Week of Rehearsals 26th-30th of May

Today we worked on the Haig's runners scene.  In this small scene, Haig orders runners around which leads into the song "They Were Only Playing Leapfrog".  The idea was the runners would be played as the Commedia dell'Arte Bottom of pecking order. Zanni who is that regrettably eternal unfortunate, the dispossessed immigrant worker.

There is also two conversations between British women and German women who both say the same rumours about their opposing sides. I suggested as there is no longer 4 girls in our class shouldn’t just two play it (me and Lucy) and stylise something. I suggested Lady 2 should go in the little room above the audience and have a washing line connect from the window down the back of the audience. Or I could hang up flags; English flags when English than German flags when speaking German. I believe there have been two flags brought for me to use for this scene instead.

Next day we worked on 2 more scenes. We started looking at the Irish scene and read it through. We decided to split up, with 3 people working on the Irish scene while others worked on the second Haig scene. There was more movement added which was 'build soldiers who march to the front of the stage , shoot each other, and are then dragged back to be 'rebuilt'. I think the idea is better than the outcome; yet we cannot change it now. To me there is something missing, currently its two girls being the soldiers and I know that shouldn’t matter but it would look better if it was too male soldiers. I spoke to some others about this and they’ve agreed so next time we come to it again we will try it two males.

We choreographed Haig's Ball and the next song. Once at Pelhem we were able to work on the way the dance worked and where to freeze when others are talking and find our gests for our posh characters.  After this we worked on the next song, "Hush Here Comes a Wizbang". We had the idea to have some of us underneath the rostra that open the rostra and pop out to sing and close it on the word “bang” which sounded great. And Ellen did a dance.

My favourite part of this song is the soldiers going under the rostra, im glad we are finally using it more creatively.  

Our wizbang first rehearsal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bii_2_fD7y8&feature=youtu.be 

We worked on Mrs Pankhurst scene which is my main one. The idea is she will have a megaphone and speak out load over the booing audience around her. We brought back the M.C for this scene that will introduce her and rush her away at the end. I wasn’t originally going to play Mrs Pankhurst which I was secretly gutted about but I wouldn’t dare make a fuss.  

During the scene I have to shout loudly with a posh accent which for the first time doing it I didn’t do too great. I need to be heard and the crowd around me need to make sure they go quiet so I can be heard. 

Here is the Oh what a lovely war version of the secene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yhWM24uMZQ