Week 3 -

Week 3 -
In this lesson our group devised our bathroom scenes. This is as a bathroom, for both genders, is representative of everyday humans whom before a date would spend a lot of time in the bathroom making themselves look presentable for the person they are going out with. This can hold many inner complex feelings of nerves, anxiety, pride, doubt, confidence. We are going to explore mutliple sides but think it will be most interesting to explore the more negative emotions as there is more potential for this.

Ffion and I noticed the sinks and mirrors initially as we walked into the bathroom and decided to focus on this as it intruigued us as we wanted to portray the insecurity, vanity, and hesitance this associates. We also want to show the urgency some feel that they MUST check that they are perfect in the mirror whether it be for their own self asteem or the approval of someone else or a mixture of both.
We experimented with lighting and explored insecurity by taking it in turns to recite to the mirror "loves me" and "loves me not". We feel this is more experimental than simply speaking these thoughts in their complexity in a naturalistic style. By looking in the mirror and adjusting ourselves and using our physicality we shall show this instead and the long pauses and silences will show the unsurity of our characters rather than saying what we are feeling directly and in an obvious way.

We reflected on what the boys had devised in the toliet and recived feedback from eachother as a compnay to see where we could take our idea forwards. We liked that the boys had played with lighting to engage the audience's senses which we were soon keen to also do to add to the dialogue, expression and physical movement we had devised in the girls's bathroom. I feel the boys choice of flickering lighting of different colours and keeping the audience in darkness for some periods of time was effective and made me on edge and tense when experienceing it, which was desired as we are trying to show this is how it can feel getting ready for a date. The boys watched our dialogue and physical expression in our bathroom which built with pace, volume and intensity as it grew more and more extreme. They liked this idea of playing with sound as they had chosen to play with lighting and said it had a similar startling effect. Sharing ideas is really helping us to form our piece and explore the meaning of it and where we will take it. There are some difficulties rehearsing in the toilets as they are commonly used and busy so next week, after this productive week, we shall rehearse after school to try and prevent this partiuclar matter. However when we have been unable to devise in the toilets as it is a tight space we have been discussing out piece and how it will work to still be productive.

History/details of Orange Block (where our performance is in): I found that orange block is a fairly new addition of the Brit School site compared to other older parts of the building. It has been built recently and has access to many strands such as music, dance, theatre and interactive media. I was speaking to a girl in year 13 about this site and she said that she has nearly on several occasions over-filled the bathroom sink with water accidently as the taps are hard to turn off but to her knowledge this has never actually happened. From personal experiences that I have heard from talking to people around the school girls, as our group have discussed, have locked themselves in a cubicle of the bathroom before, although this is very rare. The research I have done is useful to us to as it helps our devising process as background information and history inform and inspire us on how to portray the site.