SPA- 1984 -4

Today, we were given our cast list! It is as follows:
Rob - Winston
Rhiannon (yo girl) - Julia
Oliver K- O'Brein
Katya - Host, Martin, Thought Criminal
Oliver M - Child, Goldstein, Woman's voice
James - Parsons, Father
Hope - Mrs Parsons, Waitress
Charlie - Charrington, Speakwrite
Lewis - Syme, Man
Lorna - Voice, Mother, Woman

After being told that I am to be playing Julia, I decided to do some research into her so that I have a better understanding of how she should be played;

Julia is Winston Smith's love-interest and his ally in the struggle against Big Brother. She represents the elements of humanity that Winston does not: pure sexuality, cunning, and survival. While Winston simply manages to survive, Julia is a true survivalist, using any means necessary to conduct her self-centered rebellion. Her demeanor is that of a zealous Party follower, but just under that surface is an individual with unchecked human desires and a willful spirit, which ultimately results in her capture.

Julia is an outwardly sexual being and sleeps with Party members regularly - at least before she meets Winston. She does not do this to destroy the Party but to quench her own desires. Whereas Winston's  rebellion is as much for future generations as it is for himself; her rebellion is purely incidental to her own desires.Julia is far more intuitive and realistic than Winston. She understands the Party better than he does and is more cunning in the ways that she defies Party doctrine.

Julia uses sex to attack the Party, but it is far less effective a weapon than love. When Julia and Winston fall in love, they commit the ultimate offense against the Party. Note that the couple are caught at their happiest moment, the moment where they let down their guard and felt like an ordinary couple. Both had been watched for years and could have been captured at any time. But not until their love was strong did the Party intervene. Separating the couple diminishes their effectiveness: As individuals they do not understand the party wholly, nor are they capable of resistance.

Superficially, Julia seems like an uncomplicated character. She functions as a sounding board for Winston, but she is far more complicated than that. Winston has real antipathy toward women resulting from the Party's indoctrination and from its stringent sexual codes. Julia does not follow these strict sexual codes and, in fact, breaks them at every opportunity. She shows Winston, who once imagined raping and killing her, that the Party cannot get to the most intimate places in a human being's mind; she is his proof that the feelings that he has been having are valid. Julia gives Winston hope, and it is the continuation of this hope that gets them both destroyed.
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Julia is Winston Smith’s Juliet. Is the name a coincidence? Probably not. A duplicitous and whimsical creature, her sexual allure inspires Winston to start the rebellious writings (because he fantasizes about her). She then acts as Winston’s ally in active rebellion, although her idea of revolt is more in-your-arms than up-in-arms. Julia is a dark-haired, twenty-six-year-old employed as a machine operator in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Looking like a zealous Party member, she wears an (ironic) Anti-Sex sash around her waist, and always participates passionately during the Two Minutes Hate. Julia’s other side is much more interesting. She is a woman with raging hormones and a cunning spirit. A highly sexual being, she sleeps with Party members regularly to satisfy her own desires. She busies herself with community service and other orthodox activities so that she can escape the Party’s thought crime radar.

Sites used for research;
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/n/1984/character-analysis/julia

http://www.shmoop.com/1984/julia.html

https://writingasiplease.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/characters-of-1984-julia/

SPA- 1984 -1

Today, we discovered that we are going to now be working on 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' a novel by George Orwell. We are going to be working on the play adaptation created by Robert Icke and Duncan MacMillan. The novel is set in Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain), a province of the super state Oceania in a world of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation, dictated by a political system euphemistically named English Socialism (or Ingsoc in the government's invented language, Newspeak) under the control of a privileged elite of the Inner Party, that persecutes individualism and independent thinking which is called "thought crime." The tyranny is epitomised by Big Brother, the Party leader who enjoys an intense cult of personality but who may not even exist. The Party "seeks power entirely for its own sake. It is not interested in the good of others; it is interested solely in power." Winston Smith, is a member of the Outer Party, who works for the Ministry of Truth, which is responsible for propaganda and historical revisionism. His job is to rewrite past newspaper articles, so that the historical record always supports the party line. The instructions that the workers receive specify the corrections as fixing misquotations and never as what they really are: forgeries and falsifications. A large part of the ministry also actively destroys all documents that have been edited and do not contain the revisions; in this way, no proof exists that the government is lying. Smith is a diligent and skilful worker but secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother. Orwell based the character of the heroine of the novel, Julia.




Main character descriptions;


Winston Smith - A minor member of the ruling Party in near-future London, Winston Smith is a thin, frail, contemplative, intellectual, and fatalistic thirty-nine-year-old. Winston hates the totalitarian control and enforced repression that are characteristic of his government. He harbours revolutionary dreams.             

                
Julia - Winston’s lover, a beautiful dark-haired girl working in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Julia enjoys sex, and claims to have had affairs with many Party members. Julia is pragmatic and optimistic. Her rebellion against the Party is small and personal, for her own enjoyment, in contrast to Winston’s ideological motivation.                

                
O’Brien - A mysterious, powerful, and sophisticated member of the Inner Party whom Winston believes is also a member of the Brotherhood, the legendary group of anti-Party rebels.                

                
Mr. Charrington - An old man who runs a second-hand store in the prole district. Kindly and encouraging, Mr. Charrington seems to share Winston’s interest in the past. He also seems to support Winston’s rebellion against the Party and his relationship with Julia, since he rents Winston a room without a telescreen in which to carry out his affair. But Mr. Charrington is not as he seems. He is a member of the Thought Police.

                
Syme - An intelligent, outgoing man who works with Winston at the Ministry of Truth. Syme specializes in language. As the novel opens, he is working on a new edition of the Newspeak dictionary. Winston believes Syme is too intelligent to stay in the Party’s favour.

                
Parsons - A fat, obnoxious, and dull Party member who lives near Winston and works at the Ministry of Truth. He has a dull wife and a group of suspicious, ill-mannered children who are members of the Junior Spies.   

                
Emmanuel Goldstein - Another figure who exerts an influence on the novel without ever appearing in it. According to the Party, Goldstein is the legendary leader of the Brotherhood. He seems to have been a Party leader who fell out of favour with the regime. In any case, the Party describes him as the most dangerous and treacherous man in Oceania.

Big Brother -  Though he never appears in the novel, and though he may not actually exist, Big Brother, the perceived ruler of Oceania, is an extremely important figure. Everywhere Winston looks he sees posters of Big Brother’s face bearing the message “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.” Big Brother’s image is stamped on coins and broadcast on the unavoidable telescreens; it haunts Winston’s life and fills him with hatred and fascination.
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Within this first lesson we broke off into two groups (I worked with Katya, Oliver M, Rob and James) to create a prologue for our performance. We discussed and agreed that our aim for this prologue was to show the abduction of individuality and distinctiveness of the people. We started our piece with us walking in, in formation to then stop and move in unison with our movements becoming more precise and exact as we go on to show how we are progressing to have less control of ourselves and are cloning into the same comrades, like big brother wants. We focused on getting the timing of our movements very precise due to the perfection that is expected of people within this universe, whilst still having very jagged and rigged  robotic movements. We were a little rushed towards the end of devising this, but alas we showed the other group and then they did for us too we had very different movements but both had the underlying theme of peoples identities being reaped by Big Brother. As we want our opening to be compelling, we have decided that we are going to combine the two prologues together as if combined, dynamics from the two would suit.

DPA- Dr. Faustus -1&2

Today we were told what we are to be working on for our next unit, Dr. Faustus! When I discovered that this is what we are to be working on I was over the moon as it is one of my favourite plays due to the many various different endings and different approaches you can take towards it, whilst still always telling the ever so intriguing story. We are to be using Cristin McAuleys and Kyle Andersons adaptation of Christopher Marlowes Faustus. I decided to do some research into the play, as although I am already pretty familiar with it due to seeing different performances of it, its still important to refresh the memory and provide information for those who know less;

(Within our actual lesson, we were cast by our teacher and then we read through the script so that we could start to become more familiar with our characters and the text of the play.)



Faustus - Oliver  Kelly
Mephistopheles - Rhiannon David
Murdock - James Borg-Clancy
Cornelius - Rob Andrew
Valdes - Lewis Fisher
Evil Angel - Charlie Sanderson
Good Angel - Lorna Clark
Scholar - Charlie Sanderson
Lucifer - Lewis Fisher

Summary of the play;
Doctor Faustus, a talented but embittered German scholar, rails against the limits of human knowledge. He has learned everything he can learn, or so he thinks, from the conventional academic disciplines. All of these things have left him unsatisfied, so now he turns to magic. A Good Angle and an Evil Angel arrive, representing Faustus' choice between Christian conscience and the path to damnation. The former advises him to leave off this pursuit of magic, and the latter tempts him. From two fellow scholars, Valdes and Cornelius, Faustus learns the fundamentals of the black arts. He thrills at the power he will have, and the great feats he'll perform. He summons the devil Mephistopheles. They flesh out the terms of their agreement, with Mephistopheles working on behalf of Lucifer. Faustus will sell his soul, in exchange for twenty-four years of power and to have Mephistopheles by his side as his servant. But as he begins to revel in his new powers, the world around him starts to collapse and the clock inexorably counts down to the final moment of reckoning.



Character Synopsis';    

Doctor John Faustus A learned scholar in Germany during the fifteenth century who becomes dissatisfied with the limitations of knowledge and pledges his soul to Lucifer in exchange for unlimited power.

Valdes and Cornelius Two German scholars who are versed in the practice of magic and who teach Faustus about the art of conjuring.

Lucifer King of the underworld and a fallen angel who had rebelled against God and thereafter tries desperately to win souls away from the Lord.

Mephistopheles A prince of the underworld who appears to Faustus and becomes his servant for twenty-four years.

Good Angel and Evil Angel Two figures who appear to Faustus and attempt to influence him.

Seven Deadly Sins, Alexander, Helen of Troy, and Alexander's Paramour Spirits or apparitions which appear during the course of the play.

Chorus A device used to comment upon the action of the play or to provide exposition.
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Within our second lesson of working on Dr. Faustus we decided that we want to try and in-cooperate physical theatre into our piece as much as possible. We feel that physical theatre would be the best form of performance to use as the use of movement and physicality of the body has a predominant part in the narrative of our piece. I believe that the main focus of Dr. Faustus is based around the capabilities of us human beings and more importantly if we realise and then fulfil whatever each individual persons purpose is. Lucifer and all of the other fallen angels spend their time waiting for people who are blinded enough by their desires to essentially give their lives to the dark side. Our free-will (which is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action, and use our judgement of what is right and wrong when making these decisions) is seen through religious texts and in Faustus to be Gods gift to us. Every movement we make, every word we speak and everything we do, we have decided to do, regardless if these things come naturally to us (such as walking, chewing or laughing) are all choices that (though are automatic) we essentially still have control over, so as we've decided to incorporate physical theatre into our piece I think that our movement should be focused around control as the story of Dr. Faustus is essentially a struggle for power.


We decided that the best place to start working on physically would be the seven deadly sins. The sins are Pride - Which is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity. Envy - Which is the desire for others traits, status, abilities or situations. Gluttony - Which is an inordinate desire to consume more than which one requires. Lust - Which is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body. Anger - Is  manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury, it is also known as wrath. Greed - Is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm or spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness. Sloth - the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

The first sin that we managed to finish devising was Sloth. For Sloth we start in a heaped pile of bodies in the middle of the treverse. Those on the floor then inhale and exhale slowly and loudly and lines from the sin are divided between those involved and spoke in a slow, slurred, sleepy way along with movements of the same sort to personify this sin. Each person lazily brings themselves to the front of the pile when saying their line. The collection of bodies along with explanation of sloth is always nonchalantly rolling, rolling into the next sin which is Gluttony.
For Gluttony we decided to use self-evident movements as that is what would best explain this sin. I walk through the treverse with the others stumbling over each other in an animalistic way to reach me as I hold down a bucket of food for them. They all take as much as they can and then dart to different areas in the treverse, positioned so that they can guard their food, whilst annihilating it as quickly as they can. Each person comes to the centre when they have their line and then returns to Vulcher their food until we stroll into the next sin, Pride.
For Pride we have decided to style it to that of a catwalk, as this is the best modern familiar representation of this sin that we could think of. We start this with us all going to one end of the treverse and posing in a way that would suggest that one loves oneself. So Lorna stood in a way that pushed her assets out, she then continued to pout and wink down the treverse as if she were looking in a mirror, whilst the boys stood flexing their muscles, winking at members of the audience and pointing as if they're 'them boys'. They then proceed to walk down the treverse to a heavy beat, that of a catwalk and strike poses when at the end of the treverse.
I feel that this was a good start to our physical lessons as we actually achieved our tasks and now have a positive and productive mind-set for the following lessons so hopefully will be as productive as we were today.

SPA- Chasing Pavements -11

Today, our lesson quickly spiralled into a mess, before we had even started devising our first scene.
We had some good ideas for our opening scene, I suggested that we should set our scene on the evening before the murder, having the audience walk into the hall, and into their seats whilst Jon (who will be played by Oliver) and Robert (who will be played by James) are sat facing the back of the stage, perhaps watching a scene from 'Child's Play 3' as it is thought that this film influenced and inspired some of the horrid things that they done to them, such as putting paint into James' eyes. Cel then suggested that we could show an advertisement for bricks, to which I agreed would be an interesting idea as its significance would become so much more later on in our performance, she agreed with me that we may as well show the adverts for batteries and paint, as all are relevant and would have the same significance. James thought that this idea wouldn't work too well as he felt it gave away what our piece was about, which we do not want to do, we would rather make it less obvious and let the audience realize the links between different things themselves, until they eventually know we're performing work in relation to the James Bulger case. I won't go into details, but things got quite heated within my group and resolving James's, Oliver's and Cel's argument took up the majority of the lesson. By the end of the lesson, things had settled and we have agreed that we will start with my idea and Oliver found {FIND SONG NAME-INSERT SONG} to play quietly as him and James plan there day of bunking of school for the coming day. I also suggested earlier on in the lesson, (as it is a medium of Cels and James's ideas) that we could just have a can of blue paint, some batteries and some bricks perhaps up centre stage, as it is not as obvious but the symbolism is still there, however, due to even more 'disagreements' we are not going to use this idea nor are we going to use the idea of the advertisements at this point in our piece, however I think that both of these things would work at different points of our performance so will keep them in mind for if we run short on ideas at another point of our devising process.  

SPA- Chasing Pavements -10

In today lesson, we were missing Cel so decided not to devise anything without her, as she didn't appreciate us doing so. My group, my teacher and I ended up spending a large amount of the lesson talking about the research we have all found and the case in general. It is a heartbreaking, disgusting case and we all hate the fact that it happened, but it does bring about many interesting questions that are impossible to know the true answer to. A couple of the thoughts that none of us could agree on are;

'Is the up-bringing of Thompson and Venables the reason why they done it' - Although Venebles did have a hard upbringing, and Thompson was missing many components of a healthy upbringing, many people have traumatic, heartbreaking upbringings and would never think of doing something half as evil as this, or though their upbringings weren't as they should be, it still provides no reason for them to have done what they did.

'Is any of this Denises fault' - James and Oliver argued that you should never leave your child unattended which is true, and she shouldn't have done so but he was still a couple of feet away from her, she wasn't looking away for a long amount of time, I truly feel that there simply cannot be anybody to blame for this horrible crime, than those who committed it. Everybody is capable of violence, everybody is capable of evil things and many people have factors that could make them more likely to do so, but those boys had evil in the hearts, they had set out to kill that day (there original plan was to push someone into ongoing traffic) and nothing should protect them from the blame that is rightfully theirs. 

Next lesson, we are going to devise our opening scene for our piece. 

SPA- Chasing Pavements -9

In today's lesson, we decided what our piece is going to be about.. for good. We have decided that we are going to base our work around the Jamie Bulger murder case. To build up the basis for when we start devising our piece, we decided what characters we are going to have in our piece, we all decided that we could have things that represent / symbolize Jamie, but none of us would ever present our selves to be him, as it is disrespectful and unnecessary, the same goes for his death. The characters that we are going to include so far are John Venables (played as a child and as a adult), Robert Thompson (played as a child and as a adult), Denise Bulger (now Denise Fergus) and the police officer that interview the two killers. We spent the rest of this lesson doing research into this horrific story;

On Friday 12th of February 1993, James Patrick Bulger (who was only two years old) was abducted from the New Strand Shopping Centre, by John Venables and Robert Thompson (both were 10 years old).  Thompson and Venables then led James away from his mother who was in a butchers shop that James had been stood outside of.  to The boys took Bulger on a meandering 2.5-mile walk across Liverpool to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal where he was dropped on his head and suffered injuries to his face. They left James, perhaps to go and look for another victim, as there original plan was to abduct someone and push them into ongoing traffic. James followed the boys, walking with them, whilst they were seen by 38 people. Eventually the boys arrived in the village of Walton, and with Walton Lane police station across the road facing them, they hesitated and led Bulger up a steep bank to a railway line near the disused Walton & Anfield railway station, where they began torturing him. At the trial it was established that at this location, one of the boys threw blue Humbrol modelling paint, which they had shoplifted earlier, into Bulger's left eye. They kicked and stomped on him, and threw bricks and stones at him. Batteries were placed in Bulger's mouth. Police believed some batteries may have been inserted into his anus. The bottom half of him was found naked, which revealed that his foreskin forcefully pulled back. Finally, a 22-pound iron bar, was dropped on him.  Dr. Alan Williams, the case's pathologist, stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries - 42 in total - that none could be isolated as the fatal blow.Before they left him, the boys laid Bulger across the railway tracks and weighted his head down with rubble, in the hope that a train would hit him and make his death appear to be an accident. After Bulger's killers left the scene, his body was cut in half by a train. Bulger's severed body was discovered two days later, on 14 February, by four young boys who were playing around the tracks. A forensic pathologist testified that he had died before he was struck by the train.

Webpages I have read and videos that I have watched to gain more extensive knowledge;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2934207/Drunk-killer-James-Bulger-blamed-toddler-s-MOTHER-left-own.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upiTb6ZfJa0

http://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/crime-files/james-bulger/timeline

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/4790605/20-years-after-James-Bulger-ex-cop-describes-catching-Thompson-and-Venables.html

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/nov/01/bulger.familyandrelationships

SPA- Chasing Pavements -8

Today's events were good in the sense that everybody has now recognized that comedy, this time, is not working for us (but we still tried it out, which is part of the devising process:)) but bad in the sense that we have now gone back to square one and need a new approach. We went back to our original planning sheet, everybody was coming up with many different ideas, but we were making no progress as everybody was too focused on their own ideas, rather than discussing through and figuring out happy mediums between different topics and stories. Our teacher could see that we were struggling with making ends meet, and got us each to pick one idea/theme/technique we want to be about. My original idea was to work on something that has more relation to our stimulus (Adele's 'Chasing Pavements') such as the view on life from a homeless person (as when sat on the pavement everyday most will have 100's / 1000's walk past, ignoring them and carrying on with their conversations, but through this homeless people get to hear / see glimpses into so many different peoples lives and stories. But, as each other person in my group wanted to base our piece around mental illnesses, I changed my idea to fit in with what everybody wanted to do, I agreed that we could base our piece around mental illness/s but think that we shouldn't show the mental illness through the perspective of the person that has one, as it is impossible to give an accurate representation of an illness if we haven't experienced them ourselves, we can only work off of what people who have these illnesses are portrayed to be like, which is often inaccurate and stereotypical. By the end of the lesson, we were calmer with the fact that we have started again, and in our next lesson, we will decide for good what our work is going to be about and start devising our piece. 

SPA- Chasing Pavements -7

Today, we worked on Olivers scene that he had scripted in advance. His scene was set on the first day back at school, and shows the struggles of trying to get everybody out of the door that so many of us can relate to, everyday. Ollie played the father, whom was good friends with John, Cel played his wife and mother to my character, Kira (Who is true representation of a stereotypical 'emo', moody teenager) and James (classic annoying little brother), who starts the scene groaning in bed, pretending he's ill as he doesn't want to go to school. We broke up what Ollie had scripted, into different snippets of conversations until it flowed from the mother forcing the boy to get ready for school, the father and daughters painfully one-way conversation, to the mother and daughter having an argument over makeup, to the dad trying to bribe the son to behave, until them all finally making it out of the door. Or though what we had produced was short, it was humorous, flowed well and you could notice the obvious differences in characters, but when trying to elongate the scene, James suggested that we could change the ending of what we had produced by having me, Ollie and Cel all hear faint singing, we creep upstairs and into the bathroom, to find him singing a 'girly' song in the shower, Cel and Ollie thought that this was a good idea, that would gain a laugh from the audience, however I think that it isn't actually funny, its too childish and would become awkward when nobody laughs. We devised it, the others in my group found it funny so we are going to keep it, Oliver is going to re-write his scripts and add these songs to a playlist; 'Anaconda' by Nicki Minaj, 'Damn I feel like a women' by Shania Twain and 'Milkshake' by Kelis. Next lesson, we are planning to record Olivers scene and start working on Cels scene.

SPA- Chasing Pavements -6

Today, we started our lesson by going through each of our character profiles and briefly explaining how we want each other to play our given characters. As Cel was absent today, and each scene will include all four of us, we split of and worked on different things. James spent the lesson figuring out what he wants to show in his scene, and creating different memories that he could have had with John. Ollie researched into a variety of different British comedies, especially Outnumbered to gain inspiration for his scene as he wants his scene to be set in a realistic family household.

Rather than working on my scene, I decided to work on the staging of our piece as it builds a good basis for us when we start devising. We know that we would like our piece to include physical theatre, but we haven’t decided on any other techniques we would like to use yet. Taking into consideration that all of our scenes (apart from the first and last, that are set at Johns funeral) will be taking place in each main characters living room, I thought that rather than changing our set to show that we are in each different characters house, perhaps we could have our stage be a boxed in area, which is the same living room for each character, but we show that we are in a different household through having notably different characters, and clear transitions into these characters. A video that I watched years ago inspired this idea, as I thought that the use of space combined with the use of physical theatre worked excellently and had always stuck with me :). 

Another possible thing we could add to our staging would be to have a sofa in our boxed performing area, as it gives the audience the simple and rather obvious information that it is a living room, but more importantly we could in-cooperate it into the physical theatre that we hope to use. Also, if we all stood behind the sofa, looking down at the area in which you would sit it could show that the sofa represents the coffin, which would mean that we wouldn't have to leave our confined space, which would mean we are making use of the potential of only one prop / item.

I explained my possible staging idea to James and Ollie, they seemed to like it, but through discussion about different auditoriums we have seen before, or any nontraditional staging we have seen,we have decided that we will be performing in the hall, having our audience (standing, in a boxed in area) in the centre of the hall and we shall each start in a different corner of the hall, each with a basic living room set-up. When our scenes start, and the others are needed, they will simply walk over to the corner, becoming more in tune with their character with each step. We have not yet decided where we will stage our first and last scene, but are all happy with the concept of walking from being one character into a completely different character. 

SPA- Chasing Pavements -5

After starting todays lesson with an in depth discussion on what we would actually want our piece to be about we came up with a completely new approach. We have decided to play four different people, showing our thoughts and different memories of a person whom had recently died, who we all had different relations with but were all just as close with. I think this could be an interesting, heart felt piece, especially as each of us are going to direct our characters scenes, having the others in the group play people who have relations with their character. We have decided that we will start and end our piece with the same short scene of our main characters at the person’s funeral. I suggested that we repeat the scene as at the beginning, four people at any person’s funeral wouldn’t mean much, but at the end of our piece they should have a perfect vision of what this person was like, and how much they meant to people.   

The others in my group then suggested that we should stick with this idea, but make it a Comedy. Or though it could be effective (for example when showing flashbacks of their memories, and in the variation in characters (so that the audience can identify with them)), I personally feel that Comedy is one of the harder genres to perform well, as peoples senses of humour are so varied and if not well planned and written then often things that are intended to be funny (but are not) get took as personally / as offensive or are simply cringe worthy and uncomfortable to watch. However it is a genre that none of us have explored as much as we would like to, therefore we are going to make our piece a comedy.

We were about to start creating our character profiles (and character profiles for the others in our piece), but I thought it would make more sense if we knew about the person our piece will essentially be based around, the person who is dead. So, each of us decided different components of our person and this is who we have created;

Name; John David

Features; Black hair, Brown eyes, tanned, slim, tall

Ethnicity; White, British

Lives; Liverpool

Age; 32

Relationship Status; Divorced, from a marriage of 10 years

Job; Accountant, studied at university in London

Cause of death; Auto Erotic Assimilation

Music taste; House

Ollie’s characters & relations; He was friends with John at university, he lives with his wife (played by Cel), they have one boy (played by James) and one girl (played by yours truly).

Cel’s characters & relations; She was the younger sister of John, who lives with her boyfriend (Ollie), who have their two friends over (James and I).

James’ characters & relations; He was the nephew of John, has a boyfriend (played by Ollie), his best friend (played by Cel) and a step-sister (played by myself).  

My characters & relations; I am John’s childhood best-friend, who lives with my husband (played by Ollie) and have two children (played by Cel and James).

For next lesson, we will show each other our character profiles and give a brief description on how we would like our characters to be played.  

My Character;

Name; Amy Elizabeth Carter

Ethnicity; White, British

Age; 30 Date of birth; 07/01/1986

Features; Brown hair, Green eyes, short, slim

Relationship status; Happily married for 5 years to Glen Carter

Lives; Everton, Liverpool - also born here

Children; Liam Carter (10 years old) and Lucy Carter (7 years old)

Pets; One Dalmatian named Bruce

Work; Receptionist at a magazine headquarters, studied in London with John

Music taste; Alternative rock and indie rock

Likes; The colour blue, any type of food, reality tv, baking

Dislikes; cold weather, mess, politicians

Glen Carter / Ollies profile; has also known me since we were children, very sarcastic and dry but also caring and loving, good father, hates working as a mechanic.

Liam Carter / James; is athletic / enjoys all sport and annoying his sister, hates school, has recently started to get in a lot of trouble due to his friends, close with his mum but not his dad.

Lucy Carter / Cel; constantly has tantrums, daddy’s girl, is extremely smart for her age, doesn’t have many friends but prefers to spend her time drawing and painting.  

SPA- Chasing Pavements -4

In today’s lesson, we researched various different ideas, in order to get as much research on different topics as possible, I researched into Homelessness, James researched Domestic Abuse and Cel researched Drink Driving, Oliver was absent from this lesson.

The research i found :
You should be considered homeless if you have no home in the UK or anywhere else in the world available for you to occupy. You don't have to be sleeping on the streets to be considered homeless.

- On average homeless people die at just 47 years old.

- Homeless people are 13 times more likely to be a victim of violence.

- The main cause of homelessness is relationship breakdown.

- For every rough sleeper, there are around 100 people in hostels and 1100 households in overcrowded accommodation

- 7581 people slept rough on London's streets last year. 

Situations that the government should consider you to be homeless if;

• You have no home in the UK or anywhere else in the world

• You have no home where you can live together with your immediate family

• You can only stay where you are on a very temporary basis

• You don’t have permission to live where you are

• You have been locked out of home and you aren’t allowed back

• You can’t live at home because of violence or abuse or threats of violence or abuse which are likely to be carried out against you or someone else in your household

• It isn’t reasonable for you to stay in your home for any reason (for example, if your home is in very poor condition)

• You can’t afford to stay where you are

• You live in a vehicle or boat and you have nowhere to put it.

Some Causes and Consequences of homelessness may be:

-looking at people's turning points into homelessness in the UK,  found that reasons most often cited by male participants were relationship breakdown, substance misuse, and leaving an institution (prison, care, hospital etc.). For homeless women,  the most common causes were physical or mental health problems and escaping a violent relationship. There are also problems in wider society that can contribute towards homelessness. These structural causes might include a lack of affordable housing; high levels of poverty, unemployment or worklessness; the way in which the benefits system operates; or the way social housing is rationed.

-Whatever the causes of an individual's homelessness, the consequences can be brutal.  Homelessness damages people's capability through loss of skills, through an inability to think about employment whilst worrying about housing, and through their health becoming impaired whilst homeless. Homelessness also damages people's resilience, self-esteem and self-confidence. One in four ex-homeless people also find themselves unable to sustain a tenancy - loneliness and isolation are the main causes, often compounded by lack of option where they can live. Therefore it is important to build people's skills, confidence and capability to empower them to feel in control of their lives again and so they are able to move on from homelessness for good.

Websites I used for research:

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/homelessness/homelessness_-_an_introduction/legal_definition_of_homelessness

http://www.crisis.org.uk/pages/-about-homelessness-61900.html

After doing this research, myself, James and Cel decided to try and devise a simple and short (so that later we can easily add Ollie into it) movement piece based on Child Abuse. We were originally going to have both me and James as the parents of Cel, and show the abuse through our movements and controlling of hers, this looked good as our actions were mirrored.

SPA- Chasing Pavements -3

In today's lesson, me and my group and Ashley (Ashley came with us to provide help if we needed it) worked in the hall so that each group had more space and a quieter environment to work in, oddly the space in which we worked in, inspired what we produced today. We were initially indecisive on what idea we wanted to cover, but as we were all sat in a circle in the middle of the hall when discussing, I noticed that the way in which we were sat was similar to that of a rehabilitation group. This then sparked ideas from everyone.

Oliver and James then suggested that we could actually be in a rehabilitation group / counselling session in prison, all telling our stories of how we got there. We all liked this idea, and started working on it. James played the leader / counsellor of the session and I suggested that in order to immerse the audience in the scene more, he could greet and lead everybody into the session as if they are offenders themselves, with me, Cel and Oliver already sat waiting for the session to begin.

Ollie decided to share first, telling us of how drugs got the better of him, leading to him ending up in prison after one night in which he had a bad trip and got caught. We decided that when telling our stories, we should stand and move to the centre of the circle so that all of the focus is on the person who is sharing, to show how intimidating and difficult it can be to do so. Oliver had figured out his story and gone through it but then Cel suggested that the rest of us should try and add physical theatre into the scenes whilst the person sharing is still telling their story, which was a good idea as I personally want to try and start to use as many techniques as possible at any given time (without taking away from the main focus of any given scene, and more so to add / emphasize to the initial message of it). So, we circled around Oliver building a soundscape of Cel saying "Ollie, you alright mate? Do you need me to call 999?”, James saying "What’s up? Are you okay?" and I saying "Bloody-hell Ollie, what did you take?" building in volume and aggression out voices until Ollie said "took it", we all then wrapped our arm around Oliver to show that the drugs have now 'took' him. 

Or though I suggested that we should all have committed similar crimes, as usually in group counselling classes, it will be for people with a specific issue such as substance misuse or a certain type of illness, the others thought that we should all have different stories, Therefore, I then gave 'my' story of how I ended up in prison. I ran away from an abusive home and ended up living on the streets, until one day I tried to steal a car but got caught before being able to do. I played my character to be only about 19 years old, so I played her to be a little more timid and nervous than the others. We decided to keep the movement simple in this scene (as my story was a little shorter than the others),having Ollie and James walk  towards me, taking one arm each and dragging me back to my chair (and back to the reality of the session rather than my flashback of the crime) whilst Cel pushes forwards at me, without actually touching me as that would be cast as assault.)  

Cel gave the final story of how she ended up in prison, by murdering her boyfriend after she hallucinated that he had cheated on her, although it was a figment of her paranoid and obsessive imagination. James played her boyfriend, who goes to a party and meets me, the girl that Cel imagines him to be cheating on her with, again, the movement was basic, so that it didn't take away from the story. Me and James mimed downing drinks, until we left and then got into a intimate position to which I then leave just before Cel then pulls James up and stabs the air as James slowly falls to the floor, taking each stab, until dead. This is were our piece ended. I'm pleased with the work we produced today, especially when considering we were struggling so much when figuring out what we first wanted to do. Our piece is below.

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SPA- Chasing Pavements -1

Today we started our unit of devising in my single performing arts classes. We were given our stimulus which is Adele's Chasing Pavements song / music video.

We then got told our groups that we shall be working in for this unit, my group consists of Myself, Oliver K, Cel and James. One of the other groups consists of Lorna, Kat, Rob and Oliver M, which leaves the last group to be made up of Lewis, Hope and Charlie. I am looking forward to this unit as I love devising and feel that I have some creative people in my group which could lead to some interesting work being produced. 

The first thing that we done was to discuss any initial thoughts we had and to write any topics / ideas that we could work on, simply from watching and listening to Adele's Chasing Pavements. As we are at the beginning of our devising process, any contributions have potential as we are trying to build up a strong variety of ideas so that when we are devising, if we try something and find that we don't like it or that it is not working for us, we can move on quickly and start testing out a new idea. Here are some of the ideas that me and my group came up with;

The first idea that we worked on is based on the idea of the point of view of somebody who is in a coma. We wanted to try and show the various different emotions of / how different people may deal with tragic news, in this case, having somebody who means a lot to them be in a coma. I played the role of a young women who has been left in a coma after being hit by a car, Cel played the role of her best friend, Oliver of her fiance and James of her Brother. We decided to have Cel and I facing each other with Cel showing all of the anger and sadness she has through dialogue as well as hand movements,whilst my character would stay quiet as to try and make it more clear that she is in a coma but also slowly copying Cels movements as if to show that she will be okay and to calm her. We didn't have much time to create the other two stories so me and Oliver kept it simple with a basic lift that we have done together before and are comfortable doing whilst Ollie spoke of how he misses me. The final part to our first piece of work had to be improvised whilst on stage as we had run out of time to devise it properly, luckily it worked out okay, our presentation of the first idea we have worked on for this unit is below.