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.