2A.D1 evaluation

The time that I felt that I used the most focus and imagination within the context of rehearsals was doing an exercise led by Mr. Hughes. It was essentially and improvised walk-through of a fictional world (in a similar way that Dissocia is Lisa's fictional world). the exercise was done by everyone lying down for about forty minutes whilst soft music played in the background. Mr. Hughes then narrated everyone through this whole world and spoke about various locations. After such a long time in this fictional world I felt very drained, and in a way wanted to go back to lying on the ground in this world with soft music. After spending such a time working with this the worlds locations became vivid and true. Whether it was a domed roof building, or a cold stone basement at the foundation of that palace. This was probably the most important part of the rehearsal process for me as it allowed us to experience what the main character would be feeling as she entered Dissocia. A world which is screwed up, yes, but was ultimately intriguing and immersing, and altogether more interesting than her real life.

A key activity that helped me devise my performance was when we were asked about our character's happy place. For this I obviously had to work out the happy place for two characters. I felt as though this was one of the most important exercises for me personally as it helped me get to know my characters outside of the context of the play. Possibly examining their own lives and daily routine. A process like this was useful for my character as the thoughts and feelings that they experience outside of the confines of the play can impact their lives in the play. In the same way of something happening outside of school that could impact your decisions within school, work or anything else.

The primary research that I had used to navigate myself throughout the world of the play was examining the actual work place of both of my characters. Both of them are in high stress environments so this made me think, how would theses environments affect someone who has a condition towards a dissociative disorder. For Guard one the context of being in an airport and essentially being the 'first line of defence' appears to promote and increase his high stress tier environment. My thoughts here were to implement these features into his standard persona and I feel that I brought this across properly. The next stage was Biffer, Biffer being mute is something important in the context of Lisa's own personal work place treatment, which I think is heavily affecting in her daily life.