Makers Diary: Second Devising Session-the work begins

I wanted to focus this evening’s rehearsal on generating some material and getting the performers in the right frame of mind to feel the spirit of the performance. We did some warm up exercises same as yesterday and I think that this will become a fixture of our sessions. I think that it will help with creating discipline and an expected work ethic for making. As far as devising goes I am going to use the same principle as the participation. I hope to use games and tasks to generate material and create their performance personae. I hope that by using games the performers, like the audience will forget themselves and in the activity of playing a game or carrying out a task will generate material for the performance or in the case of the audience will generate the actual performance itself. Games and tasks are a familiar device and because of this I hope will put the performers and audience at ease and in a comfortable place that has less pressure than a freer form might have.

We started the devising session by playing ‘Her Confessions’, (this is where the performers make a circle with a largish space in the middle and one of them steps into the middle, into the ‘performance’ space. I asked them to confess all of the things that she has done, god, bad but all in the third person. Once they have stepped into the confession ring, they have to keep going until someone else steps in and takes over- and so forth. There must always be a performer in the middle confessing while the game is in session) All of the performers resorted to comedy and smutty innuendo to pull laughs rather than using the game as a vehicle for discovery. They played it very safe and did not really push themselves; despite me joining in for a certain period of time in the hope of setting up the standard and the direction of the process. I realise that devising is a collaborative process but the themes and arena of discussion have been set and I really hoped that they would dive in and start to explore their relationship, thoughts, feelings and experiences of that arena. My other concern is that they simply considered the content of the task and did not consider how they might deliver or perform their thoughts. I was really hoping that the game would give them a chance to explore the subject in a comfortable and familiar way but with the opportunity to explode that out if they felt it was necessary. They kept running out of steam and I had to interfere and keep re-energising the game more than I would have liked to. This was only the first session and although I am a little disappointed and concerned, I am not going to give up on this format because I really do believe that it has the opportunity to develop and generate their performance presence as a well as some really exciting material. They just need to give into it and invest in it..I can’t do that for them.

We did some exercises to get them to start thinking about their performative presence, as well as their relationship/s with ‘Her’. We used a similar format again, as with the confessions game only this time I asked them to list all the things that she is. Same rules applied, they had to keep going until another performer steps in and takes over from them. Again, the performers played it really safe, relying on comedy and cliché. I am not going to repeat myself, as pretty much all of the same comments about the previous exercise appy here too. I am hoping that these sessions will develop and grow as we do them more often. My biggest issue is time! We don’t have a lot of development time at all. I know this only the second session but we only have about 9 more to go before we have to put something to an audience.

I gave them some time to think about how they wanted to enter the space and undress and urged them to think about it as a task. To enter and undress in five minutes. I wanted them to approach the task in relation to their relationship/s with ‘Her’. I wanted them to decide how they would negotiate the task. This task really seemed to fluster all of them, so after a short time, I decided that it might be more beneficial to move on to some exercises that would give them some resources to draw on in creating their performance presence.

We used the same format as for the previous devising games but they had to tell us little things about ‘Her’. Little habits that she has, little foibles and quirks that make her who she is. This time I explicitly asked them to think about their vocality and physicality and to consider the delivery of their thoughts. Throughout this exercise, they all kept looking to me for validation but I really just wanted t them to let go and run with it. I gave encouraging signs and hoping that this would give them the confidence to be imaginative and brave. Nikki produced some interesting thoughts but needed to consider her vocality and physicality more. Debbie is surprisingly insightful at moments but does seem to lack confidence in herself and this really holds her back at times. Richard relies on comedy and a deep seated masculine bravado- I think that this is something that we are going to need to explore as part of his performance personae and develop in relation to the themes.

I really wanted to push and test them today because we have such a little amount of time to get to where we need to be. I asked them to do the same task but they could not use words, they had to express their thoughts through their body and through sounds but not through words. This exercise fell flat on its face but it is something that I am going to have to come back to. I think I am going to have to look into more exercises and games that will help them to think about their physicality. Debbie is a dancer, so I was surprised at her hesitation and reservation in a physical task. Nikki has a background in physical theatre and has the best body awareness in the group, so I am hoping that if I can get her inspired, she will break the ice and push things on for the rest of the group. I might have a look at bouffant and some other physical styles. The energy overall was quite low tonight, I think peeps were tired and preoccupied which doesn’t help. Next session will be better, I know it will!