Curious Incident: Day 17/18/19

Over the last week, we have been running the scenes that we feel weakest on, whilst remembering what walks our characters have and remembering the subtext we wrote about our characters.

The London train station is still the weakest scene in the play. The lines do not come when they should be and the structure is all over the place. We decided to work on this scene over the last week. We added music which helped create an atmosphere and really worked on getting the lines out at the right time to show how overwhelmed Christopher is. In addition, we added music to our opening sequence and completely changed our beginning to fit the music. We were split into 3 groups and each had about twenty minutes to create a piece. We then came together and tried to incorporate all groups ideas into our piece which was done very successfully. We also worked on a new and imporived London train station scene. I think this one really captures the hustle and bustle in a station such as Paddington, but also, helps exaggerate it as much as possible to emphasise Christopher's shock and complete dimay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntaO4litwiI

We also worked on making our London street scene look stronger, we added a street soundscape to our one to make the volume sound louder, we also tried to give as much noise, energy and movement to our scene to make it stand out a little more. In addition, we watched clips from the national theatre online exploring how comedy is used in the play. I thought this was very beneficial as it helped us understand that the play does have elements of comedy and that it wasn't intended to be a sad and depressing play. It helped is liven the play up and make it more interesting and intreaging. 

My research this week looks at the relationship between Judy and Christopher. By watching this clip it is evident that there is a lot of history between the two. As Roger, I watched how their relationship is portrayed and can see how much love and almost worry there is form Judy's point of view. However, through watching Roger, I can see that he is distant from the scenes. He is present but is cast away and not involved, there is a sense of detachment and I need to be able to replicate this myself.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jyt2w

In terms of developing my own skills I think I need to be able to make sure my characters are as convincing as possible. I need to do this by learning my lines and cues so I am not bogged down by thinking about my lines and I can say them without pressure and as relaxed as possible.

For the future I think we need to try and pull the play together. I think it would be a good idea to try and run the play from the beginning without our scripts and try and maintain our performance quality throughout, making sure we know exactly what we are doing and when.