Storytelling

Recently our assignment in physical theatre was to tell the story of our chosen fairytale or myth.

The story I chose was Cinderella.

This is the original story: 

"Cinderella, a kind and thoughtful girl, lives with her cruel

stepsisters, Clorinda and Tisbe. They make her clean the

house, cook their meals, and sleep by the fireplace in the

cinders – which is why they call her “Cinderella.” One day,

while Cinderella works and her sisters tease her, a beggar

comes to the door asking for food. The stepsisters turn

him away in disgust, but Cinderella offers him something

to eat and drink. The beggar promises her good fortune in

return for her kindness, and soon, an invitation arrives – the

lonely Prince is throwing a ball in order to find a wife. The

excited stepsisters take the invitation, prepare for the ball,

and leave Cinderella alone at home to continue her work,

laughing when she asks to come along.

Tired and sad, Cinderella falls asleep by the fire. Her Fairy

Godmother appears, and with the help of a few spirits,

transforms the sleeping Cinderella into a beautiful Princess.

When she wakes up, Cinderella is delighted, but is afraid

her stepsisters will recognize her at the ball. The Fairy

Godmother gives her magic slippers, which will make her

unrecognizable, but warns her to be home by midnight, or

the spell will be broken.

Meanwhile, worried the ladies only want his power and

money, the Prince does not want to attend his own ball.

He and his page hatch a plan – they will trade clothing,

and disguised as a servant, the Prince will see who might

love him for himself. When the stepsisters arrive, they fight

over the page, who they think is the Prince, and ridicule the

Prince, who they think is a page. When Cinderella arrives,

the real Prince falls in love with her instantly, and they

dance and sing together. Soon, the clock strikes midnight,

and Cinderella remembers she must leave. As she rushes

out, one of her slippers falls off. The Prince sees it, and

decides to find Cinderella by searching for the owner of the

shoe.

When they return home, the stepsisters make fun of the

beautiful girl from the ball, pretending they humiliated her.

Soon, the Prince and the servant, still disguised as one

another, arrive in search of the owner of the shoe. The

stepsisters insist it is theirs, but of course it does not fit

them. Cinderella tries the shoe, and it fits her perfectly. The

Prince removes his disguise, revealing his true identity, and

declares his love for her. They agree to get married. The

kind Cinderella forgives her sisters’ cruelty." 

(http://files.coc.ca/studyguides/cinderellaschooltourstudyguidesynopsisfinal.pdf)

This is my adaptation of the story, edited down so it would only take one minute to tell: 

Once upon a time there was a kind young girl named Cinderella, who lived with her cruel step mother and step sisters. They always made Cinderella do all of the chores, sweeping, washing up, cooking dinner. She was miserable. 

One day, an invitation arrived to the Prince's ball, but of course, Cinderella wasn't allowed to go. Her stepsisters went to the ball and left her at home, sad and alone. Once they had left, a Fairy Godmother appeared. She gave Cinderella a beautiful gown and glass slippers, and told her she could go to the ball as long as she was home by midnight, because that's when she would turn back to her usual appearance. 

Cinderella went to the ball and met the Prince, and they danced all night long and fell in love immediately, because that's possible! But when the clock struck twelve, Cinderella had to run home, and she lost one of her shoes.

The next day, the Prince went around every house in the city, trying the shoe on different girls to try and find his true love. When Cinderella tried the shoe, it fit, and they realised they had found each other. They got married and lived happily ever after!

Rehearsal Diary: 

Wednesday 10^th September 2014:

This was the first day of lessons that we had with Sharon.

We started the day by warming up, and then we walked around the space in the room and had to freeze when we were instructed to by Sharon. This exercise made us more aware of and familiar with the space we were working in, and kept us on our toes, making us listen carefully in order to be able to freeze on time.

After we had warmed up, we split into pairs, and played a game where we had to mirror one another. We stood opposite one another and took turns to lead.

Whoever was leading had to do slow movements and gestures and their partner had to mirror them exactly and try to keep in time with them. The objective was to be so in sync with one another that if you looked at the pair you wouldn’t be able to tell who was leading.

We then worked on this further by going into groups of four, and doing a similar exercise, only this time, we had to stand in a line side by side, all facing the same direction. Again we took it in turns to take the lead, but it was trickier to keep in sync with more people, using only your peripheral vision to see what the others were doing.

This exercise built trust, teamwork and concentration.

After this, we split into pairs again. Now we had to tell our partner the story of our holiday. Once we had exchanged stories, we teamed up with another pair, and had to tell them one another’s stories.

We then had four different stories to work with, and we had to come up with a short piece of drama based on one or more of our holiday stories.

We had some time to prepare and rehearse our piece, and then we took it in turns to perform. We all gave each group feedback on their performance.

Our next task was to split into groups and make a spider diagram of everything we knew about physical theatre.

Once we had done this, we went back into our groups of four which we performed in. It was now our task to perform our piece again, only this time we couldn’t talk, we just had to use physical theatre to tell the story.

Again, we rehearsed for a while before performing for one another and giving and receiving feedback on the performances and the use of physical theatre in them.

The homework we were given for next week was to prepare a short story, true or false, based around an object. We would have to bring in the object next Wednesday and tell the story to the rest of the class.

Wednesday 17^th September 2014

We spent this entire day telling our stories based around an object to the rest of the group.

We told our stories, which could be either true or false, one by one, and presented the object our story revolved around to the other students. We then had to vote and guess whether we thought people’s stories were true or not, and we gave feedback to one another on our story telling skills.

This was my story:

Last year, during the summer, I was on a train journey from London to Penrith, which is a small town in Cumbria. It was quite a long journey, and whilst I was on the train, my phone ran out of battery and died. There was no wall socket to charge it in at my table, so there was nothing I could do.

In order to tell the time throughout the journey, I decided to get my little pink alarm clock out of my bag, and put it on the table. I had it with me because I take it wherever I go travelling, as my grandparents bought it for me quite a few years ago, so it means a lot to me.

The whole journey was fine, and when we got to Penrith station, I got my luggage and got off the train. But as I stood there on the platform, I realised that I had left the clock on the table. The train hadn’t pulled away yet, so I quickly got back on with my luggage, and went over to the table. I got my clock and made my way back down the carriage, but before I made it back off the train, the doors closed and we set off again!

I stayed on the train until the next stop, Carlisle station. While I waited to reach Carlisle, I called my mum and told her what had happened. She wasn’t very happy, but she left Penrith station, where she’d been waiting to pick me up when I got off the train, and she drove to collect me from Carlisle instead.

It was a bit of a messy situation, but at least I got my clock back!

The end.

This story wasn’t true, but the majority of the class guessed that it was. Some people saw the flaws in my story though, and worked out that it was a lie!

Some of the feedback I was given was as follows;

•  I needed to work on the structure of my story more, because I contradicted myself. After saying that my phone died on the train, I later said I used it to call my mum on the way to the next station. Oops…
•   The manner in which I told my story was convincing
•  The detail in my story was good

It was an interesting little project to work on, I really enjoyed it, and the constructive feedback I was given by the rest of the group was helpful.

Wednesday 24^th September 2014

Today we elaborated further on an exercise we did a few weeks ago.

What we had to do was each choose a fairytale or myth and think through the story of it in our minds so we were clear on the beginning, middle and end.

Then we paired up and told one another the story of our chosen fairytale or myth. I was in a pair with Nuray. She told me the story of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I told her the story of Hansel and Gretel. Next, we joined together with another pair, and one by one we told our partner’s story to the other pair. The pair we joined together with was Katy and Brandon. Brandon’s story was Cinderella, and Katy’s story was Tangled, the Disney adaptation of Rapunzel.

Once we knew all four stories, we had to choose one of them. 

We chose Cinderella. Our task now was to prepare and rehearse a short performance of the story, summarised so it wasn't too long.

Each group then performed their story to the other students.

Later on in the day, we had to do our stories again, but this time we were only allowed to use physical theatre to tell the story. I feel that this exercise really helped me to develop my physical theatre skills. Not only did it make me consider different ways of presenting the story, but it also allowed me to put them into practice and get used to using physicality to act. I really enjoyed it.

Again, each group performed the new, physical theatre version of their story, and we all gave feedback to each group. 

This is the feedback which our group received:

• We portrayed our characters clearly
• We used our rehearsal time well, as it was well structured and rehearsed
•   Our transitions from scene to scene were smooth

Wednesday 1^st October 2014

Today we worked with Sharon, and she allowed us to have most of the lesson time for rehearsing our pieces. It was good to rehearse them in a different space and see what it was like doing it in another environment, even though it was only slightly different.

Jerome and I found it interesting to work in the dance studio, as we used the mirror to help us see our own piece and work on the staging.

We also did a bit of improvisation, playing a game which was influenced by our Greek Theatre. It was fun, and I always find improvisation helpful as it helps me to develop my flexibility as an actor.
It's also nice to do things like improvisation games because it gives us a chance to work as a team, which is always great.

Wednesday 5th November 2014 

Today we started working towards a storytelling assignment with Sharon. 

Once we had spent some time warming up, we were told to find a space in the room. We then had to think for a while and choose our favourite fairytale or myth, or one we knew the story of very clearly. 

Then we got into pairs, and were given the task of first telling our partner the story which we had chosen, and then telling it in the space of about one minute, using all the different storytelling techniques we knew of. 

I was in a pair with Nuray. The story she chose was Peter Pan, and the story I chose was Cinderella. 

We had to fill out some sheets which asked questions such as what is the brief synopsis of our story, and what are three key moments in it. Once we had filled those out and had a clearer idea of what we needed to include in our storytelling and how we were going to structure it, we started to rehearse, telling our stories to one another. 

Storytelling thought cloud 

We talked about the different aspects of our storytelling which we thought were important, referring back to a though cloud we had made about it, which can be seen here on the right. 

Nuray and I wanted to incorporate as many of these different techniques into our stories as possible. We discussed the different points in our stories at which we could put the techniques to use. 

We practised for one another, timing each other's pieces and deciding which parts we could edit down to make it fit the one minute limit.

I really wanted to keep my target audience in mind, as I think it's important to adapt your story so that it's appealing to the people actually watching it. 

I added humour to my story using sarcasm and a sort of tongue in cheek approach to telling my story to appeal to the "sarcastic teen" comedy which my generation relate to easily. For example, I said "the prince and Cinderella fell in love in about ten minutes, because that's possible!" to make a little commentary on the fantastical and somewhat implausible "love" stories we are told in fairytales. 

I used characterisation and physicality in my story when playing the parts of the different characters. For the evil step mother and step sisters, I hunched over and adopted mean facial expressions, over emphasising the physical connotations which come with "villains" to make it clearer that they are the antagonists in the story.

I used timid and sad body language when playing Cinderella at the start of the story, so you could see how she feels about the way she is treated, and for the Fairy Godmother, I made sure my facial expression was kind and my movements were flowing and strong, as I tried to convey her magical qualities through the way she moved.  

Because when you are focusing on these details in your story it can be easy to become to absorbed in your own little world, Nuray helped me to remember to make eye contact with the audience, and make sure I was projecting to them physically and vocally. 

It was great working on this with Nuray because she was able to give me honest feedback as to how I could improve different parts of my story. 

Once we had spent some time rehearsing our stories and giving direction to one another, it was time for the class to all come together again. 

About half of the class got the chance to practice performing their story for everyone else, so we could get tips and feedback from the group, and get more used to doing it in just that one minute. 

I got the chance to practice performing it for everyone, it was fun and I got some helpful and very positive feedback.

Wednesday 12th November 2014 

Today it was time to perform our fairytale or myth for our storytelling module. 

We were given the first class to add the final touches to our stories, rehearse them, and work with one another to get them down to that one minute time limit. I worked with Nuray again and we really went for it each time we rehearsed, trying to perfect as much as we could in our stories. 

I really wanted to make this a well rounded piece, so I used this last bit of time to focus on fine tuning the little parts of my story that I thought made it interesting. 

For the rest of the day, we each performed our pieces to the rest of the class and Sharon, and they were also all filmed. 

I felt that my performance went very well, and I made sure to put to use everything Nuray and I had been working on over the last couple of weeks. I got a positive response from the rest of the group, and I actually really enjoyed telling the story to them. 

Wednesday 19th November 2014 

Today we started looking at our next storytelling assignment, which is about stories from World War one. We looked at the whole concept of war and shared our ideas and opinions on it. 

We started  by standing in a circle and going around it one by one, saying one word we associated with war. After we had done this for a while, we split into pairs. 

We had to, as quickly as we could, do the same exercise, but one on one. 

Then we did it where we added an action with the word we said, and we did it in several different pairs. 

Next, we formed groups of about four, playing the "Yes, let's!" game, but with the war theme. 

We would go around the circle in our fours and each say a word along with an action about war, then everyone else would do the same. 

We continued to do this, joining other groups, until eventually the class was split into two large groups doing this exercise, and then we directed our words and actions at the other group as a whole, and it became very like a battle itself, with opposing sides. 

Then, we split into groups of only about four, and worked on short improvisations based around just one word we associated with war. 

I worked in a group with Amber, Mara and Didi. The word we chose was dictator, and we did an improvisation about how one girl who wanted to be in the Hitler Youth turned on her two friends who were against it, and how that conflict led to their demise, and resulted in one of the friends actually killing another. 

It was an intense story even though it was short. 

Everyone performed their improvisations for the group and we all gave feedback to one another.