"Flake, Caruther, Butcher, Mulberry and Clark. My idea would be they should wear dark green suit jackets, black trousers or just green colour should be dominant in them costumes because it would symbolize cauliflower. Some of them could have cauliflower in their front pockets.
Roma, Giri and Givola. Black trousers and dark coloured shirts and suit jackets. Everyone could have different colour shirts but suit jackets should be dark, preferably black. Givola should have flower in his front pocket. All of them should wear dark hats but with different colour ribbons on, ribbons colour could be matched with tie colour.
Arturo Ui. My idea that Arturo should wear white hat (like Al Capone used to wear) and bright colour suit jacket maybe white or purple because it associates with royalty. Black trousers.
Bodyguards and gunmen should wear whatever costume they will have but as a symbol they should wear aviator sunglasses.
Judge. We will have to get a mantle and I was thinking that it would be funny if we could get a wig like in the picture on the left.Doctor. Long laboratory coat.
Betty Dullfeet. Long down the knees skirt and jacket. Maybe little hat that used to be popular in 1930`s, gloves.
All other male characters should wear suit as well but without any symbols.
All other female characters should wear long down the knees skirts with shirts."
During the discussion about the costumes, it was pointed out that in the 30's everyone wore suits, meaning that the jacket and trousers had to be the same colour. This brings some difficulty, since between character changes it wouldn't as simple as just changing a jacket, but you need to change the whole costume, which for example for me between scene 5 and 6 might become a bit of a problem since I am changing from Flake into Ui. It doesn't necessarily mean that we couldn't do changes like this, since it is actually very Brechtian to change in front of the audience to have them see that it is simply an actor playing the characters, but we also want it to look good and flow from character into another.
The cauliflower trust could also have different ensembles. The main colours should be greens and browns, but I felt that not all of them had to have full suits, but some could wear the full get up, but some could only have the vest or braces on tip of the trousers and white shirt. I also really like the play with colour for Ui, tho I think it should be a one coloured suit. Purple signifies royalty and white does that also. White has also been a choice of colour for some famous gangsters such as Al Capone who always wore a white hat.
Some important items that we need are hats and Brogue shoes. The hats were a significant part of men's attire in the 1930's and they represent each character. Brogue shoes were also the style and since they were in fashion an couple of years back, I am sure we could find some reasonably prices ones somewhere.
After this we did scene 7. The others had worked on this scene before during extra rehearsals. I thought it was good that I hadn't seen this scene being made, since I couldn't make the extra rehearsals, since this way I had a more neutral way of looking at it and could give feedback to make the scene better. I pointed that Ui's speech could have more variety in it, since it was a lot of yelling and aggressiveness, where it should have moments of persuasion and (fake)sincerity. Ui wants to get these people on his side, to trust him with their money, which means there has to be a likability factor to the speech. Max needs to look at the text and analyze it so that he knows which parts the yelling adds to it. Siou also pointed out that we should look at the stage direction more carefully, since there was a part where in the play it says that Clark is pulled to speak by Roma and Givola, but in our version he simply walks forward. The fact that Clark is pulled forward shows that he is forced to do this, which then again brings more attention what the gangster are really like and how they really don't have good intentions. There also needs to be more hesitation and frightfulness on her part.
We also discussed if Dockdaisy should have a child with her and how it could be funny if she would just have a doll to represent the child, since she isn't really putting any effort in trying to be believable. I also suggested that it could be funny to have the bodyguard act as the child. I do not think we will do this, simply because it doesn't really follow the style we have chosen to go with.
I am supposed to be the bodyguard in this scene singing the song "We would be one". I have been ill, so I haven't been practicing it too much, but we did think about how to make it work and make it funny. Someone suggested that I should lower my voice to sound like a baritone, but after the class me and Max came up with the idea that when I am speaking as the bodyguard I should have low voice, but as I sing the song I could even bring my voice a little bit higher than I usually sing. I want to try this out in class and see what the reaction is, since it could either be hilarious or confusing.
As a class we should focus on reading the stage directions better, but also analyze the scene before class individually so that when we discuss the scene, we know what is happening and what is politically happening in the scene.
- What did I learn during this lesson? How can I use it?
- It is good to have fresh eyes look at the done scenes. When you create the scenes, sometimes it is hard to notice some smaller things since you've been working on the scene so much, but then someone else might see completely different things about it, for example if the points we are trying to get trough are noticeable. We should look at the scene's we have done already and have people make notes about them so that we are working towards our true potential.
- What is my goal for the next lesson? What do I need to do to achieve this? What information do I need?
- I want to work on my song and be able to show the different ways I could do it to the rest of the class. I am also going to create the bodyguard character, with his own Gest and voice.
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