10.06.2015

This is the song we have chosen to use for the transition from scene 10-11, which shows Liam turning into Ui.

Today was very full on, we had a 9am-5.30pm day and we had a full run through of act 2, which is from scene 7 until the epilogue. I feel today we made a lot of progress and tightened up the transitions. I have wanted to run the whole show for a long time now so today I was happy we managed to run through act 2, and we did act 1 last week, and we stumbled through reasonably quickly with no talking or standing around after each scene we ran pretty smoothly fr scene to scene. The run through took about 2 hours, which I feel was ok as we did stop a couple of times and were sorting out the music for the translations, I feel we did not waste any time today and I feel more confident about the show and my characters. Afterwards we received directors notes & the main notes I received for my characters were: 

Dockdaisy: In scene 7, make her more smiley and ditzy, before beginning her rehearsed speech she should look out at te audience and smile and get too caught up with the attention and almost forget what she has to say. I need to make it more obvious that she is lying and is performing a rehearsed speech.
Scene 3: Would Dockdaisy be smoking? Would she be drinking openly?
I have researched this, and I have found that it was socially acceptable for women to be smoking in the 1930's. Up until the 1920's it was seen as "improper" for a woman to be smoking, but this does not mean that women did not smoke. I feel in scene 3, it is set in a "Bookies" which involves gambling and drinking. We have had this discussion and I personally feel that the scene should seem some what dodgy and not legal, it should have an edge to it. I have link here which is the main source of research I used for this.
Women smoking in the 1930s

I want to have Dockdaisy smoking a cigarette, Greta ordered herbal cigarettes which we are allowed to smoke during the performance. I know Dockdaisy is a lady, but she is not a married woman, she has no repsonsibilties to anyone, she is a floozy who likes to drink and hang around with the gangsters. So I want to have her smoking a cigarette in this scene and I will inform the cast about my research. I also looked into women drinking alcohol in the 1930s, and this again was socially acceptable, as seen in lots of films from the 1930s, women drink cocktails mainly gin based and champagne. Dockdaisy is not an upper class woman, so I feel she would definitely drink in front of the men in this scene. I do think however the drinking should be very sneaky and secretive in this scene, as Ui is in this scene and he does not drink or smoke, he does not tell the others to stop smoking or drinking but I feel there should be an element of disagreement on Ui's face in this scene, and I will see what Yunusa thinks of this idea as he is playing Ui in this scene.
The way I have characterised Dockdaisy stems from the stage directions of this scene, which say Dockdaisy is "very drunk" and this what inspired me to portray Dockdaisy as a young, rebellious and flirtatious woman, as she is seen very drunk in her first scene, so I want to maintain my original idea's of having Dockdaisy drunk and smoking in this scene.
Smoking was seen to be "Glamorous" in the 1930's.

Betty: In scene 13, Betty needs to be much more traumatised and angry about the funeral and UI's actions. Try not to look down when I am crying, try to cry out to the audience and really make them see how hurt she is. 

Run off the stage crying after "never never never" instead of walking, maybe push past Giri, run in fear from UI's handshake.
Betty is a strong character and a strong woman, I am playing the only two female parts which I am really happy about, so it has been my motivation to create really strong female characters which are not over shadowed by the male characters. In Scene 13 I am going to make Betty much more upset and disturbed by Ui, and I am really going to lay into him, as I was thinking how awful it must feel for her to know the man who murdered her husband is standing over his coffin at his funeral talking in a nasty way about him. So I want Betty to really lose it with Ui, it will be entertaining for the audience to watch a woman laying into Ui, and to see how he reacts to it.
I feel in the first scene Betty is introduced which is scene 10, I need to make more of an impression on Ui, I want her to appear witty and smart, so the audience notice her straight away and can tell she is a strong woman. The notes I received from Siou have really helped me and have opened up my minds to more ideas for my characters and how to make them even stronger. I am really looking forward to the show as I really like all my characters, particularly the two women, and I want the audience to appreciate the female characters as it is such a male heavy performance.

Today we also rehearsed the transition between scene 10 and 11 and made some changes to it. We made the walking much more slower and intense, and made sure that the two guys keep eye contact with each other, Max is sizing Liam up, to see if he is good enough to take over as Ui. And we added the gest in at the end as well, as it looked stronger using the Ui gest, as this is one of the main movements that portrays Ui as each character has their own gests. I really like the transition as it is intense and shows a clear transition between the two actors, so it simplifies for the audience and it is Brechtian as he likes to play around with music and uses music to speak to the audience.
The group have fully completed and blocked the transitions from scene to scene, and they are looking smooth and keep the audience engaged and each transition is different, and we always use music with the transitions. Transitions help to make the performance more entetaining and keep the energy up, as it would be boring to just go from scene to scene with no transitions, and it would be the easy way, and we do not like the easy way!!

These are the feedback video's from after today's run through.