Changes and Discoveries Made in 28/01/15's Rehearsal

We began by running the basic outline of our piece using the voice recording to see where we could start making developments. As we spent a while focused one the first scene, where Chloe is playing our main character as a child, we made a couple developments that we came across whilst devising from what we had previously created. For example, instead of simply having Chloe drawing simplistic drawings on the white paper, we've decided that she will be painting to place emphasis on the character's age at that stage. Also, we wanted to have a larger interaction with the audience so we're going to have Chloe run around and through the audience.

To symbolise the memories following the main character throughout her life, we developed it so that Chloe follows the audience up to the next level where Tia carries our her scene as the teenage stage of the main character's life. Then, both her and Tia take the place of her middle aged self as she is putting up the posters from WW2. Also, after listening to the voice over - we decided to also have pieces of music that signify each age of our main character at each level: eg; a children's nursery rhyme after the first level. This will not only help ease the transitions up the levels for the audience, but also establish the ages and time frame each level represents.

We also developed, that when it gets to my level - I'm playing her as a middle aged woman, that both Chloe and Tia follow up and join me and as I scrunch up the letters after writing them, they start to unravel them and stick them to the wall. This is to represent how constant the reminder of her brother is in her life and how she would never be able to let him and her actions go.

Revealing and Unfolding Stories

As our site is a staircase, we are using the property of the ascending stairs as a way to reveal different truths and the unfolding our story. Each level presents a new stage of our character's story, and as the audience travel up the stairs, they are unlocking different parts of her life with every step. We chose this idea as it's quite simple yet has the ability to hold a large amount of meaning. The site's colours and it's mood are also dull and plain, this means we are able to create a piece that colours the area with a story it may not necessarily usually see. Instead of focusing on the fact that they are stairs and that it's prime use is as a mode of getting to from one level to another - we chose to look at the physical ascendance from bottom level to the top and how the stairs are broken up into different levels itself.

Previously in rehearsals we also looked at the idea of the physical levels of the stairs representing status and the levels put in place by society. This again was looking at the structure of the stairs and what that could physically offer us rather than the stairs' prime use of travelling. We decided on using the stairs and each level to tell as story as we feel it would be able to create the most optimum experience for the audience if they are physically able to follow the story upwards as it's being told.

I feel that by incorporating the unfolding and progression the story with the psychical progression of the staircase going upwards, helped us develop a piece truly unique to our site. We are able to physically explore the journey of the story within the audience's journey through the story as they travel up the stairs. This gives the audience an interesting experience that they may not have taken part in before by experiencing both a story told through general theatrics and physical movement.

World War Two

The Second World War plays a huge and core part in our site specific piece. As we are telling the story of a woman's life who would be an old woman in 2014, we wanted a believable event that would plague her throughout her life. We chose world war 2 as not only would it had effected her in her early years but it was also a huge event that still lives with millions today. Choosing to have the brother go off to war and inevitably die there, was our way of creating something that would live with her throughout the rest of her life and conclusively lead her to writing the book. Though we aren't exploring in such depth, it still plays a huge factor in our character's story and life.

Over 450,000 British soldiers died in World War 2 and many boys did lie about their age to enlist so it was entirely plausible for this event to happen in our main character's life. We didn't want to explore it literally with guns and violence, as the story is mainly focused on his sister and so the closest we are getting is through using sound and images. However, as her brother's figure is ever present in her life; so is the war.

Learning From Devising In Our Space

From simply devising and improvising in our space, not only have I learnt about all the aspects the site offers in greater detail but also in how our group could approach it. One of the most important things I learnt was that we don't have to limit ourselves to one genre or type of theatre. We were able to completely let go of limitations and experiment with all different aspects theatre that we may have not usually considered. We were able to take ideas sparked from elements of our site and intertwine them with the different aspects of theatre to develop them and bring them to life. For example; We've discovered that we are going to want to incorporate physical theatre to help tell our story in more of an experimental and creative way.  I have personally yet to develop a piece of site specific theatre than involves using physical theatre intertwined with other elements, and so not only am I looking forward to seeing the final piece but also the skills I will gain through the creative development period.

Audience

The audience play an extremely important part in our piece as not only are they spectators to the story but they also play a pivotal role in our main character's journey. They play the attendee of the main character's book launch in the present day, and then the main character begins to tell them her life story and the basis of the book. As they travel through the space, different situations and truths are revealed and presented to the audience, they are then left to make their own judgement about the character and the decisions that she makes.

Our site is comfortable for the audience as the majority of people use stairs every single day. I feel the comfort found in the familiarity of the space will enable the audience to be more engaged and captured as they will not be pushed out of their comfort zone in regards to the space they've been placed in. Although this could possibly play to our disadvantage - due to the space being so common and overly used - I feel it pushes us creatively to develop a piece that engages the audience so deeply that such trivial things do not matter.

The audience's journey parallels with the recalling of our main character's history and story. As they ascend the stairs and onto different levels, different situations from the character's past are revealed and played out. As the audience ascend through the levels, the story ascends through time. Without the physical journey of audience, the impact of our story would definitely not be as great and the piece would fall flat. It allows the audience to travel alongside the story; instead of being simplistic spectators who's only purpose is to view, be entertained and then leave.

By looking at our audiences journey and role in the piece we are able to begin to develop our ideas on how it would effect them and what impact we want to leave on them once they've viewed the piece. It's extremely important to think about the audience when devising as they are ultimately the ones who will view the piece, and specifically with site specific theatre, we need to think about what role the audience will take and how that will help us a practitioners to tell our story and the different ways to send across our message in the most creative and engaging ways to appeal to those viewing and taking part. We need to keep the audience completely engaged and entertained throughout, and the only way to do that is by devising ideas with the audience's journey always in mind.

Our Site

My group's site is the stairs leading up to the BDC department behind the library. We chose this site as it's quite interesting and offers us a lot of creative inspiration. We began by looking at the different qualities, properties and meanings of our site.

Qualities - Our site is quite small, with one too many people it could feel extremely cramped. It's generally a quiet area, however, it's used by the BDC students everyday so it can get quite busy at some points. The initial mood for the site, personally, is dull - many people would look straight past the staircase without even thinking about the possibilities, but then it soon develops into an atmosphere of  discovery. As you ascend the stairs, you begin to discover more. 

Properties - The architecture is extremely metallic and dull. The materials used by the architecture are simple and fit for their purpose. The metallic railing that goes up aligned with the stairs gives off a caged sense, almost as if you're trapped. Whereas the rough grey walls leave a sense of monotone, which although may seem colourless, can be the beginning and stimulus of an improvisation. There are a few found objects in our site for example a raft of cleaning products and a bicycle, which could all help us develop and add to our piece, however, we don't intend to use them.

Meanings - The stairs initial use is a way of transporting people from one level to another. The use of levels can be interpreted into a piece in many different ways; physical levels, social levels, the levels of a journey and so forth. This is the particular element we feel we're going to use and incorporate into our piece the most as it offers us so many different ideas.

By completely addressing all of these different aspects and offers from the site, we are able to begin our development rich with material and stimulus ideas. We are able to begin approaching our project from many different angles and simply seeing where this takes us. I find this extremely interesting as it allows us as theatre makers to develop skills that help us improve as both actors devising and also developing ideas. It gives me knowledge that I can transfer into further theatre work and devising projects in the future. I will know where to start and what to begin to explore without having to put much thought and planning into it as I will simply be able to start devising straight from offers made by the space.