RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
I enlisted the help of six actors for two research and development days, loosely structured around the text I had written so far. I gave all the participants a vague brief beforehand, the brief is linked below along with one of the pieces of text I used. This text will be referred to throughout this section.
FINDINGS
From the research and development workshops
I didn’t get to try out every prompt and I will definitely use this R&D day plan to workshop more content for the show in the future. The days got me thinking more about the complexity of couple dynamics and inspired me to play around more with using multiple voices, for example using pre-recorded audio to interrupt live speech.
There were lots of really interesting findings from playing with the Brain Fog text in the research sessions. Brain fog is a symptom of chronic fatigue/chronic illness. It’s generally categorised as a sense of mental exhaustion that makes thinking and processing information difficult, leaving you confused and forgetful. I found that building up layers of voices repeating the same phrases at different speeds and at different times really worked to emphasise the monotony and relentlessness of this experience. We also experimented with two people speaking the same text but at different tempos. This was horrible to listen to and I felt it really captured how jumbled my thoughts feel when I experience brain fog. We also played around with the tone of this, for example playing with these tempos but doing it super earnestly, creating a sense that the audience should absolutely understand what is being said (play video below)
Footage from the workshop:
(Play with sound on)
This inspired a moment of voices talking over each other at the end of my presentation. It got me thinking about all of the competing thoughts in my head when I’m trying to navigate my symptoms and medications and this reminded me of a section from The Shape Of The Pain by Chris Thorpe. The section is entitled ‘have you tried’ and is essentially a list of hypothetical remedies. For some reason, when you are chronically ill people feel entitled to give endless unsolicited advice and to question whether you know what’s best for your own body. Although this is usually well-meaning, it is condescending and misguided and can engender a sense of blame. Chris Thorpe presents the absurdity of this through a list of suggestions that grow more and more outlandish:
HAVE YOU TRIED
Have you tried thinking about how lucky you are?
Have you tried imagining how people cope with this in other places?
Have you tried cosmic ordering?
Have you tried listing the plosives?
Have you tried dolphins?
Have you tried not doing this to yourself?
(The Shape of the Pain, p.91)
Inspired by this text, and also by my findings from my R&D Days I decided to write a short bit of text imagining the condescending ways in which people might talk about me and my illness. This text was used as part of the funeral section of my show (A funeral for all the parts of me that were ruined by Pain and Bacteria - referred to in the text as ‘this power couple’). I want to develop this sort of experimentation with overlapping text in future versions of my show. I love how overwhelming and disorienting it can sound and feel it’s an appropriate technique to present aspects of my experience.
'I heard that they got her fired
they bankrupted her
they sabotaged her relationship
they were abusive
they compromised her immune system
they alienated her
they stole her appetite
they stole her sex appeal
She should have fought back
She should have practiced mindfulness
She should have tried homeopathy
acupuncture
bladder dilation
aroma therapy
primal screaming
She should have waited it out until menopause'
FUNERAL
(p.18)
REHEARSALS
Findings from the rehearsal process
As our rehearsals progressed, The character of Guy (Josh) developed from just being my character’s boyfriend to also functioning as a stagehand. Guy was consistently looking after my character, he had an awareness that he was in my show and needed to keep it moving forwards. This role developed naturally in the rehearsal process.
The dynamic between my character and Guy became a useful tool. We were opposites, he was energetic and positive and logical and healthy. This helped emphasise my state of un-wellness. I want to develop this dynamic and experiment with it more and I think there’s comedy to be had in the contrast between us. One invigilator, Hannah, fed back that she became interested in watching Guy/Josh watch me. He sat on the side of the stage for the scenes he wasn’t in but was always visible. This is something I hadn’t considered at all. Her comment made me think about the helplessness of the partners/family members of chronically ill people who have to watch you struggle from the sidelines. I want to extend this and will have more of an awareness of how audiences respond to Guy in the future.
