Solo Performance – Molly Moore

The Layout Of the Show:

• At 11am, the audience arrived and were allowed into studio 2 one by one.
• Danny then instructed them to take a balloon (which had keys attached) and follow the instructions on the table, and then enter the curtain. (The instructions were as follows: “Write, on the balloon, something that weighs you down”).
• The audience then entered the curtained area at the end of the studio, where they were greeted with an area with more balloons (with keys attached), colourful lights, and me, chained to stage weights, wearing 5 white balloons which said “Arthritis, Chronic Pain, Fatigue, Nausea and Being Left Behind.”
• There were also instructions saying “Let what weighs you down float away to help me to be free.” along with five pairs of scissors. The audience then cut away their balloons to use the keys, and used the other balloons with keys to help open the padlocks that were keeping me chained.
• Once all four padlocks were undone, Danny handed me my walking stick and I left the space, and it was the end of the show.

How I Think it Went:

I think the final performance went relatively well, and also, thankfully, it managed to fit within the time constraints. It took approximately ten minutes, which is excellent, considering it was not possible to time the show before the final performance. It seemed to be well received, initially I was worried that the audience might not understand the participatory element of the performance, as obviously it was really important that the audience did participate, but thankfully after a little bit of hesitation the audience happily tried to free me from the chains with the keys. The audience were silent throughout, except for a few whispers here and there, which is not something I expected, but it is something I understand, seeing as ‘normally’ theatre audiences should be silent unless requested otherwise.

Pros:

• The show is simple, and could be done pretty much anywhere. It has basic prop requirements of: Chain, four padlocks, weights, balloons filled with helium and keys on ribbon to weigh them down. Also, due to having helium balloons, LED lights were used as opposed  to ordinary theatre lights (LED lights do not produce heat, so there is no risk that they will pop any balloons). Which is another thing which is easy to use.
• It has no minimum or maximum amount of audience members required for the show to happen, as long as there is at least one person (who is willing to participate) it can be done.
• The are full of balloons, and me in chains with the bright party themed lighting made a really beautiful image. It was something quite simple, but felt really effective.

Cons:

• I underestimated the time it would take to blow up 100 balloons and tie the ribbon to it and write on it, so therefore only had approximately 70 balloons in the final performance.
• Due to the amount of balloons that got blown up, the space felt a bit empty. I had the intention of having 100 balloons in the space to make it look full of balloons, but unfortunately did not reach that.
• Due the audience being quite silent throughout the performance, and I had chosen not to use any music or sound, the whole performance felt very quiet. The only sounds there were, were the occasional whispers of the audience, and the keys on the balloons jingling. Although the silence was effective, it was also perhaps a little awkward, especially for a whole ten minutes of silence.

What I Would Change if I Did it Again:

• I would make sure I had more time or more helpers to blow up the balloons and tie the keys to the ribbon, as two of us only managed to blow up and tie approximately 70 in 1 hour and a half.
• I would like to have more keys for the padlocks (I had two per padlock, so one of each was attached to the balloons and the spare copies were given to Danny for in case of emergency). But if I had three keys per padlock, I could have two copies attached to balloons, which would have given the audience more chance of finding the key to unlock the padlocks. The reason I think this would help is because near the end of the performance, the audience could not find the key for my last padlock, and they began to give in. After discussions after the show, I discovered that some audience members thought they were not meant to find the last key. Obviously I did not want the audience to think this, because I needed to free for the performance to end. Alongside extra keys, I would maybe make it clearer in the instructions that there is definitely a key for each padlock.
• I think I would add some gentle, atmospheric music to accompany the piece – nothing complex or with lyrics, just something gentle that will compliment the piece.
• Lastly, I think I would have my balloons attached to me with something that could not be cut, such as a very fine chain, because then it emphasises the fact that I can not cut away the things that weigh me down.

The Process

The Initial Idea:

My initial idea for this piece was actually an idea I had last term, during my Contemporary Experimental Theatre module. The original idea was based on the theme of ‘a minutes silence’ – I wanted to question why we hold a minutes silence for some tragic events, but not others. It began with me in the curtained off area of studio two, blowing up one balloon at a time and writing on it a tragic event that we do not normally hold a minutes silence for (e.g. the death of average people, and tragedies in other countries). There would then be a minutes silence for each balloon written. I would have continued to do this until the area was full with balloons, and then at the end I would have popped all the balloons with a pin.

The Progress:

I wanted to use as much of this idea as I could, so I kept the balloon aspect, but not the minutes silence aspect. This progressed onto the next idea of me, still within a curtained area of the studio, blowing up balloons and writing on them things that ‘weigh us down’ while being in weighed down chains. The audience would also have been invited to come in, to watch/look at the balloons and also add their own balloon to the floor of balloons. All of the balloons would have had keys inside, and the audience would have been invited back at a certain time to pop the balloons and find the keys for my padlocks. It was at this point that I realised alongside the obvious metaphor of letting go of the things that weigh you down, it also strongly linked to my arthritis and how I can’t just ‘let go’ of arthritis.

After My Tech Meeting:

Something at this point that I hadn’t considered, was that I could use helium balloons and use LED lights. After Darren suggested this came the next improvement to the performance. We decided that it would be better to use helium balloons and have the keys attached at the bottom of the ribbon to weigh the balloons down, that way, the audience could write on the balloon what weighs them down, and then cut the ribbon to let what weighs them down float away. It emphasised the metaphor even more so and created a far nicer image.

Final Additions:

During my tech rehearsal, it was realised I needed to emphasise the connections the performance had to my arthritis, which was when the idea was suggested to have different colour balloons attached to me, with various words to do with arthritis. From this I decided to use white balloons, so it was different to all the multicoloured balloons, and also used red ribbon for them, as opposed to the white/silver ribbon I had used for the other balloons. The last thing I added was having Danny hand me my stick at the end of the performance, partially because I knew I would need it and also to emphasise that regardless of whether people help me, I’m still weighed down with my arthritis.

Overall

Overall, I have enjoyed the process of making my solo performance. It was nice to do something based on my arthritis, something which I often feel like holds me back and creating a nice piece of art based on something so negative in my life. Most importantly, I discovered that solo performance does not necessarily have to be a monologue, in fact it might not require any dialogue at all, the lack of dialogue complimented my piece perfectly in my opinion. Solo performance has increased my independence as a performer and as a theatre creator, and I’m extremely glad it was my last module at university.

My working title for the piece is Weighed Down. The progress that has happened since the last post, is that it is definitely set in Studio 2 now, at the end of the studio, curtained off. The audience will enter through the main door, where in the first half of the studio there will be tables with instructions for the audience to write on a piece of card what weighs them down in life, which they will then attach to the string of a helium balloon along with a key. The audience then bring their balloons into the curtained area, where I am chained to stage weights, using chains and padlocks. (Possible alteration to this: Audience write their balloons and take them with them to the next performance they see, they then return to me and bring them through the curtain – so that’s the first time they’ll see me chained up).

After this, the audience will leave and return (unless I do the alteration instead) and will be greeted with the simple instruction to free me, where they will then use the keys that are attached to the balloons to undo my padlocks – they will hopefully work together to work out which ones are needed as there will be 15 keys (because there’s a max of 15 audience members), and only 5 of the keys will work on the padlocks. Once the audience have freed me, I will simply leave, and that is the end of the performance.

Because I’m worried that it’s taken away the point of writing the cards with what weighs you down, I considered attaching the card further up the string, and then also attaching the key in way that that it cannot be used unless the rest of the string is cut off. So then what weighs them down will float away with the balloon. Hopefully this keeps the point of the audience writing these cards, as they are still being removed, in the same way popping the balloons did in my previous idea.

 

I finally have a new/better idea!

This idea is an improvement on something I considered doing last term in Contemporary Experimental Theatre.

Layout: Part of one of the studios curtained off, so it’s focussed in a smaller bit of space. The lighting state is neutral. There are no chairs. There is a table with balloons, pen, and instructions on.

What’s happening: The opening image is me with my hands either handcuffed or shackled to some weights (probably stage weights). I have a pack of balloons and a pen, and I’m blowing up balloons and writing things on them that ‘weigh me down’ (e.g. Arthritis, University, etc.). During this, music will be playing to do with stress, or pressure etc. (such as Twenty One Pilots Stressed Out)

The audience: The audience are invited to come and go as they please within a time (maybe half an hour?), where they can come, blow up a balloon and write something on it that they think ‘weighs them down’. Then they are invited to come back and help pop the balloons at a certain time. I would like all the balloons to have keys in, a couple of which are the keys to my handcuffs.

My aim is to get the bit of studio I’m using to have the floor full of balloons (like the image at the top), where the audience and I have written things that weigh us down on them all. And then for the audience to help me pop the balloons to remove the handcuffs I have. The instructions included on the table will say what to do with regards to writing balloons. Because I do not want to do and live dialogue, as it feels that would make it less effective, I may either include the instructions for when the audience come back to pop the balloons on the door, or have a pre-recorded voice over play when they come back. (Or both!)

The reason I’m weighed down with handcuffs & stage weights, is obviously to signify being weighed down. And writing on the balloons is to signify getting the things that weigh you down off your chest, by writing them on the lightest thing there is. And then the popping off the balloons is to ‘remove’ what weighs you down, and the audience helping find they keys in the balloons is to show that sometimes you need other peoples help to get over the things that weigh you down.

I like this idea because it includes imagery that everyone can associate with, it’s also quite a simple idea.

Things to test: 1) How many balloons it takes to fill a section of the studio 2) Whether I am able to blow up/write balloons while handcuffed to stage weights

 

So, naturally, having suffered with rheumatoid/juvenile Arthritis for the past 8 years, my initial idea was to do a performance on the subject, as, obviously it’s something I know pretty well.

I had the idea to create various numbers or words out of tablets and injections that I have from previous attempts of getting better, (like in the image shown). The numbers or words I create would be either to do with stats to due with me (such as amount of injections I’ve had, etc.) or just stats to do with the disease in general (such as how many people it effects per year). I had the idea of either doing it beforehand, and taking pictures of the final results, or doing it live for the performance, with a camera mounted above so that it can be projected live.

A minor detail I’d also had the idea of was drawing the circles and arrows on me that I had drawn on me when I had joint injections. I also have a blog that I’ve been writing for the last 2 years that could be used as potential material for the performance – http://juvenilearthritisandme.blogspot.co.uk/ this would be something that could give the performance a bit more to it and make it autobiographical. I want to have a nice mixture of fact and autobiography, similarly to that of Hair Peace which I saw in the LPAC a couple of weeks ago – the actress combined facts about hair extensions with her own journey of discovery about the hair and where it comes from. She got the balance of fact and autobiography right and it made the piece really interesting to watch.

Pros: It is something I know pretty well, and it’s an interesting topic as it’s something that isn’t widely known about.

Cons: At the minute there isn’t a lot of material to work with, I worry that using stats and facts will make it something I could hand out in a leaflet.

Overall, if this is an idea I want to work with I have to find some more, interesting material and make sure to steer away making it too factual, as I don’t want to give a lecture.

– The seats are laid out in a half circle.

– General wash of light as audience enter. White noise plays.

– Goes dark, then there’s a pinpoint light on a pair of shoes. Actor steps into the light and pinpoint expands to allow for the actor to be in the light with the shoes.

– Soft sound of people chatting and walking (hospital noise, beeping etc.)

These are my favourite shoes. These shoes are what brought me here, I suppose without them I’d still be at home, still be studying and with my family. But no, these shoes brought me here, and now I can’t leave. Not until I’m better they say, but I don’t see how I’m to get better when I’m not ill in the first place. I’m fine and no one here gets that. I don’t understand. I just want these shoes to take me home. To what I know and love. Home. These shoes brought me here and now I want them to take me home.

Everything’s just too clean here. It feels so clean, it feels dirty. But it’s not dirty. Not like it is at home. The mud trodden welcome mat, the dust on the top of the telly, the banana peel in the bin, the slight damp in the bathroom, the basket of clothes that needs washing… Home. I just want these shoes to take me home.

[Increased pace] People visit me here, and ask me if I’m okay? And I say ‘of course’ because I’m not even ill and I don’t understand why everyone treats me like a glass vase, teetering on the edge of a table, that might fall and smash any minute, breaking into a million tiny pieces… [slowing] I don’t understand. Why don’t they just treat me like I’m human? After all I’m not ill… I just want these shoes to take me home. I just want these shoes to take me home. I just want these shoes to take me home. I… Just… Want… These… Shoes… To… Take… Me… Home…

“Home is where the heart is” they say, well if that is true, and home is where the heart is, then why must they keep me here? My heart is not here, so how am I supposed to get better? It’s just cruel. Why would anyone keep anyone else away from where their heart is?  I’m not even ill! I don’t understand. I just want these shoes to take me home! I just want these shoes to take me home! I just want these shoes to take me home!

These are my favourite shoes.

[darkness]

So, this is what I wrote during our first writing exercise in our second lesson. It was a case of simply writing what ever came to us in the moment and not thinking too deeply into things.

Negatives: 1) it’s a rather cliché subject – it’s been done a lot and is anything but original. 2) it’s not got much content – it could do with more flesh on the paragraphs before the repetition at the end, because the paragraphs are so short it feels like the repetition is happening far too much. 3) In general the whole thing’s a bit too short – although I feel that I’ve closed it off and would struggle to make it longer without being too repetitive.

Positives: 1) Although I’ve wrote being cliché as a negative – it’s also a positive, as there’s a reason it’s cliché – because it’s simple and it works.  2) Repetition – although it’s perhaps used a little too much, repetition is good and can be very effective if used correctly. 3) Similarly to the work of David Cale, the topic isn’t from my own experience, but I have personalised it and made it sound autobiographical.

Ultimately, I don’t think I will be pursuing this monologue, I perhaps might take something from it, such as the topic of mental health, but that is all. As my first attempt of writing a monologue, it wasn’t awful, but it also wasn’t great. This will be the start of better work in the future.