Thursday 6th February
In out Thursday session we met with Katie Keen a
third year on our course that discussed with us the process of actually
developing her solo performance. Katie solo performance was a perfomative piece
that was based upon a monologue taken from Debbie Issit's play 'the woman who
cooked her husband'. Issit's play looks at how Kenneth a married man leaves his
wife Hillary for a younger woman. Laura the young woman he leaves Hillary for
cannot cook which leaves Kenneth to long for the settled life he has lost. Hillary
invites the couple over for a meal and they are greatly unaware of what waits
for them. Katie used parts of the monologue and interlaced her own asides about
her own relationship with an ex boyfriend who had cheated on her into the
piece.
We got to watch Katie's solo performance that was
set out like a cooking programme. Throughout the performance Katie followed a
recipe and she even served a cupcake to the audience, which we were led to
believe, was part of her ex-boyfriend. The performance managed to combine a lot
of humour, wit and darkness and the whole concept Katie played on really
interested me. Nancy remarked that the humour and comic timing Katie used during
the piece was down to her consistent rehearsals. Katie emphasised that it’s so
important to consistently rehearse your material so it is precise for lighting
or music queues and also its important to rehearse a lot so your comfortable
and confident with the dialogue you are saying. This has made me consider that I need to carefully plan out my rehearsal time and divide it out equally over the next few weeks leading up to my first showing.
Katie advised the whole group not to worry or feel
stressed if we did not have a visual concept for our piece or if we had not
found a way of ending or structuring the story. This made me consider that
throughout my rehearsal period I will not try to set out with a definite
ending. I feel that perhaps if I had a very structured idea it could limit the
possibilities of what I could explore and find within my solo project over my
rehearsal period. Katie explained to us that our solo performance will
over the next few weeks find its own structure naturally and of its own accord.
Katie talks with our class I found so helpful and reassuring because she has
already experienced the same process that we are going through now. Katie I
found an invaluable source of information because she really explained to me
the do's and the do nots of creating our solo performance. Nancy and Katie made
a useful observation that it’s important to be organised and have things in
place when the performance is over so you can quickly strike down the set in
the performance space. This is an important piece of advice I have taken on
board and it has made me carefully think how I am going to organise setting up
and taking down my set.
In the second half of my class with Nancy she discussed
with us her own experience of creating her own solo work. Nancy performed
to us her own solo 'Professional High' which is a monologue that came from a
series of monologue which explored the world she experienced and encountered
when working in a underwear bar on wall street. Nancy's work is interested in
exploring the relationship between performance and addiction. The monologues
that Nancy developed for her solo project were taken from her own novels and
pieces of writing which she felt were more perfomative pieces of writing than
simply narrative.
Nancy explained to us that her work is often
influenced by literature she often relies on her scripts to develop her
performances. When Nancy discussed her working process it made me reevaluate
how I work. When I am working on my solo project I feel I will improvise my
dialogue and record the particular elements of dialogue and movement through
either video or audio. The parts that work I will write down and begin to form
into my final piece of dialogue. This is the process I feel I will use in the
early stages of my rehearsal process but this may change over time and once I
begin to work with.
The monologue Nancy performed I felt gave me a
great insight into how you can delve into other characters but still
retain yourself as the performer in the piece. Nancy heightened her own
character in the performance throughout and the other characters she was
portraying. The heightening of her own personality made me consider that when
you heighten your own personality your are in fact developing a character a
persona almost for yourself. In the solo performance I am currently
developing I feel I will create a heightened version of myself to try and
justify what journey I am going on myself in this piece as I try to form and
find this relationship with my grandmother who I died before I was born.
Towards the end of the session we watched a
selection of the second years solo performance. I was drawn to Naomi piece especially
because of the symbolic aspects such as the central continuous image of the
orange being peeled apart which was projected on to a screen . The orange
seemed to symbolise how life is constantly evolving and transitioning . The voices of Naomi’s parents talking
about the civil war in Bosnia played over whilst Naomi gently pushed the
oranges away breaking the peace sign she had created . Nancy remarked that
Naomi’s piece constantly highlighted and justified her meaning that life is
valuable and ever evolving. This remark made me reflect that when creating my
solo piece I need to constantly justify my message that I am attempting to find
and discover this relationship with my grandma.
No comments:
Post a Comment