After deciding on the table arrangement, we continued to work through the final scene, and it was then structured as follows.
-The White and Red Queens and their corresponding friends sit at the table, all of the evil characters sit on the right side (from the audiences point of view) of the table, and all of the good characters sit on the left, all squashed in, and then the queens are sat on their thrones at either end, the Hatter is sat in the center, on a toadstool prop.
The Hatter begins talking, but as usual, he is talking in rhyme, and this makes all those on the table rhyme also, except for The Red Queen, who refuses to take part in these silly games. Even though the rest of the characters have no say in the matter either way, they simply cannot help it. After the rhyming stops, the Hatter talks of how he stole the remaining pages for himself to stop the fighting in wonderland, but in saying that the pages will go to the most deserving, inadvertently starts a fight, as the Red Queen misinterprets it as the most deserving meaning, the strongest, or the one who comes out best in a fight.
-A fight scene commences between the two queens, and The Red Queen distracts The White Queen and then pushes her to the ground, she then snatches the remaining pages from The White Queen and The Hatter, and shows off about having them. As she gloats the good characters use Fairy Gee's want to pop one of The Red Queens balloon boobs, distracting her, whilst the good characters free Alice and capture Hook, Smee and Evil Stepmother. While they do that, Tweedle Dee takes the remaining pages and hands them to Dum as a peace offering, he accepts and gives them to Alice, who in turn, gives them to the Hatter, back to the original owner. The Cheshire Cat sneaks away as The Red Queen is captured and chained up by Rapunzel and Little Red Riding Hood, and then everyone notices that The Cheshire Cat is missing, he is seen sneaking offstage but is caught by Prince Charming and given the 'Cone of Shame' a pet cone to stop animals from biting wounds, but also greatly humiliating, he is grabbed by the scruff of his neck and with The Red Queen is lead off to her own dungeon.
-Each of the characters are sent back to their books, evil characters are banished from Wonderland, never to return, and the good characters return to their books, but not before a song. The song 'We Go Together' from Grease plays, and this is when the characters go off and everybody takes their bows.
This scene has been very clearly structured now, and is almost perfect, the only thing it lacks is slickness and smoothness, and that is simply due to amount of rehearsal time.
We are roughly 6 weeks away from performance currently, and i believe with hard work, this pantomime is going to be a massive success. I am trying my hardest now to learn lines and be off scripts in one or two weeks time.
All scenes are now blocked and staged and ready, all that is left is to rehearse until perfect.
Monday, 10 October 2011
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
BTEC Performing Arts - Lesson Four
In this lesson we didn't have a warm up, but we worked on the final scene, Act 2 Scene 4, The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, in which we discussed various ways in which we could set up the table, my original idea, as script writer, was to have one long table, spanning the width of the stage, with the Hatter in the middle, and the two queens on either side, next to The Red Queen would be all the evil characters, squashed in together along one side, and the same with the good characters next to The White Queen, the squashed in look would be funny because all of them would be cramped, too cramped to fit in at that table, whilst trying to eat.
However, as this was not discussed beforehand, most people did not understand how the table had been originally mapped out, meaning lots of people had different ideas, some wanted the table to go down the length of the stage, getting bigger as it got closer to the audience, so at the edge of the stage, it would be large, but at the back of the stage it would be smaller, giving the appearance that the table was very long, however, this would mean it would be hard to see all characters, and some audience members would be able to see some characters, but not others, not just this, but the illusion would only work for those sitting next to the isle, for everyone else the angle wouldn't be right and the purpose would be lost, not to mention the excess material and wood used to craft the table. In terms of practicallity, this idea would just not work, and so was cut.
The other idea that was discussed was the idea of having two tables diagonally at either side of the stage, one side for evil, and one for good, but this would look too much as though it were broken and in bits, which in some aspects may work, seeing as the Hatter is 'Mad' but in the end it was dropped. This idea has a better chance of working, however, in terms of stage space, it may be problematic. So this idea was cut also.
The third idea mentioned was the idea of completely removing tables, and having it laid out as a picnic, however, this was also impactical in terms of stage space, as the fight scene at the front of the stage could not happen, because there would be a picnic blanket with cultery, plastic food and crockery, and so fighting over it would be too dangerous to continue. So we got rid of that idea too.
We later, went back to my original idea, of having a long table, covered in table cloth, that will seperate during the fight scene between the two queens. Because this idea works out of practicallity, which i mentioned at the start, but due to many people having ideas, we had to try all options, just in case we found something better, but as it came down to it, we didn't.
The idea of having the table in a line works in terms of being practical, because it leaves pleanty of space at the front, however, the Queens thrones are moved from next to the Hatter to the ends of the table, simply because the bases that they are on (mounted on wheels for movement) are too large, and would not allow the rest of the characters to be at the table. So the queens were moved to the end, and benches were put along the tables for the other characters, allowing maxium squashing to occur. The reason this works is because the space left at the front works for the fight scene, and the queens being at the edge means that they can get out of their seats easily, without an awkward fuss or knocking the tables over (although this was an original idea that was scrapped due to lack of interest) As the fight scene commences, the tables have to be seperated so that they can allow the evil and good character to rush to the aid of thier queens. The tables would be moved away, to the back, diagonally towards the back of the stage, towards the book, because there was not enough room offstage to fold the tables away, plus it would leave the stage bare.
However, as this was not discussed beforehand, most people did not understand how the table had been originally mapped out, meaning lots of people had different ideas, some wanted the table to go down the length of the stage, getting bigger as it got closer to the audience, so at the edge of the stage, it would be large, but at the back of the stage it would be smaller, giving the appearance that the table was very long, however, this would mean it would be hard to see all characters, and some audience members would be able to see some characters, but not others, not just this, but the illusion would only work for those sitting next to the isle, for everyone else the angle wouldn't be right and the purpose would be lost, not to mention the excess material and wood used to craft the table. In terms of practicallity, this idea would just not work, and so was cut.
The other idea that was discussed was the idea of having two tables diagonally at either side of the stage, one side for evil, and one for good, but this would look too much as though it were broken and in bits, which in some aspects may work, seeing as the Hatter is 'Mad' but in the end it was dropped. This idea has a better chance of working, however, in terms of stage space, it may be problematic. So this idea was cut also.
The third idea mentioned was the idea of completely removing tables, and having it laid out as a picnic, however, this was also impactical in terms of stage space, as the fight scene at the front of the stage could not happen, because there would be a picnic blanket with cultery, plastic food and crockery, and so fighting over it would be too dangerous to continue. So we got rid of that idea too.
We later, went back to my original idea, of having a long table, covered in table cloth, that will seperate during the fight scene between the two queens. Because this idea works out of practicallity, which i mentioned at the start, but due to many people having ideas, we had to try all options, just in case we found something better, but as it came down to it, we didn't.
The idea of having the table in a line works in terms of being practical, because it leaves pleanty of space at the front, however, the Queens thrones are moved from next to the Hatter to the ends of the table, simply because the bases that they are on (mounted on wheels for movement) are too large, and would not allow the rest of the characters to be at the table. So the queens were moved to the end, and benches were put along the tables for the other characters, allowing maxium squashing to occur. The reason this works is because the space left at the front works for the fight scene, and the queens being at the edge means that they can get out of their seats easily, without an awkward fuss or knocking the tables over (although this was an original idea that was scrapped due to lack of interest) As the fight scene commences, the tables have to be seperated so that they can allow the evil and good character to rush to the aid of thier queens. The tables would be moved away, to the back, diagonally towards the back of the stage, towards the book, because there was not enough room offstage to fold the tables away, plus it would leave the stage bare.
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