Jan lead a fantastic physical (dance) warm up this morning to get the team moving and grooving before some concentration games which included a game I was previously taught by Becky Poole (Above Board Fitness) which she calls Space Invaders and involves making eye contact and releasing people by saying their name… I was completely embarrassed by accidentally referring to each actor by character name which had been firmly embedded in my brain from the two read throughs on day 1! A fun start to the day anyway!

Then onto a physical activity; moving around the performance space individually as each character but all at the same time (permission to interact if you were led to this naturally) with stimulating music such as “65 Days of static” to also start exploring sound inspirations. I have attached my two favourite images that were discovered during this process. Please note that these are not set and were not deliberately staged, merely an exploration that both myself and director, Catherine Paskell, loved key moments of. In these I loved the levels created and the way in which Steph (played by Lowri Palfrey) and Simon (Gareth Pierce) are in their separate worlds, separated physically by Melissa (Jan Anderson) and Julie (Sara Lloyd Gregory) yet still connected within the space by simply facing in each other’s direction.

Also created were wonderful moments of mirroring (subconscious on the part of the cast members who through R&D and character development implies an already established level of connectedness between them) with physical positions such as head bowed over versus head extended up and back, and with energy levels. A beautiful moment between Steph and Julie occurred when Steph accepted Julie’s pacing and movements within the space, having previously been quite still- a moment between mother and daughter where they bonded and Steph appeared as a child as opposed to the young woman she had portrayed previously. Until, Julie stopped her momentum and the relationship deteriorated once more.

Exploring individual worlds within the same physical space created so many powerful images and helped the actors to experience the performance space in which there is no off stage area. Perhaps the audience will see what the characters experience and feel in the scenes in between their spoken scripted dialogue? Would ‘background’ actions and images support or contradict the stories and words we are told- do we then believe what the characters are telling us? Very excited to continue exploring these ideas and really appreciative of NTW TEAM for giving me the opportunity to experience working creatively on this project and see the development process.

Lunch was spent listening to and discussing what sound says about each character and how it contributes to the audience experience and the implications on the meaning and messages they read into the performance. Some very high pitched synthesised sounds to experiment with. After lunch we are going to apply some of the physicality discovered this morning to initial scenes. Excited to return on Monday to see more.