Slightly different approach to this show and one that I would like to continue working on. After workshopping with the cast, we continued to have less and less on stage. The less we had, the more we were able to say and the easier we were able to say it. Some of the particular elements of this show were as follows:
1) all furniture and setting was created by the actors, as you can see in this first photo of Marie coddling her young child and sitting in her room. those actors who were not in the scene wore grey cloaks which covered their entire body and so became pieces of the set. With this the set was able to come alive, adding to Woyzeck's paranoia, walls could move and chairs, trees, beds and boulders were formed instantly where needed.
2) the only actual piece of furniture onstage was a television set. this was to allow us to make the 'showman' or 'ringleader' (depending on what translation you use) into a budget childrens television show. it became apparent that the showman was describing so much of the essence of the play that he needed to be separated from 
the rest of the action. Turning him into a childrens TV show served a couple of purposes. Firstly, since no one left the stage at any point, it gave us something to do with Marie's baby prop. Plunking it down in front of the TV became a fairly harsh statement in itself, but when the showman started in on his rants, it became completely disturbing. Second, it threw the showman out of context which forced people to change their point of view of him and what he was saying... ie: a character can say what they want to another character or the audience and most people won't pay any attention, but say it to a child and everyone gets their guard up. including myself.
the rest of the action. Turning him into a childrens TV show served a couple of purposes. Firstly, since no one left the stage at any point, it gave us something to do with Marie's baby prop. Plunking it down in front of the TV became a fairly harsh statement in itself, but when the showman started in on his rants, it became completely disturbing. Second, it threw the showman out of context which forced people to change their point of view of him and what he was saying... ie: a character can say what they want to another character or the audience and most people won't pay any attention, but say it to a child and everyone gets their guard up. including myself.All in all, this was a fun one to work on and I am glad I got it out of my system. I may come back to it sometime, and when I do i would like to spend more time developing the characters and exploring them more. This is an incredibly thick script with and astounding amount to discover. I appreciate the work that the actors did and think we came an incredibly long way given the time we had. So thank you to all of you if you are reading this.
