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Issues when writing 130,000

Joshua Stephen Rivett

During the process of writing I encountered issues which effected the written play and lead to cuts and edits having to be made.

The issue was regarding the original style the group had in mind for the performance. The original idea was that the performance would be very technical, with the use of many forms of multimedia including projection, sound and lighting. Whilst the sound and lighting were still very important to the performance, the use of them was lessened from what we had originally envisioned due to the stylistic change. Any use of projection was disregarded after the stylistic changes made by the director.

This effected the original script, which I had written to accommodate this technically heavy approach we had focused on at the beginning of the process. Moments in the script had been included to use projection, as well as more sound and lighting being used.

However the director decided the technical side of the performance was unnecessary and potentially distracting for such an intense performance. With this, edits were made to the script as a way of keeping the scenes we had, yet removing some of the technical aspects.

 

Mad Blud – A London story.

Julia Curry

130,000 by WAKEUP Theatre is an incredibly challenging play to perform. It is a play which deals with the serious issue of knife crime and gang culture in East London society. At the beginning of our rehearsals I felt that it would be a good idea to research past productions which have dealt with knife crime and discover how other theatre companies have tackled this serious issue.

I came across a production named: Mad Blud: A London Story which was created and directed by Philip Osment and performed at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East. On the Theatre Royal website they state that ‘MAD BLUD seeks to get to the heart of the escalation in knife crime amongst young people and to tell the authentic stories behind the headlines’ (Theatre Royal, 2011). It was the notion that they told authentic stories that compelled me to look further into this particular production.

Whilst exploring their work I came across this short extract of text:

‘Mad Blud explores the effects of knife culture. Using words taken from interviews with victims, families, police, perpetrators, teachers and people on the street. The actors are fed their scripts through an MP3 player earpiece; they hear the real voices that have been recorded, telling their stories with an unblinking and non-judgmental immediacy’ (London Theatre, 2011).

What is interesting about this performance is that they have explored the notion of knife crime through verbatim theatre, which is exactly what 130, ooo explores. Osment has opted for his actors to use an earpiece throughout the course of their production. Because of this, the actors will be able to carry a more authentic vocal tone when delivering the verbatim as they are able to hear the way in which the text should be delivered; something which WAKEUP aren’t provided with.

Here is a link to a video on VIMEO where cast, creative and directors discuss the process and performance in detail:

http://vimeo.com/28052855

 

Staging 130,000 supports Brecht’s alienation effect

Charlotte Meek

stage

As part of the process it was my responsibility to decide the type of staging which would best fit the style of our performance.  I decided that the stage should be flat so that the actors would be able to break the fourth wall and become on the same level as the audience, making the action much more relateable and real. If the staging was raised it would suggest the audience to be onlookers of the action, but as a company we wanted the audience to really involved in the action.

To some extent the staging and style of the performance supports Brecht’s alienation effect, ‘Brecht’s use of the stage as a platform to confront ethical issues’ (Barranger 2006, p.122). This is similar to the effect that WAKEUP theatre are trying to create, we are using the stage to bring the audiences attention to the current effects of knife crime in the UK.  The actor audience proximity enables the audience to feel close to the action thus being able to see costume changes and actors at the box, eliminating a theatrical illusion. ‘ He or she should recognize the work behind the theatrical illusion of reality’ (Barranger 2006, p.122). The play becomes a reflection of reality  rather that a theatrical experience the audience can sit back and watch, it forces the audience to think about the action happening.

In terms of the actors in the play, although the verbatim in the play has much emotion attached to it, i wanted the actors to not act the verbatim in the play but simply act as a vehicle to portray the words said by the people involved. This way it would become less about who was saying it and how, but more about what was being said. This supports Brecht’s alienation effect, for the actor the effect states:

 ‘The actor must separate him or herself from the role so that he or she may clarify an attitude towards the character. The actor quotes the role to the spectator instead of living it.’ (Butler 1991, p.67)

Although this staging suits our performance very well, we did encounter some early problems when working this way. Where the seats had been brought to the same level as the stage, when the actors walked on it, it made a lot of noise making it sometimes very distracting and hard to hear what the actors were saying. When having meetings with the technical team it came to my attention that there was no other way of achieving the same effect, if the noise was too much of a problem we would have to raise the stage creating an onlooker effect. I felt that this compromise was much too big and would destroy the effect we were trying to create. Therefore, i told the actors that we were going to have to deal with the noise, i directed the piece with this noise in mind so that not a lot of movement was happening when intense scenes were performed. The actors also had to increase their volume during busy scenes.

Works Cited:

Barranger, Milly S. 2006, Theatre a way of seeing. Thomas Wadsworth

Butler, Jeremy 1991, Image and Performance in Film and Television. Wayne State University Press

Working Progress

Charlotte Meek

On the 18th March we had the opportunity to show the other groups in our class and our tutor a 10-15 minute snip it of our performance that we had been working on. I felt that this was a great opportunity to show the work we had done, but also would be an opportunity to get an honest response to our work. As our performance genre was quite a risk this would be a good chance to get an audience response. I suggested to the cast that we work from the beginning so that the class would be able to gain some context to our work, rather than showing small scenes from throughout the play. I also stated that this would be the way the scenes would be blocked in the future, in chronological order.

We were able to show 3 short scenes from our performance and got notes to work on, these were as follows:

  • Ronnie’s stabbing witnessing was not clear, which was probably down to the use of space
  • How important is light in this performance?
  • The cafe would be successful if it was lit by a window light
  • Leanne has a good face when sat down
  • CCTV scene could be done smartly, using visual elements/pace
  • Leanne needs to work on her tone of voice and deliver the speech to Rob
  • The behavior at the box is not quite clear, its slightly awkward
  • Rebecca’s voice needs to be more natural at the sofa
  • The space in the middle is overused
  • Areas can be transformed more, rather than using the space in the middle

From these notes we were able to address such problems as the action from the box and the use of space early on in the process.

130,000 – the style of performance.

Charlotte Meek

When Fallout had been edited and merged with verbatim from the Stephan Lawrence transcripts, it was then my job to choose the style of performance.  The play Fallout is, ultimately, based on predominantly black teenagers from east London. The actors, however, are not black or from east London, nor did I want them to pretend that they were. The style and aesthetics of the piece had to be carefully considered and planned in a way that would allow middle class white students to put on such a challenging play. The performance had to be more about the message that the actors were putting across than an elaborate set that would take over from the message of the play.

I decided to stylise the piece into makeshift theatre, portraying the idea that the play and performance could be picked up and moved or performed to any audience. I hoped that this would reflect the kind of theatre we wanted to create which was more about the words said than the staging; although the set would look minimalistic it would have to be very well thought out.

Upper stage right would be a large black box which would hold all props and costumes needed throughout the performance, this way the actors would be able to multirole and the characters would become symbolic. The audience would this way be able to see that the actors were just actors as they would be able to see these costume changes from the box. The box would act as a ‘back stage’ area although it would be clearly visible to the audience. This would mean that all actors would stay on stage throughout the play further proving to the audience that the actors were just characters. This would contrast the norms of theatre as when putting on a play you want the audience to suspend their beliefs and fully immerse themselves into the play. This style of theatre would differ from these characteristics as we would not want the audience to totally immerse themselves in the play (assisted by the box on stage). This enabled us to bring the audience back down to reality at anytime; this would be achieved by the interjected verbatim.

The stage would be split into specific areas; stage left would be the cafe area. This would be home too much of the scripted action such as the gang scenes. Down stage right would be a court stand where much of the verbatim would be read. The aesthetics of the two areas being so far apart represents the space between the two worlds (verbatim and script). This also meant that areas could be easily lit which made them physically seem further apart. As these areas were the only two areas of set, I decided that spaces could be transformed through lighting and, for example, a slight movement of a chair. The cafe area which will be lit and dressed to be quite a vibrant place with lots of atmosphere will suddenly be transformed to an interrogation room by lighting one table. I felt that this would add to the makeshift style of the piece, the minimalistic set also allowed us to transform such spaces.

To fit in with the style of the performance I decided that all of the actors will wear a ‘base costume’ which would be black, this would show a neutral character which would be able to multi role. Instead of having elaborate costumes I thought it would be much more effective to have pieces of costume which simply represent the character that they going to portray, for example a jacket to show a teenager and a scarf to show the actors as Doreen delivering verbatim.

In regards to delivering verbatim I wanted the actors to realise that they were not going to embody the person whom the verbatim came from, but instead act as a vehicle to give the words to the audience. Much of the verbatim is very emotional and if the actors were going to display emotion from the text it had to be genuine. The verbatim in the play needs to be about the words, bringing the audience down to reality, realising that what they are watching and hearing is based on true events.