Unit 11- Combining Fairytales

Before the Lesson
We had all prepared our own version of a fairytale we knew off hand, written to include all 5 senses. This was done without any aid of the original storyline, so each story came out slightly differently.

In the Lesson
We were put into groups of three, and told to try and combine our different tales into a smooth, coherent and flowing performance, I was with Charlotte and Jennah. We needed to combine little red riding hood, goldilocks and jack and the bean stalk.

Storyline:
Red Riding hood and Green riding hood were having an argument about which was the best riding hood. Green's argument (myself) was that he was echo friendly, and red's that he was the original. We are minding our own business in the corner of the scene. I shy Jennah (jack) walks up to us and asks us, 'can I have something', at which point the red riding hoods 'looked hard'. The plot follows that we end up trading black market 'heinz beans' for a car, and some bread, for red to give to her gran. To incorporate goldilocks into the story, we decided rather than 3 bowls of porridge, there would be 3 grandmas for the wolf to chose from. The first of which (myself) was too old, and suffered from dementia which resulted in her singing '8 green bottles' and finding a song from any word that the wolf would say (e.g. 'you're crazy', I sang 'does that make me crazy'. The second grandma (played by Charlotte) was too smelly, and suffered from amnesia, or short term memory loss. The third grandma was just right.

What went well:
I feel as if this was my best piece yet. I came up with the concept and joining of the three stories, and also all the comical ideas and jokes. The audience laughed throughout the piece, and so reassured the comical value of the piece. We were able to use our bodies in an exaggerated way, in order to tell the story with more than just words and facial expressions, this was effective because the audience were captivated by more than just what was being said, but also by the physical theatre on the stage. The piece also involved song, which added to a rounded musical theatre performance rather than just a dramatic one.

What we could do to improve:
I think our performance could include even more movement; whilst the beginning was movement heavy from the market scene, where charlotte and I leaned in for gossip, and jumped back in shock, getting bigger and bigger in each movement. The amount of movement then dropped, and we didn't include very much in the rest of the piece. I think this is something that could easily be added, to give a more alive and involved performance for the audience to enjoy.

Problems we overcame:
Whilst I was constantly contributing/dominating creative ideas, Charlotte and I had more to say than Jennah, furthermore I also tend to say an idea as soon as I have it (without interrupting) at fear of forgetting it, meaning that there is sometimes not space for those as vocal as me when giving creative ideas, to pitch in. We overcame this very simply, we decided to improvise some of the scenes so that Jennah could put her creative ideas straight into action, and we could bounce off of these ideas, it worked very well, and was where the 'just right grandma' scene came along. A personal problem I had was laughing at scenes I wasn't in, just because I really enjoyed the comedy. This is something I need to get used to avoiding onstage, so that I don't look unprofessional, but also don't break the illusion of us being characters, rather than performers.

How did we work as a group:
I felt that Charlotte and I were on the same page in terms of humour, meaning that we could improvise scenes comically, but without straying from the storyline. As a group we were all contributing to blocking, for example when both green and red riding hood are approached by Jack, we all bunch up in a group, and then bunch closer and closer as the comical tension of the scene rises.

Individual achievements:
I loved this performance because I felt I put so much into it. I had the idea of how the stories joined, played a huge part in how the piece was comical and modernised, but something I particularly enjoyed was the musical element to the piece, especially as it was in a comical way. Music in children's theatre is something we had picked up on as effective and engaging, as was comedy, and so I came up with the 'just right gran' aspect of the story, and decided my gran would be one that doesn't speak, just sings, and picks up on what other people say, turning it to song. For example after my 3d chorus of 'blue bottoms on a wall' the wolf character calls me crazy, at which point I break into 'does that make me crazy'