Evaluation

 Most effective moments

One of the most effective sections of our small group piece was the actors telling facts to the audience at the beginning. At first, the audience appeared confused by what was going on as we were all performing our short sequences portraying someone with mental health. I think that they felt uncomfortable and intimidated by what was happening, however they were also intrigued and interested to see what the show was about. I think that the words and facts were very effective as they added a clear contrast to the rest of the performance and was a simple and effective way to enable the audience to have a greater knowledge and understanding of mental health before we explored the theme in greater detail. This is effective as it shocked the audience, much like Brecht's slap and tickle effect. Moreover, this juxtaposes the character we were just playing in order to a serious undertone to the piece to help the audience realise the importance of mental health in today’s society, a problem which isn’t often mentioned or talked about. These combine with the words to reflect on the harsh mockery and cruelty towards mental health in today’s society. I think it's really effective as the words are all insults and sayings that are heard very often, however people don’t realise the seriousness of these issues, therefore being very effective in showing cause and effect. This enables the audience to reflect on their own behaviour and what they say or how they act around others. This piece juxtaposed the crazy and wild side of the play and conveyed clear and simple facts by breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience. This relates to Grotowski’s method of creating a strong actor-audience relationship. He thought that if the actor creates a truthful connection with the audience, he would be able to change them. He brought back the fundamentals of what ‘good acting’ is. If an actor’s performance is raw and emotional, it could affect the audience. This came across very well in the facts. This was very effective as it set a clear tone and atmosphere for the rest of the piece. It emphasized how important our piece was and why we were performing it.

Another effective moment was the short movement sequences that the boys and girls did. The piece began with us all putting on several layers of clothes which completely contrasted to the girls, showing a clear divide in how different genders differ when hiding their emotions. There was a clear contrast between the girls’ movement and the boys’ movement. I feel like this was relatable to the audience as this reflects on what they will go through whenever they are at a club, party or any social event. Therefore, they could connect to the actors on stage. The boys were all acting tough and manly as if we were going on a night out and wanted to hide our emotions and insecurities so that no one would suspect how we really feel on the inside. We had to put on a mask to cover up and act overly masculine, strong and intimidating. I think my movement sequence was very effective as it conveyed the issue from a different perspective. I thought these set of moves were very successful as I was bringing together a lot of different ways that men usually use to hide themselves. This made the audience realise that men also have a lot of pressure on them in a social situation and we also have to go through these daily struggles in life. I think that we all put ourselves in an uneasy and vulnerable position which enabled to experience true and believable emotions which we could easily convey to the audience. When we performed the moves all together, and we all increased the pace of the movements and went crazy by doing it; although I could not witness how it looked to an audience member, it felt as if it looked really good and manic. I believe this made the audience feel on edge as it added tension. This effectively showed the chaos going through our heads and the mental torture that we must put ourselves through every day. Our movement was slick and clear to the audience. The timing and co-ordination of the piece was excellent as we all moved together, creating a sense of ensemble which made the piece more powerful as it showed the connection between all men in society and how we are all the same under the skin, regardless of our background or who we pretend to be. This whole sequence clearly reflected on the panic and chaos going through our heads and the pressure that society pushes onto us.

I feel like the part in which the girls comforted and calmed down the boys was very successful. Gradually, the girls would come along and hold us to make us feel protected and safe. They repeat the phrase ‘It’s okay’ in order to comfort us. I believe that this was particularly effective as it implies that there is a solution to the panic within society. This gives a positive message to the audience. This would make the audience feel at ease and happier about the situation. It created a relaxed and positive tone to the rest of the piece. It was very interesting that the girls were calming down and holding the boys rather than the other way round. This defies the social boundaries of normal or usual events and I believe that the audience found this intriguing. Furthermore, the message of ‘It’s okay’ suggests that there is nothing wrong with showing who you really are and showing your emotions. It shows the audience that they must always be themselves and try not to be enslaved by society’s expectations. It conveys a powerful message to emphasize the importance of self-expression and individuality. I believe that this will have stayed in the minds of the audience and was very powerful and moving for them.

Least effective moments

We incorporated the bath into our performance. Becky went into the bath while other actors poured water over her and filled up the bath. The bath was a metaphor for her cleaning herself and wiping away her sins. As she is in the bath, she realises that she cannot find herself and that she wants to rid herself from the air which represents the world she is living in. However, this wasn't as clear as it could be to the audience who won’t know about Grotowski and may not think about the bath as deeply as we do, as actors. I think the bath had a lot of potential to be a clear and meaningful symbol, however we could have made this more obvious to the audience by not hiding it or by explaining what we were doing through dialogue. In addition, the actors could have all been facing the bath to show that it was a key point to focus on futon the show. The bath wasn't as effective as I though got it would be during rehearsals because the concept of it was misinterpreted and the audience at have found it confusing or amusing. Perhaps this idea is unrealistic, but I think that if each cast member was in a bath each, it would have created a stronger image to the audience. It would show that we are all cleansing ourselves rather than just one person. This could have made our message clearer to the audience.

The soundscape was visually effective as it showed the chaos inside the character’s head due to her mental illness. The rubbish and old equipment we found was a metaphor for how she feels pathetic and worthless on the inside, like the rubbish we had found on the streets. This would have looked very interesting and intriguing for the audience. I feel like this piece wasn’t anywhere near as effective as I thought it would be. In my opinion, the soundscape was messy and unorganised. In addition, it was very difficult to hear the actor saying a monologue as the microphone didn’t work and they didn’t project their voice enough for the audience to hear them. Although, the soundscape was supposed to sound chaotic in order to represent the chaos inside her head, it didn’t sound very effective. This is because everyone was randomly hitting whatever they found and there was no build up in volume or pace which meant that the character had nothing to build up to, the sound was all on the same level which was quite boring to listen to. I think that this could be improved by having everyone slowly build up in volume and intensity. Everyone could have started by hitting their ‘instrument’ softly and gently and slowly built up to hitting it loudly and aggressively in order to show contrast and variation in the sounds. Furthermore, this would link to the movements as it starts off slowly before becoming manic an uncontrollable. This shows the build-up of horrible thoughts and how the suffering builds up until she can’t take it anymore. Moreover, this would make it easier to hear the actor saying her monologue.

Practitioners 

One practitioner we focused on during the performance was Grotowski. I spoke about how we used his technique of creating a strong relationship between the actor and the audience when discussing the effect of the facts in an earlier paragraph. We also used his idea of the ‘Holy actor’ in the scene with the bath. Grotowski believed that they could achieve this by getting rid of everything that was unnecessary or superfluous. Grotowski believed the perfect actor must sacrifice their body to acting, hence the term ‘holy actor.’ He wants actors to mentally cleanse themselves to wipe away their sin. The bath symbolised this as Becky sacrificed her body to society, this reflected on how Growtowski wanted his actors to sacrifice themselves to acting. I think that the bath is a very effective metaphor. This is clever as it shows her purity and holiness despite society’s darker side and expectations.

We explored Peter Brook’s theory of ‘Holy Theatre’ and Artaud’s theory of ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ in our sequences. Our movement was experimental and ritualistic. The audience joined the performers in an attempt to achieve a personal transformative, emotive and intelligent piece of theatre. This reflects on Peter Brook’s ‘holy theatre.’ Artaud didn’t want much spoken dialogue on stage and wanted to create a new non-verbal language for his actors when performing in a theatre. He thought that a ritualistic movement was a key feature of his productions, this often replacing traditional text or spoken dialogue. Actors often portrayed their emotions and communicated through ‘signs. These were usually formed of facial expressions and movement. Dance and gesture became just as effective as the spoken words. Often, his movement became disturbing or violent which reflects on Artaud’s negative and pessimistic view of society. This strongly came across in our piece as we conveyed our message without using any spoken dialogue. The message we attempted to get across to the audience was successfully done purely through our movement and our facial expressions. Moreover, our movement became chaotic and intense in order to show how we felt about society’s expectations and how we thought that this should change. This relates to how Artaud wanted to demonstrated his pessimistic view on society.

Individual Piece

I feel like this piece went very well. I kept in character, my voice was loud and clear with a menacing and eerie tone and my physicality and body language reflected the mental health problem of schizophrenia. My sequence was abut schizophrenia and escapism from the harsh reality surrounding my character, therefore I chose to be by the window that appeared to have bars over it. This represented my character’s aspiration and dreams of escaping the harsh reality he is in, however he cannot escape and feels trapped and lonely within society.  This was very experimental rather than naturalistic as my movement was ritualistic and in a routine. I feel like this was effective in some ways because it set an eerie tone to the performance and intimidated or scared some audience members as I intended. My sequence of moves was strong and clear to the audiences, making it very apparent that my character was suffering from hallucinations and having depressive episodes as well. I felt like the lack of space to move around in and the set movements inhibited me from creating a captivating and exciting piece. I felt like my piece didn’t stand out as I didn’t push the mental health problem to an extreme which would have shocked or frightened the audience and had a significant effect on them. Moreover, my piece was all on one level which didn’t allow me to build up my emotions and release them in an intriguing and experimental way. I feel like this piece was effective and interesting for the audience. However, I feel like I didn't have enough time to connect to the audience and help them create a wider set of interpretations of different mental illnesses. I think this could have been improved by getting the audience to stay there for longer and making the actors more spread out. This would have allowed to audience to absorb more of our piece and respect the artistic quality of it. Furthermore, we could have had the poems behind us so that the audience would realise that all of our spoken dialogue was taken from poems written by Sylvia Plath. 

Ending

I feel like the ending was very effective. We all worked together as an ensemble which was very powerful. We all had good posture and were in neutral which must have felt very intense and powerful for the audience. I feel like the least effective part of the ending was the part with the cellotape and torches. We all slowly raised up our hands which looked visually strong as an ensemble, creating a sense of purpose. After this, some actors rand around with cellotape, creating a chain/connection between all the actors. This wasn’t very clear to the audience and I don’t think they understand why we needed to use this or the effect of this. After this, the lights were dimmed and some more actors ran around with torches and shined it on the cellotape. I think it was very aesthetically pleasing when the light shone on the tape and created a sense of serenity and calmness. However, it wasn’t clear how this related t mental health or any of the previous scenes and the dramatic effect was unclear. The strongest part was the balloons. This was a metaphor for facing your fears and overcoming of them. The message behind this was to face your fears and eventually overcome them, therefore making us emotionally stronger and braver. The audience wrote down their fears such as failure of heights etc. onto a note which we would attach to a balloon before popping it. This was effective because it was so personal to the audience and puts them in a vulnerable position which may make them feel uneasy and it is easy to connect to their deeper emotions. Furthermore, it allows us to connect to the audience on a personal and emotional level, therefore creating a strong relationship between the actors and the audience. This was a great way to end the show as it was so powerful and meaningful. I think that this is very effective and was very moving for the audience. In addition, we were all in neutral and were very still which made all of our movement stronger in contrast to if we were fidgeting or talking or looking around the room. The audience were very shocked when the balloons popped at first, however they eventually realised the message that we were trying to convey to them.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I feel like the piece was very effective and we conveyed a very strong message to the audience about the significance of mental health in today’s society and the various different interpretations of madness. I really enjoyed the experimental side of theatre as a lot of theatre can be too naturalistic and boring rather than creating strong images and finding creative ideas to portray a story or message. I have learned a lot this term and my own personal knowledge and previous misconceptions of mental health have changed dramatically. I feel that I have worked hard and that my performance has showed that. Overall, the piece and the term have been very enjoyable and I am looking forward to what next term will bring.

Lesson 6

Posture

We started off by working on how to stand and sit in neutral. We were told that we must always concentrate and stay focused. I took on this advice and stood upright, with a straight back, feet shoulder width apart, chin up, arms by my side, chest out and imagining my head was attached to a piece of string which was holding my head up. I believe that this looks less lazy and much more confident for the audience, this will make them feel engaged with the piece. I think that if everyone does this, this will look very effective and will keep the audience’s attention throughout the performance. I felt like I was more aware of my surroundings and I was more enthusiastic and less distracted. Furthermore, this made the movement more fluent and create a stringer sense of working as an ensemble. We were told to maintain eye contact with the audience to create an engaging and intimate experience for them, this allowed us to connect to the audience on an emotional level. I believe that this will convey a strong, personal and moving message to the audience and will affect them much more than fidgeting or looking bored like we did before. Moreover, this creates a strong relationship between the actor and the audience which is one of Grotowski’s methods. He thought that if the actor creates a truthful connection with the audience, he would be able to change them. Before we worked on improving our physicality and posture, this was one of the main weaknesses of the show because we were lazy and didn’t put much energy into our work, however now our performance had improved greatly.

Lines

We each added in a line to our performance as a way conveying what is really going on our heads and how we truly feel through thought tracking. Normally, I don’t like thought tracking as the thoughts and emotions of the character should be made clear through their acting. I think that this is a very amateur and basic technique as it either shows something that is obvious or spoils the plot for the audience. I prefer theatre to be implicit and subtle rather than explicit and lazy. However, this works well in our performance as it shows the motivation behind our actions and allows us to think about why we, as teenagers, act in a certain way in society and allows us to think about what limits our self-expression and individuality. Therefore, it is very effective in the piece as it allows the audience to reflect on society’s expectations and boundaries that we take for granted in our everyday lives. The boys talk about why we act macho and intimidating. The girls talk about why they act feminine or wear makeup. My line is ‘I act hard to hide my insecurities.’ This means that I want to hide how I feel and show a lack of emotion. I feel like society expects men to act in a particular manner, therefore I try to follow these expectations by behaving in a particular way in order to impress people. This is an excellent exercise as it allows us to think deeply about ourselves and society, this makes our acting and the performance more personal and truthful. This will improve our acting as it is honest and means something to us, rather than fake acting which an audience won’t connect to or believe.  

Bath

We incorporated the bath into our performance. Becky would go into the bath while other actor poured water over her and filled up the bath. I think that Becky will be in her underwear in order to show the character’s vulnerability as she is exposed. This is effective as it relates to the previous scene of taking layers on and off. The bath is a metaphor for her cleaning herself and wiping away her sins. As she is in the bath, she realises that she cannot find herself and that she wants to rid herself from the air which represents the world she is living in.This is clever as it shows her purity and holiness despite society’s darker side and expectations. Moreover, this relates to ‘The Holy Actor.’ Grotowski believed that they could achieve this by getting rid of everything that was unnecessary or superfluous. Grotowski believed the perfect actor must sacrifice their body to acting, hence the term ‘holy actor.’ The bath symbolises this as Becky sacrifices her body to society. I think that the bath is a very effective metaphor. However, this may not be too clear to the audience who won’t know about Grotowski and may not think about the bath as deeply as we do, as actors in the performance. Furthermore, this will be very difficult for Becky as she won’t be able to be hidden from the audience as she is supposed to. This is because she won’t be able to breathe underwater if she is out of sight for the audience.

Comforting

After the boys short sequence of moves to demonstrate masculinity, the movement started to become manic and chaotic, we had lost any sense of timing and control which shows how we could no longer control what we were doing, it was too automatic and it had become very frustrating and it was chaos. This represented what was going through our heads. Gradually, the girls would come along and hold us to make us feel protected and safe. They repeat the phrase ‘It’s okay’ in order to comfort us. This is effective as it implies that there is a solution to the panic within society. We suddenly became calmer, relaxed and ourselves. We weren’t afraid to show our emotional or softer side. We would then gasp for breath and reach out which was an intelligent and effective way to show us trying to escape society and society’s expectations. Furthermore, it links to depression and shows us trying got end our lives by escaping which fits in excellently with the theme of mental health. It was very interesting that the girls were calming down and holding the boys rather than the other way round. This defies the social boundaries of normal or usual events and I find this intriuging. 

Experiments

I was asked to be a scientist in a group of experiments and tests we had given to the audience. There were 11 scientists and the audience were given 3 minutes to complete a task such as a group of riddles or a puzzle. This idea is very effective as it builds up an actor-audience relationship in a piece of immersive theatre in which the audience could interact with the actors. This gave the audience a chance to see something from the perspective of someone with a mental health issue. They can see how difficult or confusing every day activities can be for someone who is suffering with a mental health problem, therefore the audience will have a great knowledge and understanding of the key theme of our performance. This relates to Grotowski’s concept of creating a strong relationship between the actor and the audience to make the performance more captivating and personal for them. I feel like this came across very well in this scene.

Cellotape and torches

At the end of the piece, Charlie told the audience that they were entering the brain as he pulled back the curtain to reveal the rest of the actors standing in neutral, looking at the audience. As soon as the curtain was opened, we all began to walk around the room in a circle, with the audience being in the middle of the circle. We varied on pace as we walked around until we all started jogging, running and then completely stopped. I imagine that this will make the audience feel very intimidated or self-conscious. This will also help them relate to the struggles of mental health. This will be very effective if all the actors say in neutral and permanently keep eye contact with the audience. After this, we all slowly raised up our hands and some actors rand around with cellotape, creating a chain/connection between all the actors. After this, the lights were dimmed and some more actors ran around with torches and shined it on the cellotape. I think it was very aesthetically pleasing when the light shone on the tape and created a sense of serenity and calmness. I didn’t understand the theatrical effect on the audience and I don’t think they will understand it either. I think that it is possibly used in order to create a sense of ensemble and everyone coming together to show strength and defying social boundaries and mental health issues. 

Balloons

We finished the piece by getting the audience to write one of their fears such as failure of heights etc. onto a note which we would attach to a balloon before popping it. This is very personal to the audience and puts them in a vulnerable position which may make them feel uneasy. However, this is very effective as it allows us to connect to the audience on a personal and emotional level, therefore creating a strong relationship between the actors and the audience. Bursting the balloons was a metaphor for bursting your fears and getting rid of them. The message behind this was to face your fears and eventually overcome them, therefore making us emotionally stronger and braver. I think that this is very effective as it will be very moving for the audience. 

Peter Brook

Context

Peter Brook is an English theatre and film director, who has been based in France since the early 1970s. He was born on 21st March 1925 in England. He has won multiple awards such as Tony and Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, the Praemium Imperiale, and the Prix Italia, all for his work in theatre and film He has been called ‘our greatest living theatre director.’ His main work includes The Deadly theatre, The Holy Theatre, The Rough theatre and The Immediate theatre.I will talk about his most important concepts of 'deadly theatre' and 'holy theatre' and how they juxtapose each other Brook wanted to answer the question of ‘How is theatre still relevant today?’

Deadly theatre

Deadly theatre means ‘bad theatre’ which means that people may take it for granted. This is the most seen form of theatre. Peter Brook describes ‘The Deadly theatre’ as a theatre of dullness. He is showing that this kind of theatre has no deep feelings or emotions for an audience. He believes that this is a commercial form of theatre set up in order to make money. It's the theatre of imitation. There is no connection between audience and theatre production in any way. Deadly theatre may fall into two categories. The first category is ‘Lack of human honesty in the production and lack of straightness in honesty’. He believes that people and society are unfair towards theatre, actors and designers. They stopped saying what they really think and feel.

Holy Theatre

There are two types of Holy Theatre that Brook refers to in his book. The first definition is a performance that is ritualistic or almost religious. The audience joins the performers in an attempt to achieve a personal transformative, emotive and intelligent piece of theatre. The second definition refers to dedicated and committed theatre professionals who give their lives to creating theatre which achieves the same transformative journeys that once existed in religious rituals which no longer occur. He wanted to bring back a liveliness and passion that he thought had been lost. The plays usually focus on contemporary life and personal issues. Furthermore, they usually avoid the traditional or usual venues such as Broadway, the regional and academic theatres.

Exercises

We performed various execicies based around the works of Peter Brook. This whole session was all about working with impulses and using our emotion centres. The first exercise illustrated how you can take away action and still have an interesting performance. Two people had to sit at the front of the class and stare at the wall; except one of them had to clear her mind of all thoughts whilst I had to focus on an intense feeling such as anger. They were discouraged from using facial expression this became very difficult as so much of an emotion id portrayed through sound, body language and facial expressions. The class were asked who was most interesting to watch. Most people said the actor trying to portray the emotion of anger because they were intrigued by their eyes and wanted to understand what was going on behind them. I found the actor portraying anger interesting to watch as I could see more of a character. This exercise showed me how you don't even need actions, gestures, movement or even text to create an emotional performance. All you need is an impulse. This exercise continued further. However, they were given additional instructions. One group were given the instruction to show the emotion using a body part such as their neck or their fingers. The movement ranged from tapping fingers to tensing shoulders. One actor tensed his shoulders a lot in order to demonstrate the emotion of anger. I found this very interesting to watch as his shoulders kept getting tenser which showed the anger building up. Another exercise we did was working with any intense feeling and then vocalising or physicalising it. After this, another group went up and were given another instruction of letting the emotion build so much that a noise came out when reaching the climax of the emotion felt. I think it was easier to portray a negative emotion such as sadness or anger as this can be pushed to a further extreme. One actor showed his anger building up before slamming the floor in rage. This demonstrated the steps of how anger builds up before speech was given. This was effective to watch as it made me understand that I should really build up my emotions internally before showing it externally and, finally, speaking to express the emotion further. This exercise helped to show me how to sustain and extreme emotion and how an impulse can grow into full voice and movement. This relates to a monologue and shows how the emotion must build up and reach certain climactic moments rather than staying on one level as that is less entertaining and less realistic. One of the final exercises we did was to get your partner to do an action using no verbal or physical communication. We could only use facial expression and our eyes. My partner was Kai and we actually achieved this. It was more of a trial and error exercise. I wanted him to jump up and down. I think he was able to read the slight changes in my face. This exercise demonstrated how it if you play close attention you can through unspoken communication achieve many things. However it was unclear how we managed to actually achieve this. Our final exercise involved showing an extreme emotion. In this, Jack put some strange music on (involving silence and sharp introductions to vocals) and he told us to close our eyes and move into an emotion using it. I chose the emotion of fear and imagined I was being hiding and my life depended on not being found. This forced me to show a real and honest emotion through my body language and facial expressions. When Jack began to count down from 10, I could build my fear growing before producing a sound. This exercise was very effective because I started to understand how effective it is feel the emotion with my body before trying to engage it with speech therefore making me feel that I can understand the basics of Brook's beliefs.

Sylvia Plath

Depression

We are using text from a play called ‘The bell jar’ by Sylvia Plath. I decided to research the author to learn about her background and her relationship with mental health.
Sylvia Plath was born on 27th October 1932. She was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. She unfortunately suffered from depression and committed suicide in 1963. This is interesting as her text may reflect on her own personal life. It is interesting to her about her interpretation of mental health from the viewpoint of someone who suffered greatly from depression herself. Before her death, Plath tried several times to take her own life. On August 24, 1953 Plath overdosed on pills in the cellar of her mother's home. In June, 1962 Plath drove her car off the side of the road, into a river. When questioned about the incident by police she admitted to trying to take her own life. Doctors knew about her depression and had given her antidepressants before her death, she was admitted to a hospital but refused to go, and therefore she had a stay-in nurse arranged for her. She was found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning with her head in the oven, having sealed the rooms between her and her sleeping children with wet towels and cloths. This sounds like a horrific way to die and I can’t imagine the traumatic pain she was going through. This makes me think about how serious and severe mental health problems are. I will remember the importance of this in my performance.

The Bell Jar

During her career, she only wrote one book- this was ‘The Bell-Jar.’ I researched the book in order to find out the plot and summary of the play. The story is about Esther Greenwood- a college student from Massachusetts, travels to New York to work on a magazine for a month as a guest editor. Esther knows she should be having the time of her life, but she feels depressed and dead inside. During the play, she is nearly raped which traumatises her. Esther has a huge ambition to write poetry. She finds the feelings of unreality she experienced in New York taking over her life. She is unable to read, write, or sleep, and she stops bathing. Her mother takes her to a psychiatrist who prescribes electric shock therapy for Esther. Esther becomes more unstable than ever after this terrifying treatment, and decides to kill herself. Esther awakens to find herself in the mental hospital. She has survived her suicide attempt with no permanent physical injuries. Esther will leave the mental hospital in time to start winter semester at college. She believes that she has regained a tenuous grasp on sanity, but knows that the bell jar of her madness could descend again at any time. The Bell Jar is an autobiographical novel closely relates to the events of the author’s life. This book clearly relates to the life of Sylvia Plath. Both Plath and Esther loved poetry and felt overwhelmed in society. They both had big dreams and aspirations, yet they were unable to fulfil this due to suffering from depression. Moreover, they both had unsuccessful suicide attempts which would have made them frustrated and confused, however it would also allow them to contemplate their own lives. The Bell Jar recounts, in slightly fictionalized form, the events of the summer and autumn after Plath’s junior year. Just like the protagonist of The Bell Jar, Plath was invited to serve as guest editor for a woman’s magazine in New York. After returning to Wellesley for the remainder of the summer, she had a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. Sylvia Plath killed herself a month after writing the book. This demonstrated how the book was a cry for help and was a way to express her true emotions and feelings. Moreover, this was written to express the seriousness and importance of depression and how it affects people’s lives. Esther and Sylvia Plath both had breakdowns which symbolises the pressure on the youth of society and their behaviour and appearance. Their stress is a symbol for how teenagers feel today. I feel likes researching the book and author has given me a greater knowledge and understanding o depression as well s giving me a more detailed understanding of the context of the monologues within the play.

Lesson 5

Sequence

We had to choose a final and definite location for our opening sequence as the audience walked by. It was very hard to choose a place that everyone would see and that would fit into my piece as well as being aesthetically pleasing. My sequence was abut schizophrenia an escapism, therefore I chose to be by the window that appeared to have bars over it. This represents my character’s aspiration and dream of escaping the harsh reality he is in, however he cannot escape and feels trapped and lonely within society. My space was on the steps which meant I was in people’s way and they would have to notice me. Moreover, I started the piece by lying upside down on the steps which effective as it appeared unique, original and interesting for the audience. There were few complications with this idea, such as getting in the audience's way and getting stepped on which is risky, however I think that this artistic value or the piece is worth the risk. I can improve my piece by getting louder and louder in my speech in order to show the build-up on thoughts and horror going through my head.

Facts and Reading Word

We were told to convey to the audience what the stereotype of someone with mental health problems looks like, these movements were over the top and exaggerated. I was given a tambourine to incorporate into this scene. I decided to sit on the floor, holding my ankles, shaking the tambourine, laughing and saying ‘shhhh’ to the tambourine. I kept repeating this throughout the piece. In my opinion, everyone’s movement looked unnatural or not truthful, I think this goes against what we had previously learned about the subtly and the attempts to hide how we truly feel. Many people with a mental health problem will look completely normal. Therefore, this exaggerated movement wasn’t effective and took us back a step. However, this is clever because it is a clear juxtaposition to our own naturalistic and believable interpretations of mental health in our earlier sequences. This gives the audiences different perspectives of mental health, hence allowing them to think deeply about what mental health looks like for them and how common it is in today's society. After finding out many facts about mental health, we were told to say one of them in an order, once it was your turn to speak, you would stop whatever you were doing, turn to face the audience and say your fact. My fact was Schizophrenia effects 1 in every 100 people. I thinking this is shocking as it is so common, yet it is still usually unheard of. This is effective as I shocks the audience, much like the slap and tickle effect. Moreover, this juxtaposes the character we were just playing and adds a serious undertone to the piece to help the audience realise the importance of mental health in today’s society, a problem which isn’t often mentioned or talked about. As we will then go back to our actions, it will hopefully remind the audience that the character we are playing is a real one and they may be affected by these statistics as well. We were also given a word to say in an order in a similar way to how we say the fact. All of these words were taken from the Bethlem museum and were words that were genuinely used to describe those who were mentally ill. This is interesting as there is more meaning behind what you’re saying and it can come across as being more hurtful as people had to suffer this mocking and bullying very often. I think this is very harsh and cruel, which changes my perspective on the word as I say it in the piece. The word I was given was ‘fruitcake.’ These words reflect in the harsh mockery and cruelty towards mental health in today’s society. I think it's really effective as the words are all insults and sayings that are heard very often, however people don’t realise the seriousness of these issues, therefore being very effective in showing cause and effect.

Lesson 4

Finding Wastage

We began the lesson by going around Selhurst and searching for things that have been throw out in order to make noises with in a soundscape in class. Firstly, I went to collect the bath which would be used in our piece before going around afterwards to find more stuff. As a class, we found a loads of things lying on the streets including a drum, a fridge, a tyre, an ironing board and a pram. This was interesting and I wondered how we could incorporate these into our performance. I think this will allow the piece to be aesthetically pleasing and captivating for an audience as the idea is original and strange. I enjoyed this activity because it taught me about the amount of stuff that gets wasted on a daily basis, as well as learning about what rubbish makes the most unique or most interesting noises.

Putting On/ Taking Off Layers

We were all told to bring in a few different layers and the girls were also asked to bring make up to wipe off.  The boys put on more layers in order to appear larger and more intimidating. This hides our insecurities of feeling small or unimportant. We put on the layer while maintaining a hard/ aggressive facial expression to emphasize manliness. This showed how men were preparing to go for a night out or a party. This was quite effective as it shows how we hide how we really feel and shows that we, as men, try to cover up our emotions and keep them hidden on the inside as it is considered weak or not masculine to express emotions such as fear or sadness. However, the message we were trying to convey wasn’t as clear as the girls’ message. I believe that the message needs to be made cleared in order to have a more significant impact on the audience. We could do this through spoken dialogue or making noises or having a small gesture to represent hiding our emotions before putting on our layers. The girls wore red lipstick and mascara to smear across their faces. They took off layers of clothing which contrasted to our piece. They looked upset and rejected as they had just come back from a party or a nightclub and felt ignored and lonely. The girls used their hands to rub their lipstick off their faces. I thought that taking off the layers while looking blankly straight ahead was very effective. This was because it really conveyed a powerful message about revealing our true emotions underneath. By taking off layers of clothing, the girls were exposing their bodies in order to show their vulnerability within society, this vulnerability can easily be abused as girls can be very sensitive. I believe this is an effective metaphor. As the gesture get out of control, we begin to question where the line between our everyday lives and our own control of our movement is. This is a metaphor for the line between sanity and being insane. The audience will question this and wonder when it is that we take things too far in society and are no longer able to control ourselves.

Gestures

The piece began with us all putting on several layers of clothes which completely contrasted to the girls, showing a clear divide in how different genders differ when hiding their emotions. We were all acting tough and manly. All the boys stood in a space around the room and we were told to create gestures as if we were going on a night out and wanted to hide our emotions and insecurities so that no one would suspect anything. We had to put on a mask to cover up and act overly manly, strong and intimidating. I created very stereotypical moves of a man preparing for a big night out. My first move was brushing/ doing my hair in the mirror in order to appear good looking and attractive on the outside. I think all men want to look good in order to impress people and feel good about themselves. Usually, people think it is just girls who like to make themselves look as attractive as possible, however many men are also insecure about their appearance. Therefore, I think my move was very effective as it conveyed issue from a different perspective. My second movement was flexing my muscles in order to appear strong and manly. Many men do this in order to show off what they are proud of. This is a way to distract yourself from what you are not proud of or feel insecure about. This was effective as it shows a temporary method of distracting yourself from your true emotions. My third movement was drinking alcohol, this is usually considered the sociable and cool thing to do at a party. Furthermore, it represents how alcohol is a major influence in ‘drinking away your problems’ to stop you thinking about them and pretending that they’re not there. Many people drink to forget so I decided this would be an effective was to show how we hide true feelings. I was unsure of what to do as a fourth movement so I decided to go for a basic option of looking cool/ posing. I will probably change this movement as the impact and meaning behind it isn’t as clear as my other moves. I then repeated all these movements in a short sequence. I thought these set of moves were very successful as bringing together a lot of different ways that men usually use to hide themselves.
All the boys then started performing the same movement. This movement included walking forwards looking intimidating, smoking weed, going down on one knee to appear comedic and funny, the final movement was flexing muscles. When we repeated them all together, it took a while to get in sync with one another however once the music started getting quicker and louder, we all increased the pace of the movements and went crazy by doing it; although I could not witness how it looked to an audience member, it felt as if it looked really good and manic. We watched the girls movement which was a similar layout to out movement. They then got into a space and did a similar thing to us with the gestures. All the moves were different but then all copy one person's moves. I really enjoyed watching the girls copy Nicole's moves, at different times, as it showed how girls hide in different, individual ways to one another however there comes a point when they all result in doing the same kind of thing to show that they're all the same. After the gestures, the girls all collapsed, as if it had got too much for us, This was effective as it showed how it all became manic and chaotic until they could no longer handle it. 

Soundscape

We used everything we had found previously on the streets to use as our instruments, we began to use them in our piece to create a soundscape. This was visually effective as it showed the chaos of the city and the thoughts inside the character’s head due to her mental illness. Also, the rubbish and old equipment we found was a metaphor for how she feels inside as she feels pathetic and worthless, like the rubbish we had just collected. However, although the noises were manic and unorganised, it didn’t sound very effective. This is because everyone was randomly hitting whatever they found and there was no build up in volume or pace which meant that the character had nothing to build up to, the sound was all on the same level which was quite boring to listen to. 

The Sleepers- Sylvia Plath

No map traces the street
Where those two sleepers are.
We have lost track of it.
They lie as if under water
In a blue, unchanging light,
The French window ajar

Curtained with yellow lace.
Through the narrow crack
Odors of wet earth rise.
The snail leaves a silver track;
Dark thickets hedge the house.
We take a backward look.

Among petals pale as death
And leaves steadfast in shape
They sleep on, mouth to mouth.
A white mist is going up.
The small green nostrils breathe,
And they turn in their sleep.

Ousted from that warm bed
We are a dream they dream.
Their eyelids keep up the shade.
No harm can come to them.
We cast our skins and slide
Into another time.

I will use this poem in my performance and say the highlighted lines in my movement. This related to the mental health issue I have chosen as it talks about a dream world inside their heads. I interpreted the poem as the character believing in a perfect dream world which juxtaposed his harsh reality. The voices in his head are guiding him to a perfect world which he cannot get to. I will physically reach out to the world but never get to it. This makes my character angry as he feels like he is being mistreated and mocked.

Bethlem

We visited the Bethlem Museum of the Mind on a school trip. It was very interesting to learn more about mental health and the methods of treatment for the patients. I could relate this to our performance and what we had learned in the lessons. In the museum, we saw that the definition of mental health is ‘a state of well-being in which every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her own community.’ This was an interesting definition as it doesn’t reflect upon my previous thoughts and opinions about mental health.

The hopsital was founded by in 1247 by Christians in order to provide shelter and care for homeless people, however it gradually began to focus on people who were considered to be ‘mad’. Patients did not often stay longer than 12 months. Ex-patients were called ‘Bedlamites’ and were licensed to beg on main routes between towns. It was the only public mental institution in England until well into the 1800s. Despite having a large reputation, Bedlam remained small for centuries - there were no more than 24 patients in 1620. At some point, the monks began to accept patients who suffered from symptoms of mental illness rather than physical disability or disease. By 1403, 'lunatic' patients formed the majority of the Bethlem's clients. Bethlem Museum of the Mind was opened by an artist called Grayson Perry in March 2015. The museum cares for an internationally renowned collection of archives, art and historic objects. These support the history of mental healthcare and treatment. Bethlem Royal Hospital was the first institution in England to specialise in the care of the mentally ill and is believed to be the world’s oldest psychiatric hospital. The hospital was also known as ‘Bedlam’ which demonstrates the chaos associated with the early history of the mental health. The language used to describe mental health conditions has changed over the centuries. Some terms that were once considered to be acceptable may be considered offensive by today’s standards. Physiognomy is the practice of trying to assess a person’s character and mental state by looking at their facial features. It was a popular method used in the hospital. Artists had to draw the patients and they would publish the portraits in museums or galleries. This is interesting as it shows that people could be considered to be mentally ill merely due to their appearance. This is very interesting when showing a facial expression and a physical shape to show mental health in the performance. There were specific rooms created to isolate prisoners if there was any treat or violence or anti-social behaviour. There rooms were fitted with padded panels and sparsely furnished to minimise any risk of self-harm. This must have been horrible and lonely for the patients. I struggle to imagine just how difficult it would have been to live in horrific and isolated conditions. Phrenology is a science of the brain that was popular in the 19th century. Franz Joseph Gall developed a theory that the bumps on a person’s head gave insights into different aspects of their personality. He examined pick pockets had bumps behind their ears and had a tendency of theft or lying. However, his work was eventually questioned and reconsidered. This makes me think that all criminals were considered mental ill and that mental health was probably a label for anyone disliked or looked down upon by society. This helps me relate to their frustration and loneliness even further.

In the museum, there were two statues called Raving and Melancholy Madness. Raving appeared to be quite relaxed which contrasted to Melancholy Madness who was in chains, screaming. This already set the mood for the rest of the trip. I looked at the syringes on the museum that were all different sizes of syringes, which led me to thinking about how much people would be injected with medicine they were told would make them 'better', which also leads on to me wondering how many toxins and harmful chemicals would be pumped into their bodies. This made me think about the mistreatment of patients and the fear and discomfort the patients went through. There were X-Ray machines for those who suffer from depression. Orange spots would appear if they were depressed, however, after shocking them with this equipment, the spots turned blue, showing that the depression temporarily disappeared; after about 3-4 weeks, they would turn orange again, either making them as depressed as they were previously or even more depressed, so the doctors would repeat it again for it to then happen again - in the end, it would become an addiction and patients would keep asking for electric shocks so that they felt better. I then examined the electric shock equipment. This was such a strange experience. The headset reminded me of headphones, however, with a wire attached to a machine controlling the amount of electricity to be running through the person's body, it looked more like a terrifying torture device. The thing to be put in the mouth looked as if it was made of rubber, an insulator, however the head piece looked to be made of metal, a conductor, therefore leading me to picture someone's brain being fried because of, what they thought was a, 'treatment'. We saw large, padded walls that were in the prisons. The material was very hard and coarse which was interesting as this contrasted to how I thought they would/should be. There was a small gap in the door where food gets passed through therefore, showing that they didn't even get any human interaction which would probably make them less sane than before due to their loneliness.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to be by yourself for so long, it would probably make the patients angry and upset which won’t help cure them at all. I can imagine that all together it could have created a very sterile and cold environment; also, if the patients were in strait jackets in a room with these walls, I can completely understand how they could go crazy.

Many of the patient who were in the mental institution were there for reasons that, by today’s standards, we wouldn’t consider to be mentally ill. This shows that there is a large and vague label for those who are mentally ill. This is interesting as it shows how our perspective of mental illness has changed over the years. Furthermore, it shows how those who are mental ill wouldn’t consider themselves to have any problems. This helps me understand mental health problems, therefore making it easier to portray someone suffering from a mental health issue. There were many notable patients who were in the hospital such as Bannister Truelock. He was a shoemaker who prophesied the second coming of Christ. In 1800 he was sent to Bethlem after conspiring to assassinate George III alongside James Hadfield. Another person was Edward Oxford. He was tried for high treason after he attempted the assassination of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840. He tried to shoot the pair just outside of Buckingham Palace, but missed and was apprehended immediately. Furthermore, there was Hannah Snell who dressed as a man and became a soldier in 1747. She revealed her gender and was discharged from the military, but was granted a pension in 1750, a rare occurrence for women of her era. This one in particular relates to our performance as it reflects on who we are on the outside and who we want to be on the outside. People will put on a mask to society to hide their true identity. They was there for expressing their true identity and expressing themselves.

In conclusion, I believe that visiting the museum and finding out the treatment of the patients has benefitted me and developed my knowledge and understanding of mental health issues. Therefore, this will improve my performance and help me get into character.

Lesson 3

Soundscape

We started the lesson by creating a vocal soundscape based around New York. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the city which I had only seen in TV shows or films. I pictured the tall skyscrapers, busy traffic and annoyed citizens. I decided to create a sound of a car horn to show the manic chaos and busy traffic in New York. There were many effective sounds such as footsteps or car noises. However, some of the noises weren’t very good, such as some people attempting a New York accent which is very difficult to do properly. It was very effective when the sounds slowly built up, getting louder and louder as the city got more chaotic. As more and more people started to join in on the soundscape, it became increasingly more hectic, showing how busy and full-of-life New York is. I think this works very well as it creates the illusion of New York very effectively and allows the audience to close their eyes and imagine that they are there. Furthermore, it helped me to visualise the city in my head and relate to the character that was there. The soundscape as a whole was very effective in showing the business of the city and how it is very hectic. I think our sounds together worked really well! The only thing that would have improved the exercises was creating more original sounds to contribute as all the sounds were very similar

Physical Theatre sequence

We created a physical theatre piece based around New York. To begin our idea process, we decided to get up from our feet and just experiment with moving around the space in an original and inventive manner. We listened to the LCD Soundsystem song, we found it a lot easier to create movement since we could experiment with the song's range in volume and tension. We decided to push the lead character of the girl around. We would push and catch her in a particular order and repeat this. We did this to an accompanied soundscape from the other half of the class and the song ‘New York I Love you but you're bringing me down.’ I think this is a good start as it relates to the songs by representing how she feels like she is mistreated by society and that nobody cares for her. She feels insignificant and worthless in such a historic and magnificent city. After a while, we decided, as a group, that a better way of doing this piece was to let our character fall from person to person. We decided that they should stumble and try to regain balance before falling into the other person. I found this to be a lot more effective as it went with the lyric 'you're bringing me down'. Moreover, it shows the chaos in the city and the urgency, impatience and selfishness of the citizens passing by as she feels trapped or lost. I think that this is effective. However, this could be improved as it seems unorganised at the moment. However, I’m sure it will become smoother after rehearsing it more. I felt like this exercise had a lot of potential to be aesthetically pleasing. However, we would need to work on the piece to improve it significantly.

Gesture

We each created a repeated gesture to show the feeling of being trapped. This was very effective as it showed a variety of interpretations of what being trapped felt like. There were many effective moves such as banging on a wall or reaching out and grabbing your own hand. Performing the movements as a class looked so professional and artistic. I decided to create a movement in which there were two walls closing in on me and I was attempting to push them away. I tried to imagine how this would feel, the walls would be very heavy and I would be panicking and desperately attempting to escape. I slowly pushed the walls back while my body was tense and shaking and my facial expression showed my fear and desperation. I felt like this was a very effective gesture to use as it portrayed my fear and showed that I was trying to escape. This was effective as it represents the mind of someone who is mentally ill as they are trying to escape particular thoughts or emotions but are permanently trapped within their own minds.

Hiding emotions and insecurities

We got into partners to show the differences in how men and women hide their emotions. At first, we were quite unsure about how we were going to show it but once we thought about it, the ideas came quite organically. We created a short scene around the stimulus of hiding our emotions. My partner was Becky and we explored the techniques of trying to act overly manly or feminine, laughing, changing the subject and sarcasm. This was effective as we could demonstrate how these methods are very common and how we all try to be someone that we’re not. This relates to the theme of mental health as a lot of people who suffer from mental health issues lie about how they really feel and want everyone to think that they’re okay when they’re suffering a lot. I think this piece was very successful in showing how different genders hide their emotions in different ways, however we decided to show it in a more comedic way. We included sarcasm, laughing, appearance. However, some people didn’t take this piece very seriously and wanted to make it very comedic rather than clearly demonstrating how we hide behind a mask. This exercise was base around discovering and portraying how we attempt to hide how we really feel and act strong on the outside. We all find different ways to hide. Everybody goes through a time where they attempt to hide how they truly feel. We discussed this in groups and found out that some common method included trying to act overly manly or feminine, laughing, changing the subject and sarcasm. We all sat on the floor, with people of the same gender as ourselves, and began to discuss how we hide our emotions when we're feeling upset or insecure about something. For girls, make up is a common part in hiding emotions or insecurities about your image because it is like a mask that shows that you are okay although you may be awful underneath. Furthermore, make up often makes girls feel a lot better because if you look good, you start feeling good. We also spoke about how girls often smile, laugh and/or use sarcasm to hide their true feelings. Boys would hide in a very different ways by trying to acting more masculine, we would make jokes about ourselves or appear overly aggressive. This exercise taught me that different people hide in different ways although different genders hide in completely different ways. There are some topics that we don’t like to talk about, therefore we will try and avoid the question or change the subject matter when it is brought up. People may laugh about subjects they are insecure about in order to pretend that it doesn’t bother or affect them.

Song

We listened to the song ‘New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down’ by LCD Soundsytem. This song was quite emotional and upsetting. It was about a man who felt trapped and insignificant within the large city. In my opinion, I think New York confused and overwhelmed the protagonist. A new study found that New York City is the most unhappy major metropolitan area in the U.S. This shocked me as New York is portrayed as such an amazing and lively place in films and the song and my own personal research juxtapose this.

The song and lyrics are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGQCzDqnSyY

Lesson 2

Running

At the beginning of the lesson, we started by running for 20 minutes. Once our space was ready to work in, we were told to run around the room while avoiding each other. After this, we carried on running outside, while still avoiding each other. In total, we ran for 20 minutes without stopping. This was very physically tiring and my body began to ache. I began to sympathise with Grotowski’s actors who were also made to run before every lesson. However, they ran for longer and in colder conditions which would be even more physically draining. This was to warm us up and get us to be physically exhausted. This is what Grotowski did with his actors in order to get them mentally prepared for the lesson. He believed that actors must be able to access their emotions easily in order to portray emotion on stage, he believed they could achieve this by being physically fit. I believe that running before each lesson will allow me to become more physical fit, therefore allowing me to become healthier and being in a better mind frame for work. Moreover, I felt relaxed after the run and more focused on my work without being influenced by any distractions. This allowed me to connect to deeper emotions when acting. Grotowski believed that running does so many things to the body, it waked is up, relaxes it, yet it fatigues it, it exhausts it and it manipulates it. When you are exhausted, your emotions are raw and truthful, therefore the natural filter comes through.

Le Jeu

After running for 20 minutes, we played a game called ‘le jeu’ which translates as ‘the game.’ In this game, everyone had to walk around the room in neutral while avoiding each other. If one person did something, then everyone would have to copy them. For example, if one person started hopping then everyone else had to copy them. This game was very useful as it enables us to become spatially aware of our surroundings and those around us. Furthermore, it allowed us to concentrate and remain focused on those around us in order to see when one person begins to make a noise or start a movement. We could react to their noise or movement and copy what they were doing until somebody else decides to create a new noise or movement. This game allowed us to have childlike fun, therefore creating a happier and stronger relationship with the other members of the class, making it easier and more comfortable to act with on stage and experiment new ideas with. The games brings everyone together by allowing us to work as an ensemble. Furthermore, it brings us back to the basic concept of acting which is pretending to be other people and copying their every movement from their walk to their small mannerisms.

Voice Soundscape

We were told to create a soundscape to portray ‘mental health.’ At first, this was a confusing concept as there are many different forms of mental health and many different noises that could be associated with it. I chose to repeat the phrase ‘Make it stop. Please’ which relates to the issue of hearing voices or hallucinating. I found it quite interesting to hear the different interpretations of what mental health sounds like. The noises ranged from short sentences to hitting the floor to random high pitched noises. I didn’t enjoy this exercise as much as the others as I don’t think I benefitted from it as much as the other ones. This is because there is no clear answer as to what mental health sounds like, despite the many interpretations. I think the idea of a soundscape could work in the performance and could be effective if we slowly built the sounds up. However, it didn’t develop my knowledge and understanding of how mental health works and how it can affect someone. After this, we were told to do it in small groups at a time, our teacher tapped us on the shoulder to tell us individually when we should begin and end, it ended up sounding a lot clearer In my opinion, this improved the soundscape as we could hear each individual sound and it wasn’t a competition to see who could be loudest. I also enjoyed doing it in small groups because I could then hear everybody's unique sound in a clearer way so I could focus on it more. A negative part of the exercise was that most people were unsure how to make 'mental health sounds', therefore we all resorted to how mental health is portrayed in films such as screaming or creepy whispers. This wasn’t very effective although I think it showed us what we need to work on and how we need to research before jumping straight in.

Mental health/ physical theatre piece

Firstly, we had to find a space and act as if we had a mental health issue. The mental health issues people chose ranged from OCD to depression to anxiety. I found it interesting to see how different people portrayed mental health in different ways. I think the more subtle ways were cleverer rather than rolling around the floor or someone pretending to cry. I think that many people who suffer from a mental health issue don’t want everyone to know and don’t want to make a big thing of it. Therefore, less is more when it comes to portraying a character with a mental health problem. After this, we had to make our piece more physical and create a short sequence of moves to convey the issue of mental health. In my piece, I put my head down to the floor and listened. In my physical theatre sequence, my character was hearing voices in his head and was desperately trying to physically push them away from him. After this, he started to gradually rock back and forth while holding his ears as the voices were becoming very loud and were very frustrating. In my opinion, most of the physical theatre pieces were very effective. However, there were a few that did not have a lot of physical theatre involved as there were a few people just leaning on a wall and whispering to themselves. I feel as if they could have made their piece a lot more effective by adding more dimensions to their work.This was a good exercise as it allowed us to physicalize our character and focus on our body language and facial expression. Moreover, it taught me that it was better to be subtle and think more as the character.

Poetry

The poem I read was called ‘The Sleepers’ by Sylvia Plath. I love and fear her vision of the world in this poem. She describes a place where moments of declarative calm and domesticity hold within them a sense of underlying violence and potential loss I find it quite hard to relate to poetry as I don’t personally find it very interesting and it is usually very confusing. However, I found a line which I felt could relate to my short performance. The line was ‘We are a dream they dream. No harm can come to them.’ This was interesting as it relates to the mental health problem of Schizophrenia. In my interpretation of the poem, the dream represents a hallucination as it shows something that isn’t actually happening. The ‘no harm can come to them’ represents the juxtaposition of a prefect reality compared to a life with Schizophrenia. When I researched Sylvia Plath, it was interesting to find out that she also suffered from mental health problems. She suffered from depression and ended up committing suicide. This explains the negative view on life in her poems and her vision of a perfect world within her dreams. She wished to end her life in order to reach that perfect world as she thought the world she lived in was so cruel and terrible to her. Therefore, the idea of no harm coming to her foreshadows her dying and going to heaven in order to reach a world without pain or suffering.

Monologue

We had to write a monologue about having a mental health problem. I found this quite hard as I don’t suffer from any mental health problems personally, therefore I found it quite difficult to relate to the task. I decided to write about anxiety. I remembered times when I felt nervous or frightened and reflected on the effect this had on me. It affected by thoughts as well as the way I physical felt. I tried to imagine how it would affect by breathing, my heart rate, the amount I sweat, how my body would shake and tremble and how my mouth would go dry. This allowed me to think in detail in order to create an accurate representation of what it would be like to live with anxiety. I think this was a god exercise as it enabled us to become and think as a character. I got to think in detail about how my character would be affected, both physically and mentally and I can think about this when I am acting in the performance.

Location

I struggled with this exercise as there was no obvious place that would be associated with Schizophrenia. I didn’t want to choose a place outside as it would be very cold. Furthermore, the audience wouldn’t be as close to you, therefore you would have to project louder and your piece wouldn’t be as effective. I explored a number of locations but didn’t make a final decision on where I would be.

Schizophrenia

We were told to create a short 1 minute scene based around a mental health issue. Our scene was a 1 minute physical theatre piece that was accompanied by a short repeated phrase from a poem we read in the lesson. In my physical theatre sequence, my character was hearing voices in his head and was desperately trying to physically push them away from him. After this, he started to gradually rock back and forth while holding his ears as the voices were becoming very loud and were very frustrating. The mental health issue that I related my piece to was Schizophrenia. I decided to research Schizophrenia in order to develop my understanding and knowledge of it in order to accurately portray a character suffering from it. I wanted to know how my character would be affected by it, both physically and mentally. I went to a website about Schizophrenia to discover some facts about it. Some of the links to the websites I visited include: 

https://www.rethink.org/diagnosis-treatment/conditions/schizophrenia.  

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Schizophrenia/Pages/Introduction.aspx.

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/problemsdisorders/schizophrenia.aspx. 

Some facts I found out were:

• Schizophrenia is a mental illness that affects the way you think.

• It affects about 1 in every 100 people.

• It usually starts during early adulthood.

• It does not mean that you have a split personality or that you are likely to be violent.

• The symptoms of schizophrenia can be split into ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ symptoms.

• Positive symptoms include experiencing things that are not real (hallucinations) and having unusual beliefs (delusions)

• Negative symptoms include lack of motivation and becoming withdrawn. These symptoms are generally more long-lasting.

• Many different factors seem to affect whether you develop schizophrenia.

• Medication known and therapy can help treat symptoms of schizophrenia.

I decided to research it further to learn about the physical effects of Schizophrenia. I found out that the symptoms include hallucinations, changes in behaviour, delusions, disorganised thinking,  lack of motivation, slow movement, change in sleep patterns, poor grooming or hygiene, difficulty in planning and setting goals, not saying much, changes in body language, lack of eye contact, reduced range of emotions, less interest in socialising or hobbies and activities, and low sex drive.

I think that the symptom that relates to my character during the scene is hallucinations. Hallucinations are the experiences that are not real or that other people do not experience. They can affect all of your senses including visual (sight), tactile (touch), olfactory (smell), gustatory (taste) and auditory (sound). I thought about how this would affect my character as he wouldn’t be able to know what was real and what was imaginary. This links to my character’s phrases of ‘We are a dream they dream’ and ‘no harm can come to them’ as he won’t know when he is awake or asleep. His hallucinations are almost like a day dream as he imagines events that aren’t actually happening. Hearing voices or other sounds is the most common form of hallucination. This is the form of hallucination that my character suffers from in my short piece. The voice itself can be one you know such as a friend or family member or even someone who had died or it can be one you’ve never heard before. The voice may whisper, shout or talk. I believe that in my piece, the voices will slowly get louder and louder. As the voices get louder, I will repeat my short phrase louder so the sounds builds up in a crescendo. They may be negative and disturbing. You might hear voices every now and then, or the voices may be there permanently. 

There are some common misconceptions about schizophrenia, there are two things that many people presume are related to schizophrenia. However, they have nothing to do with it at all. Originally, I also thought that these were symptoms and could be included in my piece. However, I was wrong. The first one is Split personality. It is commonly thought people with schizophrenia have a split personality, this means they are acting perfectly normally one minute and irrationally or bizarrely the next, this is not true and this isn’t related to schizophrenia. The next one is violent behaviour. Some people also presume this is related to schizophrenia. However, people with the condition are rarely dangerous or aggressive.

Any violent behaviour is usually sparked off by illegal drugs such as marijuana or it can also be caused by alcohol, which is the same for people who don't have schizophrenia. This is interesting as although the voices in their head are disturbing or violent, this won’t actually affect their behaviour. 

Antonin Artaud

Context

Antonine Artaud was a French dramatist, actor, and theatre director. He was famously recognized as being an extremely influential figure in twentieth-century theatre. Artaud was born 4th September 1896 in Marseille, France. He was raised by his family who were strictly religious. As a child, he suffered from meningitis and depression which meant he had a troubled childhood. I find this interesting as this relates to our theme of mental health in our play. Artaud lived with a mental health problem which would have affected his life and his work. It is interesting to see the effect of depression on people as this enables us to have a clear understanding of how to portray a mental illness when acting in our performance. He was reluctant to conform to the conventions of society, therefore he was sent to be incarcerated in a sanatorium. I believe this may have influenced his extreme views on society and theatre. His early life was cruel and an unhappy experience, therefore he had a negative view on society. He didn’t want theatre to be naturalistic as his life was so bad and he didn’t want this to be portrayed on stage he wanted to create a form of escapism. During his time in the sanatorium, he was prescribed opium. This lead to a long lasting drug addiction. He studied at the Collège du Sacré-Cœur.  Antonin Artaud liked to associate himself with Surrealist artists, writers and experimental theatre groups in Paris. He founded the ‘Theatre Alfred Jarry’ with the help of Roger Vitrac and Robert Aron. Their ambition was to create a forum for works that would change French theatre forever. He is probably most famous for his concepts of ‘Theatre of cruelty’ and ‘Total theatre’. 

The Theatre of Cruelty

There was a lot of theory behind his concept of ‘Theatre of cruelty.’ This has a major influence on the development of this idea. Artaud said ‘Cruelty means strictness, diligence, irreversible and absolute determination and unrelenting decisiveness.’  Theatre of Cruelty refers to the idea of pushing actors and audiences to extreme states of experience out of which they may transcend themselves. Artaud believed that civilization had turned humans into sick and repressed creatures and that the true function of the theatre was to rid humankind of these repressions and liberate each individual’s instinctual energy. Artaud attempted to appeal to the irrational mind, rather than one brainwashed by society. He aimed to appeal to the subconscious, freeing the audience from their negativity. His theatre didn’t aim to mirror everyday life, instead it aimed to mirror the extraordinary. This ‘extraordinary’ was a reality not contaminated by ideas of morality and culture.  Artaud’s theatre aimed to appeal to, and release the emotions of, the audience. The mood played an important part in Theatre of Cruelty performances. He believed in catharsis, this was an emotional release on behalf of the audience.  Due to his mental illness, he had a very pessimistic view of mankind and society. Artaud saw both the world around him and the theatre, itself, in need of change. This explains why his methods are considered to be too strict or cruel in some ways. He believed that we are all the same under the skin, no matter who we are or our position in society's hierarchy. He believed that humanity does not change, regardless of cultural, historical or geographical circumstances. He believed that given a situation where the normal rules of society are over turned, such as a war or the plague, we will all do extraordinary things. For example, he believed we will murder and pillage because law and order will not exist, hence giving us no reason not to do this. He believed that ultimately ‘man is savage.’ In some ways I agree with this idea because law prevents us from doing many things that we may want to do because they are fun or they will benefit us, either socially or financially. However, I don’t believed that it would be as extreme as Artaud’s interpretation of what could happen. This is because I believe in basic humanity and that we don’t commit crimes such as murder or rape because our basic human instincts tell us it is wrong and that we all care for each other. However, Artaud had a negative view of society due to his upbringing and mental health issues, therefore he saw the darker side of people that we don’t see or don’t want to think about. Artaud believed that a man must be put in an extreme situation, as close as possible to the conditions in which he could experience the plague or a similar imminent annihilation. He believed that the only way to dig deeper and exposes the inner man, was to be pushed to an extreme situation or circumstance. In order to achieve this, the actors and the audience must be cruel to themselves by pushing themselves to the limit. This explains Artaud’s subject material and themes or issues explored in the performances which always deal with human beings being pushed in extreme situations. Theatre was a powerful tool for Artaud. It was a method of exposing and realising society's ills. He was interested in our dreams and wanted to know what they suggest and the secret desires to commit horrifying or outrageous acts. He thought that if deep down we are all savages under the skin, then our dreams will show our true hidden darker desires. He was very interested in the horror and cruelty of what we all do or what we want to do. He was very interested in the horror and cruelty of our personalities and characteristics. Theatre of cruelty helps us to release the poison and contain it before an extreme circumstance such as war. Therefore if we were given the opportunity to rape or murder someone, we wouldn't because his theatre will have been used as a method of containing it. Theatre of cruelty of a war of cutting the 'Tumour' away from society. I think this is a really interesting concept as we don’t truly know someone until you see how they act in an uncomfortable or important situation. This can uncover undiscovered features of someone’s personality such as how caring or brave they will be. Furthermore, it could show whether they are selfless or selfish by showing whether they look after others or only look after themselves. This is an idea that I really want to convey in the play I am writing as I want to disprove stereotypes and shock audiences with the surprising darker side of someone’s characteristics. His techniques and ideas were put into stage in a variety of ways. He had to find methods to make his theatre productions stand out from other mundane plays and create unusual theatre which crossed boundaries. Artaud believed in removing the barrier on stage between the performers and the audience.  He wanted to produce spectacular mythical plays that would include groans, screams, detailed lighting effects, and huge stage puppets and props. Many of Artaud’s writings about theatre are difficult to understand or comprehend and his manifestos in ‘The Theatre and Its Double’ are considered to be dark of horrific.  Theatre of Cruelty aimed to shock the senses of its audience, it often used violent and disturbing images that connect to the emotions of the audience. Piercing sound and bright stage lights bombarded the audience during performances The emphasis on the written or spoken text was significantly reduced in order to emphasise the importance of other elements such as light, costume and movement. The notion of text being exalted or being a powerful tool on stage was eliminated. Moreover, he wanted to use improvisation rather than written scripts. I believe that this is effective as the dialogue on stage will flow smoothly and will be more truthful or believable to an audience. In addition, it is very interesting as nobody knows what they or other people would do when pushed to an extreme situation, therefore knowing the next line can take away from the shock or honesty of another actor’s reaction. Artaud was inspired by a performance of Balinese dancers. He was interested in their use of gesture and dance in their movement on stage.  Artaud didn’t want much spoken dialogue on stage and wanted to create a new non-verbal language for his actors when performing in a theatre. He thought that a ritualistic movement was a key feature of his productions, this often replacing traditional text or spoken dialogue. Actors often portrayed their emotions and communicated through ‘signs. These were usually formed of facial expressions and movement. Dance and gesture became just as effective as the spoken words. Often, his movement became disturbing or violent which reflects on Artaud’s negative and pessimistic view of society. Sometimes the violent images were subtle or non-explicit and were left for the minds of the audience rather than being shown on stage. Artaud experimented with the actor-audience relationship. Their relationship between the actor and audience became rather intimate. He usually positioned the audience at the very centre of a performance surrounding them. His intention was to trap or engulf the audience inside the drama. The audience were therefore placed in a weaker, less powerful position, giving the actors more power to influence them. The audience were often seated on swivel chairs, hence allowing them to easily spin around to follow the action. Artaud’s actors were encouraged to openly use emotions, this contrasts to Brecht’s idea of ‘Epic Theatre.’ There was no emphasis on individual characters in the performance and they were defined by movement, gesture and dance rather than spoken dialogue. I think his ideas are very effective as it allows us to focus on our body language and facial expressions and how we can convey emotions or a story though these particular aspects of acting. 

Total Theatre

Total Theatre is the means by which the heightened stage could be achieved. Modern ‘civilised’ human beings have an innate capacity to reason themselves out of situations, to explain away emotional or spiritual experiences. Aware of this, Artaud wanted to bombard them with so much sensory experience such as sound, costume and light at once that the mind literally battered into submission, hence the phrase ‘total theatre; this means to combine all of drama’s elements including light, sound, costume, set, music, masks and acting into a sensory experience of gigantic proportions which assaults the audience from all sides at once. The brain is thus softened up and the audience’s inner selves, their ‘doubles’ can be released. Total theatre portrays mankind or humanity's true self. Artaud aimed to get past our cultural standards within society about what a person should be like or how they should behave due to their background. We must get beyond this to discover or release a true inner self. Artaud inspired other practitioners such as Peter Brook and Grotowski. He believed that theatre should be participatory event for the audience. It should express modern life and the universal concerns of mankind.  Artaud believed that theatre should be used for the emancipation of the human subconscious and revelation of man to himself. He called for ‘communion between actor and audience in a magic exorcism; gestures, sounds, unusual scenery, and lighting combine to form a language, superior to words, that can be used to subvert thought and logic and to shock the spectator into seeing the baseness of his world.’ 

Class exercises

Our first session on Artaud focused on emotion and imagination. The first exercise involved passing an emotion around the circle. As each person passed on the emotion, it became larger and more exaggerated. The first emotion we started with was joy. This was quite an easy emotion to portray. The feeling was infectious and as it got passed around it grew with ease, finally reaching the point of jumping, screaming with happiness and laughter. I believed that this is because joy is an emotion that you want to share with everyone, therefore the positive and lively energy became contagious, therefore allowing you to act and build upon it. We were able to find this instinctual element and bring it out in a truthful way. The second emotion was sadness and this became a lot more difficult than joy. At first, the exercise was simple. However, at a certain point we couldn't produce an honest reaction that was larger than the person before us without the reaction appearing comical or unnatural. Sadness is quite a difficult emotion to quickly conjure up and takes long time to build-up. Furthermore, it is an emotion that most people feel insecure and we don't wish to show our sadness to others. Most people show extreme sadness in different ways, some people may fall on the floor crying while others may go into the corner and remain silent without crying at all. Different circumstances affect people in different ways. Applying this to a performance context I think that falling down on the floor or going into the corner would be stronger and more truthful than a moment of shrieking and tears. This exercise also showed us how difficult it is to work with extreme emotion and how even when you go to those places it is imperative to keep and element of truth. Moreover, it allowed me to focus on the importance of facial expressions and body language as well as my voice when conveying an emotion in stage. The second exercise involved us splitting off into smaller groups and working to show off an emotion without speaking. My group had trust; we thought the best way to communicate this would be trough trust falls and hugging each other in order to show a strong bond of love and friendship within a group. However, this was the intellectual response to the stimulus which was juxtaposed Artaud’s interpretation of portraying an emotion on stage. This could be considered to be a Brechtian technique as we showed the emotion and make a comment rather than truthfully and instinctually feel it. If I repeated this exercise, I would try find a more abstract way of presenting trust that doesn't examine the nature of truth. This exercise was very effective as it highlighted the difficulty of portraying different emotions and how sometimes when you think you are demonstrating an emotion like fear you could actually be showing a similar emotion such as isolation. The next exercise was an imagination exercise. We were told to lay on the floor with our eyes closed and imagine being in different situations such as sinking in mud or drinking from a chocolate river. One of the exercises included being trapped in a spider's web. The feeling of fear and not being able to move was terrifying and easy to immerse myself in. This was because I could bring this feeling into my entire body and squirm and wriggling all I wanted to which made it feel as real as possible. Furthermore, I could hear the panic and cries of everyone else in the room which made me feel more anxious and scared which was very effective. The chocolate exercise was probably the most difficult in my opinion. I could imagine the taste of the chocolate. However, I wasn't really being effective by it. I feel that happiness is harder to portray than fear as you can fully immerse yourself into the emotion of fear and panic, however happiness and harder to dig deep into in an imagination exercise. My attempts to vocalise my emotion felt unnatural or untruthful. After discussion it seems that I wasn't the only one and most people find this difficult as it is hard to find a raw and meaningful emotion about chocolate. We are not pushed to an extreme circumstance when thinking about chocolate. Artaud wanted to find a raw emotion and discover truthful emotions and characters by pushing actors to their limit in extreme situations, hence the theatre of cruelty. The final imagination exercise involved us using chairs to create a tunnel. Artaud would use a lot of tool in order to bring out the best in his actors; which included set, sound effects and props. Having a physical barrier around us help to recreate the claustrophobic conditions of a tunnel under the earth. We banged on the chairs to make it seem like rocks were falling; we spoke like we were fellow trapped miners and screamed.  I believe that in their heads they I was truly immersed in this imagination exercise. This was very effective as it heightened out emotions and we could imagine how we would act when pushed to our limits.