Section 1 – Response to a stimulus

As a group we were presented five stimuli: a photo, poem, suitcase, movie and
lamp. We rotated around and wrote down words we associated with them. Collectively,
we felt that the movie was the most inspiring stimulus; it was about a woman who kept
hallucinating a faceless man dressed in black. I thought it was chilling and
demonstrated how we can never be sure we are safe. It also connotated mental illness,
as the woman seemed to be suffering from schizophrenia. We decided not to do a piece
about mental health because we felt it was generic, though it helped develop our main
idea which we initially based on Alzheimer’s; this helped inspire our final work. We used
another stimulus: a poem called ‘Cry’ by Artaud. It left us with the idea of being
uprooted by ‘oblivion’, which reminded us about how the world is uprooting itself. I
found the poem disturbing because of the description: the ‘slug walks’, which reminded
me of how insignificant our feelings are towards change unless we act now.

After receiving our stimuli, we split it into smaller topics to research: serial
killers, AIDs, Alzheimer’s and superstitions. I researched serial killers as I find them
interesting. I researched what exactly makes a serial killer; a serial killer is someone who
commits three or more homicides in a month1. We put our research together and found
they were all dark topics. Alzheimer’s particularly led us to think about ‘decay’, which
inspired the idea of a dying world. We workshopped a scene based on classism, utilising
five still images we transitioned together, though we decided not to use it because we felt
it was too specific and could be incorporated into another piece that dealt with differing
issues: abortion, Covid-19, climate change and racial discrimination. We originally
undertook this from the perspective of somebody suffering from Alzheimer’s,
remembering life through a haze. It was difficult to do this without making the piece
confusing to someone watching without context, so we changed the piece into an
apology to future generations discussing how we have left the world. We were inspired
by ‘Can I Live’2 by Complicite as it deals with a similar topic: climate change. We were
inspired by their use of direct address, which we incorporated.

Our group aim was to make the audience pity the future generations we will pass
the world onto. We utilised many practitioners, including Frantic Assembly. They
combine physical theatre with music and lighting to create ‘thrilling, energetic and
unforgettable theatre’3, which we believed could be incorporated to create shock in the
audience. We used their building block technique to create a piece of physical movement
for our Black Lives Matter scene, and we also recreated the physical movement in
Rosie’s monologue from ‘Things I Know to be True’4. We also used Complicite: one of
their techniques is ‘intertwining stories’5. We crossed someone’s personal milestones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer#:~:text=A%20serial%20killer%20is%20typically,period%20of%20time
%20between%20them.
2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kklxyvig-GA
3

file:///Users/mac/Downloads/Y10-11%20C1%20Practitioner%20influences%20FRANTIC%20ASSEMBLY.pdf
4
https://www.franticassembly.co.uk/productions/things-i-know-to-be-true
5
https://www.dramaandtheatre.co.uk/practical/article/practitioner-focus-complicite
with significant world events. We found this confusing to do, so we made what we meant
more obvious by announcing dates. We were going to use Brecht as he left the audience
thinking, something we want to do. Unfortunately, we felt the element of spass would be
inappropriate for our piece. We also did not want to tell the story of our piece in
presentational format because we aspired for the audience to be immersed.

My personal aim as an actor was to use lighting in different ways to showcase

different emotions. For example, when the piece was more fast paced, I wanted to use
intense lighting, such as strobe lighting which would leave the audience feeling
exhilarated and nervous. At the beginning of the piece, I planned to have four
downlights (one over each person) to highlight that we as a group had four events we
wanted to apologise for. I also aimed to develop a serious piece addressing multiple
issues, as for me it is much easier to create comedic pieces. I planned to do this by
incorporating several practitioners not known for using comedy, such as Artaud. Even
though we did not use him, researching him helped me learn techniques to create a
serious piece.