Rehearsal Notes

We have tried to use the ideas of epic theatre in our play. We have done this with the use of our songs and the strange events that happen in our piece. In rehearsals it feels like our piece hasn't got enough energy and pace. The use of the trolley with a person pretending to be a baby makes it difficult to move around the space quickly and easily. This slower pace works in some sections, where we need to look like we are trying to pick things out, but at some points the pace needs to be able to lift up in order to keep the audience interested.

The songs overall work well. I think the one that is best right now is the checkout girls 'money'. This is because they have committed to one stereotype character that they are all potraying and they sing the song as this character would. The women's song 'bills' got much  better today as we took some time to work through it and to bring out more negative attitudes towards our husbands. I think we have gained more confidence in the song this lesson, although there is still work to be done.

The man and women scenes are ok, they still need to be worked on for the performance. Some people need to go back to their scripts and learn the lines again so they really remember them. I think some people could do with thinking about what objective they are trying to communicate with the audience and about this idea of gestus and what they can do to make their attitudes clear. This is so when the audience come to see our piece they understand the message behind it.

The transitions between the pairs towards the ending of the play are part of what is slowing down our piece. We need to work through our scenes with the tranistions making them slicker, so they do not take way from the overall success of our piece. We could maybe do this by having people say a line at the same time, this would work in the beginning of my scene because the man asks women if she weighed the baby twice.

I think once we do a straight run through with everyone having learnt their lines, the songs being confident and the transitions being smoother the piece will feel a lot closer to being ready to perform. In our play because we are doing it in a Brechtian/ epic theatre stytle it doesn't matter if some things on stage looking messy or difficult because that will just add to them being reminded that they are watching a play, so long as we know what we are doing and why, the play should be successful.