21.5. Scene 11

  During today's extra rehearsal we started to devise scene 11. The scene is very much about betrayal, since in this scene Ui comes and murders Roma and his men. It connects to the real happenings of the death of Ernest Röhm, right hand man of Hitler, during thee Night of The Long Knives, when Hitler ordered many political murders. Hitler had seen that the independence of SA, the military Röhm was the leader of, was becoming on the way of his newly gained political power. The killings strengthened Hitler relationship with the German army, which Röhm was going to melt in with the SA.
   These kind of political killings still happen these days, for example the former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov was killed earlier this year. He was an opposed to Putin and on the conflict in eastern Ukraine. He was planning a march against it and actually said to the press that he was afraid of being killed because of his opposition to the war. The motive for this killing is unknown, but Putin's side has rejected that he had any involvement in it. But there has been other political murderd happen to the critics of Vladimir Putin, for example the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya in 2006. She was someone who had criticized Putin in several occasion, and as a known activist and journalist, she was probably seen as a threat to Putin and his reputation. Also, Alexander Litvinenko who was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, was poisoned with radioactive polonium about three weeks after Politkovskayas death after blaming Putin for her death.

   Before devising the scene, we discussed some idea we had for the scene. Since they are in a garage and there is part where the steel shutters close, I suggested that perhaps we could use the curtain as the shutters closing, just having a sound effect to create the illusion of the steel shutter. I also thought that it would then be a great reveal for Ui to be revealed from behind the curtains, as the shutters are opened again. We also talked about how to have Roma's gunmen have be shot, since in the play they are said to have taken to the wall to be shot. We thought that it would be good to use the screen and have them go behind the screen, but the shooter actually be in front of it, so that we can see the shooting, but not the actual death. This would be a creative and stylized way to show that they have indeed died, but not take too much attention away from Roma who is still struggling to stay alive on the stage. As the gunmen are shot, it was also suggested that we could have bullet shots come on the screen. This seems like a very good idea, but we do need to try it out at Pelham some day, since the shadows might not be seen that well will the video we looked at to be projected.
   Greta suggested to use Mozart song 'Lacrimosa' for the first shot of Roma and then to keep playing for the rest of the scene. It worked really well with the scene and the mood, it was sad and dramatic, which I realized was a bit of a problem. In any other show it would have been the perfect choice for the scene, but since Brecht wanted the audience to know they were in a show rather get emotionally attached with the characters, he used music that completely didn't fit the scenes mood. As I said this to the group, Sophia put on Benny Goodman's 'Sing Sing Sing' and everyone's face lit up. This was the perfect song for our purposes and it would look great with the slow motion we planned with the shooting of Roma. The music would then stay on the background playing for the rest of the scene, quiet, but still so that the audience can hear it. I think we will have to put the first shots in with the music, since we want the music to start right after the first gunshot, and have a couple of more shots in slow motion with the music. The sound effect for the rest of the shots should not be edited in with the music, since it'll easier with those to have Adam cue it with the dialogue.

   We didn't remember to take video of this scene, but I will put up one the next time we go over the scene. For this scene, we should get the music and sound effects done soon, since this one has quite many cues that need to be perfectly timed to make the deaths work. I think we should also all work on the slow motion, since even though most of the action is by Sophie's and Greta's character during this bit, everyone needs to react to the gunshots and the death in slow motion, keeping in with the style we choose. The movements should be over done to make them clear, but still stay serious enough that it doesn't become humourous. 

   For the slow motion gunshots, I was thinking about using this to add to the music, just do it 3-4 times and take out the click sound before the gunshot. This way I can create the slow motion tommy gun by being able to manipulate how long is the interval between each gun shot. For the real-time gunshots we can use the lower sound effect.