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Frantic Assembly Thing I Know To Be True - Review

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Frantic Assembly Thing I Know To Be True - Review

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On Wednesday 21st September  2016 we traveled to London to watch ' Things I know To Be True'.
Watching this amazing performance I personally went though an emotional roller-coaster with twists on happiness and turns of sadness throughout.
there was a whole rage of different characters such as:

Mark Price Matthew Barker   Oldest Son

Pip Price - Natalie Casey        Daughter

Ben Price - Richard Mylan       Youngest Son

Rosie Price - Kirsty Oswald     Youngest Daughter

Bob Price - Ewan Stewart         Dad

Fran Price - Imogen Stubbs      Mum

At the beginning of the performance I felt like it had a very slow opening  as the only person who was on the stage at that time was Rosie, what she was saying I didn't quite understand where the performance was going to progress to. As the performance went on Frantic Assembly did a really good job to make the piece go further....this is when we discovered that Rosie was actually on a gap year before she went to university the following year. Prior to this event the aspects that I enjoyed the most was when there was a figure wearing black ( which we was unable to see as the stage was ark and only lit when limited lights).
The proscenium arch staging I felt complimented the performance incredibly as wherever the performers where standing I could always see them 100% of the time.
As you can see in the surrounding pictures most of the time the chosen lighting is blue, This is because blue is known to be a gloomy colour and the colour of sadness and despair.
Throughout the performance the performers used their voice and projection very effectively as there was never a time where I didn't know what they were saying.
the best part of the performance in m opinion was when Bob was reacting to the loss of his wife, Fran,. I have chosen this as my favourite scene because this is when I really saw he emotion flooding out of him in everyway from his facial expressions to his voice. His voice when he was told let out a high pitched scream and this alone moved me as it is uncommon to see a grown man scream so when he did it you could then realise and connect with his character. His body language was most effective when he threw himself to the floor in despair as then you could see how weak he really felt.
The majority of the audience I feel acted in the same was as me as most people were crying and this shows the performers that they have done a good job.
To conclude I really enjoyed 'Things I Know To Be True'  as  it captured the audience attention and emotional in a way I have never been seen done before.

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Helen Parlor - A little movement section we are working on... | Facebook

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A little movement section we are working on with the students. Nice to get started plus have some visitors in the space: Hel Innes :)

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On Thursday the 8th of September we started a project called 'Home Sweet Home'  we started this project in our first week of joining the course and in my case my first time in college. our class (18) was split into the people whos preferred discipline was acting (11) and the others dancing (7).
As the majority of us didn't know each other we had to do a majority of different ice breakers, such as:

Name and where you're from

Favourite animal and why

In pairs a memory game

Zip zop zap

where you've lived in Milton Keynes

We did tasks like these to get to know each other and mainly for our own comfort when performing.
We was introduced to 4 different professionals:

Rosemary Hill - Professional practitioner and former director/producer

Helen Parlor - Dance professional

Effi - Dance professional

Darren - Director

As I chose the acting side I worked with Rosemary. Working with a professional I felt very thankful as we got a taste of what it is like in the industry. We was shown several games and activities and one of my favourite games was an improvisation game. This aloud us to think of something on the spot and then show other people, we did this for future reference. For example if someone forgets their lines they, or someone else, will have to improvise on the spot to fix the situation. We was shown to a technique called blocking, this is where you put a metaphorical 'wall' in the way of someone continuing. Rosemary told us all about the project 'MK50' and how much of an amazing opportunity we are being given to be in it.  Rosemary then went on to show us different poems about Milton Keynes one being a piece by the poet Mina Harker. When we read this poem as a group it gave us inspiration for when we was going to be making our own. As the days went on we used our bodies and voice within the performance later on going to be doing, for example when Mina Harker says "is there poetry in the parking lot? in the grid like lines of Milton Keynes" we used our voice collaboratively to make a sound scape...We did this to add power to the piece that we was doing. We also used different effects with our voice such as echo, repetition and in cannon.
The next day we had all gathered and came up with the idea of writing anything we knew about Milton Keynes (likes, dislikes and differences to other towns or cities) on post-it note and then stuck the on the wall and picked out the best ones to create a poem of our self.
once we had finished our poem we read it out loud at first just to have an idea of what it sounded like. We then went on to start adding a spin on it similar to what we did in Mina Harker's poem such as movement and different techniques to enhance the audiences viewing experience.
At first as a group we felt like we had a finished polished performance but as we kept on rehearsing we always added different ideas to it which i felt made it X100 better!. The start of the performance we decided to set it as a court scene were Milton Keynes had been accused of "corporate boredom, worshiping the god of retail and being a bland culture desert" this was said by Coral ( the Judge) and the rest of us were surrounding her in the shape of an arrow head...we decided to do it like this so we made sure we used our space effectively this was also so the audience weren't just concentrating on one person but us all. I the next scene we then went on to separate from the spaces we was stood in originally and walk around the space as if we was walking around Milton Keynes. As we was walking around we was individually projecting our voices loud enough without shouting so that the audience could clearly hear us, We was saying the different destinations that were available to visit in MK. On the last word was said which was by Jason ("Football") we all said in unison "come on you Dons!".
On the actual day of the performance we merged together the acting with the dancing. This was interesting and slightly frustrating at the same time as Helen (Dance teacher) had to make sure that the dancers fit in with the acting this meant that she had to change some of this things that we did such as where we stood in order to make the dancers fit but after we all realised what she was doing the final piece was amazing. The Effects we had in the background were lighting and sound.  through out the piece we had 6 natural coloured lights that made the room feel like a theater this enhanced the audiences experience as it made them feel like it was a professional piece.
In some parts of the performance we had audio in the background of people who lived in Milton Keynes saying why they loved it hear. We used audio so that whilst the dancers where the only people on stage it made it feel more effective. in one bit of the performance we used physical theatre to make our bodies into an old oak tree, We decided to do this as we felt like it was more effective than just having a picture of a tree.