More rehearsing. (20th November)

In today's rehearsal we all arrived slightly anxious as we knew we needed more material. Although what we had was okay, there wasn't enough, and the parts we had blocked were not fully en pointe. Personally, as I had been on a close at Wetherspoons, I felt utterly awful but tried to keep myself going as much as possible. Luckily this week, we had managed to get a room booked; I was thrilled about this as I knew I wasn't well enough to come in just to book a room but that there were other people in the group taking on that job and not fulfilling it. We were able to crack straight on with our warm up.

When we had done this we decided to recap on the Charlie Chaplin scene and make sure we absolutely hit every move as one. As Jack and I are quite slow at processing information, we can get quite sloppy in between rehearsals and so I found these recap's and going over the material crucial to the rehearsal process. There was a bit of tension in the group at how slow we learnt the choreography but I just tried to remember an extract I had read from Frantic Assembly about the body memory and learning numbers for either a pin machine or telephone device. They actually composed a whole new way of learning choreography and although we didn't employ this so much in our piece, the knowledge that, actually I myself, have "retained physically rather than numerically" was a big relief (Graham & Hoggett, 2014, pg 149). I tried to keep my cool and do just the best I could at each individual rehearsal. I also did practice at home. I knew Jack and I could do this just aswell; our brains just needed a little longer to process the information.

After this, we then decided to work on a piece of narrative we have had wrote for a while, but subsequently not done anything with. These are the 'Have you ever heard?' statements. There was so much potential with what we could have done with these, but at the time, the best we could come up with was having them wrote on cue cards. It was painful, we all knew it was cliche but at the same time, we couldn't come up with anything better. We spent the rehearsal writing out the statements and then came up with a formula to get all the cards read out. Sarah, Jack and I all stood in a line and passed them along. Kane didn't participate in this scene as we found the dynamic of having 4 people on stage in a line looked unbalanced. Sarah then passed the cue cards either side to me and jack in turn; we made sure to leave gaps so the thoughts could rest with the audience.

What followed this was Jack and I walking off stage and leaving Sarah with a card reading 'Have you ever heard the sound of a silent song?'. Kane then directed the choreography of us transitioning smoothly to the next part of the performance. He said that he would walk on first with his phone and headphones set and, in an almost robotic and technical manner, take the headphones and phone to Sarah. Once he had walked to the opposite side of the stage. Jack and I would follow in unison behind with our earphones and music ready to go. We then decided to do 3 nods and all press play to ensure that our music started at the same point. Although simple, it tooks us ages to get together, it looked sloppy and we had to run it loads of times to actually get it smooth. People forgot to nod, people stood in the wrong position and music didn't start. All rather comical but at the time I think we were just exhausted and wanted it up and running perfect there and then!

We decided to begin working on something else. Seen as there was such a commotion in the previous rehearsal in regards to cutting the scene with the audio description we decided to try and focus on this idea of denial. When we made the room pitch black by pulling the curtains all the way round, Kane had a really good idea about us standing behind the curtains, murmuring, giggling and denying the audience of our conversation. We all took it in turns to experience what it was like and I found it really quite powerful. You were intrigued but felt uncomfortable at the same time. We decided to bring Hannah McHugh - a fellow Performance:Drama and Theatre student - in to see what she thought critically. She had no idea what our piece was about. We sat her in a chair in the pitch black room and again started shuffling, laughing and whispering behind the curtains. She looked really upset when we came out and said through a nervous laugh that she thought it was really powerful; she couldn't really speak much and felt very excluded. This is something we wanted as it is an emotion that Amy and Louise face everyday.

This rehearsal, feeling rather like the other rehearsals, finished with Sarah and Jack having to leave. Again, it felt like trekking through mud but I said I would make sure at the weekend - even with working till 3am - to go into town for the ribbon, torches and a costume. We decided on all black as it means we are all in uniform and it won't distract the audience from the action. Jack and I also agreed on a poster design and we said as a group we would upload an events page to facebook.

The final product looked like this:

Although you can't see it on here, it was much darker in person the font consisted of little white dots that I thought were reminiscent of Braille.

Bibliography 

• Cronshaw, A. (2015). Review: Golem at HOME, Manchester. The Manchester Evening News. [online] Available at: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/theatre-news/review-golem-at-home-manchester-10220839 [Accessed 12 Oct. 2015].
• Dack Virnig, 2015. Deaf Man's ASL Storytelling, "Fish" [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR4HF6S_hz0 [Accessed November 16, 2016].
• Digital Theatre, (2013) Unmissable Culture - Frantic Assembly's Lovesong Exclusive Clip. Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_ZF6R3awyI> [Accessed 2 November 2015].
• DistantMirrors, (2012). Eric Satie - Gymnopédie No.1. [video].
• Etchells, T. (1999) Certain Fragments - Contemporary Performance and Forced Entertainment. 1st ed. London, Routledge.
• Festspiele, S. (2015). FestspielFenster: Suzanne Andrade über „Golem". [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz2Gmq0fAis [Accessed 12 Oct. 2015].
• FORZA, 2015. Inside Out (Original Soundtrack) 01 - Bundle of Joy [Main Theme], Michael Giacchino [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jRHsRNIieQ&list=PL8ZjLVDZiRq2dszLImMWIgwgeFkxc-3sJ [Accessed November 16, 2015].
• Glendinning, A. 2015. Serial Killer dubbed 'The Pusher' is killing city's gay men by pushing them into canal's, says author. The Mirror [online]. Available from: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/serial-killer-dubbed-the-pusher-6318233 [Accessed August 28, 2015].
• Graham, S. and Hoggett, S. 2014. The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising Theatre 2nd ed. Oxon: Routledge.
• Harris, C. 2015. Calvin Harris & Disciples - How Deep Is Your Love [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgqUJOudrcM [Accessed July 15, 2015].
• Hesketh, S. and Pye, D. 2015. EXCLUSIVE: 'Find out who killed our sons!' New canal death sparks fears The Pusher's back. Daily Star [online]. Available from: http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/424390/Manchester-canal-Pusher-killer-students-deaths-tragic-parents-find-murderer [Accessed August 16, 2015]. 
• Johnstone, K. 1979. 'Impro' Improvisation and Theatre. Great Britain: Methuen Drama.
• McAuley, G. 1999. Space in performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Malerman, J. 2014. BirdBox. London: HarperVoyager.
• Manufrakass, 2007. Charlie Chaplin - The Lion's Cage [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79i84xYelZI [Accessed November 15, 2015].
• Marshall, L. 2002. The body speaks. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• National Theatre Discover, (2015) Frantic Assembly Masterclass: Building Blocks for Devising. Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUqZPfGIX6U> [Accessed 2 November 2015].
• MBartholomew22, 2015. "Hello" Adele - ASL Interpretation [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpqdgFM8zSU [Accessed November 17, 2015].
• National Deaf Children's Society, 2012. Deaf Awareness: Face me when you talk [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dZDFP05ZGA [Accessed November 17, 2015].
• National Deaf Children's Society, 2012. Deaf Awareness: Talk Normally [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xT3e0HySKY [Accessed November 17, 2015].
• No Author, 2015. 'The Pusher' 60 bodies dragged from Manchester Canal, Serial Killer Rumoured. RT Question More [online]. Available from: https://www.rt.com/uk/222655-serial-killer-manchester-canals/ [Accessed August 15, 2015].
• Om Iyay, 2015. Katy Perry - Fireworks (Acoustic Karaoke/ Minus One) [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82vHZwzeIoI [Accessed September 5, 2015].
• PedobaerUPedohase, 2013. The XX - Intro [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gxNW2Ulpwk [Accessed November 6, 2015].
• Poynter, R. 2014. Shit Hearing People Say (Things You Don't Say to Deaf & Hard of Hearing) [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCGko6m_WZQ [Accessed November 2, 2015].
• Rhys, E. (2015). Golem, HOME. [online] The Manchester Review. Available at: http://www.themanchesterreview.co.uk/?p=5099 [Accessed 12 Oct. 2015].
• Robkardani, (2009) Enya - Sail Away (Orinoco Flow). Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glyErSTQrDI> [Accessed 3 November 2015].
• Rodgers, T. 2015. The Pusher: Channel 4 documentary to investigate Manchester canal 'Serial Killer' claim. Salford News [online]. Available from: http://salfordonline.com/6621-the-pusher-channel-4-documentary-to-investigate-manchester-canal-serial-killer-claim.html [Accessed August 24, 2015].
• Sappho, S. 2015. Beautiful Soul Signing "U" by Gareth Emery to her Deaf Friend at TomorrowWorld 2014 [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qk3h1MJyv8 [Accessed October 2, 2015].
• TheCornerShopPR, (2011) Steven Hoggett and Scott Graham - Lovesong- Frantic Assembly. Available from: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF-22alcjAU> [Accessed 2 November 2015].
• tigervonwhiskeypur, 2013. Charlie Chaplin "Filmmusik" [online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-DpJyyBY1E [Accessed November 16, 2015].
• Warnervoduk. 2014. The science of sleep. [Online]. [Date Accessed: 13th October, 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TibGeB7NHIo
• Wheatstone, R. 2015. 'The Pusher' professor stands by canal serial killer claims and says bereaved families share his fears. Manchester Evening News [online]. Available from: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/the-pusher-professor-stands-canal-8450695 [Accessed August 15, 2015]. 
• Youtube, (2011). 4 Bar and Rising. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpatthkyCmk [Accessed 2 Nov. 2015].