How did group skills contribute to the development of the drama Essay

We approached our initial investigate by deciding on the path we were taking for our particle and examining what would be the best to topics to research i. e. the W exclusively Street Crash, the credit crunch, vulgar civilisations, survival techniques etc. and wherefore distri onlying these sections to divisions of the conference to individu ally research. Every member of the group did their own research on every matchless of these subjects so we all knew and understood every topic and to range an oerview of what we were taking, which would help with our portrayal of the themes at bottom our material.We executed this by discussing what we had found in our research and comparing it with the an another(prenominal)(prenominal) members of the group. We then picked the most germane(predicate) points from our discussions and integrated them into our material. We all researched different aspects of the stimulus during our brain storming sessions, drawing from what we knew about t he image and then exploring it independently.Ideas were true collectively, individuals would put forward their ideas for the acquire-up (which were often the same as other members of the group) which were then discussed and collectively performed and then modified, depending on their relevance and cohesiveness with the rest of the theme. However input seemed to bind sexual climax from the same population all the time, so we had to extend and force particular members of the group to share their individual thoughts about our ideas.The volume of the devising work was worked on as a collective, although almost individuals could have been more than involved with the process, still we all wanted to make for certain that every sensation agreed on the direction we were taking the military personnel and aspects of the scene. Our piece was a mixture between ensemble and individual based. For the wise to(p) man scene there was a section in which we all had to act out the story of the crash moving into images of everyday occurrences surround work, partying and resting.To make sure that we were all in concert for these transitions we practised them over and over again often having to agree our actions to make them run smoothly into one another. Throughout we all decided that if we were ever stationary or had to accent on a particular spot we would all stare at the same flat pothouse above the audience in our theatre. For our scene in the play along we all had to hold boards and liberty chit of life in an oval always facing the audience, this took place behind the protagonist to give the illusion that he was running round off a corridor.For this we to work we had to be organised and efficient, first of all we had to make sure that there were three boards at the front at all time meaning we all had to walk at the same pace, we in any case had to carry the boards at roughly the same height, this was quite difficult to execute so we did as best we could by holding them at arms height. We didnt focus on the bar for this scene until we had become stationary this was so we could focus on the movement of the circle and its family to the speed that the protagonist was walking at.To achieve this shared visible look we practised over and over again, extracting one of the members of the group to see if it looked ripe(p) enough. Through trial and error we managed to obtain the same physical relationship between one another. Characters were, most of the time, created individually however when needed we helped people who were struggling with their constituent profile or decided that a character should be different to how they were being portrayed.Most of us put forward suggestions towards certain members character development anyway as a suggestion if we matte that they werent doing enough to explore and exploit their potential. This happened a exercise set in the War scene as we had to create contrasting and analogous characters withi n the separate groups and, as it was one of our best scenes, we wanted everyone to be heard and seen. I contri excepted a lot to the development of a movement piece, I took a piece of music called Clubbed to Death from the Matrix and listened to it, bank lined where the distinguishing sections were and began to create a piece of movement to go with it.This was when we were exploitation one of our original plot lines so it wasnt used in the final performance but one or two of the ideas were used in certain areas of the play. It was originally showing the downfall of the society and the death of the protagonist, I wanted to use the boards a lot, making members of the chorus use them as shields, slamming them down and pushing them along the floor with two gargoyles on the rule of Babel (a piece of staging we were using at the time) the companys opponents are throwing spears then slowly through the piece the gargoyles break themselves away from the tower to kill their attackers.They achieve this by touching their attackers heads, this all happens in the middle section of the music which is quieter and more sinister. After the gargoyles make contact with the attackers heads I made them writhe as if they were being electrocuted, all the tour the protagonist reaches the top of the tower and flings paper out into the audience, however a spear hits him and he dies as do the gargoyles as soon as the papers are thrown into air they begin to analyse and then collapse. I really enjoyed choreographing this piece of movement but, unfortunately by this point, we had already changed our plot, which rendered it useless.I also provided a lot of the sounds like the track during the rape scene (The Piano Duet from Corpse Bride) and in the final scene (My Dearest Friend by Devendra Banhart) All the, concepts and situations were created amongst the group. Our group is extremely diverse both in personalities and in ability, overall we have some very good actors and we all get o n wonderfully and made a good team, however there are members of the group that are weaker than others, one in particular who barely gave any ideas or thoughts to the process.Their silence happened so often that we had to question her endlessly about her views on everything just to know what her reaction was to the content we were producing or the direction we were heading in. This proven very tedious also because she took no initiative into develo nogg her character and when given suggestions by the other members of the group she listened to them but didnt seem to put any of these ideas into practise. We coached her as much as we could and managed to get a decent performance out of her for the final performance.On a completely different note there was tension between two girls in our group but they moved passed these differences and worked with each other as best they could, the tension lessened over the weeks with a few hiccoughs but the managed to work together as a team plannin g props in the few weeks before the performance. Moment were the group worked puff up together Why it was important During the development of the War Scene after the group had been degage into two to create material, we worked together to find a ways to cut between the separate scenes to make a seamless and amusing scene.It strengthened our group dynamic, the girls being on one side bar one and the boys on the other, this allowed us to relax with each other and improvise things that we found amusing. Most of the members of the girls group were fans of Monty Python, French and Saunders and Black Adder, which we all seemed to agree, had the right kind of comedy that we wanted to integrate in our section. It helped us understand each others sense of humour and our acting dynamic. After this scene it was come about that we were on the same page regarding material that wed produced prior to this exercise.Sitting opposite the group of boys was good too as they are very funny people, it helped us to improve our scene, in comparison with theirs, but still carry on the path of humour wed been following. Rehearsing the Company scene where every member of the chorus has a board and we created a movement piece using them together. This was important for the group as it allowed us to work as a collective rather than individuals, we were all concerned about this piece and wanted to create a slick, focussed piece of physical theatre.Through rigorous rehearsal we managed to pin point exactly what was needed and achieved a focus that, with the music, made a punchy start to the beginning of the company scene. We had to bang our boards down at exactly the same time cueing the music, to do this we all agreed to focus on the person who was most visible to everyone, which happened to be me, and we managed to do this perfectly every time in the last few weeks of rehearsal right through the performance.Moment were the group didnt work well Why? What did we learn from this At the be ginning of the Wise man scene the chorus plays freaks who follow the wise man, there wasnt enough group development on these characters during rehearsals. Everyone was concerned about the content of the scene, which provided some brilliant freaks, but we didnt think how it would perceived by an audience and as a whole, we leftfield this to the last minute, which meant they couldve been even greater.That we need to face everything head on, leaving things to the last minute on one of the biggest scenes of play, especially the start of it, even though we did a lot of discussing in eagerness to push on we sometimes miss little things that could be rectified and turn a piece of action that hasnt been through into something clear and concise that stands by itself. A character that, if taken out of the scene, could stand by themselves and have a background giving more depth to the madness.At the beginning of the process when we seemed to keep brainstorming and discussing things rather tha n being spurred into action and, if we did create something that was bad suggestion in the first place, we didnt question we went along with it. We were more concerned about not getting into an argument that we didnt enjoin one another if we thought an idea wasnt good, instead we suggested more ideas.That sometimes you have to put forward people if an idea wont work and dont get worried if persons annoyed at you, it is better to create a good piece of drama that arse lead you in a great direction after having a falling out than coming up with a rubbish idea that doesnt hold together as a piece of theatre. We all did our bit to collaborate on design ideas this was so we could perform with the set, lighting and music that we all wanted so that we could perform in an ideal space that the group collectively designed.There was a big difference between group skills in rehearsal to performance, in rehearsal we were a lot more calm about everything and kept a very relaxed group dynamic but, only as it came to the dress and tech rehearsals did we start buckling down and making sure everyones focus was impeccable and that we were all doing this for each other, to stand as a collective rather than individuals as this was the only way our attach would be better.