Show Sound Set List
on order of play
Tom, the Handyman, wants to be an engineer. He wants to build something brilliant.
His delusion has taken the form of a physical theatre scene with him as the spaceman protagonist.We have spent weeks creating a beautiful piece of space movement and I wanted my costume design to match the movement we have created.
A pair of white overalls…
I knew that Sam would need to be able to move freely in his costume, so I had to consider this in my design whilst maintaining my desired appearance for the spacesuit. I also wanted to echo his ‘real life’ costume by having his spacesuit as a pair of white overalls similar to the blue ones he wore in the original scene.
I found some sew-on space patches on eBay which I thought might add a nice finishing touch to the white spacesuit.
I drew out a design as I thought about how I might like the costume to turn out:
I found a very reasonably priced pair of white overalls on eBay and bought the sew-on patches. I stitched the space patches and union jack patch to the suit by hand.
UV Stars…
Our Stage Manager, Dan suggested using UV paint to create star gloves and a galaxy suit for our Choreography, Holly. I found a bulk pack of black mime gloves and began creating the UV gloves with fabric paint.
For our technical trial session, I painted one glove with the UV fabric paint with the white paint. Under the ultraviolet light the white paint was difficult to see. I tried painting over the star design with yellow paint and the star showed up very well under the lighting.
For Holly’s galaxy costume I bought a pair of black leggings and a black long-sleeved top and painted star designs all over them in the UV paint. I added a black mask and gloves which I had also painted. The design looked effective under the ultraviolet light. The stretchy leggings and top also made it easy for Holly to move.
The ultraviolet fabric paint costumes took a long while to make but I feel that the end result really made the hard work pay off. The gloves stood out against the black background and Holly’s costume shone under the lighting. I’m pleased the paints worked as I hoped they would.
Howard Rees-Jones, G. (2017) Kalopsia. Lincoln: George Howard Rees-Jones Media.
Beth’s delusion consists of her giving a ‘speech’ once she receives the promotion at head office, originally we thought of the idea of her been an American President and giving her inauguration and Tom would be her bodyguard and Joanna would try and assassinate her. However this didn’t feel quite right and didn’t feet directly into the play and certainly didn’t fit Beth as a character.
We thought of the idea of her been a Queen, we searched for queen speeches and found her speech to the Troops of Tilbury. It spoke of a strong powerful woman, reflected on war, semi mirroring Joanne’s delusion. This speech allowed us to use yet another form, classical speech. Not quite Shakespearian, but it certainly fits the time and reads in a very similar fashion.
Beth getting the promotion causes Simon to get incredibly frustrated, making him take out his anger on Michael. They have an argument and finally Michael stands up to Simon, causing him to get incredibly angry. He slams his head onto the desk, breaking his nose and making blood squirt everywhere, time quickly reverses and it is revealed all to be in his head. The idea of keeping this delusion short was to try and make the audience believe that perhaps this is real, especially as Simon has been so cruel throughout the play and pictured as a real villain.
The final delusion, is that of Louisa’s. She’s a strong, hard working woman that focuses highly on her career. Unfortunately for many working women, especially in the business sector have to often give up having children and a family. We wanted to reflect this within the piece, without making it a major statement. Simon earlier in the play talks of her past relationship and how things didn’t quite work out, due to her work. She doesn’t get the position at head office, which she drastically wants and needs. Her whole life is devoted to her career and when she falls short she begins to wonder if she had made the right choices in life.
She begins to look at what she would have had, if she’d of stayed in a relationship. Perhaps not the right choice, but it’s a choice none the less. We took inspiration from the American sitcom ‘Scrubs’ where the lead watches a projection of what his future may be like. We decided to do something very similar and use media production as another form in the production. We decided to give it a hand held feel, so it appeared to be a homemade film yet the angles were that of a cinematic production making it feel less like they had filmed it themselves and that it was a ‘delusion’. Once the film ends, her ex walks on stage. This moment may or may not be part of the delusion, we wanted to leave the audiences questioning that fact.
PrimMichael JA (2009) Scrubs Series 8 – My Finale – JD Montage/Vision Of His Future. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=War9m52LrV4 [accessed
In addition to creating and sourcing props for the show, I am performing as the character of ‘Joanna’ who has been a struggle for me to get to grips with. Joanna is an extremely fiery character who doesn’t allow people to get in her way, particularly Beth (Emily Bickerdike), with whom she is caught up in a sales war with. However, Joanna is losing the battle as she struggles to care for her ill father and stay in the office to make sales. Her delusion is set during World War 2, in which she sees Beth as a Nazi; the ultimate villain in Joanna’s mind. Despite her best efforts in this ‘war’, she knows she is losing, with her units eventually being destroyed and her bunker hit with a missile.
The difficulty with getting into the character of Joanna is trying to find the vulnerability within her, as she puts up such a good front in the office around everyone else, until she is around Zoe (Holly Lomas). When together, both of these characters can finally be themselves and their friendship shows a real different side to both characters, which allows our audience to empathise with them and really become invested in the show.
Despite her fiery attitude, Joanna is not an all-out horrible person and knows when to admit defeat. Despite her having her delusion, she is very much a realist and accepts life for what it is, more so towards the end of the play. After it’s announced that Joanna has not got the promotion, she accepts it gracefully and congratulates Beth on her success, despite their previous hatred for each other.
I feel if we were to perform Kalopsia again, I would do a lot more work into discovering who Joanna is and what has led her to behave in the way that she does. I would certainly ask a lot more questions of who she is and what has led her to make the decisions she has in life. Overall though, I will miss playing such a brilliant character who has become one of my favourite roles to play at University.
