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Physical Theatre is a technique of theatre that employs use of the body to convey elements of a story without the need for dialogue, usually in tandem with fourth-wall breaks or narration. It can be used to show the actions a character is taking while said character is providing dialogue independent of the action shown. It can also be used in a more symbolic way, by using avant-garde movements that usually mirror dance.
The first major feature of successful physical theatre is ensemble work. Physical theatre in general is often undertaken by a large ensemble that has to act as a singular entity. Therefore, an ensemble must not only be well-rehearsed but also have effective nonverbal communication.
The ensemble also has to be relatively physically fit. While there are methods and techniques employed by most theatre companies to keep the practice inclusive, stamina and muscle strength are often required, especially during lifts. P1

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Gecko Theatre is an internationally based theatre collective founded by Amit Lahav in 2001, with a focus on 'artist-led' creation. They attempt to show a worldwide perspective, by blending inspiration from all nationalities and cultures as well as producing pieces in a range of different languages. This dedication to diversity is clear in pieces such as 'The Arab And The Jew' which tells a story of brotherhood across borders through music, dance, and creative set pieces, such as a sandbox.
Gecko has a closer focus on dance than its contemporaries. Many of its shows have intense lighting and play out like ballet, sometimes wordless. It uses a range of methods outside of physical theatre, such as puppetry, props and music.  P1, M1

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Pool, No Water was written by Mark Ravenhill, first performed by Frantic Assembly at the Drum Theatre Plymouth in 2006.
It is about a troupe of vaguely-defined 'artists' as they deal with the deaths of two of their friends and the controversial success of the third. She now lives in Los Angeles, where she invites them to a party at her house. Late at night, a drunken mistake lands her in a coma and the troupe stay to help her, all the while harboring resentment for her and her success.
The show is described as 'minimal set' and the script has no established characters, presenting the multiple voices as an amalgam. Frantic's performance often involves four actors, intense lighting rigs and a relatively minimalist approach to physical movements; comprised of synchronization, lifts and simple dances. M1

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Frantic Assembly is a London theatre company founded in 1994. They are widely recognized for their physical theatre performances and the resources they provide for actors around their 'Frantic Method'. They have done many original shows and adaptations, such as an adaptation of the book 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime', which is one of their most well-known productions.
Frantic is associated with a more symbolic approach to physical theatre, usually employing narration, dream ballet and choreographed numbers. Their productions are often grounded character studies, using the more fantastical elements of physical theatre as a medium to portray a character's arc and feelings. Good comparisons with other styles of physical theatre. M1

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Our first few sessions began with assigning lines and defining roles as the play doesn't have classically-assigned roles. We did this by identifying the themes present in the script and how they differed, forming characters around these different characteristics.
When we had assigned and rehearsed the lines, we decided to incorporate a warm-up exercise into the canon of the play, a series of six movements that display discomfort at an interview. This exercise presented a new way to frame the performance, through the lens of a documentary interview. Our first real rehearsal was spent practicing this scene, where we did our six movements in a canon order, with Vicky, who had the first line finishing her movements last and opening the play's dialogue.
We knew we wanted to include a lift in this piece to represent the diving scene, and we began working on this straight away, trying different techniques and seeing which one gave us the most control. We decided the next session should be focused on the lift. M2 & M3

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This second rehearsal focused on a lot of the same elements as the last. We had a full group, so we dedicated a large chunk of this session to testing different lift strategies and deciding where our cues for the lift and how to land Vicky safely. We also wanted to focus on sustaining momentum, as this is a highly tense scene that will be executed in slow-motion.
We then began to focus on the sound in our play, as we noticed there was a line that described a silence falling over the group. We wanted to have a recognizable, upbeat song that was relevant to the era and the character of The Artist, which is why we decided on Madonna's 'Material Girl' that would be played in the background as if on the radio, and then turned off when The Artist hits the pool. We chose this song to contrast the tone, but also because it relates to the group's perceptions of The Artist. After making a note of this idea and the cues, we went back to rehearsing our first scene, now focusing on the physicality after our initial movements, where we integrated some level-work, getting on and off our chairs in correlation with lines about vulnerability and acceptance. In our next session, we want to perfect this part of the scene and begin work on the rest of this scene, after The Artist's accident. P2, M2 & M3

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DV8 (meaning deviate) is one of the older contemporary physical theatre troupes. Founded in 1986 by still-standing director Lloyd Newson, who wanted to give purpose and narrative to the abstract contemporary dance he was creating at his old tenure, Extemporary Dance Theatre.
Newson creates stories that focus on social issues and current events, using dance as a medium to portray them. They also use more standard techniques such as direct narration, which can be seen in their latest verbatim piece, 'John', which was derived from a questionnaire interview conducted by the company, asking ''fifty men frank questions about love and sex. One of these men was John.''.
DV8 was described by The Independent as 'provocative', which is clear to see when looking into their backlog. Their performances often include perplexingly evocative ballets, pushing the physical body to its limits and removing the ensemble of their identity, to the point where they are solely props. This is seen clearly in Ann Cryer's monologue from Can We Talk About This?   D1

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https://www.geckotheatre.com/about-gecko
https://www.franticassembly.co.uk/about
https://portal.dv8.co.uk/dashboard/watch-free/16/ann-cryer
https://www.dv8.co.uk/

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In our third rehearsal, we went over very similar objectives as the last session, spending some time on the first scene, but we also spent a significant amount of talking about the characters, which we followed in today's fourth rehearsal. We discussed specifically our character's relationships to The Artist and each other, identifying the parallels between Rhys's more innocent, kinder character and Vicky's completely unsympathetic character. These parallels informed our physicality for the rest of the scene, and we worked on behaving as a collective.

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For our next few sessions we began piecing together the first scene from what we had established in our previous sessions. We had issues when it came to full attendance and we decided to reassociate one character's lines and essentially introduced a version of the play that could be performed without them. This stopped our development for a while as we had to rework the physicality of some scenes. Having characters in exact positions adjacent to one another is crucial to the choreography of our scenes. We also began to focus heavily on the tail end of our first scene, as the opening was well-established.
This second half is much slower paced and is more based in body language and unison movements to portray togetherness.
"We were too together now to look or speak to each other at all,"
This half of the scene, where we are stood above The Artist, ruminating on our relationships towards her involves mostly intuitive movements, such as stepping towards her as a group and taking actions while we are speaking; which is a contrast to the over-the-top movements in the prior lift. D2 & M3

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We began this week with a new focus; the second scene, which takes place in a hospital. Our first few attempts were based on intuition from line reading and we soon decided on how we would execute the scene. We started by using our chairs to smoothly transition between the scenes. We organized the chairs in an triangle format; two chairs each side; to form a walkway which would serve as the anchor for this scene. Rhys and I have the larger roles in this scene, so we begin it standing on diagonal ends of the stage. Rhys is pacing nervously while I give my expository speech that opens the scene.
After a few run-throughs, Rhys and I decided that we would switch positions using a round-by-through gesture, which allowed for a shift of focus so that he could come through the walkway to give his speech to The Artist, who is hypothetically positioned at the front of the stage at the same place she landed in the last scene.
We also adapted the lift to only involve three people. This change came about when we realized that we can execute the lift with three people when we had an incomplete group. This new lift allowed me to recite my line clearly as I wasn't involved in this action. I also had the chance to set up a chair as a landing-point which was another addition to the lift. Placing Vicky on the chair gives the implication that she's still in the air while minimizing the amount of time the lift is actually taking place.
On our final session we established a criteria for the next week which suggested that we are off script for the first scene and that we worked on the theatrics of our movements. P3 & M4

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Our first session was focused on our first criteria of going off-script. While we had our scripts with us, the goal was to see what point we were at in line-learning. We are confident with the composition of our scenes, but were slightly hesitant in recalling lines. This is the primary objective from now on. Our next session involved talks about costuming and a new physical element was added, which was extra chair choreography during Rhys’ speech in the hospital scene. The idea is to portray the characters’ emotions in this scene through moving the chairs back to their original position. The final session of the week was spent practicing this added choreography. We also spent a short time choreographing the opening scene where we are stood on the chairs. We decided to do our movements in unison to amplify them. M4 & P5

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This play is layered, involving themes of artistic integrity, wealth disparity, jealousy and privilege. It raises many questions around the morality of The Artist's success that will be interpreted differently by different people, acting as a kind of Rorschach test for audience members.
The extract we worked with is the focal point of the play, the inciting incident. The Artist is almost killed in an accident involving the pool, which is established as a symbol of her success. The title is also said by me in this extract. ''Pool, no water,'' is in reference to how hollow her success is. She used her friends to get where she is, and sold a piece of art that has little meaning to those outside the group.
The two scenes we perform are the emotional reckoning for the group where, in a state of shock, their true feelings about her come to light. They are confused, not knowing how they should feel about their disdain towards her, constantly expressing regret when treating her poorly.
The scene in the hospital is when they start to understand that they can profit off of her, the same way she did with their dead friends. This is where their often-referenced ''excitement'' comes from in this scene.
The final paragraph of the hospital scene reveals that they all deal with some sort of suicidal ideation, which relates to their earlier-stated desire about wanting the group together again. It also reinforces the theme of drug use. Both of these things support the selfishness they show throughout the play.   Excellent analysis of your extract and possible theatrical choices. D1 & P2,

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We now have our entire piece choreographed, which means we can transfer our main focus to cleaning everything up. In the past few sessions, we have been using synchronization in our general movements to create the illusion of a unified front, which links to the thesis of the piece that portrays the group as almost singular. For example, moments where we take a step forward, we do it at the same time, with the same foot, to the same point.  This also makes basic, necessary movements look intentional and designed. what company is this idea taken from?

Doing complete run-throughs reveals the points of our performance that are weaker than others, and we have still been making amendments throughout our run-throughs. We added extra movement to a scene where we are essentially stationary; simply including levels by repeatedly crouching down at relevant points, either all-together or individually, based on what is implied by the text. This was a compromise between needing physicality in this prolonged scene, while also keeping the stagnant, slow atmosphere we wanted to cultivate. M4 & P5

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These are our final few sessions before our performance. Currently, our main focus is getting off-script. Due to the focus on perfecting the physical theatre elements of this unit, learning lines has been an inconsistent process. This has also been affected by the fact we have had to learn extra lines that were originally assigned to another member of the group, who often didn't show up to rehearsal, meaning we basically had to split his character between us. This essentially means we had two versions of the performance, depending on whether we have a full cast on the performance date.
We have been using the script sparingly throughout the past few run-throughs, and our goal for the first tech rehearsal is to be off-script entirely.
A highly organised and problem solving approach to a key issue within your group dynamic. M4,P5 & P6

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I am proud of what we achieved in our performance. We overcame our struggles with the unit to create something we enjoyed performing. There were no points where we lost our way; we delivered lines at a good, consistent pace and performed our major movements fluidly without hesitation and the audience responded well, laughing at the more comedic lines, and seemingly engaged throughout. We also managed to overcome the continual absence of one of our group members, meaning we would be constantly catching him up and unsure of whether he'd be there for the actual performance. We had to create two versions of the performance to protect ourselves in the event that he didn't. But, we performed with a full cast, seamlessly considering the circumstances.
I feel we could have spent more time perfecting the smaller, subtler actions, which would have made the whole performance look tighter. There should have also been more physicality overall. I noticed when watching the other performances that most of them were completely choreographed from start-to-finish, more like a piece of dance. I understand that our whole group was hesitant about this unit as we are all more naturalistic actors who don't enjoy the avant-garde style of physical theatre. If one of us was more inclined towards choreography, we could have produced a piece that closer fit BTEC standards, but from an artistic perspective, I feel that we produced a piece of work that clearly demonstrated an understanding of character, momentum and the themes behind the play. P5 & P6

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As Pool, No Water has no established characters, we had to delegate lines between ourselves, while trying to create characters.
Our solution for this was to choose a line each that we were drawn to and draw character from the lines we chose. We did this by extracting values and beliefs from the content in the lines, while also taking note of the language used. If a few lines had similar phrasing and concepts, we could infer that they were spoken by the same character.
We then associated traits with these characters, which we would use to inform how we delivered our lines, our motivations and our body language. M2

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We have six main elements of choreography in our piece. The way we decided to go about creating these elements was to work chronologically.
We based our opening scene off an earlier exercise which involved creating a series of movements to portray an emotion. The emotion we decided to use was anxiety. We came up with the scenario of a documentary where we are recalling the events of the play. This gives some context to the narration as well as guiding us in our vocal and physical performance. We each had six movements, which we would act out in canon, from the left side of the stage to the right until we reached Vicky, who had the opening line.
Our second major piece of movement was getting up onto our chairs. This is during the part of the play where we are feeling vulnerable, naked together in the night. Elevating ourselves exacerbates this feeling, and we created three synchronized movements along with Caelen's line,  ''sag, fat, and lines,''; where we cover our bodies with our hands. This shows the audience the contrast between the characters at this point in the show and the previous parts, in which they were more confident. Joe's line, ''But that doesn't matter in the darkness,'' is our prompt to become visibly more confident, and half of us get down from our chairs.
This is our transition to our lift. The lift is a literal interpretation of how the Artist got injured. Three of us carry Vicky from upstage right to downstage centre, placing her on a chair that I moved during a monologue I perform during the lift. Then, she is moved down in slow-motion onto the floor and positioned by the other three. This represents how we as a group had an inadvertent effect on this situation and are willing to let her suffer.
The pace has been pretty consistent up until this point. Not frantic, but fast-paced and jovial. This is where there is a large tonal shift shown by the change in lighting and the fading music. We are still for most of this scene, packed together in a tight line looking into the centre of the stage, meaning to emulate shock. The movement here is confined to levels, specifically crouching down to address the body of the Artist directly. Rhys' character has a change-of-heart in this scene, and he becomes critical of the artist. Joe and I, the removed narrative characters crouch down with him and place our hands on his back to show support, which really was a manipulative tactic to turn him against her.
After this scene, we change the momentum again. This time, very frantic, shock turning into action.
Rhys' line ''and we organize'' is our cue to set the stage up into a new scene. We thought making this transition diegetic, a part of the world, was interesting as well as being the most seamless way to approach it, avoiding a blackout and a pause in the momentum.
I start the hospital scene upstage centre, acting out my words. I walk in a strange pattern, spinning myself around a lot to create a sense of dizziness, while Rhys paces in the background. He does this for most of the scene, as it is a simple and easy way to maintain the same nervous energy without subtracting from what is being said by the other characters.
In our next transition, we move the chairs to their original positions. This sets up a cyclical ending to our piece. Vicky is in control of Rhys' chair as he stands downstage, giving a monologue. She pushes it towards him and and shoves him as he sits down, to emphasize his words while also showing her aggression towards the Artist, and therefore her aggression towards Rhys' character.
Our final cluster of movements took a long time to perfect. It all has to take place in a single short paragraph, which I ended up having to slow down significantly to allow us time to move. The mount and dismount from chairs was also redesigned many times to prevent too much noise being made from jumping.
We are sat in our original positions, and we reused our motif of looking left to represent 'Sally' and right for 'Ray'. Then, in a synchronized movement, we stood
up, stood on the chairs and created actions for 'hell', 'heaven', and 'purgatory'. This mirrors what we did with the 'sag, fat, lines' section in the first scene. 'Hell' was represented by crouching on the chairs, 'Heaven' emulating a Christ The Redeemer pose, and 'Purgatory' is our cue to step down off the chairs. This represents a return to reality, as many interpretations of purgatory associate it with Earth. Then, we perform our opening actions continually until the lights go down.

Remember to reference where your ideas stem from? What companies help you develop your movement and physical ideas. D2, M3 & M4

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This unit was challenging to me personally as it is not a medium I enjoy and I struggled significantly turning the script into choreography. I am proud to have overcome it though, and I have learnt a lot from struggling.
Amongst learning technical skills such as lifting and synchronized movement, I also learnt the importance of keeping pace, being fluid with movements, and intuiting the actions of my group. This is a skill based on teamwork that needs to have everyone on the same page at all points.
Stage etiquette such as minimizing sound during transitions was also a large part of this unit.
From a performer's standpoint, I clearly identified my personal weaknesses that I can improve on in the future. I can be more focused, learn my lines earlier in the rehearsal process, and be more open to new ideas and techniques. Working in a larger group in the next unit will require me to step out of my comfort zone more often. P5 & P6

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https://bhasvic-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spencer_murfitt20_students_bhasvic_ac_uk/Documents/Microsoft%20Teams%20Chat%20Files/BHASVIC.m4a

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After spending some time looking at Frantic Assembly, we did a workshop using one of their techniques, Round-by-Through. This is a technique used to create the building blocks for more choreography. It involves walking around a partner (Round), standing parallel to them (By), and then using your upper body to go 'through' your partner. This could mean going underneath their arm, or working through them in a more complex manner.
These three movements allow the pair to adapt them into emotions, or a story. This can be done by modifying the pace of the movements or body-language. For example, if the emotion in this story is anger or frustration, the movements could be performed at a fast pace, with aggressive body language; in contrast to a sadder piece, which may be slower and more subdued. D1 & M2

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Chair Duets are another Frantic Assembly exercise in which a pair creates a story using only physical theatre, all concentrated around two chairs. The piece can be performed entirely on the chairs, or the pair can use the space around them.
This is a very efficient way to show the dynamic between two characters. A lot of chair duets are focused on close mutual relationships such as marriages and friendships.
I was partnered with Alfie for our chair duet, and we decided to experiment with a strained child-parent relationship, as this is something that isn't explored often in this medium, and we thought we could showcase a range of complicated emotion.
This workshop was combined with our lift workshop, and we knew we wanted to include a lift in our performance. This was a challenge, as the dynamic we established made me the dominant figure and therefore, the one lifting. We decided to experiment with lessening Alfie's weight by using momentum from a round-by-through movement. We found the best way for me to lift him was for him to jump while our arms were interlocked, and I could swing him through the air, using my hip to support him. This had to be perfectly timed to achieve the desired look that I had picked him off the floor effortlessly.
After perfecting this lift technique, we began working on the actions in the chairs, crafting a story of a child irritating its mother. We used repetitive movements to show this, changing them slightly each time, not unlike a catchphrase in a sitcom. It ended with a 'confrontation', where he stormed off and I forced him back.
We received good feedback from this piece, and I feel it informed my ideas further into this unit. M2

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Lifts are a crucial part of physical theatre. They are used often to break a character through the bounds of reality, and to make them the focal point of a scene. They often require tight ensemble work to disappear the rest of the cast to create the illusion the liftee is actually suspended in air.
There are many ways to approach a lift in physical theatre, all requiring a knowledge of how to disperse the weight of the liftee, as well as performing the stunt safely.
For this workshop, we had to take inspiration from a real experience. We used my personal ghost sighting as our prompt, and changed the specific elements to exaggerate it. We used Minnie as the 'ghost', with about three of us lifting her vertically, equally apart to ensure she was supported consistently.
This workshop was necessary as a way to be more comfortable with physical contact and to be trusting with each other. D1

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I feel I broke through to my character in the actual performance. My intention was to come across as a detached, cynical critic of the Artist. Possibly older than the others, who sees through her condescension, and pushes the others to feel the same way, but still has somewhat of a reverence towards her, not seeing myself as a equal to her.
I wanted to magnify my performance in the final show, as I'd felt during rehearsal I was reserved physically and vocally.
I understood that the medium of physical theatre doesn't account for subtlety, so I took my existing actions and made them wider.
My monologue over Vicky's lift is a clear example of this change. I was more frantic in my movements, using all the space on my side of the stage and projected my lines with more enthusiasm.
I maintained this ethos throughout the performance, adjusting for the tone and pace for the scene.
Overall, I am proud of my performance, and my ability to persevere through the issues we all struggled with during this unit.
In the future, I resolve to step out of my comfort zone more often and to be more receptive to different types of theatre. P5, P6 & M4