After moving on from our original ideas, we decided to start fresh looking into more artistic and
representation ways of taking the script and its political message and then putting it into a piece. I think what made it difficult for us was that we didn't broaden our thinking in how we could use the script, instead we thought we had to have the piece as the court scene and take the majority of lines. Once we all decided that we could create something completely new from the script our piece started to move in a better direction. We all agreed that our piece was lacking the political themes and therefore we needed to hone into a theme we could explore in our piece. This theme we decided was going to be the strength of women, and how they fight high powers like Creon.
Through discussion and brainstorming we decided to begin our piece with Antigone talking about what she was standing for and why she believed in it, ie the burying of her brother against the kings will. We felt that it was necessary to outline the actual plot of Antigone at the beginning so we then have the freedom to move through some more abstract and representative ideas without the audience becoming confused or lost. To then establish the ideas that the characters had on what Antigone stood for, we had the rest of us standing around 'Antigone', slowly moving in and laughing. When we all got close enough we grabbed her to stop her speech and took her down off the block she was standing on, saying the line 'You want to bury your brother. Your a women, you stupid girl'. We then wanted to talk a little bit about the themes surrounding Creon. For the majority of the play a lot of the harsh decisions Creon makes are only because he feels can't go back on his word as then he would be taken for a weak leader, even though he knows that what he is doing is wrong. We decided to do this by creating a throne for Eric to sit on with our bodies, with the throne voicing the thought/s that are telling Creon that hes weak and need to be more of a man. To make that transition smooth we decided for Eric, the only boy in the group, to be both Antigone and Creon. This was so we could then carry him off the block and then place him down onto Joanna's back, where he then became Creon. Although it was done for a smooth transition I kind of liked the connotations of it, the irony within 4 girls saying 'Your a women' to the only boy there I found interesting and playful to present on stage as the dynamics where turned on there heads.
After this we went back to focus on the idea of the rise of women, where we stumbled upon the idea of using Simon Says as a platform but turning it into Creon says instead. This worked really well as we were taking a very light and fun game for children and turning into something quite dark, with Eric saying things like 'Creon says, wash the floor', 'Creon says, strangle each other to death'. It was very effective, partly because the way Eric played Creon was so scary, but also because it demonstrated the politics of our piece extremely well. A moment in that piece that I thought was the most effective was when while we were washing the floor, Eric uses out backs to walk across as if we were stepping stones. The physicalization of the concepts around women being treated like dirt and given no credit or value was powerful in that moment, especial the visual side of it.
representation ways of taking the script and its political message and then putting it into a piece. I think what made it difficult for us was that we didn't broaden our thinking in how we could use the script, instead we thought we had to have the piece as the court scene and take the majority of lines. Once we all decided that we could create something completely new from the script our piece started to move in a better direction. We all agreed that our piece was lacking the political themes and therefore we needed to hone into a theme we could explore in our piece. This theme we decided was going to be the strength of women, and how they fight high powers like Creon.Through discussion and brainstorming we decided to begin our piece with Antigone talking about what she was standing for and why she believed in it, ie the burying of her brother against the kings will. We felt that it was necessary to outline the actual plot of Antigone at the beginning so we then have the freedom to move through some more abstract and representative ideas without the audience becoming confused or lost. To then establish the ideas that the characters had on what Antigone stood for, we had the rest of us standing around 'Antigone', slowly moving in and laughing. When we all got close enough we grabbed her to stop her speech and took her down off the block she was standing on, saying the line 'You want to bury your brother. Your a women, you stupid girl'. We then wanted to talk a little bit about the themes surrounding Creon. For the majority of the play a lot of the harsh decisions Creon makes are only because he feels can't go back on his word as then he would be taken for a weak leader, even though he knows that what he is doing is wrong. We decided to do this by creating a throne for Eric to sit on with our bodies, with the throne voicing the thought/s that are telling Creon that hes weak and need to be more of a man. To make that transition smooth we decided for Eric, the only boy in the group, to be both Antigone and Creon. This was so we could then carry him off the block and then place him down onto Joanna's back, where he then became Creon. Although it was done for a smooth transition I kind of liked the connotations of it, the irony within 4 girls saying 'Your a women' to the only boy there I found interesting and playful to present on stage as the dynamics where turned on there heads.
After this we went back to focus on the idea of the rise of women, where we stumbled upon the idea of using Simon Says as a platform but turning it into Creon says instead. This worked really well as we were taking a very light and fun game for children and turning into something quite dark, with Eric saying things like 'Creon says, wash the floor', 'Creon says, strangle each other to death'. It was very effective, partly because the way Eric played Creon was so scary, but also because it demonstrated the politics of our piece extremely well. A moment in that piece that I thought was the most effective was when while we were washing the floor, Eric uses out backs to walk across as if we were stepping stones. The physicalization of the concepts around women being treated like dirt and given no credit or value was powerful in that moment, especial the visual side of it.
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