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.