Recount

So after leaving the previous rehearsal I had planned for two rehearsals during this week but then two absences meant I canceled the first rehearsal as I felt that my time could be better spent at home.  So over this week I took the ideas gathered in the previous rehearsal and put together the second act.  Knowing again that I would be missing one of the ensemble I wanted to talk through what we had developed and I had subsequently written, and hit the ensemble with the questions that had since been plaguing my mind about the show.  I also wanted to workshop some design ideas which we did.

It was a very sit down session but I believe it was productive because we managed to discuss the play, the concerns I was having about it and workshop some design ideas.  The ensemble were all very happy with the way that the show had formed.  There were of course suggestions, queries and comments concerning it.  These were noted and have since been addressed.

• Remove the prologue does it really fit? Is it another play? Divided opinion among the ensemble as to keeping it, removing it, or changing it.
• Missy can’t be pinned as heartless, she needs to attempt to help but fail due to lack of strength – she can’t be seen as a bitch.
• it is possible that we are demonising the anonymous cyber bullies, can this actually be avoided?
• cut scene with with victim deleting photo’s in the replay solving the problem.   This is just too easy and it also doesn’t resonate with the intended message.  That of the bystander being the one who can make a difference.
• This moved into characters engaging in two types of behavior and it was decided that this is possible but drawing the focus away from central bystander might be confusing.
• We need to highlight positive coping strategies and inject specific advice into the existing material
• Do we need a definition of bullying in there? This was debated as to if it is necessary as we are showing non-naturalistically showing the bullying highlighting the factors that make it bullying but not the actual events.   There are varied motivations hopefully indicating that bullying is a behavior and not characteristic.  It was still divided as to if we should include a specific definition or not as it could be disengaging for the audience to feel like we’re trying to cram facts down their throats.

We also briefly discussed how the show could end and some suggestions were mounted but I’m still not happy with the ending and I need to do some work to generate something that ties all the ends together.  As far as design that was also expanded and it was interesting to note that something that I had been considering for some time to build a web was suggested by another ensemble member.

Reflection

Talking about design one of the ensemble mentioned not to make things to complicated, which at first I thought I wasn’t trying to do thinking about it since I have realised that trying to create a harness with a keyboard (and possibly mouse) that each actor can wear is really just too difficult.  So at this point in time this idea has been completely scraped.  However each actor will wear a blue Ethernet (network) cable and port hung around there neck.

Engaging in these discussions about the form, content, aims, objectives and intended message of the piece started me thinking about my exegesis and what I will be writing about.  I began starting to think about what processes have been involved in creating relevant and educational theatre for young audiences which raises awareness of cyber bullying and its consequences.  This started me thinking about how we are specifically dealing with and presenting the sensitive issues that are touched upon in the play.It has become apparent that a lot of my thinking during this process has been influenced by literature which suggests that practitioners should be careful when dealing with sensitive issues in drama and theatre.  This is also offset by much literature arguing that theatre has a responsibility to brooch the taboo and ask questions of society.  Do we then when dealing with theatre for young audiences and sensitive issues play it safe or risk the potential consequences and fallout?

I think about the last three TiE/TYA I have seen and they all relate to sensitive issues:

• the apology (Zeal theatre)- bullying and violence
• hoods (Real TV) – poverty and domestic violence
• Australian marriage Act (Arena theatre)- teenage pregnancy and marriage

Are these professional companies better equipped to deal and work on sensitive issues in theatre for young audiences than I am?  Should I have started out on something less problematic in relation to the possible outcomes of devising a show on cyber bullying in which a potential suicide could occur?  I guess the answer to these questions is that I’m devising for the now in an area where I saw concern and a possible issue in need of discussing and asking questions about in society and especially in schools.  These companies may be better equipped but that doesn’t necessitate that certain subject areas should be off limits for amateur or community groups to explore.

The current literature suggests that cyber bullying is a real and growing problem among young people in Australia and world wide.  Research in the area is still very young (does research age or grow?) and the current literature in this area suggests that more research needs to be undertaken to hopefully find strategies in dealing with this issue.  The literature does identify that drama and theatre could be a possible medium for developing awareness among young people:

• what does the literature say about dealing with sensitive issues in drama and theatre?
• what does the literature say about youth theatre and sensitive issues?
• What did I do in the process to ensure that these sensitive issues were handled in a manner as not to promote negative outcomes or consequences?
• What does my process or product say about dealing with sensitive issues in youth theatre?

I think not getting it 100% right for the TIS event has been the reason for my focus on attempting to ensure that the product reflects values that are  socially viable.   Anyway so I’m thinking my exegesis will be on cyber bullying and suicide: sensitive issues in theatre for young audiences.

Recount

This was the first rehearsal when we actually have had the entire ensemble present which was great. We started quite late at 5 and worked through until approx 7.30. The first part of the session was really a catch up on what we had been doing in the rehearsals for the absent ensemble member and making sure they were up to date on the research.

I then discussed how I saw the first section of the performance resembling. I had developed a rough draft script and score. It followed this sequence:

• Narrator (Current affairs journalist) talks about cyber-bullying epidemic
• Slow music build accompanied by a torture scene with neutral masks, keyboards, phones, etc at same time another sits typing miming words flash (hard, punch, hit, etc) on screens slowly but building pace and this persons internal torrent builds to climax in unison of torture and music.
• Narrator dialogue about how it was better in times without tech
• 1950s family – father smoking pipe reading newspaper, mother mixing in a bowl, kids playing with wooden toys – one of the children bullies the other and father and mother look on like it is normal part of life.
• Narrator connects the 1950s family some sort of movement piece to connect them – costume change (loose jackets or something) – narrator further dialogue
• Narrator depicts the stereotype of the bully and the victim

Explaining verbally with some visual cues I then asked the ensemble to respond. There were some likes about it and some dislikes and these sparked some minor discussions and further ideas.

• The narrator character must be careful as to not trivialise the issue through language and tone
• The idea of the narrator is ideally pictured as a current affairs journalist, since everything they say is insincere it was meant to b e ironically questioning the media’s automatic response to blame young people and technology.
• The word Cyberia spoken would be just plain confusing so it was suggested that we could create a tourism Cyberia video.
• Use 1950s commercials to introduce 1950s scene.
• There needs to be some indication that time is passing when the family is plugged in.
• Design idea of actually having network cables attached to everyone.
• Don’t we want to avoid stereotyping the victim and bully so as to avoid victim blaming and bully demonising? Cahill (2006) and Cassidy & Watts (2000; 2002)
• Could this be done in a way where we highlight how the media (60 minutes) painted the picture of the bully in order to juxtapose ‘our’ bullies and victims against those stereotypes hopefully showing that anyone can be either and that they are behaviours and results of behaviours rather than characteristics.

The next step was to begin walking through what I had scored/scripted and workshop all of our ideas.  We started with the opening torture sequence.  We devleoped this scene into something more of a movement piece.

• movements separated by a certain number of beats – 8, 8, 4, 4, 4, 4, 2, 2, 1, 1
• a sound of bone snapping or neck breaking on each of these beats
• white noise building in volume and intensity as beats get faster
• 12 words – myspace, facebook, mobile phone, MSN – flying on screen on each beat
• The other internal torment building as if beaten on each beat.

The narrators dialogue needs more work but I’m working on currently.  We then worked on a 1950s bullying scene.  Creating the stereotypical scene idealistic 1950s family.

• father mokign pipe reading newspaper
• mother mixing something in bowl looking content
• children playing with wooden toys
• son talks to father about being bullied at school
• father tells son to toughen up its natural
• Son bullies daughter and then repeats back what father told him

We worked on attempting to get the plug in scene to work but never reall decided on anything.  However a good line came out of it – ‘Please refrain from feeding the forum trolls’ – which was great and will be used.  The other discussion were exemplified in the dot points above.  We ran out of time and had to organise times for Septembers rehearsals.

Reflection

The rehearsal was successful because we began work shopping what became or has became the prologue for the piece.  The interesting part about this is that while it was still developing I had a clear sense that’s this is where it would sit in relation to the rest of the performance.  Now after rehearsing more and developing the piece further.  It seems that what was developed needs to be broken up and moved around to better suite what we are trying to say and ask.  Working last semester on the TIS performance this was a constant working process as well.  Developing material, reworking it and then moving it around to best suite us.  I always had an idea though of where it would sit even if that idea would change rehearsal to rehearsal.  I wonder if this self defeating in a way because I’m trying to pidgeon hole everything before we  even had a real chance to explore it?  On the other hand it is necessary to have an overall picture of the piece even if that is shifting constantly.  The important part is not tot become immoveable in regards to the material’s shifting and fluid form and content during the development of the piece.

Last semester working on TIS one of the ensemble said that the only way to develop a piece was to create the content and then work on the form.  I think this fundamentally ignores the force that content has to direct form and visa-versa.   Pammenter (1993) argues that form and content are inexborably linked.  The process at anyone time is focused on devleoping either one of these.  Therefore what occurs in the process should define what develops in the long run.  What occurs can be described by the events but also the people, places, focus, aims, objectives, rehearsal variables, times and anyhting else related to it.

Is this a question of determinism and free will? If the process determines the overall form and content of the piece and the factors of the process determines the what occurs in the process then what are the choices and to what extent are those choices made which will have an affect on the overall created piece? When the ensemble make a decision or a choice to take a certain path with the material how much of this is dictated by the the pieces aims, objectives or guiding principle.  Does the asethetic values of the ensemble dicate the development of material?

Does working on youth theatre mean these choices are even more restricted.  Youth theatre in one way seems to have more restrictions on it then non-youth theatre.  A citizen who attends a performance and finds that it is against their beliefs can leave but generally this is not the case when it comes to youth theatre.  Young people don’t have any other choice but to sit there and watch.  This means that an ensemble creating youth theatre has responsibilities to the audience to promote soceities values.  These responsbilities are a further deterministic factor that directs the development of the work.

I guess the choices come in when the ensemble say we want to create a piece of theatre on this problem and we want to focus it on these specific issues of the problem.  In creating the piece some deterministic factors will direct the development of the piece but there are choices from the very big down to the very small.  It is these choices that will determine if the performance is educational, relevant, aesthetically pleasing and overall successful.

Recount

I began the session making sure the ensemble was going alright with their assessment which has been a little bit of an ongoing problem. Next we discussed the research material that everyone had viewed or read from the previous session. Some points that arose were:

• The 60 minutes video was amazing to show how ineffective or even harmful that the media was for bully demonising, victim blaming, and provoking a situation further.
• The insight video was interesting but railroaded itself a discussion on bullying rather than just cyber bullying.
• This prompted a discussion on if the two are separate, it was the general consensus that they were not and that each played effectively off the other.
• Destroying Avalon – junior fiction – highlighted the attitudes of young people towards the issue, not knowing that it is bullying, students being ‘addicted’ to needing to know what others think about them, not foreseeing the end result or who the bully was.

I wanted to work on and develop a scene on bullying through Chinese whispers on the mobile phone looking at how rumors spread and develop. I explained the way that I saw the scene occurring.

The victim moves from there position as the arrows direct and as they pass each of the ensemble says ‘LOL – something’. This is more showing how easily a rumor can spread but if the language got progressively worse that could also show that the rumor was getting worse.

I then asked what and how they saw the scene working and a number of great ideas came up:

• Austin powers (pennis, boob joke) progressive story… with the jump in on the next word.
• Split focus action and text on the other
• Hit by metaphorical rumors and getting pushed down
• Sharks circling getting more intense
• tunnel ball passing the rumor
• true, false, falser on each point

The ensemble wanted to start working with actually creating some rumors. This seemed like a semi futile task as since we discovered in the previous rehearsal we can’t really use definite examples of bullying so as to avoid copy cat behaviour (Cahill, 2006; Cassidy & Watts, 2000; 2002). I went with this as to just see where it would take us.

We basically played Chinese whispers except out loud and we would have more than one turn. We tried a number of different rumors – sexual, physical and emotional – and each would continue until it reached a point that was extremely inapropriate. The difficulty is that we don’t want to give the audience ideas and this practice highlighted the discovery we made in the previous week.

I decided after enough of this that I wanted to try and workshop some of the above ideas into scenes. We started with the hit by metaphorical rumors.

The idea was that the ensemble would walk around back and forth past the victim saying the rumors and the victim would get hit as if by blows until eventually they were beaten to the ground. The bullies/rumours would move about the space randomly exemplifying the rumours (which we drew from before). After each rumour was said the victim would start off subtly feeling pain which developed into overwhelming pain falling to the ground as if punched, kicked and beaten.

When then repeated this same concept of the metaphorical beating from the rumors spreading except this time as if sharks were circling the victim. This developed and we attempted to build the pace (physical and vocal), volume and intensity (physical and vocal). A nice little moment developed from this work shopping those ideas. One of the ensemble suggested we could start circling in closer and actually push the victim down as we said the rumour but then alongside have things that brought the victim back up and actually pull them back up. This worked but it’s context would have to be in relation to more of a coping strategy and the effects of friends/family enabling that person to be brought back up.

We moved on and then attempted to try the tunnel ball scene.

This scene was played like a game of tunnel ball where the ball is rolled through the tunnel to the end and the last person grabs ball and runs to front and rolls again. I really wanted to steer clear of the actual rumours so we played with some non-naturalism. The first person whispered into the phone of the second person. They would then listen and say some text talk – LOL, OMG, and something relating to the rumour – like depicted in my original scene.  This worked well with the action taking place rapidly and another moving to the front.

Reflection

The rehearsal was successful because we developed a number of scenes which may be used in the final product or adapted in later rehearsals.  It is the beginning of a library of scores.  At the end of the day these scenes may or may not be used but they have some value for the process, product or perhaps both.  This then makes me think about the value in undertaking the Chinese whispers exercise.  I am reflecting now and thinking that it was futile as we had already decided in the previous rehearsal that we should and wanted to avoid enabling copy cat behavior.  Was I aware of this at the time?  More than likely not or I would have said something.  However there must have been value in it for the ensemble or they would not have directed themselves there.  Maybe this was the extra step I in fact needed to come to this realisation and potentially the ensemble.  If this occurs again I think it is best for me to tell them what I have realised and then put it back in their hands to see what they think and let the process move in the direction it needs.

The power of non-naturalism is to be able to overcome this situation of prompting or enabling of copy cat behavior.  If the rumours were watered down to such an acceptable PC level that they become trivial or even farcical in the eyes of the young audience?  By not saying much are we allowing their imaginations to do all the work and write the rumours themselves far worse than what we probably could anyway.  This is the trick of insinuating that a rumour is being spread and let the audience do all the work.  This is what happened in Burnt (Cassidy & Watts, 2000; 2002) when they let the burning down of the school occur off stage and only mention in in subsequent scenes like a Greek tragedy. This will be the same bridge we have to cross once we start working on the suicide aspect of the show and determining if we fact go down that road.

Another thought comes to mind about using words such as slut, whore, or others that schools may consider profane.  Australian Marriage Act (Arena Theatre, 2008) used the swear words on occasion throughout the performance.  This seemed to startle the audience into giggling because they have sworn.  Does this negatively or positively influence the engagement of the audience with the piece? Does it actually promote the use of those words? Could we be promoting students to use those words when bullying others?  How will the school feel about this language being used? There are multiple arguments that could be made either way.  I guess the real conclusion comes down to each and every individual situation.  If the language is being used in a way that isn’t just for the sake of it but which is used to convey a specific point and message then that should be considered acceptable.  Otherwise it probably shouldn’t be in there to begin with.  I think O’Toole talks about this in Theatre in Education I’ll ahve to have another look.

So I almost did it again. That being that I almost attempted to start the process without included a gestation period for the ensemble to reflect on my concept and vision and respond to it with their own ideas. Collectively establishing an ensemble vision and some ensemble aims and objectives. As I’m still very much a supporter of democracy I think this is essential as I established in one of the reflective posts for the TIS event. Having a lot of time table clashes at the moment which was also basically the bane of my existence last semester as well. This is just one of the pitfalls of working with uni students who must juggle uni, work and extra curricular commitments as well as not having any university structured timetabled rehearsal time either. So the rehearsal that was scheduled for today was planned on being a gestation discussion but actually only having the 4 out of 5 people meeting for at most 30 mins and prior and after that being only 3 seemed rather pointless. Furthermore I’m hoping that what I aimed to achieve during this time can be achieved through the wiki but I’ll have to wait and see I guess.

What did I want to achieve in the discussion and hence forth now in the wiki was a sense of where the ensemble stands in regard to the following areas:

• bullying,
• cyber-bullying,
• coping/dealing with bullying,
• the bully,
• the bystander,
• the victim,
• implications for intended age range,
• individual aims and objectives,
• ensemble aims and objectives,
• and informing our research.

I guess we will see if it works on the wiki.

Since reflecting on the process and performances of the TIS event it is now time to move on to a new phase with beginning the process of creating my show on cyber bullying.  It feels strange but good to be back at the start attempting something new that has comes directly from myself with all I’ve learnt over the past semester.  I had a meeting with two of the actor/devisors on Monday, one further is on teaching rounds and two more have joined.  At the moment hoping I can organise a meeting with the two who joined the process to discuss my vision and concept for the show face to face as the written word in my opinion has limitations.  Also hoping that I can get a research workshop up and running for Friday just to get some idea on where the ensemble sits in regard to bullying/cyber.  Thinking of working from Cahill’s ‘Defining moments’.  This time I’m using a wiki as a tool in an attempt to try and enhance the collaborative nature of the project.  This space will be able to be seen by anyone but only edited by members.  Therefore the ensemble will be able to add ideas, comment on others, reflect and so forth.  I think it will be especially handy for the process if wit is used.  It’s located here on wikispaces.  I have typed up the performance brief there and also one of the stimulus we will be.  Go and have a look.  I will be using this space as a reflective journal of my thoughts we as the wiki will be more of a dialogue between the ensemble (I hope).