MEGA BLOG POST!!

right i admit its been a while since i posted. anyway...

we are just days away from getting everything done!! We have all our major scenes done and scripted, its now just the conjoining scenes and transitions that we have to work on now.

There have been a couple of changes in the play, i am now an ss guard rather than a sonderkommando. we have decided to change all the names to actual names from much ado to keep in with the shakespeare theme that we were drifting away from but are now solidly on.

i have videos and pictures on my phone but i have lost the cable and its a windows phone so i am unable to get the app to upload them, but they shall be up asap!!

This is the conflict of narrative vs reality.

http://imgur.com/a/JVbwD?gallery

Ideas for the auscwitz liberated scene.

one idea was to use the scene from romeo and juliet where tibalt dies, as the nazis would have liquidated the majoritiy of the camp i thought this would be good for if someone was to die...

 I saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes,—
 53   God save the mark!—here on his manly breast:
 54   A piteous corse, a bloody piteous corse;
 55   Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaub'd in blood,
 56   All in gore-blood; I swounded at the sight.

      JULIET
 57   O, break, my heart! Poor bankrupt, break at once!
 58   To prison, eyes, ne'er look on liberty!
 59   Vile earth, to earth resign; end motion here;
 60   And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier!

      Nurse
 61   O Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!
 62   O courteous Tybalt! honest gentleman!
 63   That ever I should live to see thee dead!

      JULIET
 64   What storm is this that blows so contrary?
 65   Is Romeo slaughter'd, and is Tybalt dead?
 66   My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?
 67   Then, dreadful trumpet, sound the general doom!
 68   For who is living, if those two are gone?

      Nurse
 69   Tybalt is gone, and Romeo banished;
 70   Romeo that kill'd him, he is banished.

      JULIET
 71   O God! did Romeo's hand shed Tybalt's blood?

      Nurse
 72   It did, it did; alas the day, it did!

Another peice of dialouge i thought we could use is queen margrets monologue form Henry VI iii

The Monologue 

The Sonderkommando Revolt

There was a revolt by Sonderkommandos at Auschwitz in which one of the crematoria was partly destroyed. For months, young Jewish women, like Ester Wajcblum, Ala Gertner, and Regina Safirsztain, had been smuggling small amounts of gunpowder from the Weichsel-Union-Metallwerke, a munitions factory within the Auschwitz complex, to men and women in the camp's resistance movement, like Roza Robota, a young Jewish woman who worked in the clothing detail at Birkenau. Under constant guard, the women in the factory took small amounts of the gunpowder, wrapped it in bits of cloth or paper, hid it on their bodies, and then passed it along the smuggling chain. Once she received the gunpowder, Robota passed it to her co-conspirators in the Sonderkommando. Using this gunpowder, the leaders of the Sonderkommando planned to destroy the gas chambers and crematoria, and launch the uprising.

When the camp resistance warned the Sonderkommando that they were due to be murdered on the morning of 7 October 1944, the Sonderkommando attacked the SS and Kapos with two machine guns, axes, knives and grenades. The SS men had 15 casualties of whom about 12 were injured and 3 were killed; one of the killed SS and a Reichsdeutsche Oberkapo who were pushed alive into a crematorium oven after being stabbed by a member of the Sonderkommando. Some of the Sonderkommando escaped from the camp for a period, as was planned, however they were recaptured later the same day. Of those who didn't die in the uprising itself, 200 were later forced to strip, lie face down, and then were shot in the back of the head. A total of 451 Sonderkommandos were killed on this day.

Sonderkommando Research

Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, composed almost entirely of Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during The Holocaust. The death-camp Sonderkommando, who were always inmates, should not be confused with the SS-Sonderkommandos which were ad hoc units formed from various SS officers between 1938 through 1945.
Sonderkommando members did not participate directly in killing; that responsibility was reserved for the guards, while the Sonderkommandos' primary responsibility was disposing of the corpses. They were forced into the position; in most cases they were inducted immediately upon arrival at the camp, and were not given any advance notice of the tasks they would have to perform. They had no way to refuse or resign other than by committing suicide. Because the Germans needed the Sonderkommandos to remain physically able, they were granted much less squalid living conditions than other inmates: they slept in their own barracks, which more than any other in the camp resembled normal human dwellings; they were allowed to keep and use various goods such as food, medicines and cigarettes brought by those who were sent to the gas chambers; and, unlike ordinary inmates, they were not subject to arbitrary, random killing by guards. As a result, Sonderkommando members tended to survive longer than other inmates of the death camps — but few survived the war.
Because of their intimate knowledge of the process of Nazi mass murder, the Sonderkommando were considered Geheimnisträger — bearers of secrets — and as such, they were kept in isolation from other camp inmates, except, of course, for those about to enter the gas chambers. Since the Nazis did not want Sonderkommandos' knowledge to reach the outside world, they followed a policy of regularly gassing almost all the Sonderkommando and replacing them with new arrivals at intervals of approximately 4 months; the first task of the new Sonderkommandos would be to dispose of their predecessors' corpses. Therefore since the inception of the Sonderkommando through to the liquidation of the camp there existed approximately 14 generations of Sonderkommando.

This was a comic i found, utterly heartbreaking but relevant.

Cast List

For those that cant read James' writing
Franz - James
Helena - Elsa
Claudia - Nat
Sister/Hero - Mandi
Pedra (Don Pedro) - Elle
Sonderkommando (Don Jon) - Daisy
Margo (nurse) - Becs

Re cap on last weeks work... Broken computer so no work..

last week we did a lot of playing games and trying out random exercises that in the end were actually relevant to the story of the Auschwitz idea.

all in all we are deciding to go with the Auschwitz idea, if you hadn't noticed. and today we made some progress on it.

This week is mainly focused on the presentation that we will be giving at the beginning of next week.

"Gender bender"

In fiction, the term gender bender may refer not only to characters modeled after real-life gender benders, but also to characters who undergo changes in their physical sex – magically or otherwise – throughout the story. A work of art which challenges gender roles or features gender bending or transgender characters may itself be referred to as a "gender bender."

another way gender bender can be described as is where in a familiar story the genders are swapped so as you can see from the pictures its quite popular to do this with Disney characters

Friday the 7th of march

Today's rehearsal consisted of telling Jonathan what our ideas were and what we had researched so far, and then relaying our ideas to the other groups

From the feedback from the whole PA group, out of the relationships and adultery plot, the witch hunter plot and the Auschwitz plot the one that got the best reaction from the group was most definitely after being told about the Auschwitz idea, and seeing as it was the one all of us preferred and has the most research it looks like at this point in time our plot line will be the Auschwitz one.

Over the weekend we shall be continuing in our research over the 3 ideas -

•  James, Elle and Mandi will be researching and familiarizing themselves with the story of Helena and Franz, and seeing if they can get anymore information on that story.
• Becs and Elsa will be researching into the witchcraft idea more and possibly finding case studies on the various types of condemning and trails.
• Natalie and I will be focusing on the idea of feminism and stereotypes and how they're challenged in both the play and other forms of media texts, i will mainly be focusing on the trend of gender bender adaptations, Gender bender refers to the term of swapping the genders in a film book or tv show. For instance in Much Ado its Hero and Claudio - If we went with the gender bender idea hero would be the male and Claudio would be a female I.E. Hero and Claudia...

James' Idea For The Play

From yesterdays ideas brainstorm we think that we will be going with James idea as the main story line.

A few hundred yards from Birkenau’s gas chambers and crematoria was an area of the camp the inmates called "Canada." It was so named because Canada was thought to be a country of great riches. Inmates’ possessions were taken from them upon arrival and brought there. The items were sorted and sent back to Germany, although some were stolen by SS guards.

“Working in Canada saved my life because we had food, we got water. And that was the best working unit for life because we were not beaten,” 

– Libusa Breder

Mostly women inmates worked in "Canada," and it was one of the few sought-after jobs in Auschwitz. They could grow their hair out and were able to steal extra food from the belongings as they sorted through them. Also, relationships between German guards and women prisoners sometimes developed in Canada, although such relationships were strictly against SS rules.

Helena Citrónová, a Slovakian Jew deported to Auschwitz in 1942, drew the attention of a SS guard named Franz Wunsch.

Helena Citrónová

Slovakian Jewish survivor

“When he came into the barracks where I was working, he threw me a note. I destroyed it right there and then, but I did see the word 'love’—'I fell in love with you.’

“I thought I’d rather be dead than be involved with an SS man. For a long time afterwards there was just hatred. I couldn’t even look at him.”

Helena’s feelings for Wunsch, however, changed over time, especially when her sister and her sister’s children arrived at Auschwitz Birkenau. Helena learned that they were to be sent to the gas chamber and her SS admirer tried to help them.

Jews deemed unfit for work on their way to Gas Chamber 4, Auschwitz-Birkenau

"So he said to me, 'Tell me quickly what your sister’s name is before I’m too late.’ So I said, 'You won’t be able to. She came with two little children.' He replied, 'Children, that’s different. Children can’t live here.’ So he ran to the crematorium and found my sister."

Franz Wunsch was able to save Helena’s sister by saying she worked for him in Canada, but he could do nothing for the children. Helena and her sister survived Auschwitz, and although her relationship with Wunsch never developed further, she did testify on his behalf years later at his war crimes trial.

This is his idea. 

In today's lesson we brainstormed ideas which proved to be our first controversial point, personally i thought that some of the ideas were too brash and wouldn't be approached delicately. But with time comes solutions, so we decided to just call it a day and go with what we've got.

Thursday the 6th. Ideas Rehearsal 2

Today we were told to come up with 3 ideas for our piece.

We started off with Elsa's group exercise of singing rose rose rose red with the second verse being the main focus.

Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose,
Will I ever see thee wed?
I will marry at thy will sire,
At thy will.

Oh poor bird,
Why art thou
Flying in the shadows
of this dark hour?


1 - focus on the idea of relationships

2 - Focus on the ideas of witches (women being prejudiced against and being hung for being "witches")

3 - the idea of setting the play in Auschwitz (James' idea) and how they're surrounded by death.

Wednesday the 5th of March. Rehearsal notes...

In today's lesson we were asked to sit with our groups and throw our ideas at each other (may i also add during brainstorming sessions we are not allowed to say no to any ideas!!) and see what people have come up with.

Elsa.
Elsa wanted to focus on a more feminist take on it and focus on the themes of mistrust and prejudice against women. 

Elle.
From our story telling Elle liked the idea of audience participation and including that more. She also talked about the idea of the play being set from the viewpoint of hero's father , Leonarto, and how he sees her daughter and niece misbehaving and rebelling and explore that idea.

Becs.
Becs idea resonated well with me. She had the idea from her passion for the music of the 1930's and 40's, and had the idea to set it in the war. so we could have the lovely aesthetics and costume form the pre war - war period.

James.
James idea was the most developed today. His idea spawned from a true story about a Jewish woman in Auschwitz who worked in the item sorting area known as Canada, and how one woman fell in love with an SS officer (Benedict and Beatrice).  I shall go into further detail of James' idea in a later post because i think we already know that we are going to have that act as our main basis for the story at this point.

Mandi
Mandi's idea was to have the play from the viewpoint of don Jon, and how it could be viewed from an outsiders perspective in to the play.


My Idea.
My idea is fairly undeveloped at the moment but still. My idea was why not instead of Hero and Claudio, we have Hero and Claudia... So we would follow a lesbian relationship and the troubles and prejudices about that and follow how their family reacts.

Pins Pins Pins

A short while ago Elsa and i started collating pins on what wed want the play to look like if we were doing it traditionally and so heres the link to that...Daisy and Elsa's Pintrest Board

we would want it to be very dream like and floaty. 

Whats the plot?

Leonato, a kindly, respectable nobleman, lives in the idyllic Italian town of Messina. Leonato shares his house with his lovely young daughter, Hero, his playful, clever niece, Beatrice, and his elderly brother, Antonio (who is Beatrice's father). As the play begins, Leonato prepares to welcome some friends home from a war. The friends include Don Pedro, a prince who is a close friend of Leonato, and two fellow soldiers: Claudio, a well-respected young nobleman, and Benedick, a clever man who constantly makes witty jokes, often at the expense of his friends. Don John, Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother, is part of the crowd as well. Don John is sullen and bitter, and makes trouble for the others.

When the soldiers arrive at Leonato’s home, Claudio quickly falls in love with Hero. Meanwhile, Benedick and Beatrice resume the war of witty insults that they have carried on with each other in the past. Claudio and Hero pledge their love to one another and decide to be married. To pass the time in the week before the wedding, the lovers and their friends decide to play a game. They want to get Beatrice and Benedick, who are clearly meant for each other, to stop arguing and fall in love. Their tricks prove successful, and Beatrice and Benedick soon fall secretly in love with each other.

But Don John has decided to disrupt everyone’s happiness. He has his companion Borachio make love to Margaret, Hero’s serving woman, at Hero’s window in the darkness of the night, and he brings Don Pedro and Claudio to watch. Believing that he has seen Hero being unfaithful to him, the enraged Claudio humiliates Hero by suddenly accusing her of lechery on the day of their wedding and abandoning her at the altar. Hero’s stricken family members decide to pretend that she died suddenly of shock and grief and to hide her away while they wait for the truth about her innocence to come to light. In the aftermath of the rejection, Benedick and Beatrice finally confess their love to one another. Fortunately, the night watchmen overhear Borachio bragging about his crime. Dogberry and Verges, the heads of the local police, ultimately arrest both Borachio and Conrad, another of Don John’s followers. Everyone learns that Hero is really innocent, and Claudio, who believes she is dead, grieves for her.

Leonato tells Claudio that, as punishment, he wants Claudio to tell everybody in the city how innocent Hero was. He also wants Claudio to marry Leonato’s “niece”—a girl who, he says, looks much like the dead Hero. Claudio goes to church with the others, preparing to marry the mysterious, masked woman he thinks is Hero’s cousin. When Hero reveals herself as the masked woman, Claudio is overwhelmed with joy. Benedick then asks Beatrice if she will marry him, and after some arguing they agree. 

What Is It?

This blog is for my Performing Arts diploma work which will be following my work throughout our upcoming production of Much Ado About Nothing. This blog will be following the ideas process, the devising and so on. 
Right 
Lets get started!