I decided on this particular design to work with as it gave me exactly what I wanted and it is how I want my audience to view the stage. Gregors room is placed above the living area, to help me portray the idea that he may be different to them, but he is still above them both literally and mentally. I wanted the stairs/ladders/lift to be an important place on stag
e as it is pivotal to the scene I have chosen, so it is imperative that the audience are able to see properly, which is why I have decided to make it about 35% of the stage width.
The doorway has been located at the back of the stage on the right, but not right at the edge. I wanted it to be a focal point as the lodgers will be leaving the stage with disgust and horror during this scene and I like the idea that their backs will be turned as they leave the stage. It will hopefully help to show their disgust towards Gregor and discarding the family for hiding such a hideous secret from them.
Before sketching out the 2 sub-genre ideas I have collected, I want to draw a basic design to follow. This will help me when I am bringing the sub-genres together, giving me a clearer picture of my final ideas. I also choose to design this way because I have found I work best when I can put things together in an almost puzzle like fashion, fitting pieces together and blending them in.
Below are some ideas I have drawn out in my sketchbook
The photo below was one that stood out for me. The character in the photo is trapped, gagged and unable to hear. He is bound by the futuristic ties of electricity and it make me wonder if the machine creating the ties has independent thought or is being controlled by someone out of shot.I would like to bring the electric ties into my sketches and the idea of Gregor being controlled by someone else, maybe the creature he has become on the outside.
Although The Matix has given me a base to work off in terms of the ideology behind the The photos below show the more futuristic side of the cyberpunk sub-genre and demonstrate the influences I will be using in my sketches. The metal structures, almost prison like and that bright beams of light.cyberpunk sub-genre and also the idea of colours and lightening, I want to look into other classic cyberpunk looks for my theatre box.
I chose to look at the Cyberpunk sub-genre for a number of reasons. The most important one to me is the idea that Gregor is something alien like, unexplainable and shocking. These things to me can be easily placed into the Sci-fi genre. Choosing Cyberpunk from this was purely for contrast against the English Gothic. The high technology aspect of the sub-genre will help me show the difference between the family and Gregor. He is trying to understand this futuristic, unrealised being he has become and his family are set in their ways, stubborn and unwilling to accept the fact that although he has changed on the outside, he is still the same person within.
Lawrence Person, editor of Nova Express –a science fiction fanzine- describes a classic cyberpunk character as ‘marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society’, traits I feel Gregor beholds.
The example of Cyberpunk I looked into was the film The Matrix. To summarise this film....
‘Thomas A. Anderson is a man living two lives. By day he is an average computer programmer and by night a malevolent hacker known as Neo. Neo has always questioned his reality but the truth is far beyond his imagination. Neo finds himself targeted by the police when he is contacted by Morpheus, a legendary computer hacker branded a terrorist by the government. Morpheus awakens Neo to the real world, a ravaged wasteland where most of humanity have been captured by a race of machines which live off of their body heat and imprison their minds within an artificial reality known as the Matrix. As a rebel against the machines, Neo must return to the Matrix and confront the agents, super powerful computer programs devoted to snuffing out Neo and the entire human rebellion.’
The link below explains the ideas of imprisonment within the matrix, and how Neo becomes ‘re-born’ in the real world. I chose this example to show the idea of imprisonment in the mind, and how it is shown. There is a vast difference between the sets of the Matrix world and the Real world, with the matrix seeming to be a wash of colours with no real depth or brightness and the real world delivering a stark contrast of light and dark, brightness and gloominess.
I want to use the idea of differences in The Matrix to explain the difference between Gregor and his family. Gregors family are in the dark about this new world that Gregor has entered into, whilst Gregor is experiencing something new and hidden from the other people in his world – his family – and no one understands, including him.
After looking into The Red Room, I chose to take a look at the English Gothic Horror theme. The images below offer a classic look at the theme and I will be taking ideas from them to put into my sketches.
I chose English Gothic Horror to show the darkness that Gregor’s family live within their poor financial situation and within their refusal to understand and except their son/brother.
The Red Room by HG Well is a classic example of Gothic Horror.
The story is about a young man who stays in a room that a young duke died in. When told about the haunting of the room, the young man doesn’t hold back in his disbelief of ghostly creatures and is invited to stay in the room to test his own opinions. Once in the room he starts doubt himself, lighting candles about the room to keep in the light. It is when the candles start to go out without due cause or explanation that his panic grows gradually until he is somehow knocked unconscious and awakes the next day. He announces the next day that it is in fact fear itself that he was afraid of, the darkness surrounding him and the room itself.
The idea that a room can bring about this irrational fear with only imagination thinking that the drafts blowing out the candles are being guided by a malevolent ghostly intelligence is almost appalling, but when a brought to theatre it shows a whole new world. Within the English gothic horror sub-genre, the room becomes a character. The shade of red used, the objects in the room and their placing, where the light is coming from and the shape of the room.
It was this loneliness mainly that made me think about how I wanted to portray The Metamorphosis and also the separation between Gregor and his family. In my chosen Sub-genres, English Gothic Horror and Cyber Punk I feel like I can work different aspects of the play and then bring them together in a mix to create a new sub-genre of the two.
I will firstly be looking into them separately, drawing sketches from each and then bringing them together, mixing the aspects I think will work best together. Hopefully I will be able to have one sub-genre to express Gregors family and the other to express Gregor himself, which I think will help me to portray the divide between them that I see.
English Gothic Horror – Characteristic theme is the stranglehold of the past upon the present or the encroachment of the Dark Ages of oppression upon the "enlightened" modern era. Enclosed and haunted settings (castles, crypts, convents, mansions), gloomy images of ruin and decay, episodes of imprisonment, cruelty, and persecution are used to express this.
Cyber Punk - High technology in the not-so-distant future, featuring a bleak outlook and setting, displaying humanity almost destroying itself with its own advances. It Encompasses nanotechnology, cyborgs, androids and/or virtual reality.
Taking influence from the 2 projects we did previously, I bought the screenplay and found the scene that I want to do and made a copy to write on.
The extract that I have chosen is form the end of the screen play. I choose to start it when I did so that I can better understand the important mix of emotions that rapidly change from start to finish. I marked out the points when Gregor speaks as individual because it shows something important in how Steven Berkoff portrays the story. Greogor is speaking to the audience as a narrator of his own emotions. Berkoff makes a clear difference between the animal side of Gregor and the human side. I took this all into consideration, split up my scenes on my paper copies and started to make a table up.
Scene Section
Scene description and plot development
Page and Line
Location and Place
Light
Mood
1
Lodgers are coming to the house for much need income.
Pg. 114 L.11
To
Pg. 114 L. 24
Main living area.
Warm lighting
Happy,
Inviting.
2
The Lodgers arrive and the family tend to them.
Pg. 115 L.1
To
Pg. 115 L. 22
Doorway and main living area.
Warm lighting
““
3
The family mention that a ‘pet’ lives in the back room.
Pg. 115 L.23
To
Pg. 116 L. 5
Main living area.
As the family mentions the pet, illuminate Gregors room, then bring back to darkness.
Worry,
Deception,
Secrecy.
4
The lodgers possessions are thrown into Gregors room out of the way. Dinner is served, the family wait on the lodgers like servants.
Pg. 116 L.6
To
Pg. 116 L.24
Main living area, doorway to Gregors room, Dining Table.
Warm light, with Gregors room only illuminating slightly as the lodgers possessions are tossed inside.
Happy,
Jovial.
4 – Gregors Narration
Gregor speaks of how he feels alone and forgotten, even more so now the lodgers have arrived.
Pg. 116 L.12
To
Pg. 116 L.17
Gregors room.
As Gregor speaks, The rest of the stage goes black and only his room is illuminated dimly with a spot light on him.
Sadness,
Hatred,
Loneliness.
5
Gregor is heard eating his food by the lodgers and they are disturbed. The family successfully conceal his exsistance as a ‘pet’. Greta starts to play the violin to distract the lodgers.
Pg. 117 L.1
To
Pg. 117 L.21
Dining room,
Main living area.
Warm lighting with Gregors room this time dimly lit. As Greta starts to play her violin, the dim light grows in Gregors room, with a spotlight following his movements.
Panic,
Worry,
Deception,
Calm.
5 – Gregors narration
He talks about how he is not an animal, he hears the music and appreciates it. He cannot remember how long it has been since he was his human self.
Pg. 117 L. 11
To
Pg. 117 L.21
Gregors room.
The light grows brighter as he walks down the stairs from his room, lighting the whole stage.
Longing,
Sadness,
Loneliness.
6
One of the Lodgers spots Gregor and pulls back in disgust. The lodgers feel deceived by the family and leave the house.
Pg. 117 L.22
To
Pg. 119 L.16
Main living area, doorway.
As soon as a lodger spots Gregor, the lighting goes dim, except for a spot light around Gregor in white light.
As the lodgers leave, the house loses its warm glow.
Unease,
Distrust,
Anger.
7
The family now despise Gregor for driving the lodgers away, their only source of income. They talk about how they are to get rid of him, he is no longer Gregor and how the ‘real’ Gregor would have understood.
Pg. 119 L.17
To
Pg. 120 L. 17
Main living area.
The house remains dim and as Gregor slinks back to his room, the light on the stairs goes out and the spotlight on him dims down. As and when Gregor finishes talking, the rest of the stage goes to blackout.
Despair,
Hatred,
Cunning,
Reason.
7 – Gregors narration
He sees that his family fear him and are in misery. He wants to leave the weakening body behind, and be at peace at last.
Pg. 120 L.11
To
Pg. 120 L.17
Gregors Room
Gregors final spotlight dims down to blackout as he finishes talking.
Sadness,
Weakness,
Contentment.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
I found this version of The Metamorphosis on YouTube and although it has been adapted to draw Gregor downstairs with the sound of a fire burning and not Violin playing, It shows the fear of his family and the loneliness he feels perfectly.
I will be looking at Franz Kafta’s The Metamorphosis. The theatre adaptations of the story by Steven Berkoff have become a popular choice and are easy to relate to, with enough direction for great story telling yet enough freedom to allow me to fix my own sub-genre choices to it.
Gregor Samsa’s sister Grete is playing the violin and He decides to come downstairs, enthralled by the music, but his insect appearance shocks the lodgers of the house and he goes back into his room. This is to be the end of Gregor, with his family deciding he must be abandoned. He has driven away his family’s only means of survival and they are irate, wanting the creature out of their lives.
Hello! Welcome to my blog on Narrative and Genre. I’ll admit I’m not the best at blogs and I’ve been learning over the past week how to use it properly and I’ve got a few posts to put up today.
After finishing the two practice projects for Narrative and Genre, we started on our main project. The brief outline is to choose a play, choose a scene from the play and choose 3 genres in which to interpret a scenic design with. It’s only once we have done this that we can then start to focus on one chosen genre and pursue it further.
Looking into genres and sub genres it is easy to see how important they are. Genres are far too broad in a whole, so they must be broken into these sub genres to make sense and give a better projection of style. To say something is science fiction themed, would give many people many interpretations, based on their likes and what they have encountered before in the genre. But to say that something is Alien Science Fiction, it lets the people have a clearer image of what to expect.
