Haste Theatre Company (Oyster Boy)

Oyster Boy (quoted from Haste Theatre website)

"OYSTER BOY is a dark comedy and tells the story of a boy who is born with an Oyster-shell-shaped head and his parents’ struggle to raise their extraordinary son. A bittersweet tale of the trials of love and what it means to be Other, OYSTER BOY reminds us that we should be careful what we wish for and of the delicacy of life. The fairy tale-like world of the show introduces us to a range of larger-than-life characters that are sure to entertain and delight audiences of all ages. Drawing on a range of theatrical and filmic influences, this peculiar story is told through a rich blend of physical storytelling, live choral singing, clown, dance and puppetry. With this colourful, multilingual production, Haste invites you into a sensitive, funny and surreal world.
CAST LIST: Elly-Beaman Brinklow (Chorus/Dr. Plumcock), Valeria Compagnoni (Jim), Elena Costanzi (Chorus/Molly), Jesse Dupré (Chorus/Polly), Anna Plasberg-Hill (Alice),  Sophie Taylor (Chorus/Anthony)"


Performance

- Use of music: ukulele gave a happy and jolly atmosphere accompanied by funny lyrics and rhyming couplets which would appeal to the younger audience as well as an older audience. The music gave an opportunity for scene transition as it distracted the audience and focused the attention on the lower stage rather than what was happening behind them.

- Costume: stripes gave an Italian theme and this was reinforced by the accents of some of the actors. Woman playing the man was made clear by the wig and the costume, (clear for a younger audience to follow)

- Mother giving birth: built tension as it was all happening behind the blue sheet and the actors would pop up with different facial expressions which again created humour. The Oyster Boy being covered up for a while after he was born continued this tension and we wanted to see what he looked like, making the audience more intrigued.

- First sight of Oyster Boy, the audience was shocked and it was also quite funny because of the large head in comparison to the body - very surreal and would again appeal to the younger audience because of this bizarre-looking child.

- The blue sheet was also used as the ocean which was very interesting and a good multi-use of a simple prop. The woman moving her arms to look as though she was swimming in the sea was clever and also created humour. Multi-prop use could be used in our piece.

- The ending contrasted with the jolly and fun themes used throughout; emotion was created but the ending was ironic and returned to the fun and humorous outlook on the story - "what would the next child look like?"

- Exaggerated physicality and facial expressions created humour and also made the story clear and concise for a younger audience. Expressed the emotions clearly and also related well to the light-heartedness of the quirky story.

- Nice contrast of emotional moments, themes of love, but made light-hearted and not too heavy by the physicality and jokes.

Workshop

- Becoming an animal and turning that animal into a personification - made us think about how to create humour and also how to think about characterisation in a different way. How can we compare our character to something more basic and build it up into a more complex character?

- Granny's Porridge - Freezing in funny positions, particularly when the props were introduced. Again demonstrated how we can create humour and make the audience laugh by being silly. In the form of a game, the task was given objective and this therefore made it more interesting and people would lose their inhibition to win the game, so the poses were more funny and unusual.
 

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre


Interesting Moments:

- Ensemble: symbolised her conscience and emphasised her confusion

- Running on the spot - Rhythmic and built pace, showed her progression and journey or alternatively, could have shown her running away, no stability.

- Opening the window - symbolic of freedom. When the windows suddenly closed, she was back to being trapped and deprived of freedom.

- Set - moving around the set to represent different rooms, which saved time in regards to set changes.

- Costume - clearly showed that the orphans were young children, which was accompanied by the way they shuffled around the stage, (childish movements). Also made them look identical which highlighted a lack of identity and no emotional connection, (not seen as human or important).

- Lighting: Red glowing foot lights symbolised a warm fire. As the cast all placed their hands in front of the fire, the shadow of the hands was visually very interesting and worked well as an ensemble. Flames: linked back to religion and how she was threatened to go to Hell. Passing lights between hands was very clever and showed Jane to be pacing up and down the hall - made the pacing more interesting and enhanced imagery of the hallway.

- Symbolic Lighting: Square of light over her represented claustrophobia and craving for freedom.

- Man playing the dog: created humour when the tail (belt) was slapping on the sofa. Also used that sound to provoke familiarity of that sound of a dog's tail. His sudden movements, panting and barking all helped to give him the physicality of a dog and this was clear for these reasons.

- Corset: represented her transition into a woman, accompanied by pinning her hair up to give her a more mature look. Made this clear to the audience.

- Cyclic nature - began and ended with the phrase "it's a girl", shows how life will continue and personally I felt that this was an emotional moment; Jane will use her past experiences to bring her daughter up as a strong and independent woman.

- Band calling out words or phrases was surprising and gave the music an extra dimension

- Singer: singing the song 'Crazy', she seemed to be taunting Jane throughout the play in the back of Jane's mind. When she turned out to be the wife, it was a moment of realisation.

- Multi-role of the French girl/Helen was interesting and she changed her voice, accent and physicality to become more child-like and also to show that she was foreign. Showed her isolation as a result of her language barrier, but Jane helps her overcome this.

- Death was represented symbolically by the trap door, which was interesting and more effective than a melodramatic death as it was more gentle and heart-felt when Jane was left alone on stage or in Helen's bed.

 

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time


Space / Astronaut scene:

I enjoyed the moment when Christopher was lifted by other cast members and they supported him in the air as he moved in slow motion. Christopher's physicality was interesting as his slow arm movements whilst being elevated indicated that he was floating in space. Additionally, the slow and large movements created a 'dreamy' physicality. This was assisted by the ensemble moving him around which helped create this outer-space imagery. Stars were projected across the stage, accompanied by a dark blue wash; visually, the stage clearly represented Christopher's dream of being an astronaut. In a literal sense, the projected stars represented space. However, looking further into what stars often represent, they could have been symbolic of dreams and aspirations; Christopher was a high achiever/aspirer, and believed anything was possible.

Houses / Investigating the Street scene

When Christopher was investigating the death of Wellington, he investigated each house on his street. I enjoyed the use of blocks to create each house in a different way; sometimes the blocks would be used as a door, and other times they would be chairs, tables or a television. In particular, the family watching football was very visually exciting - they moved in slow motion, leaning forward in their seats and clenching their fists to show captivation into the match. This moment was more effective in slow motion, as the facial expressions were clearer and more exaggerated. I also felt this was effective contextually, as a modern audience can easily relate to a family gathering to watch a football match and therefore the facial expressions created humour and provoked familiarity.

The movement of the boxes is something I would like to incorporate into our final performance of TV People; the constant moving of the blocks completely changed the staging and therefore kept the audience engaged visually. Moving blocks to represent furniture or parts of a house is very simple and will be a good alternative to having props. As an audience member I found that the movement of blocks made the scene pacey as opposed to having to bring a door or a TV onto stage.

I also enjoyed the projection of house numbers. Not only did it make it clear when Christopher had moved onto the next house, but the use of numbers related well to Christopher's way of thinking and obsession with counting and order. This links back to his autism.

Grandma scene

Again, pace was used during the scene when Christopher visited the old lady on his street. The change in pace whilst the Grandma went to get the biscuits was very funny and also exaggerated the characterisation of both Christopher and the Grandma. As she walked away, she moved in extreme slow motion and this contrasted perfectly with Christopher moving in fast motion. Christopher's physicality stood out to me as being very exciting and unique - the way he looked at his watch and tapped his foot very quickly indicated how slowly the Grandma was moving in comparison to the rest of the world. This moment was my personal favourite.

Trains - motif

I found trains to be symbolic throughout the production - personally I found them to be symbolic of Christopher's journey and finding his independence. Building the train tracks around the stage led up to the moment when the train tracks came alive and the toy train went around it. This moment before the interval foreshadowed what Christopher planned to do in the second half of the production, (get on the train to find his mum). Additionally, I felt that the building of the train tracks was symbolic of his building his confidence and him working on his project, (finding out who killed Wellington and working up the courage to see his mother). He began slowly, but built up the speed over time - eventually he was running from different sides of the stage to grab sections of the train track. I personally found this to show his franticness and rush. Like the Grandma scene, I feel that Christopher was presented as an impatient character who liked fast results.

When Christopher jumped down onto the train tracks to find Toby, tension was built and the shock amongst the audience contrasted well with Christopher's calmness and obliviousness. This in turn showed his isolation and inability to be independent. But simultaneously, although he took a risk, Christopher was not hurt or effected, so perhaps he was more capable than the audience thought initially.

Other stand-out Moments

- Writing on the floor and this being projected on to the back screen: was visible for all the audience to see so the position in the theatre was irrelevant. Showed how he liked to map things out and draw things to visually show them - another insight into his brain and way of thinking. Diagrams were often drawn to reinforce this, also relating back to his mathematical way of thinking.

- Shevon: white clothing represented peacefulness and 'guardian angel', her narration symbolised how Christopher can rely on her to communicate what he cannot. The voice over showed that even in her absence, Shevon resonates with Christopher and this reinforces the idea of a guardian angel and trust. Links back to train scene, building the tracks whilst talking to Shevon could symbolise the trust-building in their relationship.

- Hand reaching out - human contact, comfort and only happened with his mum and dad to show unconditional love and understanding. (created emotion)

- Walking on walls (ladder) - great use of space, created a 'bird's eye view' which was visually dynamic and exciting to watch, making the possible impossible, (climbing on the walls and defining gravity).

- Ending "does this mean I can do anything?" - the question was left unanswered which allowed the audience to have their own interpretation. Christopher achieved so much despite his autism, so can he do anything? Or will his autism always hold him back? I liked the questions that were left for the audience to answer because it allowed the story to mean something different to everyone.