Day 6

Only 3 lessons left until the performance!

So, today we finished off our contortionist act. It was difficult to rehearse today because we couldn't use the other classroom so we worked on the balcony.

We worked on the end of our contortionist scene, the mirror scene and the toy/unconditional fun scene.

Mirror Room

So, after we finished our contortionist scene (Which I talked about in the last blog post) we started working on our Mirror Room scene.

The mirror room represents the different emotions that the young girl goes through in order to grow up.

When she enters the room, the others actors are in a semi-circle facing the audience, just like in a fun house crazy mirror room.

Bridget Bur is the young girl in this scene, and she starts off by going to the first mirror. The first mirror is the 'normal' mirror played by Bridget Bos. The young girl and the mirror just reflect normally.

She goes to the next mirror, which represents Happy. Happy is played by Sarah. In this mirror, everything is overdramatic. The young girl tries to do a small turn and it is reflected by an overdramatic twirl by the happy mirror. The happy mirror is always smiling.

The next mirror that Bridget Bos goes to is the Angry mirror, played by Allie. Bridget puts her hand up to the mirror and it aggressively puts its hand up against hers. The young girl gets scared and goes on to the next mirror, which is fear.

We decided to make the Angry Mirror before the Fear Mirror because the Angry Mirror scares the young girl, and so it's very appropriate that since the mirrors are reflecting her emotions, the next mirror is fear because she is scared.

The Fear mirror is played by Peta. When the young girl goes up to the mirror and tries to touch it, the fear mirror moves back, afraid.

The last mirror is the clown mirror. The young girl expects the clown mirror to reflect her actions, but instead the clown comes out and slaps her across the face with the teddy bear that it still has from the start of the performance when it stole it off her.

I (the clown) slap her and she falls down. I then run around in between all the mirrors. The young girl has to get up and break through all the mirrors, representing her breaking through the main emotions that keep people from progressing on in life. Happy, Angry and Fear. When people are happy and content, they don't want anything to change, and they are scared to try to improve, in case it fails and they are no longer happy. When people are angry, they can go through a path of destruction, and break everything that they love because they don't realise what they're doing when they're angry. The main emotion, though, that keeps people from progressing in life is fear. Often people are too afraid. That's why it's important for the young girl to break through all the mirrors that represent her emotions, keeping her from getting through the door.

Whilst the young girl is breaking through the mirrors, I run to the middle of the audience and jump around crazily with the teddy bear. Our group right from the start decided that we wanted the clown to slowly turn abusive throughout the performance. Me slapping Bridget Bur with the teddy bear is the first sign of this.

I run to the next room, and the young girl follows.

Toy/Unconditional Fun Room

In this room, the young girl getting through to the next room after this one represents her maturing. At some stage in our life, we all have to stop having fun and grow up to make important decisions about our life. Choosing to grow up represents maturity on our behalves.

The clown enters the room and runs through to the next one.

The young girl, now played by Bridget Bos, enters the room.

Peta, who is playing the robot, is standing at the front of the entrance. The young girl winds the robot up and it comes to life.

The following is a rough dialogue of the scene. We have also used Levels in this scene to emphasise the message.

Robot: Hello.

Young Girl: Hello. Where am I?

Robot: Welcome to the Toy Box.

Robot walks over to where the Doll (Allie) is sitting on the ground lifeless.

Robot: This is Dolly.

Young Girl: She's so pretty!

Young girl picks up a brush lying next to the doll and begins brushing the doll's hair. Immediately, the doll comes to life and turns it face to look up at the Young Girl.

Doll: Hello.

The young girl is slightly scared and takes a step back.

Doll: I love you, Mummy.

The young girl continues to take a step back until she accidentally bumps into the Cow Girl (Sarah)

Cow Girl: Well, Howdy Partner!
Cow Girl skips around the young girl.

The young girl walks over to where a princess stands and the young girl taps her on the shoulder. Princess comes to life.

Princess: Well, hello Darling. Where have you come from?

Young Girl: I don't know. I'm lost.

Princess: Well, you're home now.

Princess takes her crown off her head and puts it onto the young girl's head.

Princess takes hold of young girl's hand and takes her over to Dolly. Dolly stands up and they all start playing 'Ring-a-Ring-a-Rosy.'

Everyone is laughing, clapping and singing along.

They all fall to the flaw and Cow Girl helps the young girl up. They start doing a cow girl dance, still laughing.

Then, Young Girl goes over to the Robot and starts pressing all the buttons. It starts dancing in a robot fashion.

Princess brings over a giant Teddy.

At first, Young Girl accepts it, but then she realises that she shouldn't and that she needs to get her old Teddy Bear back.

She drops the bear and takes off the crown and throws it to the ground.

Robot: You can't leave us now.

Everyone: Don't leave us. mummy.

Everyone puts their hand out at the same time. The clown re-enters from the exit door, clearly trying to see why the young girl hasn't followed it through the next door.

The clown grabs onto the young girl's wrist and roughly pulls her along. Both exit through the 'exit' door.

So, that's roughly what happens in this scene. We wanted this scene to have a lot of dialogue in it, because we wanted each scene to be completely different to each other.

Because the clown roughly pulls the young girl along, this also shows a step-up in the stages of its abusiveness. Even though the clown comes in to collect her, it wasn't saving her for the young girl's benefit. 

Also, through out the scenes, the clown's makeup will be getting worse and worse. By the end, it will all be smudged and watery, because I'm going to be spraying water on it backstage after each scene. This shows the downfall of the Clown which is supported by its abusiveness.