Music for Lisa

Lisa uses music to distract herself from her problems - the polar bear scene. When she's in hospital, music is the only way for her to travel back to Dissocia without neglecting her medication. The writer of The wonderful world of dissocia, himself says that music is a key point of a play. We used a lot of punk/rock music - it was loud, emotive and powerful. This represents Lisa's chaotic mind and her mental health issues.

Diary Entry - Lisa

17th March

It's gotten to the point of the year where I can see the sun outside my room, but apparently it's too cold to leave the hospital. Average. I was given a new book, Claire (my nurse) gave it to me. It's called The Choice, the film comes out this year. Claire said she'd see if she could get me out of care for the day to see it. She got me the new drugs, I can focus on the words now without them going fuzzy or the pages doing things they're not supposed to. That normal people don't see. The last book Claire brought was a copy of the grimm's brothers tales - the disney ones. I couldn't get through it. It reminded me of the books my mum read me. I told Claire. She took it away.

Dot's better, she brings the kids more now. Vincent comes too, everyone's happier now that I'm taking the medication daily. But it doesn't feel right. I miss the colours and the music. It makes everyone happy though.

Anyway, time for face check. I have to go

Final evaluation

Final evaluation
Overall, I believe that our performances fulfilled the objectives that we set when we were rehearsing.
Our performances were filled with energy and every actor in the cast was committed to their roles.
During rehearsal I developed my character through exercises and imagination, during class we would partake in physical exercises to discover the physicality of our characters. I analysed my script in order to decide where the thought changes and necessary pauses were. This helped me to improve my scenes and performance by deciding what feelings/emotions that Lisa was experiencing and how to change them and portray them in the play. We took part in exercises that made us imagine and decide what kind of characters would live in the world of Dissocia. One certain exercise, we were all on the ground and listened to our teacher describe the world and events, this assisted me in understanding how the characters would act as well as how Lisa would react to being thrown into those events.
I also conducted some research on the other works of Anthony Nielson (see other post) this research made me understand the motives behind the play and how Anthony Nielson wanted certain themes to be shown.

Mental health in theatre

https://www.thestage.co.uk/features/2015/theatre-talking-about-mental-health/

Influences of Alice in Wonderland

http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Carroll__Alice_1st.pdf

The wonderful world of Dissocia is highly influenced by the book Alice in wonderland. Dissocia mirrors wonderland and Lisa is resembles both Alice and the White Queen. Both texts have references to mental health within Lisa/Alice and then travelling to a weird and wonderful world that shows both horrific things that scare her but also beautiful things and meet new people that make her not want to leave.
Through reading Alice in wonderland it has given an extra definition to the play, by relating Lisa to Alice I'm able to understand Lisa and find other ways to play her. It has also helped me to understand the writers ideas and reasons why certain characters and scenes have been included in the play.

Evaluation notes for 1st show

Everyone was very committed and focused on the performance

Everyone was on their lines and could continue after mistakes

We were able to stay focused enough to flow through mistakes and help eachother

Able to make our acting believable and experiment with different actions (keeping in the moment)

The audience was kept interested throughout the entire thing, no dead time

A feeling of high energy and commitment throughout

Our ensemble scenes were well timed and very strong

Our transitions went much smoother.

Research task - Anthony Nielson

Themes of Anthony Nielson's plays

• A prominent theme in his plays are sex and violence 
• He believes in non filtered theatre to show the realism of life but also keep it fun and entertaining 
• He was a part of the 'in yer face' theatre group
• He disliked the title of the group because he doesn't believe that theatre  

Research project plan

Roles in the presentation
Darcie - Talking about Anthony Nielson, his life and upbringing, personal details to understand the playwright and why he wrote the play.
Cat - The play's he's written, when he published them and what they are about.
Tazmin - Themes of his plays and how they're shown/why he includes them

Initial character analysis

Character - Lisa 

• Lisa begins the play at rock bottom with her mental health
• She gets increasingly happier throughout travelling Dissocia however she is still afraid and hesitant.
• She has a mother, sister and boyfriend who look after her according to Dot's monologue.
• Music plays a part in keeping her happy (hospital scene)
• 
  

Anthony Nielson

Anthony Nielson.
- Scottish playwright (from Edinburgh) born in 1967
- Best known for our play, The Wonderful World of Dissocia published in 2007
- Works include: the censor, Edward Gant's amazing feats of loneliness