Evaluation.

Evaluation of Revolution Arts Take on John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath"

For our first unit of the course we came together as a company under the title revelation arts and created our own take on John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath". The end result of the piece was brilliant, its been an absolutely enjoyable thing to do and develop my skills at the same time as getting to know the new members of the class. Doing this play and adopting a complete fell for what things were like at the time have allowed me to open my eyes to many aspects of theatre which I have been to cautious to use in my work before: Such as effective lighting a projection, elements such as water, and more adventurous types of movement such as dance over more predictable split stage and slow motion. A few days ago we finished our last performance of it, which has given me time to collect my thoughts on what I think of the piece now its over.

The first thing I have to say about the play is its wide nature of characters, and as someone who played six of them I think I can easily comment on this. Going back 80 years in time and going to the other side of the world was something which was challenging for all of us. As a class I think we did a brilliant at adopting not only the Southern American accent, but terminology to. I know on several occasions after the performance the audience said how brave but successful it was of us to use the accent, there were points which I wondered if everyone could do it, but we got there in the end and pulled it off well. Im glad we used the accents, primarily because it is something which I was scared to do in front of the class at first (I didnt want to look like an idiot) but hopefully now it will be encouraging to use them even more. Another thing we did well as a class was all our devising work. This year we had a few new members to the class, and naturally because I dint know them it was quite awkward to work with them. But like I said because of the variation we had with characters we had, we were able to do a lot of discussion and devising on the topic about what we should put in the play. One example of this was our table family scene, it allowed us to plan out where we would sit and why. Some characters didnt have chairs because of their age a position in the hierarchy. One thing that really went well in our dress rehearsal was this scene, it looked exactly like a functioning family of that time. We had the interaction between me and Dani, which held up the struggles within the family, Ma serving the food and organising everyone, taking on this lead family role. Everything in this scene worked and flowed perfectly. One issue we did have with the start of the play was the length, the start alone was taking us an hour when the whole of the act needed to be that long. The main thing about act one which I had issues with was trust. We had a whole piece where Grampa dies and is carried on by the family. This was difficult, we are ok at getting into a position where I could be lifted in the classroom, but on the first time we tried it in the hall I was apparently nearly dropped (I could feel I was slanted, but I had my eyes closed as I really didnt want to know what was going on). But in the performance this went fine, which Im glad it did. This was one off the many moments that showed the connection between our characters. 

I think everyone has done well. The character of Ma especially, I really how Amanda acted her. She came across as the main dominant female that leads the group. Caring, but stern and organised. This came across most in the family scene where Grampa and Grandma were clashing (I think me and Dani did this very well) and we would expect them to be dominant as the oldest. The only character that I think needed some improvement was Elizabeth. I think it was hard for Dani to make a connection with her, but she needed to be slightly more over the top, the only issue with that would have been she would come across exactly the same as Grandma. The Barn Dance in my opinion went much better then I expected. The clapping worked in time, we remembered most the moves and could hear Ali's commands perfectly, which was my main concern for that scene. I think everyone has done a good job at becoming their character and its something we have all enjoyed doing. 

Sheriffs Deputy.

Thoughts:

Although he had very few lines, my favourite character has to be was the Sheriffs deputy. I liked being him because he is completely different to anyone I have ever acted before. In the past Ive been shy a weak character who cant cope with a situation, a comedic Grandma, (Who I applied a lot of features from to Grampa) A leader of an organisation and a character from Blood Brothers, all of which have the theme that there is someone above them in some way. Whereas the Sheriffs deputy was the highest authority and I really wanted to make this come through by using sarcastic tones and aggression. 

Inspiration:

While we have been working on this piece Ive been following a particular actor very closely. In my personal opinion I think the actor David Morrisey is one that I can get a lot of inspiration from. Here is a small bit of background info about him.

Born	David Mark Morrissey 21 June 1964 (age 49) Kensington, Liverpool, England
Occupation	Actor, director, producer,screenwriter
Years active	1982–present

David Morrisey has been in many theatre productions, including pieces by Shakespeare. In television he has appeared in a Doctor Who Christmas special and was a main cast member of the Walking Dead for two seasons. 

Out of all the characters Morrisey has been I got a lot of inspiration from his character "The Governor".

The Governor is an extremely complicated man with many secrets, identities and bad ways. However amongst all of this he remains a leader. Its these secrets which bring out the sly nature he acts in, he is a character who truly uses the situation he is in to his advantage, and makes life a misery for everyone else. I can apply this to my character because he to work in corruption with the contractor. When I walk round Floyd and say "Hmmm" I took the slow approach this because of the threatening nature which David Morrisey applied to his character, the Governor.

The Scene:

1)Here I am acting the corrupt Sheriff, I walk slowly round him in threatening manor to abuse my authority and then report back to CJ. I take sides with Cj here, making bad alliances being very negative, an example of one of the many issues the Joads run into on the way. The Sheriff make fake accusations about Floyd a persists to call him hayseed, a term to insult people of his area. I enjoyed this interaction loads, it was great to be a dominant character who was almost a little brat really. I feel that I attempted to show my character as one who was a real power hungry man well. 

2)We then go on to slow motion, the Joads finally have a successful victory against someone, again my character was abusing his status. Tom brings him right to the floor in slow motion, Casy kicks me and then things resume. At first I didn't like this at all! Ive never really done slow motion is such an interactional way using stage combat. However now Ive tried it I think its getting better! If we had more time I would have liked to work on adjusting a few more parts of this scene, just to show of my characters evil side a little more.

Writing in Role:

"What people dont understand that this here is my part the country, some of us are leaders and others, well they just aint so lucky. Things are what they are and it aint my job to change 'em. Myself? Why, Im as fairer man as you can get"

I wrote this monologue for the soul purpose of its length, short but sweet. It involves the controversial attitude he has for someone who we would expect to be there for others. I could imagine that this would probably happen between the characters of the Sherifs deputy and the contractor.

Variety of comments.

Dance

I now believe that dance is a very important feature of our performance, its something weve never tried before so at first there was a bit of caution and tension towards the idea. But since then Ive realised the special element it brings to the play: VARIETY. I think its important to have a performance that isnt completely speech and movement based, (Even things like slow motion can be boring and cliche to an audience as they are used so much in school plays) the dance was really unexpected to the audience, which I can imagine would be an interesting surprise to the audience. Its also extremely significant story wise, throughout the journey its been non-stop let downs. As soon as they set out Grampa dies, then Grandma, Noah leaves. This barn dance signifies a possibility of success finally for them, and displaying this success through a dance must have really been nice to see, rather than here it through words. I believe a variation of different features throughout a performance makes them so much better.

Props and Set

The Truck

A major prop we used in our performance was the Truck! Personally I was really worried about what it would turn out to be like, in some of our earlier rehearsals they consisted of people just wondering around the truck. However when we got into the hall things really began to come together, BEHOLD THE TRUCK:

The truck is very significant to the whole performance, it goes on this journey of doom with them. Its size is perfect (Although at the start it really is like Human Tetris trying to get everyone in). But again, that does show what it was like for the family, we could have easily made it bigger out of convenience for us, but that just wouldnt of helped get to know the Joads! 

Projection 

One thing that stands out in all of the performances we have put together is Miss Cordell's amazing use of projection :) Because of the constant journey the Joads go on we really needed to symbolise the setting change, its important we did this because we felt the audience really needed to realise how desperate and committed the family are. So, whenever the Joads moved to a new place we had a different image to show this.

Below: Is a Bill-board displaying government propaganda to move people to California. The inspiring phrase "There's no way like the American way" is a reflection of how good things had been during Americans roaring twenties, a period of wealth and isolationism, followed by the greatest depression in the country after Black Thursday (The Wall Street Crash, October 24th 1929), which I believe was because of to much public confidence in the stock exchange run by a corrupt banking system.

Below: Was used at the start to show the family together, working and simply getting on with life. It acted as an insight to the audience for what things used to be like. In this we all had separate roles to carry out as if we worked on a farm. Me and Phil did some sort of soil turning thing as if we had pick axes or rakes, preparing it for crops. We then near the end of the song that was playing looked up to the right hand corner of the hall as if to be gazing at the sun (Symbolising light, hope, brightness and good - just like their current state). 

Below: Is mine and Jays Gas Station! This is an example of one of the many locations the family visit on the journey. At these places they are warned that California is not what they think it will be. Characters like the man going back and contractor who really make life difficult for them are prime examples. Although my favourite is Dani Gillespies crazy women, Elizabeth. For the whole journey there is this sub-storyline of how Roseofsharon  is pregnant (Which is very significant as babies are these holy special things which people adore and love), but Danis interesting character destroys this felling and whines about shes bringing that life into a terrible world!

Below: These are a few examples of the dust bowl and its affects, something which made living even more difficult for the family. Although in the play the Joads move towards California, President Roosevelt did do a lot to help these families. He won the presidential election in 1932 by a landslide victory against Republican Herbert Hoover (This is where Hoovervilles get there name from, an insult to the former president). Roosevelt promised Americans a 'New Deal", this scheme created a variety of methods to help families like the Joads, such the AAA agricultural adjustment act, TVA Tennessee Valley Authority - which span across the tri-state area and built the Hoover Dam, and many more. 

My acting

I believe I have improved loads since we started the project! My acting skills especially! For example, I used to find it difficult to really take on a role and look deep into a piece of inspiration, but for this it was quite simple and enjoyable. I used to be afraid to try things such as accents but in the Grapes of Wrath I really did experiment with a few tones on Grampa, and then apply a stripped down simple South American accent to characters such as the attendant. A few things which I tried to do for all my characters was make them slightly unique, Ive got a section about Grampa and the Sheriff on here already. But for others like the attendant it was beneficial to build up a personality to them, such as are they from an educated back ground, are they stupid? It was good to show a slightly stupid attendant here to contrast the clearly clever, snobbish owner Jay was being. I showed a lot of thing through movement but mostly posture of my characters.

Photos!

This photo was taken at the very end of the performance.  In it, the family are moving on one final time.  By this stage, we were soaked to show that we are in the midst of a major storm which is flooding their home. Where are most of the times the Joads have been moved on in the story, they haven't really been emotionally attached to the place, this time Ma says the box cars have been the nicest home she's had, which gives this scene even greater meaning.  I think the fact that we were really drenched by the final moments of the play helped me to really become my character and brought us together as a cast.  The emotion on our faces really shows the focus we had right to the end of the performance.  I think we should have held this final moment a little bit longer to really allow the audience time to reflect on the Joad's situation and what they might move onto next, however, I liked the fact that we walked out through the audience which hopefully created a stronger exit for the final time in the play rather than just leaving the stage area as we had done for every other the scene.

 Jay did a good job at making the emotion clear that although the family are sad the baby is dead, they need to move on. This short 30 second moment he had was one of the only breaks there were in the play that gave people time to think and realise whats actually going on, especially as having a baby is supposed to be a nice special time. I think Amanda's line "We had no baby we was wrong" to Winfield is a prime example of this moving on.

 It was good to see the unity of the Joads emerging right until the end, the journey they are on still continues, but the triangle formation we made symbolises the strength between them.

 From the Audience perspective the water was really good and made everything look much more dramatic, like the family really wanted to defend what they had. It was also good to try something the we have never used before in drama, a more "interactive performance".