Act 1 Scene 7 & 8 - Development

Scene 7

   Now, scene 7 is a bit complicated one, since it is one of the longest, if not the longest scene in the play, but it also introduces us to Count Vlad Dracula. It is a long scene with a lot of it only being conversation between Jonathan and Dracula, but as we do not want the scene drag on but rather keep the audience on their toes, we have added Artaudian factors with the chorus, whilst keeping the acting between me and Greta quite naturalistic. 

    Right from the beginning, from the moment we heard about our staging, we knew that Draculas first entrance would be from the top of the staircase. But we wanted to create the eeriness of Castle Dracula first and so someone had the idea to have the chorus run up the strairs as bats, but then turn into a door and gargoyles.  Me, as Jonathan, would run off into the audience after the bats rather than going up on to the stage and walk out from there to face the doors middle of the floor. After my first line "Count Dracula!" the doors would open, creaking and then joining the gargoyles to as to bow to their master, and two wolf like creatures would run out towards Jonathan, only to separate and split on either side of the floor, in front of the audience. This idea came from Sophie, since it would scare Jonathan, but also give Dracula the chance to manifest himself at the top of the steps. Dracula wouldn't move from his place, until Jonathan has stepped on the first step to greet him. In the book and the movies there is a sort of blue fire, that separates the castle from the outside world, a sort of line to cross. The step is that line, and it means that now Jonathan is in Dracula's hands, under his influence, and we decided to show this to the audience by having the gargoyles sigh in relief. Now Dracula can come down the steps freely to greet his new guest. As Jonathan mentions that there was wolves on his journey, we could have the howling of wolves heard on the background, as if Jonathan is remembering the voices of these beasts. 

   As the conversation goes on, Dracula introduces Jonathan to a feast, supper. As he clicks his fingers, the gargoyles would separate to join the two wolves on the floor. Michelle had the great idea to have her and Jade work as a chair for Jonathan, showing the hospitality of Dracula. After Jonathan gets up, these two would join the rest of the chorus. The conversation between Jonathan and Dracula continues down the steps and it turns to Mina trough discussion about Carfax. At this point Jonathan will fish out photographs out of his pocket. Someone thought that it would be clever to create one of the pictures with Mina, Lucy and Florrie with the actors and as we tried it out, it worked brilliantly. This way, Dracula could also wonder in the picture, directing his focus to each woman at a time. This also shows the powers Dracula has, in a away he can go in and out of pictures, even though he cannot himself be shown in them. 

   When the two gentlemen start discussing the people of Romania, Dracula mentions his country being a whirlpool, we planned the chorus to turn into whirlpools themselves. In the end though, I feel that we sort of lost this part of the chorus work since almost right away they turn into fighting warriors, to show the bloodshed in the history of Romania that Dracula talks about. As the battlers fall down to the ground and Dracula step to walk among them, he talks about how in his country "the grass is flesh". I thought this was a very strong image we have created on the stage, since the ground Dracula is walking will be made out of dead bodies. After this, the chorus gets up and turn into wolfs again, to be in a semi-circle along the audience. The next chorus bit is when Jonathan takes out the crucifix he got from a farmers wife and Dracula hisses and recoils. At this time the whole chorus will work as some what parts of Dracula, covering their faces and hissing. Then, after failing to convince for Jonathan to throw away this crucifix, Dracula starts talking about the letter Mr. Hawkins had asked Jonathan to give him. Dracula speaks how Jonathan should write letters to anyone he feels need the information to know that he will stay in the castle Dracula for a month. The group had the idea to have Dracula sort of controlling Jonathan, as a puppeteer would a puppet, writing this letter, to show the audience again some of Dracula's powers of manipulation. Jonathan, of course is very taken a back after snapping out of hypnosis, but Dracula tries to explain that he wants Jonathan for conversation, to improve his English skills. He explains that his English is learned from book, when the chorus will turn into books, by standing still in the line. "I am pressed by the throng of your London crowds" and the chorus will start walking on the floor as citizens of London. "Books are good." and the chorus will go back in place as books and then wolfs.
   Yet, Jonathan is not planning to stay, but Dracula is persistent to having him as his guest as long as possible. He starts talking about how Jonathan would change his mind, but is interrupted by howling of the wolfs. 

    

   This leads to Jonathan telling a story of how wolfs ringed their coach on his journey to the castle. He has found his way to second lowest step and is surrounded by the chorus, growling as wolfs. As he talks about a girl he comforted during this trip, teaching him words "Ordo. Pokol. Stregioca. Vrolok. Vlokoslac." the chorus will repeat these words in a sort of a growl, as some sort of demon would. This really creates the image of the fear Jonathan was going trough in that moment, and what he is probably feeling in that moment as well. But before these demon like wolfs have the opportunity to do anything to Jonathan, Dracula comes and guides off the wolves, leading Jonathan up the steps on to the middle of the stage to deliver the last lines. 

Scene 8

As Dracula exits in the previous scene, Jonathan will fall back to the first of the upper steps. The chorus will run up on to the stage to observe the next scene, and some of them hold Jonathan down, representing the powers of castle Dracula and how Jonathan really is trapped in it. Scene 8 itself is pretty straight forward, and the acting and actions of the three main characters in the scene, Mina, Florrie and Lucy, will be very naturalistic, having the loonie sonly observe them. But we also wanted to bring some of Brecht into this scene, since it dabbles into the fact at that Mina and Lucy are more priviliged than Florrie. Mina talks how they should all be one big happy family and to have Florrie addressing her as Mina, rather than Miss, without realizing how much damage she is doing and how little she really is helping. I and Sophie thought that it would be a good idea to have the crazy people repeating  Florrie everytime she says "Yes miss" or "No miss", but also whispering "You're not part of the family", almost in a mocking way. Otherwise, there is only one more chorus work, which doesn't even involve the entire chorus, but only a few and Jonathan. When Lucy comes along and says how that there has been no letters from Jonathan, I will sprint up from sleep, to show how Jonathan wants to be saved and wants back to his Mina, but is simply help back and put back down by the monsters controlled by Dracula. At the end of scene, the loonies will briefly get into manic laughter but at the same time run off-stage to get ready for the next scene.

Act 1 Scene 4, 5 & 6 - Development

Scene 4

This is our second Bedlam scene, so creating the basic blocking of it is pretty simple. As in scene 2, the first scene in Bedlam with Renfield, we will have Renfield on the middle of the stage, with loonies scattered around the floor and the stage. We thought that, since the stage directions tell that Renfield is acting some what similar to a dog, to have all the different groups of lunatics have different characteristics dogs have; sniffing, whining, barking softly, and panting. We did this very clearly in couple of the first rehearsals, but seem to have lost it the further down we went with the rehearsals. There is still a hint of dog in the loonies, but is much more turned down to bring more focus on the action that is going on with Renfield and Nurse Grice. 

   This scene introduced Nurse Grice, the sadistic nurse at Bedlam. As a sadist, Grice enjoys to see others suffer and he likes to inflict pain on others, Renfield being the obvious target in this scene. But with Grice giving Renfield his medicine, Renfield spits the mouthful on Grices face, making him obviously angry, but also giving him the chance to do his worst to Renfield. As Grice says " You stupid stupid cur! Kick him. Kick him from dawn to dusk and back again!" Grice and another nurse(in this case Yunusa) will lift up Renfield by the arm and take him down the steps. Then the struggling Renfield is thrown down on the floor to deliver his monologue. We thought that the lift would be good to show the hard handiness Grice, and the other nurses, have on the patients and highlight the fact that Grice really is a sadist.
   On Renfields monologue, where he talks about the coming of his master, we really got the chance to use the lunatics to our advantage. We had had discussions about the loonies earlier, being different sides of Renfield. So, with this monologue I thought of the idea to have the lunatics mirroring Renfield actions, also getting more movement to the scene. As the speech starts all the lunatics will be on their knees. On the line "He'll punish you!" everyone will point forward and on the next sentence "My master is at hand." the loonies will grab the wrist of the hand they just point with. When Renfield start to talk about following his masters every command, we will bow down in unison. There is also bit where we will look up right to the moon and as Renfield finishes saying: " pretty ones, how they do flutter!" We will all have picked an imaginary bird of the floor and attack it with our mouths. The last chorus thing for this speech is the final line "that do quicken the heart, that give a little flutter..." everyone will say it in their own crazy way. This will be contrasted by the last line of this scene, where Renfield proclaims Draculas coming, by all the lunatics being completely quiet just watching Renfield. Then the madness will again slowly rise, leading us to the next scene.  

Scene 5

   This scene is located in the gardens of Heartwood house, and since there is quite many talking characters in the scene, we thought that we could have the loonies could simply be in the line on the upper stage, observing the happenings in the garden, reacting to some lines in slight laughter or crazy mumbling. Especially lines like "Are you in a position to take a little dictation?" by Jonathan or Lucy's line " Very salty champagne!", that have some kind of sexual meaning or innuendo  within them.
   The scene will star by I as Jonathan and Sophia as Mina getting into place on the step, set out as the picnic area straight away from being lunatics. as more characters enter, we thought that they could simply walk in from the line of lunatics. Originally, we had positioned Jonathan at the top of the first set of step, right in front of the lunatics,  but then after getting notes from Andy that it is a awkward position for Mina, who Jonathan is taking a picture of, since she was sitting on the steps in front if him. So we changed it to have Jonathan rather stand stage right on the floor miming to take a picture of Mina, and moving then to the steps to carry out the dictation-part. Here, Jonathan walks behind Mina to cup her breast, to show the attraction between the future husband and wife. This is interrupted by Mrs Manners and so Jonathan continues to state his letter to Count Dracula until the gong strikes, that is created by the crazy people. At the same time, Lucy and Seward will share a secret kiss, which we will 'hide' from the eyes of Mina and Jonathan by having Mrs Manners and Florrie cross each other in front of the lovers, keeping their affection to each other as a secret. After this we follow a discussion between the four people and Florrie who is serving food for them. Jonathan has his lustful eyes on Florrie, but I have talked more about this in my character objectives and development, so I will not go into detail in this post.
 As the conversation goes on, we have Lucy tell about hers and Sewards swimming trip, which is when Andy thought it would change up the sitting in the scene by having Lucy stand up and direct her story more to the audience. Seward also should get up, creating a lovely moment between these two characters. Unfortunately, Mina upsets Lucy, who then runs out off-stage. Seward then follows him, after revealing about their fresh engagement. The next part, also more discussed in my character creation, is the last part of this scene really showing the true colours of Jonathan. He is almost begging Mina to marry him sooner and then changes his action to get her to sleep with him. This ends with Mina denying Jonathans affection, then changing her mind to let him sleep with her if he does not go to Romania to meet with Count Dracula. At this point, Jonathan puts his career in front of his loved one, ending the scene with Mina rushing to the lunatics angry with Jonathan. As the scene ends the lunatics will get down from the stage to create Bedlam once again.

Scene 6

This Bedlam scene starts with all the lunatics asleep, an idea presented to us by Siou, to bring a bit variation into the Bedlam scenes. This scene introduces us the second half of the nurses, Nisbett, a masochist(a person who has masochism, the condition in which sexual or other gratification depends on one's suffering physical pain or humiliation.). Renfield at first doesn't seem to like Nisbetts presence and tries to sing over her. At this point we have our lunatics waking up and joining in on the singing. This doesn't work though, and Nisbetts keep talking, handing Renfield his soup, but Renfield throws it back at her making all the lunatics laugh and Nisbett run off in shame(probably enjoyed shame, but still). After this, Renfield and the other lunatics turn to play as spiders, seeming to try and catch spiders as well. On the line " See, I think it's not nice, eating dead things" everyone does this hand movement, created by Siou, where we swipe the floor first with our wrist, then pretending there is blood running down it, licking it as it trickles down. Also, after the line " If it moves, eat it" everyone attacks the floor, eating something from it. The last line of the scene " Come in to my parlour, said the spider to the fly" we all repeat together. This line obviously refers to the next scene, where unknowing Jonathan enters Draculas castle. From the spiders on the floor, the lunatics then turn into bats and fly into starting positions for scene 7.

More about the creation of spiders and bats in my movement blog.

Using the practitioners

Antonin Artaud

   Artaud was the practitioner that we followed mainly for this unit, studying his 'Theatre of Cruelty' and 'Lancing the Abscess'. He saw that all of us have a double inside of us, the 'perfect version' without any restrictions and taboos set by the society and culture. Abscess is  all these perversions we have inside that we hide or are put to hide because of pressure, which doesn't let us reach our true potential. The theatre of cruelty is his way of lancing the abscess or to help us release the double by creating an extraordinary performance taking the actors and the audience to their limits of understanding. 

   We see this especially in the Act 1, where we used a lot of the chorus, stretching us as actors to our limits by putting our energy at 100% in every single scene, but also making the audience uncomfortable with all these different stimulants going on. Each character also represents well the different parts of Artaud's view, for example Renfield who is the only one truly releasing his trouble, being free from taboos and constrictions made by any authority. On the other hand, Jonathan, and many of the other characters, hides their temptations, in the fear that it will be a sin. These really show the two different sides of Artaud's philosophy. 

   In Act 2 we have focused more in using his techniques, for example rituals in scene 15, where Seward stakes Lucy. Artaud believed, that language constricts us and doesn't tell everything we need to know, creates confusion. So, in this scene we only have line, but a whole ritual to show how Seward is feeling and show the intensity of the scene. 

   By using Antonin Artaud, we haven't only made a scary show, a performance that leaves the audience tired and overwhelmed, full of questions, but also an understanding, even they don't fully internalize. I've seen a lot of class mates open up during this units, when they have been forced to stretch their emotions and energy every single day. It certainly was a roller-coaster, but it also taught us to use ourselves as a whole, and make ourselves uncomfortable to create something beautiful. 

Stanislavski

We've really used Stanislavski's teaching in this play as well. We didn't use him during class, but had him by our side when creating and developing our individual characters at home. I think having Stanislavki's methods as the base to your character and interpreting the play is very important, since it will give you a simple, but round understanding of their objectives, wants and views. We also used naturalism as a contrasting factor in our play, so that all of the scenes would not be full chorus spectacles, probably leaving the audience confused and bored. High energy all of the time can be just as dull as throughout naturalism.

Brecht

Brecht isn't really one of the practitioners that we have been using throughout, but there is sings of him in the play, and so I thought that he would deserve a bit of explanation. Brecht focuses on politics, and in Liz Lochhead's Dracula this is seen with the character Florrie. Florrie isn't a character in the original novel or the movies, but she was created to highlight the position of the Westerman sisters. There is even a scene(Act 1 Scene 8) that is dedicated to show the class difference between these three women and how Lucy and Mina can be somewhat silly with their problems and every day lives.