Friday 13 November 2009

Thursday 12.11.09

Ghost Tour!!

7pm...we went to Ham House to be told the very legends that still linger here today. We aproached the house from the front which sat there in darkness, only lit by candles in a few of the windows. The weather was hideous which only added to the atmosphere. Now of course we were expecting things to jump out at us and to be frightened this way, but the emphasis was on the language in the stories we heard tonight and the way they told them.

Both men had very different attributes to their storytelling that both worked equally as well. The first volunteer, Ken took us around the house and his storytelling was so inspiring due to the content in his stories. The language flowed incredibly well without a sense that he had learnt from a script. The second volunteer was Raymond who took us around the gardens. The success of his storytelling were due to the methods he implied to tell them. He created an atmosphere of unease with the use of dramatic pauses and with his naturally soft voice. He posed questions to the group throughout the tour. What is a ghost? Why are we scared of ghosts? Which he answered with the fact that we as humans do not like the unexpected and unknown and if there's something we can't explain this phases us. Raymond ended the tour beautifully with his own personal touch, saying that the only real ghost is the house itself.

I am so glad we came on this tour as not only do we know even more about the house but we can now take these storytelling ideas and implement them in our own work. The atmosphere they created just by themselves was incredible so I can only imagine what we can do.

Zoe x

Friday 06.11.09

Tonight we ventured into central London to see a very special performance by a very special lady, Jennifer Davies. I had quite a stressful journey with Jack and Scotty as we were running a bit late, so Scotty thought it would be tactical to keep changing our route at every stop. Jack warned me if we didn't follow instructions he would sulk the whole way! So we eventually got to our destination Highbury and Islington at 7.28, we thought 'Great it's just down here'. So we took a brisk walk, IN THE POURING RAIN but couldn't find it. After a long 10 minutes and running back and forth we finally found it after Jenny came to find us with a skimpy white dress on with the classic milk bottles out!!

The night was arranged by Tanya's lil' sis Jess Morgan and was called 'Sit with Art'. There were many photographs and canvas's dotted around the room with a large canvas behind the DJ set of clouds in a very blue sky; at least it was sunny inside. Tan was serving tea and cup cakes at the front which were absolutely gorge! After listening to a DJ set we sat down to listen to some poetry and heard about some art. Then Jess left the stage and Jenny entered with stripey socks, high heels, a straw hat and a hilarious dress as if she was late for an interview. She had written the comedic set herself which was so funny and ended with her revealing her whip from her bag and saying 'right, get on your knees!' Jennie, once again a fantastic solo performance and I look forward to seeing you again soon as you clearly have found your niche!

We then stayed to hear Jess sing her little heart out with some beautiful song choices. Her voice is so pure (although with a husky voice from being ill) and is so relaxing to listen to, she should really record her work as the majority of us said we would happily buy her CD!

A lovely evening with the drama lot :)

xx

Monday 9 November 2009

Wednesday 28.10.09

Well, well, well. Today was jam packed with theatre! After a very productive rehearsal this morning for Physical Approaches to Playtext and then onto the first year group meeting of the year, I met my Mother Cathy and Sister Jodie for a matinee in Richmond. The journey there in Mother's car was ... interesting. We were bickering anyway because Cathy was late again and her driving isn't exactly what you'd call calm. I was in the front and Jodie was squeezed in the back with a fridge and a microwave (my Mother loves getting her bargains from the Friday ad...even when we have 2 fridge freezers and a spare microwave already) but the next thing Cathy said actually surprised me. "Oh...I forgot that pheasant was there" I looked down to my feet and saw a plastic bag with feathers poking out the end. I had been standing on road kill. "How long's that been there mum?!" She casually responded, "Oh, just since Monday" It was now Wednesday. Anyway, so I settled down at approximately 2.30pm in the Richmond Theatre to watch Rainman starring Neil Morrissey. The title for my dissertation is "How can Play help the autistic child?" so I thought it would help me to see this performance. Now I hadn't really thought about how I would feel watching an able actor playing a special needs person, and when Neil Morrissey first came on stage as Raymond it was quite a shock to see the transformation, and I wasn't quite sure how to take it. However after the first few moments I realised that he played it so sensitively and realistically that I just saw Babbitt for who he was. Morrissey had clearly spent a lot of time watching the traits and habits of adults on the autistic spectrum as it came across as such an honest and open performance. It was lovely! It was a very good set visually with a wall that moved across the stage with one door. As the walls were slided across the stage the door moved along as well representing different rooms. This is something that might be useful to think about in our Christmas activities for one of the short stories as we don't have a lot of room. So I thoroughly enjoyed Rainman.

In the evening I watched Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter by 2 of the 2nd years. There wasn't much of an audience which was disappointing but it was very well done. Simple set and the actors were good. Beg my pardon for not knowing his name but I always love watching the Scottish one perform. He is so versatile.

So all in all a very dramatic day :)