In our double lesson we watched the theatre production Lovesong which was produced by Frantic Assembly. It was the story of a couple and their growth. This included the current day much older version and the younger versions of themselves. The story involved their struggles and successes during their lifetime and intertwined both the lives of the older and younger versions using dance and movement. One word that stuck in my head after watching the play was nostalgia. The idea off looking back and missing your younger years. This was shown particularity well when the older and younger versions looked directly into each others eyes & when things that were happening in the younger couples lives were repeated in the older versions lives. For example when the younger couple talk about the hammock the older man takes it out again but the ends are frayed and it is unusable. This could also represent their relationship, fresh and new at the beginning, worn by the end. There is a sense that nothing can ever go back to how it was before. Personally I took the message, live every moment of life without regret and to the fullest, because life moves too quickly. I really enjoyed both the production elements and storyline throughout the play. 

Y- younger 
O- older 

Moments of TEAM:

Tension -
  • Y man walks in and the room is deathly silent he does not speak a word to his wife who seems confused, his movements are stiff and disjointed. His voice starts low before rising to a shout. (Y discovers his wife has been with another man, he confronts her about it) - Tension scale 6 
  • The scene is pitch black and there are strobe flashes as the Y women lies on the kitchen table as the music gets louder it also becomes increasingly tense. - Tension scale 5 
  • Y man and wife have a conversation that leads to the mention of kids and not being able to get pregnant. There is a moment of silence in which the tension grows. - Tension scale 5
  • Y women says "Do you even want them" to husband after discussing kids. There is a long pause. - Tension scale 6 
  • Y women talks about leaving the Y man. - Tension scale 5
Emotion - 
  • O man talks about brushing his teeth every morning and why he does this. There is a sense of routine and order which is also related to peacefulness and tranquillity. There is a sense of wistfulness. The old man is missing something. 
  • O woman talks about washing her face, again there is the same sense of order. This also to do with routine and order which gives a sense of safety and calmness. There is a sense of wistfulness. The O woman is missing something. 
  • The Y couple is sitting outside there is a smooth slow song playing. They are both happy and in love. This reflects the emotion of joy and affection. 
  • O women describes meeting Adam to the O man. This is the little boy she used to care for as though he was her own before the family moved away. Her voice is soft and sad there is a sense of loss, she has missed him growing up, he is now old. However at the same time the women talks with love and affection, happy that Adam also seems to be happy. 
  • O woman decides that it is time to get rid of biscuit and give her away as she is going to die soon. Biscuit has been like the baby she could never have. Giving away Biscuit also symbolises her coming to terms with her death, she believes that she is ready. The O women is both distressed and sad about this. 
  • "I told her it was time," O women talks to husband about her phone call to give away Biscuit. The music is played softer and there is a long pause. There is both despair and sadness in her voice. 
Atmosphere - 
  • Dancing at the beginning where the Y couple dance together. The movements are soft and not jerky. Everything flows. The music is also soft and smooth. The dancers almost look as though they are not touching the floor. The stage is darker with a soft blue tinge to the low lighting. This gives makes the atmosphere seem almost dreamlike. 
  • O women is lying on the table in the dark there is a backdrop of stars. Again there is a blue tinge to the low lighting. She moves softly which carefully touching some of the stars on the wall. She moves with such grace and touches the stars just slightly as though although they are there they are just out of reach, this gives the impression of a dreamlike state. This dreamlike atmosphere is extended to the audience. 
  • The Y couple are both sitting outside happy. They are talking about their future. The music is soft and light. The room is dark with a single spotlight on the couple. The atmosphere created is happy and hopeful. 
  • Before the Y couples party. There are many lights with a slight yellowy/orange tinge, a colour usually associated with happiness. The music is upbeat. The atmosphere is light and jovial. 


Meaning - 
  • O man and Y man share eye contact just after the Y man takes out another girls number from his pocket. - This is almost as though the old man is seeing this version of himself and feeling shame. He regrets this moment in his life. The eye contact is almost saying, rip that piece of paper up. The Y man seems to receive this message and rip the number up. Another more open message could be, everyone makes mistakes. 
  • Both the O women and the Y version put cream on their hands when they are in bed. This shows routine while also showing that although she has grown older in many ways, there are some things that stay the same. 
  • The O women takes out some high heeled shoes which she used to wear when she was older, she realises that she can no longer wear them anymore. - the shoes remind her of her youth and the fact that she can no longer wear them anymore show that she has become older and frail. She can never be that young version of herself again. Although she wants to be young again she cannot. 
  • The Y mans notion of time and time travel - basically what is happening with time in the play. 

Scorch moment - The moment when the Y women holds out a peach and the older man takes a bite. It is possible to see the connection between both the older couple and the younger versions of themselves.   
Year 13!

So year 13 has started and it is already stressing me out!! Over the summer holidays we each worked on our mock solo theatre piece for HL. We were tasked with creating an original piece of theatre based on aspects from Brecht's theatre. 

I decided to do research into Brecht's use of placards and projection as these were the two aspects of theatre that I found to be most interesting and also the most useful. 
I was pleased with my overall performance although I feel like I was over stressing too much for the performance itself, although the performance is only a small part of the project. The main bulk of the marks come from the written report which is submitted with the video of the performance. 

2 good things about my performance: 
  • The use of placards worked as planned and there wasn't any mistakes 
  • The projection system I had rehearsed worked well and didn't cause any of the problems that I thought it might, such as skipping a slide or not changing the slide in time. 
2 things to be improved about my performance: 

  • The use of lighting was quite a key element in the design of my piece, but since we didn't have the equipment in school to be able to create the 'camera flash' style lighting I wanted to create this was not in my actual performance. 
  • The table that I was sat behind in the performance was a school type desk, which was different to the one planned, as the one that I planned to use was a news conference style table which would of created the effect of being in a news conference. 

Our Thursday double lesson: 

For our two our Thursday lesson we spent the first hour reviewing all of the assessment criteria for the HL solo piece. We spent time looking specifically at what evidence was required in order to get the different marks. 
I found this part of the lesson extremely useful as I was originally very nervous about the performance, but in reviewing the mark scheme I learnt that most of the marks that you get awarded are based on evidence from the formal written report, this put my mind more at ease as it took some of the pressure of the performance itself. 

The second half of the lesson we moved into the studio where we were told to create freeze frames in order to represent where we feel we are in theatre now compared to the start of year 12. 
Here are the freeze frames that I created: 


This was the first freeze frame that I had created, for me this shows how I feel more accepted by the group than I did back in year 12. Since the start of year 12 I feel like I have become much closer with each member of the group and I no longer feel like an 'outsider' like I did at the start of last year. Since the start of year 12 I feel the group has really become a lot closer than it was, I feel this was helped by the ISTA trip at the start of year 1. 

I was given 10 seconds by Mr. Fearnehough to improve my piece, this is the revised version: 


This time I decided to change the look of my freeze frame. I decided to have the other three members of the group letting me in, as I felt this showed the idea of being 'accepted' better. From the two freeze frames, this was the one I preferred the most. 

Following on from our individual freeze frames we were asked to do one more freeze frame as a group, to show how we feel we work as a group. Here is what we came up with: 


This freeze frame shows the idea of support in our group. All of us are supporting one another in some way, you can see me and Meera are holding each other up back to back and the same is happening with Chloe and Emma, also Emma and Meera are holding hands again suggesting support. 

We we're again given 10 seconds to improve on our piece and that gave us the following: 

We decided to try and build on the idea of support even more and so we created the piece where we were all helping each other to stay up and help any one member of the group that is down. 



Beckett's Quad: 



We started work on a play by Samuel Beckett called 'Quad'. I was selected to be the director for this piece as I was the only one of the four who hasn't had a go at being director yet. 
First of all we decided to look at the script given (see above) and all tried to learn our specific route that we would have to follow, similar to having to learn lines. 



I found being director for this piece quite challenging as the script we were given was very primitive. This was challenging from the directors point of view as I really didn't have any information to go on as far as costume, and lighting. The one thing I was given was the fact that percussion needed to be used in the piece, but it did not say how percussion needed to be used. I had many questions about what this play could be trying to represent: 
  • Could it be representing life?
  • Why is the idea of 'quad' or 4 so important? 
  • Why is point E important? 
  • What does point E represent? 
  • Do the characters ever meet? 
  • Why do characters mirror each other? 
  • What type of percussion is supposed to be used? 
















Becketts Quad 

 On Monday we started a new performance, which was Becketts Quad. Harry was assigned to be our director as he has not had a go at being in the role of director before. We spent the first two lessons working out the movements and what each persons part was. I found this complicated at first as no one really knew what they were doing at the beginning. However after completing our routes (we each had routes in a square with no speech or particular stage directions), I found it much easier to understand. At this point we still had no idea what the play was about or what we were supposed to be showing. In some ways this made acting it out much harder as we had questions like:

  • Am I supposed to go through the centre of the square?
  • Am I supposed to have contact with the other three people ?
  • Why is one person doing the exact opposite to me ? 
  • Are we supposed to mirror each other? 
At the start of our double lesson on Thursday, we spent time trying to understand what the play was about. Some ideas we came up with were: 
  • The routine of life - everyone moves at the same time stuck in a routine that is hard to escape. Everything moves in a routine, time, planets, the sun, the seasons, days, weeks... The central point being a problem which everyone cleverly gets passed. Is this a good thing? 
  • The idea of Karma - As there is always one person who is doing the exact same thing as you but opposite. The idea of a ripple, doing one thing effects someone else on the opposite side of the world. 
We then started to wonder about the formation, a square and the idea that it has four sides, and that we're walking in triangles. Does the number four have any significance? we found out: 
  • Four is the number of creation in the bible 
  • Four is linked with organisation and practicality
  • Triangles are linked with strength and support
We then started to realise that each person will also be helping to complete another persons triangle, this also fitted in with our idea with Karma. We went on to watch Becketts version of the play. 


We noticed that the actors were wearing primary colours, which were just sheets. This gave the idea that they were not really humans which I think is an important theme in his piece. We were both inspired and influenced by watching this. The fact that none of the actors crossed paths influenced to do the same. We were inspired by the colours we wanted to take this idea and tweak it slightly to fit our own ideas. 

Our ideas: 

  • Using coloured rice to show each persons pathway and how they are all intertwined and sometimes even destroyed by others. 
  • We each change each other 
  • The use of different percussion instruments for each actor and a continuous beat like a clock in the background
  • A beat that sounds whenever we reach a corner
Use of Space

On Friday we played a 'game' where we had to use space to create different scenarios that we were given. We had to use both voice and movement. The spaces we had were:
  1. An aeroplane hanger 
  2. A deserted Island 
  3. A lift 
  4. A coffin
I had number 4. I found this hard as I had to shout and project my voice really loud. I tried really hard to get over my awkwardness at doing this and stay in character. After several seconds of doing this I felt more comfortable with shouting and acting. From this experience I learnt that the pitch and loudness of voice was very important to show the size of space. Movement was also very important and remembering how big your space was, to keep it believable you have to remember where your 'space' cuts off. 

This task was very interesting and helpful in exploring space. 
Evaluating our progress 

On the first day back we had a double lesson. We spent half the lesson talking about solo pieces and evaluating what the task actually was. We realised that most of the task revolved around the written report and, in fact, not the performance. We also went through the mark scheme thoroughly so we had a better understanding of how to get a good grade.

In the second half of the lesson we were asked to use the space to create a freeze frame, using each other on how we feel about drama now in comparison to the start of the year.


In my freeze frame I wanted to show my gaining of confidence over the last year. Here Chloe is my fear and anxiousness pulling me back and preventing me from performing. However I am turned away from her and she is turned away from me showing that this part of me is slowly disappearing. Emma is hugging me, this is showing how I feel more confident and connected to my ensemble, it is almost as though she is pulling me away from my anxiousness and fear (how they have helped me gain confidence and feel involved). Harry is a spectator, showing that this whole scene is onstage, again reinforcing the idea that I now have more confidence to perform in front of people.

I was then given 10 seconds to improve my piece.


The only thing I decided to change was Chloe holding me back. I decided to have her not holding on any more as I feel it better shows the idea that I am letting that part of me go. However she is still a big part of the freeze-frame as just being onstage shows that I have not completely let it go.

After everyone else had finished their freeze-frames, we were then told to collaboratively create a freeze-frame to show our ensemble.


In our first attempt we took the idea of support which we all agreed was an important part of our ensemble. The idea was that we were each leaning on each other for support, and without the other person we would fall. Eye contact between Emma and me was also important as it was used to show communication and the importance of this within a group. Chloe and Harry look at the camera happily to show how comfortable we are as a group.


Continuing with the idea of support we created another freeze-frame, however this time we also wanted to incorporate the idea of helping those who need help. Working as a team means helping people who are struggling this is shown through our use of levels. The circle also shows trust and communication through eye contact.

As a group we were then asked to come up with another freeze-frame showing a bad ensemble.


In this freeze-frame we decided to focus on the word chaos, we decided to use the idea of control and someone having too much and thinking they can control others. This involves lack of communication and support.

Our last task was to create a freeze-frame showing what we would like to achieve at the end of the course.

This freeze-frame shows confidence and being able to fully perform in front of an audience. Emma and Harry represent the ensemble, and the idea of happiness and friendship.

Solo Task 

 After presenting my solo piece I felt I was both successful and at times unsuccessful in conveying my message. I am happy with the overall performance however being that we had very little time to practice in the actual performance space and receive pier help I feel some parts were lacking. If I were to do my performance again I would change several things.


  • Lighting 
  • Audience number and placing of seating
  • Getting the audience to decide of defendants innocence  
(more details in my actual report)
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