I have tried and tried to get a script done for this piece and here is an example:
Characters: Young Adult (Y.A.) and Subconscious
Starts with Blackout
Voice-over
Ramble of voices starts and the voices fade in the dominant one.
Fade in for the dominant one and a fade out for the soundscape of other thoughts.
Lights fade up and Young Adult looks around and sees they are trapped and struggles to be set free. They are not successful.
Y.A. (moaning) What am I doing? I have nowhere to go; no potential future prospects, no balance in my life.
Nooothing, nothing…..
Exhales with disbelief
What am I doing? Where is the trust in my life and in other young adults like me?
Silence
Anguish sets in with a slight feeling of regret.
What am I doing?! I keep moaning and moaning about not doing anything when I should be looking for something!
Urghhhhhhh!
I feel I am in some sort of paradox or in limbo.
So many people say to me don’t worry you’re fine, you’re not dead, and nothing scary has happened it’s all in your own mind.
It’s not…. others like me are thinking the same…
Cue in reports on young millennials’ thoughts and feelings which get louder in the mind, so uncomfortably louder that the young adult has to breathe in heavily to stop their anxiety.
Exhales
Just be calm, calm (breathes out) just contemplate your thoughts and do some tidying up.
Coughs, goes back to tranquillity mode.
Closes their eyes and breathes in….
Sound of the ocean starts to fade in
When they breathe out they open their eyes quickly and say…
Let’s do it…
They start to cut and, with every cut there is a specific news report or thought which causes a muffled background noise.
They talk their feelings.
I just want to sort myself out; my anxiety levels have risen because of this specific reason. There are no views for someone like me, no one to give me a chance to learn and experience so I can make my future bright and those people like me and people who will follow after me! Everything will be fine after this… all I need is some TLC; tender loving care for my own sanity.
Y.A. looks around in disbelief and struggles yet again to break free but unsuccessfully.
Silence
Looks around, uncertain that they maybe in that scenario
They get themselves out of the chair, look around in disbelief as the muffled sound continues to get stronger until it is unbearable!
The young adult cannot stand it anymore! (Voice over is done, time for their voice to be heard.
Y.A: SSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTOOOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!
Rambles carry on for about 2 seconds then the young adult shakes it off and then concentrates. Fades out
Mind state fragmented thoughts carry on but they start to snip the string a voice carries on.
I am going to this my way no other fuckers are going to help me!
People say to me you’ll get there you always will.
Yes, maybe, but others like me won’t; they will be suppressed until they fit in to some stupid, fucking cubical working in a dead end office job just so they can survive!
SURVIVE! No experience of life and actually living life, just surviving, that’s not what life is about.
The government have been playing with us ‘young people’ for far too long; it all started in 2012!
This was when the cost of degrees went up, sky rocketed up past the moon and through the stars into the arse hole of David Cameron with his accomplice George Osbourne.
A reporter in the Guardian newspaper wrote “George Osborne’s budgets have left young Britons with mounting student debt, depleted housing benefits, and cuts to youth employment and wage support”.
This was from a man who made us believe there were no strings attached because he wanted to make a stronger, secure and safer Britain; bull shit!!.
There is no balance whatsoever in this world, and I know it’s not just my age group that feels it but for every living thing on this planet.
It all started from around the time I was 11; this is when you start to grow up and become more aware of the news and understand what the world is all about for the first time. This is when you come out of that childhood bubble that was so abruptly burst that you couldn’t manage to take it all in!
There is no balance.
No balance
Balance no
Balance no
No balance
The sound comes back of new reports etc. they push it away through physical theatre.
So this mind is a palace, so why is it corrupted?
It needs to get stronger, more efficient and capable to survive
Because us millennials need to have a better understanding of the worked and the world needs to better understand us.
So the first thing I need to do it is, to cut the strings that have surreptitiously attached themselves to me.
The young adult starts to cut the prison of string and rope and tries to untangle themselves
Whilst this happens, the music and the reports slowly go away.
‘Mind over matter’ which means the use of will power to overcome physical problems.
For me this just didn’t fit into what I wanted to do. I felt like I was putting words into the audience’s mouth and like I said in my Non-narrative blog, I want people to interpret it with as much freedom as possible and let them have a unique time when watching the performance.
So, I thought how can I keep the piece immersive and interesting for the audience and that’s when I thought of my time in the studio when I rabbled on about my feelings about the way young adults are being treated by the government etc. I viewed a number of news clips on the topics on YouTube and just spoke in the space. That’s when my emotional pathway came through the most and as I felt more into the whole situation, I became immersed in it all and re-experienced the news clips again for a second time. That was very raw for me and I wanted my audience to have the same experience.
Once my final decision was made, I started working on my soundscape which was going to run for the entire performance; I worked on it for two weeks straight.
and here it is:
Whilst going through this process I looked at the Creating Solo Performance book again and found a section called ‘Approaching Technology’ and I found some of the introduction very useful before I started working on my soundscape.
There was a section in the introduction that caught my eye and I feel as though it speaks for itself:
“These… performers, designers and artisans who, through a blend of technical ingenuity, skill, story and stagecraft, created shows that brought the audience into a world where the ordinary became extraordinary”
(Bruno and Dixon, 2015, 149)
This is what I want to get a sense of in my performance when all the bits and pieces such as the set and soundscape all come together. This is the goal.
I want the audience to be overwhelmed by the way in which my piece expresses the negative feelings of the topic; this negativity will bounce off and cancel itself out if the audience feel they can change and fight the situation. This will show how “the performer’s role was to deny the illusion was taking place, to present the illusion a reality” (Bruno and Dixon, 2015, 149). so the audience can empathise with our predicament and treatment by the government as well as the financial millstone we have round our necks as we enter the employment arena. Another thing I found interesting was that, as a performer, I have the freedom to “bring the audience into the world of your story, amplify the mood or even deliver exposition” (Bruno and Dixon, 2015, 150); this excited me so I can be as dramatic as possible in order to get the audience to face facts about our current situation .
I carried on reading the book and stumbled on a section on soundscapes.
This section is basically telling you to engross the audience and capture their imaginations as well as in my case, their memories of the past and its issues such as youth employment, recession, student loans etc. This was great as the first line I read was “use sound to provide your audience with specific details of story, character or their world” (Bruno and Dixon, 2015, 153). This is my aim.
My main encouraging quote from this section is:
“Radio news broadcasts, commercials, public address announcements…provide the audience with information that might help them better understand the world of your performance” (Bruno and Dixon, 2015, 153)
Keeping this quote in mind I answered the question from the section:
When do the audience begin to experience the sound scape?
Straight away and then for the whole duration of the piece as the sound scape is the main focus and, with the help of the set’s imagery, I hope the audience will interpret it for themselves.
What does your soundscape reveal to the audience about your performance, the world of your performance and your character?
Honesty, truth, stress relief, pin pointing out the obvious, highlighting the troubling areas and trust, safe place to feel angry with the scenarios. Hopefully after watching it, the spectator starts to feel good as if it were stress therapy to see the same frustrations and anger performed for them.
Work cited: Bruno, S. and Dixon, L. (2015) Creating Solo Performance. London: Routledge.
