Devising #4 - Too Much Crime Drama...

In our final devising lesson, we adapted the script in relation to the constructive feedback we had been given over the last few weeks.

Our staging at this point still wasn’t complete, and so our first task was to really try and figure out what it would be. We knew we wanted it as simple as possible, and taking from real life crime drama that we’ve seen on TV, we got a large table and three chairs, sitting in an awkward triangle around them. Although it was simple, it was obvious to see immediately that Faye and I didn’t really care for one another as we are both turned away from one another.

We adapted lines that didn’t suit the scenes anymore, or lines that we just didn’t really like, much like we did in the previous acting session. We also added lines and scenes that we thought would work better with the overall piece. For example, we added a piece where Hayley gets up to leave after explaining that Kim was the one who wanted to see Caroline, and that she only drove her there, as some of our feedback was to explain why Hayley didn’t want to be at the prison seeing Caroline.

We also added a whole section to add to the rising tensions between Hayley and Caroline, after Kim’s infamous ‘Graham cracker?’ line, before the blow up of storylines and emotion between the two. Our original ending before this edit related back to Kim’s earlier ‘Graham cracker’ comment, with Caroline saying ‘I think we’re gonna need some more Graham crackers for that one, Darlin’’, but with the new tone of the piece, it didn’t work.

We had discussed multiple different endings, however, we thought it best that Caroline could relate her line back to Kim’s constant noting of how much time they have left, as throughout the piece, Kim is constantly reminding the other two how much time they have left. It suited the piece better in my opinion, as I felt like the line relating back to the Graham cracker never really fitted the ending, especially after the fight that breaks out and the truth coming out. It really felt like that fitted not only the piece, but the characters in that moment, too.