Today we completed our final experimental theatre piece. This term was all about process and using different means in order to communicate our theme of: "The link between creativity and madness" I believe we achieved this very well and always work in an experimental way. The final performance certainly reflected our aims and hard work. I feel like we performed effectively as an ensemble but some areas could have done with tightening up. In this evaluation the key areas I will be focusing are "The artistic achievements we made; the level of professional execution; strengths and weaknesses and the future potential of the piece as a theatre product." I will analyse and evaluate both the promenade section of the performance and the main piece.
The beginning section of our promenade piece was visually bold and striking. I believe it made the audience feel on edge and a little bit freaked out when they were greeted by a group of people standing still with trestle masks on tracking their movements. This meant that straight away we had their attention and were able to keep them engaged in our performance. When Georgie burst out of nowhere and began to frantically climb the tree (whilst reciting Tom Wait's lines from "Nirvana") this changed the pace and set up a foreshadow for our bar piece later. The moment when we all walk forward point and pull our masks back down could have done with refinement. This is because there was a lot of dead space which could have been filled with text from the poem. We could have also employed some Grotowski vocal techniques here and created some sounds as an ensemble to represent the hopeless search for Nirvana. This atmospheric cacophony of sound would have engaged the audiences senses and make our promenade piece more vocal interesting to watch. The transition into the next area of the piece could have been cleaned up too. We never really made a choice whether to run away into our positions in the corridor or to walk away in formation. This meant that some of the group ran and some just fizzled away moreover dissolving the idea that we were as one entity in this section. If we were to do it again I would suggest we ripped off our masks (so we could see better) and run away together so we don't break the illusion we had just set up.
In the next section of our promenade piece we continued using the idea of clear simple imagery to communicate our point. I simple put on a piece of costume (goggles and hat) that I wear in the bar and began running up and down the small strip of corridor frantically "searching for my Nirvana". In the 4:30 showing as I came running down towards the audience they began to scream and stop in their tracks. This was unexpected but I made sure to use this to my advantage by taking a moment to pause and stare them down as if I was asking for help before I began to ran back. I believe this broke down barriers between the actor audience relationship and instead of them just being scared of what I was doing they would begin to sympathise with my characters hopeless search. I feel like this also provided a strong change in energy from Chloe slathering chocolate all over her face. To make this better I could have placed items around that corridor that I could find. This means I could have a big physical reaction to finding my Nirvana thus making the intentions of the promenade piece even clearer.
In relation to our group performance "A Taste Of Waits" I thought we pulled it off with aplomb; it was by no means perfect however the journey from it being a concept to a fully fleshed out piece was remarkable. It was the culmination of ideas and different styles of performance that made this an effective and more importantly affective piece of theatre. As soon as the audience entered because we had already got into character for about five minutes they were greeted by this dank atmosphere. Was created by applying Artaud's principles of total theatre. We had intimate lighting to make the place look lonely and desolate (which would later on be used to fill the room with colour in relation to the drink e.g. Red = pleasure) we had bluesy jazz music, dynamic costumes, cardboard set, everything to spark the audiences imagination. One of the core things I learnt during this term is about filling gaps when needed; in the 4:30 showing during the story telling section I looked up and noticed nobody was at the mic. Reece was still holding the object and Georgie was walking towards an non-existent person. In the moment I realised that of no-one took the drink then the energy would drop stopping the performance dead in it's track. So I barged forwards, grabbed the drink, chugged it and threw the cup on the ground in style. In this moment I felt so instinctual, because I was really in character and switched on in the piece I think I was able to react quickly off any stimulus I was presented with. It was an amazing feeling telling the story of "The little black girl in the red dress" who was a champion. I felt like during this term I really struggled with story-telling as I was always speaking as Sam but for the first term I just let my self go, and it felt great. I feel like the whole class as an ensemble were behind me backing me up with soundscapes and when it was over Olivia took that perfect opportunity to do our moment. This meant that I had a huge sense of journey during the piece and went from being a champion to a loser.
The actor audience relationship definitely differed between showings. The first crowd was young and slightly rowdy. You didn't have to do much to get a reaction out of them. If I wanted to start talking to one of them they would almost immediately laugh but at least it gave me something to go off. With the parent audience this was a lot harder. This was because they had more sense of inhibition and were on edge. There was an ineffective moment where I followed an audience member all the way from the door to her seat noticing every thing about her. Then when it came time for me to talk to her she just apologised and kind of willed me to go away. As a performer I should have continued interacting with her but as a person I knew she felt uncomfortable and that was an undesired response. This goes against what we've been learning this term; Artaud purposefully made his audience members uncomfortable to uncover truths within themselves so in order to make this aspect of my performance better I should have pursued the conversation instead of moving on to someone different. Another area of weakness in the performance was during the second time I performed the promenade piece. I was exhausted after putting so much punch into the first peformance that my second bout of running up and down the corridors lack energy. The frantic searching objective was not played as strongly therefore the theme would not have been received as clearly. In order to fix this I will make sure to have better endurance when doing multiple runs of a show in a single day and make sure I am properly hydrated and warmed up. This means that both runs would have been just as effective as each other.
Finally, as a potential future theatre product I believe our production has legs. The piece would speak to audiences of all ranged as the themes of mental health and creativity resonate not just on a young platform but speaks to older audiences too. In the end of our piece we gave a group performance that was educative and poignant highlighting all the key aspects we were trying to convey. I believe we could use this piece as a platform to talk about mental health on a level that goes beyond just hitting the audience with arbitrary statistics but rather challenges them to really look at mental health and actually empathise with suffers. As it was an experimental piece of theatre it is a very malleable production and could be shaped and changed to fit any audience we would want to see it. We could extend the end creativity test to include more audience participation and maybe even attempt to have seem verbatim sections within our promenade performances. This would elevate our performance to a level that is complex but still enjoyable to watch.
In conclusion I believe we created a poised and boundary pushing piece that applied all the techniques we learnt this term effectively. This has been a steep learning curve about working in an experimental style and I can't wait to discover ways to apply this to all the work I hopefully do in the future.
Friday, 19 February 2016
Bethlem Museum Trip
In today's session we took a nice educational trip to Bethlem Museum of the Mind. It was a very fruitful trip and I gained a lot of knowledge especially about how people with mental health issues can create fascinating art work.The first thing that surprised me was how clean and normal the place looked. I expected it to be dark and very harrowing; instead we were greeted by a friendly tour guide and nice open spaces with white walls. One of the first things I noticed in the actual museum part was this open window out looking the picturesque greens of the grounds. This made me consider how this mental hospital might not be prison, maybe in fact it is a sanctuary - a safe haven where people with mental disorders were free to live away from persecution and torment. However next to that section was an exhibit showcasing the various constraints and shackling devices. This created a conflict in my mind. In this place they had some element of freedom but also none at all. I feel like this juxtaposition is very prevalent whenever we talk about issues dealing with mental health.
There have been many studies into links between creativity mental health problems (see article *) so it was really interesting to see art work created by some of these people. There was one piece of work that really caught my eye titled "It has not worked". The words have quite a hopelessness to them like the artist has given up. The facial expression is filled with melancholy and the exaggerated open palms give off a sense of baring all, this open gesture shows how this woman isn't hiding her problems from the world. It also makes the painting look even more distressful. I think this also makes a comment about how treatment doesn't always work and not every mentally ill person can be helped.I can use what I've learnt from Bethlem and apply to my character I have been creating over the previous weeks. I definitely want their to be a sense of conflict within the character. A switch between melancholy and madness.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/08/new-study-claims-to-find-genetic-link-between-creativity-and-mental-illness)
Thursday, 18 February 2016
Video
What did I learn?
- I have got some context into the mind of someone who suffers from Bi-polar/manic depression
- I can use the information to inform character choices
- The scientific language used in the video could make our piece sound profound and researched
- What Tom Waits' brain works like and how he might process stimuli
- The symptom section of the video could definitely inform movement choices
- The "Mania" could be linked to the laughing exercise we do
- Now I can relate to the piece more and start making more educated links between mental health and creativity
Lesson 3 - Story and Character
In today's session we started creating some material for our piece. A lot of the practices we used centred around the ensemble work, story telling, character and Yoshi Oida energy and natural progression (Jo-ha-kyū):
Clapping - In traditional Japanese theatre they believe in performance there should be an element of beginning slowly, speeding up, reaching a peak then losing it to then start back up on this process. This simulating with a simple clapping game. We all started off clapping slowly out of time then slowly came together reached a climax, petered out then started the process. This exercise was really good at demonstrating how this natural flow is present within the natural world thus it should always exists within the theatrical world. It also helped us as a cast to get in tune with each other. We can use this progression within all areas of our performance.
Object inspired character - This part of the session didn't go so well. This was because as an ensemble we weren't comfortable enough to just throw ourselves and take risks with spontaneous characterisation. It is quite scary when you don't have confidence in what you are about to experiment with. I personally feel like the character I created was too complex to create a simple and interesting story with. This isn't all entirely negative though. We learnt that in order to be comfortable within our own performance unless we have a strong character to pair it with. We now know if this piece is going to work we are going need to have well mapped characters within this bar.
One sentence story - In order to get our minds into the mind space for creating spontaneously. This did actually help with getting our heads ready for bigger things. There were some really interesting moments in this exercise most of them comedic. It is much easier to create funny moments on the spot than predetermined. If we wish to use comedy within our piece it should definitely come from an improved place.
Clapping - In traditional Japanese theatre they believe in performance there should be an element of beginning slowly, speeding up, reaching a peak then losing it to then start back up on this process. This simulating with a simple clapping game. We all started off clapping slowly out of time then slowly came together reached a climax, petered out then started the process. This exercise was really good at demonstrating how this natural flow is present within the natural world thus it should always exists within the theatrical world. It also helped us as a cast to get in tune with each other. We can use this progression within all areas of our performance.Object inspired character - This part of the session didn't go so well. This was because as an ensemble we weren't comfortable enough to just throw ourselves and take risks with spontaneous characterisation. It is quite scary when you don't have confidence in what you are about to experiment with. I personally feel like the character I created was too complex to create a simple and interesting story with. This isn't all entirely negative though. We learnt that in order to be comfortable within our own performance unless we have a strong character to pair it with. We now know if this piece is going to work we are going need to have well mapped characters within this bar.
One sentence story - In order to get our minds into the mind space for creating spontaneously. This did actually help with getting our heads ready for bigger things. There were some really interesting moments in this exercise most of them comedic. It is much easier to create funny moments on the spot than predetermined. If we wish to use comedy within our piece it should definitely come from an improved place.
Lesson 2 - Let's get down to business!
In today's session we mainly focused around exploration and played many games to stimulate our imaginations and start working in an experimental way. I will not be explaining all the exercises, instead I'll be evaluating a few and how they made me feel and how we can apply them in a performance context.
Exercise 1 - Duel in the Dark:
Discussion: What is art?
In a group talk we debated about what art is; It is interpretive, it evokes emotion. It makes you feel something you don't feel on an everyday basis. Feels colourful and personal. Freedom without judgement. Someone made a point about it being subjective and very hard to define. This discussion made me think deeper about what the nature of art is and whether or not it is quantifiable.
Exercise 1 - Duel in the Dark:
The first time we played this exercise it was the unpredictability that made it so interesting to watch. That sense of dramatic irony that us as audience members know what is happening but the players do not. I feel like we can apply this energy within the actor audience relationship. That tangible uncertainty could be harness by having the audience watch a scene that is completely up to their own design. The second time we played this game we added in another variable of the newspapers being in a different place (on top of a table). Changing an element allowed the game to be interesting another time. Returning my idea to the actor audience relation we could utilise this rule changing idea by allowing them to change the "rules" of the performance meaning us as actors would need to adapt ourselves. Moreover this would make the performance dangerous and exciting and unpredictable. When we played this game one final time in a session with Chris we had to pick some moments we thought were brilliant. All the moments I seem to isolate were the "Are they gonna do it?" moments; Adjei poised with the Newspaper and Chloe jumping out the way just in time. I believe it's the potential energy that makes these moments so fun to watch. They are charged with something raw.
Exercise 2 - Trapeze
I found parts exercise quite difficult. The initial moment of take off I found easiest to connect with; that nervous/excited energy like the kind you find before you plunge on a roller-coaster is something I can find within myself. However stabbing myself in the stomach I could never really find. It was a quick transition from a feeling of elation to that of self inflicted pain. I couldn't find the switch meaning the truth within the moment was lost. If I was to do this exercise again I would work harder and try find an equivalent feeling that I could relate to in order to find this sensation of stabbing myself in the stomach.
Exercise 3 - Mother and Child
I really enjoyed this exercise if I'm honest, It felt cathartic to just release some sorrowful sounds. Watching Eve and Olivia just have a moment of natural acting and then have a circle around it just filling the room with these horrible but truthful noises of loss and pain. It became sort of animalistic and beautiful at the same time. I let out this cry that slowly crescendoed and evaporated. It came from the energy in the room and filling the soundscape with what was needed. I feel like this exercises was a represnation of the sounds we can't express because of our societal conditioning which pairs well with Artaud's work about man being savage. We could harness this by showing the audience a "normal reaction" to a stimulus then showing a "true reaction".
Exercise 4 - Passing a laugh
This was another exercise I found quite hard, maybe it was because I wasn't in a laughing mood, maybe because I found it hard to go from a neutral place to a middle ground of laughing, maybe it was because I was thinking too much. It was probably a combination. However I did think this exercise was good at switching between manic and "normal". It was coming back to neutral after the big laughing moments that made this effective. I think as an ensemble it creates a weird atmosphere to whoever is watching. It poses questions; why are they laughing? what makes them stop laughing? Are they laughing at me? We could definitely use this silent communication to our advantage to make the audience feel on edge.
Peter Brook - The Empty Space
Peter Brook was born in Turnham Green Chiswick in 1925. He is an English theatre/film maker and director and has been working for many decades meaning he has seen theatrical styles come/go and evolve. His work definitely reflects this as he doesn't limit himself to one kind of theatre and will work with many forms such as "The Mahabharata" which incorporated traditional eastern Kathak dance. He has won many awards including an Olivier, a Tony and a an Emmy. Brook's work is inspired by Antonin Artaud and his Theatre of Cruelty. (see previous post) Peter Brook undertook a season at the Royal Shakespeare Company, aiming to explore ways Artaud's ideas could be used to "find new forms of expression and retrain the performer". This indicates how Peter Brook would not be afraid to use other practitioners methodologies to enhance his own work; exploration and deviation from the conventional and commercialised was Brook's objective.
The Empty Space - Condensed contextual seminar:
"Any empty space is a place of infinite possibility, objects too taken out of context are full of potential"
Deadly Theatre: This is a contrived, formulaic and commercialised form of theatre. Most prevalent in the West end and Broadway where profit is the most important part of the production, Bad acting, bad everything! Introspective, atypical stories, "Man finds himself learning lessons along the way" However to be deadly isn't dead; it is still capable of resurrection. It is alive just in the wrong way.
Holy Theatre: Transcends ordinary life, is like a temple; deep messages and symbolism good theatre although there is not a big enough audience doesn't speak to many people. Artuad/Grotowski work. Limited to itself.
Rough Theatre: Any form that doesn't not exist in a conventional theatrical space. Source of most of renaissances in drama throughout history. Usually political or satirical theatre that makes a comment on society. Brechtian theatre can fall into this category; opposite of Holy Theatre.
Immediate Theatre: Actors become like mediums; totally in the moment. Translating feelings and impression to an audience who are carried along with them. Instant creativity; spontaneity, impulses raw instinct.
Peter Brook's work can all be summed up in three words:
Simplicity. Honesty. Truth
The Empty Space - Condensed contextual seminar:
"Any empty space is a place of infinite possibility, objects too taken out of context are full of potential"
Deadly Theatre: This is a contrived, formulaic and commercialised form of theatre. Most prevalent in the West end and Broadway where profit is the most important part of the production, Bad acting, bad everything! Introspective, atypical stories, "Man finds himself learning lessons along the way" However to be deadly isn't dead; it is still capable of resurrection. It is alive just in the wrong way.
Holy Theatre: Transcends ordinary life, is like a temple; deep messages and symbolism good theatre although there is not a big enough audience doesn't speak to many people. Artuad/Grotowski work. Limited to itself.
Rough Theatre: Any form that doesn't not exist in a conventional theatrical space. Source of most of renaissances in drama throughout history. Usually political or satirical theatre that makes a comment on society. Brechtian theatre can fall into this category; opposite of Holy Theatre.
Immediate Theatre: Actors become like mediums; totally in the moment. Translating feelings and impression to an audience who are carried along with them. Instant creativity; spontaneity, impulses raw instinct.
Peter Brook's work can all be summed up in three words:
Simplicity. Honesty. Truth
Tom Waits - Research
Tom Waits (1945 - Present) is a singer, songwriter, composer and actor. He is know for his distinctive voice which has been described as "soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smoke house for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car" by critic Daniel Durchholz. His music is influenced by pre-rock styles e.g. blues, jazz, vaudeville etc. It has an atmospheric quality and paints portraits of grotesque often seedy characters and gives them a narrative. He has quite a strong fan base and has accumulated a cult following. Alcoholism was a huge problem he faced and a lot of his work seems to be fuelled by this.In our experimental piece we will be playing different characters within a bar that is actually a meta-physical representation of Tom Waits' brain. In his songs he usually portraits grotesque seedy characters. I could possibly use one of these songs to inform a character I will be creating during this project. For example in his song "Step Right Up" a character of a fast talking salesman who literally can sell anything. This could be interesting to play around with as there's lot's of possibilities within Tom Wait's songs in relation to character creation.
Tom Wait's has also been involved in many films, not just musically but acting too. This shows that he doesn't just want to limit his artistry to one single medium but wishes to create in many different ways. I feel we could use this idea within our own piece. We shouldn't just stick to the single medium when creating this piece. We should definitely have elements of song, lighting, video maybe even taste and smells. I feel like Tom Waits his an artist before he's a musician and we should treat him like one and paint our piece with loads of varying colours. This would also help to indicate the mania of his brain and how nothing is predictable.
Just another interesting side note here's a list of some other creative people who struggled with mental heath issues:
- Carrie Fisher - Bipolar
- F. Scott Fitzgerald - Depression
- Ernest Hemingway - Bipolar/Anxiety
- Elton John - Depression
- Laurence Olivier - Depression
- Ben Stiller - Bipolar
- Barbara Streisand - Social-phobia
Sunday, 17 January 2016
Laban Efforts
In one of our voice sessions this term we discovered Laban efforts and we can utilise them to affect our movements and inform our vocal choices. I found this class really useful and will definitely be applying these methods to future characterisations. Laban said that all movement can be categorised into 8 descriptors. This can be separated into 3 different components that can be fixed together to create different qualities of movements. Direction; Weight; Speed. Direction = direct or indirect, Weight = heavy or light and Speed = sustained or staccato. So for example if you matched up an indirect, light, sustained movement you'd get float. Here is a list of the efforts and the links in order to make them.
Direct - Heavy - Staccato = Punch
Indirect - Heavy - Sustained = Slash
Direct - Heavy - Sustained = Push
Indirect - Heavy - Sustained = Wring
Direct - Light - Staccato = Dab
Indirect - Light - Staccato = Flick
Direct - Light, Sustained = Glide
Indirect - Light - Sustained = Float
These qualities exists in all of us but some more than others so some efforts I found easier than others. Flick was one of the less difficult ones to inhabit; on later discussion without realising it I'd applied flick to my characterisation of "Two" last term in contemporary. I guess because I'm quite scatter brained and my attention is always being pulled in many direction flick just really resonated with my personality. A lot of the heavy ones I found difficult especially wring. This one has quite an inner manifestation within my body and has quite a masculine angry quality too it. I feel like I eventually found this effort by picturing someone "wringing" the water out of a towel and letting this feeling come from my core. Glide was quite an interesting effort to find. It was hard to find that sustained quality; keeping moving was the moving was the toughest part. If I was to apply this effort to a character it would definitely be a king or a noble person.
We went on to do an exercise based on communicating purely through these efforts. I chose Flick and my partner chose slash. I feel like because we picked opposing efforts so it was easier to communicate. Every time she would slash my flick would react off of it. This exercise developed on to an argument which was easier than just having a conversation because their was a purpose to the two efforts conversing. When there was just two people it really worked because there was an important element of listening taking place. When more efforts were added in it became chaotic and didn't really work. This was because there was no acting and reacting, it was just a big mess of movements and noises. It also went a bit array when words were added in. I think this was because the sounds and movements communicated our intentions well enough and having to think of words to say took this element away.
In conclusion I found this class very helpful and will definitely be applying these practises to future work. It was very important to explore how movement and can affect my vocal choices and if I want to access a particular sound it might be good to start with a movement component.
Direct - Heavy - Staccato = Punch
Indirect - Heavy - Sustained = Slash
Direct - Heavy - Sustained = Push
Indirect - Heavy - Sustained = Wring
Direct - Light - Staccato = Dab
Indirect - Light - Staccato = Flick
Direct - Light, Sustained = Glide
Indirect - Light - Sustained = Float
These qualities exists in all of us but some more than others so some efforts I found easier than others. Flick was one of the less difficult ones to inhabit; on later discussion without realising it I'd applied flick to my characterisation of "Two" last term in contemporary. I guess because I'm quite scatter brained and my attention is always being pulled in many direction flick just really resonated with my personality. A lot of the heavy ones I found difficult especially wring. This one has quite an inner manifestation within my body and has quite a masculine angry quality too it. I feel like I eventually found this effort by picturing someone "wringing" the water out of a towel and letting this feeling come from my core. Glide was quite an interesting effort to find. It was hard to find that sustained quality; keeping moving was the moving was the toughest part. If I was to apply this effort to a character it would definitely be a king or a noble person.
We went on to do an exercise based on communicating purely through these efforts. I chose Flick and my partner chose slash. I feel like because we picked opposing efforts so it was easier to communicate. Every time she would slash my flick would react off of it. This exercise developed on to an argument which was easier than just having a conversation because their was a purpose to the two efforts conversing. When there was just two people it really worked because there was an important element of listening taking place. When more efforts were added in it became chaotic and didn't really work. This was because there was no acting and reacting, it was just a big mess of movements and noises. It also went a bit array when words were added in. I think this was because the sounds and movements communicated our intentions well enough and having to think of words to say took this element away.
In conclusion I found this class very helpful and will definitely be applying these practises to future work. It was very important to explore how movement and can affect my vocal choices and if I want to access a particular sound it might be good to start with a movement component.
Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud was born on the 4th September 1896 was a French dramatist, actor, poet and pioneer of the surrealist movement. He viewed the classical "bourgeois" as unintelligent and wished to replace it with his system: "The Theatre of Cruelty". This was a more symbolic meaningful form that wished to liberate the subconscious of man. Artaud believed society had turned humans into repressed, sick savages and the objective of this type of theatre was to unleash unconscious reactions. He didn't want his audience to be immersed and escape reality rather show them their deepest darkest nightmares and fears. Artaud saw that all humans wore a mask put their by society and wanted to create conditions to provoke the audience to take them of and have a good look at themselves.Artuad said that "from a mental viewpoint cruelty means strictness, diligence, unrelenting decisiveness, irreversible absolute determination". This means that he believed that cruelty encompassed many elements of mankind; many of these words sound positive on inspection and to be honest I don't totally understand this quote but I believe he was trying to characterise the dichotomy within his work. Artaud believed the theatre was safe to explore, he thought theatre was a tool and crosses barriers of language and communication. In order to get the most out of his actors and audience he utilised "Total Theatre". He would use any device at his disposal including sound, lighting, props, costume, sets etc. He wished to bombard the senses and batter the brain into submission. When this happens we stop intellectualising everything and just let the subconscious take control. Artaud regarded Theatre as a participatory and wished to tear down the fourth and let audiences become part of the action. This meant the audience wouldn't separate the play from themselves and see they were as much part of this world as the actors.
When Artaud was 18 he became ill with neurasthenia and to help him with his symptoms he was given opium. He later on became addicted to this drug. Then in 1916 he was inducted to the army but was released shortly after because of mental instability and drug addiction. In 1918 he committed himself to a clinic and stayed there for 2 years. When he was released he immediately went to Paris to train under the actor/director Charles Dullin. Artaud then pursued a career as an actor starring in films and plays e.g."The passion of Joan of arc" and "Six characters in search of an author".
Around the late 1920's Artaud became highly interested in the surrealist movement and began collaborating with other artists, poets, film-makers and theatre makers and founded his own company (Theatre Alfred Jerry) along the way. In 1931 he saw a of Balinese performers and finally found what he was artistically looking for. In 1932-33 he wrote his first drama theory book (Manifestos of the theatre of cruelty) then in 1935 he began working on "Les Cenci" to implement his own theories; this production could be cited as one of the first to be in the round. However his artistic aims were never met and heartbroken he retreated to Mexico. In 1937 in the middle of a lecture he began screaming at the audience and in the same year he was declared mentally unfit and sent to an asylum. During this time he wrote his most influential work "The Theatre and it's double". He spent nine years in different institution being treated for schizophrenia.
On his return to Paris he was labelled a genius after a 3 hour lecture attended by some very important people. In 1948 he died of intestinal cancer, seated next to his bed, allegedly holding a shoe. What a end to a very chaotic life.
Sources:
http://www.leninimports.com/antonin_artaud.html
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Antonin-Artaud
http://www.almaclassics.com/excerpts/Theatre_Double.pdf
Sunday, 10 January 2016
Lesson 1: An introduction to Experimental Theatre
This term we enter a world of madness and artistic creativity . We will be exploring themes of mental health through the medium of experimental theatre which will culminate in a final performance examine this issue. However in this term instead of a single practitioner we will be focusing on the efforts of Antonin Artaud; Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook. I will be dedicate individual posts to research into their methods and schools of thought. Our first session was devoted to introducing us to practical exercises that these men made in order to create emotionally charged, truthful, extreme work.
Session 1 - Artaud methods:
This session was centred around emotion and imagination. The first exercise involved passing an emotion around the circle and with each person the emotion becomes bigger. The first emotion we started with was joy. I noticed that this was quite an easy one to do. The feeling was infectious and as it got passed around it grew with ease getting to the point of jumping, screaming with happiness and laughter. We suspected this was because joy is an emotion you wish to share with everyone so you could use the person's energy before you and build upon it. We were able to find this instinctual element and bring it out in a truthful way. Now when we moved onto sorrow this exercise became more difficult, At first we found this simple enough but at a certain point we couldn't produce an honest reaction that was larger than the person before us. I believe this was because sorrow is a hard emotion to quickly conjure up and takes a build up and often in real life we don't wish to show our sadness to others. There was a really cool moment during this exercise where as the emotion was getting bigger people were getting louder but instead of following this trend Ed just drop to the floor. There was just something so real and authentic about this it actually triggered something within me. I think he really found the essence of a sorrow so great it knocks you off your feet. Applying this to a performance context I think this would read stronger and more genuine 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.
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. That was the first place our minds thought to go when portraying this. When discussing this we found that this was the intellectual response which was exactly the opposite of what Artaud wanted. Ben said that this was more of a Brechtian response to this which was to show the emotion and make a comment rather than instinctually feel it. If I was to do this exercise again I would try find a more abstract way of presenting truth that doesn't examine the nature of truth. A group that did this exercise really well was the lust group. There was something voyeuristic and wrong about watching them which evoked the feeling in us as audience members. When Yasmin passed round the back of a group of people simply the presence of her being their made us into active participants instead of silent observers. This exercise was good for highlighting how hard it is to portray feelings and how sometimes when you think you are demonstrating an emotion like fear you could actually be showing isolation.
Lastly we moved onto two final imagination exercises. The first one we had to lay on the floor with our eyes closed and imagine we are different situations. I feel like being trapped in the spider's web was the most effective with me. The feeling of anxiety and not being able to move was scary and easy to immerse myself in. I feel 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. I think I also fed off the energy of the rest of the room as I could hear the panicked cries of other people. The chocolate eating exercise was actually the most difficult for me. I couldn't really content with the feeling behind the action. I could imagine the taste, the feeling against my face but I wasn't really being effective by it. I didn't feel happy about this chocolate, I didn't feel sad. It just kind of existed. Any attempts to vocalise felt fake and using my body didn't help take me deeper into my imagination. After discussion it seems that I wasn't the only one and most people find this difficult. Ben told us about a girl who did this exercise who really connected with it and let off this loud noise of joy which he said was unforgetable. She must have found a real sense of happiness in this moment and I wish to be able to go deep enough one day to find something as raw as that myself.
The final imagination exercise involved us using chairs to create a tunnel. This related to the way Artaud would use all the tools at his disposal to bring out the best in his actors; which included set, lightning, props, etc. Having a physical barrier around us help to recreate the claustrophobic conditions of a tunnel under the earth. Utilising us we were told to do things to make it feel more real. We banged on the chairs to make it seem like rocks were falling; we spoke like we were fellow trapped miners and I had to scream. The moment when I started yelling I could immediately see the physical shock of my classmates through their bodies. They tensed up and started shaking or moving with visible distressed. I believe that in their heads they were truly immersed in this imagine situation. Although when it came to our turn it felt less real. After seeing happen first time it was definitely less effective as I could foresee what was about to happen. It felt over dramatic having 20 people screaming and touching you. This was a good insight into how sometimes even when going to extremes less can be more.
Session 2 - Peter Brook methods:
This whole sessions 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. Me and Olivia had to sit at the front of the class and stare at the wall; except Olivia had to clear her mind of all thoughts whilst I had to focus on an intense feeling (to which I chose sadness). It was a really weird sensation to be honest. I was discouraged from using facial expression however no matter how hard I tried I could feel my face reacting to the intense feelings. My lips quivered, my eyebrows twitched, my eyes watered and my the corners of my mouth were dragged downwards. The class were asked who was most interesting to watch. Some said me because they were intrigued by my eyes and wanted to understand what was going on behind them, some said Olivia because they wanted to know more behind her blank expression and some said they preferred to switch back and forth. 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.
Another exercise we did was working with any intense feeling and then vocal/physicalising it. I believe the people that chose more negative emotions had an easier time. I picked happiness; which was hard to pin down for a start. Every time I felt I hit peak of happiness I would let out this manic laughter but I couldn't maintain it. I would drop down into a state more akin to bliss. Eventually when I managed to sustain a level of happiness I kept letting out these mad shrieks of joy like I couldn't hold it and then I started yelling out the window as if I wanted to share this happiness with the world. It was actually quite scary. I felt more insane than I would if I was working with anger or sadness. This exercise helped to show me how to sustain and extreme emotion and how an impulse can grow into full voice and movement.
One of the final exercises we did was to get your partner to do an action using no verbal or physical communication. Just slightly facial expression. Me and my partner actually achieved this. It was more of a trial and error exercise. I wanted her to wave and I have no idea she ended up actually doing. Maybe it was telepathy or her being 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.
Session 3 - Grotowski methods:
So this session mainly consisted of running. For nearly an hour. We began in the classroom then moved around the outside of the building, around the football pitch, then back in the classroom. I felt like I pushed myself very hard and did not stop for the duration of the 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 go to places that you wouldn't normally go to. However we never got onto this part of the exercise. It felt a bit pointless to not actually create anything or do any acting exercises after we got to this point of tiredness; it felt like we'd done all this work for no reason. I wanted to test Grotoswski's methods but instead we just spoke about how it felt to run for a long period of time. This was a little bit disappointing. Hopefully next time we do an exercise like this we will use all this exhausted energy to actually create something. 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.
In conclusion I enjoyed all these sessions (in varying degrees) as they gave me insights into what it's like to work on the extreme end of the theatrical spectrum. It was really important that we worked practically as sitting down and merely discussing these practitioners exercises wouldn't have been enough. We need to get a feel for them through our own bodies and own minds. I am really excited to apply these practices to our theme of mental health as they definitely gel together perfectly. Now here comes the hard part; creating the performance.
Session 1 - Artaud methods:
This session was centred around emotion and imagination. The first exercise involved passing an emotion around the circle and with each person the emotion becomes bigger. The first emotion we started with was joy. I noticed that this was quite an easy one to do. The feeling was infectious and as it got passed around it grew with ease getting to the point of jumping, screaming with happiness and laughter. We suspected this was because joy is an emotion you wish to share with everyone so you could use the person's energy before you and build upon it. We were able to find this instinctual element and bring it out in a truthful way. Now when we moved onto sorrow this exercise became more difficult, At first we found this simple enough but at a certain point we couldn't produce an honest reaction that was larger than the person before us. I believe this was because sorrow is a hard emotion to quickly conjure up and takes a build up and often in real life we don't wish to show our sadness to others. There was a really cool moment during this exercise where as the emotion was getting bigger people were getting louder but instead of following this trend Ed just drop to the floor. There was just something so real and authentic about this it actually triggered something within me. I think he really found the essence of a sorrow so great it knocks you off your feet. Applying this to a performance context I think this would read stronger and more genuine 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.
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. That was the first place our minds thought to go when portraying this. When discussing this we found that this was the intellectual response which was exactly the opposite of what Artaud wanted. Ben said that this was more of a Brechtian response to this which was to show the emotion and make a comment rather than instinctually feel it. If I was to do this exercise again I would try find a more abstract way of presenting truth that doesn't examine the nature of truth. A group that did this exercise really well was the lust group. There was something voyeuristic and wrong about watching them which evoked the feeling in us as audience members. When Yasmin passed round the back of a group of people simply the presence of her being their made us into active participants instead of silent observers. This exercise was good for highlighting how hard it is to portray feelings and how sometimes when you think you are demonstrating an emotion like fear you could actually be showing isolation.
The final imagination exercise involved us using chairs to create a tunnel. This related to the way Artaud would use all the tools at his disposal to bring out the best in his actors; which included set, lightning, props, etc. Having a physical barrier around us help to recreate the claustrophobic conditions of a tunnel under the earth. Utilising us we were told to do things to make it feel more real. We banged on the chairs to make it seem like rocks were falling; we spoke like we were fellow trapped miners and I had to scream. The moment when I started yelling I could immediately see the physical shock of my classmates through their bodies. They tensed up and started shaking or moving with visible distressed. I believe that in their heads they were truly immersed in this imagine situation. Although when it came to our turn it felt less real. After seeing happen first time it was definitely less effective as I could foresee what was about to happen. It felt over dramatic having 20 people screaming and touching you. This was a good insight into how sometimes even when going to extremes less can be more.
Session 2 - Peter Brook methods:
This whole sessions 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. Me and Olivia had to sit at the front of the class and stare at the wall; except Olivia had to clear her mind of all thoughts whilst I had to focus on an intense feeling (to which I chose sadness). It was a really weird sensation to be honest. I was discouraged from using facial expression however no matter how hard I tried I could feel my face reacting to the intense feelings. My lips quivered, my eyebrows twitched, my eyes watered and my the corners of my mouth were dragged downwards. The class were asked who was most interesting to watch. Some said me because they were intrigued by my eyes and wanted to understand what was going on behind them, some said Olivia because they wanted to know more behind her blank expression and some said they preferred to switch back and forth. 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.
Another exercise we did was working with any intense feeling and then vocal/physicalising it. I believe the people that chose more negative emotions had an easier time. I picked happiness; which was hard to pin down for a start. Every time I felt I hit peak of happiness I would let out this manic laughter but I couldn't maintain it. I would drop down into a state more akin to bliss. Eventually when I managed to sustain a level of happiness I kept letting out these mad shrieks of joy like I couldn't hold it and then I started yelling out the window as if I wanted to share this happiness with the world. It was actually quite scary. I felt more insane than I would if I was working with anger or sadness. This exercise helped to show me how to sustain and extreme emotion and how an impulse can grow into full voice and movement.One of the final exercises we did was to get your partner to do an action using no verbal or physical communication. Just slightly facial expression. Me and my partner actually achieved this. It was more of a trial and error exercise. I wanted her to wave and I have no idea she ended up actually doing. Maybe it was telepathy or her being 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.
Session 3 - Grotowski methods:
So this session mainly consisted of running. For nearly an hour. We began in the classroom then moved around the outside of the building, around the football pitch, then back in the classroom. I felt like I pushed myself very hard and did not stop for the duration of the 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 go to places that you wouldn't normally go to. However we never got onto this part of the exercise. It felt a bit pointless to not actually create anything or do any acting exercises after we got to this point of tiredness; it felt like we'd done all this work for no reason. I wanted to test Grotoswski's methods but instead we just spoke about how it felt to run for a long period of time. This was a little bit disappointing. Hopefully next time we do an exercise like this we will use all this exhausted energy to actually create something. 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.
In conclusion I enjoyed all these sessions (in varying degrees) as they gave me insights into what it's like to work on the extreme end of the theatrical spectrum. It was really important that we worked practically as sitting down and merely discussing these practitioners exercises wouldn't have been enough. We need to get a feel for them through our own bodies and own minds. I am really excited to apply these practices to our theme of mental health as they definitely gel together perfectly. Now here comes the hard part; creating the performance.
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