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.
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