Devising & Adaptation – Portfolio
What is Adaptation?
Adaptation in theatre
is where a director or creator will choose a certain section of a script or
performance and try to improve it whilst adjusting or removing other features
of it. Most of the time the arrangement and order of the script is changed in a
way that the story can be changed to fit a stage show. When books are being
adapted to stage shows the director tends to write the script in a way how he
views the story, the audience will be watching the performance through the directors
eyes. In the modern day modern dramas and musicals are mainly adapted to the
stage, it is very rare for this to be found the other way around. Creative
adaptation theatre is where a production is created by using the material from
a novel, film, play or musical, by using some of the material leave room for
modifications to be made, there is also change to show the directors personal
style to be shown in the finished piece.
‘This is often
achieved through changing the costumes and setting, couching a classic play
within a contemporary cultural or political landscape (Lane, 2010: p. 160).
What is the Devising
method?
Devised theatre is
where a performance or a performance, scene or script hasn't been written, but
more improvised by the group of people who are planning on performing it.
Before it can be staged the people who are participating in the said
performance need to get ideas, most of the time this can be done by playing
games. One of these can be having a random box of items and creating a story of
them, by passing it round, everyone has to say a sentence about the item and
when enough have been said there may be a lot more ideas and things which can
be worked with to add to the skeleton of the devised piece.
“This task takes away all of that need to please
and moves far from the safety zone of what the body has done before and feels
safe to return to” (Graham
and Hogget 2009: p. 152).
Quentin
Tarantino:
Quentin
Tarantino is an American screen writer, cinematographer, producer, film
director and actor. He used many theories, one being the Tarantino Universe
which is featured in his films. There is a “Realer Than Real World” Universe
which is a world which is near enough parallel to the one which we are living
in, however it is a more intense and over exaggerated version. There is also a
“Movie Movie” universe which features the supernatural somewhat nearing to
comics and films. Tarantino has stated that the characters who belong in one
universe can not feature in another universe. For example, the character Jules
in Pulp Fiction would not be able to feature in a “Movie Movie” universe such a
Kill Bill. However there are some characters who feature in both universes, the
character who has made the crossover numerous tomes is Sheriff Earl McGraw who
has appeared in From Dusk to Dawn, Kill Bill and Grind House. Ironically,
Tarantino had a foot fetish, I was unaware of this at the time, but we
performed in barefoot all the way through the show, I feel this could have been
our own little personal tribute to him.
Development
process:
For
our piece we researched Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and put
together a few short scenes, adapting them to our own personal taste. We
put together one from Reservoir Dogs, we chose this scene:
We
re-enacted this scene on stage with this song playing in the background during
it:
Before
the scene started we played this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlQhDN1Onho,
we chose these two scenes to put together in our own scene because they both
use the mention of names, the first video we had shown featured the boss
telling his workers that they can never reveal their own names and the last
scene where one of the characters begs the other to breach confidentiality with
his name. We liked the way they linked and everyone would understand the link
as it was pretty clear. We chose the song in particular as it could act as
something that is on the radio and it was quite a cheerful song given the
situation, we wanted to add a little bit of comedy value to our scene.
For
our group performance we thought about things that Tarantino puts in to his
work, such as references, Tarantino references many comic books in his films,
for example, in Reservoir Dogs one of the characters says "fucking
Charlie Chan". We added references of our own in our performance,
in the "Romance" scene each pair made a tableau, originally we were
just going to stand in our poses, but instead agreed to reference other films
this widened the range for the audience, as they would be able to pick out which
films they knew, we included references from Dirty Dancing, Titanic and some
Disney films, I feel like this changed the range of the piece which we had had
before.
Our
performance was adapted to be shown on the stage by using cameras and screens,
we had four of these screens set up hanging from the ceiling of the theatre, we
had four cameras who would be catching the acting which would be happening on
stage, there was also four microphones, two on each side of the stage which
would be used when text would be said, everyone who is on the stage rarely
speak.
The
text which I spoke was a piece from Kill Bill, where she wakes up from her
coma, the piece of text was split between three of us. I feel cutting it up
gave more of an effect to the piece because the voices were coming from
different directions, it also sounded a bit choppy, but even though we were
saying lines each the text sounded as though it still flowed, it still sounded
like it was from the same scene. Whilst we were talking on the microphones, the
screens were showing the brides who were reacting to what was being said
through the microphones. I felt that this had a good effect because it was as
though the audience would be watching the film as it is shown on the screen.
We
overlapped quite a bit in this performance, we had pieces of text which Tarantino
did not even say himself, but quotations of what people had said about him. We
put some of this over scenes and others
Postmodern
Theatre:
Postmodern theatre is theatre which wants to remove the ideas of
modernism. The theories of modern theatre which imply that the universal truths
can be only be achieved through imagination. Postmodern theatre wants to remove
the thought that theatre has to be make-believe and unrealistic, postmodern
theatre aims to have theatre be seen as a real life happening, something which
can involve the audience and get them to participate. Postmodern theatre cuts
down character development and highlights human experiences by using history
and social issues. Modern theatre uses the ideas which Aristotle discovered,
such as drama can reveal universal truths. The theories surrounding modern
theatre can imply that the universal truths can be achieved through the plot of
the piece and character development, this is completely different to postmodern
theatre, which look into the numerous possible universal truths all depending
on the point of view of the actors, audience and some playwrights to help shape
it. The audience are heavily involved in post modern theatre as it helps them
to question the difference between art and reality.
Overall, I think the
performance and the project as a whole went well as I do not think the audience
were expecting it. It changed theatre in a very intimate way as the audience
did not think that as soon as they were bought in to the room they would in
fact be the ones who would be on the stage looking at us. The fact the audience
would most probably know the references which we inserted in the piece made me
feel like they would want to interact with us more as it is something that is
familiar to them.
If I were to do this
project again I would probably want to experiment more with over lapping, I
would be more brave as to which scenes I would be overlapping, with music from
films that even though are in the same category are two different
worlds apart. I would also like to add more scenes from the films on the
screen, but have the talking through a microphone. I think this part of the
performance worked really well because it was all in sync, however if this was
done more often I'm not sure if it would take away the effect it had.
