Last week we visited our site and our group made some changes to the location area; firstly, we originally had decided that we wanted to perform our piece in the toilets. Our aim was to have our audience enter into the cubicles, 4 people each time and 1 in each cubicle. So basically our performance is restricted to a certain amount of audience members. We would then make them each experience the symptoms that are divided in to 4 categories. When you go through typhoid, you go through 4 weeks with different symptoms. Each audience member would have its own week of symptoms experienced, according to which cubicle they entered.
However, we found a more intimate and smaller bathroom space when we were exploring the different rooms in the Drill Hall. We decided that bathroom would be more suitable to our performance as it would make the experience more personal to our audience, as you can see on the photos upload here. We took quite some time in order to find our space to perform it in; before picking the toilets we were thinking of having it performed in the auditorium. However, we would have to share it another group peforming their site performance and we thought our performance would lose it intimacy and purpose and our audience would walk out with a different view and perspective of what our goal is.
This week is also he week we decided we would perform as nurses; once our audience member walks into the cubicle, one of us would treat him as a patient, and we would at that same time read out the symptoms he is experiencing according to which week and cubicle he is in. We would also put a flannel on his forhead, wrap him up with a sheet, put a thermometer under armpit… so they would immerse themselves and feel part of the experience as if they were the patient back then. The audience members would remain with their eyes closes when instructed to do so.