas for the basic carpentry. Of not running before you can walk. Of making a basic table before you get into the Chippendale version. Structure before decoration and ornament.
Also about taking 'notes' from a teacher or director. About trust. And accepting a degree of expertise.
A final nice note from Ashley on that score. He used the phrase, about theatre, that it was 'contrived'. At first it seemed a strange word to use. Almost a perjorative word. But when asked to explain, it rang a bell. Yes, theatre is contrived. It's made. It doesn't just happen. It's thought about. It's tested - sometimes to destruction. It's made. It's constructed.
And on second thoughts, 'contrived' is a very useful thought about it.
Home assignment for next week: REALLY KNOW YOUR SCENES.
Over the course of the afternoon we have arrived at four groups each working on their own scene. Group A has charge of An Evening in the Public Park and Interlude. B has The Opening and Tobacconists shop. C the Pregnant Scene. Team D the Courtroom Scene 10.We did two things this session. Firstly we storyboarded the scenes in Groups. And then showed them to the others.
The main issues to arise out of this were:
The storyboards need to give a strong sense of the stage that they are meant to represent. Yes, by all means draw matchstick men and women. But it needs to give us a sense of the stage picture, the groupings and how the picture will change from unit to unit. Thus, for example, Group three were charged with picturing Scene 7 which starts with a washing line with two characters taking down washing.
They had 'chosen', though, in their storyboard to have the washing line across one corner of the stage and with the women stood close together.
This seemed to miss a golden opportunity. The visual image of a washing line right across the stage and the two women at either end of it seemed something too good to miss. And a way to demonstrate the scene in a public place rather than to make a chamber piece of it.Once corrected, the resulting work was very strong, served as a foundation for the rest of the scen and contained a number of key images that still remain in the mind a week later, including the Carpenter coming between the washing to give Shen Te the cheque, Shen Te's stagger prior to the revelation that she's pregnant and the beginnings of the scene in which she begins to show her unborn child the tree until the arrival of the real child.
There still was an 'idea'in the staging of the scene, though, as they'd chosen to have a real actor for the imaginary child - an actor that becomes the real child.
Now while that may work as a bit of staging, Steve was suggesting that that belongs to another stage of the process.
He was asking that in the first place the actors should simply 'show' the scene in its simplest form, just so that the structure could be seen VISUALLY.
The point of this work was to CLARIFY the scene for the actors and director. To see how it broke down into units etc. To map it. A sketch map of the ground.
Interesting things came from work that the Public Park group were doing. In putting the fairly thorough storyboard onto its feet, the actors - particularly Peter and Toni - were not demonstrating the picture. They were simply putting their bodies into the spots that they'd marked on the map, without any sense of the physicality or story that those bodies were meant to convey.
The moment they changed this, however, they created a memorable set of images to act as building blocks for the scene. The Pilot reaching for the stars. The 'Madonna' Shen Te kneeling over the body of the sleeping Christ/Sun.
The other two groups had some nice elements but perhaps lacked the simple and killing details that characterised the others just mentioned. Perhaps they were just scenes with less instant 'emotional/visual' impact and therefore more difficult to find the 'key images' for. We, for example, didn't see Tom Chandler's faint as Shen Te as strongly as we should. Because of a staging 'idea' - having the actors in a line across the back of the stage - it wasn't as clear as it ought to have been VISUALLY. It wasn't 'seen' as well. It wasn't shown.
But the work was good and it was particularly good that we say all of it together and discussed all of it together, talking as we did about ideas and resisting ideas for the basic carpentry. Of not running before you can walk. Of making a basic table before you get into the Chippendale version. Structure before decoration and ornament.
Also about taking 'notes' from a teacher or director. About trust. And accepting a degree of expertise.A final nice note from Ashley on that score. He used the phrase, about theatre, that it was 'contrived'. At first it seemed a strange word to use. Almost a perjorative word. But when asked to explain, it rang a bell. Yes, theatre is contrived. It's made. It doesn't just happen. It's thought about. It's tested - sometimes to destruction. It's made. It's constructed.
And on second thoughts, 'contrived' is a very useful thought about it.
Home assignment for next week: REALLY KNOW YOUR SCENES.
