Theatre of Cruelty- Starting point (September 2012)

Today, September 19th 2012, we started exploring a new stimulus for our next project of theatre of cruelty!!

Jealousy and Greed- Stimulus from a tv series called "Adventure time"
In this episode, the main character wants to look for a princess to be his wife, and because he can't decide on any, he decides to chop off body parts of many recruits, to make the perfect princess- cross reference to Frankenstein!!!!

Our teacher asked us to create short scenes, working from our new prompt, to see what we could come up with!
The topic/ themes discussed where as i mentioned before, Greed, and the scene in adventure time, although very humorous as it is actually a carton series, it played around with the dark humor that reflected the human greed for too many things, that he can't have at the same time, and the desire and ambition to devour everything, even if it has to be done though unethical means. It made me think that is was actually a very dark topic, and therefore we needed to play around with this atmosphere of darkness and gloom.

Other peoples work:

Below, is the video of Katy's group. The characters in the scene used limited spoken language to communicate with the audience, and instead use body language more effectively. An example i specially liked was the limited use of sound only for the scream made by Grace, when her arm is being pulled off, as  it expressed how damage was caused in a person, but she tried her best to make it quick and even seem bearable- reinforcing the idea of inhuman feelings.

Our responses as the audience:

This was part of our class feedback! And underneath, is more of the feedback i came up with along with some friend discussions about the performances

• I thought that the use of proxemics was excellent. Elaborating on my pint made, i thought that it was a nice structure and coordination with the walking from side to see of the stage, only stoping to get a piece of the body you desired, to show how humans are only conceded about their own business, and sometimes unaware of the damage they produce in others. It showed, as if a monotonous, cold environment, similar to a factory actually, or a very busy city in which people nearly ever communicate, or say sorry when they bump into each other in the street.
• the characterization of the characters was minimal actually, it lacked in depth and breath ad the audience wasn't given any notice of where they came from or who they were, they had no sense of identity. However, i believe this was mused to their advantage to reinforce the idea that they are anonymous. As if even they didn't way to be known or recognized, which again fitted perfectly with the aim of the piece.
• i thought that "marking the moment" was created by the repetitive dialogue between duty and Katy of "It is mine" and "i saw it first". Just the repetition of these two simplistic sentences helped that idea of humans being stupid, and obsesive about an object (or at least what they consider to be an object).
• i believe that the choice of posture of  Grace, ( in the middle, balancing out and being quiet) created an ironic "literal balance" at the center of the staged scene,  showing how people pass by without paying attention to her. The fact that she sometimes lost her balance could even be interpreted as how a whole society losses its balance, or looking at it in a more morco scale as supposed to the previous macro scale of measurement, it could refer as to how the brain losses its balance, about what is right and wrong.
• the overlapping of  Dury's and Katy's fight and Daniel minding how own business showed societies descent into ignoring one another.

This activity was very useful for us to develop the starting point of our project!!!!!

Reflection and Evaluation on Theatre of the Oppressed

Here I posted the evaluation of Theatre of the Oppressed! Also, I made a connection to an extracurricular performance I watched in spain, performed by the famous comedian Moncho Borrajo "Golfus Hispannicus" !!!!

Workshop for Theatre of Cruelty!!!!

This picture shows one of the variations of the "Mirroring exercise". we would feed of f each others acts, like a wave.

We started off a bit unsure at times, but as shown in the pictures. we started to gradually show some confidence

By the end,  we let go of any prejudice and embarrassment!!!! We were a perfect ensemble 

Thursday 30^th of August, 2012

Theatre of cruelty WORKSHOP!

Today I think was my one of my favorite drama classes ever!
Mr. Atwood, a professional dance and drama instructor took over the class today to work with us in rhythmic/ energetic workshop full of instruments, music, movement and feeling.

Before the class, I had no previous knowledge about what we were going to do, as my teacher just told us “get ready to get physical”! I didn’t know what to expect from this, but something told me, possible intuition, that I was going to explore what I was capable of doing so far.

So far, theatre of cruelty has taught me, that it is crucial to propel yourself, (via inspirations, gestures, feelings, ideas, anything that inspires you) to the maximum, in order to squeeze out all that emotions, feelings, thoughts and problems that your character is facing. I have learned in other lessons, that to be a successful actor in the theatre form of “Theatre of Cruelty” you had to push yourself outside of the boundaries of normality and even reality, to get to a new level, which I see as being a level in which your feelings are so raw and true, so untouched and unexplored, that they can be frightening when you face yourself with them and manage to face the audience as well. In the past lessons, we I have been experimenting with this idea, and tried to express it the best I can, with exaggerations of movement, gestures, noises and so forth, however I believe that there is something very important that is needed as the basic premises to express this, and that is to find a truthful way of knowing how to get through that place inside you exploring with your sentiments, facility to move, to feel and sense, and a great way to do this is through music.

Today, we started experimenting with instruments. We all chose one (I chose  two sticks which I clapped together at first) and we were asked to find a rhythm of 8 beats (the standard in music) which we could repeat and was coherent with the music played. To take this further, we were asked to each change the rhythm and follow each other. With the help of the music, our phonetic senses were being awakened, and that was our starting point.

After this, we used our bodies more. In a circle, we were played different genres of music (pop, rock, modern, classical) and we were asked to just “feel”. No particular routine was given to us, except to feel the music, to let ourselves stop thinking and investigate what our bodies and muscles felt . Everyone in our class was a bit embarrassed at first, our consciousness and fright to embarrass ourselves acted as a boundary over us, and we looked at each other with dought. Lloyed was then put on the spot of standing in the circle and just moving, as he was caught movin his arms and legs around in in a silly way. W e all thought he was just joking, but Mr. Atkinson thought it was perfect. If we analyze this, we can understand that the reason that led Lloyd to do this was that it was what he felt at the moment. Afer this, we all copied his moves, and more of us were pulled inside the circle. I felt like I liberated my body, sometimes I even closed my eyes because the feeling of the music in compass with my body felt good, and the different genres of music encouraged me to feel different emotions as well.

We were also paired in partners and asked once again to simply “feel” the music, and this time mirror your partner. I believe this was done intentionally, to explore the feelings that movement and sound and body gestures can create on another people, similarly to the exercises we have been doing previously in class, and similarly to try and make our audiences feel and empathize with what we feel.

This exercise made me think on how drama is all about the transmitting feeling, and how sometimes we have to go beyond “pretending to feel” and actually feeling, to get to a point of emotional catharsis. Working ensemble also helped me to open myself to other peoples interpretation of music and movement, and pushed my body to different interpretations.

After an hour, we were taken back to the start. We were sat down in a circle and asked to again get an instrument. Music was played again, and we had to find a way of following the rhythm. I felt that this time around it was much easier than before, and that my coordination was better, as well as my facility of grasping the feeling.

I recall sitting in the circle and Mr. Atwood tapping me in the shoulder and telling me “go up, and feel”. At that point, I felt liberated, I felt free and capable of just jumping in and responding with feeling and movement to the rhythm of my classmates. So I jumped in, and moved as I pleased around the room and the circle, letting again, my intuition guide my steps. While we were enjoying other people dancing, as we were so engaged, in a sort of trance that reminded me to the Kechak dance of fire, I felt happy, and I could feel this feeling being passed on by the rest of the class. Everyone was so engrossed and absorbed in the moment that no one noticed that the music was off. We were carrying the rhythm by ourselves! We had learned how to follow it and feed off it. Slowly, we all stopped playing our instruments, until the last person stopped, and then I realized what we had achieved.

Although it may not have made sense if you don’t try to understand, I believe it is all about finding other ways to attain truth, and gaining the confidence to magnify this to the audience. I understood that to do this, you fist had to begin in the start, as we did today.

Theatre of the Opressed

Theatre of the Oppressed

Today in class, we were first introduced to the idea of theatre of the oppressed!! As one of the possible themes of work that we will be experimenting with.

The Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal was the first man to introduce this style of theatre in the 1960’s. We were explained, that its main idea was that it was a form of theatre that had the audience engaged as much as the actor in the performance, and that the themes of work were socio/political aspect of society.

First impressions!!:

At first, I though of this as being group talks, where people reenacted aspects of society for the audience to discuss with, however though exercises in class,  I learned that the approach was slightly different.

Theatre of the absurd is all about interaction!

Activity 1
We divided the class into 2 different groups, facing one another. We were asked to share a moment in life, in which we felt like we realized something about ourselves, and in which we might have felt oppressed. We then got to act out our scenes to experiment more about the principals of “theatre of the Oppressed!”.

Our group chose Juliana Ocampo’s anecdote, of the day in which she was grounded without going to a huge party of a very popular girl at school. She described to us the feeling of being dressed up in her favorite gown and being about to leave as she had made a lot of plans, however being stopped by her parents for not having had had her medicine before, and instead throwing it down the drain. These were her words” “I felt oppressed, inside my body and my house, as I wasn’t able to go out, I felt like I was being oppressed inside a very little bow, because of all the anger and anguish I felt inside”.

We acted out the role play, each of us taking up one of the roles of her family member. We showed a build in tension in Juliana when her maid told of on her to her parents, just before she was leaving the house. Tension was built in the intended moments of silent before her mum gave her the punishment. Amanda, who played as Juliana, exaggerated the moment in which she fell to the ground crying, to really highlight her distress. We used split screen to show the party image that we thought Jul’s would be imagining in her head as she cried, with all of her friends dancing in the disco. By this, we reinforced the idea of being oppressed and not being able to liberate yourself.

After having performed to the other group in the class, our teacher made us make alterations when we thought it was necessary to improve our performance, by having the rest of our class mates say :”STOP” at any moment of the performance, and either giving suggestions in terms of acting/positioning/ differing in reactions or coming in and substituting a member of original acts to act the scene out differently. This is a form of “Forum theatre”.

It was here when I understood!!

Theatre of the Oppressed is all about utilizing interactive techniques, in which the audience acts as “spect-actors” and therefore using communication as a base to understanding and producing drama. It was then when I understood how these types of drama are used in big groups to discuss political and social issues in society, as people can give their opinion of how things happen!!

National theatre videos

Starting notes:

Stanislavski= theatre of realism

Artaud= theatre f cruelty

“Get thee to a nunnery” his rejection provokes her to have a breakdown. A very challenging character in Shakespeare plays.

Getting things from a plastic bag- installation of having different angles in shots

Confusing, when you cant hear what she is shouting

He is dead and gone (singing)

The camera effects difunimate the facial features- making them seem  morphed \a lot of repetition of words

Makes her seam unstable, crazy,

Change in voice, unable to understand- symbolizing how she is crazy, anddoesnt make sense

Lights a match- showing danger

Incinerating cards “(maybe memories, hamlets cards?)reflection of the water- to show her drawning

The “broken camera” shows her hanh being underwater, to explain her body is too- interesting approach

Realistic

Much more slow, pensative- to show thinking processes

Same activity of getting things from the bag

More humanistic/ realistic (smoking, tears of sadness)

Starts singing

Staring at audience/space

Clear word, projections = understandable

More graphic and clear, camera shots directly at her

Response to the videos

“A comparison and contrast of the two different director notes and theatre forms.”

Today in class, we were shown two videos of the representation of the “breakdown” by Ophelia in Shakespeare famous Hamlet, which is known to be one of the most challenging and complex characters and scenes.

The videos showed contrasting performances and director’s approaches to the scene, to show two different theatre forms, one being based on Stanislavski’s theory of Realism, and the other being inspired by Arturd’s Theatre of Cruelty.

One of the similarities that the videos shared was the interesting angles of the camera. There where two cameras recording the performance, that allowed the viewer to see the scene from different angles to create different effects in each video. In the first video we watched, although the actress was doing similar things (getting things out from a bag) the camera had an effect that distorted the image, creating a confused, perturbed mood on both the character and the situation, that goes perfectly with the style of theatre of cruelty, as her the image of her face was morphed, magnifying her facial features and expressions. In the other video, the camera adopted a more focused, naturalistic shots, of her face as a close up, as well as a more panoramic view of her context an actions. This is one of the main differences between both styles of acting, as for theatre of Cruelty, the context of the situation is not valued as much as in Realistic acting and staging, and they would conform with a more abstract style of filming, that focus on unusual points of view, close ups.

In the first video, the audience can see the actress shouting, although no words are heard. More examples of broken communication and language appear in the performance, such as when she sings, and her voice is distorted, making her words unrecognizable. Again, this creates discomfort for the audience, as it is difficult for them to understand the actresses’  thoughts and needs are. Also, the repetition of sentences and words in the scene make it confusing for the audience to understand, and reinforcing the idea tat she is unstable, unable to communicate and not making sense. In Stanislavski’s video however, the actress project clearly her voice, and when singing, she is in tune with the melody. In the realistic approach, the director plays with the stillness and the staring of the actress into the center focus of the camera along with the unnerving tune of the song to create uneasiness in the audience.

It is crucial to spot that in the first video, random objects such as the fish bowl and the glasses are paid extra attention, to explain the absence of a person, while in he other video, facial expressions such as that of sadness from the actress, and the tear running down her cheek are valued highly to reflect the emotion of missing someone, taking a more humanistic approach for the audience to empathize with the actress.

Finally, the end of the suicidal scene are also expressed differently. In the first video, the reflection if the water is shown in her body, as an abstract way of adding tension to what is to come, while in the other video, a more naturalistic approach of her face emerging lightly from the water is the central shot to show how the character is unstable and ready to take her life. The themes of destruction are also represented in different ways. In the first video, the lighting of fire, a deadly weapon is used to incinerate the letter, while in the second video, the director chooses to light a cigarette, which is considered as wrong for a woman to do so in that time, and which is another form of destruction, that in theatre of cruelty is exaggerated more.

Videos used found in:
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/

National theatre videos

Starting notes:

Stanislavski= theatre of realism

Artaud= theatre f cruelty

“Get thee to a nunnery” his rejection provokes her to have a breakdown. A very challenging character in Shakespeare plays.

Getting things from a plastic bag- installation of having different angles in shots

Confusing, when you cant hear what she is shouting

He is dead and gone (singing)

The camera effects difunimate the facial features- making them seem  morphed \a lot of repetition of words

Makes her seam unstable, crazy,

Change in voice, unable to understand- symbolizing how she is crazy, anddoesnt make sense

Lights a match- showing danger

Incinerating cards “(maybe memories, hamlets cards?)reflection of the water- to show her drawning

The “broken camera” shows her hanh being underwater, to explain her body is too- interesting approach

Realistic

Much more slow, pensative- to show thinking processes

Same activity of getting things from the bag

More humanistic/ realistic (smoking, tears of sadness)

Starts singing

Staring at audience/space

Clear word, projections = understandable

More graphic and clear, camera shots directly at her

Response to the videos

“A comparison and contrast of the two different director notes and theatre forms.”

Today in class, we were shown two videos of the representation of the “breakdown” by Ophelia in Shakespeare famous Hamlet, which is known to be one of the most challenging and complex characters and scenes.

The videos showed contrasting performances and director’s approaches to the scene, to show two different theatre forms, one being based on Stanislavski’s theory of Realism, and the other being inspired by Arturd’s Theatre of Cruelty.

One of the similarities that the videos shared was the interesting angles of the camera. There where two cameras recording the performance, that allowed the viewer to see the scene from different angles to create different effects in each video. In the first video we watched, although the actress was doing similar things (getting things out from a bag) the camera had an effect that distorted the image, creating a confused, perturbed mood on both the character and the situation, that goes perfectly with the style of theatre of cruelty, as her the image of her face was morphed, magnifying her facial features and expressions. In the other video, the camera adopted a more focused, naturalistic shots, of her face as a close up, as well as a more panoramic view of her context an actions. This is one of the main differences between both styles of acting, as for theatre of Cruelty, the context of the situation is not valued as much as in Realistic acting and staging, and they would conform with a more abstract style of filming, that focus on unusual points of view, close ups.

In the first video, the audience can see the actress shouting, although no words are heard. More examples of broken communication and language appear in the performance, such as when she sings, and her voice is distorted, making her words unrecognizable. Again, this creates discomfort for the audience, as it is difficult for them to understand the actresses’  thoughts and needs are. Also, the repetition of sentences and words in the scene make it confusing for the audience to understand, and reinforcing the idea tat she is unstable, unable to communicate and not making sense. In Stanislavski’s video however, the actress project clearly her voice, and when singing, she is in tune with the melody. In the realistic approach, the director plays with the stillness and the staring of the actress into the center focus of the camera along with the unnerving tune of the song to create uneasiness in the audience.

It is crucial to spot that in the first video, random objects such as the fish bowl and the glasses are paid extra attention, to explain the absence of a person, while in he other video, facial expressions such as that of sadness from the actress, and the tear running down her cheek are valued highly to reflect the emotion of missing someone, taking a more humanistic approach for the audience to empathize with the actress.

Finally, the end of the suicidal scene are also expressed differently. In the first video, the reflection if the water is shown in her body, as an abstract way of adding tension to what is to come, while in the other video, a more naturalistic approach of her face emerging lightly from the water is the central shot to show how the character is unstable and ready to take her life. The themes of destruction are also represented in different ways. In the first video, the lighting of fire, a deadly weapon is used to incinerate the letter, while in the second video, the director chooses to light a cigarette, which is considered as wrong for a woman to do so in that time, and which is another form of destruction, that in theatre of cruelty is exaggerated more.

Videos used found in:
http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/