The last acting style we looked at was Artaud the aim of this style is to make your audience walking out going that was amazing and that they want to watch it again like you just been on a roller coaster that you want to go on it again. I really enjoyed this piece because again you get to move around a lot which is like physical theatre and get to explore different ideas which is fun.
These are some of the techniques that Artaud that he used some of them are in your theatre, openly use emotions, masks, movement is the key and leaving an image in the audience minds so they remember what you did and think about it. He wanted you to feel emotion so the audience would have some feeling for all the characters.
When we performed our piece I think it did leave a feeling on the audience and surprised the audience I don't think they knew we were going to have loud nightclub music it looked effective with the light and sounds but does not show up very well on the camera it is designed to watch in real life I think we need a smaller room which is totally black with louder music and different lighting then the audience will feel more like they are a part of the performance. We did not have any dialogue in the piece so we need to make sure we are always using are facial expressions and our body language.
We learned about physical theatre this is acting through your movement some of the techniques that you use within physical theatre are gestures, movement, stance, mask, mime, status, proximity, motif, dance and non movement. All these will show you facial exceptions and emotions then you can think of your thoughts as that character you will have to use your body language so people will understand the type of character you are and what you are doing with each move that it has a meaning to it.
We were given a poem to come up with a physical theatre piece we came with up a whole story and wanted to use gestures to show the different characters and the different places we all were. We showed all of our emotions though body language and facial expressions when multi rolling different characters when I was the boss we told the story a lot with the gestures we did for example we were banging on the wall like we were trying to break free. I think it was a successful piece and I liked the different actions we all worked together and came up with different choreography which was so much fun I enjoy physical theatre because I love dancing and it means I can get up and move about more I think its a challenge and makes you think outside the box coming up with different ideas. I need to remember to keep acting throughout and remember facial expressions and body language so the audience will know what type of character I am. Overall if we did it again we could have made it longer and used more techniques maybe some dance if we had more time.
We also looked at a scene from 'Let the right one in' and we came up with a physical theatre piece to start it off we came with the idea of having a snow ball fight and leaving one of the characters out so they feel alone and that we were all were having a fun game together and they were scooping the snow up then we used gestures for them to join in and pushed them down to show we were all bulling him and did not want him to play as well.
We found out about the style Naturalism which was created by Stanislavski who created this type of theatre so people could get away from the real world, I found out that this type of acting is being real and creating realistic characters in real life situations its meant to be dramatic and not have anything that is fake.
It can be difficult to act natural sometimes because you over think how you are meant to act and try and be someone different but sometimes it is a challenge to be someone else. It helps me out a lot if you have felt that emotion before then you can think back to that time and try and feel like that again.
I found this difficult because my character is completely different to me and was very to himself so did not talk to anyone a lot. When I was acting I had to make sure I tried acting throughout because I feel my character does not do a lot but it was very difficult what to act like because I was not sure what actions to do and trying to sound normal and not sounding like a robot. I feel I need to remember to keep acting and not go out of my role I am going to keep practicing and try different acting styles so I can challenge myself and improve as much as possible.
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)
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.
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.
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.
