Day 6 - "Let's go from your line, Leon"

So the blog post about last week's session is finally here. I have no excuses, I've just been a busy little bee (the stars also aligned and it was my 21st birthday this Saturday!). With another gravitational orbit around the sun in the bag, I'd like to begin by mentioning that we were joined at the last session by Dr Victoria Nesfield, a research fellow at the University of Leeds, and also Dave Murray, a musician at the Leeds College of Music who is currently creating a musical piece to accompany the production. Together with Stuart Taberner, Victoria has written the conference exhibition panels and has done extensive research for the project, in collaboration with other academics internationally to create content.
After explaining to the group her own role within the project, Thomas asked Victoria, "will be be asked questions on our thoughts after the show?" I know that I'd like to see the group answer questions based on the focus material of the exhibition in relation to the performance piece.

I'd like to know what they really felt and thought about the content that has been covered.
For example:

• What has been learnt about Nazi persecution of the Jews? (Is there anything you didn't know before?)
• What was your favourite part of the performance and can you imagining it happening in real life?
• What do you think the passport puppets really represent?
• How can we learn from the experience of presenting a historical piece? (e.g. Acting can be a process of understanding)

If Anthony repeated the scenario from Day 1 where he asked the group "should a memorial be brutal or beautiful?", I wonder whether the group's opinions would change. Perhaps it can be deduced that most of the young people would now say, "memorials can be brutal and beautiful at the same time. We presented something brutal with the intention of making it beautiful". 

Do we give more worth to objects that are beautiful, or just to things that make a big impact? 

Apart from jobs I've had in the past directing students for a project in Ulm, Germany, I've never had experience directing anything of this scale. Okay, 'Falling to our knees' may only be 15 minutes long but there is a huge amount of text and ideas to work through in a really tight space of time. It needs to have a high impact on the audience, flitting between brutal and beautiful scenes of memorialising.

Rehearsals seem to be going well. The group are focussed on the text except for a few moments of excitement during the warm-up games (I'm looking at you, Jonah!). Lyle and Alfie have been working on their duologue as Rudi and Horst, two young boys who reach a conflict between life as a Jewish victim and life as a by-stander. For tonight it's time I stepped up to my role as Assistant Director and work through their lines with them, just Lyle and Alfie.