Thursday 28th - Run through

On Thursday, We were in the theatre for an LX Plot... Which ran up to about 2 oclock...

After lighting, we went to wardrobe to get our costumes on for a run through which the ND's watched... We ran through half of the play and had a Q&A to find out what they thought of it..

Some of the audience did not understand where they were suppose to be at all times, most of them followed the suitecase.. but didn't know when to move.. During this run, we didn't have the AV screens, so the doctors were unable to move the audience with the screens...

They thought that we all needed work on Characterisation, and "own " the space alot more, as sometimes it got abit boring..

With all the scientfic text in the piece, some felt that we needed to really understand what it is we are saying, so that when we are speaking it, it makes sense to the audience.. Also work on pronunciation of some of the scientific termanology...

We need to make our relationships clearer.. as at the beginning of the piece, when people walk up to Henry as Jaccapo is speaking, it wasn't clear on how some of the characters reacted... However, we did not get through the whole play, so some characters were not introduced at all of introduced properly.

We also asked if the movement sequences during the piece took away the concentration of what was being said by other actors, for example, when Britt and I do the movement sequence when Ryan is speaking his little monologue... the audience said that it was not interferring with concentration, and they were still listening to what was being said.... They thought that the movemnt bits werereally nice, but sometimes didn't understany what they were suppose to be representing... As they haven't seen the whole piece, aome of these sequences  make sense alot later on..

The audience felt that we needed to believe in the piece for them to believe in it and enjoy it... as we went in there quite negative about how it was going to be, and  the audience sensed that... We told them that because we had been in th theatre all morining, it was a big change moving to a smaller space, and not having the set and the props which add to the piece alot...

They understood the story and liked what they saw, they want us to give it more omphhh and really believe and enjoy whatwe are doing...

After the run, we went back to costume to get the final alterations done on our costumes!!

Please add anything I have missed..

Ria :)

Henry Speaking

Ria has found this. Zac, can you get the sound? it is towards the end, as you can see in the transcript.

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2009/dec/10/first-complete-brain-dissection-also-social-media-/

Henry Speaking

hello please help. we were plotting sound on thursday and we are really missing a good clip of real henry saying something poignant to finish the show with. 
can you please help find something and send me link?


i 'm sure i have heard him say somewhere if it helps others... but i cant find it.

thanks hope you are all having a good break

vanessa

Wednesday 27th Run Through!

Run Through

Today, We done a run through and blocked the WHOLE PLAY!!

We have decided:

• On our blocking for each scene
• Where we want the audience for each scene, do we want them standing around? Or sitting in the lecture theatre?
• New scenes, nearly all of us have written, are writing or adding to a scene for the play.
• No scale electrics to explain Synapsise, as it was broken, but a lovely idea..
• Do we use the doodle bug? I think it was decided that it wouldn't explain it very well?
• How and when Henry gets transformed from young to old, how the audience know....
• We have added in scenes that explain, relationships, science bits, family...
• Decided what voiceover we are using
• What else needs to be recorded
• Music????????

We were in the theatre for an hour...... So we were able to work with the set (Which is AMAZING!!), and get a really good idea of the space we are going to have to perform in... how much room we will have to move the audience around with. Also being able to use the AV screens abled the doctors to mark out, When, How, Where and Why they are going to be moving the screens... To move audience? To hide something? For shadows?

Also, most of us felt that being in the space made us more excited and optomistic about the performance...

Some felt that the show lacked energy... Because of the characterisation? Because of the script? Because of the way the story is being delivered?....

We all feel that we need to work on characterisation and really bring energy and truth to our characters...

What the actors need to do???

• Learn lines!!
• Email the new scenes to Vanessa this evening!
• Work on characterisation
• Remember the blocking
• Work on our Projection... Otherwise the audience will not hear us, and what we are saying will be lost...

Please Add anything that I have missed!!!

Thanksss......

Ria :)

How to explain memory

Hello all. There is a really interesting article about how freud likened memory to a magic slate. Not sure where it goes and if but some text about how metaphors have changed and they keep changing. But now we have the real thing to look at and digitise etc…..

Some ideas are that we write that (see notes) and also get the audience to use a magic slate as part of that piece. They might write down a memory. Then it wipes clean but you can still find it in the memory. Might we also link it to memories of buildings and so anticipate what happens in the bar afterwards??? And they can leave them behind with messages on them? (see picture below)

From the greeks onwards, we have been trying to find the right metaphor and analogy of how memory works. They said it was like a library, like an aviary, like a theatre, like a room, like a book, like a computer,

We are done with metaphors henry. We now want the real thing. Sliced, saved, shared, digitised. Parbola escrita… what is written stays and your brain might contain all the answers and all the questions. Each metaphor reflects the technology of the time

Synapsis Bullet points and Today's silks session...

During today’s silks workshop, we tried to use the silks for the ‘pass over scene’ between Jaccapo and Suzanne, and also we tried to mainly use them to explain how the Synapsis works.

During the Jaccapo and Suzanne scene, we created some nice images using the silks, but we didn’t know what the intention of the silks was actually for… Why were we using them? What did they represent? How do they represent it?....

As we couldn’t answer the questions, and in this scene the silks didn’t actually help in telling the story, we decided that we will not be using them for this scene, and find another way to do the pass over…

For the Synapsis scene where we explain the bullet points below, we thought of many many different ways of using the silks, we tried tying knots in them, people swinging, people doing areal positions, climbing up and having a knot tied in when you come back down, joining them, linking together and so many other ideas…. But we didn’t feel that it helped to explain what we want to explain, we felt that the silks didn’t really help in showing the journey that needs to happen when forming a long term memory. 

So we thought of using a Train set? Or Scale electric? Or cars on a track? Where, if one piece of these is missing, they will not work. We think that using the train tracks idea will help us explain the Synapsis story to the audience, and it will make more sense to them, so they will be more likely to take in the information that is being given to them.

When we come back off Easter break, we are going to be experimenting with the Train tracks and Scale Electrics and coming up with new ideas for scene that were originally blocked over by the silks.

Taz wrote the main points for Synapsis:  Bullet Points

·         The synapsis neuron is connected when a sense is received and the initial connection is then made

·         For the impulses to travel through the neuron, there needs to be a Connection

·         That connection is made by calcium protein, this holds the synapsis together

·         The bigger the impulse, the more calcium is produced to make a stronger connection

·         The stronger the connection, the better the memory

·         Henry had no hippocampus, therefore could not make the connections to form long term memories

·         The true function of the hippocampus is still being debated by scienctists today.

Ria :)

Silks Photo's 20/04/2011

Pics from Silks session.... Ria :)

Obituary broken up.

Hey Guys...

Here is a copy of the Obituary that I have broken up so that each character (Apart from Henry) has something to say about him at the end as we go around the Timeline like we tried in rehearsal today...
I have tried to break it up fairly, but also so that the line everyone is saying makes sense.... Also a rough copy of the timeline, so we can remember where we were all standing! (I think it is in the right order, if not just let me know!)

Ria :)

Obituary for Henry Molaison – Broken up between the character

Phenias - Henry G. Molaison, 82, of Windsor Locks, CT died on Tuesday. He is known in the medical and scientific literatures as "the amnesic patient, H.M."

Broca - He was born in Manchester, CT and graduated from East Hartford High School.

Tan - In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation at the Hartford Hospital to relieve his seizure disorder.

Wernicke - Immediately after the operation, Mr. Molaison showed a profound amnesia, which became the topic of intense scientific study for more than five decades.

Korbinian - From age 27 on, he was unable to establish new memories for events in his everyday life and to acquire general information about the world in which he lived.

Schoville - His memory impairment was "pure" and not accompanied by intellectual or personality disorders.

Bette - For this reason, and because the operation has not been repeated,

Brenda - he is the most widely studied and famous case in the neuroscience literature of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Suzanne - Mr. Molaison's contributions to knowledge about memory have been groundbreaking, and researchers worldwide are in his debt.

Jaccapo - Burial will be private.

08/04/11 - Pics of the run through of our New Script!!!

Hey Guys... Here are a few pics of our session today, we have changed the script, so we are re-blocking where we want our scenes to happen....

Ria :)

08/04/11 A New Script, A New Direction

Good day Bloggers!

This morning we were presented with two draft scripts of the memory play, one was the script we were using already but had been heavily cut, the other was a whole new script written by Vanessa which contained a large focus on the story of H.M without overdoing it with the brain science. Only one script would be used as as of today. After a sit-down read-through of both, the class was left alone to discuss which script we preferred. The new script won on a unanimous vote due to a stronger story-line, less head-scratching science and more space to devise more pieces, also due to the flexibility of the script each scene has the potential to take place just about anywhere in the set.

For the rest of the day we worked on roughly running through the script and blocking it to get a better idea of how the play will look. Stage positions was the main focus for most of the run-through and plotting our cues, the most memorable new idea consisted of all the characters standing in a wide circle around henry as the audience enters the theatre, each of us positioned in the chronological order of when we were alive from those dead, to those very old, to those alive and well. We have also started to play with the concept of all dead characters having a consistent theme tune played on guitar,so far we have a theme for henry and our great guitar players of the group are working on more for the other passed characters. Lastly we have an idea for a small scene with henry and the doctors with the silks which we feel haven't been used enough yet, we hope to be able to develop this with the silks on wednesday April 20th

It's safe to say the class is excited on how this new script will play out (If i have missed anything please feel free to add)

Thanks g'day much love!, Robbie aka. Monsieur Tan :-)

07/04/11 - Run Through!

07/04/11 – Run Through.

This afternoon, we had run through of out play. We were able to practice with some of the costume and two of the       AV screens to play around with (Thank you!), which helped us in shifting around the audience…. And helping us to divide scenes, and hide areas of the stage where cast were sitting but we didn’t want them to be seen, also for creating shadows and creative images using lighting…

After the run through we sat down and discussed what elements of the piece we like, and what elements of the piece we thought needed improving.

Elements of the play we liked:

·         The use of live music… Toby and Paul have written and composed a song for the piece about losing memory, through Henry’s eyes, Ryan has also written a song about memory, and Carmen sings over the rainbow. All these are live performances during the show.

·         The interaction with the audience… we like that the audience is taken around with us and not just sitting and watching.

·         The music is Engaging, having the music performed live is more engaging than having it played on a track, you are more likely to pay attention and listen to the song if it is happening in front of you.

·         Like the way that the lecture is cut, it isn’t just a long lecture, it is split up by scenes with Henry, and Schoville and Brenda.

Elements of the play we think need improving

·         We feel that It has become too ‘Sciency’ during the lecture parts, there is a lot of information to take in, will the audience be bored? Will the pay attention? Will they understand?

·         Need more of Henry, we feel that we need to see more of Henry. He isn’t in the paly as much as we would like him to be.

·         Where are the silks? We realized that we have only used the silks once during the run… We will play around with Silks on our Silks day and see what other scenes we can use the silks in, and if other scenes can take place around the silks.

·         Voiceovers, are there too many voiceovers? Do voiceovers affect the way we act in a scene or the way a scene looks?

If I have missed anything out Please add it!!

Tomorrow, we are working on restructuring the script… Making cuts to Dialogue and to the scenes that have too much in them….

But the more we cuts, means the more we can add! :) Woop!

Ria :)

07/04/11Some picture's of the Shadow's for the Operation....

Hey Guys, Here are some pictures of the shadowing for the Operation scene with Schoville and Henry...

Ria :)

From Suzanne Corkin... About Brenda and Suzanne swap over.

Hey guys!
Here's abit of info that Suzanne Corkin emailed
To be about how the change over between her and Brenda milners, and when she took over the research on Henry.... Enjoy... Ria! :)

​The year after I arrived at Brenda Milner's lab, she arranged for Henry to visit us at the Montreal Neurological Institute for a week of testing.  This was his only visit to Montreal, and it was a momentous occasion.  In May 1962, he and his mother came by train, which is how they often traveled long distances, and they stayed in a nearby rooming house.  Although he was one of many research participants who occupied my time at the Neuro, I always considered him special because his amnesia was so severe.
​After that one visit to Montreal, all of the testing with Henry took place at MIT, either at the MIT Clinical Research Center, which became a home away from home for him, or in adjacent labs.  The many researchers who passed through our lab and the Clinical Research Center staff were his extended family.  Milner, my advisor from McGill University, Hans-Lukas Teuber, my boss at MIT and Milner’s longtime colleague and friend, and I together initiated Henry’s visits in 1966, 1968, and 1970.  After that I took over the helm.  Although I had been running our lab since arriving at MIT in 1964, I became its official leader in January 1977 when Teuber died.  
​From 1977 until 2000, Henry was a regular visitor to the MIT Clinical Research Center, logging in fifty-five admissions.  He was the subject of much experimental scrutiny for over five decades.  More than one hundred researchers participated in studies of Henry in my lab at MIT from 1966 to 2000.  We all understand what a rare opportunity it was to work with him, and we are profoundly grateful for his dedication to research.  He taught us a great deal about the cognitive and neural organization of memory.

first run through!

Day of guitars and metaphors and stress.
we kind of have a play. but where is luke in the play?
that is our next quest.
our first run.
wobblies and cheesemasters and a director who is on the lookout for people pulling faces!
i personally feel like i'm learning lots but need time to reflect.
For tomorrow, i am asking all actors to put their phones away; properly away and out of reach during rehearsals and runs.
we are very nearly somewhere near something we could be very proud of.
and in the rush to get a play we must pause and dissect the sections of the process and stain them, store them, digitise them and make new maps for devising and collaborating.

Also, we have a title:

    

MARIA

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR PRESENTATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ideas to try tomorrow

• the bicycle suitcase full of memories, a bicycle and then Henry's brain that gets passed to jacopo.
• that bette also has a suitcase that is then passed around
• actually using or showing tom's conversations with luke and ria's conversations with suzanne.
• take that!
• more music how and where.
• over the rainbow coming back in after carmen sings it.
• also i think our play is missing some simple explanation / metaphor for how memory works. i think i have found one. could be very engaging and simple demonstration. (see photo of text)

Frontal Lobe Lecture

This is an interesting if not long lecture on the brain it has a variety of different information.
Ranging from Brodmann areas to Frontal Lobe damage.
Hope this helps :)
Ty

more script

Jason is building an old suitcase. It has a handle and when you turn it a model of a bicycle comes up and the wheels turn.

Imagine a scene where Henry, alone? Tells us about the suitcase. That it contains all his memories. That nothing more can go in it because he has stopped storing new ones. His mother, father, fishing trip, a girl. He takes things out and puts them back in because they are precious. Sometimes new things sneak in though they are not meant to. Finally he reveals the bicycle and so the reason that the suitcase if full.

Does he come and get us from the lecture to show us? Does he bring suitcase to us? Is that maybe when the new song happens?

I think we need to get overall structure and feel for the show before we decide whether tan/ phineas / korbinian need to feature more.

In the meantime, I would like to develop your modern doctor characters more.

Some ideas for scenes for you to think about;

Robbie or Robbie and Tyrone as modern doctors meeting Bette, explaining her story more and maybe going through procedures with her about what happens practically when she dies. That she will have to be frozen……

Taz, more on Phineas but maybe before we meet him. Or after? The ethics of studying the broken brain, the assumptions we make? How the doctors own the patients that they find……. How personality resides in the brain or memory or the spirit????

Contact Improvisation Inspiration

I remember we played a contact game a couple of weeks back so I thought I'd put this up since it could give us an idea for more fluid movement because at the moment the physical movements are quite robotic and continuously loop, so lets spice it up with some teamwork, contact and fluidity :)
plus you can incorporate some acro-balance and gymnastics which is always a good thing in my mind!
(use what we have learnt)
Ty

Script Idea for Henry and Suzanne scene:

Henry identifies the name Corkin

S: Okay Henry, i want you to look through this list on names.

H: Okay..

S: I want you to tell me if any of these names look familiar.

H: Okay…

(Henry reads through the list of names, studying them all carefully. He then points at a name.)

S: What does it say Henry.

H. It, It says Corkin.

S: Corkin? Have you heard of that name before? Do you remember what this person’s first name is? Or where you know them from?

H: No, no I don’t, the name just sounds really familiar, like I have heard it before…

Suzanne questions Henry on his family

S: Tell me about your family Henry

H: Urrmm..

S: Can you remember them

H: I can remember, when I was younger, and my dad and I went on a train ride…. I was so excited. I loved it. He brought me a hot sausage roll from the bakery afterwards.

S: That sounds like it was a lovely day out.

H: it was, I can still hear the noises that the train made.. it was so loud, I remember I had to shout for my dad to hear what I was saying.

S: Did you have to shout a lot while you were on the train.

H: I did abit, but most of the time I was just looking out the window, seeing how fast we were going as we past stuff.

S: That is lovely Henry, do you remember your dads name?

H: Sometimes…

S: How about if I asked you now? Would you be able to tell me his name?

H: ur, no, I I don’t think so.

S: What about if you saw your dad, if he came to visit, would you know it was him?

H: I’d like to think I would, yeah. … I, I think I would yes.

Here is a couple of ideas for scenes between Henry and Suzanne.

Ria and Ryan :)

Script Idea for Henry and Suzanne: Keep meeting.

Ryan and I have had ago at scripting Suzanne and Henry keep on meeting, we though that we could repeat this quite a few times, and also have a movement sequence to go with it... So that it can be done silently under Brenda's lecture, and then carried on after??

Ria :)

Script Idea for Henry and Suzanne: Keep on meeting

Suzanne: Hello Henry, I’m Suzanne

Henry: Hi, Henry… Please to meet you.

S: And you, how are you feeling today?

H: I’m feeling okay, thank you.

(Henry looks out the window)

S: Good, right Henry is it okay if I ask you a few questions?.....(Henry is still looking out the window)… Henry?

H: Oh, sorry who are you?

S: Oh, I’m Suzanne, Pleased to meet you.

H: Hello, I’m Henry, lovely to meet you too.

Music =]

Hi, I've been trying to find some music for certain scenes. Here they are let me know what you think.
Ryan =]

 For the operation with Schoville:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PtIHBCuR-Q&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv3H_SkNuRU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=disqzLW1QJA&feature=related

For Henry's Death:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGtN3lpI2f4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-j07BRzq1g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVVfPD12Ws4&feature=related

Hello people of the blogging world

We now have a script!!!!

The actors have managed to put a script together (with the help of Vanessa). I do believe copies of the script will be handed out this week to everyone involved.

Tom has managed to get in touch with Luke Dittrich and is now his best mate. Luke has agreed to look and the script and see if he can help out in anyway (what a lovely guy).

The next process for the actors will be to keep going through the various scenes and alter them slighty in order to improve them and make them interesting to watch . There are still lots of physical theatre elements that we would like to put in the piece that we have yet to devise so that will our next task. Then we will just keep running through the play using the various props and costumes when they become available

The costume and set both look pretty awesome in my opinion so very good work team. We shall try and make you proud when performing.

Thanks

Rory Schoville

Title

Please comment on your preferred title; we need to give copy for box office, poster etc early this week. 

silks

Who is on the silks? Luke, Bette, both?

Video in performance

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/multimedia-theatre/9498.html

Great Opportunity

There is an opportunity to get involved in this show as part of the Brighton Festival. Very interesting theatre company and great contacts to be made.


http://www.ilpixelrosso.org.uk/Pixel%20Index%20Assets/Shows/and%20the%20birds%20fell%20from%20the%20sky/and-the-birds-fell-from-the-sky.html

Let me know if you are interested and i will send you dates.

They are currently performing at the BAC one on one festival.

http://issuu.com/battersea_arts_centre/docs/1on1_finalx_web?mode=embed&layout=http%253A%252F%252Fskin.issuu.com%252Fv%252Fdark%252Flayout.xml&showFlipBtn=true

vanessa

videos of scenes

Please look on the facebook page and comment on scenes so far.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Memory-Play#!/pages/Memory-Play/199379723405820 

Also, Tom has been in touch with Luke Dittrich. We might send him a draft of our script to look at!

we might have a bit of a play ready! jobs & decisions

Is Henry's room raised? We might want to bring bed over to lecture theatre. or do we use wheelchair?
Bring the bed closer during the changeover between S. H. B.
Song for change over - play it a soon as  Henry dies.

Find Music for:
Rory operation
Hand over
Box handover
Paul Toby write a song.. Need it for Tuesday!

Be available and not ignore the manic emails.. Blog.. Email.
.
Find out when Betty and Luke come back.

How do we end play?
Giftbag for the audience? What goes in the giftbag?

The title...
Remembering?
Remembering Henry?
Remembering today?
Remembering H.M?
Room 133?
Not all of me will die?

Operation block
Scoville Brenda blocking
Suzanne Henry blocking
What the doctors do in the lecture. Film them and upload them!