Rehearsal weeks.

The last few weeks leading up to the performance week had been full of rehearsing and going over certain scenes that needed working on. 

One scene in particular was the school scene. It needed to be more sharp and the children needed to be more fearful of Brisket. As well as the cheese alphabet being sharp and making sure Brisket would give sneaky hits when the Inspector wasnt looking. 

After we had spoke about this scene and going over it in different ways, we had finally got it done in a way that not only felt like it was good but also looked like it Brisket had all the control and the children feared her. 

I think the last few weeks had really helped us develop scenes further, especially the chorus and made it more interesting when we had movement or were scattered. 

When it came to the final performance i think that the time we spent going over things and repeating them to make them better had paid off. It looked very appealing and had given a great effect on the audience. 

I believe that all the work we did towards to the play had benefited us, as we were able to give the full effect of the characterisation and themes that were explored within the play. 

The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase.

The play (originally a book) is set in 1832 England.

Lady Green (Bonnie's mother) is in poor health and so Sir Willoughby is to take her on a trip for her to recover. As they are to be gone for a while, Sir Willoughby takes in a distant relative Miss Slighcarp to be her governess. When Bonnie's parents leave, Miss Slighcarp's true colours come to light, she is a mean and frightening lady. Bonnie's cousin Sylvia is also brought from London to stay at the chase with her. The plan of Miss Slighcarp to send the girls off and take over the chase starts and she takes them to an orphan school in Blastburn run by her friend, Gertrude Brisket. The girls end up escaping with the help from Simon, they go to Mr Wilderness to help Sylvia recover from her weak state. They travel to London and the true plans of Slighcarp, Grimshaw and Brisket are shown to other characters (Gripe). They travel back to the chase to find that it has been turned into a school with children locked in dungeons (Emma). Although it is believed Sir Willoughby and Lady Green have died on the boat that sunk, they arrive in the scene and Slighcarp and Brisket are arrested and punished for their crimes. (Grimshaw was arrested in London). Sir Willoughby decides to keep open the school but for good causes and everyone goes to sleep. The End.


Relationships:
I think the main theme that is explored within the play is relationships. There are many different relationships that are shown within the play, such as Bonnie and Sylvia or Mr Grimshaw and Miss Slighcarp.

The relationship between the two girls is very clear from the moment they meet. Bonnie is very happy to have someone else around and the two very quickly become best friends or more like sisters. They look out for each other throughout the play and especially through the evil doings of Miss Slighcarp. 

Another is the relationship between Slighcarp and the girls, it is very clear that neither of them like each other. Slighcarp is very self absorbed and all she cares is about the money that she can scam out of Sir Willoughby. This relationship is one that doesn't go right from the very start and the girls know how evil Slighcarp is, therefore showing how they (later in the book) end up in London and actually get the help to catch Slighcarp for her evil plans.

The girls' relationship with Simon is another one you see at different points in the play. To the girls Simon is a good friend, almost big brother to them. He looks after the girls when the wolves are near, he gets them away from Briskets school and then also when he is taking Sylvia to Mr Wilderness for help. 

Lastly the relationship between Grimshaw and Slighcarp is very powerful. Slighcarp holds a lot of authority and power over Grimshaw. She is the one that decides when things are to be done and what is to happen. You can see that the relationship between the two is mostly one sided with Grimshaw just following her lead. This relationship however is very different from what it would of been like in the real 1832, men were the more dominant gender and women would not spoke until they were spoken to. 


Metaphor:
The main metaphor for me within the play is the cheese. It stands for greed, not only with Brisktet but also Slighcarp. 

Slighcarp is a very greedy character when it comes to the power and wealth within the play. She wants to authority and power to do what she wants. As her time at the chase goes on, it becomes clear that she is very greedy and wants nothing but it. You can see this in the scene where they have found the will. She is questioning Grimshaw about things that may cause a problem and making sure her plans go right. 

Briskets metaphoric greed also goes with her name. Both being food items and with the fact she is always eating. This is shown a few times, one being when she first meets Bonnie and Sylvia, she is picking cheese out of her pocket and shoving it into her mouth. Another is when the children have done the cheese alphabet for the school inspector, her line is something like "here at the Brisket Blasturn Academy For Girls, concentrate on the three R's; reading, writing and really tasty snacks". The metaphor is not only greed for food when it comes to Brisket as it is clear that she also wants power and by running the school the way she does, it is achieving what she wants. Plus she is getting into the plans of Slighcarp and Grimshaw which means she will gain more power if their plans go right. 

Another metaphor within the play is the wolves. I think they represent the evil within some of the characters; Slighcarp, Brisket and Grimshaw. 

Fiction:
"once upon a time that never was
in 1832
in the reign of king James lll"

This opening bit of chorus gives the audience the first bit of knowledge that this play is fictional and that the events or facts aren't actually true.  An example would be the "in the reign of king james lll", this wasn't true and in actual face the real king of the time was William IV who was on the throne from 26 June 1830 till his death 20 June 1837. 

There are many other things within the play that seem to be untrue. The channel tunnel was not open in 1932, with it only opening over 150 years later 1994. Which would mean that there was no chance of the wolves passing through. This fictional point is the main point to the story, as the wolves represent the evil but also show the dangers of what is happening within the play.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Evaluation

Although there were a lot of nerves throughout the class when it came to the day of our performance, all of the hard work and effort had pulled off. There were many positive aspects to the performance, but also negatives and things that could be improved for the next show.

The song was a big positive, although only being put in at the last minute on the day of the performance, with little time to go through it. When it came to it, it was very smooth and actually fit into the scene. I think this also gave an aspect of Verfremdungseffekt. It wasn't naturalistic but was very symbolic, it represents the changing within the play and sets a scene of different seasons. This pulled off really well in my opinion as it gave a different way of the narrating and telling the audience what was going on. It received positive feedback as people thought it was very enjoyable and made it more interesting. 

The gun had actually gone off in the final performance, three times. In rehearsals it hadn't gone off at times as it had been loaded wrong. However after fixing the problem it had gone off many times which I think it had added to the effect. It left a sense of shock with the audience as they were not expecting something like that. This was a great thing to have in the play I believe. 

The chorus had been a success in my opinion. It didn't look messy or out of place, even though it was scattered. The different tones, entrances and exits the chorus used had added to making it more strange and interesting. It looked enjoyable to see but at the same time creepy. The chorus was a big success and I think it was a vital part to the play and creating different elements within in. 

Although they are some of the positives, there were a lot of things that could of been improved and made better.

The board gag had not gone right and had ended with Zoe actually falling back over the stairs. Even though we knew it was wrong, the audience didn't and it got a laugh from them. The scene is quite serious with Brisket and the gag got in the element of comedy. I think this worked well as it wasn't just one straight emotion. The way we had done the scene in our version, had worked really well and had a great effect on the audience.

Another thing was the technical side, the lights were sometimes late and would change half way through. Although this was not a big change, it sometimes did put some people off. This could of been made tighter with more rehearsals. Overall it didn't effect the overall performance and it was still effective with the audience. 

In my opinion I believe we had performed the play really well both times. The Tuesday performance was the one that went better for me as my chorus parts were tighter and interesting to see, whereas in rehearsal they had been a little sloppy. The final performance was a success with the storytelling as people enjoyed to see the element of people being narrators and not just having it full of characters dialogue. I think this put me out of my comfort zone, as a narrator i was telling the story without being a character. I didn't do much characterisation but was still very creepy at parts with in. The physical theatre aspect had also challenged me as im not very comfortable with it, however i think that pulled off really well and added to the idea of having a Brechtian style play as we had included Verfremdungseffekt many time. It overall was a success as a play and had a great effect on the audience.

Brecht- Narration & Stereotypes

We looked at narrating and how it would be used in this play. It was used as a chorus and not just one person saying the chorus lines. Doing it this way made it more intriguing and creepy for people to see. And i think it worked well as it did add to the effect of story telling being interesting and not dull. 

I think, as my role was the main narrator i had to think of this a lot. I wasnt able to do much characterisation and build up a strong role and i also struggled with my cues on when to be on stage as i didnt have someone to bounce off and know when to speak. But as the narrator i think i tried to make the chorus more interesting when i could, even if it was added simple movement. Something that simple would add a bit of something different to it and make it more pleasing to watch. 

STEREOTYPES. 

We had looked at stereotypes as they were a big part of the play. We had done a lot of different tasks about stereotypes and how they can be untrue. 

One task we did was to be in groups and  chose a few stereotypes and then reverse them to the exact opposite of what they were percieved as. 

I think the whole stereotypes tasks actually helped as they helped certain characters with getting into suitable roles. 

For example, Megan was struggling with being a school inspector and after working on stereotypes as well as being given feedback, she was able to begin her characterisation and make it more realistic. 

Overall i believe that these had both helped with our final piece as they had contributed to multiple peoples roles and their performance. This had been effective in the process of the play and how characters would come along. 

Wolves 3

This week we had gone throught the dances again and also our own group interpretations. We would show the class each one and would go through them multiple times to get them done sharply and correctly. This worked well because they were added into the play and added the sense of Verfremdungseffekt, the dances added the sense of something strange and interesting. 

We also added another strange effect, projection. We had tried the idea of there being card help up and a projection being shown onto it. Although at first it was really messy and not many wanted it in because it wouldnt go right, in the end it did work out really well. It also gave more dimension and created more interest. Rather than having a picture on a board it was something you dont usually see which made it more interesting for the audience. It also refers to Brecht's use of placards. 

Wolves.. 2

This weeks process of the play was spent blocking and rehearsing the dance. 

We had continued to rehearse the dance and also create our own versions. We needed to make them look more like a wolf pack and more fierce. At points it was too soft and gentle, meaning we had to adjust things so that they could be sharp and almost angry. Although it took a while we had begun to make things look better and make it more like wolves so that they would be presented in the play and the audience would know that they were still there. 

We blocked the skating scene. We had started to sort out how Sylvia and Bonnie would be on stage and look like they were skating on the river. We also blocked how the wolves would move and seem like they were lurking in the trees that lined the river. This was kept in thoughout the whole process of the play and i think it worked very well and looked appealing to the audience but also gave the audience the effect of the wolves being present again. 

wolves..

During the first week of blocking the play, we had begun to learn a piece of physical theatre. It was to represent the wolves and their fierceness. 

We had tried different movements that could possibly represent a wolf. An example would be the running and falling,  this gave us a chance to leave our comfort zones and become more wolf like with out physicality. The running would help us with the feeling of wind brushing past us. 

We did this multiple times as well as the routine and would try it different ways each time. We had to be tight together and look angry and carry a wolf physicality, so it was repeated to make it look more appealing and structured. 

We had done some experimenting on how we could present the chorus's. We had gotten into groups of three and created a horse and carriage, then a table. Although i think it was good for us to try different way other than just saying a story to an audience it didnt go well and was very messy. 

This didnt end up being in our piece as we didnt like the idea plus it also wasnt working with the way we wanted the rest of the play to work out. 

We also experimented with portraying wolves into a chorus section. We would take a wolf like posture and move around the scaffolding onto other sections. However, although this worked well at first it didn't quite work too well when we continued blocking things and so it was changed slightly.

Although some things were taken out and some kept in we did manage to put in the wolf like modes of the chorus and it worked in our final piece as it was very creepy and interesting, instead of people just standing there with a story to tell.