the ladder

Our rehearsals at times in the beginning stages felt somewhat flat, we couldn't always think of material and nothing would seem to flow very well. However when the introduction of prop came to us, we were suddenly more inspired and creativity began to flow. The ladder was used as something to climb on, lean on, stand on, look through and move around the stage and this somehow made the process feel richer, there was something to use, something physical that could be turned into anything we wanted. i think that the introduction of this while we were improvising was incredibly helpful in our devising process because it gave us a stimulus, it was something to work with.

Our final work in progress was somewhat successful for us as a group, as although their was a group member missing, we managed to show about 15 minuets worth of material. It was very rough around the edges as we hadn't thought through scene changes and therefore the material was somewhat messy. However we were successful in delivering very comic material which came across as surreal to the audience.Their was a problem with the last scene however, as this was probably the least surreal scene, set at an 80's style prom where one of our characters loses her wooden leg while being spun around. A couple of audience members felt it slightly offensive as it was going towards poking fun at disability, which is something that the group really didn't want to do. The advice that was given to us was very useful in helping us to see that our piece, if we didn't think it though in any more detail, had the potential to be quite offensive. Therefore our task was to then begin thinking about how we could blur this line that was inbetween an incredibly funny show, or a terribly funny show. We therefore discussed about going for the surreal within the interviews themselves, to show that the entire world we were creating on stage is not based in any kind of reality that an audience member would know. The interviews would therefore be as wacky as the action on stage, whereas before we had wanted the interviews to be very serious and quite real.