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/