Let's Trade

Today was a learning curve- both in our development in creating the world and our creation of the physical aspects to the piece. Today we devised the physical sequence for the trader scene which threw us into the hectic mess that is the trading floor seen at Enron. This video explains what the traders at Enron were like:

“No one was more aggressive than the traders.” 

“If I step on somebodies throat on the way that doubles it, well I’ll stomp on the guy’s throat.”

“A new economic religion.”

Sources like this were really helpful when informing our work today. We had to get to grips with the violent necessity of the work these men and women carried out, whilst depicting the sacred ritual which existed on the trading floors of this major cooperation. It is moments like this in the play that will make or break the atmosphere of the world we create which will have a huge impact on whether we are able to immerse the audience in the story. If we can make our physical representations truthful and slick then we will be able to represent this sector of the business well and yet if we allow it to become sloppy and uninformed, the piece as a whole will become less mature, which will destroy this piece entirely. To make this play not just good but great, we need to bring a level of maturity and understanding that perhaps would not be expected of a group of students. We have no hope of understanding the business world from personal experience, so our research and dedication to the facts and artistry of the reality we are representing in our 'fictional' story, is of the utmost importance. 

To find truthful physical stimulus you need look no further than the trading floors and their abundance of hand signals used constantly to communicate with one and other. This video shows some of the many signals used:

I also made reference to this article in my research: Trading Pit's Hand Signals

Both of these show us the aggression and specific movement we need to channel in our physical sequence for the trader scene. From today's rehearsal I believe the key to this scene will be the confidence in what we are doing with our hands and bodies. As I am not going to be in the sequence today my main job was to watch and feedback to the group what it looked like. When we started it looked like a complete mess, but that was to be expected and with a scene (and indeed a play) like this it isn't so bad to have some of the components a little rough around the edges. However there's messy and then there was what we were producing at the start of today's rehearsal. The problem was that people had taken a glance at a video or picture of trading pit hand signals and then just made up their own movements. For this scene to be effective we need to know what we are doing with our hands, otherwise it is really obvious that the movement is not founded in truth and therefore the audience won't get on board. This piece could be a high energy, interactive moment which would pull the audience directly into our world; that is, if we know what we're dragging them into. After today's rehearsal it is clear that as a company we need to go away and do some thorough research on this part of our world and come back all on the same level of knowledge so as to make this movement and our world not a stab in the dark at what we think it would be like, but knowing exactly what went on in these chaotic trading floors.

Another element that will push this scene to be better is our ability to connect with the music we are using. The track is going to be one of the biggest aids when bringing the atmosphere of the trading floor to life, but I think as a group because we have focused so much on getting to grips with the movement, we forget that it won't work if it doesn't compliment the track we are using. I think as a general target, we all need to start to let the soundtrack of the whole play effect us, in the same way the text does. It is a key component to the piece and we need to start using it to enhance and develop our actions onstage.