The York Realist

The York Realist

We began looking at an exert from Peter Gills 'The York Realist', which was:

"I live here, I live here, you can't see that, though. You can't see it, this is where I live. Here'

This created some interesting ideas about what this passage meant but also what kind of themes we could expect from the play, my first impression was that it was about someone defending their home from someone they see as an intruder. I got this due to the repetition of "I live here" and how they direct it towards whoever they are speaking to, for example they say "You can't see" which is directly spoken towards them.

(The York Realist performed by the Donmar Warehouse.)

After this we had to create a short scene based on our ideas around this exert. My partner and I decided to go with a homeless person staying in a hunting cabin which they thought was deserted. The owner then comes home and sees the intruder in their living room who appeared to be reading a book, they have a short amount of dialogue which includes the exert from the play and finishes with the owner of the cabin calling the police then freeze frame.

We then moved to different partners and had to tell them a story of something that happened over the holiday that we could turn into a devised piece. My partner and I decided to go with a boiler not working but made it more dramatic by acting it out as if it had blown up, this got a better reaction I think that if we had just played it as not working. It could have been much better if we had spent more time thinking about the positioning of us acting in relation to where the boiler and sofa was placed as we had our backs to the audience by accident, and our feedback was also to make sure our backs are not to the audience.

We then read through the rest of scene 1 as a class where we stopped every couple of pages to discuss the plot of the story ensuring we still all understood, we did this for the remainder of the lesson.

After reading through the rest of the play, we then discussed the events and characters as we came across them. When we actually finished reading the whole play we talked about the characters and their personalities. For example how their demeanour changes throughout the highlights of the story in contrast from how we first saw them at the beginning. 

To follow on from this we were placed into groups of 4/5 and began to improvise a scene to demonstrate our understanding of the opening of the play. This was difficult as it was after looking at the script for such a short time so I did not fully understand all of the concepts of the story yet.In the end we created a short scene that covered a few pages from the beginning of the script as it was most fresh in my mind.

Then we got into pairs and were each given a separate section from the opening scenes. We marked units of action on certain parts of the script and wrote down our reasons for changing it.

Units of action are where:

• a character enters or exits the scene
• there is a change of time
• there is a change of subject in the conversation
• the location changes

(Our units of action on the script)

Context

The York Realist is a play written by Peter Gill in 2001. The play first showed at the, Lowry Theatre in November, then moved to the Bristol Old Vic and then the Royal Court Theatre in January 2002 by the English Touring Theatre. Peter Gill directed all these productions. The York Realist then moved to the Strand Theatre in March 2002. It was them performed avian by Good Night Out Presents and the Riverside Studios in September 2009 in order to celebrate Peter Gill's 70th birthday. The most recent performance was at the Donmar Warehouse in February 2018.

The play is set in Yorkshire in the 1960's and explores the themes of being gay at this time, for example the divide and relationships between the people in the north'south. Peter Gill himself was  a gay man working in the theatre industry and used his own personal experiences to help with the creation of the play. This is show when Peter Gill was sent to ask why an actor was not attending rehearsals, which is exactly what John does with George. At the time the play is set in, homosexuality was illegal therefore John and George faced strong consequences for their relationship with each other.

First Workshop:

Our first 2 workshops were based at the Donmar Warehouse and run by the people there. The first day was on their rehearsal space along with 3 other schools. We warmed up with all the schools by walking around the place and getting into a group when the staff called out a number, we also had to create freeze frames based on what they said, some of these were a horse, a bike and the London Eye

After this we got split into our school groups where we went upstairs to be working with the director of the show Toby. We began an exercise where he would say some statements and we had to line up on one side or the other based on whether or not we agreed or disagreed with what he was saying. Then we imagined there was a map of the world on the floor and stood on where we grew up, our parents grew up and where our grandparents grew up. To finish we stood where would like to live when we are older.

Following on we then began writing a script based on what we were given which was an image and 2 post-it notes. One said a location and the other said an event which was then used to create the scene. My group and I had the image of 2 girls in what appeared to be uniform lying down in the shallow waters of a  lake. Our setting was a mountain as it looked very rural. The event was that one of the girl wanted a child but the other did not. The scene begins one of the girls wanting to leave the relationship to be with a man so the other girl tells her she is pregnant and that she cheated on her. This is all lies as the main intention is just to break up with her girlfriend. The plan backfires with the other girl seemingly ecstatic by the news of an arriving child saying about how she's always wanted one. We shortened the scene down to about 4 lines, but had to make the scene at least 90 seconds long. Our first run through was 30 seconds so we kept rehearsing it to make it longer until we had the right amount of time. At the end of the session we performed it to the staff and rest of our class.

Second Workshop:

The second workshop took place at our college the next day. We started with a warm up where we walked around the space trying to balance it so there no big gaps or empty spaces. We moved onto an exercise where Toby said clap and we clapped, jump and we jumped, sides then we ran to the sides of the theatre and centre where we had to create a big clump in the centre of the stage. We did this to make us more energetic and thus increase our reaction times. After this we worked on writing a shot piece about a place where we felt most ourselves, I decided my bedroom my house as it is the place where I felt most comfortable.

We also looked at different ways of walking around the space and how one person is moving differently from the others which then draws attention to them, for example if everyone is moving quickly and one person is moving significantly slower.

We also looked at stage prescience in which we split into 2 groups where one would stand on the stage for a short moment then walk off and the other group had to asses their line of "I live here" to see who was most believable in that they lived there. I was told that I was very clear and concise and my confidence was very apparent.

Workshops

We did a various amount of workshops at the Donmar which  lasted the whole afternoon. 

One where we started listening to various pieces of music and moved in the way it made us feel. Then we put those emotions down on paper and in groups of 3/4 we created different movements for each emotion, put them into a sequence and then showed them off to each other to show us ideas of demonstrating pieces of work through music. 

Another which we did with Toby where we did a quick warm up them played Grandma's Footsteps in 2 groups, one group played while the other watched. We then spoke about why it was interesting to watch and why some parts were not. People sabotaging other players made it v interesting to watch and it shows just what people will do to win but this was then copied by other people and made to tactic boring to watch. After this we played Grandma's Footsteps without a Grandma so it would be completely improvisational meaning we had to all stop and start at the same time, this was definitely more challenging as it meant relying heavily on everyone to keep up with everyone's pace. This helped us overall to form ensemble groups and work more effectively as a team.

Our final workshop was one looking at Polari, a made up language used by homosexuals to converse discreetly between each other, it was made up from a variety of spoken tongues, some such as English, Italian and Cockney rhyming slang this made it easy for them to talk without worry of policing finding out about their sexual orientation which was illegal in those times. Although it was not featured in the play it is an interesting concept as John is from London so would probably speak fluent Polari whereas George from York would be less likely to understand it.

That evening we watched the production of the York Realist at the Donmar Warehouse.

York Realist Review

The York realist is play by homosexual writer Peter Gill about being gay and the relationships surrounding it and how it can effect both personal and professional themes.

The play explains the themes of love, family and sense of self or roots. It is set in the beginning of the 1960's in a small cottage in York rented by a son (George) and his widowed Mother.

George is a farm worker in York who works part time as an actor in his somewhat local theatre, where he meets John an assistant theatre director in town from London to help with the show. They begin a secret relationship until John has to return to London and gives George the choice of remaining with his family and friend in York or returning to London to be with John. However as this is the 60's homosexuality was illegal so this posed a big problem for George being a homosexual in a large city where it is is dangerous to gay. 

Throughout the play we see George struggle with his own sense of identity, the conflict between leaving his family and friends for his love interest, or marrying a woman he doesn't really love to keep his sexual preference a secret. The discomfort is showed by George discussing his relationship with John where he is constantly moving from one side to another. George does not show any of the typical homosexual stereotypes, he is a strong man with a deep voice, not very opinionated (only on certain things) and only seemingly comfortable about his sexuality in private. From seeing him react to other characters I saw that he was uncomfortably cautious around them. John, on the other hand is more closer to the typical gay stereotypes being much more polite and flirtatious around George which demonstrates how relaxed he is about being gay.

I feel the show effectively used certain aspects of technical production to support it in being the best it could be. The set was very naturalistic with the background being a large open field to show the location of the cottage in a rural area. Lighting was used effectively to show the different times of day and when the moments were most significant, a clear example of this is when George and John almost kiss in the doorway leading up to the stairs and there are no other lights apart from the one at the top of the stairs directly on them. The clothing used complimented the characters very well, dressing George in quite bland distasteful clothing reflects well on his seemingly boring life as a rural farmer, on the other hand John is dressed quite stylish and clean representing him being from London and his job as a theatre director.

Overall, I feel the production was very entertaining, the themes were represented well and I felt immersed in what I was watching. The use of different technical tools made me feel more engaged and brought it more to life and the chemistry between the characters felt almost real. 

In College:

Our next lesson at college had us discussing the show and what we individually thought about it, I spoke about ho the actors showed their understanding of the context as they delivered the lines with such meaning. After we were split into groups of 3/4 and were given a different area of the production to focus on. 

What we worked on:

(One groups work on what to write for a review.)

(My groups work on the actors portrayal of the characters)

(Character portrayal continued.)

(One groups work on the benefits of the technical aspects of the show.)

(One groups work on the Pro's and Cons of the show overall.)

The work in class focused on rehearsals, our understanding of the characters, the script and the themes of the play. We began working on what the order of the scenes would be as there were so many and more being added and we were not sure right away where to put each one. Then we had to make sure that everyone on stage always had a purpose so that they would not just be standing there, the way we directed it was that everyone would always be on stage. We created an "Energy Clap" which would be passed around actors and use as a base for each story to be shown, this made the scenes flow better and makes it seem that you are watching for the end. The transitions were smooth as the way we did them was by having one actor clap at another and their story begins.

The technical side was focused more on music to create suspense rather than lighting as we didn't need to demonstrate any changes in time. 

The week of the performance was heavily focused on refining the scenes making them better as much as possible, solidifying our knowledge of the scene layout and that we knew what we were doing for each story. We moved into the stage space and did a run through with the tech crew with all the music which went very well. It all went very smoothly and the music was a nice addition to make the scene feel more engaging using songs that everyone knows. To finish we watched all the other schools perform what they had been working on before finally showing what our class had been working on which was given amazing feedback.

Performance Evaluation

Overall I feel our performance went very well as there were no mistakes and everything ran very smoothly, the audience was engaged and we made them feel as if they were also part of the production. I enjoyed this performance as we incorporated our own ideas directly into the show. It was staged perfectly with lots of time spent making sure we were all in our correct places so that the audience could always see what was happening. I especially enjoyed the ensemble work on the show as before we had not been great with it but with a show focused mainly on it, it allowed us a s a class to improve and work of each other's energy better. 

We further linked the ideas of 'The York Realist' such as 'home' and 'identity' to our work but rather than using quotes from the script like the other schools did, we used our own ideas to connect it to the play which made it more personal  which I feel was a crucial part in making our production a success.