29.4. Prologue & Scene 1

   Yesterday I was at an audition and in the meanwhile the rest of the class worked on scene 1 and we continued to work on it today. But first we went trough the prologue to show Siou what we got so far. The biggest note we got from her was to work on our rhythm during the prologue and so we did a couple of exercises to find a common beat. Even though we had divided the poem into sections, we decided it would be good to do it all together first, to get the rhythm right. I also swapped my first line with Harry, since before he was starting the rhythmic part, but Siou felt someone else should do it. Luckily it is only a couple of lines more for me to learn, so I should be memorized in no time. 

   The problem with us not rhyming was because the prologue is written in poem form, and even tho it doesn't need to be  read like a traditional poem, we still need to show the style Brecht was aiming for and draw the audiences attention while still being clear about our message. Before, we weren't working together to create the same rhythm, but rather each followed our own rhythms, which made the start look a bit sloppy, even though we want it to be sharp. We also tried clicking to make it easier, which helped a little. We had tried clicking our fingers before, but then people got too confused about the rhythm, so this time we made the beat a bit slower and easier to follow. We also added a little choreography to the part were we are all in a clump by having people popping up their heads when they are saying their lines.

   For scene one we started of by just going through it so that we could all see where we are at. After seeing it I felt like the idea with the boxes was good, but needed a bit more order to make sure that the people who are talking won't be blocked by the other people and that the stage stays in balance. Balancing the stage was something we really wanted to work on the B part of this scene as well. We have Jade and Sophia clocking each other from either side of the blocks, keeping a distance from each other, but also balancing the stage. This kind of reminds me of cowboys ready to draw their guns out, which is kind of the intensity we want to create.

   We also looked a little into the entrance of Ui and his henchmen on the background, Thinking that they could simply walk upstage, clock the two vegetable dealers for a little and then walk off. It would give the idea of how Ui and his men are watching and pressuring the vegetable dealers to take their deal. It could also work if we would use shadows to just show the silhouettes of these men, giving a more mysterious feeling to the scene. 

 

• Did I achieve my last goal? What could I improve on?
• I did learn my previous lines, but since some of the lines were switched around, I need to re-learn them. Still, this shouldn't take too long since I already have a good grasp on how the prologue goes. I can improve on my Gest more. I tried it out a couple of times, but it seemed that all of us Ui's had a different idea, how to portray him. 
• What did I learn during this lesson? How can I use it?
• Developing scenes is an on going process. At the moment the schedule we have written up basically has one or two lessons for each scene, but in reality we need to take in consideration that views might change or scenes simply need improving on as we notice more thing to polish and work on. We should have lessons every now and then where we look back on the scenes we have already created, to see if something needs to be changed. 
• What is my goal for the next lesson? What do I need to do to achieve this? What information do I need?
• I still need to discuss the Gest with the other Ui's, to decide how we want to portray him in the beginning, middle and end of the play, but especially in the beginning so that we can finish working on the Prologue bit where Ui is introduced. I also want to learn my new lines so that next time we run the prologue I will be off-book.