4/4

In this lesson we realized that there was a scene left over that we didn't give to anyone to direct. Pedra's Death. From this we decided that we would all have a small input into this scene and get it up on it's feet. Today's rehearsal was a good rehearsal; we have a a good starting point for a scene that we just need to keep adapting in order to make it full of precious moments. Today's rehearsal also reinforced everything that we need to keep on doing. Detailing, bringing in our research, keep on adding little moments, looks, relationships. NEVER FORGET ABOUT THE AUDIENCE AND WHAT THEY NEED TO SEE.

Scene split-up

We needed to split up the scenes that we are thinking of doing between us so that we can begin to think about how each of them are going to look. We are directing scenes individually. There were 7 scenes and 7 of us. We need to now separately think about how we would like the scene that we are directing to look. Further we need to create 2 or 3 different ways that we can direct the scene in case our initial idea doesn't work. 

I am directing the 'Gas Chamber' scene.

This is from Wednesday's lesson

01/04/2014

Today we got feedback from our funding pitches, this is what we were given:
Make sure that we stick to telling the story of Helena and Franz and be careful not to tell the story of Auschwitz - it is easy to over complicate stories, simplicity is bliss.
Look at the National Jewish Society on the Digital theatre site - they did a play about the holocaust survivors.
Look at stories from where love has conquered all in the most adverse of places.
Think about how we are going to tell the story. Don't try and tell Much Ado. Be careful of what parts of the text we use.

MISSION STATEMENT

This is our mission statement from a while ago.

Our Shakespeare re-imagination of Much Ado About Nothing is set in a historical context of Auschwitz Concentration Camp. This is an innovative new take on the plot-line of Beatrice and Benedick, entwined with a real life story from within the camp. A major aim of the production is to inform and explore the nature of humanity with our audience, in a participative role. The style of this piece is dark and naturalistic with undertones of tragedy; a dark adaptation of the original play.

RADIO 4 INTERVIEW

Female Auschwitz survivor - Kitty Hart-Moxon

I listened to a radio interview from an Auschwitz survivor Kitty Hart-Moxon. These are the notes that I made from this:
She remembers everything that happened prior to being taken. She and her mother had moved from her home town into another town where they were found out by the female citizens that they worked with. Kitty said that they the reason that they were turned in was because it seemed that the women that worked with them were jealous because she and her mother could both speak perfect German and also had an office job compared to them working in the factory. The women worked out that Kitty and her mother were not from there because they had a slightly different accent.

Only Kitty's mother survived with her. Her father was shot, her brother was called for the army and her grandmother had to be left behind.

Kitty knew nothing about Auschwitz before she got there.

Women were better at looking after each other - they helped each other out even though conditions for women were a lot worse than what they were for men. The women would try and make 'friendship groups' of about 4-5 women that all had different skills and jobs. For example in her 'friendship group' one of the females worked by the lavatories, one with the clothes and one was a nurse.

Nobody was at all confident that they would survive - "the only way out is through the chimney. And we all knew what that meant.", "Each day we stayed alive was a gift."

When she got to England after they were set free, Kitty had a horrendous time. No body wanted to know what had happened to her, people would refuse to talk about it and would whisper behind her back about the tattoo on her arm. It took 10 years for somebody to ask question about what happened. Kitty was angry that no body seemed to care and them refusing to even try and understand.

Kitty now goes around teaching children and young adults in order to help them understand and know about the events to try and prevent it from ever happening again.

Production meeting

AGENDA

 

Bring in text-copy of the text
Rehearsing on wednesday
Cast list
Presentation
Characters

Today- characters
Lesson times and the wed 2-6
Tomorrow- presentation
Wed lesson- text
Wed afternoon- presentation
Thurs lesson- text (bringing the text to life)
Friday lesson- casting and characters.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b037v8vs

 

We have organised it like this so that we can get our funding pitch sorted and out of the way to then begin to concentrate on ideas of which angle we wish to take.

 

Today's Rehearsal

Today in the rehearsal we work shopped 3 ideas.

The first one that we did was Elsa's idea:

Elsa came up with this idea from something that we did at SAS on Monday. It was about people leading others using their hand on the back of their neck (it is an exercise in pairs). At first we took it softly and gently to allow everyone to get used to it (those of us that had done it before led the others that hadn't) then we picked up the pace and made it a bit rougher either by using more force or controlling them by holding their shoulders. Once everyone was used to this, we then developed it so that the people that were controlling would walk up behind someone and mould them into a position before moving them.
The aim of this exercise was to portray oppression.
We did indeed feel oppressed. You also felt very insecure, unsure, disoriented and you had no choice but to be submissive. Rose said it looked strong and powerful.

The next idea was from Daisy:

Daisy asked us all to stand in a line one behind the other and to put both our hands on the person in front shoulders. The person at the back leads. Everyone apart from the leader was to close their eyes and you had to follow the direction that the person behind you would pull you towards.

The last idea was from James:

Again James got us all to stand in a line one behind the other with our eyes closed holding on to the next persons shoulders. This time James was ordering us around, telling us when to stop and when to go.

Today's rehearsal was good as we managed to stick to our aim which was to workshop 3 different ideas. It has also opened up some ideas that we may want to develop further and delve into, for instance I really like Elsa's idea with the oppression and I think that if we worked on it and developed it, it could work really nicely for either of the concepts that we are exploring this week (Auschwitz and Witch Trials) .
The concept of James' input was good for the Auschwitz idea with him in command and essentially controlling us. In addition, I did like Daisy's input also. Again, if we were to adapt and develop it further it may again work for either adaptation.