I thought long and hard , judging the feedback I had been given, to create a worthwhile solo performance. I asked myself what would I really like to focus on. I thought about adapting the comic style and producing a sitcom in which I talked to myself, to display that many people talk to themselves in everyday life. However, this didn’t have much scope for how far the material would go and I am not very confident with many multi-media technological tricks , so I discarded this. I took myself back to the beginning of the module and asked myself what it was I really wanted to make the topic of my performance. I asked myself is the performance about self, and focused on how I have coped with grief, following a recent family loss.
I next placed this idea in a performance context and realized that it is too self absorbed. I pondered all the feelings of grief that I had experienced , and began to accept that this was a form of loss. I also knew that I wanted to reflect the real world in my performance and also not make it too painful for me by delving into sad memories. So, I took the concept of loss and wrote down 25 different losses, ranging from losing the will to live, losing my confidence to losing time and losing a loved one. After I had wrote these down and saw a pattern in how the losses were arranged, I grouped certain losses together. From this I examined that some of these losses were very minor and some major and decided that there must be a journey in my monologue otherwise it will be incomprehensible. Thus, I decided to start with the minor losses and increase the severity throughout the piece. I also became aware that if I specified the loss it would make it rather self contained , would lose the flow and not leave the performance open to interpretation. I then recorded this monologue for class.
This is the full monologue script- Loss
I was given positive and negative feedback from the class about the idea, giving me constructive criticisms on which to develop. My recording was well written and the range of losses were well presented. However, the advice was that I should say less about the bigger losses, as in real life what would there be to say? Furthermore, negative critique was that I should respond to the issues, without voice , as if portraying the emotions live behind the speech. Finally, I should give a different voice to each loss so each is differentiated well, and perhaps include fewer losses.
Within my feedback it was also proposed that I research into surrealism as the piece I presented had an abstract, surreal style. I decided to start this process by examining a surrealist text, and I have chosen Becket’s Krapps Last Tape. Through my research into the practitioner Robert Wilson I have scrutinized his portrayal of Krapp. Wilson’s gestures were exaggerated, almost as though he were portraying scenes from a silent movie. His face was open mouthed as though he has passed on to another life and he seems spooked by this. I wanted to take those key emotions he brought to the text , though I want to deliver the piece naturally , I feel it is the strength of the words without a specific topic, just emotions that trigger a surreal impression, not my live response.