The Theatrical Performance

When we started devised practical work we were shown different resources to aid us when we started preparing our performances. We were shown firstly aiding videos linking to Prezi and how to use multimedia in a performance. Both of these resources were useful because they showed me the basics of the knowledge I would be developing throughout the term. One the most useful sources was watching the film of 1984. This gave us ideas to include in our own performances and gave us a visual and creative example of the characters, props and settings. This allowed us to take ideas and then make them our own, adapting them for our own take on the scenes we'd seen in the film.

We were asked to create a piece of multimedia theatre based on the story of 1984. According to the Assignment Brief my task was made up of four sections: to take part in multimedia workshops, rehearse our performance, perform our play and research to create our blog. All of these elements where key to creating a good performance and without one of them the rest didn't work or weren't as effective.

The topics, themes and issues we wanted to show in our performance of 1984 was the robotic state of the citizens of Airstrip One and their loyalty to Big Brother. We showed this through the characters in our room. Every single person was completely loyal to Big Brother and when the revolution came around none of them turned to the rebel side, they all remained as supporters of Big Brother. Plus when O'Brien made his speeches, they applauded and congratulated him whereas the audience were more timid and weren't enthusiastic in offering their congratulations. This shows that we were undoubtedly committed to the Big Brother regime. Also when the audience walked around the room to watch the workers researching peoples profiles they could clearly see that the work we were doing was in support of Big Brother.

The performance of O'Brien and the brainwashed citizens in the film version of 1984 influenced our piece greatly because it gave us the basic grounding for us to create our characters and the atmosphere that we wanted to create, by both using the characters created and the props and setting according to the themes we had identified. They gave us an idea of what, where and who our characters associated themselves with and we then developed that to fit into our own performance. We included some of the props that were used in the film including the wine bottles in O'Brien's office and the posters all around Airstrip One. Also the dull clothing of the citizens compared to the more classy attire of O'Brien created an interesting performance route for my group to investigate.

We are asked to think about many things when preparing our piece. We had to take in consideration other groups creative pathways, our own, the audience, the space we had and the story and message we wanted to convey through what we were doing. When creating a piece of immersive theatre, communication is key. You need to discuss with other groups their event timetables as your paths are sure to cross at some point during the course of the rehearsals and the performance itself. Therefore when planning our own schedule we needed to have an awareness of others also. Our space was key because depending on where you were put, there were different opportunities when planning your piece. Finally a story and message are key to any performance and therefore all of the elements I have just discussed needed to fit in with the story and message we wanted to create.

The difficult aspect of the performance was creating a complicated and detailed piece with as simple ideas as were possible. When creating a piece of multimedia for example you needed short cuts to perform the task needed without copious amounts of work and technical elements. When you start overcomplicating a performance, problems start occurring and when you don't have any spare time to waste, you need to have as little issues as possible and therefore simplicity was key.

My role was communicated by two main things: my personality and attitude, towards others and towards the audience and the costume I was wearing. My  personality was very robotic, like what I was saying was a script that had already been written in my head by the government to say whatever they wanted me to. So when speaking to the audience I was calm and confident, with a friendly tone as I wanted to seem welcoming in a world was the opposite to that, something that I think put the audience on edge even more. However when talking to the other workers my tone showed that I thought that I was in some way superior to them and my sharp tone conveyed this. However when talking to O'Brien I was friendly, but without being disrespectful. My costume reinforced the idea that I thought I was above other citizens because like O'Brien I was wearing a suit which made me stand out from the crowd as a inner party member with some element of importance.

We staged our work around our props. As I had three rooms to prepare, we had a different structure to each. In the main room we had a seating area for the audience where they could watch the speeches. We had a row of computers and then as the main feature of the room, a podium on a raised platform. We had two doors entering the first back room and this let a flow of audience be constant. All the props in the first back room were pushed to the side which meant the audience walked through the middle and the second back room was mainly closed of to the audience, especially when there were people in there as it was O'Brien's office. This meant they just watched from the doorway and then exited when necessary. This layout allowed a constant flow of audience which made it easier for us as actors to perform.

O'Brien's Speech

O'Brien's speeches were a very important element when creating my groups and my personal timeline. Therefore we included several during the performance. They were an active event for the audience to witness and appreciate and it was a performance that, unlike some scenes, was more personal, as the speeches were aimed at the people listening.

O'Brien's Bunker Speech
My fellow comrades, I will not mock you by telling you not to be scared, as I know you are not threatened by boys trying to play men, which are all these rebel scum are. They will be spreading lies at this very moment, telling you that I am cowering inside his bunker, even that I am begging for my release and negotiating my surrender, yet let this message I send to you now, ring out across Airstrip One- I will never hide, I will never beg and I will never break. Let the rebels know that they will be the ones hiding away in fear, they will be the snivelling criminals begging for forgiveness and that we will break this rebel force piece my piece, bone by bone, thought by thought.

And to all those who are standing against Big Brother, know this. In this world there are people who live according to the rules and teachings of their father big Brother. A family unit that think, speak and do whatever it is they are needed to do, because they are soldiers, warriors, survivors. And then there is you. As useless as the ruins of the war, a bitter reminder of our deluded ancestors. You are cowards, deserters, criminals. And the biggest difference between you and us is that we will live and you won't. your worthless lives burnt into ashes that will scatter in the icy wind and become the dirt for our soldiers to stamp on. You will fail and we will win. You will fall and we will march on. We will survive and you will die.

At this very moment I am joined by my fellow soldiers and it is just a matter of time until we free ourselves from our captors and establish, once again, Big Brother as the leader of all. Join us in our fight my brothers and sisters. Fight the thought criminals, the toy soldiers, the pretenders. Join together and fight for your loving Big Brother. And remember the three foundations our ministry, our country, our world is built on: War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength.

Notes From Evaluation Lesson

Justify our use of Multimedia NOT the performance itself

Multimedia- the use of different technical elements. That can be visual, oral or aural. Lighting, sound, recording/video, songs, dance, props (edible and props the audience can handle), costume.

Normally multimedia supports the acting, but in this, the multimedia is as important as the acting. The play was multimedia. Like actors all the technical elements performed.

What worked- costume intrigued the audience. When they were wearing certain costumes they wanted to follow (boiler suits, anti-sex league, mackintoshes)

Light- lecture theatre. The lights were turned off to disorientate the audience and then they were led into a room with a bright board depicting the ingsoc logo.

Suspension of disbelief- the audience want to believe in the world of your play.

Sound- sound of the crying baby and depressing music in Stanley's room.

What didn't work- more time would be good but time is a luxury and when working on a large scale play, time is a certain luxury we don't have. 

School building- institutional feeling. Sight specific- created a performance for just that building.

Food hall- sound of slogans. Projection of interviews on a loop. Poster covered walls. Labels on the ingredients.

101- projection of eye operation. Sound of baby. Bright flash light- creating heat and bright light, suffocating feeling, torture tools. Blood on the board and on the workers.

Stanley's apartment- hidden music player playing radio show on a loop and music. Video of training.

O'Brien's office- spotlight for speeches. Computers- prop and light. Dressing room costumes.

Space- projection, sound, lighting, X's on the floor.

Lecture theatre - Prezi. Lined up on the carpet lines.

Masks- put them on edge. They were hard to breath in. They made then feel alien and detached from us. The numbers took away there human qualities. Helped them buy into our world- disease and strict rules. Created performance opportunities- we could tell them off for not wearing them and call them by their number.

Idea for masks (and whole performance) from Punchdrunk in their performance. It allows the audience the freedom to perform.

Year 13- ushers. Both spectators and actors- 'spectators.'

TALK ABOUT ACTING BUT LINK TO MULTIMEDIA.

My Character

My Character is O'Brien's PA. My job will be tend to all his needs and run any errands for him. I want my character to be a party supporter but as I am a inner party member I know of everything that goes on inside the government system as I am directly involved. Therefore I want to be very robotic when talking to the audience, but with other party supporters I want to have a certain knowledge of the whole situation. I will always support everything the party proposes and will quickly stamp out any opposition by personally doing something or reporting the 'traitor' to my boss O'Brien. I think my character will be well spoken and stuck up when addressing everyone but O'Brien. As I work closely with O'Brien my character thinks they have an importance within the party and therefore everyone else is lower than them. When addressing O'Brien, however, I will be very polite, always addressing him as sir and never challenging his word and only giving my opinion when it is asked for. When the revolution takes place I will still remain a faithful party supporter and will suffer any consequences that come along with my loyalty. 

I will be wearing a costume that reflects my job, status and persona. I will be wearing a black pencil skirt, white shirt, black blazer and black shoes. I will wear my hair in a neat bun and will always have a clipboard with me to take notes, collect information and list any jobs I need to perform.

I am happy with the character I have been given as I think I will be able to develop my character a lot. As I have a different view on the party and its members I have a different approach to party policy compared to the other supporters. I understand what goes on behind the scenes and I have helped in these happenings. I think the character has distinctive features that will make my character interesting and memorable.

Lesson Evaluation

Today we were clearing out our rooms to be able to set up our props for the performance the following week. My room consisted of three separate rooms, all of which required attention and details completely different for each individual room. Our main concern was the two back rooms we were in charge of as they were covered in props from previous performances. We needed to clear out these rooms to be able to start planning where and what we could put in the two rooms. This task was as hard as I had expected as the whole group and some people from other groups helped us clear the room out. Another concern was also moving the props out of our other working space once they had been moved from the back rooms. This task was also helped by other group members as they took some of the props we had cleared out for their room. Some of the props were kept by my group as we thought they would work well in the particular themes of our rooms.

For each individual room we had different themes and scenes that would take place in each room. For the main room we would have a computer room were workers would be constantly be looking at the profiles of the visitors and reporting their findings to O'Brien or myself. There would be a podium in that room for O'Brien to make his speeches and this podium may be raised so whoever enters will know the hierarchy of the world they have just entered. There will be a projector to project the digital doubles onto and any other information.

The first back room will be O'Brien's dressing room. We thought it would be an interesting and also slightly comical comparison to the dull lives of the other citizens by having rows of different coloured shirts, blazers, ties and shoes. It also shows that even though the ordinary citizens are told that everyone has the same as they are one unit, one mind, one mouth, one person, the inner party members have a more luxurious lifestyle, undermining the foundations the world of Airstrip One was built on.

The second back room will be O'Brien's office. This is where he will write his speeches and have his meetings. All his files and profiles will be here and other various documents available for the audience to look at. We also wanted to add some empty glasses and wine bottles as in the film, O'Brien is shown drinking wine, which in this world was a luxury unknown to the normal citizens. This would make interesting interactions when other characters come into both the back rooms as it will be a puzzling experience. they have rations on their food, clothes and necessities, whilst O'Brien has all the luxury a man could wish for.

After we had cleared out the rooms we had to decide where to put the props that we had found and the ones we had brought in ourselves.

Props List
Computer Room
Desks (6)                                                                          
Chairs (5)                                                                                  
Wheeled chair                                                            
Computers/laptops (6)                                              
Podium                                                                                                                                    
Stand                                                  
Filing tray                                            
Dictionary                                          
Paper                                                  
Paper weight                                        
Pot of pens
Dressing Room
Dressing Table
Mirror
Perfume
Make-up
Chair
Clothes rail
Suits and shoes
Ironing Board
Iron
Vase
Office
Desk
Chairs (2)
Filing tray
Filing cabinet
Posters
Bottles
Pen Pot
Snow Globe
Whiteboard
Map
Lamp

Evaluation of the Lesson

Todays lesson was not a practical lesson, it was a planning lesson. Though not as exciting as performing, it is a key element when putting on a show. If you don't understand what, where and how you are doing a scene, more and more complications come to the surface at a time when you should be rehearsing and performing. As a group we had already created some scripts and props so when planning we took in to consideration what we had already planned, making our job easier than planning it all from scratch. We had to list props, key/dramatic moments and a timeline of when different moments of our scenes would take place. The performance starts at 18.45, after the audience are let out to roam and so we had to plan every detail from then to the final moment. Some of our original plans had to be scrapped, either because it overcomplicated the scene or didn't add anything to it and was perhaps at risk of taking away from the actual performance. We also had to take into consideration what other groups were doing. This is because as it is such a large scale performance, we will need to use other people in other rooms in out own scenes. Therefore we need to incorporate their ideas and timings into our own to make the scenes and importantly the transitions as smooth as possible. It was quite a difficult process especially due to the lack of communication between groups at times. Once you had planned your groups performance timetable it was harder to incorporate other ideas into them, but each and every group needed each other to help the performance have structure and a good storyline. After the lesson I know have a clear understanding of my timings and the timing of mine and other groups also.

My Groups Timetable:
18:45- preparation- preparing computers and dressing O'Brien.
19:00- O'Brien's first speech.
19:05- digital doubles.
19:20- O'Brien's second speech
19:25- USB smuggling.
19:30- mini revolution.
19.40- bunker speech.
19:45- break out from the bunker.
19:50- meeting in O'Brien's office.
20:00- Revolution.

My Timeline
18:45- in the Lecture Theatre/welcoming room collecting data of the visitors/audience.
19:00- take notes on O'Brien's speech.
19:05- feed information to the people running the computers to set up the digital doubles.
19:15- feed back to O'Brien on his speech and inform him of today's schedule.
19:20- take notes on O'Brien's speech.
19.25- feed back to O'Brien on his speech. When smuggler is discovered I will take him to a soldier to be taken away to Room 101.
19:30- get pushed into the bunker. Whilst inside I will help O'Brien write his bunker speech.
19:40- take notes on O'Brien's bunker speech.
19:45- break out of the bunker.
19:50- meeting in O'Brien's office.
20:00- revolution

During the preparation of the performance parts of each of these timelines may have to be changed.

Performance Timetable

415- (our room) 18.45- tech guys preparing and O'Brien dressing 19.00- O'Brien speech 19.10- digital doubles 19.25- half revolution 19.40- live broadcast 19.50- revolution. O'Brien and staff is paraded 411- (room 101)
18.45- thought police patrol and broken minded person.
19.00- victor interrogates/tortures Phillips 19.20- Phillips broken 19.25- USB torture 19.40- torture training 413- (canteen)
18.45- preparing food. 19.00- meal time 19.15- soup theif 19.25- poster talk 19.40- leaflets hidden under the soup- spark for the revolution 19.55- soup spill Outside- (training and public executions)
18.45- audience emerge to see person burst through the Fire Exit- mini protest 18.55- project insgoc video in the dance changing rooms 19.05- confession voiceover in corridors or in rooms 19.10- people singing song 19.20- teddy bear training/mini revolution 189.35- Fitness regime 19.50- defaced insgoc posters Rose gardens- (greenery)
18.45- Stanley and Rose meet 18.55- Rose giving speeches to particular audience members 19.05- Rose arrested 19.10- room 101 torture 19.25- Rose garden- audience are alone 19.55- revolution alert 20.00- love starts the revolution Lecture Theatre- (welcoming room)
18.30- audience will separate into two lines- men and women. Collect information- twitter, Facebook, DOB, names etc. 18.40- hand out the masks. Numbers on the masks. 18.50- Prezi of the rules Space- anti sex league- two times will have recruitment sessions- one at the beginning one at the end- times on flyers Two minute hate- 2 sessions- times advertised on posters and flyers When anti sex are in session, hate people will advertise and visa versa- 15 minute slots. 418 (Stanley's room)- a lot for audience to touch and witness/ things for the audience to discover. Stanley is always present Corridors- sweepers, speakers and runners.
One off rooms- get audience to take a letter to other places/locations. Tell them not to open, but if they do, put something interesting inside