Love & Information

Context
In this unit we did a play by the name of Love & Information which was written by Charyl Churchill, who is a British playwright, who is someone that challenges structure and form, meaning she approaches the way to write things very differently compared to other playwrights, using love and information as an example, this play is a episodic play, broken down with multiple scenes, minimal stage directions and no characters at all just lines,  Love & Information is a kaleidoscopic play addressing contemporary issues about communication, knowledge and our capacity to love. Love and Information isn't the only play that Charyl has written, she has actually written multiple plays like Top Girls which is a play that searches into the issue of being a successful women, the play itself shows the big difference between American feminism, which celebrates individualistic women who gain power and wealth, and British socialist feminism, which involves collective group gain, the structure of the play is unconventional or non-linear, the plot itself shows Marlene, who is the protagonist of the play, hosting a dinner party for a few friends as she's been promoted at her job, the life stories that the dinner guests experienced acts as a way of expressing Marlene’s thoughts and anxieties over the choices that she has made in her life and the choices that she could’ve made. For example was it the right choice to give up her child for being successful.

Rehearsals
The process of creating our scenes involved a lot of collaboration, the scenes involved a lot of discussing and planning between the people in the scene as we had the responsibility to do what we wanted with the scenes, as the play was open for interpretation, we could take a scene and make it naturalistic or abstract, for example with Pedro and myself, we were doing a scene called Schizophrenic, which drawing from the subtext of the scene, it could be taken as a typically therapy scene, but with the help from Ben Mills, he gave us the idea of the two of us being the same person, saying the lines at the same time, choreographing it where we would do the same movements, as if we’re looking at a mirror until we break the sync and it's as if Pedro is questioning me, knowing if i can see what's happening, see that we aren't the same person, which is a very abstract piece in my opinion. Drawing from some of the skills we learnt from the very first day of college, this piece took a lot of patience, a lot of listening to each other,confidence in each other and the awareness of our fear of getting it wrong, pushing ourselves to get it right instead of fearing we would get it wrong, taking these things made the process easier,I believe the audience was engaged and trying to figure out what was going on as it isn't something you would get immediately,it's quite complex and a big piece of that is thanks to Ben for giving us the original mirrored idea, then the two of us spreading out from that and adapting it into our thing. In contrast to that piece, JP and myself did a scene called Ex, which is a scene about two previous lovers, meeting up and reminiscing over the old times, at first we wanted to take this and have fun with but as the process progressed, we noticed that maybe making it naturalistic and trying to show the audience that these two people were in love then they would engage with the scene better,which I believe they did, which made me really glad we made the switch because it's easy to get cheap laughs, but it's harder to garner a real reaction from the audience, even after the first performance, Rob told me even though I performed well but I have to be careful of the fourth wall,it felt like I was playing to the audience, getting a cheap laugh is very easy,it's time to step away from that.

Evaluation

After performing both shows, I believe I contributed a lot to the overall success of the final show, when it comes to some of the scenes, we had a short story arc, where each of them would connect and I think JP and myself sparked that initial idea with Ex when rehearsing, then me,Ben,JP and Roman decided to take the idea and run with it, connecting scenes through the small story arc, which I felt added to the final show and it showed how well the group were collaborating, even Shenagh said after our first performance that we as a group was a great ensemble and it really looked good as a collective, which I believe added a new element to the show, making it much better then what we thought it would be, did we engage the audience how we wanted? Yes and no, obviously sometimes things hit, sometimes they miss, for example, facts and flashback, two scenes involved with the story arc, Ben and Roman are doing a game , where Ben is the contestant, I am an audience member who is pregnant, Flashback bleeds right into Facts, so as it finishes, I give birth, the two scenes are very different, Facts is a comedic scene, quite fun, whereas Flashback is supposed to be more serious but it was sloppy, I do take responsibility for this, as I wasn't really in the mental space to pretend to give birth, which I think did take away from the scene, although it did not bring down my energy or confidence in the performance. I also believe that I was really helpful backstage during the first performance, acting as a stage manager, making sure everyone was in the right place, ready for the next scene, assuring them that they have nothing to worry about, even if i might've been loud enough for the audience to hear which isn't good, it's something I've learnt over time in the course, previous shows, like Macbeth or Three sisters, I was extremely stressed out, felt as if I was going to ruin the show in some way, my confidence was hindered and I felt as if I didn't have the energy to go out and perform, but having everyone around me, assuring me that everything will be okay, it was also helpful that we as a group were doing everything as a collective, we heard there wouldn't be blackouts, but we came together and said we want blackouts, it made feel confident knowing that everyone was supporting the ideas that we came up with, we made sure to talk about the good and the bad,if it wasn't for Danielle suggesting to try be more naturalistic with the piece, JP and myself might have tried to do the original comedy piece and it could failed miserably, I genuinely believe that this piece was the best piece I've been apart of during the whole year, it was amazing, it really boosted my confidence and even my love for the course, it was so much fun, which is something rob told us on the first day, “if you aren't enjoying what you're doing, then what's the point?” Also, taking the other group into consideration, as they did the same scenes but with their own personal touch, as they, like our group, had control over their scenes and it was very interesting to see the contrast of our pieces, to see what direction we took a scene and to see the direction they took a scene, it was good to compare the two as it gave our group a way to see how people took the scenes and interrupted them compared to how we did it ourselves. When comparing the two groups as well, we both performed at our best when it came to the performance day and asking who did better isn't a question that could be answered because I believe we were as good as each other, the ideas we all came up with flowed and made sense, they all just worked and myself as an audience member to them, I was completely engaged in all of their scenes, it was amazing.

The course has really built me as an actor and even as a person, I've went through a lot of personal problems at home but the course strengthened me, helped me get through those times, gave me something to have hope that everything would be okay and it turned out that it was, even if sometimes these problems brought me down and affected the way I acted, I didn't let it keep me down, being closed off has always been an issue with me, but slowly i hope that i can be more open, even at the start of the year, I was even more closed off then what i am now but i believe I've opened up more in the time I've been on the course. I don't think I have done enough research during this course and I know it shows, it's something I've never had time for, which is not a good enough excuse and it's something I need to focus on, I need to start researching and expanding my knowledge of acting,because at this moment, I don't think it's good enough to be ignoring really important things in the business and it just makes me want to focus harder and be better at if i was to get into the second year, if I wanted to progress,then I have to invest more of my time into researching plays and their writers,discovering more for this unit has helped me as I haven't done it before so it was refreshing having all the information,knowing what others have done and even what the playwright wanted to portray with the piece, it gave the play a whole new meaning and element to performing it.