Plenty

I am a time line at the moment, I mean that I can’t separate things out, everything is merging into one, I’m seeing things or perhaps feeling things like webs.

Matthew and I discussed, in part, ‘origins’ at the last tutorial. That nothing is really new – so I live my life through a lens, that I experience what I do, in part, because of the experiences before.

I have perhaps lived my romantic life through the lens of Romeo and Juliet and My So Called Life. Clare Danes, Jared Leto and  Leonardo Dicaprio all seem a little odd when I see them ‘grown up’.

Of course first times, experientially, are first times, I may have attached what I needed to, to them. That I created the narrative I wanted and somehow needed for all sorts of first times when I was growing up…. maybe I didn’t really experience them at all, maybe I just created myself a sort of story I could play out, in a way that seemed right, or successful, or normal. Or fabulous even. But not ‘real’, or ‘authentic’.

I digress, I titled this ‘Plenty’ for a reason. I have just un-earthed a photocopied examination guideline for the essay I probably wrote to accompany the performance I did for my AS Drama exam. Since I doubt I used it then, it seems like it might be a nice structure to borrow, for fun, to push on some thinking, at least to try and put it to some  use.

…. flicking through the rest of the notebook, just after my notes on ‘scene 4, Pimlico 1947’ written in 2001, I have the original text from the first page of my journal for Underwear in 2006. Wierd.

When I came to Uni I missed my friends, I had the most amazing youth, I felt important. This section in the book is about that, I edited it for the Underwear journal, interesting what decisions I made then. (Maybe I felt I needed to re-make Underwear because it would lead me to the show I didn’t make then, the one I just managed to hint at in the last piece.)

“why is it so painful to let this go”

“the great love we shared is empty”…. this is what I was referring to in Left Luggage, this is my Nirvana moment. If I could take a fragment and expand it, its this one. I made underwear about sex, I feel this show is about relationships. I am still mourning the passing of that time….

….still mourning the death of englishmen who died in Dachau, men who died naked in Dachau…..

So logically, I mean, utilising my knowledge of a ‘process’, this is the moment I should expand. This is about first times, about always trying to replace the first time….. except, remembering of course that nothing’s new….. etc

Susan felt like this:

UNIT3: Section A, Study Area 3, Sample notes. Page 8

Rationale for putting on the play – what was it communicating about the time it was written or the time it was performed? Why are we doing it? What does it mean to us as a group? What relevance does it have?

I know Mr Harnan, really struggled to sum the play up when we were 17 for the programme notes. Its about that thing though, about having a time, an un-replaceable time that makes the rest of your life appear to be lived in tones of grey compared to the colour. Of course, its not to be discounted  that the times remembered in colour are somehow also blended with the life’s of everyone else, with the expectation of the experience – that we construct the history as we need to remember it, as we need to pass it on, so that others experience our first times too, as we constructed them,  whilst they use our constructions to help form their own…. r e p e t i t i o n? Where is the ‘origin’ in this scenario? With the Greek gods?

….

Study Area 1 – Analyse how characters, narrative and ideas are conveyed through theatrical presentation

Page 1&2:  Details of each character in the play and how they were interpreted. Comments on individual performances

Page 3: Examples of how the ideas were put across to the audience. Comments on the way the audience responded.

Page 4: Theatrical devices and conventions that were used to put across the play to an audience

Study Area 2; Interpret and evaluate a text as directors, designers and performers

Page 5: Notes on the Concept for the production. What was the ‘ruling idea’?

Page 6: Notes on how the design elements reflected the ‘ruling idea’ and contributed to the overall interpretation.

Page 7: Notes on what worked and what did not work and why in the production

Study Area 3: Consider the social, cultural and historical background of a text and its relevance to a contemporary audience. 

Page 8: Rationale for putting on the play – what was it communicating about the time it was written or performed? Why are we doing it? What does it mean to us as a group? What relevance does it have?

Page 9: Summary of research notes into the social, cultural and/or historical context of the play. Notes about the playwright and/or the first production of the play. Notes about other productions of the play.

Page 10: How did the audience respond to the production of the play? What did it mean to them? Was this response expected? Did it differ from the play’s original reception?

So if all the world’s a stage, if I have performed my life, in accordance with the lens I view it through, perhaps I could answer all of these quesitons, perhaps I could re-perform not only a ‘show’ but a life.

Actually, I think that’s what I am doing at the minute, I’ve taken to wearing t-shirts over long sleeved tops, like its the 90’s or something. The other night I went out for Halloween dressed as my 17 year old self. I actually ‘moped’ around a night club as a strategy for getting some male attention, ‘oh little lost me’. It worked, although nothing is quite as innocent when 10 years older that 17.

…… I could be 18 again……