Today’s lesson entailed making some important decisions about
Lisa and Vince’s relationship throughout the play and how this affects her
illness. Amber, Livvi and I were asked to discuss and come to a conclusion
about what type of character Vince is and how he behaves and treats Lisa.
We collectively decided that Vince is a 28 year old business
orientated man who domestically abuses Lisa in the flat they share together.
Lisa is 21 years old therefore considerably younger than her boyfriend. This
has led to Lisa’s family disowning her as they don’t approve of Vince’s
behaviour towards Lisa or the age gap they have.
Due to the fact Vince is away on business regularly, Lisa is
often left alone in their flat. This aside, their relationship, when they spend
time together, is a negative one as he sexually exploits her and physically
hurts her. In response to this violence, Lisa bottles it up and disassociates herself
from the happenings and unhappiness Vince causes her. With this, she acts like
nothing bad has happened, sending herself in to a state of denial which has had
a bad effect on her health; she has developed Dissociative disorder.
We also decided that before Vince was on the scene, Lisa was
close to her direct family members, especially Dot. When her sister makes an
appearance in act 2 at the hospital, there is a clear divide between the two of
them and we have decided to make this because of their different views’ of
Vince.
We decided that Lisa is suffering from her mental illness due
to the fact she is a victim of domestic abuse however, she pretends it never
happens. She is too attached to Vince to break free from their relationship and
the ties which come with it. Her way of dealing with the domestic abuse is to
act like it is non-existent and in her case; this is slowly internally destroying
her.
After Amber, Livvi and I decided on these factors about Lisa
and Vince, I found that I have a better understanding of why Lisa acts in the
way she does towards certain characters, in particular the goat. I think the
goat represents Vince as a possessive rapist. The point where Lisa realises the
reality of what’s happening to her is when she witnesses Jane in pain because
she was raped and abused in place of her. When Lisa steps back from her problems,
she can see the wrong in the happenings however unfortunately for her, it doesn’t
click that that’s exactly what is happening in her real life.
The second part of the lesson involved the blocking of the
Jane and Britney scene. We made the decision today that when Lisa and Jane are
flying over the West, we will be sitting on risen stage blocks in back centre
stage, in front of a white canvas with projections of the sky in the
background. We made is choice as originally we were going to be running around
the stage in a pretend aeroplane however this didn’t look very professional or
organised so we switched to the idea of a stationary take on the scene.
Blocking the Britney scene today was very productive as
everyone involved, excluding the two people playing Lisa and Jane, had staged
the whole scene when we’d been working on other scenes. The way they had
choreographed some parts worked well as it really tied in with the content of
the script. For example at one point all of the characters waiting to been seen
at the Lost property office are ease dropping on a private conversation between
Lisa and Britney. When Britney has said all she needs to, she dramatically and
suddenly throws a whole tray of hot dogs to the ground. As soon as this
happens, all of the people waiting have edged close, almost off of their seats
and when Britney throws the tray, they all fall to the floor off their seats in
shock. When watching this scene from the audience’s perspective, it is visually
pleasing as the effect the sudden drop refers to how Lisa’s life can change so abruptly
at any point. This fits in with that fact nicely and goes with the dramatic
feel of the scene, what with Biffer dropping hot dogs everywhere and Lisa being
in a hurry to find her lost hour.
Overall today I have learnt a considerable amount about my
character and how her illness relates to her personal life outside of Dissocia.
I am now able to see and make sense of why Lisa is treading on egg shells every
time she speaks to Vince, she is physically wary of Vince as he is not to be
trusted anymore as he has abused Lisa’s trust too many times now despite the
fact she chooses to externally ignore this. She is however paying for this
internally with her illness.
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