21.03.2014

Brighton Shed Productions Workshop

   We had a very exciting guests in our class today, the Brighton Shed Productions. They held us a workshop using their ideas and methods to show a bit different kind of theatre, starting by showing us a video about their work. After this, we went to the dance studio to get started with the actual workshop, that was heavily to do with movement and dance. We explored with the ideas of travelling and journeys, which was actually very useful, since those are recurring themes in our play as well. We started warming up with a couple of dances and then moved on to create short travelling sequences in pairs, using lifts and other techniques as our advantage. The we got into groups of four and were given a task to tell a story about someones journey to Brighton in three tableaux, using the sequences to move from one tableaux to another. My group decided to look into my story of coming to Brighton, starting from Finland, then me travelling to USA and then ending up in Brighton at the end. At the end everyone showed their pieces to everyone.
   This workshop was very refreshing and it does tie in with Dracula as well. There is plenty of travelling in Dracula, from England to Trannsylvania and back, Belham to Whitby and so forth. We could use some of the things we learned in the workshop in our devising. There is also journeys within the characters, many of the characters go trough a huge change in themselves, Lucy turning from a naive playful girl to a seductive vampire and my character Jonathan struggles with temptation and fear.

Starting the Play

   Starting the class with discussion about symbolism and what kind of themes does the play have, we talked a lot about journeys, but also thought of other symbols within the play like animalistic, suppression, lust, temptation, manipulation the hunt and seduction, and then moved on to discussing the way we could start the play. We've had some ideas before, like that we wanted the whole experience of coming to see a play to be eerie. So, even when the audience is just coming in, we thought to use the front-of-house to our advantage and thought that they could be like the villagers are in Dracula - scared and warning the about the oncoming dangers. We decided then, that the actual start of the play should come as a surprise of sort, not as jumping on the audiences faces, but rather starting the play with the small things that make us scared, floor creaking, sound of wind or breathing. Breathing especially seemed like something we could use, since we have explored the different ways we can use breathing to show emotions. The ideas given from everyone from the group varied from having the breathing being muffled out by music or other sounds, or using the breathing to hide another sound, but after we came up with an idea using the wolves to start of the play, it became sure that breathing would be a way to start of the action and use it throughout the start. 

   The final idea came together surprisingly quickly. The group decided that after the audience has settled to their seats in the dark room, we will all start the scared breathing, first softly, but then strengthening it. Chloe will start by running on the stage, seeming to be escaping from someone or something. She moves across the stage and then up the steps on to the stage, scared and panicked. The rest of us, scattered around the stage start growling and howling, appearing from behind the audience and from the sides, surrounding Chloe as wolves. As she tries to find an escape from the sides of the stage, more of us reveal ourselves from the darkness, trapping Chloe in the middle. Blocked from escape, she sees Greta as Dracula appearing in the top of the steps, smiling as the wolves finally attack and devour Chloe, muffling her screams, and turning her as one of the wolves. Then slowly, we turn towards the audience, and as we run towards, the stage lights blackout and after it we start the play.
   This start will engage the audience in to the play immediately, but it will also contrast excellently with the starting scene with Mina and Lucy, a scene that is seemingly naturalistic and quite peaceful. This might confuse the audience at first, making them wonder, how the beginning with the wolves connect to the play, but they will soon discover the connection. I also think this start connect to the way the riginal novel told the story. Bram Stoker used diary entries and letters to tell the story of Dracula, making it so that the reader knew more about what was coming, than the characters, and our start for the play foreshadows some of the story, but in a more symbolic way.