Author: Kirsty Rice

We did it! After months of lengthy rehearsals consisting literally of blood, sweat and tears… ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’ somehow made it to the LPAC stage and I still cannot quite believe it’s all over.  It’s been an experience like no other, and the response received by the audience was one we could have only dreamed of. A performance we had become so caught up in working on for the past five months came to life on stage and transfixed our audience’s attention for the entire 45 minutes; from the moment the lights went up to the moment they faded down. Moments of silence within the performance no longer came across as lengthy and awkward, instead they only added to the haunting atmosphere, which in turn tugged away at our audience’s heart strings. The moment the lights went down and the performance began the audience became captivated by the collaboration of music, movement, lighting, text, projection and the powerful narrative of a man suffering from a rare condition known as Encephalitis.

The day of the performance ran as smoothly as our stage manager could have wished for. The set although minimal was still visually pleasing to the eye, with white wooden box frames encased in sheet music scattered lower down stage left and right and upstage centre. The day of the show was the first time the company were introduced to the completed boxes, so initially we were all particularly wary of how they would look on stage and if they would in fact be more of a hindrance than a help to our concept.  However they presented the show’s theme of music beautifully and were no issue in hanging them from the rig to create levels.

The day before the show our director acknowledged us of how he envisioned the pre-set; he reiterated the point that with all performers on stage during the entirety of the performance, it made sense for us to be on stage the moment the audience walked into the auditorium. The pre-set was able to identify to the audience early on that we are a contemporary theatre company, whom doesn’t conform to traditions the stage set. Unlike most performances, our show has already begun once the audience members enter the auditorium doors.

Seeing the audience fill up was overwhelming, we did not expect to reach an audience capacity of 152, but it seems our marketing throughout the week on social media had made a huge impact on the amount of seats we sold on the day.

As a performer this was my first ever physical theatre piece, so I was unbelievably nervous. Would I remember all the choreography? Would we all be in time as an ensemble? Would the music and the movement combined transport our audience on an emotional journey? Or would it all just fall flat? As soon as we all took our seats in the pre-set there was no going back.  Not being able to leave the stage worked in our favour, as the performance kept to a consistent rhythm and allowed for it to flow so naturally into the next scene. This was something I had never done up until now so it did worry me to begin with, as it meant as performers we had to know the running order backwards as well as be engaged with the performance even when we weren’t in a particular scene. Concentration and focus was the key to success. With the performance being so heavy in movement it also meant as performers we had to be aware of breath, as there was no opportunity for us to go off stage and catch our breath, overall it became a more tiring experience but a technique that more than worked in the show’s favour.

Thank you for following us on this amazing journey, who knows what’s next for the cast of Fill In The Blank, but what is for certain is this show will forever stay locked away as one of my proudest and most happiest memories. Until next time..

 

 

Works Cited: 

Crow, P. (2015) The Man Whose Memories Fell Out [Taken] 20th May.

Rice, K. (2015) The Man Whose Memories Fell Out [Taken] 20th May.

Woodhall, M. (2015) Pre-set [Taken] 20th May.

 

“Costume is so important for an actor. It absolutely helps to get into character; it’s the closest thing to you, it touches you. Some actors like to go into make-up and then put their clothes on, but I like to dress first; that’s my routine” (Howarth, 2012).

In ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’ costume is purposefully understated and enough to complement the staging and the story.

With the performance heavily consisting of physical theatre, the costumes needed to allow the performers to move freely within the space, bearing no restrictions to the choreography. When costume was discussed amongst the production team we realised as a group we wanted it to be ‘neutral’ so not to detract the audience’s attention from the physicality of the performance. With the choreography being the primary device in translating the story across to the audience, essentially costume and set design needed to be subtle in order not to distract audiences from the narrative. In terms of contemporary theatre, we are performers, not actors and this was to be interpreted through the costume choice.

In choosing costume that suited and complimented the content and reflected our work as an ensemble, I knew I wanted the female’s costumes to entail a common thread throughout, yet still be able to distinguish them as individuals, through incorporating different colours. I went for black leggings and three styles of dresses; smock, swing and bodycon in various colours to suggest the different characterisations of the wife. Although the only difference between these costumes was the style of dress and the colour, I was able to display a sense of uniform and collaboration between the different representations of the wife.  One way me and my co-designer overcame presenting the character of the wife was through the motif of clipping the hair up. Rather than present this literally we wanted it to be done in a precise and fluent manner that came across as part of the performance rather than to break away from it.

In terms of the costume for Michael Cahill who plays the identifiable character of  The Man himself, I wanted to suggest elements of naturalism through him wearing minimal clothing to represent him as a ‘function as a mobile piece of scenery connected to life’ (Pavis and Shants, 1998, 81). I felt putting him in a white shirt, black trousers, red tie and tweed blazer indicated a sense of belief that he is just as close to real life as your average working man. However by standing out amongst the rest of the cast, he is granted with a great level of importance as a character, allowing for the audience to instantly recognise him as The Man in which the title states. Dressing him so formal indicates a level of intelligence and as the story unravels we discover this is true through his talent of playing music, regardless of his condition. My choice of a red tie was solely to fit to with the aesthetic of the set of draped red ribbon and red chairs.

Frantic Assembly is a physical theatre company and also a huge influence of ours in terms of inspiration for our choreography. As Scott Graham argues:

 “Performers are often asked to move with freedom and dynamism and costume must never impair or limit this. Nor should it pre-empt this by being obviously prepared for movement.” (Frantic Assembly, 2013)

For ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’ I made the point of wanting costume that would not distract the performers with having to fix things back  in place or fiddling with accessories, as we are all constantly on stage and in the view of the audience at all times.

 

Documents

Costume for The Man Whose Memories Fell Out

Costume sizing sheet word

Costume Cost Spreadsheet for FITB
Works Cited:

Crow, P. (2015) The Man Whose Memories Fell Out [Taken] 20th May.

Graham, S. (2013) Frantic Assembly Forum: Costume Design. [online] London: Frantic Assembly. Available from: http://www.franticassembly.co.uk/forum/topic/55/ [Accessed 9 May 2014].

Howarth, P. (2012) Gary Oldman interview: Dressing the part. [online] London: The Daily Telegraph. Available from:http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9188999/Gary-Oldman-interview-Dressing-the-part.html [Accessed 9 May 2014].

Pavis, P. And Shantz, C. (1998) Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts and Analysis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

We are approaching the final weeks running up to our first performance, and as a group we decided it might be the perfect opportunity to show our tutor and peers our work so far. Initially I was very apprehensive about the work in progress, particularly because we were showing our tutor our work for the first time since our week seven work in progress. However I couldn’t have been more wrong to doubt our performance, as our audience emotionally engaged with the piece as well as our tutor who gave constructive criticism that would only strengthen the show we already have. We had already devised a scene in which our choreographer had created a chair duet piece between the man and wife set up in a hospital waiting room. Our tutor didn’t understand why so little of us where in the scene when our strength was working as an ensemble. We took his feedback on board and in our next rehearsal we created a waiting room through the addition of two more pairs. We took inspiration from Frantic Assembly’s chair duets, adding a new element to our multidisciplinary style.

Once we were aware of the rules in devising chair duets we broke a lot of the them to put our own spin on a well known sequence. Typically traditional chair duets do not tell a story they are just a series of movements left to the viewers own interpretation, however our adaptation continued to tell the story of the man and wife’s struggle of finding out about his condition. To emphasize these haunting moments of discovery between the pair, we slowed down parts of the the man’s actions to juxtapose with the frenetic energy of the wife. This was to illustrate the different routes of emotion taken between the couple in the same scenario. Exposing the Man in this way allowed for the attention to be solely on him having to come to terms with such devastating news. This was contrasting to Frantic Assembly’s routines that are ‘played at quite a mesmerising speed’ (Graham and Hoggett, 2009, 141). Our adaptation of chair duets still incorporated a similar delivery of “touches, embraces, flirtations, rejections” (Graham and Hoggett, 2009, 141) however contradictory to Frantic Assembly we chose to perform in silence so the attention was on the movement and the story it was aiming to portray.

 

Works Cited:

Crow, P. (2015) The Man Whose Memories Fell Out [Taken] 20th May.

Dale, A. (2015) Chair duet [Taken] 16th April.

Graham, S. and Hoggett, S. (2009) The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd.

After several weeks of researching, planning and exploring ideas with the Fill In The Blank team we have finally made a start on our debut performance  ‘The Man Whose Memories Fell Out’. 

In looking back at our manifesto we understood we wanted to rely on the body to speak for itself to tell the story. A company’s mission statement ‘declares in clear and concise terms the theatre’s purpose and key objectives’ (Downs, Ramsey and Wright, 2013).

Our theatre is visual.

Our theatre is universal.

Our theatre is innovative

Myself and Michael were given the opportunity to explore the loving relationship between the couple spiralling out of control after discovering the man has encephalitis. The duet was a chance for us to really explore the brutality the condition can have on a married couple. We started by creating a sequence of movements incorporating different levels through lifts and floor work. Once we had the routine down, we explored what impact speed would have in portraying the difficulties the wife faces day by day . By repeating the routine three times, we were able to start at a considerably slow pace and then speed up each time we performed the sequence. The repetition of the movement enabled us to show how the wife’s life is now a vicious cycle of repeated gestures between her and her husband since he lost his memory. Through facial expression I was able to show love and compassion when he embraced me, to the grieve and heartache when he lost sight of who I was.

Initially the duet was rehearsed with no music, however when researching encephalitis, we found a particular couple’s story which inspired us to create our own text that we could record as a voice over to accompany the movement. After several attempts at recording our two individual voices with a set script written by our director, we felt as a group that the voice over needed more depth to it than just speeding up. Our sound designer decided to record the other female voices, speaking certain parts of the text to add to the confusion of the wife’s movements. This illustrated the tension and frustration within the wife’s mind beautifully and also gave the audience a narrative to follow without loosing what was being told through the body. Similar to Frantic Assembly we wanted the lines of creativity to begin to merging as one. As Scott Graham states:

‘a successful production for us will be one where it is hard to distinguish what came first between, say, words and movement or movement and music’ (Graham and Hoggett, 2009, 8)

Works Cited:

Dale, A. (2015) Duet [Taken] 16 April 2015.

Downs, W., Ramsey, E and Wright, L. (2013) The Art of Theatre: Then and Now. Boston: Cengage Learning.

Graham, S. and Hoggett, S. (2009) The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre. Oxon: Routledge.