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Show day schedule -Call 12pm -Tech run 12:30pm-3:30pm Straight to Hope Street Campus -Make-up and Hair 3:30pm-5:00pm Back to the Theatre -Curtain call 7:15pm -Show starts 7:30pm End approx 8:30/8:45

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Bibliography.

Bbc.co.uk. (2017). BBC Bitesize - GCSE Drama - Epic theatre and Brecht - Revision 1. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zwmvd2p/revision [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].

Edwards, j. (2017). 'The Hare Psychopathy Checklist': The test that will tell you if someone is a sociopath. [online] Business Insider. Available at: http://uk.businessinsider.com/hare-psychopath-checklist-test-sociopath-2016-11/#7-do-you-have-shallow-affect-7 [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].

sawoski, p. (2017). Cite a Website - Cite This For Me. [online] Homepage.smc.edu. Available at: http://homepage.smc.edu/sawoski_perviz/Stanislavski.pdf [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].

gilbey, r. (2017). Watching One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest again, I feel sorry for Nurse Ratched. [online] Newstatesman.com. Available at: https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2017/04/watching-one-flew-over-cuckoo-s-nest-again-i-feel-sorry-nurse-ratched [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].

mazin, m. (2017). Body Biography Project – Nurse Ratched. [online] Myriverside.sd43.bc.ca. Available at: http://myriverside.sd43.bc.ca/mazinm-2013/2017/04/10/body-biography-project-nurse-ratched/ [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].

one of millions. (2017). [video] Directed by s. o'connor. america: youtube.

america, m. (2017). Our History. [online] Mental Health America. Available at: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/our-history [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. (1975). [DVD] Hollywood: Fantasy Films.

baker, g. (1992). Ken Kesey Biography. [online] Oregonhistoryproject.org. Available at: https://oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/biographies/ken-kesey-biography/#.WidT6Mu6_D4 [Accessed 6 Dec. 2017].

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mental health.

Being a part of this production has opened my eyes.  It has helped me to see that there are so many people suffering daily, who don’t talk because they are too ashamed or embarrassed. It has led me to believe that mental illness is as common as a cold but as damaging as a high speed car crash, that some days are about chasing your dreams, and others are about putting one foot in front of the other there is nothing more frustrating than being at war with your own mind. Most importantly, its ok to talk because you will find you are not alone.

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Stanilavski & Brecht.

Playing Flynn who became Ratched was a challenge for me.  I used to be a carer so I understand what it is to be responsible for the well being of people who are vulnerable.  I therefore found it easier to identify all the wrong doings from the nurses part.  I didn’t however understand why they were so comfortable in mistreating the patients.  There was a point where I thought that Flynn was trying to keep her job and in doing so got too caught up with the act.  However I also understand that there are people who do bad things, and people who watch bad things happen and don’t do anything to stop it.  Concluding that there was no excuse except that they were in the wrong lacked remorse and more sickeningly enjoyed the misfortune of the vulnerable.   With that I looked into Stanislavski.  I realized that I could still find truth in the role. I reverted back to a childish mentality, and thought about Innocence. The trouble with people who do really bad things like the nurses is that, they lack empathy. When your a child your oblivious to things, you don’t think about the consequences and you move on quickly. I then looked into psychopaths.  After using Hares Psychopath test (Hare,1970) and discovered The nurses in fact are the psychopaths carrying every single psychopathic trait. Therefore i re read all the questions from the test which and built it into Nurse Flynn’s character.  I think it was really interesting that the opening and closing of the performance was in the style of Brecht’s “Don’t impersonate, narate” (Brecht,1924) Epic Theater, addressing the audience breaking the fourth wall and coming out of character.

(Stanislavski,1901)

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week 9.

This week we worked on the final scene. The scene begins by Nurse Flynn discovering the party on the ward.  When she returns with Ratched and the sins from the previous night are unfolding, some quicker than others.  Things begin to take  turn for the worst when Billy reappears with Candy after being found together on the floor of the seclusion room, it becomes quite obvious what has happend.  Its an extremely emotional scene for Billy as she starts off completely comfortable in herself and rather relaxed so much so that she speaks word perfect completely without her stutter.  Ratchet then begins slowly break Billy until she can no longer stand and begins to beg. Billy then blames the others to save herself which makes the others react negatively towards her , desperately she attempts to beg miss ratchet one last time, when that fails she is restrained by nurse Flynn.  Feeling trapped she bites Nurse Flynn to escape until she runs to the doctors office where she takes her own life. The Audley returns to deliver the news in shock, to which Nurse Ratchet places the blame on McMurphey who resorts in strangling her and in restrained and put to sleep by injections, as the scene fades out we continue with a speech from Sinead O’Connor.  As a character which plays a massive role in Billy’s death, its very hard to not feel empathy for her.  Its moments like this that make the role so challenging.  I think its important to understand your character to overcome issues like this. 

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week 7&8.

The meeting scene was probably the most difficult scene to get right, along with the party scene. The problem isn’t anything huge which is why it took so long to discover what the issue was.  The issues with both scenes is it contains so many people on stage at once, and there isn’t much movement.  The biggest difference in both scenes came from subtle changes which made for a more believable world. Speeding lines up, talking over each other, creating laughter, excitement, producing more light and shade. I also found that in the party scene the use of props also helped to add another level of excitement.  

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To understand the mood we wanted to set Mike introduced us to John Grants I Want To Go To Marz music video, which was a great way of understanding the ‘dreamlike’ affect.

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Week 6. 

This week was dedicated to creating and adding layers to the dream like sequence we refer to as the ‘Medication’ scene. The idea was to take the emotions and trauma the scene linked above has and recreate it.  The scene is similar to another where the patients line up to take their medication as they would have done every day.  However in this version everything is very dreamlike. Everything is mimed and everyone is purposely ignoring the two horrific incidents that occur throughout the scene. The first is Billy pretending to swallow his tablets, and when caught is forced to take them by two doctors until she is physically sick.  The other is McMurphy who after an altercation with one of the aides for refusing to take his medicine is restrained and injected against his will and tranquilized, this weeks dedication to the scene helped draw out the horror within the scene.  As the scene works to music, a song called ‘Utopia’ by Goldfrapp live from Abbey Rose Studios, it is quite choreographed therefore it was crucial we all worked together and understood where we should be using the music as a guide to the pace. 

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week 4 &5.

These two weeks have been dedicated to blocking scenes, learning lines and we have seen some lovely character relationships develop. By the end of week 4 everyone was off script unless covering for other people.  We had quite a lot of issues with attendance the last two weeks which i fear will slow us down, it does however give us more time to focus on smaller scenes and receiver tighter notes from Mike. We also managed to get in a complete run which went really well.  There was no large issues that had to be addressed, we were all given individual notes which we will work on over the weekend ready for next week.

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Week 3

Following some very intense auditions, we were cast.  As the module is ‘innovative theater’ there was some massive changes to the characters.  To begin all the roles except McMurphy ,Candy and Sandy were split. Nurse Ratchet was divided so that Flynn started off as quite an innocent nurse, who throughout the play became more like Miss Ratched until the end where she became the same person.  Another change was with Billy.  The character of Billy Bibbet was changed that she would be a lesbian, and the controversy with her mother stemmed from her inability to accept her as a lesbian woman.  I think this is a fantastic way to highlight the disturbing fact that some people were infact institutionalized for being gay in that period. It was even illegal! 

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Character Breakdown.

My biggest question about Miss Ratched was : is she really evil?  After researching the question I came to find an article by New States Man, who had interviewed Forman, who was apart of casting in the film version.  In the interview he states “I slowly started to realize that it would be much more powerful if she doesn’t know that she’s evil. She , as a matter of fact, believes that she’s helping people.”(Forman, 1975)  After hours of thinking I took into account the following.  Miss Ratchet is a woman in a very trusting position despite being Doctors with more status, she has a lot of freedom and is the most powerful person in the play.  The law at the time and the rules of the ward are that group therapy is encouraged and everyone is asked to contribute in sessions and to talk openly about their issues as this was believed to be the most appropriate way to help the patients.  However there is a thin line between encouraging conversation and interrogating the patients mentally disturbing them. I also took into account her position in society and concluded that women of the time would have been considered inferior to men.  Being a woman on a ward with all men could have been extremely intimidating and if she didn’t hold her power/ control she could be in a dangerous situation.  With that being said, all the patients who are in the hospital are vulnerable.  Throughout the play I think there are too many moments where Miss Ratched crosses the line and mis uses her power therefore I believe she is evil.

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Week 2.

Week 2 began with the knowledge we would be auditioning next week.  If I am completely honest I wasn’t exactly sure who I would want to audition for, the piece itself is filled with the most amazing characters, all completely different.  Even when you dig these characters still have so much to give.  However being so close to entering the industry I was really excited to audition more than anything.  After reading the script I found myself focusing on the character of Nurse Ratched as i felt it would be a real challenge for me as she goes through fantastic journey throughout the story and we are never sure of how we feel about her.  Before we was about to audition we spoke about casting.  Mike decided the best way to give everyone a good part was to split the majority of the characters and lines.  With auditions approaching I wanted to dig more into the character to get a better understanding of her. 

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With that we had started our journey to an innovaite adptation of ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’.

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week 1

After an overdue catch up, we began by watching the film version of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s nest Staring Jack Nicholson.  This helped us to get a better understanding of the piece and the characters within.  They play itself has a limited number of characters and as we are quite a big class it was a wonder as to how the piece would be cast.  Following a long discussion of the piece and the characters, we began to discuss the recent viral video of Sinead O’Connor.  With that we listened to what she said and broke down what she was saying, the message she was portraying.  Mike then took her words and transformed it into a script.

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Here is her recorded, emotional breakdown which has became a massive part of the innovation throughout our performance.  Not only was it an incredible way to see into the mind if a struggling woman batting with mental health but her incredible breakdown of the struggles she is facing and in doing so has used her illness along with social media to reach out to millions of people around the world not only to help people to understand the issues but to also let people know they are not alone!

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innovation.

As part of this unit, we have to use innovative theater.  At first the idea was quite daunting but after thinking about it , i realized what a fantastic idea it was.  One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest was one of the most innovative and influencial contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in 1962, leading to changes in the way psychology and psychiatry were viewed.  Although still relevant over 55 years have passed since the publication of the book, leaving us 55 years worth of changes, improvements and similarities to highlight to our audience to make it not only innovative but relatable. Although Kesey had obviously used viable sources, actual accounts and experience as inspiration, the play itself was entirely non fictional.  With the exception of Death of a Salesman (Miller, 1949.) there had never been a piece which had such an overwhelming reaction to a piece of American theater.  Although our attitudes and law have improved towards Mental health since One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest we are still a long way from removing the stigma that is attached to people with mental health conditions.  Following a recent break down from an extremely well known musician Sinead O’connor a point has arose that “It’s not the mental illness that’s killing people, its the stigma” (O’Connor, 2017.)

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one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

Originally a novel written in 1962, One flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest was adapted into the Broadway play by Dale Wasserman in 1963 which stared Kirk Douglas who went on to purchased the rights to produce it for the stage.  Douglas then gifted the piece to his son Micheal.  In 1975 Micheal Douglas went to on produce the film adapted by Bo Goldman and directed by Milos Forman, which won five Academy Awards. With each adaptation follows a slightly different version. The story itself is based in Oregon Psychiatric Hospital.  The story follows the lives of the patients who are emotionally controlled and quite arguably torched by a very patronizing manipulative Nurse named Ratched.  Upon the arrival of Randal McMurphey things begin to change.  McMurphy constantly antagonized Ratched and quite soon we begin to see the power struggle between the bold inmate and nurse.  After McMuphy’s constant outrageous behavior he finds himself in some deep water when being sent for electroshock therapy sessions, but even this punishment isn’t enough to silence McMurphy.  He becomes to love the inmates and encourages them to stand up for themselves, but soon discovers they haven’t the confidence to do so.  The idea of a party eventually sways them to back McMurphy up and stand against Ratched as a team.  McMurphy then brings the outside world into the ward, two beautiful open minded women, Candy and Sandy.  The party is an opportunity for Billy Bibbet a young suicidle gentleman with a sever speech problem to loose his virginity and for McMurphy to enjoy a final night with his new friends before a planed escape from the hospital.  When discovered by Nurse Ratched, a proud partially dressed Billy Bibbet appears with Candy care and stutter free.  That is until he is humiliated, broken down and emotionally murdered by Ratched who uses his mother as a weapon against him.  In a moment of panic Billy crumbles blaming all the patients including McMurphy for the antics.  When threatened with further [electroshock] ‘Therapy’ Billy escaped to the doctors office where he finds an instrument and cuts his throat taking his own life. Ratched then accuses McMurphy of being the reason Billy killed himself.  Seeing red McMurphy lashes out and leaps for Ratched strangling her almost to death.  This was the last time McMurphy has the upper hand as he is retrained and removed to the disturbed ward.  Following excessive treatment which is never specified throughout the pieces McMurphy returned to the ward.  Unrecognizable in a vegetative state. The Chief who appears deaf and dumb but is in fact a silent able observer takes a pillow and in an act of mercy puts McMurphy out of his misery and smothers him with a pillow.  He then escapes and the story ends.