Love and information

Context


My initial thought on the current play given, love and information were various. From reading the whole play I gathered it to be very exciting to take part in different plays in one. I did some research on the British playwright, Caryl Churchill who made the 7 section play for intent for the order to be non linear. First readings of the play were really intense as my whole group were trying to already gain ideas for what they could imagine scenes to be like. As a group we picked scenes that we all liked personally and acted it them out to feel more comfortable.




Rehearsals

My rehearsal process was very smooth and understanding. When working in a big group you have to be very open to constructive criticism, since i was in 5 different scenes, i had to be five different characters without change in costume only in my physicality and vocal expression. I know that helped my performance to be up to standard. Churchill made this a kaleidoscopic play, so we made it more into a futuristic type of theme as she gave us the choice of what order and what type of story we would like each scene to represent. She always had a spoke through her plays about social and political issues of present day.


 While doing research on the plays she wrote, i realised she had a certain way of saying things in English but sometimes some words would be missing but you still knew what she meant by it. i believe she is trying to say that everything doesn't have to make sense to actually make sense. As long as you know what type of story you are trying to pervade, people will understand regardless, she gave us freedom in the way we performed her play.

Character analysis

Wife - This scene, we decided it was going to be 2 people who were married lesbians and one of them suffers from dementia at a young age, throughout the scene im trying to make her remember that i am her wife. I tell her memories we have had by using my voice to show how desperate i am for her to remember me that it hurts. Towards the ending she is tired of my pleading and curses me. The end leaves everyone shocked because my characters suddenly laughs evilly, leaving the audience thinking weather anything i said was true or not.

My characters motive (Stacy) from the beginning was to get through to her wife and make her believe what she was saying was true but it was left for the audience to believe if i was her true wife or just a phoney. by touching my "wife" im trying to build a spark of emotion for her to understand me deeper. My character was a lost human being and wanted to change her life by making wronging into right knowing fully well i was obsessed with the fact of being left alone and that scared me. For example when touching my wife, i was gentle but held my grip for long, my eye contact was stuck to hers to show i had been waiting for this for years.

The child who didn't know fear - This was the first scene i picked in the play as i immediately related this to myself as i love taking risking and trying not to be afraid of anything that comes my way. When Reading through it my initial response was to make it mine as it was a monologue. I told my peers since there was more than one person in the scene, i got 3 other people to mime the other children while i would talk in different ways and pitches to show we were children and to think out the box. this idea was put into consideration but in the end we decided to follow the way Churchill made it to build a sense of eeriness.

 I picked my soft lighting and darkness around the summer spot light as my character was a teacher telling school children a scary story and that's how my character felt at the moment. Going deeper into the scene i became different children who knew what fear was. I felt like the teacher was the child who didn't fear except. My characters motive was to tell a story to create fear in the children hearts. For example when talking about how it feels like a shiver, i shivered to show that even now its effecting me and to make sure the children felt it as well. Creating a more believable story to the audience.

God & God's voice - This scene was one of my favourites as i got to be a realistic hologram from the future who hears the voice of god, originally god and god's voice were two separate plays which we decided to make into one as they are both very similar and we knew we could make it work, which we successfully did. My teacher who was my partner in this scene, questions me as he is very doubtful in the beginning until he asks me question back and fourth until i start to get annoyed as how can someone question the voice of god. My character gets overly obsessed with the fact i believe i can hear god and no one will believe me because i am a hologram.

The lighting is two different coloured spotlights, mine being blue to create a futuristic atmosphere while my other peer had a normal dark yellow lighting. This also conveys that we our opposites to each other in the mind and personality wise as well. My characters objective was to make people hear what i have heard to save myself from believing that maybe i am truly mad. My patience is very short towards the end of the scene, for example when he start to ask me stupid questions, i rub my head and give shorted reply as i see it's not getting to his head.

The wedding video - this was a very short scene so i don't think i should talk about it much. We are a big family watching my one of my relatives wedding video. Lighting used here was a whitish bright colour to show how happy hearten and blinded by joy everyone was that day.