Devised piece: Set design

One thing I was also assigned to do was to research the style of the buildings and scenery of New York in the 30's.

The first scene we need a set for is our first scene taking place in the speakeasy.

 Of course, due to the budget we are on (nothing!) and the time we have, constructing a set looking like this would be impossible. However, simple things like the style of the chairs or lighting can give us the feel of a hidden bar. As you can see in the pictures, the lighting is very dim, which we should acknowledge.

One thing we could also use to get the feel of a speakeasy is perhaps a sign inside the building of the speakeasy's logo. Then it would be clear to the audience where we are and the context of the situation.

Another set we need to focus on is the actual street itself, as lots of scenes will take place on the secluded streets of New York. One idea we have already spoken about is the idea of hanging a washing line across our performance area and hanging curtains from it. This gives us the ability to carry out our silhouette scenes and option to change the set quickly if we can pull the curtains away.

Also, it would fit nicely into our set as streets in the 30's often attached washing lines to two buildings to hang their washing on.

 Another simple thing we could do is place signs on the walls in the style of the writing in the picture. This would be very easy to do and clearly show that we are in a street without trying to create something to elaborate and too complicated. After all, we don't have a lot of time to waste on a set, we need to make sure our performance is as good as it can be.

One object I think we should try and include is a New York streetlamp. I think it would be brilliant as it is iconic to the time period and we could interact with it. However, it would be difficult to get hold of something like this and                                                                               may get in the way for a set change.

Devised piece: Research

My task for research was to have a look at the dust bowl that took place back in the 30's. This may be useful as we can use this event to create backing stories as to why the gang formed, people being forced to move the affected areas, but as Wall Street was in crisis too, there were very little jobs, so people turned to gangs to survive.

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s lasted about a decade. Essentially, it was a period of extreme drought, the main source of jobs was from agriculture, and without water, the crops died and the ground dried up, turning the land into hard baked dust and sand, leaving thousands if not millions jobless and forcing them to travel over America, in search of a job. Its primary area of impact was on the southern Plains. The northern Plains were not so badly effected, but nonetheless, the drought, windblown dust and agricultural decline were no strangers to the north. In fact the agricultural devastation helped to lengthen the depression whose effects were felt worldwide. The movement of people on the Plains was also profound.

I also found an extact on a website from "The Grapes of Wrath" I think that this piece could be rather useful as we could use it to catalyse some dialogue and give us a base or idea on what to say. Especially for one of the gang members who has moved to New York from the south.

As John Steinbeck wrote in his 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath: "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land."

Poor agricultural practices and years of sustained drought caused the Dust Bowl. Plains grasslands had been deeply plowed and planted to wheat. During the years when there was adequate rainfall, the land produced bountiful crops. But as the droughts of the early 1930s deepened, the farmers kept plowing and planting and nothing would grow. The ground cover that held the soil in place was gone. The Plains winds whipped across the fields raising billowing clouds of dust to the skys. The skys could darken for days, and even the most well sealed homes could have a thick layer of dust on furniture. In some places the dust would drift like snow, covering farmsteads.

 These pictures could also help act as a stimulus for any monologues we may do. They portray the desperation of the people, the horror of the post apocalyptic world the people had found themselves in.

Devised piece: Day 6/7

The last two lessons we have been working heavily on our next scene which will be our argument scene. We began with brainstorming ideas for where we wanted to go with our arguments and how we wanted to end each alternative ending each time. Our ideas are below.

It took us a while to devise our argument. We went for the story line we created where the gang force Finn to break up with Tess as she is interrupting the way the gang work and is distracting Finn. We wanted to show that the whole idea of someone going against the gang was a serious crime back in the 30's, therefore devised the argument around violence. The gang feels insulted by Finn and let down by him, they begin to tease him and insult him verbally, so he lashes out, leading us into a fight scene.

We worked hard on the fight scene over the two lessons, we didn't want to make it look silly or over do it and we wanted there to be a sense of maturity about it. We didn't want it to look like some kids had just decided to take the easy route and start flailing arms in an inartistic way. We blocked what we wanted to happen at first, so we knew the sequence of events and could go onto create movements and an exciting fight scene.

Once we had blocked the scene and improvised the dialogue, we went back to practising the dance between Finn and Tess to show the rest of the class as it was the only finished piece we had to show. We ran through it and allowed for any pointers or improvements in technique to be offered. We knew we had to slow it down and remember to try and keep the flowing, slow movements throughout. We took this on board and carried on, with the improvements in mind, sadly we haven't had an opportunity to video our improved routine, but hopefully will do in future.

We came back the next lesson knowing that we had to work on the argument scene as it was rough around the edges and we needed more of a backing story to the other gang characters, which we vaguely discussed. We ran through the piece once or twice, tweaking the sequence slightly. Once we were happy with our scene, this took around an hour, we ran through it to the rest of our group and they pointed out what could be better. For example, we needed to make sure that our stage combat looked professional and realistic as, on several occasions, some of the punches were clearly not anywhere the faces of others. We practised this and adjusted where we stood and the angles at which we threw our arms and how we reacted. In addition, one of our tasks is to put in as many theatrical techniques as possible, so this fight scene is a perfect opportunity to use some. We decided that slow motion would be a great addition to the fight as it was all very single paced. We went back through our sequence looking at actions we could make slow. We mainly looked at the parts where a heavy punch goes in or there is a fast bit before to show a real contrast in speeds which will hopefully engage the audience more and give our piece a really sophisticated edge and sense of maturity, to show that we have thought long and hard about this scene and haven't just thrown it together.

For the future I think we really need to focus on a backing story for the other gang members, as we don't really know anything about them, who are they? Where are they from? Do they have any views? We need to think about this as it would help the audience make sense with them and maybe build a connection to the characters, to understand them, and to show that we can create a variety of characters in our piece, all with stories to tell themselves.

Devising: Day 5

We picked up where we left off last lesson, by running through the dance. However, as we ran through it again we began to think up a few more ideas. The dance we had originally was pretty dull and boring, so we tried to come up with a few new lifts. I was a bit nervous about these lifts at first as I have never done something like this before, so we had a good half an hour or so practising and rehearsing and watching where I was meant to hold and so on before eventually being able to do them fluently. Once we had got the dance in place, we ran it through from the beginning and filmed it. We feel that the new lifts we incorporated are much more interesting and allow us, as actors, to show our love more, as the dance seems more intimate than before. Obviously, we have to make sure we are acting whilst dancing and use our facial expressions and eye contact to make this love visible to the audience. This should make the audience feel more towards our characters as they can see our emotions and can begin to build up a connection or relationship with us, by aiming at their heartstrings we are able to create an attachment between audience and characters, so if anything happens it will strike the audience with more effect.

Afterwards, we went back to set the dialogue between the gang members and author in the speakeasy. This was difficult though, as although we set it, dialogue was hard to come by as we hadn't really thought through what was going to be said, so we need to work on this in the next lesson to make sure gaps are filled in the performance before we move on.

When we were setting the dance, we split the group and got the other half to think about ideas on how to go on with the performance.

If its visible our ideas include...

• The gang talking to Finn, expressing their disapproval with Tess.
• Sending Finn away when they rape Tess where she becomes so stressed she takes her life or breaks up with Finn.
• Leads to arguments where Finn drowns his sorrows and cheats on Tess when he is drunk.
• Or he falls out with the gang and turns against them.

Of course, the point of our story us that the author writes various endings, so the likelihood is that all these ideas will feature to give our different endings. We feel that these are good base ideas on which to build upon and allow us to get creative with our techniques. There is a lot of potential for how we can set theses scenes. That may be a more lurid, contemporary scene for the rape. We could use lifts and slow motions. Throughout we could use a split stage with the author and characters, possibly even monologues. Of course, these ideas will be thought about a lot more thoroughly, and hopefully we can come up with some really nice pieces using everything we have learnt so far. 

Devising: Day 4

Today was a rather difficult day as one of our members was not present, so we couldn't actually do any run throughs or create new scenes. Instead, we created and set the dance that Finn and Tess do when they meet. Personally, I found this very difficult as it was the first time I had ever danced a more ballroom style, to be honest I do not really dance at all so I need to put some practice in and seek guidance from Dan Mckay, who is in a dance company and choreographed our little movement piece. I found the dance awkward at the beginning as I need to show how much my character loves Tess, but at the same time have my reasons for why I found it difficult that I will not mention. Eventually, we managed to run through the dance all the way. There were problems in my movement, as I know I am quite rigid, but as time goes on I will loosen up and work on the dance to make it look a lot more natural .

The music we chose to accompany our dance is called "Sentimental Mood" by Duke Ellington, we did spend a good half an hour or so trying to choose music as we needed to build our piece around the music, so we waited until we found the perfect piece. Unfortunately, after looking through the Great Gatsby sound tracks, we couldn't find anything better than what we already had, so settled with "Sentimental Mood". We chose this as it is from the 1930's which fits the time period perfectly and because it is rather relaxed, allowing us to move freely. However, as it has no particular rhythm, creating our movements were hard at first, so we just improvised at first and managed to pick out bits we liked before converting them into our piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR13ECD71xU

In the piece, our characters need to make sure that we really portray the fact that we love each other. If not, it will look awkward and forced, essentially an obvious piece of trying to act. We haven't got as far as lighting or where on the stage we do this, at the moment, we should try and get a whole storyboard finished and set before we focus on lighting, as ideas will spring to us as we continue to think. The progress we have made so far is very good, we have a good block to build upon, but for the next lesson, we have to make sure that we plough onwards and get an idea of how we want the story to progress, where we go from here? What happens next? How are we going to end it? These issues need to be addressed.

Devising: Day 3

Today was another productive day, we managed to set our beginning scene completely which is shown below. We feel it gives a proper sense of fear to the audience as we can not be seen throughout. Obviously it will have a greater affect live than it does on the video. My character, Finn, remains silent for the whole scene, so I wanted to create more tension by responding with slow footsteps and a sniffle before I hit the floor with a whip, giving the scene a break whilst I can manoeuvre into the audience and get close to allow them to feel part if out performance. We also decided to leave a silence before the gun shot is heard to play on the audience more. Possibly getting them to think that everything is fine or maybe feeling a tension build up inside, in order for the shot to have a greater feeling of shock and hopefully making the audience jump out of their seats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8os4jhpC10o

Afterwards, we went on to try and set the scene where Finn and Tess meet and fall in love. This scene was difficult to set as we originally planned for them to meet by a dumpster when disposing a body. But realised that it wouldn't go at all and not fit in the production, it lacked romance so we decided that our characters should meet in a 1930's sleep easy, as the American government had banned alcohol during the prohibition from 1920-33. This made the scene a little more romantic and perhaps allowed us to show off outr knowledge of the time period  more.  Our gang comes to the door of the sleep easy  and enters . Our author will also play the narrator  and be present in the scenes so our story can change as we go along. We  mime out a conversation but Finn is gazing upon the girl at the bar. The men try to shake him off  but he prepares himself  and as he turns around the girl  falls on a spilt  drink into his arms where they meet for the first time.  We found divisingt this scene difficult as we didn't want to  make it cheesy of cringey. But at the moment we are happy with what whe have. We need I cominue on but must make sure we do not rush to get our production finishe and make sure that what we have is quality all the way through.

Devising: Day 2

Today was the first day we began work on our idea that we settled with. The idea we have settled with is the idea of the gangs in 1930's New York, where an author writes alternative endings for a book in which we act out. We have come up with numerous ideas for stories and have decided that at the beginning we will have a silhouette of the author hanging himself. This will be a dramatic and edgy start that will keep the identity of the author hidden, creating more mystery and tension, which we hope will keep the audience engaged. Our second scene would be a complete blackout with the voices of the gang members ringing around from different directions, interrogating an associate, ultimately ending in death where a gunshot is heard. The lights come up to reveal a body with a paper bag over his head, again, to keep the identity hidden of the voices and the victim to add more mystery. In the background we thought we would project some pictures of newspaper articles or graphic pictures displaying the brutality of the gang, to give the story a bit of a spark. It's early days at the moment, but we have some really good ideas. We have toyed with music, which we want to be from the 30's itself as it will give a more realistic edge.We have also used Skyfall as it is dramatic, giving the same sound of the 30's. We will undoubtedly change our music and scenes throughout the next couple of months, but we have made a great start so far.

Devising

Today we started brainstorming and researching potential ideas for our devised piece. We have been assigned groups and together, have to devise a piece from a stimulus. Our stimulus was the song "Chasing Pavements" by Adele. We have done a range of things for ideas today such as looking at lyrics and potential meanings and interpretations, looking at themes throughout her songs. The ideas I managed to note down are below. The first picture was looking at the lyrics of the song and what we can get out of it.

 Below, we researched the story behind the song and linked possible stories to them.

We came up with one idea that we looked at a little more closely as you will see below. It was about 1930's gangs. We got this idea as we thought about a homeless person being taken in by a gang and longing to be in one as she thought that it would mean a better life, therefore chasing that idea of such a life, like Adele, who was chasing only pavements, which is why we linked it back to gang life not being as brilliant as the homeless person once thought, as she ends up being abused. Therefore was chasing pavements in the end and not some luxurious life.