Ideas/process for Collaborative Project

This post consists of ideas we think of as we go through the process of developing our performance:

- Using the novel/show of the handmaids tail we've decided that each of us will be a woman of distinct status as opposed to one another, and we will portray how women are being suppressed in society, despite their status.

- We though of having the piano playing in the background of in certain sections of our play, in order to enhance the atmosphere and ambiance of the performance.

- Mirror and then writing "object" in lipstick

- Elaborate uses of projections:
After watching a Complicite showreel our ideas using projections expanded further:

• Use of projection of a train at the end, running towards the train, and at the end we all stand on a the same level block to suggest that even though we have different status's we are all the same and being treated the same

• Use of projections to create a scene with us as silhouettes behind the projection, possibly to suggest some sort of status level 

• We could have an ipad on a trolley and move it around in order to once again suggest possibly the power and control of Gillead by having the symbol of it moving around on the ipads, constantly reminding the audience of our suppression. Although this idea could be put to many other uses aside from the Gillead symbol.   

• The usage of strong white lights to make us look like silhouettes, having us 3 as the main women in the performance standing in a line beside one another, creating an effect onto the audience, as well as suggesting that at the end we are all women, and we should stand together against the opposition 

• Due to our lack of resources, we will be required to suggest many aspects as we simply do not have complex and advanced materials, so in a scene in which someone is getting beat, we could use red strings flying upwards in order to suggest blood  

- After completing all 3 workshops we've extracted a few possible scenes that could be suitable for our final performance:

Scenes we've started devising:  

- Dinner scene: As for now the dinner scene is our first scene, Madam V will be at the centre on a elevated block stationary as she holds the highest status amongst the women. Aunt lydia who will be patrolling the handmaids but will not interact with Offred, and will just be moving up and down orderly. Finally Offred who will be running around all over the place serving the member of the upper class. The distinction in movement between the 3 female characters is to represent the different levels of hierarchy. Although at the end of the scene to suggest the irrelevance of hierarchy to gender we will all stand in the same position answering to a male "On your command sir", portraying how we are all women and are all oppressed within this society, and towards the end they will realize this as they come together.

- Projection humiliation scene: In order to tie the following scene with the previous dinner scene we've decided to have Offred communicate with Madam V without permission, breaking societies rules. During this scene Aunt Lydia (myself) will only feature in a projection in which Offred will respond to, as well as the extras that will be by her side representing a crowd of handmaids. In the projection Aunt lydia will be further away but as she begins to address Offred she will come closer to the 'camera' and will converse with Offred, incorporating aspects of Complicite. Subsequently the projection will then hit the real life Offred, although we will have a blackout, suggesting that Offred is getting beaten, the only thing that will be heard is her whimpers and falling to the ground.

"Good morning girls 

We are proud to welcome the 6th generation of handmaids to our society 

But before we start I’d like to give special recognition to one special handmaid, handmaid 531 come forward please. 

‘What have I done’ 

Well Firstly this is an example of 531s intolerable behavior recently. 

Recognition is not always good, sometimes we make examples of the worst 

531 here has violated rule number 15, do you know what that is girls ‘We do not speak to those who rule us, we are different to them, and we must remember that’ 

By Conversing with madame V you have disobeyed our societies regulation, ‘o_o’ 

SILENCE 

And you must suffer the consequences of your actions, WHIP "     


- Physical theatre actions scene: A scene in which Madam V comes into the Red room and demonstrates and teaches the handmaids a sequence which they are required to follow, to please the men. We completed the actions with the usage of a metronome in the background to suit the strict and ordered atmosphere:

"Legs down, back straight, Legs down, back straight"
"Stand up and curtsy, Stand up and curtsy"
"Hair back, collar up, Hair back, collar up"
"And now respect is shown, And now respect is shown"
"To our leader, with our head, with our heart, with our body and soul"
"And what is our goal"
"To please, to praise and produce a better race"

- As we were devising a scene involving physical theatre we came up with the idea of the handmaids being referred to as numbers, this linked to our scene as one of the 'other' handmaids would ask if the main handmaid (Deniz (Offred)) is handmaid 453 for example, she would know her number as she would have done something noticeable and significant that made all the handmaids aware of her number. --> Through this idea we thought that at the end of the performance we will have the numbers on our backs under our clothes and reveal them to the audience, it will show Melissa (The higher power female) having the number 1, myself (Aunt Lydia) having a number similar to 57 and Deniz (The handmaid) having a number similar to 453. This will suggest that no matter our status we are all a part of the same horrors and have been through the same, we are in fact no different.


- Puppet controlling scene: At first we had thought of having the handmaid (Deniz) being controlled by myself (Aunt) and Melissa (Madam V) as she is of the lowest status, we wanted the scene to follow the scene in which she gets publicly humiliated, as a sort of punishment, with her as a shadow behind a projection screen, pointed at with a spotlight. We continued to include ideas such as her breaking through the screen, and then reversing her actions as if the scene is rewinding. Although we began thinking and realized that our performance is about how despite our distinct status' we are all equal as women, so we then transformed our idea to all of us being 'controlled' with a male voice in the background, not directing us, but saying something in relation to our actions. Before incorporating this aspect we began working on the physical part of the scene, our movements when being 'controlled', we had a bit of difficulty planning out the movements at first, but we performed a short exercise of us beating each other, through distinct bold moves, and through this we were able to pick out some key movements to join together as one into a routine of some sort. 

Once we figured out the order of our movements we began to contemplate the way in which we want to make an effective physical piece. After we picked out the music, through the beats we were able to organize the nature of our movements. We had Madam V on a block on the stage beginning with the first move alone, and once she began with the second move, Aunt Lydia, on the stage, began the first move, and then the Handmaid on the ground began the first move once I started the second move. Once this part was over, the dramatic section of the song would begin which is when we did the moves all together and at a quicker pace.

Once we completed this part we wanted to end this section on a powerful note, so we completed the moves even faster, along with us shouting and complaining about the lives we are suffering through, all at once, in order to heighten the scenes effect and meaning.

Red room dialogue scene: At the start of the lesson where we devised this scene we realized that we had devised mostly physical theatre scenes as opposed to naturalistic scenes, so we planned out possible naturalistic scenes we could work on, this is what we thought of:

We decided on working on the Red room dialogue scene which is a continuation of the Physical theatre actions scene with Madam V. We wanted this scene to be a moment of realization for Madam V were she finally understands that she is not much more different that the lower class women. So we began the scene with Deniz (handmaid) speaking with another handmaid that is unknown to the audience, where all of a sudden Madam V approaches the handmaids requesting to speak to the Handmaid.  

Madam V then continues to ask her about her true opinions of the system and at first the handmaid answers untruthfully, but after some pressure has been put on her she finally admits her hatred of the systems as it demeans women. Madam V follows with asking for her real name which she responds with 'Alice', madam V then mentions her name is fitting to her innocent personality. She then speaks about her plan about escaping from the mistreatment, discussing how she has been mistreated, and that she merely cared about herself. Although she asks for help from a 'lower class' woman. She also mentions that one other person will be joining them, which will be Aunt Lydia (myself).   

In the following lesson we tweaked a few components of the scene we roughly devised previously. After Madam V brings the handmaid into her office she begins to question her about her rebellious nature, although she tries to deny it. Progressively the tension begins to increase between the two as they speak their minds about the system they are living in and how they handmaids are forced to conceive, but as they are speaking a male figure in the background (projection) passes from behind so Madam V begins to scold the handmaid until the figure leaves, and once he leaves Madam V says "Where were we" implying that she did this in order for the figure to believe she is compliant of her duty. The scene ends with Madam V informing the handmaid to return to her office at a specific time to speak further about the plan she has in mind. 


We began to brainstorm the scenes we already had and the ones we still had to devise in order to create a solid timeline for us to follow as we approach the date of the performance:

The scenes we had left to devise were the final two scenes, we roughly devised the 2nd last scene,  through simply brainstorming ideas, we wanted that scene to have all 3 of us discuss the escape plan. Although we did properly devise the final scene, and we wanted to end the performance quite powerfully so we made it a scene mainly consisting of physical theatre, as in complicite movements suggest ideas more effectively as opposed to words.

Escape scene: 
We begin undressing from our costumes in order to suggest that we are all in fact the same, we continue to walk dramatically with our heads up to show power and unity amongst us women. As we reach together we join hands, Madam V's hand and the handmaids hand progress to cover my face, representing the identity that has been taken away from us, although I break through that, and we all turn around, and begin to take down blocks, each of these blocks will have a word written on, each of these words will be taken down to suggest we will no longer conform to the regime and that once all the blocks are down we have broken through. We all stand on the final 3 blocks at the end and reveal our real names on our backs. We'd thought that as this scene is taking place that we would have a projection playing over our bodies of previous memories, to suggest that we are finally reaching what we desire, freedom.

Words on blocks:

In order to keep us on track we wrote down everything we still had to do and assigned specific roles to each of us: