Grimm's Ideas Portrayed By Gretel And Little Red Cap

Primarily, we were given a choice of four Grimm’s fairy tales to use as a stimulus for our GCSE devised performance and as a group we discussed initial ideas for each. All written by the Grimm Brothers, ‘Little Red Cap’ originally sparked great ideas for melodramatic scenes, due to the ferociousness of the wolf, however, we later realised this stimulus provided little opportunity for multi-roling, which would prohibit us showing a variety of vocal skills. Furthermore, the ‘Juniper Tree’, faced similar difficulties, and the decapitation in the plot would have been challenging to portray. Having a well-known story line, ‘Hansel and Gretel’ may have restricted how imaginative we could have been when developing new ideas, as the audience would
not follow a greatly modified performance of this. Therefore, we chose ‘The Seven Ravens’ to be our stimulus as it was less recognised and we felt like we could bring this stimulus to life.
‘The Seven Ravens’ tale explores the story of a man and his wife who had seven sons, and desperately prayed for a daughter.
Upon having a baby girl, they realised she was sick. The father sent the boys to fetch water to heal the baby girl, but cursed them to turn into ravens after they didn’t return. As the daughter grew older, she set out in search of her brothers.
This particular story line inspired us instantly, due to the numerous array of characters. This gave opportunity for multi-roling which enabled us to show a contrast in our vocal performance, as well as changing our stance to show the transformations between characters. Secondly, this brief also interested us, as it has a clear chronological story-line. By having a simple narrative, we could enhance the tale by developing our ideas into this renowned tale.
We decided to perform the majority of our piece in a physical theatre style, which included expressive movement and body propping to create both the mystical well and the dark forest. Additionally, we used a minimalistic set which consisted of three blocks and a blue cloth. We decided to incorporate the cloth as our only prop, as it would seem simplistic, yet provided symbolic meaning when
necessary.
Our performance was widely influenced by the theatre company ‘Frantic Assembly’.
After watching their live theatre production of ‘Things I know to be true’, it was clear that a minimalistic set would help the audience to engage more thoroughly with the characters emotions. Many scenes performed in their production involved only two chairs or a table. By integrating minimalism into our performance (using only one prop and no backdrop), the audience focus more thoroughly with the characters, and empathise with them during sad scenes.
From watching ‘Frantic Assembly’, I was also inspired to use expressive movement in our performance, as their use of dance and travel around the stage clearly outlined the emotions felt by the characters. I therefore thought this would be an engaging technique to use when the father curses the sons. To highlight his desperation and furious temper, the sons could follow around him by reacting to every word he said, almost to show the father’s control. The cloth could also be used in this scene and it could change use as his mood switched from sadness to
rage.
In my performance, I intend to show a wide range of emotions, through melodramatic acting. Therefore, through the role of the father, I can show my angry temperament when cursing my children, but can rapidly alter my mood to sorrow, upon my daughter leaving. Furthermore, I would also like to multi-role, so I can distinctly convey both my physical and vocal variation. By playing the role of the old man who lives in the mountain, I can alter my stance from a slouch as a desperate father, to a proud up-right position as I own the mountain.
As a group, we dramatically aim to emphasise the true value of family strength. To convey this we wish to perform a touching reunion at the end to show how pure family love can be. We aim to put a new twist on this stimulus, using other ideas which could be developed to make this piece our own.