Oliver Grimshaws Solo Blog

The woman is perfected.

 Her dead

 Body wears the smile of accomplishment,

The illusion of a Greek necessity

 Flows in the scrolls of her toga,

 Her bare

 Feet seem to be saying:

 We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,

One at each little

 Pitcher of milk, now empty.

She has folded

 Them back into her body as petals

 Of a rose close when the garden

 Stiffens and odours bleed

 From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,

Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.

Her blacks crackle and drag.

This is Plath’s last written poem, therefore  it is easy to describe it as a poem that is only about suicide. The poem  takes a strange and sinister turn with the imagery of dead children. These children, not only dead but also described as serpents, are seemingly dismissed at the end of the poem, “She is used to this sort of thing.” These disturbing  depictions, which do not reflect at all Plath’s views or intentions towards her own children, call into question the premise of the poem and open it up to other interpretations.

As well as telling their own stories, artists often explore stories from history, pop- culture and more. Dickie Beau uses existing recordings, stories and texts as his stimulus. Through clever editing and beautiful performance skills he takes the audience on a brand new journey showing stories in a new light. Solo work so often focuses on the self and it places much emphasis on the idea that the artiest must be present.  I know that if  my performance is on the two female writers, Virginia and Plath,  I couldn’t just simply act them out. Therefore,  I have chosen to combine multimedia, as well as the use of imagery, and the use of Verbatim to portray the two women. I am constantly thinking  about the impact my show must have on the audience. A good solo piece, in my view, must engage the audience as much as possible. I want the audience to feel a connection to my piece and  although I am talking about two women, of one who died 51 years ago and they other 73 years ago,  I still want them to emotionally connect to these two women. Consequently, I feel that a small inter-mate audience would be more beneficial to my performance.

The video above is of the  artiest Dickie Beau’s. He uses Verbatim to represent the famous actress and singer  Judy  Garland. His over stylized portrayal of her works beautifully and it works tremendously well as a piece, as it posses all the good qualities that a solo performance should have. His work as inspired me to play around with different ways of playing the two characters within my piece.

“Of course you’re looking for emotional effect, but at other points in the story you’ll be looking for plot and facts , which means asking slightly dry questions – where they are, what they’re doing, who they’re waiting for etc. Those things are key to the highs and lows of the story.”

“One of the strengths of verbatim is the sort of rich text you just couldn’t make up.”

“You have to be quite upfront from the beginning. Even if you don’t know where your project will end up – if it’ll even get used.”

“Some people have both [of the] things you’re looking for: interesting characters and the potential to be developed narratively. Some people are brilliant, likable and accessible straight away, but they might not have much forward story; all their best stories have already happened to them. The best verbatim theatre is as much present tense as possible – it’s about capturing things as they happen.”

 

Alecky Blythe’s interview has provided me with an insight into the affects of verbatim theatre. I feel that verbatim recounts the words of real life people in interviews and conversations in a very intimate way. My intention as the performer is to create  material which attempts to convey a particular story or message, and in the case of my performance a very serious message.

Virginia Woolf

 Poor Virginia Woolf seemed doomed from the start. She suffered a nervous breakdown when her mother died when  Virginia was just 13. Her father died just nine years later, causing another breakdown which resulted in a brief period  of institutionalization. She and her sister were subjected to sexual abuse by their half brothers, which certainly did not  help her state of mind.

On March 28, 1941, Virginia decided she had had enough, loaded up her pockets with heavy rocks and walked into  the River Ouse near her home. Judging by her symptoms and behavior, modern-day doctors think she probably  suffered from bipolar disorder.