Author: Joseph Peter Turner

Before the performance of Exit This Way, I was aware that the show contained humour and that the direct address present within the show created a tongue in cheek aesthetic. Having never performed it in front of an audience however I did not know how much this would come across. During the actual performance of the show the positive audience response brought the meta theatrical aspect of the show to the forefront. Even when lines were directed towards those characters on stage, a sideways glance to the audience successfully broke the fourth wall. When things went logistically wrong on the stage, it didn’t matter because there was a self-awareness from the performers to go along with the problem thus adding to the makeshift nature of the show.

If Fragment Theatre Company were to continue beyond the end of our degree, our next steps would be to scale down the production of the show to make it viable for touring in alignment with Arts Council England’s policy of sustainability and resilience.  In its current state this would be very difficult because of the large set/scaffolding/TV’s projections etc. These elements would be difficult to tour and would limit the size of venues the show could perform at also.

Fragment Theatre Company (Odonnell, 2017)

We could look at presenting this scaled down version at a small festival such as Newvolutions to grow, develop and refine the show into something that could be toured locally and eventually nationally.

We could then look at potential future shows that continue along with our mission statement of focusing on the individual. Next year is the 100^th Anniversary of the end of the First World War so we could potentially do something in relation to that. One thing is for certain, we will continue with the makeshift aesthetic and homemade props as this makes for an interesting dynamic that is also viable for a touring production.

Works Cited:

Odonnell, S. (2017) Fragment Theatre Company. Lincoln: SO Photography.

In her introduction to Hans Lehmann’s Postdramatic Theatre, Karen Jὓrs –Munby states that Postdramaticism is not about forgetting the dramatic history that preceded it but rather about “subjecting the traditional relationship of theatre to drama to deconstruction” (Lehmann, 2006, 4). In this deconstruction, the preconceived notion that the text is the most important thing and everything else is secondary is challenged along with the Aristotelian dramatic structure. The script and text becomes secondary to the visuals and the creative process and there is a sense of self-awareness from both the actors and the audience that they are partaking/watching a performance.

Within Exit This Way, we adopted this Postdramatic style through adopting a collaborative devising process early on and creating the material as a cast. This is where my role as facilitator came in. Having completed devising material with the cast, I would then take this material to the writers and together we would refine and sort through this material into creating some form of script so that the actors could learn their lines. Below are two examples of when this facilitating was necessary.

 

Example of Diary Entry for Creation of Charlie’s Character (Turner, 2017)

• Fairy tale – placed a Dictaphone in the middle of the room and asked the cast to, one by one, create a story about a little princess whilst using the theme of debt to mold the story line. This recording was then taken by the creative and edited into the final fairy tale which was seen in the show. The ‘script’ came secondary to the devising process, whereas with a conventional play the script comes first and everything follows that.

• Diary entries – Asked the cast to go away by themselves and write a diary entry as Charlie (eventually became Alice) about things that are happening in her life that might mean she needs to escape. Originally this escape was through a agony aunt persona but this transformed through the process into escaping through novels. The writers then took this material which assisted in them creating character profiles for Charlie/Alice.

I feel like in my role as director I could have placed more faith in my cast to deliver material earlier on in the process. Eventually, as detailed above, we were able to generate some interesting material but this could have been achieved earlier had I placed that faith in the cast to commit.

The Postdramatic element was further explored through the distinction between character and actor. Elinor Fuchs summarizes this with her notion of Death of a Character in which the audience do not invest in the characters as they would in a naturalistic performance. We cemented this through wearing our fragment tops during the sections of the performance when the actors were on stage as themselves. Having the actors sat as themselves throughout the show was a technique that I learnt from Alexander Kelly frequently used by Forced Entertainment which he calls ‘off/on’ in which the audience can see the actors throughout the show so that when the actors become the characters, they were very aware the characters were not ‘real’. We did this in plain sight of the audience with a minimal costume change so that the character was not one that was invested in. The characters wearing their production role tops was an additional reminder to the audience that the cast at the back were themselves not characters.

Three of the cast members in their Fragment tops (Odonnell, 2017)

One instance in the show where the audience could easily becoming engrossed in the story and the world was the fairy tale shadow section. I made sure however that there was an instant snap out of this ‘world’ by the style which the fairy tale narrators said their lines. They went from reading the actual fairy tale in a whimsical, childlike voice to snapping into a direct address with the audience during their lines “This is usually the point in a fairy tale when something magical would happen…” (Fragment Theatre Company, 2017) along with the sheet dropping, thus breaking the audience out of the investment in the character/scene.

Section of the Fairy Tale Shadow Work (Odonnell, 2017)

Rather than showing a polished final product I wanted to highlight the importance of the process in Postdramatic theatre. I thought this could be possible allowing the audience to see the creation of one of our characters in a similar way to how she was created during the process. The character of Laura was created by doing a mind map on a whiteboard +with branches of Laura’s hates, loves, relationships and other obscure information. One by one the cast members added to the various branches until the map was complete (See image below).

I wanted the audience to gain an insight into this creation process rather than showing them the complete character, this also in turn added to the distinction between the actor and the character that she was about to ‘play’. The ‘creation of Laura’ on stage consisted of four of the actors at microphones stating the various facts about Laura, creating a make shift aesthetic and allowing the audience to see into the process of how the character was made.

Creation of Laura Mind Map (Turner, 2017) which was portrayed in the show through cast members at the mic (Odonnell, 2017)

Works Cited:

Lehmann, H,T. (2006) Postdramatic Theatre. Oxon, Routledge.

Odonnell, S. (2017) Three of the Cast Members in their Fragment Tops. Lincoln: SO Photography.

Odonnell, S. (2017) Section of the Fairy Tale Shadow Work. Lincoln: SO Photography.

Odonnell, S. (2017) Cast Members at the Mic. Lincoln: SO Photography.

Turner, J. (2017) Example of Diary Entry for the Creation of Charlie’s Character.

Turner, J. (2017) Creation of Laura Mind Map.

As a group we were slightly over stimulated by the amount of different ‘escapes’ that we as a company could explore. We were able to combat this problem by using an exercise which was taught to us in a workshop by Flickbook Theatre that I like to call ‘The Idea Tree’

The Idea Tree (Turner, 2017)

The premise of the idea tree is to take an area of exploration such as ‘Gaming’ or ‘Religion’ and go onto the Wikipedia page for that word. By clicking on the hyperlinks on that page we were able to create a train of thought sprouting off from that word. An example of this is ‘Gaming’ which became gaming therapy, anxiety, fear and Hypertension giving us new avenues to explore if and when we looked at gaming as a means of escape in the show.

Flickbook are also well known for their use of narration, something which I thought could used to our benefit in the show. Through having to explain an event in our lives including all the detail of the room, the furniture, the people etc. I was able to gain a better understanding of how the intricate details of the description is what makes an audience member visualize said space/event. This technique was implemented in the show within the childhood section in which Chloe described the room around her and minimal props and costume were brought on to help the audience visualize the space.

Laura after her childhood escape (Odonnell, 2017)

One thing that I was overly aware of was the need and the necessity to go and watch other theatre companies perform in the LPAC to broaden our horizons as a company and help pinpoint our own interest and inform our work. For example, the shows Focus Group by Toot and Wail by Little Bulb introduced us to the notion of direct address of the audience which in turn led us to the idea of our piece adopting a Postdramatic style (see next blog post).

Once we began working with the meta-theatrical ideas of Postdramaticism, I noticed that we were beginning to lose the individual and personal narratives which we started the process with. This was the case until a workshop and lecture with Third Angel Director Alexander Kelly on the 6^th April. In his talk Kelly spoke about how he came about creating some of his shows and how he used real life stories from real life people and how “the truth is better than any fiction you could create” (Kelly, 2017) which prompted us to go back and look at the original escapes and personal experiences which we began the process with.

Works Cited:

Kelly, A. (2017) Discussion of Third Angel and Contemporary Performance [lecture]. University of Lincoln, 6 April.

Odonnell, S. (2017) Laura After Her Childhood Escape. Lincoln: SO Photography.

Turner, J. (2017) The Idea Tree. 

No company, whether situated in the arts or not, can survive or function without funding. As part of our assessment we are given £166 by Lincoln Performing Arts Centre along with the money that will be raised through fundraising ventures, however if this was a professional venture it would not be possible to continue without applying for funding from Arts Council England (ACE). If we were going to apply we would do so through the Grants for the Arts Program (G4A) as an arts organisation, that is to say “a single group of people working towards a shared or common goal” (Arts Council, 2017), and would be able to apply for any amount between £1,000 and £100,000.

Our Producer Hannah, who was in charge of the budgeting for the show (Rickards, 2017)

When applying we would need to establish how much money we would need and specify what we were going to use the money for (research and development for example). It is essential that this estimation is accurate because if we were funded too much or too little then we would be unlikely to receive further funding in the future because it appears to the Arts Council that we don’t understand our business model.

Works Cited

Arts Council (2017) Arts Council England. London: Arts Council England. Available from http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/Grants_for_the_Arts_How_to_apply15k_and_under_September2016_0.pdf

Rickards, M. (2017) Our Producer Hannah, who was in charge of the budgeting for the show.

Fragment Theatre Company first met on Tuesday 24^th January to begin discussing production roles, names for the company and ideas for the show. Although the lessons hadn’t started yet we thought it would be beneficial to get a head start, having created the group two months previous.

Once production roles were decided we began to think about potential areas of exploration for the show. Amongst discussions of mental health, we also quickly became aware of the political and social climate that currently exists. I was very aware however that we were in danger of joining a long list of companies focusing on political turmoil or cultural disruption and so we instead looked at alternative ways of looking at these issues that were perhaps more subtle.

First meeting to discuss ideas (Nixon, 2017)

It was at this point that we decided to focus on the individual and what makes us all different. This in turn led us to the idea of Fragment for the name which is defined as a part broken off or otherwise detached from a whole. This idea will carry on throughout our company’s manifesto and mission statement that we will create over the coming weeks.

Rather than focusing on the politics that we all felt overwhelmed by, we decided to use this as context and focus instead on the notion of how we escape when we feel trapped. We spoke at length about the power of music and its ability to help us get away from situations by either cheering us up or helping us cry and ideas included having a soundtrack which we handed to the audience as they came into the auditorium. After a discussion about how each of us escaped however we soon realised that there was a greater variety to the topic and that it was a broad area for us to explore. We discussed having various themes linking together through some kind of story arc and also shared a common desire to create a show that was aesthetically pleasing, discussing the use of TV’s, projection and shadows amongst other ideas.

My Personal Story of Escaping through Childhood (Joe Turner, 2017)

I think my role as director will take the form of two primary roles within the devising process. Initially I think I will be a facilitator between the devising that will be created as a cast and the refining and writing that will be done by the ‘creatives’ (the writers of the piece). I then think, later on in the process, my role becomes more authoritative when the devising stops and rehearsals become focused on perfecting and refining material to make it the best it can be for the final show.

Works Cited:

Joe Turner (2017) My Personal Escape. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbgemA8fwJA&t=1s [Accessed 26 May 2017]

Nixon, E. (2017) First Meeting to Discuss Ideas.