On Friday 7th June, the day before the first showing of the mummer's play, we began the rehearsal with yoga, making sure we warmed up before we actually started. Throughout the session, we were aiming to finish working on the second half of the performance, tidying up the action and the movement simultaneously. Starting from the section where my character, Tosspot spits on Rachel's character, Jack Finney, we worked right through to the end of the piece, sorting out the positioning of the end dance also. This proved very strenuous and everyone seemed really tired, but it was also encouraging to see everybody so enthusiastic despite this.
By far though, the highlight of the rehearsal was the speed run that we did towards the end of the evening. Watching everybody run around frantically shouting jibberish in double-time,only made it even more amusing. This part was definitely my favourite, a right good laugh and a perfect end to the session.
Esther Greene
On Thursday the 6th of June we started by doing some yoga warm ups to get our bodies ready for movement we do in our piece.
Than we went over our opening song to remind ourselves of the rhythm and lyrics of the song. We moved on to the sword dance at the beginning of the piece, were reworked the order of the dance without Kath because she now plays the violin while we're dancing. After the sword dance we moved on to organising the movement in the song and learning the song which introduces the first scene.
After all the setting of the movement we began to have a run through of the piece with the masks, while other people were performing their scenes it gave people a chance to quickly go over their scenes outside.
Because of the time on Thursday we only got through the first half but we finished with questions about the flight and Poland.
Rachel
Now that Tom rose the bar it's even more difficult to get on and just write this post.......
So I will try to pretend that I don't care by writing facts and making a long story short.
Today I was supposed to have a workshop with the elderly, and I was looking forward to it (this sentence doesn't make the story shorter, but gives you a bit of insight into the type of work that we are doing and tells you how much I like it). Unfortunately the workshop was postponed, good thing about that is I could be in rehearsals from the beginning. Arrived at 10am. We started at 10.45. I got a new part, I'm King George's servant - very good fun. Lauren found her King who's crude like a Viking and as cowardly as a .... something very cowardly. We spent lot's of time with Richard and Kath fighting, threatening and killing each other - extremely amusing.
All day we've been working on specific scenes, but Tom with Rachel and Esther found time to work on solo parts for the opening song. I knew it was going to be good, didn't know it was going to be that good. Girls have great voices and Tom has fabulous ideas. Enjoyed stamping and 3/4 dancing.
One more highlight - Esther playing double part, stepping in for Rachel who had to leave earlier.
We still have to work on few bits but devising process for this week comes to an end.
Julianna Skarżyńska
Community Animateur
Movement director
I think I set my alarm for seven, but maybe it was eight. I remember
wanting to beat the rest of my family to the bathroom, so it must have
been seven. But whatever, it was eight when I got up and any chance of
getting in there first was doomed. Eventually it was my turn and upon
filling up the sink to shave a voice came a-shrieking.“We have to go now!” Not even time to shave. Just wash your face, brush your teeth and be on your deliriously merry way.
I arrived late for the rehearsal, the model of professionalism
that I am, and was launched canon style straight in to making some
music. I'm never good on the spot, and this soon out of bed my brain
still feels warm and squishy like boiled broccoli, so it's safe to say I
was pleased when I found that the group were musical and saved me the
shame of going it alone. Much more comfortable, we played around with
the music some more and I was shown a sword dance that they had
prepared. At the thought of swords and sword fights the ten year old
inside did a small somersault (he was more like thirteen but spare me
the embarrassment). Despite my constant efforts to do so I hardly ever
get to play music with violin, so it was exciting to throw some over the
top of the dance, but I still had no clue how any of this would work
with the play so I was eager to see how this all looked in action.
In the second half of the day we switched rooms and I got to see for
the first time exactly how that action in the script looked. Less
script more action was how. With no discernible language used the play
employed a silent movie style of exaggerated madness. Impressed by
everyone's zeal I found my sides splitting worse than my ambitious
skinny jeans. Freaky masks, sword fights and slapstick hilarity. I can
not wait to see the end result.
Tom Morton
Volunteer Musician
On the 29th of May at the unearthly hour of 9 o clock I attended the second day of preparation for the New Vic Borderlines’ visit to Poland. This was only my second day exposed to the weird and wonderful ways of Comedia dell’arte and the first workshop that I had participated in that challenged my abilities as both an actor and performer. Being part of this project is my first experience working with the New Vic Borderlines and although writing this after having partaking in only two days of workshops I have been made to feel both comfortable and welcome by the leaders and participants.
We began the day with a yoga session which allowed us to warm up our bodies and adapt to the physical mind-set that Comedia dell’arte demands. We then started developing the techniques by using our entire bodies to portray a particular emotion. Using the masks was at first a challenge as it is important to never shield the mask and always have the mask facing the audience. We soon adjusted to this way of thinking and began to portray a range of emotions using the mask whilst keeping the audience in mind.
By the end of the day we had fully developed our character using the masks. We took part in exercises whereby we began to think about how our character would wake up in the morning, eat, get ready, and interact with other characters. This then helped when we began to block the play. We decided to perform the whole play using only mime and not text as it allowed us to think more freely and really commit to each action to display to the audience what was happening in each scene. After a hard day’s work I felt that not only I but everyone had fully adapted into working with the mask and becoming their character.
Katherine
Today we learned two dances for our Comedia Dell Arte piece, one of
which was quite intricate with the use of wooden swords to link all the
group together with, it was very energetic and fun to do, and the other
one was in more of a barn dance style, which was more complex but yet I
found it easier to learn. And considering we only started learning them
both today I feel we picked them up really easily. I'm not a big fan of
dance but I enjoyed doing both of them.
It was a very exhausting
day but I think we got a lot done and now I feel we are more ready for
Poland. We also started to go over our script and went through it a fair
few times and I am already pretty much off script which is very good
for me, I am now looking forward to seeing how we develop the
performance from this point, and how it will go together with the masks.
Richard Marsden
First of all we started the workshop by doing yoga like we always do. It's not a our group's favourite though.
We had to make silly noises and we did this to try to find our character's voice. Richard, Rachel, Esther and I made up scenes. In the scene me and Rachel created, she stole my boyfriend and we had an argument but without words. Everything was mime. It was so funny. I had to mime throwing water over Rachel.
I enjoyed fiding my character and letting my body move. It was a very enjoyable session.
Lauren Parkes
