Devising Week Five

Devising Week Five


Narrative Progress & Evaluation

This week we have made a lot of progress – we finished devising the bulk of our material. I think what we have created this week is good and just needs a bit more polishing and sharpening, especially the transitions.

1.    Reading the book/Butoh – The piece opens with Ciara reading from The Red Tree as we planned but instead of ‘birthing’ as it’s quite out of context here we decided to do a Butoh walk from upstage and come around into the red tree shape. I think this is a good idea but to be really effective we need to properly learn the Butoh technique of walking and maybe do some of his other methods at the same time – some people could be doing flower hands, others could do orchestra head or the fly-on-your-face twitch.

2.    Clock – This time, however, after Ciara springs up and says ‘cuckoo’ we all say ‘good morning’ in canon. I think this is effective, but like most of the piece, really needs to be tightened up and made even quicker and snappier to have the effect we want. I think we also need to practise timing the clockwork walk and the part where we go into slow motion.

3.    Morning – The morning routine naturally fits in here now, as it’s like the clock scene is the alarm clock and then the character is getting ready. I think this is one of our most polished scenes, and I just need to personally work on making my movements more clear/dynamic.

4.    Mime – We adapted the next scene from the part in our second attempted narrative where Ciara gives money to a street mime. Kieran, the mime, stands at the front of a line and we all stand behind him copying his mime movements in canon. Then we all put our hands up like stairs when he begs for money. I think we could make a bit more of this scene as it’s a really nice moment, maybe we could do a bit more miming in the line before Ciara gives him money.

5.    City – On Thursday we watched a run through back and realised the transition between the mime and the office looked really sloppy and uninteresting, so we decided to have Ciara break through the ‘line’ and then we all disburse into a city scene – like everyone going to the office. We decided to do the Jacques Lecoq technique to create a subway station with everyone pushing through in a cluster, and then disburse again before creating a train scene in the same way.

6.    Office – This scene we’ve left mostly unchanged, and I really like it with the music and the four movements sequences. However I thought that mine and Ciara’s chair duet that was originally at the end of the scene didn’t really make sense with our new context and it felt a bit out of place anyway so we have decided to get rid of it. Now I’m not doing this I need to develop my four movements sequence and make it more interesting and maybe the movements a bit bigger and more dynamic.

7.    Mental breakdown – This is one of my favourite scenes, which was greatly inspired by Bertroffenheit. One by one we get up from our chairs and mechanically move to the syllables of panicked words, for instance, ‘wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,’ ‘she can’t take anymore’ ‘what’s going on’. However I think we need to polish it and make it a lot sharper and snappier to be really effective. After this scene we all naturally felt to lean over Ciara in a type of dome and I had the idea to do a sort of ‘breathing’ all together where we rise up and then down a few times and then snap back away on the third one into our next scene.

8.    Birth & V Formation – Although we originally cut this scene, we decided to put it back in and I think this is the best place for it. We only got rid of it because we thought we were going to use it for the beginning but now we aren’t we can use it here, where we originally wanted it.

9.    Blob – This is where we all go into the ‘blob’ and ignore Breanna, which is one of my favourite scenes. I think it works really well and it’s quite funny but we really need to time the pauses between Breanna shouting and us making nonsense noises because at the minute it’s quite messy.

10. Wonderful Things – Even though we don’t have the wonderland/looking for the tree narrative anymore, I still really like this scene and I think it still works really well. It’s around the middle of the piece and it reminds the audience of the red tree, almost hinting at what it means (‘hope’).

11.  Control – For this scene Will and I use most of what we already have for our controlling Butoh influenced scene, except Emily P had the idea that afterwards my line could be ‘you try to control your life’ or something like that which I really liked. I had the idea that if I followed my line with something like ‘but it doesn’t work’ and then left the stage Will could take his mask off for the next scene to flow better. However I still think my part in this scene is a bit weird and not quite right. I think I need to do something different in order to make it more interesting but I’m not sure what yet.

12. Give & give – For this scene we all stood up on our chairs and then repeated in canon the words ‘and give’ and then all stepped down in unison and tiredly fell back into our chairs on until there’s nothing left. Even though it’s quite a short scene I really like it and I think if we polish and speed up the canon part a bit more it will look and sound really effective.

13. Stage Scene & Clapping – For this scene Kieran, Emily and Becky are on stage and have forgotten what they are supposed to do, based on the scene in the book with the girl on stage. Once we’ve practised the clap a bit more with the count I think it’ll be easier for us to stop on time and it will look a lot more effective. I had the idea Kieran could then say the line from the picture in the book this scene is based on – ‘sometimes you just don’t know what you are supposed to do.’

14. Beast & Therapy – Emily P had the idea that while the beast is coming to life two people – me and Becky – sit in chairs near the front of the stage and in a quite Naturalistic contrast to the rest of the piece talk in a therapy-like conversation. Every time I ask Becky to talk and she says no, the beast comes closer, until eventually she says okay stands up and faces ‘her demon’. I think this is a good idea but we maybe need to develop mine and Becky’s part a bit more because at the minute it’s a bit flat and doesn’t feel quite right.

15. Therapy Chairs – I had the idea that we could all push each other out of the way to swap around in the two chairs so that at some point we’re all in the therapy chair and all in the therapist’s chair. We adapted this idea so that everyone stands in a line after the beast and comes up with a different physical theatre way to swap chairs and then after we leave the therapist’s chair we go to our original positions of the red tree. On Thursday we developed the beginning to the sequence a little, developing more of a dance-like section with Will and Becky, but I think we need to adapt what everyone else is doing in this because with everyone following under the cloth it looks really messy and sloppy.

16. Reading the book – For our ending, Ciara will end up the last one in the chair, finishing reading the book from where we all left off, paralleling the beginning. We will all be forming the red tree around her with our red orbs. Then the lights will slowly fade out. I really like this ending because I like how it parallels the beginning and shows that hope has always been there from the start even if you (and the audience) didn’t realise.

Title

This week we have been thinking about names for the piece. Will had the idea that we could call the piece, ‘kuka sina olet’ which is what is written on the girl in the picture of her on the stage. We looked it up and it means ‘who are you?’ in Latin which is relevant.

However I feel like because our piece is quite ambiguous and incoherent, our title needs to at least hint at our story/intention, and kuka sina olet is something that nobody is going to understand

Everyone took this suggestion on board and we agreed to call the piece The Wonderful Things which was one of our original choices. I really like this because it hints at how feelings and bad things are still wonderful and bring you back to hope (the red tree). It also will provide quite a good contrast if the audience are expecting to see something bright and ‘wonderful’.

Poster & Programme

We also started thinking about the poster. Ciara had the idea to have a red tree and with eyes all around it in the darkness, which I really liked. This made me think we could have just a single red leaf, like the one in every page of the book, against a black background, maybe with the same eyes in the dark. However, we thought that might look a bit too much like a Canadian flag. As a solution we decided to have a red tree with a single leaf falling off. I think this will look really effective and interesting.

We needed a little tagline/piece of writing as well as the title on the poster, and I thought we could use the first line of the book – sometimes the day begins with nothing to look forward to. I think this works well and we can also use it on the programme.

Costume

I have also been thinking about costumes this week. Originally we had planned to all have different costumes suited to our characters, but now we are no longer doing the Wonderland plot or the affair plot, I think it will be more effective to be dressed all similarly, or at least have a running theme.

I was thinking we could all wear different styled clothes (to suit our ‘individual within the group’) but with a colour theme so we all match – maybe all in black with something red or all wearing red.


I also think we should al have a red leaf on us somehow. I like the idea of doing this in makeup or face paint around one eye or maybe on our hands. 

Devising Week Four

Devising Week Four

Office Scene

On Monday we worked on making Ciara's character different to her character in Pomona, who she seemed a bit too similar to. We came up with the idea that she could be a bit older, maybe a stressed businesswoman, maybe with children. I really like this idea because it's a more interesting protagonist for us and also will provide some funny moments - when Wonderful Things are being weird and Ciara just wants to get to her meeting.

To show a bit of backstory several of us had the idea to have a scene set at the office where Ciara works. I liked this idea because it showed who all us 'weird' characters are in the 'normal' world - Wonderful Things as annoying noisy colleagues and Terrible Fates as an unfair boss.

For this we incorporated the physical theatre devices of Berkoff and Frantic Assembly. I had the idea to use Berkoff's 'Four Movements' device to set the scene in the office - everyone doing four Naturalistic movements found in an office and repeating them until it becomes odd to watch. We also had the idea to do chair duets as well, which I think worked really well, especially with Emily and Liv doing one as Wonderful Things.

Narrative Progress & Decision Making

On Monday we ran through everything we had done so far and watched it back on video. This was a really interesting moment because it made me realise that despite us having the narrative in our heads, it really isn’t coming across clearly and a lot of the scenes look a bit random and disjointed.

To work on this we tried changing the opening, hot seating and had a lot of discussions until we finally began to make progress towards the end of the day.

We all agreed that having Ciara as a stressed working mother in an office and the office physical theatre scene worked really well, so we decided to build up from there and maybe try making the piece a little more naturalistic – at least just in the beginning – to make the narrative more clear.

That morning we had watched a contemporary dance physical theatre performance where a man who suffered a traumatic experience worked through his grief in a metaphorical way with strange characters, the play being almost set in his mind, which we were inspired by with our plot.

We decided that Ciara could be just an ordinary person living their life but going through hard times, and at some point she falls asleep/unconscious and then everything that happens is Ciara’s subconscious trying to work through and make sense of her issues by turning them into an elaborate fantasy, and exaggerating the people she knows into caricatures of themselves. For instance:

• I thought that Wonderful Things could be Ciara’s children in the ‘real’ world and Liv suggested they could have learning difficulties which is an idea I really liked.
• Ciara said Will could be her husband who she was having problems with – hence why she sees him as a ‘beast’ in her dream.
• My character could still be her boss, but having an affair with Will’s character and asking him more aggressive and distant from Ciara. This is why she sees me in her dream world as an evil queen who ‘turned Will into a monster’
• Emily B and Breanna as Sense and Reason (the voices in Ciara’s head trying to analyse her life and make sense of everything) could be either social workers, colleagues from the office, or life coaches.
• Spes, Becky’s character, could be my assistant at the office who Ciara finds annoying/doesn’t get on with, hence why she interprets her as an evil minion.
• Kieran’s character I think could be Ciara’s friend or maybe a new worker/intern at the office who needs her help a lot and idolises her, therefore why she interprets him as a hapless man with a box stuck on his head.

We collectively came up with a new narrative and scene order, which is all subject to change still:

1. Spinning Chair – I think we should keep the opening of the chair on an empty stage to the music we found before Will comes out and spins it, because it looks so visually powerful. It also could now be symbolic of how Will’s character is ‘spinning’ Ciara’s life.
2. Morning Routine – I think this is the next logical scene to tell a story. Ciara waking up and going about her life. I also feel like it’s one of our strongest moments so we should keep it.
3. The Affair – Ciara suggested we could have a scene with me and Will to show what’s going on with us before we really know who I am. From this I had the idea that Wonderful Things could see us and Will would tell them not to tell mummy, which works later o for when Wonderful Things go on about ‘’can’t tell’ in the dream world. However, this scene could go in a different place.
4. Home Life Introduction – Ciara had the idea we could have a new scene here to show her home life with her husband Will (maybe introduce their issues) and her children the twins. Also I think we could show her having a tough/relatable time to help the audience connect with her as a protagonist. Here we could also have Breanna and Emily as social workers show up which is why Ciara is late to work.
5. Office – Ciara turns up late at the office and it’s revealed I’m her boss.
6. Birth – This is the first scene in Ciara’s subconscious. We could show Ciara sleeping on a table and then as we are all ‘born’ in a Butoh style it’s like her dream coming to life around her for the first time.
7. Wonderful Things – Now fully in her dream Ciara meets her exaggerated dream versions of her children. I think this scene doesn’t have to be changed much to fit the new narrative, maybe we could just alter the words and Ciara’s response a little.
8. Can’t Tell – This next scene with Wonderful Things talking through the frame over Ciara’s head before dragging her off also still works. Especially now they’re talking about not being allowed to tell about the secret they know.
9. Mask – The next scene is the one where I put a mask on Will and manipulate him into a beast. Again, this works really well with the new narrative and the way Ciara interprets it.
10. Spes – The scene after this is the one where I order Spes to find the intruder talking about The Red Tree. I think this might have to be adapted a little to make sense – maybe in the real world I send Spes to check up on Ciara at the office and that’s what she’s interpreting here.
11. Kieran’s Box – The next scene is the one where Kieran’s dream counterpart is introduced, stumbling around with a box on his head until Ciara helps him and he latches onto her as a protector and saviour figure. I think this definitely still works, especially if we play up the dependency and similarities in the real world.

I think that a lot of the ‘unreal’ scenes will need to be adapted now to be more about Ciara’s real life issues rather an finding the red tree, because that doesn’t really make sense anymore

Intent & Target Audience

I think these new ideas greatly change our intent and our target audience.

Having more adult themes such as affairs and supporting disabled children, and also having a much older protagonist will attract an older audience. Now I would say our target audience is people in their twenties and above as opposed to secondary schools. People in their twenties will connect more with the storyline and characters, but are also young enough to still appreciate the weirdness and fantastical aspects of Ciara's dream world interpretation of her life. However, I think people even older than this will still enjoy the piece.

Also our intent has changed. It was previously about showing the importance of hope, but now I think we have moved away from that. On Monday we discussed our new intention, and I think it is now to show that in hard times it's important to go back to your roots and ground yourself.

Set Ideas

For the set Will had the idea there could be a pile of soil for when Spes is digging up The Red Tree, and this made me think we could have soil all over the stage. We were inspired by Bertroffenheit, a production in which a man retreats to a 'room' which represents his mind, and I thought that Ciara's version of the 'room' could be a garden, maybe somewhere she knew growing up. This would represent her getting grounded, going back to her roots, especially when the red tree grows at the end.

Physical Theatre

On Tuesday we worked on scene 5, where Wonderful Things see the affair. Since the last scene leaves Ciara working at the office we thought we could keep her onstage the whole time working at the office, and I thought maybe she could carry on doing four movements to show her working. Then we had the idea to have Emily and Breanna and Sense and Reason, the voices in her head, talking at her and sowing the seed of Will’s betrayal in her head.

At first I suggested me and Will could show the affair through a chair duet, but then we realised there are lots of chair duets in the office scene already. Will and I considered doing Hymns Hands, but then Ciara suggested we could do the ‘under, under, over, over’ device we worked on a few weeks ago and I thought this was a really good idea.

Me and Will improvised a sequence with this device and I think it looked quite effective, especially as we will eventually polish it and make it flow more smoothly. At an intense point of the sequence Wonderful Things enter and start circling us asking Will questions he deflects.

I think this was one of the strongest scenes we devised today because it has a very heavy and moody atmosphere.

Evaluation & New Ideas

On Thursday we watched back our work from Monday and Wednesday on the new narrative and I think we all agreed that it didn’t work.

I thought scenes felt very unnatural and clunky and the narrative didn’t really flow, and a lot of the later ‘wonderland’ scenes didn’t really make sense in the context. The improvised dialogue was also quite flat and I think we run the risk of being quite cheesy too. Everyone agreed it wasn’t right.

We all agreed we should go back to our first few ideas – a more basic narrative which explores the pictures from the book and the feelings it presents. This will be more aimed at a younger audience and our target can go back to being validating feelings and demonstrating the power of hope.

I think we can use the material we already have but just rework it, maybe using dialogue to highlight the emotions and feelings we’re showing, for instance ‘do you ever feel...’ or ‘I feel...’

Devising Intentions & Influences

Devising Intentions & Influence

Statement of Intent

We intend represent the universally recognisable issues we all face within our own emotions and push the boundaries of an emotional society to present the message that hope is worth fighting for, and can carry you through hard times.

Our intent is to show through an entertaining and fantastical world the message that you should never give up hope, even when you feel lost.

Target Audience

Our target audience reflects the audience of the book which is universally accessible. However our piece is less child friendly as we have created a more disturbing tone and some scenes such as the birth one - inspired by Butoh - would not be suitable for children. Therefore our target audience is teenagers and adults.

The story of finding hope would be accessible to all different types of people, and the strange characters and world would appeal to both teenagers and adults.

Title

Today we also discussed the possibilities for different titles.

• Spes

This is the Latin word for hope. As hope is the central theme of our piece we decided to see what it was in other languages, however, we all agreed Spes doesn't sound very impactful. However we saw that the literal translation of this back to English is 'positively waiting' which we thought could make an interesting title. Also I thought we could use the word later on in the piece, maybe in a comedic way.

• Positively Waiting

This is the literal translation of 'spes' ('hope') back to English from Latin. I think this is a really nice way of describing hope, and also ties in with another possible title we came up with which is 'and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait'. However I'm not sure it's quite right as it might sound a bit cheesy, and also the audience might not ‘get’ it.

• The Wonderful Things

I really like this possibility for a title. Wonderful Things are two characters in our piece and also a phrase in the book so it relates to our piece well and to the original stimulus. It is also symbolic of how even the darker moments along the journey to hope are 'wonderful' as they get you there in the end. Also people will turn up expecting to see something ‘wonderful’ which might give added shock factor to some of the darker moments.

• Res Mirabilis

This is Latin for 'wonderful things'. However I think this sounds very similar to Les Miserables and therefore might not be original enough. Also it is quite hard to pronounce for the audience and for us.

Influences

• Butoh

Butoh was a physical theatre practitioner who is famous for his use of breath work and body isolation. His work is often very dark and unnerving, which works well for the mood of our piece.

We have used a few of his devices so far in our work. The first is a type of walk which involves breath work, staring straight ahead, not lifting your feet or moving your hips which we use after we are ‘born’, another scene which was loosely inspired by Butoh. We also use his focus on the back and back isolation with Will’s transformation into the ‘beast’.

• Alice in Wonderland

Our piece has also been influenced by the story, atmosphere and aesthetic of Alice in Wonderland particularly Tim Burton’s film version which is quite dark and unnerving at times.

When I first read the book The Red Tree some of the landscapes reminded me of Wonderland and also the fact that the narrative is very loose and simply follows a girl through a strange land. I think a few other people also had this thought which is why the story has been on our minds while we’ve worked on the piece.

Although we discussed basing the story even more closely on Alice in Wonderland I think the most it has influenced us has been with characters. Emily and Liv’s Wonderful Things are similar to Tweedledum and Tweedledee, my character Terrible Fates is a bit like the Queen of Hearts and Will’s character (by the end of the piece) is like a Jabberwocky. However the characters are all original enough not to be just copies and I think this influence works well with our piece.

• Commedia Dell’Arte

Although we haven’t taken as much from Commedia as we originally thought we would – we discussed basing characters on dark commedia stock characters – commedia has inspired Becky’s character Spes who is based on the stock character Zanni. However we have twisted Zanni into a darker character – still funny and comical but the evil servant of Terrible Fates.

Devising Week Three

Devising Week Three

Creative Ideas

On Wednesday we looked at staging the first scene of the proper narrative with Wonderful Things meeting Ciara. I had the idea that the rest of us could poke our heads through the theatre curtains offstage like we’re spying on their conversation. Will took this further by suggesting when Ciara asks where the Red Tree is we could hold out glowing red lights, and do a Butoh style walk out and around the three on stage.

I had the idea that just to further the ‘story’ more, The Red Tree could be a mythical symbol of hope that everyone in the land is forbidden from talking about. Therefore Ciara finding it would bring back hope and end the reign of Terrible Fates. This also led me to the idea that maybe the ‘beast’ she fights at the end to et to the tree is sent by Terrible Fates to try and stop her reaching it.

This led to the idea that when hope comes, our weird characters ‘die’ because we represent internal turmoil, and Liv had the idea that by the end Wonderful Things willingly sacrifice themselves for the return of hope which I think is a really lovely idea.

With this in mind we tried the walk again but this time when I clapped Will and Becky turned their lights out.

In the next scene we worked on I thought we could clue the audience in on this by having Wonderful Things argue and panic through an empty frame to each other that Ciara is talking about the forbidden Red Tree. Wonderful Things then decide to accompany Ciara on her journey and drag her off which is a really nice moment.

After this Will, Becky and I are still left on stage. We agreed there should be a short scene with the three of us to show that we’re the ‘darker’ characters who don’t want the Red Tree to return. Will had the idea to use a mask on the back of his head and use Butoh inspired back isolation in a effective and unnerving sequence which I think looked really powerful.

Working on this scene helped develop all our characters I think. It established that Will was a man Terrible Fates made into a monster to fight for her – this is symbolised by me stepping forward and putting the mask over Will’s face while he struggles against it. It also made us realise Becky’s character is like a dark version of the Commedia Del Arte character Zanni, who we decided to call Spes (Latin for hope which goes with our story but is a funny word that suits the character.)

We had the idea that after Will becomes the monster the three of us could walk forward to the audience laughing and then Wonderful Things could secretively sneak Ciara across the stage behind us. I think this could be a really comical and funny moment in our weird and dark play which we need, especially if they mime being quiet over the top.

After this scene we thought we needed another scene with dialogue that told the story more clearly, and I had the idea that I could call on Spes and order her to track down the newcomer in the land that wanted to bring back the Red Tree and maybe reveal that I don’t want it found/that it’s a danger to me. I think if we add to the story that Spes follows Ciara and Wonderful Things but doesn’t do a good job of being secretive, it could be really funny.

Me and Becky improvised this scene after a run through with me being snappy and condescending and her being totally oblivious and it was quite funny and also told the ‘story’. I think once we polish it a little most of what we improvised will work.

Staging

I have started thinking about how we can stage our devised performance in the college theatre. Many of the scenes would work well in the round or in traverse, although because we haven’t had that in mind since the beginning this could be a problem with viewing some of the scenes.

I think that we could possibly bring the audience closer to the stage as we did in Bronte, maybe up to the white line of the stage so we can really get up to them and unnerve them when we come into the audience and we can come up to them. This also makes it feel more intimate.

Character

I have also decided to try out playing my character Terrible Fates more fake happy and condescending because I think this is more unnerving and ‘weird’ than just being dark and angry all the time which is a bit cliché. Also Terrible Fates represents the darkness/negativity that rules Ciara’s emotions and depression can often seem normal/healthy so playing it like that will symbolise this.

Devising Week Two

Devising Week Two

Prop Work

On Monday we found a long piece of translucent black cloth and we played around with using it in different ways.

At first we thought we could use it for the fish somehow in the fish picture and experimented with lifting/carrying people in it and all going under it at once but nothing felt right and I think we were definitely over complicating it.

However when we went back to it later we were just playing around with it when we stumbled across some things that actually looked really effective. For example, while two people held it taut, me and Ciara ran into it and reached out on either side, and then used the rebound to pull and lean back and it looked very interesting, especially when Kieran joined in and we all did it in tandem. After we did it for a few minutes the force of the material and the momentum became very strong and wild.

Another really strong moment that I loved with the use of the cloth was when Emily and Liv had will trapped tightly under it and he animalistically came to life and tried to escape it – it looked very powerful and dynamic as a whole and the image of Will’s face covered by the cloth was very strange and interesting.

Teamwork and Decision Making

This week we decided to move more wholly into the world of the weird and wonderful, and a more unstructured format. I think this is definitely for the best.

Our plan before this week was to each represent something which society has a stigma about, take a picture from the book that represents that and represent it. However, I think this had the potential to be quite cheesy and cliché, as well as running the risk of glamorizing or glossing over details of personal issues.

We discussed cutting some of the topics so we could focus more in depth on the ones we kept, but in the end decided to cut all of them and instead work from creating surreal worlds, characters and representations of the pictures from the book. I think this is not only more original and complex, but also more practical – as a group we tend to work best when we’re acting on impulse rather than planning out and overthinking things.

I think this decision has definitely got some effects on certain things we’ve already done, in particular the scene where we all walk on stage saying a normal naturalistic line until it becomes heightened and then saying it in a sad meaningful way to convey our individual topic. I personally think we need to cut this scene altogether, even though it is a really good and funny scene, simply because it doesn’t work anymore.

Creative Ideas

As a group we discussed what we should do next after coming to this decision and we agreed to work on the opening of the piece because the first scene – where we all move as a crowd making nonsense noises until Breanna yells at us – didn’t really feel like a first opening.

I thought we could use some kind of physical theatre with a piece of music, maybe inspired by the ‘dance of morning/dance of spring’ workshop we did. We tried this but I thought it looked quite messy and didn’t quite work.

Then Will started twirling a chair around on one leg and with the music Ciara found still playing I noticed it actually looked really effective. Since an earlier idea we liked was opening with a spotlight on an empty chair in an empty stage I thought we could combine the two and have just the chair and the music for a few minutes before Will entered the space and started twirling it. Then we decided to have Wonderful Things enter, and then the rest of us in a choreographed eerie walk that would lead us into the group scene with Breanna.

We also worked on a different version of the scene with Ciara waking up where we all crowded around her and copied in a really exaggerated and unnatural way her miming her morning routine which looked very effective and I think can lead on to us maybe copying her walking like that.

Narrative

Another goal I think we could work on is having even a very basic running narrative through the whole performance just to link it all together because at the minute all the scenes seem a bit random and unconnected.

I think we could follow a basic story of Ciara’s ‘normal’ character being pulled into the strange world and searching for The Red Tree, which could symbolises her hope/home. To give other people more of a spotlight and explore all our strange, dark characters more, she could encounter us along her journey.

For example, I had the idea that after the birth scene we all clear the space for Wonderful Things to try and give her – very unhelpful – directions to the tree. As she goes searching she could meet us all, then eventually end up having to fight Will the monster to get to the Red Tree – this could symbolise fighting and actively taking a hand in hope/recovery/positivity.

I think this is a good idea because we could leave it all quite ambiguous and undeveloped to mirror the basic story of the original stimulus (the girl going through a weird land before finding the tree), or we could develop it further into more of a running narrative and introduce some more scripted dialogue sections between Ciara and the characters on her journey, and develop the idea of the Red Tree more.

Butoh Influence & Birth Scene
 
Also this week we watched a video of a Butoh workshop where one of the exercises was to be ‘born’ as an animal. This gave us the idea to try out getting ‘born’ into our characters and taking the more narrative part of the piece from there.

For this, we all laid in balls or weird positions on the floor dotted around the stage and over a piece of matching music would first start to twitch, then wake up, break out of our ‘eggs’ and then slowly stand up, all with very unnatural looking and strange movements. I think this could be really visually effective especially if we work on putting more feeling and power into it.

During this Ciara walks around without really seeing us – blindfolded by the same cloth that becomes the monster later – and Wonderful Things wake up first and guide her.

Naturally as we all stood up we felt to go into a V shape around Ciara at the front. I had the idea that Wonderful Things could rip her blindfold off and then the rest of us could run and clear the space so the narrative could really begin with Ciara asking them for directions to the Red Tree.

I also thought we could all occasionally poke our heads through the theatre curtains during this scene to try and see what it happening and then quickly hide behind the curtain again if Ciara almost sees us. Emily also had the idea that Wonderful Things could turn and shhh us sometimes too which I really like.

Characters

After I watched some of the scenes we already had and some of the scene ideas we were trying out this week, I realised that some of the most effective parts are because of the characters. Although they’re not like set Naturalistic ‘characters’, they are specific weird and wacky roles with specific traits (including physical traits - like Commedia characters) and work really well.

For example, one really strong moment this week was when Will was almost caged under the black cloth and he came to life slowly, writhing and growling, almost animalistic. This sort of strange beast monster character was really dynamic and fascinating to watch. Also I really love Emily and Liv as the unnerving over-the-top twins Wonderful Things.

Ciara and I were discussing her role as she is the closest thing we have to a protagonist – the character the audience will relate to like the ‘Alice’ of our wonderland. We discussed how she could be almost faceless and sometimes even Naturalistic compared to the weird characters, and Ciara had the idea that she could dress very casually to contrast with our costumes, and also that she could be called something so the audience know to relate to her – something like ‘You’ or ‘Human’.

We thought about me playing a Queen of Hearts type character who Ciara would meet on her journey which could work as a concept. I thought we could also name the character after a phrase in the book – I think ‘Terrible Fates’ works best because then it’s like Terrible Fates is ruling in this dark landscape. This would also work for the fighting the monster part we have for later in the story because Ciara and I end up caught in the same rope being flung around which would work if our characters were at odds with each other.

I think that once everybody has a set character like this the piece will become much more dynamic and interesting. However the characters we have created formed naturally through scene work and physical exploration, and I think the rest will come in the same way.

Devising Research

Devising Research

The Red Tree

Our stimulus, The Red Tree, is a picture book by Shaun Tan. The author, an Australian artist and filmmaker, has also written and illustrated other picture books about topics like immigration and social injustice. His books are categorised as children’s and young adult books, but tackling sensitive topics that still ring true with adults.

The book was originally supposed to be based on pieces of artwork about different emotions such as joy, anger, surprise etc. However as Tan was working on it he realised that the pages about negative emotions were more interesting and so he adapted his idea until The Red Tree was created. He said that he is more drawn to exploring difficult subjects because they are ‘still unresolved, like a puzzle.’

The book was a success and is often used in schools to teach children about emotions.

Expressionism

The style of the artwork in The Red Tree is expressionism.

Expressionism is a style of art (originally painting and poetry, extended to novels, architecture, theatre, dance, film and music) that emerged in Germany in the early 20th century, and the general idea of it is to present the world in a way that can be distorted or made surreal for emotional effect – expressionist artists wanted to show meaning and feeling rather than something realistic. Modern expressionism was thought to have been inspired by Edvard Munch’s famous painting, ‘The Scream’.

“Expressionism doesn’t shun the violently unpleasant effect. Expressionism throws some terrific ‘fuck yous’.” – Alberto Arbasino on how expressionism often features unpleasant or angsty topics and emotions.

The Red Tree uses expressionism by showing emotions through visual metaphors and conveying a mood and feeling through surreal imagery rather than through an actual story or overtly saying.

Costume/Make-up

Since we’ve decided to create a surreal world with strange and unnerving characters, I have found some pictures of costumes, hair and makeup that we could take inspiration from. Obviously we will not be able to recreate to this level but we can take inspiration from the general mood.

Devising Week One

Devising Week One

Creative Ideas



Day One



Today I feel we really made a breakthrough with the style of the performance as well as devising some potential scenes and coming up with some really good ideas.



As an exercise we decided to go through The Red Tree and come up with different physical responses based on each one.



One of the first pictures in the book is a clock in a cornfield, but we noticed that where there is supposed to be a cuckoo there is just an egg.




Ciara and Kieran made the trunk of the clock, Emily and Liv stood on chairs behind them like clockwork decorations that could hold the cuckoo, and the rest of us could walk across them in a clockwork puppet type way, whispering ‘tick tock’. We tried this out and it looked really effective, especially when Will had the idea to slow the clockwork walk down then speed it up.



When the clock struck and the cuckoo should have come out, I had the idea that Emily and Liv could pop out holding their (empty) hands out as if they are holding a bird but then realise their hands are empty, look at the empty space, look at each other and make a really stylised sad face. This led to the idea that Emily and Liv’s characters could be like the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of our piece, but could be called words or a phrase from the book – we decided on Wonderful and Things, so that later in the piece we could literally show the line ‘wonderful things pass you by’.



When we noticed there was no cuckoo we all deflated and crumpled to the floor, and then Ciara popped up saying ‘cuckoo’ like she was trying to make the cuckoo. Then Will had the idea we could all laugh hysterically but slightly unnervingly which I really liked as I think it made a really strange, uncomfortable atmosphere.



The next thing we looked at was the first two pictures that are accompanied by writing. They are of a girl waking up in bed with a few black leaves in the room, and the same girl trying to leave her room which is now filled with lots of black leaves.



I thought we could have the girl waking up really naturalistically and ‘normal’ so the audience are left not knowing whether or not the last scenes were real. Then we could have people cut across the stage (like leaves across her bedroom)saying on naturalistic line, so it all looks like a normal morning, but eventually everyone ends up on stage just saying their same line over and over so it gets quite unnerving and strange. Then we could physically embody leaves or pin her down using physical theatre.

I also thought that each of us ‘weird’ characters could be representing one of the issues we originally thought of when we first got the stimulus – autism, dementia, transgender, abuse, conformity, depression etc – and this could be reflected in the way we move, talk, and in our costume and makeup. Each of us could have a mini over-stylised strange scene based on a picture that represents our own issue. This would work with the books heavy focus on metaphors and symbolism.



I think that we should definitely carry on developing the scenes and ‘characters’ we created today and that this style would really work for the piece.



Day Two

Also this week we worked on a scene based on the leaves, and we involved a lift that would ‘fling’ Ciara upright and out the door, which she would leave with her bag in a more Naturalistic and contrasting way. I think the lift looks really effective.



However, I think the start of the scene – where we all cut across the stage increasingly loudly and quickly repeating one line – could be developed further in order to make it more interesting. I think the idea of it really works but with us all talking at the same time as it is I’m worried it might be a bit cheesy or cliché. However, the scene ended up being quite funny so I think as long as we play up and emphasize the funny side of the scene it should be okay.



Costume



I also started thinking about potential costuming for the piece today based on our new concept and I think it would look really interesting to have us all dressed different but very strange and wacky – yet slightly dark – like the characters in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, or the citizens of the Emerald City in Wicked. Especially if we are all representing a different issue, then we could somehow work our individual theme into the costume, hair and makeup.



Ciara also suggested we could all have a red leaf on us or in makeup on our face and I really like this idea as it shows the trail of ‘hope’ and represents how the red leaf appears on every page in the book. I think the leaf could be on different places on all of us like it is in different places in the pictures in the book.

Devising Stimulus Initial Response

Devising Stimulus Initial Response

Initial Response



Our stimulus for devising is a picture book called The Red Tree by Shaun Tan.



The book is mostly filled with surreal landscapes that include lots of symbols for emotion. Though they are all self contained the story that threads them together is a young girl who is on a journey where things go from bad to worse, but eventually she returns home to find a sapling in her room which turns into a bright red tree that shines light everywhere.



I found the book very touching, and it felt very personal and intimate. My very first interpretation of the story was that it was about depression and the red tree symbolises recovery and hope.



Another thing we noticed was that there is a red leaf on every single page, and always the bright red contrasted with the dark or strange background. I think this symbolises the path to recovery and better times always being there, even when you don’t think so. There is also a running motif of scribbles, doodles and hidden words or phrases.



One image that really stood out to me was the one of the girl trapped in a dirty glass bottle, because the dirty glass made it hard to see out and therefore distorted her view like depression/negativity does.



I really liked the surreal yet familiar artistic style of the pictures, how they were full of really interesting and different metaphors you wouldn’t necessarily think of – like how instead of a cliché ‘grey cloud’ hanging over the girl it’s a huge polluted fish ‘polluting’ her.



The style reminded me of the books A Series of Unfortunate Events in the surreal-yet-familiar, darkly funny, and ‘children’s books for adults’.



Creative Ideas



From these initial reactions I actually had a lot of ideas which build up even more at other people’s suggestions.



Because I really liked the way the text was written at first I thought we could incorporate the words in some way. We could say a line or a word each spread out across the piece or incorporate it into the story if we decide to have a proper narrative. However, I’m not sure how well this would work as it might end up being a bit forced or out of place.



I also had the idea that instead of coming up with one narrative or literally following the one girl’s journey we could have several different stories based on individual pictures in the book, as the pictures are all self contained. That way we could use everybody’s ideas.



For example, Ciara’s idea about the theme of not knowing where you are being to do with dementia would be based around the distorted view/desolate landscape pictures, Emily P’s transgender idea would be based on the picture where the girl is drawing herself ‘not knowing who she is.’



Then all the seemingly unconnected stories could be connected by the tree fit together like puzzle pieces. We could have all the characters actually know each other but this is only slowly revealed to the audience.



Ciara had the idea that there could be a big red tree in the centre of the stage and this gave me the idea that to start or finish the individual ‘stories’ we could either take a leaf from he tree or put a leaf on the tree. I also thought that between every few scenes we could have a physical theatre ensemble representation of the tree ‘growing’.



Another idea I really loved building on this synopsis is one Ciara had that what brings us all together is the tree being cut down. Will then suggested the characters could be the ones taking it down and I had the idea that if the tree represents the characters coping mechanisms then the ending could be them taking the tree down because they don’t need it anymore.



Then maybe we could all take a leaf or a red light and stand quietly beside each other at the front of the stage, and the lights could go down so just our handheld red lights remain.



Interpretations



The artwork is created to be open for interpretation from the reader which I really like.



I interpreted the whole book and overall story as being about depression/bad times and then the ending as hope/recovery, but many of the individual pictures could represent other issues too.



For example the picture of the girl drawing an outline of herself on the wall with the writing ‘not knowing who you are supposed to be’ could be interpreted as a representation of a transgender person’s inner struggle.



The picture of the girl in a wide open landscape with a hill that looked like a brain about ‘not knowing where you are’ could be about dementia. I also think the picture of the girl trapped in the bottle – although it could be about being ‘trapped’ in depression or the distorted views and being trapped by alcoholism – could also be about dementia because she is trapped, isolated and cannot see the world as it is properly.





Style

I think that this stimulus gives us the opportunity to mix styles. For example, if we decided to base different scenes on pages from the books, some of the really lovely moments could be more quiet and Naturalistic, while other scenes could be more heightened and stylised. I think the picture of the girl on a crowded stage being watched could definitely be very Berkovian.



I also think there is the potential for some Frantic Assembly devices. If we decide to develop the idea of using physical theatre to show the tree growing between scenes, we could incorporate hymns hands to show the roots and branches connecting and growing. 

Forced Entertainment Research

Forced Entertainment Research

Origins & Background

Forced Entertainment was founded in 1984 by Tim Etchells, along with the other five core members: Richard Lowdon, Robin Arthur, Cathy Nadan, Claire Marshall and Terry O’Connor, who met when they were studying at Exeter University.

They created the company because they wanted to do something different and do their own thing with their interpretation of theatre and performance.

“Theatre felt very protective and slightly tetchy about what it was and wasn’t.”

“In the mid to late 1980s it was very difficult to do anything that wasn’t a naturalistic, psychologically realistic kind of narrative theatre. Certainly it as very difficult to do things that weren’t linear stories.”

– Tim Etchells and Robin Arthur about what they wanted to challenge when they started the company.

They were originally created just to do theatre performances and then slowly branched out into live art, durational performance and space installations.

The Company

The company is headed by a creative team: artistic director Tim Etchells, designer Richard Lowdon, Robin Arthur, Cathy Nadan, Claire Marshall and Terry O’Connor. These six founders are the solid members of Forced Entertainment who run the company. 

They have several regular collaborators who they work closely with but can change from production to production depending on the performance demands. These include performers Phil Hayes, Jerry Killick, Bruno Roubicek, John Rowley, technicians Elb Hall, John Avery (sound) and Nigel Edwards (lighting).

Forced Entertainment also have a set management team, including executive director Eileen Evans, production manager Jim Harrison and office manager Natalie Simpson.

Funding and Marketing

Forced Entertainment started with money from the Enterprise Allowance Scheme which gave a weekly payment to unemployed people who were trying to set up their own business. The scheme was designed to bring down the number of people taking benefits from the government.

They are now a National Portfolio Organisation, which means they are supported by the Arts Council England who fund the company. They have funded the company since 2000

The company has a marketing intern on their management team, Calum Berridge. They use internet advertising through their website, clips and trailers online, YouTube and other social media accounts, as well as printing posters for their pieces.

Style

Forced Entertainment’s performance style is very eclectic and unique, often experimental and ‘weird’. They take inspiration from all over – the clowning of Jacques Lecoq and the fourth-wall-breaking and detachedness from the story of Brecht, although most of what makes their experimental style comes from them.

The main point of Forced Entertainment’s performances are to challenge the audiences (and their own) ideas of what theatre means, push the boundaries and definitions of performance.

One of their biggest concepts is that the relationship between performers and audience is the most important thing in their shows, and the focus point – not the story or characters. In fact, often there is no story, or they interrupt and break it up.

Artistic Process

Stimulus/Starting Point

Forced Entertainment rarely start with a text or script. Instead, they look to everyday objects and childish games to inspire them. Often they start with a prop or costume rather than a specific idea. For instance, a collection of random props or costumes next to each other might give somebody an idea they want to develop further.

They’ve described their stimulus or idea forming as being like children figuring out the best way to play with the toys that they have.

Devising/Writing Methods

Forced Entertainment have a very broad and unique way of creating their stories.

“We started working together in 1984; in the many projects we’ve created since then we’ve made lists, played games, spoken gibberish, stayed silent, made a mess, dressed up, stripped down, confessed to it all, performed magic tricks, told jokes, clowned around, played dead, got drunk, told stories and performed for six, twelve and even 24 hours at a stretch. We’ve worked on texts, we’ve danced and moved, we’ve fixed things meticulously, we’ve improvised.” – Quote from the company’s website about their methods.

Refinement

Their rehearsal process is also very eclectic and changes depending on the show and the different ideas the company members have. For example, though they rehearse what they have, they also constantly improvise scenes until aspects of it ‘stick’. They constantly experiment, debate with and discuss their material until they feel they have found a balance of where they have come and where they can go with the piece.

They record the rehearsal process on camera, especially during improvisations, so that they can look back over it and see exactly what everyone said and did rather than what they remember.

Performance Features

Though no two performances by Forced Entertainment are the same, they have many defining features. Breaking the fourth wall is a common one – they often comment on costume or voice mishaps on stage in front of an audience. If the actors become tired or bored they show it during their scene.

Forced Entertainment often use placards and outlandish costumes including wigs and clown makeup. Their shows also contain adult themes and explicit language.

Character/Plot/Design

Forced Entertainment also use often eclectic and surreal sets such as tinfoil stars, starry                night backgrounds, industrial ladders and paper, cups and mess all over the stage. Often the set is messy, or a mix of different ideas and concepts, and sometimes it is very minimal. Lighting is often used in interesting ways in their shows, such as strobe lighting or stark coloured spotlights, red washes. They also use smoke and dry ice a lot in their shows.

Character isn’t that important to Forced Entertainment. In Bloody Mess, the characters had the same names as their actors (Robin, Claire, Jerry etc). They are sometimes based on the actors or people the company know. Often though, because of the improvised nature of some works, character can’t really be set and sometimes what the actors are saying is true to them.

The plot in Forced Entertainment shows is never the most important thing and rarely coherent and linear. For example, Bloody Mess involves a lot of different stories and characters colliding and interrupting each other; Quizoola is just the actors improvising questions and answers for 24 hours and From The Dark is 11 different people talking about their fears.

Instead of one plot they tend to have lots of different stories and themes running at the same time that the audience can pick up on (or not). A lot of their plot is left ambiguous and up for interpretation.

Physical Theatre Workshop Presentation Research

Physical Theatre Workshop Presentation Research

Jacques Lecoq



Origins

Jacques Lecoq was a French mime, actor and eventually acting teacher who is famous for his inventive style of physical theatre. He was born in 1921 in Paris and learnt sports including gymnastics when he was growing up which started him down his path of physical theatre and mime as he thought of it as ‘physical poetry’. He studied athletics and became a teacher of swimming and athletics.



In 1941 Lecoq went to a physical theatre college where he met Jean Marie Conty, who was a basketball player also interested in theatre. This started Lecoq thinking about the link  between sports and theatre and though he kept teaching physical education for years he also joined the theatre company Comediens de Grenoble. Lecoq lived in Italy for eight years while he worked with Commedia Dell’Arte who introduced him to the ideas of using masks and mime in performance.



In 1956 he moved back to Paris where he opened his school L’Ecole Internationale de Theatre Jacques Lecoq where he spent most of his time until his death in 1999, teaching his own unique methods. In 1976 the school definitively moved into The Central, previously a gymnasium, which became a well-known boxing center in the beginning of the 20th century. The working space, built in 1876, is located 57 rue du faubourg Saint-Denis in the 10th district of Paris.







Key Features



His training programme focuses a lot on masks, and he uses the neutral mask as a starting point for his beginner students and build everything up from there. This is because he sees the neutral mask as the base of all emotion, and once you have mastered being completely still, indifferent and not telling any story at all, you can go anywhere and build anything up from it.



The neutral mask was also used to bring an actor into their body more – when the face is neutral, they have to use their whole body to convey emotion. Lecoq also had an ‘anti mask’ exercise which involved the actor having to use his body to convey an emotion totally opposite to the one on their mask.



He used a lot of rhythm in his work and teaching, believing it to be the key to any good scene. Having interesting, dynamic or changing rhythms would bring a scene to life and stop the actors from becoming flat or boring. For example, he would have one character only walking in beats of four counts.



Lecoq had the idea that there are seven levels of tension, and these are used to direct and tell stories in his work as a very key feature. The seven stages are:

1.      Exhausted – the performer has no energy. Lecoq likens this to a jellyfish with floppy limbs.

2.      Laidback – the performer is relaxed and easy, like a stereotypical surfer

3.      Neutral – the performer is totally neutral and indifferent, not telling a story

4.      Alert – this performer is curious and interested by his surroundings, can be in a childlike way

5.      Suspense – Lecoq likens this to wondering if there is a bomb in the room, and it can also be very melodramatic in the style of John Cleese

6.      Passionate – Lecoq likens this to the drama of opera, as if there is definitely a bomb in the room.

7.      Tragic – the performer is absolutely petrified: the bomb is about to go off. This can be very over the top and melodramatic.

Clowning is a big part of Lecoq’s teachings. He believed that by putting on a red nose and stripping down to childlike basic expressions of emotion and story, the actor is exposing the most raw and real parts of themselves.



Lecoq was also very focused on making sure every one of his students is treated as an individual and that he never tells any young actor what is ‘right’ because they are all individuals with different opinions and styles. The aim of his school is to produce a new generation of theatre work. One of his school’s unique features is how they teach a very broad range of theatre skills – they know eery student will take a different path and cater to that. They have roduced actors, directors, playwrights, filmmakers etc.





Influences



Lecoq was influenced heavily by the four hundred year old works of Commedia Dell’arte, originally an Italian street performance in the 1600s. Commedia used lots of masks to show character and the characters status, which Jacques went on to adapt for his own work. They also used a lot of mime, which started him thinking about the importance of mime in performance.



He is one of Steven Berkoff’s main influences. Berkoff studied at Lecoq’s school. At the school, Lecoq encourages students to challenge the way mime can be used in performance which is what Berkoff does to this day with boundary-pushing pieces such as Metamorphosis and Dog.



The London-based theatre company Complicité are heavily influenced by Lecoq’s work – the four founders of the company met when they were all studying at his school. They have said that it was Lecoq’s focus on clowning that showed them theatre ‘wasn’t just the Royal Shakespeare Company’

Frantic Assembly

Origins

Frantic Assembly was founded in 1994 by Scott Graham, Steven Hoggett and Vicki Middleton, while they were studying at Swansea University. They had graduated in English Literature and Geography, and never properly trained in theatre before they decided to found their own company, although Graham and Hoggett were involved in the university theatre society, as a prompt and a stage manager.

“We began with nothing more than a fierce work ethic and a desire to do something different, and to do it differently.” – Scott Graham, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Frantic Assembly.

During their time at Swansea University, they took part in a workshop by Volcano Theatre Company which they have called ‘a life changing experience’ that made them realise what they wanted to do.

Their first performance was a revival of John Osbourne’s Look Back In Anger in 1994 which Hoggett directed, produced and performed in. They staged several productions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in their early days, where their mix of physical work and acting began to attract attention.

Key Features

Frantic Assembly’s style varies greatly from production to production – the one thing that stays the same is the effortless mix of the physical and the theatrical, and how physicality is introduced to add to the acting and storytelling, the two complimenting each other.

For Instance, their production of Lovesong is much more traditional and Naturalistic in style, despite the incorporation of physical theatre, whereas Othello is much more explosively artistic.

Frantic Assembly performances usually have some artistic use of levels in them: a lot of the action in their performance of Othello takes place on a pool table, and some of the action in Lovesong takes place on the couples’ kitchen table.

The main performance feature that identifies a show as a Frantic Assembly show is the explosive use of physicality as a storytelling device – they are completely fearless.

There are lots of lifts used in Frantic shows, small travelling lifts and lifts where one person is swung around another persons body. Frantic also use lifts in new and creative ways, for instance in the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, they lift one character around the space so it looks like he is flying.

Frantic uses a lot of ensemble or teamwork to create physical theatre imagery and shapes, whether it’s a couple moving together or a group fight scene to create atmosphere.

Use of hands and contact between characters to create a bond between performers and show the relationship is also featured often in Frantic’s work. They have two different exercises based on this  - Push Hands and Hymns Hands.

Another key feature of Frantic’s shows is that they are always relevant. They tackle topics that are accessible and relevant to modern day life and people.

Influences

Frantic Assembly were greatly inspired by Volcano Theatre, as it was at their workshop the founders decided to create Frantic. Volcano’s influences are clearly seen in Frantic’s work – both companies use lots of powerful high-impact movement. Volcano also have done an updated version of Macbeth, which may have inspired Frantic’s modernised production of Othello.

DV8 Physical Theatre company also influenced Frantic. They were reaching the height of their success around the time Frantic was formed, producing powerful and impactful productions about controversial and often political subjects such as equality and religion. They used sharp sometimes dance-like movements to help tell their stories in new ways.

You can see their influence in Frantic through their physical movements – always explosive and interesting – and also in their storylines, as both companies choose to focus on sensitive subject matters.