Author: Yasmin Chamberlain

So we have come to an end, When You See It has been performed and the reception it got was fantastic. I wasn’t expecting to be congratulated with that many tears! Yes it was an emotional piece but it is overwhelming that a performance I was dedicated to and cared for so much had created that effect. So a week on, I am able to reflect on the process and overall performance.

 In an email from Andy Jordan, senior lecturer at the Lincoln School of Performing Arts, he compliments the performance saying “it was delightfully performed, conceived and staged. The whole company, off-stage and on-stage, should be congratulated…There were many quite beautiful moments, haunting, sensitive, moving, entertaining. You must be proud of yourselves” (2015). I was definitely very proud of it and the company we had created, throughout the rehearsal process you become used to the motions and the routine of the piece and you sometimes forget to really think about each detail of the work and how special it really is. By the time it had been performed and the realisation of the end had hit me, I suddenly remembered how much of an amazing experience and opportunity it had all been and how much I had appreciated what we all created.

 I’m usually quite a good line learner when it comes to learning scripts but for some reason my ‘A pair of teenage girls’ monologue was causing me a bit of anxiety! Everything was fine and dandy for the first few weeks, I had it cracked and couldn’t wait till my moment in the spot light. A few days before the show, it was decided that it would be extended to create a transition for the Selfie song. When rehearsing it with the company I seemed to choke or forget the words which instantly created a panic in me, what if this happened on show day? If I could not get it right in rehearsal how was I supposed to do it on the stage?!

 SHOWDAY!!! The day could not go any faster, before I knew it we had done two dress runs and the next time we would go through it would be for the actual performance. The stage was set exactly to how I wanted it, simple but a mystery, there was no sign of what was to be expected.

We all made sure that our props were set to where they should be and all our marks were set so we would all hit our spots on stage. Nerves were starting to hit as we used any spare time to keep constantly improving and perfecting our scenes, one scene that I had the need to keep perfecting was mine and Mark’s dance, I do not come from a dancing background so this was a constant challenge for me. If I concentrated on the dance moves then I wasn’t showing enough emotion and if I was being really emotional then I would forget the dance and freeze up. So having the time to practice this right up until we performed was really beneficial.

 I felt that the performance the whole way through went really well, I couldn’t of been happier with the outcome. There was a few minor mistakes but I could only notice these because I knew the performance inside out, none of these mistakes affected the performance massively and it still carried on with 100% effort from everyone. The moment of truth came, it was time for my moment…and I sailed through it effortlessly! All the panic I had created from this monologue was not needed, I just threw myself into it and enjoyed myself which in turn created an amazing reaction from the audience and a huge feeling of confidence within myself. This also helped when it came to mine and Mark’s dance, the routine happened with ease which also helped the emotion come out and take over the moment.

 Throughout the whole performance no one left the stage. We had decided that not only would we all be performers but we would also act as an audience on the edges of the stage. This was a great idea because on show day the focus was immense, it was lovely seeing the rest of the company perform whilst watching from an outside view. Everyone had to be aware of everything they did whilst on stage, even though there is action going on amongst other people, the slightest movement from a person outside the action could distract the audience away from what was going on. On the other hand, the company being on stage watching the action guided the audience’s direction on what they should be watching.

 When You See It is one of the best performances I have ever been in whilst being at university, as well as in my life. I often think back to the beginning of university and how close I was to dropping out and going home, but this is the sort of thing that kept me going, that gave me the motivation to carry on. Being part of Refract Theatre Company has shown me what I am really passionate about. It has been the most amazing experience I could ever have and I will take away so much from the process and performance…until we meet again.

Chamberlain. Y (2015)

Crowe. P (2015)

Jordan, A. (2015) Drama Subject Site (DRA-SUBJECT): When You See It. [email] University of Lincoln [Assessed: 24 May 2015]

So Refract pretty much went for it with triple effort and got an amazing response, our peers pointed out things that we didn’t realise we were doing such as the heavy breathing during 9/11 and various facial expressions during different moments. They were also able to advise us on areas that could become more clear, but overall they understood the images and ideas that we were trying to portray.

Having this work in progress made it clear that we were creating something that was going in the right direction and something that stuck with the aim of what our theatre company was about. As this confirmed that the work we had created was going to be a keeper, we were then able to start thinking of the through line that was going to put our piece together.

This is Billy and Dolly.

 

Work In Progress Two!

It has been a few weeks since our last work in progress but a lot has happened in a few weeks and we could not wait to show Forefront Theatre Company what we had put together as well as getting some feedback to work into our piece. We had created the majority of the scenes for the piece and connected each scene with the story of Billy and Dolly. The idea of Billy and Dolly came from the images of the couple who take a photo in the same place every season and by the last image the man is stood by himself.

 

I liked the fact that there are these images of this elderly couple taken every season but the back story to this couple could be anything! As a company we were able to use this couple in all of the scenes as if they could have possibly been around and part of the events we were portraying. This through line laced all of our scenes together to give our work the flow it needed.

The feedback given by Forefront was excellent once again, they loved how we had connected the scenes with Billy and Dolly and were really helpful when advising on scenes that still didn’t seem clear in the story. We had finally created a whole piece (apart from a scene or two) and the next step was to give it the flow it needed with transitions as well as tightening and polishing the stuff we have. Overall at this stage, Refract is feeling professional and successful with their overall creation.

Crowe, P (2015) 

Elderly Couple One (2014) [online] http://imgur.com/gallery/XyA2s

Elderly Couple Two (2014) [online] http://imgur.com/gallery/XyA2s

Elderly Couple Three (2014) [online] http://imgur.com/gallery/XyA2s

“The scenery does not have to, and even should not, function only as the location…it has much more important and alluring functions to perform, such as the function of locating emotions, conflicts and the dynamics of the action.” (Kantor, 2010, p.212)

The stage set for When You See It reflects one word and that is: simple. Taking the role of set design was definitely a bit daunting for me, I have never really involved myself in anything that happens back stage or on the technical side. As I am also performing in the show I decided to put the idea of set design to the back of my mind until I had some scenes to work with as an idea.

In some ways, I believe that the design of the set makes an impact on the overall performance, by having something spectacular it instantly grabs the audience’s attention. On the other hand, it draws the attention away to what is happening on stage. The idea I had was “not to make a set the actors can play on, but one they can create with” (Keiley, 2012, p.54) allowing the actors movements and actions to be the priority of the performance. The idea is to keep it minimal with two rosta that create levels on stage, a tv and a screen to project anything visual that would aid the performance and a couple of chairs that were to be added to needed scenes. Adding props to the set will dress it and will be visible to the audience throughout the whole performance which also means that the performers will constantly remain on stage as they have no need to go off stage to collect their props.

Keiley mentions that “we theatre practitioners excel at igniting imagination” (2012, p.54), the aim is not to create and represent something with the set, our set doesn’t represent anything until the performers add their actions or narrations to them, it simply just outlines the space in which the performance is going to happen.

Kantor, T. (2010). My Idea of the Theatre. In: J. Collins and A. Nisbet, ed., Theatre and Performance Design: A Reader in Scenography, 1st ed. Oxon: Routledge

Keiley, J (2012). ‘Igniting Imaginations with Actor-manipulated Design’, Canadian Theatre Review, 150, pp. 53-55

It all came down to the highest number of votes. Shutter, Filter and Distracted Monkey had all lost their vote and the one that was left was Refract. To refract is “to deflect the course of (light rays), esp. when they enter the medium” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2015), our idea was to use famous images and shine a new light through them to create something that is not always noticed. The name just seemed to fit, thus Refract was born.

The first five weeks are what I would call the experimental devising process, nothing ever works if you just sit, talk and discuss ideas, so we cracked on with it straight away. Using images as stimulus allowed us as a group to create stories, write scripts, make movement and just go crazy with the different impulses that we were having. We also experimented with recorded and live music to create different tones and locations to the scenes we had created.

One image we used to create a scene was the ‘Jumpers Holding Hands’ which was taken at the scene of 9/11.

At first we decided to create a back story to the people in the image, we knew it was actually taken during the events of 9/11 but we decided to think of a different story, One example was of an old lady going on her first ever cruise without her husband but allowing the memory of him to remain with her during her trip.

In another rehearsal with this image we decided to just use movement. Our fantastic choreographer, Tom Hitchen, added music and created a routine which represented the events of 9/11 and the image of someones decision of whether to end their life by jumping off a building, We kept these short and snappy because the whole idea was to create something that an audience member would recognise in a split second and would link it back to the known event.

Using the same technique when devising we carried on to represent images such as the Banksy Balloon and the Atomic Bomb, creating more small scenes to show at our first work in progress.

Chamberlain, Y (2015)

Crowe, P (2015)

Jumpers Holding Hands (2001) Available from: http://moblog.whmsoft.net/related_search.php?keyword=9%2011%20jumpers%20bodies%20pics [Assessed: 10 March 2015]

Oxford English Dictionary (2015) Refract. [online] Oxford: Oxford English Dictionary. Available From: http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/161028?redirectedFrom=refract#eid [Assessed: 10 March 2015]