As Four ways to speak out made the transition from the validation period of the process to the performance stage, the themes and issues of the piece began to emerge and become more prominent. From the start of the creative process we had decided the main theme for the piece would be that of domestic violence towards women, as we progressed with the process and moved in to the validation stage this theme became more clear for both the ensemble and the cast particularly the violent rape of the woman. It also however became clear that our piece was not only about physical violence towards women but also psychological and mental abuse, the most common form of domestic abuse as it goes unnoticed as it doesn’t leave physical marks only mental scars. Mental abuse gets significantly less publicity and attention than physical abuse, so therefore we wanted to draw attention to the issue:
“Mental cruelty, threats, sexual abuse, physical violence and any form of controlling behaviour used against a woman by her husband or boyfriend are all types of domestic violence” (Hamner.J, 2000, P27)
This theme of mental abuse that emerged through the ‘V’ stage also led to a further theme to emerge which was that of overpowering and possessive love that that leads to entrapment. Through the piece it becomes clear that the man loves her intensely, to the point that he cannot see what he is doing wrong, his love for her is overbearing and possessive and causes her to eventually leave, as shown at the end of the piece when the woman leaves him and he is left trapped by his love for her.
We became aware through the process that it is only when a woman is killed or seriously injured as a result of domestic violence, that any attention is drawn to the issue. By having the woman leave of her own free will, we aimed to show and represent that there is an escape from domestic violence and a chance to regain control of your own life. Ultimately there is hope for sufferers of domestic violence. Our piece ultimately looks at women within society much similar to what DV8 address within their pieces:
“The company's reputation relies on pushing its own boundaries and on the constant re-examination of the roles and relationships of men and women in our (society”http://www.dv8.co.uk/about_dv8/artistic_policy)
Despite the individual journeys each person found themselves s on there were experiences that were shared by the entire ensemble which had the effect off drawing the community together. For instance although each person knew the woman in different ways and had a different role to play the entire ensemble shared one key role which was that they were all part of the same community from which the woman disappeared . The entire community shared the experience of discovering the woman’s disappearance, and in the same way the entire community were all burdened and suppressed by their guilt of not helping the woman and a shared hatred of the man who abused her. An example of this guilt and hatred was the second ensemble the community needed to take their pent up emotions of guilt and hatred out and so turned to other members of the community to help them, as people were falling onto the other members of the community this could have been a sign of release, defeat or entrapment, for many of the ensemble the falling was a form of catharsis:
“Catharsis is the emotional cleansing of the audience and/or characters in the play. In relation to drama it is an extreme change in emotion resulting from strong feelings of sorrow, fear, pity, or laughter; this result has been described as a purification or a purging of such emotions” (http://www.thefreedictionary.com)
When the ensemble moved from the studio space into the theatre in which we were going to perform the piece there were both strengths and weaknesses that arose, the theatre space was a lot larger than the studio space we had been using throughout the process and therefore we had to adapt to the space and become familiar with it, as Dymphna Callery states in her book through the body:
“Commanding the stage demands a control of the space……. but in order to do this she has first to really ‘see’ it, to create parallels of attention so that the whole space becomes their field of vision” (Callery.D, 2001, p79)
We could not become intimidated by the amount of space we found ourselves in. A problem encountered by the ensemble was that we had spent 7 months working in the same space, we had spent a long time working on gaining a good sense of peripheral vision, when we moved into the theatre the space dynamics were so different it was essential that we had to spend time exploring the space and opening up our vision once again.
A further problem we encountered was that we were so used to the studio being our characters homes we had to find an emotional connection to the theatre space, we had to get use to the different areas within the space such as the bedroom and bar we did exercises to help us regain a sense of our individual characters within the space, one exercise we revisited before each performance was to sit in the area where your character finds themselves at their most emotional point in the piece, we then had to take in the space and the other characters in it, and respond to their role in the woman’s life, through our responses to the other character the story of the woman’s life could be unravelled, the exercise was successful in that we became aware of the space, the bodies within it and helped us focus on our characters emotions and what our piece needed to communicate to the audience
“ You must be able to work as an ensemble to tell the story moment by moment.… Eye contact is a crucial ingredient, so is a heightened sensory awareness of others in the space.” (Callery, 2001, p.88)
However moving into the space made me even more desperate to perform our piece, seeing the space with all the stenography in place made the woman’s life all that more real, and her story needed to be told . In the same way the space was the home for my character, and so my emotional journey did not stop when we entered our new pace instead it moved on dramatically.
There were three performances of Four ways to speak out and as demonstrated in the RSVP model, the performance stage does not mean anything is final and without change, in fact the piece itself still remains flexible, fluid and open to change. Therefore each performance was different, and each audience member will have seen a completely different show interpreting the encoded signs in response to their own culture and experiences.
My character continued to evolve in response to the RSVP model over the three shows, for example before the second ensemble, the community have discovered the rape of the woman and move into the second ensemble in response to the mans actions, I had always felt a strong enough emotion to move but by the final performance I could barely stand, I fell with so much intensity onto Catherine to get away from Andy. I believe it was in response to the previous flashback in which the woman attempts to leave. My character unlike many other characters on stage didn’t feel guilty but instead was angry, she had tried many times to help the woman but she had never listened, when my character learnt of the rape through the flashbacks that gave me my reason to move to the floor by the bed ready for the attempt to leave, I had previously been seated on the back of the bed so was therefore in everyone’s sightlines and could never really find an intention to move but through the performances the intention became apparent I had to move to get lower to the floor away as if to escape what I was being told. In the final performance of the attempt to leave I could not control my crying, but in response I wouldn’t have wanted to control it, ‘such an “emotion” cannot be expressed; it can only be induced or simulated.’ (Hjort & Laver, 1997, p122) the emotion I felt was not forced and was truthful therefore it aided in my journey, all the other characters and the audiences understanding of the piece.
With every performance my character developed, I felt something different to the time before and was able to carry that new feeling forward to the next performance if it felt right and honest. Up until the performance stage of the model I had never found a connection to the first flashback of the street. It wasn’t until I made the connection that one of the girls within that scene to me could be representing my character, that my character was in the street that night when the man first noticed the woman. As soon as I made this connection, I made the connection to the flashback, the flashback although at times a humorous one, was upsetting for my character, if only we had not gone out that night she would have never of met that man, was all my character could think.
The RSVP model was constantly being used and applied throughout the performances, adaptations were made in response to notes, if something didn’t feel right anymore it was changed, ultimately it had to be honest, otherwise the community would not have been able to connect emotionally to the piece. The strongest emotion I felt throughout this process was prior to the final performance, we had one last chance to tell this women’s story and we had to draw attention to our theme and affect our audience.
Bibliography
Callery.D ,Through the body : A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre, 2001, London , Nick Hern Books Ltd
Hanmer.J, Home truths about domestic violence, feminist influences on policy, 2000, Routledge
Hjort.M, S.Laver Emotion and the Arts 1997, Oxford University Press
http://www.dv8.co.uk/about_dv8/artistic_policy Sourced : 20/04/10
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/search.aspx?charset=utf-8&SearchBy=0&Word=catahris&tab=0&TFDBy=0 Sourced : 21/04/2010
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