Rehearsal process - stage combat

Today we sat in a group and decided what scenes we thought needed work and improvements we could make as a group to make the play better.

So those who were in a specific scene would get on stage and show us their scene whilst the others would sit, watch and make notes. Before each show we do we always try our best to watch others and make notes to give them advice on how they could improve certain elements of the scene.

As I wasn't a main character in the play, I spent a lot of the time watching others go over their scenes and suggesting ideas to them because I think in the rehearsal process its so important to experiment with different types of staging and dialougue and trying scenes in different ways and getting feedback on all of those things. For example, the scene at the beginning on the train carriage with Sylvia (Sian) and Mr Grimshaw (Ryan Loftus) and they were sat on the train and although the dialogue itself was good, nothing was really happening as they were supposed to be just sat on a train. We all first made the first point that they should be bopping up and down slightly as the trains were very bumpy and not as smooth as the trains we have nowadays, we also suggested that as trains were very loud that we have some form of sound effect to play in the background, and even these two things a lone made the scene a lot better, including the likes of props like cheese, suitcases etc. There is also a part in this scene where Mr Grimshaw is knocked out whilst trying to get his suitcase off of the shelf. This scene was all about stage combat, timing and getting the hit just right. In the scene, when they arrive at their destination, Mr Grimshaw stands to and get his suitcase. At first he used to just grab the suitcase and just let it drop to the floor, along with himself! Although we all found it funny it didn't look naturalistic, although we know it's not a naturalistic or real play at all, certain elements that are performed need to look real in order to get a better reaction from the audience. After a good few lessons going over this specific scene, it was perfected in the end, he struggled to get the case off the shelf, and when he eventually did he was knocked out by the case, and it did look real and natural and worked really well.

There are many other scenes including stage combat:

- Mrs Briskett in the school scene - I think it was only best to give Chloe who plays Mrs Brikset the opportunity to include plenty of stage combat moments in her scenes as I think is suits her personality and the point of her character, just like Miss Slighcarp, they are both very melodramatic characters who back then punished children for the littlest things. For example, in the school scene, the girls are admitted to detention for 'speaking too loud' 'speaking to quiet' and 'working too slow', these are just simple little things yet children were brutally beaten back then for doing such things, so in this scene we definitely thought we should include a few hits and punches. As Bonnie was in detention for speaking to loud, Mrs Briskett pulls her by the ear in a line and one by one hits one of the children, like Jess who plays Emma gets a shove into the line, and myself who plays one of the servants gets a punch to the face. This scene took a lot of work to perfect and get the timing accurate. But once finished looked so real and got a few gasps from the others watching. Also, in the school scene, we incorporated another element of stage combat by getting Mrs Briskett to knock one of the servants in the face with a rotating whiteboard. We worked on this with Daniel and thought this would be a really good gag if we get this to work to perfection. What we actually did was get Chloe to turn the whiteboard around and whilst doing so Zoe place out her hands, the whiteboard hit her hand and she then held her hands to her face, and because of the angles and the places they were positioned it looked so real. And a few days later when showing Jill the scene with the gag she hadn't actually scene yet, she gasped and was in complete shock as she thought this was real, which really was the reaction we wanted to encourage from the audience.

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I think an important part of the rehearsal process was vocal technique. We knew when reading the play that most of us would have to master a posh accent, baring in mind class, status of characters. For example, there is Miss Slighcarp who is played by Beth, and the first time Beth played Miss Slighcarp, I thought she was brilliant; she had the posh accent, the posture, the diction, the emphasis, and especially inflection. I think inflection is so important in such a play as this with so many exaggerative characters like Miss Slighcarp and Miss Briskett. I think accent is significantly important when devleloping your character. Take Mr Wilderness, in the play, his dialogue is written in a Northern accent:

"childer come afore wheels. Eh, a pretty little fair lass she be. What's amiss with her?"

"Nay, where lass? I've only the forge, and the kitchen where I sleep mysen"

Although Ryan, who plays Mr Wilderness struggled to read the dialogue never mind perform it, I think in the end he did really well maintaining his character and his characters personality and accent all the way through and I think he did exceptionally well.