Sean Kennedy-Lockwood Final blog

1)

Throughout the validating stage going into the performance stage of the process one of the common themes which developed and occurred throughout was a longing for love and friendship, people generally looking for companionship within a foreign place. This can be seen with the subgroups, such as, the scene of the characters sharing the load that needed each other within the piece and also with my own character lusting after the female characters. There is also a sense of discovery with Porto in the beginning with people being in new surroundings feeling alone and uncomfortable around other people.
“A character in a play, like each of us, is constantly growing and changing in response to her life experiences – the people, places, things and situations with which she comes in contact.” (Alberts, 1997, p47)

Slowly, as the performance went on, this developed into a community with people forming relationships and a common purpose, much like the two characters wearing superman tops who were childlike with there characters and they formed a bond between each other. As an Ensemble everyone was at a crossroads being in a certain place in there own individual journey, which can be seen in the beginning of the ensemble work with peoples own movements. Eventually people become in sync with one another and there is a sense of shared history and we all have a common purpose.

Tying the group together was that we all were carrying baggage from the past, which was shown literally, through our bags which were significant to us, which we carried on our own journey. There is also a sense of beings trapped within this strange place shown through the first ensemble piece where we all repeated the same movements. Also within the piece bags and baggage where the ensemble watch as there is a fight for suitcase we are all much like a rabble ganging up on these two individual characters.



2)

One of the positives of taking the performance into the Arena space was the concentration of the group increased and peoples focus was the strongest it had been throughout the whole process. Giving a large group, as we are a bigger space gave everyone a chance to have there own space without intruding on other people which gave the ensemble a chance to experiment when working in the periphery to expand there emotional connection to other people. When entering the arena we also had to adapt to the spatial proximity, going from the studio, which was smaller than the arena space.

This was both good and bad as we then had the space to be able to use on the periphery and when it came to the sub groups there was enough space for everyone to be able to perform there part. It was also a bad point, as we had to expand the work to the arena space, this meant spreading the work across the space and using the back in the periphery. This was difficult when coming to the reprise as everyone was close together and there was not enough space for people to move. It was expanded to the back and this gave people room to move around. Moving into the Arena also gave a new level of emotion for the characters myself in particular grew a stronger emotional connection resulting from the new environment, which felt like Porto this made my performance on a whole a lot stronger. The emotional connection made by characters made the movements developed a lot stronger and there was meaning behind each one which could also be seen with the whole ensemble as everyone was producing strong work when entering the Arena space. The Technical rehearsal we ran through was challenging, as it was a tedious day of sitting around until peoples certain scenes came up but group focus was only weak at few moments and the ensemble knew that the lighting would help the performance and enhance the scene.





3)
On a whole over the three shows the performance as an ensemble grew stronger and the emotional connection of each character increased as the performance went on. My character in particular carried on evolving over the three shows from the last rehearsal to the matinee performance on the Thursday my performance was emotionally not as strong however through the two other shows my journey carried on growing so my journey increased emotionally as I developed my characters.

Throughout the piece I did develop new material with changes to my character. The changes I made were to my entrance making it bolder and more confident, which is more to what my character is. There was also material within the community disrupted scene with my character having to remove a coat, this changed just before the show to be more aesthetically pleasing when taking the coat off. The more interesting growth was with the peripheral work of the piece for myself as my character was able to develop more with other people and also increase the bond with the two people I work with the most. This is where my character stood out for me rather than in the photo scene.

I found it hard to work through the RSVP model. This was due to having to make a character before doing any improvisation, this forced me to make connections with other people who I have never work with before and I struggled to find myself in the performance space of Porto. What I believe would have been better for me is if we were free to improvise within the Porto space before having a character and gradually develop one through improvisation. I found that throughout the whole piece there was a stronger connection within the periphery work rather than in the other scenes. As an ensemble the model was still developing, there was still validating up to and including the last show. The majority of the process was emotional journeys were still taking place and changing with my own journey it was becoming more intense, my lusting after other woman and found that looking at other woman in the performance provoked a reaction from the people who I was working with.


“You must be able to work as an ensemble to tell the story moment by moment… Eye contact is a crucial ingredient, so is a heightened sensory awareness of others in the space.” (Callery, 2001, p.88)

Overall the performance never stopped evolving and becoming stronger as an ensemble the bond between everyone was intense and emotionally draining but with everyone pushing themselves further within the three shows it came across and the audience read the semiotics which were put across.


Bibliography

ALBERTS, D. 1997. The Expressive Body. Heinemann.
Callery, D. (2001) Through The Body A Practical Guide To Theatre Nick Hern Books Ltd.