Act 4 and 5

Today we ran through Acts 4 and 5 as these were the weakest acts. It went really well as it was the first thing we had done so we still had all of our energy present.

We found out that we need to space out the gaps when we filter on in Act 4, Scene 8, doing this will make it easier for us to keep energised throughout the scene and also it looks a lot better. We kept looking up hopefully throughout this scene but we put our heads down when Ruth says “She killed her daughter with a knife”. This emphasises the moment as our objective is to hide. We stop singing when John says “A lot of people are going to die tonight”. I think this works really well as it puts a lot more pressure on this line and also helps to add to the seriousness of it.

We also fixed Act 4, Scene 10, the riot scene. We made it more realistically by thinking about what we received on our phones at 5 o’clock. This helped us to make our reaction seem more realistic. This also gave us reasons for conflict. For example I found myself not believing the text message I received so I saved others from people who were getting angry. Something else that also helped the riot scene seem more realistic was to follow someone in the group; this meant we were always moving.

During Rob’s monologue we were given four gestures to repeat over and over. These gestures were:

1. Drag our right hand down our left arm
2. Push the right arm away with the left hand
3. Drag both hands down legs
4. Bring both hands in front clasped together

As the monologue progressed we developed these gestures to own characters. I found myself getting more frantic as it progressed and then by the end I was slowing down and holding the last gesture for a long amount of time.

I think it’s a really powerful ending and I feel as if we all understand the play a lot more.