Working on Callahan's office scene was one of the more difficult scenes to work on over all the whole show because of the complexity and the sensitivity of the scene. As a woman myself, i wanted to do justice to the sensitive topic and not make it a comedy topic like i know a few other shows that i have seen have done. Also, because of the age rating of our show, 12A, we had to be careful on how we presented this heavy topic to an audience that could quite possibly be too young to understand.
Starting blocking these scenes, we wanted to get the bare skeleton blocking down so we could work and build on that. we played with the chair in the centre of the stage and the proxemics and levels between Elle and Callahan. We started by having Callahan sitting down in the chair and then moving to standing to sort of make Elle lose the confidence she had gained from her previous win. However, when looking at it from an audience perspective there was not enough power emitting off of Callahan to show just how much higher he was on a power dynamic than Elle. So, we changed up the blocking with Callahan always being stood up and him transferring her down to the chair to really push on the power dynamic. I think in the final performance we executed this very well and you, as the audience, can clearly see who has the power and how Callahan is guiding and using physical power to control Elle. I think the proxmics worked very well and the concept of both the characters statuses in the scene had been established before this scene but the dynamics and power between the two of them were set in concrete in this scene.
Next we moved onto the proxemics between Elle and Callahan, we knew we wanted something in the previous scene, no matter how little, to sort of make the audience aware of the fact something was going to happen because, me and the actor who played Callahan, felt that we wanted to have this whole scene close together, even though we had the whole stage to work with, to amplify the different goals that both characters wanted to achieve. Elle, being close to Callahan to show the trust and admiration she has for him for letting her follow her dreams and Callahan being so close to Elle because he wants to make that move on her and get something physical out of it, which he believes he is entitled because of letting her join the internship. To do this we made sure we were only using the small section of the stage around the chair and stayed in that section to really amplify the feelings of closeness. From watching the final performance back, I think this went well. It wasnt the most effective way of conveying the relationship and feelings between the two characters but i believe this with the other factors ive discussed involved really made this relationship dynamic clear.
Next was the physicality in the dynamic, we decided we wanted to add that uncomfortableness of Callahan being so close and after a lengthy discussion on what we all thought was acceptable to do with our age rating, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to have Callahan going in for the kiss, instead of in the MTV version where he actually went in and kissed her. We decided this was a better option for a few reasons-
1. Both me and the actor who played Callahan weren't 100% comfortable with the idea of kissing
2. We weren't sure whether we would be showing the right thing to an audience of 12A
3. There were no other kisses in the show, so we were worried that it might be a bit on the nose to make this the only kiss, when there were many couples in the show that hadnt and wouldnt kiss.
We also knew we wanted to try out stage combat. Luckily, we had James Barnett, who played the other casts Callahan, who has a qualification in stage combat and Cameron Thorne who also had experience with stage combat to help us figure out the scene. We knew we didnt want anything over the top, so decided on a slap but we wanted a bit more content in the scene so made it a lengthier chunk of the scene. Starting off, we practiced the slap and how far we needed to be from each other to make it look believable but also made sure that we were both safe. Thinking about the show days, we collectively decided we would need to be practicing this stage fight atleast once before every show and thats exactly what we did. We did the whole section of the scene atleast once before every show to make sure both of us were completely comfortable with this. I think this went okay in the show because whilst the whole scene set out the way we planned it, it wasnt the most believable and almost looked like we were trying to make it overly dramatised. So, in the future, that is something id like to work on, making stage combat look more believable.
The last thing me personally as an actor had to work on was the different feeling and emotions opposing to the other characters in the scene. In this scene, there was obviously the hurt and heartbreak when Callahan tries to make a move on Elle. But there was also the emotions i had to convey towards Vivienne, warner and eventually Emmett. For Warner, i wanted to show the denial and her trying to show that she didnt want to kiss Callahan whilst also show the embarrassed side of her when she realised that he wasnt going to believe that Callahan had kissed her instead of what he believed had actually happened. Finding the emotions that Elle was showing towards Vivienne was a bit harder for me to grasp because she was such a complex character, so to figure it out, I had a look at the development between Vivienne and Elle and realised this is the turning point of their characters when vivienne starts seeing Elle in a different light and vice versa. So i wanted to show the initial shock to Vivienne sticking up for Elle then the thankful look to knowing that she knew exaclty what had happened in the office. For emmett, i wanted to sort of have the emotions hidden but almost like Elle couldnt hold it back, this was a bit more difficult because i know a lot of the time my emotions are always written on my face so i tried to reign it a bit and have them jsut appearing on the surface. I also wanted it to seem like it was hard for her to say what had actually happened to her to Emmett because she didnt want his views on her to change and for him to see her the same way Warner did. I think i conveyed these emotions successfully and made the audience really feel for me as this was the most emotional scene i had to do in the whole show, and it tested me as an actor due to the many different characters with all the different relationships in such a small time.
Overall, I think this scene went really well and conveyed the message of how women are treated in the workplace and made the audience feel the uncomfortable energy we managed to explore. However, i think if i do work with stage combat again i would like to work on it a bit longer and break down every move. To counter this though, people in the audience who had never seen this show before had said they were "completely gripped by this scene and did not expect it at all". This song was one that the adjudicator, David Beech, had picked out for its simplicity in its story telling exellence. So i am overall very proud with the final outcome.
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