The making of "A Questmas Story"
It all started with a brainstorm. What skills would we like to develop? Do we want to do an actual play like A Christmas Carol or do we want to create and write our own play? What do we want to do? The class leaned in the direction of creating our own Christmas play. We got into groups and further discussed what kind of play we could create, a recurring theme in each group seemed to be the idea that Christmas is banned.
Idea
During my groups brainstorm, I suggested that everyone in our group of five should have a character and each character will go through events that relate to Christmas. As a group we decided these characters should be slightly younger than us (15-17). Scene 1, the first child sees the birth of Jesus, Scene 2, the second Child sees a historical event that happened on Christmas day, Scene 3, the third Child sees Christmas day in the present day, Scene 4, the fourth Child sees a Christmas movie or a Christmas special on TV and Scene 5, Child 5 sees the reason Christmas is banned (Evil Santas').
As a class, we were asked to share ideas, most groups had come up with similar ideas, like having five children, an evil Santa and the birth of Jesus. An idea that was slightly different was Michael Appiah's idea so I decided to regroup as I liked his Black Mirror (Netflix show) approach. The White Bear (Black Mirror) episode is about a woman who has committed a crime via joint enterprise, she has no full memory of committing said crime and she struggles through a chain of events that lead her to remembering which then leads to her becoming aware that she is being punished before her memory is wiped clean again and she goes back to having foggy memory and experiences the same chain of events in a never ending loop. The White Bear episode was a stimulus that reminded us of shows like The Good Place, where the characters have died and got sent to the good place but later figured out that they were really in the bad place and then their memory is wiped and they keep figuring out that they are really the bad place every time, this all inspired our final idea.
Christmas is banned and the play starts with children waking up having absolutely no memory of anything, they are confused and assume that they are friends. Each child then exists the stage due to them individually hearing a sound that connects them to their individual scenes, for example, Child 1 would hear a baby crying (Jesus), and exit the stage, after they all leave we would see each child in their individual scenes. Then the audience will find out in a later scene that they are actually in a test stimulation and that Christmas has been banned due to people dressing up as Santa Claus and killing people (like the 2016 clown sightings). They have to decide whether to bring Christmas back or not. The last scene would be them not being able to agree and the stimulation will start again with their memories wiped and they'll be back in the positions that we first saw them and then we'll leave it like that, a cliffhanger.
First Draft + Rehearsals + Characters
Everyone in the class then presented their Christmas play ideas, showing an improvised piece along with it, after viewing each piece,we decided to further develop our ideas as a class, piecing them more together and connecting them. We then discussed whether to take it to schools to perform, like a tour and to think about what kind of audience we wanted to cater to, the purpose, our aims, intentions, what we intend to make people feel at this festive time. Each group then wrote a rough draft and our teacher Rob Alexander and a few volunteer writers found a way to put them all together and come up with the first draft of A Questmas Story.
We kept the five children and added a dog so there are more main characters and because every good Christmas production has a dog. The children are in secondary school as we are closer to secondary school age and we can connect more, we also kept the idea of a it being set in a dystopian timeline where Christmas is banned and the children have to save it. Sam, Alex, Jaime, Charlie and Jordan were name chosen for the five children, these names were chosen because we had not yet thought of casting and these are unisex names. We then began the characterisations of our characters, brainstorming, what kind of characters they could be? It was decided to stick with the stereotypical friendship group where you have "the leader", "the baby of the group", "the dumb one", "the mean one","the sarcastic one" and "the dog".
The next step was to cast the main actors, this was done by having an informal audition where individuals in the class volunteered to partake in cold reading the script, in an attempt to really lift it off the page. Over a couple days of swapping actors around and giving everyone who wants to read in a chance to, the parts were then cast by the teachers (Rob and Sharon). I was cast as Jaime, "the dumb one". As an ensemble we continued to develop our ideas by improvising scenes to fill out the draft and as we did, we started seeing our story as a whole.
It was then time to make it come alive so we started the redraft by writing out our improv scenes and the more we wrote the more we ended up going down the line of a pantomime vibe with classics like "it's behind you!", "oh no it isn't!" and innuendos out seemingly innocent phrases. The journey the children took was through the Victorian era (world war i) as it was decided not to use the birth of Christ due it being a belief. The stereotypes really guided our writing because we know what kind of sentences and actions these characters would say and do. While writing we went on to add a supporting cast for each of the eras. (Soldiers, Market woman, Charles Dickens, Guards).
The idea from the soldiers scene came from a Sainsbury's ad where both German and British sides stopped fighting and came together to play football, this visual representation of a real historical moment made us want to create our own, it was said that they crossed the trenches into no man's land, wished each other a Merry Christmas, sang Christmas carols, buried their dead and played football with one another. So our soldiers in our play were both concerned and thoughtful towards the children and the dog, as it was Christmas time people are often kinder. The scene ended in an explosion because although some soldiers were in the Christmas spirit, not all of them were and so were still fighting in other sectors. Our version of Charles Dickens was old fashion, empathetic and an intellectual, which is a reflection of the real Dickens as he was a known literary genius and as his real life working in a factory and seeing the poor working class people and what they experienced bleeds into his writings so this suggest he was an empathetic man. The Market woman was loud, focused on selling her produce and did not really care for the children, the reason is because they were not buying and they were wasting her time. The supporting cast helped the vibe of what each era would be like. Our writing process continued with us improvising each scene, blocking, recording and then writing word for word from the improvisation, then fact checking and editing it so that it can flow better. During rehearsals we had ideas like Charles Dickens making A Christmas Carol reference so that the audience is aware of who that character is meant to be, we did research so that we can be accurate as it is history and we decided upon a happy ending.
Final Draft
The play takes place in a dystopian future. Parents of the 5 children have been taken due to them trying to secretly celebrate Christmas in a time where Christmas is banned. The children and dog meet up in an attempt to find their parents and save Christmas. The 5 children and dog sneak into a government protected facility and are then chased by two police officers, out of breath, they quickly discover a place to hide (the book) but end up time travelling into the Victorian era where they meet Charles Dickens and accidentally give him ideas for A Christmas Carol. They then continue their self assigned mission and attempt to find their way back home. Hot on their trail are the police and the acolytes who were sent by the Evil One. The children then accidentally find themselves in the middle of No Mans Land and when they realise they try and hide but they are soon discovered by the British and German soldiers who remember that it is Christmas time and engage in a quick game of football before the children and dog leaves due to an explosion. The children are still being followed by the police officers and acolytes. meanwhile their parents have escaped from the Evil Ones prison with only one parents memory being wiped. They all find themselves in the middle of the Evil Ones last plot to destroy Christmas. The Evil One is dressed up as Santa ready to blow everyone up when his plan is foiled by the parents and the police officers, he is then captured and sent to prison while everyone celebrates Christmas.
Characterisation of Jaime
Jaime is "the dumb one". With friendship groups in real life and in the films/tv/plays you often find there is one friend that is a bit of an airhead, for example. Phoebe from Friends, Claire from My Wife and Kids, Cher from Clueless, Denise from The Cosby Show, Amber from House of Anubis, Hilary from Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, Cassie from Skins and more but these are the first characters I thought of for inspiration for Jaime. The first thing you notice about these characters is their fashion sense and what a person wears says a lot of about them so for Jaime I decided not to fully wear the uniform, instead I swapped the blazer out for a pink coat, this suggest that Jaime doesn't follow the rules, usually secondary school only allow dark coats and the school crest must be seen at all times, this reminds the audience of the people in set 5 who do not always fully wear the uniform. During the Victorian Scene Jaime is seen eating sweets, this the reinforces the student that always sits at the back of the class eating and that she has snacks on standby. Jaime is also a stereotypical a reflection of generation z as she seems to be more concerned about her phone not working than being in a completely different era and as she makes vine references without knowing "look at all those chickens". Jaime is talkative but also a bit slow so her vocal mannerisms is either talking fast and rambling or a high pitch confusion. Jaime talks with her hands and her facial expressions are often a confused one. Her family is her father Jeff who's memory got wiped but he still recognises her in the last scene. It is suggested that Jaime is closer friends with Sam as she is the only one who immediately knew what operation redhawk. She is a bubbly character, an example of this would be during the chase scene when she runs across the stage with a police officer and waves and says hi cheerfully like he is not trying to arrest her.
Backstory: Jaime is a 16 year old who attends a secondary school near her home. She was raised by her father, who she is really close to and she does not have a relationship with her mother. She went to the same primary school with Alex, Charlie and Jordan and they have been best friends ever since. She finds school boring but goes to see her friends. She can be really smart if she tried. She is ditsy but lovable.
Research
Feedback for Rehearsals + Performance
Some feedback that was received during our rehearsals period was to aim to be off book, this is so we can lift it of off the page and focus more on the movement. Through our run through we were told to speed it up, learn the cues and to not get naturalistic but to be loud and to physically be louder, really pantomime it up. It was suggested that we use the Meisner technique to help us heighten the truth and to behave truthfully under imagine circumstances. Keep the energy up, play the subtext and watch out for odd emphasises, for example "Wait, I thought you were adopted." More feedback that we received was to warm up to keep focused and to be careful of backs to the audience. No dead space of the stage, be ready and focused for when you come on next, also, be careful of line acting. Block the market scene so the spacing can be improved. Continue to play the moment, no noise backstage and do not cross behind the curtain *(we can see you).
My feedback for day one, evening performance was "you were louder the second run but when you get louder you talk faster so be loud but take your time Daniella".
Group feedback for day one, remember to leave adlibbing off, don't just walk off. don't drop the energy on stage and be louder for world war one.
Finally scene cues were good.
Evaluation
We performed four shows, two matinees and two evenings. As an ensemble we worked well together, it was enjoyable and rewarding to finally be able to perform our own production. You can not always avoid being ill, especially during winter and there were quite a few people that were under the weather, including me. Projection was a challenge for me however as an actor you really have to push through in order to not let the ensemble down, if you do not project the audience misses the moment and then they will not get the joke or they could get bored. To improve I think that I would give Jaime more of her own voice so that she can feel real to me and I added an extra "Oh no, it isn't" and the response was a bit flat so the energy slightly dropped at that point.Working as a big ensemble is not an easy thing to do as everyone has different ideas, opinions and teamwork is about a lot of things, planning, trust and contribution but what I realised that above all things, teamwork is about support and I think as an ensemble we really supported each other on and off stage.
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