Task 3 - Creating and Developing a Physical Theatre response to Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

Creating and Developing a Physical Theatre Response to

Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'

Notes:

Initial Group Ideas and What You Completed in the Workshops

To help brainstorm our ideas we carried out a paper carousel exercise. This is where we had three large sheets of paper, each titled ‘Physical Theatre’, ‘Me!’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. In three teams we rotated pieces of appear until by the end every group and every group member has added something to each piece of paper. This revealed what we thought are strengths were (as an ensemble and as individuals), the strengths of physical theatre, and what we think a production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ needs in order to succeed.

One of the key things that emerged was our collective interest in the way the original play presents an antithesis between the natural and supernatural world and also between moral and immoral actions. This exercise definitely helped us to recall what we already know about the play in terms of techniques and themes.

These findings proved to be the basis of “The Veil” scene. This includes all our individual partner work that we did with mirroring and it is all broken apart and mixed and matched together. We started by getting in pairs and creating a mirroring sequence drawing from the idea of natural/supernatural entities. Our original pairs were then split up and we were partnered with someone new and collaborated both our sequences together to make a new one. This was then repeated again. This meant that each movement was common amongst the group or more than 1 person. This then didn't appear like a mirroring sequence anymore. We then developed the narrative of supernatural beings trying to communicate to the natural beings and try to make them join them. the supernatural side is divided by 'good' and 'evil'. Our movements looked like casting a spell of some sort other the other person so this was a driving point theme for this scene. This links to 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' as the play is also divided by both supernatural and natural as well as being centred around the idea of 'magic'. This is shown through the love potion Puck puts on the lovers and Titania. It's also shown through the characters as some are fairies and the rest are human.

We also started developing the “mirror” story structure. For this scene we worked in pairs to create a sequence that was focused on different things. In my pair we had to focus ours on 'Conflict'. We started with Physical Theatre to appear that we are having a fight/argument through contact. We were close together and used harsh, strong movements to represent conflict. We moved each others' parts of the body using the Physical Theatre technique: Round-by-Through. In the scene, we repeat the sequence twice. The first with contact, the second with non-contact and a big distance between us. We completed the moves exactly the same but by not physically moving the other person. This adds a new meaning to the conflict. Changing our proxemics from one another makes the confrontation and conflict less personal as we aren't physically in contact. It makes the conflict more metaphorical than literal. "The major conflict in 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' is that the people want to interfere in the lives of others and want to decide their fate. This desire creates conflict among the characters. One such example is that of Puck who transforms the love of characters and he also changes the character of Bottom by changing his head." 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Literary Devices

Chiasmus / Chiastic Structure

Chiastic Structure is a literary technique of repetitive symmetry in which words or concepts are repeated in reverse order. It's designed to create insight and resonance through both comparison and contrast. It employs the pattern of 'A, B, B, A'. An example would be, "All for one, one for all!"

"Chiasmus: In Chiasmus, the statements are repeated in reverse order. The use of chiasmus in this play is given below:

i. The more I love, the more he hateth me. (Act -I, Scene -I, Line, 199)
ii. I give him curses, yet he gives me love. (Act -I, Scene -I, Line, 196)
iii. The more I hate, the more he follows me. (Act -I, Scene -I, Line, 198)

The use of chiasmus in the first, second, and third examples shows the literary skill of Shakespeare." 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' Literary Devices

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ as a whole doesn’t follow a Chiastic Structure but our physical theatre piece does.

VOCAL TRACKS

Chiasmus Within Our Piece

This is the order of our performance and these are the vocals tracks we are using. Track 1 mirrors 10, 2 mirrors 9, 3 mirrors 8, 4 mirrors 7. Track 5 and 6 are the heart of the piece. The performance opens with Titania and Bottom (Harrison and I) and also end with us. The opening track has me, Titania, spellbound and in love with Bottom, Harrison, and I’m trapping him in the woods from. The closing track has me, Titania, releasing Bottom, Harrison, and allowing him to leave the woods signifying that everything is returning to as it should be. All the track pairings are opposites of each other or ‘in reverse’, therefore making it follow a Chiastic structure.

What Interests Me About This Group Project?

What interests me the most about this project is that it is a theatre piece that is Shakespearean but with a modern twist. I personally love Shakespeare, his plays and find his language style very intriguing. I particularly find it very clever when Shakespeare plays are modernised by technique or environment. For example, my favourite movie of all time is Baz Luhrmann's 1996 modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. I love it so much due to its modern changes to the original play. The setting, costume and film vibe is that of its era (the 90's) yet the text/script is exactly the same as the original play. A key difference in the film is that they used guns instead of swords.

Our project is similar. We are taking the original text but our modern twist is that we are using physical theatre. This interests me as we are telling the story of the original Shakespeare play through physical movement. To a modern audience, the original Shakespearean text is challenging to understand so to understand what is happening in the story audiences rely heavily on the actions on stage and facial expressions. As our main focus is physical theatre, I'm interested that we are relying on physical movements and experimenting with how to use our bodies to tell a story as this is something we have tried out the least in past projects.

What the Group Needed to Know About ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ In Order For the Piece to Succeed? (Identify Key Themes and Quotes)

It was vital that, as a group, we knew the key themes of the play. This is crucial in order for the piece to succeed so that we understand what the script is trying to convey and what the aims of our piece are going to be. We need to know the themes so that we can incorporate them within our piece and use the themes as inspiration for our movements. Making sure we clearly know the themes of the performance will help us with communicating the story to the audience clearly. A lot of the themes throughout the play have an antithesis for example, love/hate, moral/immoral, mortal/immortal and appearance/reality.

For this piece to succeed, we also needed to know some Shakespearean techniques within the literature and acting style as well as a deep understanding of Shakespearean language. We needed to be able to interpret and understand the text so that we firstly know what is being said and secondly to help us make what the text is saying and the storyline clear to the audience. If we don't know what the text means how can we successfully portray it to an audience?

Key Quotes:

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged cupid painted blind..."

[Helena - Act 1, Scene 1]

This is quote is key in the play that we use in our piece and it links to the theme of love and also appearance/reality. It's saying how love doesn't rely on what the person looks like, it's what is on the inside that counts. This links to the lovers in general but mainly links with the relationship that occurs between Titania and Bottom. Titania has been blinded by love due to the love spell. She calls him beautiful because to her, he is. The constant remarks of love she makes towards Bottom, emphasises the absurdity of their love.

"...So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape. And thy fair virtue's force perforce doth move me. On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee."

[Titania - Act 3, Scene 1]

This is a key quote we use in the performance, linking to the theme of supernatural. This quote where Titania states that she has love at first sight for Bottom is the first clear sign that the spell is on Titania and in full working order.

"My mistress with a monster is in love..."

[Puck - Act 3, Scene 2]

This quote by Puck links to a several themes. Firstly, the theme of Love. It highlights that love can be irrational and blind, linking to Helena's quote in Act 1, Scene 1. Secondly, the theme of Appearance/Reality. The quote suggests that true feelings exist no matter what someone appears on the outside. The quote shows how confusing and chaotic love can be.

What I Think the Group Will Need to Know About Physical Theatre in Order For the Piece to Succeed? (Identify Physical Theatre Devising Techniques That Were Used)

For our piece to succeed, we need to have a good understanding of physical theatre and the basic techniques. Having a good knowledge of the techniques Frantic Assembly used would be a good place for us to start. Knowing the basic techniques will, allow us to be able to develop our own sequences. The main techniques in physical theatre are Hymns Hands and Round-by through. These techniques are key as physical theatre heavily relies on movement to convey emotions and narratives. These techniques will help us to communicate what our story is through our movements.

Hymns Hands: Where you use only your hands or someone else’s hand e.g. grabbing the shoulders or grabbing someone’s hand.
Round-by-Through: This is a movement that involves moving round someone, or going through their arm.

Frantic Assembly Techniques & Definitions

What techniques did you use to perform the text to a high standard?

To perform the text to a high standard, we used the technique, Actioning.

‘The action is described with a transitive verb – this is a verb that is “done to” someone else, such as “teases” or “threatens” or “distracts”. It helps actors to decide and convey clearly what their character is trying to “do” with each line to the person or people it is spoken to. Perhaps they are trying to shock; to reassure; to intrigue; to seduce; to amuse.

The technique can be used in regular dialogue or even when the audience is being addressed directly. As well as giving actors a clarity of purpose for every line, it is also a useful tool for keeping a performance consistent over the course of a long run.’ Actioning

We used this technique to help us to clarify our characters’ intentions and motivations in a scene. This is a useful technique for us to use for this specific performance. As the original text is Shakespearean, a modern audience may struggle to understand what is being said. When it’s performed live, audiences can understand what is happening in stage through body language/movements and facial expressions. For our performance, we are recording some stand-out scenes from the original script and be making them as voiceovers to be played over our physical theatre piece, meaning we will not be speaking the script live. This also means that we need to show the emotion of these characters and show their intentions through our voice as the audience will only hear the words. Actioning will allow us to get our characters motivations across on the recording.

The exercise we did to incorporate the technique, Actioning, was that we looked at the scripts we would be recording and split the text up into ‘Units’. Each ‘Unit’ is ‘the smaller sections of the scene where the character has a smaller objective, which will lead them to their main objective.’Actioning: Units Then for each unit, we established what the transitive word would be and then what the inner monologue of the character would be. As Harrison and I complete our scene together, we completed the actioning exercise together to overall establish what we both think our scene is trying to communicate to an audience.

As we are recording the text for the performance, this has allowed us to put the recordings on music tracks. Adding music has helped to set the overall atmosphere for our scenes and performance as a whole. The array of music styles/vibes we are using help to communicate what each scene is about to make it clearer to an audience.

Identify key moments of discovery or concerns/problems during your process

During the rehearsal process for our performance, we had some conflicting commitments that interrupted our rehearsal time. We were rehearsing for our annual musical, which this year was, ‘A Chorus Line’. As we were rehearsing 2 performances during the same time, I found it challenging to remember this performances’ choreography. Our rehearsals for ‘A Chorus Line’ were much more frequent as we rehearsed for it daily while we had 1 rehearsal a week for this performance. I needed a constant recap of what we had completed in the previous lesson which did mean that we spent the start of each lesson recapping previous lesson work which did take up valuable rehearsal time.

We also faced some technical issues when it came to recording our lines. The mic didn’t pick up our voices well and were very unclear and muffled, meaning we had to re-record it all. This meant we had to be flexible with our schedule but the upside was that the time when the recordings failed to work ended up being like a rehearsal run with lines. Once we had the recordings with the vocals, I found everything ran smoother as we had a beat to follow and work with and cues with the lines for movement. I find it easier to remember movements by specific word cues so having the tracks helped me a lot.

Reflection on my contribution to the group and how well the group as a whole worked throughout the process (consider what made you succeed as an ensemble and what obstacles you overcame).

Overall, as a group we have all contributed in uniques ways. We are firstly all personally responsible for drawing from a specific character in the text, we have suggested pieces of music, spotted a moment where something could be added or adjusted. We have also all created certain bits of the work either independently or with a partner. For example, Harrison and I created a sequence using the technique, Round-by-Through to show how Titania has been spelled to love Bottom so deeply that she refuses to let him leave. We drew inspiration from the lines in our scene from the script that we recorded. We have all made little sequences that have been added .within the performance.

As a whole, I think we have worked really well and collaboratively as a group. We came together in our initial brainstorm and worked well together when creating scenes. The mirroring scene was created us working together. We’ve been supportive of one another and have been efficient in rehearsals to complete as much as we can in the time given. We have set with a frequent obstacle which is that we have had many rehearsals where at least 1 person is missing due to illness or travel. This has caused some disruption in rehearsals as we have been missing some people, it has been difficult to get a lot done and create new stuff but I think we did well to make use of the time and work together to make sure everything is completed in time for the actual performance.

First Draft of Structure: