Beginning General Ideas

For this terms assessment task about forming a dream world, I am in a group of 7 with Issy, Kate, Dodie, Annabel, Laura and Thea. I believe that our group will work effectively and well together to come up with some great and interesting ideas.

During our first two lessons, we brainstormed a few different general ideas of what our performance will be about, and what kind of dreamworld we will be forming. It is going to be nightmarish dream work which is inside a teenage girls head - exploring the demons and fears within. The plan is to have a main character who is the main victim of this nightmare, where there are 3 other actors representing self conscious, loneliness and peer pressure. These 'spirits' are playing with the girls mind and are making what she feels on the inside a horrifying reality.
We have lots of ideas involving the audience, so that they will then feel a part of the experience too. I suggested that we have the audience sit around in a circle, and most of the action occurs within the circle to then represent how the girl feels trapped. And possibly every time she tries to escape, the spirits will push her back in. The only issue with this, is that we will have to keep turning around so I think it may be better if the audience sits in a semi circle up against a wall.
Thea came up with the great idea of the girl putting on a blindfold to then enter into this world, which we all agreed would be really effective. Also, someone suggested that the spirits wear plain white masks to firstly give a creepy effect, but I think it will be better if the audience can actually see their faces, which are a very important aspect to show the message that each one is trying to convey, because they don't really have any symbolic relevance.
We all agreed that choreographed dance will be very effective in also helping to portraying our messages of being trapped and scared and alone. So people dancing around her, and especially using levels will give off a sense of hysteria and confusion.
If we had access to the lighting effects in the Langford theatre, I thought that when the girl enters into this dream world it would be a blackout, them the hot-spotlight would come on to her sitting center stage on a stool and the blindfold  on her lap. She would then slowly put the blindfold on, then it would go blackout again. Then when all the lights come back on, the action would begin and there would already be the spirit like people on stage.

Everyone contributed in parts to the decisions made regarding the people who represent the spirits, and what these spirits would do to the girl etc.:

• Self-Conscious - Wrap tape measures around her, write hurtful words on her face and body playing with her self consciousness (e.g. Stupid, fat, ugly, weird). Issy also came up with a really great idea that she is standing in front of a mirror, and there are people coming up behind her whispering things to her about her physical appearance. Then the self conscious spirits would draw dotted lines on her clothes, showing the outline of how skinny she wants to be.
• Peer Pressure - Drugs, alcohol. Involve people in the audience here by the spirit people going up to audience members and getting them to agree with whatever it is they may be saying. Also began discussing the idea of temptation and the symbolism of an apple (like from Adam and Eve or Snow White)
• Loneliness - I thought that whilst the main girl is in a situation with people, they are talking to each other but it is like those situations in real dreams where you try to speak but no sound comes out. The lonely spirit will be behind her and walking around her saying things really sadly like "They can't hear you" and "They don't care." Possibly here, everything will be happening in slow motion. I thought this spirit could be inspired by the poem from the stimulus Mad World where it says how "I find it hard to tell you" which is represented when she tries to speak to them but no sound will come out, and maybe she will be invisible to them and they will not acknowledge her being there.

At the end, I thought that all of the spirits could dance around her in a choreographed dance with turns and smooth movements. They would start from the outer parts of the circle and keep dancing around her slowly coming in closer possibly whispering things with music playing at a crescendo until they are right up to her. This is then when they will 'smother' her and then there will be a blackout as she screams. Then the hotspot would come on again to the girl sitting on the stool, and she would untie the mask and place it down on her lap slowly.

The only issues I see with our play so far is that it doesn't all really link together well. With all of these general ideas, there is no actual "storyline" per say or actual meaning behind what's happening aside from the spirits taunting her. Also, I'm worried that our play will not be enough like a dream world, and is too realistic in a sense, so I am going to make sure that next lesson we work on bringing it all together somehow, as well as making everything more surreal and less realistic. The last issue is that we have a large group of 7 people and I'm not sure what parts we can give to people without any 'overkill'.

Overall, I think our group has come up with some excellent ideas and that our final performance will be very effective in portraying the messages we wish to convey.