Lesson Analysis 24th March

At the beginning of this lesson we had a production roles discussion, and what decisisons have been made for the production. For our costume in Act One, we initially said to have on colour per character but now we are allowed to wear any random bright colours, obviously excluding black/grey/white (including shoes). Our hair and make-up style also has to be appropriate for the theme of the Act/character i.e Act One (bizarre, silly), Act Two (Neat, sensible).

We then ran through Act Two, which we hadn't really focused much on yet. To develop my character Dr. Clarke, I needed to use te suitable tone of voice which would be moderately low and steady with a hint of softness. I also needed to sort my movement pace as Act Two is very slow and unrushed unlike Act One. The pace of my character entering the room to greet Lisa and exiting had to be of a calm state. This is realistic in a hospital as doctors and nurses when visiting patients need to have a serene presence to ensure patients feel at ease. We have to show how they would have seen many previous mental patients in the day, which is both exhausting and just casual routine for them. Although I don't have many lines in this act, I want to make sure I correctly deliver them in the right form.

For Thursday, my job in the Sound Editing production role is to record the voice-overs for both acts, now that me and Livvie have completed the list of all the sounds needed for the play.

In the original production, it was set around the time zone relevant to the actress of Lisa's age (which in their case, in the script it is 17th June 1969). So we decided to change little aspects in ours to reflect the actress of our Lisa's age, which was set as 23rd July 1994. It even states in the script, in a line of Lisa's in the Jane scene, her stating her date of birth with "(or as appropriate)" alongside it. Although the attitude to mental health is fairly similar to the time the play was written in (although is always improving), technology and music have certainly improved and updated. We showed this by switching Lisa's 'walkman' to an ipod, and used a popular, modern pop song (Lady Gaga song) for the Elevator music. This created more sense for the time zone ours is set in as using a walkman etc. wouldn't fit in with today's time.