Tuesday 3rd May 2016 - Working on Specifc Scenes

Chorus 1 (War and Victory) - In this lesson we decided to change the blocking and choreography for this section, this is because what we thought that there was a lack of energy and we needed to improve this. We started by creating a formation, we experimented with different levels to make the aesthetics different to the other choruses, because of this me and Rosie are standing at the front while Emily is being lifted and carried forward, As well as this Livvie and Jess are rolling on the floor. This makes it look like there is more happening, this is because it is the first chorus in the play and we wanted to do something different to capture the audiences attention as to what the choruses purpose is in this context. During the chorus leaders lines, we slowly transition into our next positions. For the last verse the chorus who are not speaking, mime what they are saying, we did this to physically show the audience some of the context behind the play that has influenced some of the characters. For example this verse is about the battle between Eteocles and Ploynices for the crown of Thebes, so we formed two groups and when we go towards each other one group fall. We decided to keep the body percussion verse as it shows a big contrast to the rest of the chorus and therefore keeps the audience engaged.  

Chorus 6 (Bacchus) - This was another verse that needed changing, the original blocking did not allow us to portray the panic and distress of the text. Due to this we decided to start facing in, in a circle, this is because the chours are supposed to represent a community and therefore we thought that we could visually show this by the formation. As we say our lines we walk out of the circle, when we walk back in we form two circles instead of one. One circle is travelling in one direction and the other is traveling in the other, we chose to do this as the movement directly correlates with the text, they are both getting gradually more and more hysterical. We reach up towards the sky to show that we are very respectful of the gods and rely on them for help and guidance. We have also decided to reach out to the audience in the last verse as this is the climax of the chorus and therefore needs to show how desperate we really are.