Mother Nature will kick your ass

Earthquakes. Lots of them. Big ones.
What happens to people when they're faced with an uncontrollable force that puts them in danger?
Fight and or flight. My first instincts were to protect those with me, to GO somewhere even though there was nowhere to go to be safer. People get angry. And you do get a bit buzzy after. You laugh together, your heart rate is up, you just want to shake it all off.
The quakes today were not like Feb 22nd. I don't think anyone laughed then. People scream and cry. It violates your whole life. Takes away your treasures and mementoes and gets in every intimate place you have and cracks your toilet bowl and your great grandmother's tea cups. It sends your pet cat into the wilderness for months. It prevents you from getting to your loved ones, and it makes happy people depressed and angry. It wears you down. It makes everything seem difficult and pointless.

But it also brings people together. It makes them determined, and strong when they realize how much they can cope with. They get creative and resourceful. They reprioritise. They make new things. They carry on. And they become better people after it.

People will do almost anything to survive. They are protective and violent when they need to be. Life is the most precious thing.

Direct the Action

The audience need to know why they're there because they are no longer passive observers, they are part of the action.

Direct the Action

The audience will know they're coming to see a shipwreck. They'll be looking for it.

Technicalities

Make flowers wilt over 30 mins?
Light behind paper
Water on the windows
Projector on the roof
Old radio
Mirrors
Photographs
Little bits of music from outside?
Sound from outside the room
Temperature
Delicate glassware
Rug
Lamps
Radio news reports
Radio ads/sponsors
Do they fear for themselves?
Candles timed to go out after 15 mins
Smell- comfort - cookies, flowers, leather, incense?
Change smell - salt, bitterness, smoke,
Smell and taste affect each other

Comfort

The space

Planning

A shift

So, after Theo and I made the giant paper boat, and sat in it for a while, we got to talking about danger.
The idea that you can't make a theatre audience feel like they are truly in danger, but you can make them feel for the characters in danger.

We wondered if we needed characters.


And then we started talking about the audience being in a situation where they feel the love, warmth, security of the siblings, and then they start to sense the danger they are in. And then there's afinal stage, something changed but also similar to the first stage. Some kind of beauty.

So if the audience is in a room of some kind, something immersive, that they can explore. And then we can play with changing the technical elements of the room, to make the audience feel the danger (perhaps), the claustrophobia, or at least some kind of feelings of knowing that two people are going through a terrible experience. Perhaps its fear. Or loss. Not sure.

But i don't want it to be in a theatre. I want it to be somewhere genuinely warm. So my extra lounge it will be. The turret room.

And this way we can play with specificity without having to build clever things.

Making a giant paper boat

It didn't work very well.

Precision

The delicacy of each and every sound.
The snow. 

Danger

Tension

Precision

The music is noticable.
The colours.
The looks between them. 

Beautiful wrecks

Ships

Dangerous water

Beautiful water