Applying Acting Styles

We looked at epic theatre which was created by Bertolt Brecht. We looked at different quotes that we thought linked to theatre the most. We found out a lot about Brecht in this lesson and looked back at the history we found out that he used to be a medic in the world war and then deciding to go into theatre and is the most well known practitioners of all this time.  We did a task who we thought were communism and fascism this was interesting and made me think a lot about each person and I learned a lot of Brecht and found out different techniques he created and used.



Lorna and I did some research and we found out a lot about what Brecht came up with.

• Verfremdungseffekt = Distancing

• Wanted the audience to think

• Theatre for the brain, not for the heart

•  Didn't want the audience to become emotionally attached

• Breaking the fourth wall - directly addresses the audience

• Narration

• Third-person narration (normally takes place within a freeze-frame)

• Speaking the stage directions

• Using placards

• Multi-rolling

• Minimal set / costume / props

• Symbolic props

• Bright whit lights / visible scene changes

• Song & dance - style of the music and lyrics don't seem to fit together

• Montage (a rapid sequence of cross-faded or straight-cut segments)

Applying Acting Styles

Today we looked the timeline of theatre and analysed how did all began and the different changes it had over the years. This is the notes that we wrote down of the time line explaining all the different times of theatre and how much it changed over the years.

 

Most of the west end theatre in Victorian times was build in that time for example some of the key play-writers were Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, J.B. Priestly most of their shoes were very popular these including magicians, acrobats. We split into two groups and we were asked to prepare a scene from An Inspector Calls we were given the opening scene and we had to think about how we going to play our roles because we had to be posh we read the scene with our parts and had a talk about where we were going to sit because we were at a dinner party.

Ancient Greek

Today we blocked the scene we did last lesson I had a few lines which I said to Kat we looked at each section so we knew what we were saying and not just speaking it but we knew the meaning of it and what we were going to sound like to the audience my lines where explaining about the new king is coming we did a task where we translated our lines that would make sense to us some of the lines I said where what it said on the tin but some of what the others said was very confusing we ran the scene with our new lines and it made more sense to everyone so people knew what they were saying and the meaning of it we then did the scene again with the original lines and it made more sense and everyone got how it was meant to sound.

Ancient Greek

Today was the first day back at drama today we studied theatre of Ancient Greek this is when theatre began and we found out the facts and how it came about so it was very interesting. We found out that the most important part of the theatre is the chorus back in the Greeks time. I found this lesson really intriguing and interesting because I never knew how it all came about in Ancient Greek. Personally I think this style is to serious for me because I enjoy comedy and not being serious I find roles easier when they suit my personality for example being a child is fun because you get to silly and have fun.
















We split all our roles into different characters so each of had part and a personality and status. We did a task where we stood in line and decided where we should be in line for power and leadership when each of us said a line a lot of us moved up the line to show we were controlling the group more. I want to find out more research by watching videos with people showing the Ancient Greek theatre we watched this video in the lesson to understand what the chorus means when you do an Ancient Greek.