Saturday, 30 January 2016

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


Saturday, 16 January 2016

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: 
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.

Saturday, 9 January 2016

Jerzy Grotowski

Context

Grotowski was a famous and respected practitioner. He was an innovative theatre director and theorist. His methods of actor training and theatrical production have had a significant influence on theatre today. He was born in 1933 in Rzesew in South East Poland.  He studied acting and directing at the State Theatre School in Kraków. He was described as an enigma, master, a charlatan; a guru, a sage; a myth and monster. During his career, Grotowski went through a number of ideas and arrangements which often surprised those who knew him well.  His work was heavily influenced by religious writings such as the Bible or Qur'an or the writings of Fyodor Dostoevsky. He also set up and was the director of the Polish Theatre Lab.


The Holy Actor


Grotowski believed that his actors must rediscover the true elements of theatre. He believed that they could achieve this by getting rid of everything that was unnecessary or superfluous. His style of Theatre practice was extremely spiritual, he believed that this was a way of life rather than merely a method of actor training. Grotowski believed the perfect actor must sacrifice their body to acting, hence the term ‘holy actor’. He wanted actors to be these temples of emotions and physical abilities so he could simply just mould them into the perfect actor or ‘holy actor.’ This is a juxtaposition to a courtesan actor who ‘sells’ their body for money and fame. Only the Holy Actor is capable of performing an act that doesn’t veer from the true meaning and purpose of theatre. Grotowski’s reference to ‘Holy theatre’ applies to the actor’s dedication to their work. The actor must give themselves as a gift in order to allow a sense of holiness. This carries over a performance which is transcendent in a naturalistic and subtle way. The general aims of his work could be considered to correlate with modernism. Previously, theatre had been largely representative and had been interested in portraying ‘real life’ in a naturalistic manner on stage. However, Grotowski was an experimental theatre practitioner, therefore he was more interested in form. He wanted to strip Theatre back to the bare bones of an actor on stage with an audience watching. 

Via Negativa


Via Negativa means to be completely in the moment or being present. The direct translation of Via Negativa is 'a technique of elimination'. He wanted his actors to get rid of anything that can stop you living in the moment and becoming totally involved in a role. One of the ways he did this was by putting actors through tiring, strenuous and rigorous training by asking them to undertake physical activity such as running for long periods of time. He believed that exhaustion enabled his actors to access their emotions more readily. He refers to the concept as being ‘not a collection of skills but an eradication of blocks.’ This meant he wanted to eliminate the obstacles that block or inhibit an actor’s creative ability and way of expression. We react to stimuli within our environment. However, young actors still retain that split-second of acting, thinking that delays will create a true response. An actor must overcome this by ‘completely stripping down and laying bare ones intimate’ in order to ‘achieve a freedom from the time-lapse between inner impulse and outer reaction.’ To start off our workshop, our teacher made us make the space immaculate for us to work in. This meant that we had to put away our coats, place our bags on top of them and remove our shoes, leaving all of these items at the very edge of the space in order to make the room as clear and tidy as possible. Once our space was ready to work in, we were told to run around the room while avoiding each other. At first we jogged freely, but then we were given more structure, being instructed to run around the outside of the space, equidistant to the person in front of us and the person behind either clockwise or anticlockwise. Every so often, the teacher would shout "Change!" which meant that we had to change our direction of running. After this, we carried on running outside, while still avoiding each other. In total, we ran for 45 minutes without stopping. This was very physically tiring and my body began to ache. We found out that Grotowski made his actors go for a run before every rehearsal. I felt like I pushed myself very hard as I  didn’t stop once during the whole exercise. This exercise was to demonstrate how physical exhaustion can break down barriers and reach a point where, as an actor, you are willing to push yourself to extreme lengths that you wouldn’t normally go to. However, we didn’t run for anywhere near as long as Grotowski made his actors run for. Therefore, it felt like a waste of time to not actually create anything or do any acting exercises after we got to this point of exhaustion; it felt like we'd done all this work for no reason. I felt like it would have been more effective if we tested Grotowski’s method of pushing his actors to the point of exhaustion before acting. However, we just spoke about how it felt to run for a long period of time. I did actually feel the artistic potential and I can guess that any work we would have made would have been very experimental and emotional charged. Our teacher then informed us that if we were being taught by Grotowski himself, he probably would have made us do it for about 3 hours. 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. His main method of training was to take them running - usually through Polish Forrest's, and sometimes naked. This would allow them to become physically fit, hence being able to focus and connect to their deeper emotions. He 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. You could then go on to use the emotions present through emotion memory - the emotions would not be forced - they would just be there. Grotowski made his actors live, mediate and run together. This allowed them to live a spiritual and simple life. Furthermore, it allowed them to create a stronger relationship between them, therefore allowing them to trust each other and become confident around each other, hence making it easier to act with each other. 



Poor Theatre

Grotowski called his theatre ‘poor’ because it dispensed with theatrical trappings and the technological resources of ‘rich’ theatre. Poor theatre can be described as the opposite of “Rich theatre”, or one with superfluous components. This performance style rid itself of the unnecessary excesses of theatre, such as elaborate costumes and detailed set, hence being ‘poor’. Poor Theatre concentrate on the skills and ability of the actor. Props, scenery and costumes were stripped to a bare minimum, allowing the audience to focus only on the actor. He believed that any object that is used on stage must be there throughout the entire play. Therefore, many objects were used and interpreted in a variety of different ways. The concepts of poor Theatre also extended from the physical to the abstract. Grotowski made the actor’s voice and body key to the performances. He thought that these were the most important aspects of a performance. Vocal effects replaced instrumental music. When he directed plays, Grotowski preferred to perform his shows in non-traditional spaces such as old buildings rather than traditional theatres stages. Poor Theatre pieces weren’t often performed, those that did were often performed only once before a small number of spectators. Plays took a long time to rehearse because his methods of training were very time consuming. Grotowski wanted to discover something beyond drama. He worked to develop physical and emotional responses so that ‘impulse and reaction are concurrent’. He believed that when we are pushed to extreme circumstances in moments of shock or terror we, as humans, use ‘rhythmically articulated signs’ and do unnecessary and confusing things such as beginning to dance and sing in order to comfort ourselves and attempting to avoid harsh realities. Grotowski wanted to explore moments of extreme pressure in further detail. Therefore, he moved towards ‘archaic situations’ expressed in myth and often involving unusual or taboo circumstances. He believed that when we are pushed to the extreme and are put in uneasy or terrifying situations where ‘the life mask cracks and falls away’ it can expose an ‘intimate layer’ which helps us discover the truth behind a person, hence revealing their true personality. Grotowski believed that socialization, insecurities and intellectualization should never be present during rehearsals.

Relationship between actors and audience


Grotowski believed that the relationship between an actor and the audience was crucial. 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. He wanted his actors to be so connected to the work they were doing that they would have a moment of self-revelation of self-penetration. This means actors can have a moment of revelation which they can give to the audience. When the actor had a moment of 'self-penetration' and connects with the audience they could be able to connect too. Grotowski believed that this was a way to change the world. All that was needed was the live communion between actor, space and audience. Typically, the audience was placed on many sides of the action or in and amongst the action, itself. This allowed them to feel more involved in the performance. He was really interested in destroying the fourth wall. He wanted to make sure the audience were active rather than passive. This allowed the audience to get rid of any sense of illusion. Occasionally, he tried to make the audience feel on edge and tense rather than relaxed as their senses would be more on point, more heightened and more physically drained.