The Pillowman

This week we finished setting the first scene, working through the script. I am not in this scene so I was helping/ directing. It is quite a static scene as they are sat around the table so we had to add in some movement, mainly using Ariel. Ariel is a very aggressive and explosive so should not be sitting still as his character needs to bring tension to the piece. When setting this Dom was not playing the part as Ariel so we will have to keep working on his character to bring out the characteristics needed to bring Ariel to life.
Through the scene Ariel becomes progressively irate, starts pacing while Tapolski  talks to Katurian, and ends up physically grabbing Katurian with frustration. Ariel needs to be extremely physical as well as using the dynamics of his voice effectively to emphasize his mood swings and general anger. To go with this Ariel brings out some torture equipment to try and get Katurian to speak. We spoke about the kind of things we would have to go with the electrodes that are already in the script, like a hammer, pliers, a screwdriver etc, so just simple DIY tools that will be easy to get but still look intimidating.

The Pillowman

This week we decided to start with the opening of the play. Considering it is such a dark play we thought we would have a very contrasting song played at the beginning, at this point Katurian is sat at a table in the middle of the room with a bag over his head. This will create interest at the beginning of the play and get the audience thinking. We thought basic set would be best as it is supposed to be in a police interrogation room, so we will just have a table and three chairs which most of the play will be centered around.

The song we chose is the theme song from 'A Summer Place'. It is a light, airy, happy song which completely contrasts with the style of the piece and the opening scene although it does help to lighten it up a bit.

The Pillowman

We have started looking at a new play called the Pillowman. The Pillowman is a 2003 play by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. It tells the tale of Katurian, a fiction writer living in a police state who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories, and their similarities to a number of bizarre child murders occurring in his town.

This lesson we spent our time reading through the play so we could get to know the story and learn more about the characters. It is a very dark play with some humour but is very different to anything we have done, so it will be good to challenge us with more diverse characters. To decide who would take each role we ran through a couple of the scenes, switching characters around. It was decided that Carl would play Katurian, Dan Tapulski, Dom Ariel and I would be Michal. 

Michal is Katurian's brother, who is "slow to get things" following his years of abuse at the hands of his parents. He is found and saved by Katurian, who then continues to care and look after him, hence they have a close, loving relationship.