The Globe Immersive Performance

My character

We had spent the last six weeks researching, auditioning and rehearsing our immersive Globe performance. I had already gone and pushed myself from my role last year which was a slapstick comedy piece with Will where we were part of the vaudeville theatre segment of the tour. This year I wanted to go for a tour guide but the thought of having to answer questions would make me buckle under pressure. So I decided to go for a role that was more in the face of the audience but still had more to say than what I did last year so that I could still feel like I was pushing myself. I went for the insurance broker working with the Mary Ann Cotton's. I knew from the start my character was sort of a narrator who was very factual so I knew I had to learn the facts and make sure I get them right just incase someone potentially notices I made an error. 
I knew for the insurance broker he would have important documents and be smartly dressed, so I made sure to print out some insurance documents that I filled out as in my piece I show it to the audience. My costume can also be found in my other blog post where I talk about preparing for this show, I feel like my costume was right for the time era, not too modern but also not too old. This year I was in the downstairs bar instead of on the stage, so it's more of an enclosed space meaning the audience would be closer to me, whereas last year they sat down and watched us. I worked with multiple people this year like the 3 people who were Mary Ann Cotton and the 3 people who would switch in and out as Mary's husband, so I always had someone to interact with when talking to the audience. 

Tuesday 24th October

Night Shows

This was the first show day and our first show wasn't until 17:15 meaning we had time to do a couple of run throughs to polish things out and make sure everyone was ready for the big night. Today I had Gracie as Mary Ann Cotton and Aiden as her husband. When doing the run throughs I decided to make a few small changes to my performance so that I wasn't always just standing there doing nothing when I had said my part. I had to make sure I was always invested in the scene and look like I am always part of it otherwise it doesn't work if someone is in the background and they look lost. The minor changes I made was that I would pass an insurance document over to the husband right before he gets poisoned by arsenic, as to sort of foreshadow that I know whats going to happen because I tell the audience all of what Mary has done to her relatives. I also decided to foreshadow the husbands demise further by pointing him out on 2 occasions in my monologue that he is going to die. These were the 2 minor changes I made that I think gave life to my monologue a little bit more as my character is knowledgable about what Mary has done so it just made sense if I foreshadowed another victim but not enough so that it still catches the audience off guard. 

When it came to the first show we ran a little behind due to missing some of the audience so we didn't want to start without them, this gave us a little bit of time to talk with Aiden about when I pass the document over so that he can be prepared and react to it. The tour starts off by meeting the tour guides who take them through time and their first stop is the titanic, then its Guy Fawkes after. They then run into victorian child snatchers and the first of 3 Jack the Ripper suspects and back to titanic again right before they end up coming to us.

We all start off by having the Victorian Children scattered around the room, me right in the middle of the bar, the husband directly next to me and Mary Ann Cotton in the middle of children to the side rambling to herself. As the audience come into the space the Victorian Children start by singing the nursery rhyme about Mary and as they finish I do a little chuckle and repeat the first 2 lines of the rhyme to the husband and then grab the documents and turn to face the audience. As im talking to the audience I always address Mary by getting closer to her but then always backing off. As I start to unravel more and more about Mary's life and what she did to her relatives I grow more aggressive when addressing her to show my disgust in what a horrible woman she is. Then when I mention that she was hanged in 1873 I let out a little chuckle to nod that I'm glad she is because she was a monster. I then go back to my spot at the bar and start writing on the documents as Gracie does her introduction as Mary, asking about the teapot and saying hello to the tour guides and crying about her accusations. When she starts brewing the poison for her husband the children sing again so I slip the husband a document and stare him down as he reads it in fear just for him to then drink the poison and die as I shake my head and look away incase im next. 

After this it is the 2nd Jack the Ripper suspect who is also in the room with us so I need to just keep occupied and stay in the moment, Gracie and I made the decision that one of us goes and collects the document off the husband's body. If Gracie grabs it she reads it before giving me a look and hands it back staring at me, if I grab it I just hide it before Mary can have a look at it. 

After they are finished with Jack the Ripper we have like 10 minutes where we need to wait for the tour guides and audience to leave the main theatre part so that we can make our move and start the execution ceremony. This was the same as we had rehearsed where we bow down to the queen, start screaming and shouting getting gradually louder and persuading the audience to choose who they should kill out of the Jack the Ripper suspects. Again when Mary Ann Cotton is about to be executed a couple of us walk forward pushing past the audience staring them down and slowly clap as Mary dies. Then a hustle breaks out after Guy Fawkes gang come to save him which ends in us all freezing when Johnnie Walker comes back and takes the lantern after Burke had just been killed.

Wednesday 25th October

Morning shows

For the morning shows we had no makeup on as we didn't want to scare the primary school children. This time I worked with Millie Trodden who was Mary and Keiran who was the husband. I ran through the scene with Keiran of what I would be giving him just before he dies. Then with Millie she came up with the idea that I notice she is there at all times and she doesn't notice but I think she does so I need to act scared getting close to her. The husband bit was the same with me passing the document and then me grabbing it, when I go to grab I turn back around and Mary tries to offer me a drink something else Millie improvised in to keep us busy as Jack The Ripper is speaking. I reply with a slight smile shaking my head with fear then swiftly put my head back down to writing. For the execution part we were told to shout or scream like we did for the night shows due to us scaring the primary school children, we also got told not to move forward when the execution was happening or to push past the audience. Everything else was exactly the same just with a few added bits into it, to make it less creepy. Some notes I got back from these two morning shows was that I need to speak with more clarity as sometimes you miss certain words that I am saying other than that I was doing good. 

Night shows

For the night show it switched again of who was Mary and the husband, for Mary it was Sophia and for the husband it was Will. Everything went smoothly and we could creep the audience out more this time due to it being the night show and not the morning one for the school shows. Not much changed in our piece apart from Sophia coming on a different way and instead of telling the audience to leave she runs off after the detective but it didn't change anything drastic or didn't matter as the show was still perfect. We also had Sophia stare me down back to my spot after I had finished talking to scare me away and go back to doing my work. For the execution scene we were able to add everything back that we couldn't do in the morning show and everything went smoothly there. 

I think the shows went amazing and couldn't of asked for a better return to performing to start off the year. I also felt I pushed myself more than last year as I felt more involved with the audience since i'm narrating to them and i'm staring them all down as I'm speaking while also staying in the scene. It was a lot to learn and do at the same time but everyone who I worked with in the Mary Ann Cotton piece were amazing and we all bounced off of one another to give it that feeling that none of us were ever lost and to keep it flowing like it did. There were certain times where I obviously was told I wasn't clear enough with certain words I believe I managed to slow down a little more for the night show on that day and think of what I was going to say next instead of just knowing what was going to come next. I thought ahead so that I could prepare myself, but clarity only gets better with time and especially when doing accents which is something I am going to work on to improve. So to start off the year I think I did a good job pushing myself from the funny comedy role I had last year. If given a 3rd year or a chance in the future where I may be part of a immersive tour, I think I would definitely be ready to push myself for a tour guide. As performing right in front of the audiences faces was a different experience that I loved and that I would definitely do again but with the added aspect of answering questions and interacting with the audience more.