Tonight, Jake and I performed our experimental duet piece, Destruction of Growth. The piece has developed greatly throughout the rehearsal process and ended up as an expression of how we grow and age in today's society, how we cope with rules imposed upon us.
The piece is a journey, from the naivety and tenderness of birth and childhood, to the academic pressures of adolescence, to the seriousness and confusion of adulthood, to a violent eruption of despair. We exited the piece through a blue door, a metaphorical representation of death.
Strengths
I believe that we created a clever way of seducing the audience into something simple that became dark. The opening section attracted the attention of audience members as they watched us decode words on the board as children, however, we pushed the piece into darker areas as it progressed, a larger audience able to experience it with us. For me, throughout the piece, I felt as if I was having to try and get things right, I was in a bewildering process of having to do what's demanded of you without really understanding it. I think that audience members were able to relate to this and therefore the piece was able to connect to them.
I feel that we were able to utilise the materials that the site naturally gave us to illustrate the message of the piece, without having to explicitly force anything. I feel that this made the piece original and interesting, as it was in an unconventional site for theatre and explored a large topic. For example, we used the whiteboard and pens to create a sweet-seeming primary school environment, part of the site. This section helped to create a sense of paradox -something that seems innocent yet has a dark undercurrent of rules subtly imposed on the young by society to keep them under controls. Furthermore, we used the GCSE Science textbooks in the site to illustrate the immense amount of information teenagers are expected to absorb at such young ages, as they still grow and evolve into who they will be. The black blinds symbolised the darkness and bleakness of loss and upset within life, and feelings of loneliness; we also physically distanced ourselves from the audience in this section. The door was used to show how quickly one physically disappears once death strikes. The very site itself, a school science room, has connotations to a laboratory, as if Jake and I were living our lives under scrutiny and surveillance like test subjects.
I feel that all these uses of parts of the site were bold choices that allowed us to go on a physical and metaphorical journey around the space. In the performance, the choices we made felt powerful and were strong symbols. I feel that we were able to capture the nature of site-specific theatre, using the site in every way possible to enhance our piece.
I think that the use of duvets was a bold and experimental choice, a symbol of the safety given to us when we are in the womb, and when we are protected from the injustices of the world. The duvets were carried with us until the end of the piece, gradually peeling away from our bodies as we grew older and became more exposed. I think the use of the duvet as we grew symbolised a poignant longing and effort to replicate the feeling of protection, warmth and encapsulation you receive when in the womb. Can we ever fully recreate that feeling? I believe there is that desire within all of us - at the end of the day when we sleep, we strip away the character we have played in work, we undress, we wrap ourselves in a sheet of warmth - and sleep.
I was able to experience the gradual loss on stage and it gave me the emotional depth to the piece as I felt as if I was slowly losing a part of myself. The sequence of tangling the duvets with each other felt wild, visceral, raw and violent, a painstaking release of the upset that has built up over time. This section was a successful climax to the piece and enabled me to feel deeply as an actress. Furthermore, the simple visual image of barring Jake from entering secondary school with the duvet was a simple way to show how cruel and subjective the education system can be, done only with some cotton.
I also feel that the words I added to the piece were moving and were able to give it some context and depth, for example when I told Jake, 'if you can't get through, you're just not clever enough', taking on the role of a powerful adult in the education and watching his struggle from above.
Weaknesses
Although I was proud of and moved by the outcome of the piece, I have found the process of creating this work difficult, as my partner and I have contrasting styles of working and creative processes. Our differences did mean that at points we could not push the piece to heights it could have reached, and were left with less time to organise it. I found it hard to have to complete the majority of technical work such as emailing teachers and organising meetings, however, this experience has allowed me to learn something. I have realised the importance of really thinking about who you want to work with before deciding to collaborate with them. It was my own choice to work with someone I knew less well than others, instead of trusting myself to do a solo piece. I think that I was afraid of taking the step to do a piece alone as I worried it may have been too exposing and I wouldn't have felt supported, but this process has taught me that I could have done a solo piece and that I shouldn't doubt my abilities as a performer.
I feel that we could have enriched the piece further with more choreographed physical sequences and more lines to speak. The beauty of the piece was its rough and simple nature, but it may have become more visually interesting for an audience had I spent time thinking of a way to convey our idea through physical theatre. This may have come had I thought in more depth about our message and how to use the space.
I also think that I could have spent more time connecting the piece to the brain. There was no explicit scientific reference to the brain, even though the piece is about how the mind develops. This addition may have made the piece more interesting and further achieved the aims set out at the start of the term.
Audience comments/ Reactions
The piece came alive when we had an audience to watch and absorb the work; I could feel their reactions changing as the piece developed and darkened. The members watched tentatively as we played as children, and moved further into the space as we did, meaning they were enticed by our action and captivated by the piece.
The feedback I received from the audience was intuitive and articulate. A member said that the piece spoke to them as an expression of rules that we are expected to follow as we evolve, never ever knowing quite why, and the pressure to get things right. Another said that they liked the use of the duvets, and could relate to the desire to retract back into the duvet, something we all wish to do.
What I will take from the work
Overall, I had a brilliant learning experience in this process and my partner and I created something heartfelt, unique, bold and special. I feel that we both were in harmony and passionately committed during the performance and were able to affect the audience emotionally, as well as ourselves. I will take away a great deal from this experience - the process of creating a unique piece of devised work with a partner, how to stay open and receptive, how to draw inspiration from both artists and from everyday life, and the challenges of how to transalte your feelings and ideas into a physical piece of art.
