Measure for Measure: Performance and Evaulation

Despite enjoying the rehearsal process and watching my peers succeed in performing an admirable Shakespeare production, I was not happy with my performance in Measure. I could not get my head around the language of the play, and this meant, despite discovering an interesting and nuanced character in the duke due to very useful physical exploration, I fell at the first hurdle. In both performances I choked my words, and I am disappointed in myself because of this.

I think, in terms of my own character development, as this is what this blog focusses on, I was actually pretty successful. I found using a combination of the newly acquired Laban efforts and the Head Heart Gut Groin exercise I was able to build a more exciting physical character than I ever had before. I was more confident in my choices, and this lead to moments of comedy throughout the play, such as dancing to the raver's music, or my combination of the friar's blessing and a raving hand. I also found that I often knew exactly what how the Duke would react in certain situations, as my physical presence and my thoughts on what aspects of his personality were most prominent because of this presence showed me the way forward.

However, the part of the character I failed to nail was the connection of this understanding of the character to the circumstances given by the text. I did not focus on this early enough in rehearsals, as in previous productions learning my lines has always come simultaneously with rehearsing the scenes and the movement. Although this is often a perfectly adequate way of learning lines, it was arrogant to assume this would work with such a complicated and wordy text. I should have identified this earlier and put more effort into learning these lines when under no pressure. When I did eventually identify this problem, I felt pressure by the fact that it was taking me far longer than usual and this scared me. This pushed me into a cycle of panicking about the words and therefore forgetting them, which lead me to believe I did not know them even more. I found that, after a few weeks of this, I was struggling to regain my composure after any sort of stumble at all. This showed itself in the performance, and meant I lost much of my physical embodiment as I struggled to get myself back on track.  Had I worked on the two aspects of my character simultaneously, I would have provided a far stronger performance. 

Measure for Measure: Set

The Haçienda nightclub, Manchester

The set is simplistic, designed to be a sturdy structure that does not detract from the events on stage while capturing the mood of the setting and collaging some of the culture of 1989. The pillars are based on those of the Haçienda nightclub in Manchester, one of the leading spots for acid house music and owned by local Manchester legend Tony Wilson. The DJ booth at the back is also furthering the club aesthetic, and the smily face plastered to the back wall is an iconic logo that represents ecstasy and was also one of the main images used in association with the acid rave scene. It is built around 

the preexisting rostra that provides dynamic levels and is a solid centrepiece for any action that takes place in the show. Seeing the set allowed us to get a much better idea of the space we will be working in and to see what our surrounding will tell us about the world we are in.

Measure for Measure: Costume

My costume consisted of a large orange hoodie and a pair of orange dungarees with black pumps and tinted sunglasses, and a cross around my neck. Originally, I was set to wear dirty blue jeans, but the dungarees were judged to be more fitting. 

The costume was well designed, as it worked for both it's purposes. Firstly, it covered most of my face and body, meaning I was well disguised as the friar, and I could also easily switch out with the other actors playing the duke. It also did well to transform the character of the friar into a raver in disguise, as the hoodie and dungarees were similar to both the outfits of the time and a monk's habit. the orange was close to the traditional brown but more gaudy, a common theme of the time.

Measure for Measure: Class in Shakespeare

As we approach the performance, we looked today at class in Shakespeare and how it compares to that of the 1989 context. The class hierarchy in a Shakespeare play is as follows:

• Government/Court
• Religion/Church
• High Born/Gentry
• Law
• Low Born/City

We decided which characters were above which in the play; this helped us have a better understanding of our relationships to each other and how we would treat each other.

My character is particularly interesting because he moves between two classes, the Court and the Church. Although when undisguised he is undisputedly at the top of the hierarchy, when undercover as Friar Ludowick he is below the Court. This bears itself in the big reveal in Act V when he is unmasked. Escalus has just ordered his arrest, not aware that this is her lord and master. When he is revealed, instantly the cast changes from looking at him as an equal to bowing their heads in respect.

We also transferred the ideas of class into the 1989 environment:

• Government: Thatcher and the Tories
• Religion: 1960s Hippie Generation "old wave"
• High Born: More privileged ravers, those with connections
• Law: The police and criminal justice system
• Low Born: Working class ravers and promoters

This helped us modernise these relationships with each other, and also to expand our knowledge of who we were in this alternate '80s Shakespearean world.

Measure for Measure: Proxemics

This rehearsal we took a first look at proxemics and how to command a Shakespeare play onstage. We were instructed to perform a line or two from the show and decide where it seemed most appropriate to deliver it from. 

There were a number of things to consider: firstly, our stage is thrust, so it is performed with the audience on three sides. This drastically changes the rules on where you can stand on the stage, as you are almost always hitting some part of the audience, and have your back to another part. 

Secondly, we have to take our characters into account. We were asked to debate where on stage lies the most power, and this differed depending on our opinions and our characters. For me, two places showed appeal - up stage centre, and the downstage corners looking in. The first allows a full view of the stage and the audience, therefore seems regal as you are in a way 'above' all others, looking down on the rest (this is also where we ended up staging the throne, so this reinforces my original thought). The second position seemed powerful because it meant i could see the entire stage from the audience's perspective, so it was as if I was omnipotent, standing on the edge of the world and looking in. Both of these positions suit my character well. 

The final thing to consider is the text. What is your character saying? if it is pleading and feeble, an upstage corner or downstage facing up may be appropriate as it put's you in sight of those you are addressing while hiding you form the audience, almost handing over the power. If it is contemplative, the downstage corners are again useful as they provide the image of someone looking in at the world, commenting while not necessarily changing anything.

Measure for Measure: Researching the World

1989 was a year of change amongst the young people of Great Britain. It was for many a dreary and hopeless period of Thatcherism and near poverty, particularly for those in Northern working class towns, yet a new music movement united the youth into a party fuelled rebellion against the conservative norms of the past decade. New dance clubs such as the Haçienda and Shoom played psychedelic dance beat tracks that incited people to dance for hours on end. This was often fuelled by the party drug ecstasy, hyping up the crowd and allowing them to carry on for hours without exhausting themselves. The music was also played at free parties hosted in abandoned warehouses or factories that were unregistered. Hundreds or thousands would turn up and cram in for the night, dancing until the sun rose. These parties were quickly jumped on by the media as a danger to society, promoting deadly drug use and unsociable and aggressive behaviour among the youth of Britain. Ironically this was often the opposite of true, as MDMA would lead to feelings of intense love and happiness, meaning many previously violent or thuggish football hooligans were transformed into smiling, dancing "hippies" almost overnight, after trying their first pill.

Shaun Ryder The Autobiography


To further research the play I reread Shaun Ryder's autobiography. Shaun Ryder was the lead singer of the Happy Mondays, one of the bands most heavily involved in the acid house rave scene, and this book provides a great insider's look at what it was genuinely like at the time. It also touches on the periods before and after, so provided some much needed context for how the scene came about, and what effect it had on society and youth culture.

Measure for Measure: Dance Rehearsals

Our show opens with a dance piece set to 'Love Can't Turn Around' by Jesse Saunders based on the movement and dance routines of the 1989 rave scene. The style was very free and careless, and emanated the passion and love for the music, often vigorous and violent. The scene was linked closely with the discovery of the new party drug MDMA or 'Ecstasy', therefore it was also important to include this in our piece. As well as adding to the loving, carefree, "ecstatic" feelings experience while raving, ecstasy has an effect on the face and body, making everything feel lighter and making the jaw and tongue swing uncontrollably and widening the eyes. I incorporated this into the dance routine and physicality of the opening, meaning the style of the dance was far more accurate. Ben, our movement director, taught us a few basic movements, including the 'Running Man' and a basic side step, then got us to experiment with moving our bodies and practice capturing that raw feeling. He showed us videos of some of the raves so that we had some idea of what we were emulating, including the one below:

I felt confident doing these movements, so as well as just copying the dance moves Ben taught us I also tried to copy a few of the moves from the videos and improvise with some movements that fit the style. Overall the piece was high energy and opened our show in a dynamic way, designed to draw the audiences attention and really wake them up before the opening scenes, as well as establish the world the play lives in.

Measure for Measure: Concept and Character

Our show, Measure for Measure, is a tale of state oppression and corruption in Vienna. Our concept for the show is to modernise it so that it is set in Northern England, 1989, during the 'second summer of love'. This setting has been chosen because of the remarkable similarities between the themes and zeitgeist of the two time periods. In the original play, the city is rife with brothels and parties, and sexual liberty has reached a point that is deemed unacceptable by the government. In 1989, the discovery of ecstasy and the acid house dance music craze lead to a wave of illegal raves and parties mixing the music, drug and youth cultures together in a powerful movement. This was portrayed by the media as a terrible and dangerous thing, and the government made efforts to shut these down using the police and by passing new anti rave laws. Therefore it is clear how the story may be transferred into an environment that will connect more with a contemporary audience.

I was cast as Duke Vincentio, the head of state in Vienna who hands over control temporarily to Angelo in order to view the city from an unbiased pair of eyes, seeing who is in the right and who has succumbed to the lure of corruption. I am playing the duke in Act III and Act IV Scene 1, as the part is being played by multiple actors. During this time, the Duke is in disguise as a friar so I will have to incorporate these mannerisms into my character. Also, because the part is being played by multiple actors, it may prove beneficial to include certain aspects of the other actors' portrayals into my own character in order to make clear the character is one and the same.

Measure for Measure: The Eight Laban Efforts

The next piece of character development we worked on as a cast were the Laban Efforts. These are based on a series of movement characteristics created by Rudolf Laban, they are split into 4 sections, each with opposing extremes:

• Fluidity: Staccato or Legato
• Speed: Fast or Slow
• Drive: Direct or Indirect
• Weight: Light or Heavy

From these four characteristics, it is possible to chop and change a number of them into eight three-dimensional "efforts", extreme versions of characters that reflect their movement objectives. These are:

1. Dab: Fast, Direct, Light
2. Flick: Fast, Indirect, Light
3. Punch: Fast, Direct, Heavy
4. Slash: Fast, Indirect, Heavy
5. Glide: Slow, Direct, Light
6. Float: Slow, Indirect, Light
7. Press: Slow, Direct, Heavy
8. Wring: Slow, Indirect, Heavy

To figure these out for ourselves, we got into neutral and explored first the four sections on their own, then each of the efforts one by one. They are useful for character development as it is possible to provoke an emotional response from a physical stimulus, therefore Laban is a brilliant way to explore physicality based on estimations about how a character feels. This is particularly useful for Shakespeare as a strong physical presence is vital so that the nuances of the words are not lost on an audience disengaged by a lack of physicality on stage. On top of this, our show is based in a physical environment; the Acid house dance music movement of 1989.

For the Duke, I found that the Effort that fitted best was Glide, as it best encompassed the Duke's caring yet regal presence. I played with float, but found that the Duke had too much of a purpose in the show to not be direct in his actions, as this would connote a regal character that does not seem to care about his duties, making him unlikeable.

Measure for Measure: Head Heart Gut Groin

For our initial rehearsal, we began some character work based on the four main areas of the body, these being the head, heart, gut and groin. Each of these four areas have many traits or characteristics associated with them.

• The Head: often associated with intellect and the brain, a character who is thoughtful, intelligent or quick-witted and curious may manifest itself in the head. This can pull the head in front of the body, making them seem nosy or interested in the world, or it may pull them up taler, making them seem self-important.
• The Heart: situated in the chest, the heart is often regarded as the centre of the body and the home of the soul, particularly in Elizabethan medical beliefs. It is associated with compassion, love, and the ability to be emotionally connected. A maternal or bold character may lead with the heart. Leading with the chest also creates a primal, dominant shape that can exert power.
• The Gut: used to digest food primarily, the gut is associated with gluttony and greed, as well as bravery and stoicism. A character that leads with the gut may seem fat or comfortable, as it contorts the body into a slumped position with terrible posture
• The Groin: the house of the sexual organs is quite obviously associated with feelings of sexuality and animalism. Often the most villainous characters lead from the groin, connoting dirty minds and bodies that are motivated by the simple pleasures of life.

It is interesting to look at how most of these four humours can portray characters of both the good and evil persuasions, and that there is a full range of characters that can be built by combining certain elements of the four areas.

When creating my character, I found these four ares worked as a great basis for the simple developments I had in mind. For the Duke, I decided that he lead with a combination of the head and the heart, this is because I feel he is conflicted between his moral compass and his desire to appear a powerful leader to the people of Vienchester. I felt that, when disguised, his head became more prominent as he had to worry less about his bold persona. This is quite possibly the reason he decides to carry out his plan to go into hiding in the first place.

The Amygdala: Evaluation

Our performance was very successful, something I am very proud of given the nature of the performance and it's at times nuanced messages. The audience engaged with each moment of the performance and understood the overall themes within the piece. This taught me a lot about the boundless nature of theatre, as this proved to me that a play does not need to spoon feed it's ideas down the audience's throats, there are plenty of ways to guide the audience members to make their own conclusions about what a visual metaphor may mean, and this provides so much potential for ideas and experiments when it comes to performance art and theatre. The show was emotionally connected, meaning we used some of Artaud's methods effectively; 'Mummy Help Me' was one of the most effective moments in the show, as a few audience members were moved to tears. Clearly it is as possible to provoke an emotional response in others as well through a simple method of physical and verbal contortion.

The one thing we did not anticipate was the mess that some of our stimulus made. We did not think ahead about the fragility of our food props, and much of this became a hazard later on in the show, with some actors slipping on pieces of jaffa cake or fruit. However, this was not a major problem and we worked around it. 

Our costume decision was effective; the decision to wear blacks left us looking professional and together as an ensemble, and the bunny ears contrasted this nicely as it highlighted we were more than willingly to play and be light.

We made some last minute changes, one of the main ones being that the stripper sequence was replaced as it did not fit with the themes, however the sequence it was replaced with, though not as visually interesting, fitted better with the our overall message. Instead of stripping the scientists now walked slowly along the tables, contemplating the questions we were about to ask the audience.

If I were to redo this performance, I would change this preset into something more visually interesting, perhaps i would have the scientists writing some sort of musical equation on the walls of the lab. I would also use less edible stimuli and try and find a way to dispose of them before carrying on with the performance.

In conclusion, this process has expanded my mind both musically and with regards to how theatre can be presented, as there are far more possibilities than I first realised when I joined the school.

The Amygdala: Final Rehearsal

In today's rehearsal we finalised the running order and finished blocking the show. After completing our Misorgi and stretching, we ran through until we had a complete running order. It looked like this:

1. We enter a room lit by fairy lights There is the smell of joss sticks in the room. It sib both childhood and teenage. 
2. There are 25 bunny rabbits kneeling, standing, lying on the floor
3. They are in a special space that is marked out by Jaffa cakes and party rings 
4. The bunnies have a glass of transparent water; in front of the glass is a piece of fruit; a strawberry, a blue berry, an apple.    
5. They sooth the water across their eyes, ears, noses, mouths and their haras.  They are cleaning, cleansing. 
6. "We clean our fingertips so we can touch"
7. "We clean our eyes so we can see"  
8. "We clean our ears so we can hear" 
9. "We clean our nostrils so we can smell"
10. "We clean our mouths so we can taste"
11. "And we clean our hara’s to connect with ourselves"
12. "With you"
13. We eat fruit for the first time. We mannequin challenge (MC) 
14. Some one cleans their teeth. And explains the power of samedhi 
15. We stretch our bodies to clean our bones and muscles
16. And there is music that goes through us and we move
17. As octopus swimming alone
18. As dolphins we swim together 
19. And as moonfish we swim as one 
20. We MC in this
21. What if the music stopped?  
22. A girl appears she is wrapped in a twister mat
23. She plays on her own. 
24. No one else joins in
25. What if childhood dies? 
26. We stand around her breathing 
27. It is the funeral of childhood. 
28. We eat a Jaffa or party ring. 
29. We do the okey kooky 
30. We are aeroplanes
31. We are shot from the sky 
32. We play the number game
33. We play. A bicycle circles the room
34. We play. There is an MC
35. We play the game
36. We play like teenagers on a beach to Good Vibrations. 
37. We are called to sleep by a siren
38. We fall in asleep in a long line of warm cuddles. The last to cuddle is a bunny that moves to the killers when we were young. We all fall asleep. 
39. A screaming siren wakes us
40. We reach for our mothers
41. Mummy can you help me
42. We hold each other. There is intimacy. 
43. Wouldn’t it be nice?
44. We separate and find each other with our fingertips in the dark. In the dark we find each other with our touch 
45. A boy Bunny talks about his family and Carole Kings some kind of wonderful plays. 
46. There is intimacy (there is an MC)
47. We brain hold 
48. We understand the magnificence of the brain 
49. We are not in the play but on a tube. A bunny talks abut the difference between the real world and the theatre world
50. A harmonica plays we move to this
51. A Hendrix tune comes from out of the darkness 
52. Some guitars play we move to this we find fake love for a party moment 
53. What if the music stopped? 
54. We come together as one..alive..a ritual of youth, music and future and now.  
55. We get the audience to play the hokey kokey with us.
56. We sit and talk and eat the Jaffa cakes and party rings
57. The circle is broken but it will last forever. 

We then performed the piece to an audience of red tags. I was nervous about their opinion, as the piece had never been shown to an audience that had not been in some way involved in the process, so I did not know if they would understand. However, their feedback was very positive. They enjoyed the audience involvement, we kept them interested and immersed in the piece. They understood the themes of childhood, music, mental health and the idea we must reconnect with our innocent selves. They loved our commitment, they understood that this was what made the piece enjoyable to watch.

Chris

In Chris' lesson we worked in the science lab to block the opening of our show in a site specific environment. Me and some other actor's played the part of strippers in science coats taking bribes of rulers from fellow actors, this played out as the audience arrived. We then staged our respective pieces around the room. By the end of this rehearsal our show was ready for performance.

The Amygdala: Our Skeleton Running Order and Blocking our Scenes

This lesson we began to form the beginnings of our piece by gluing together various parts of improvisation last week. Stuart took notes on what moments where the most bold and we comprised them into an order. It looked something like this:

1. Fairy lights, party rings, jaffa cakes
2. Octopus movement
3. Dolphin movement
4. Moonfish movement
5. Hokey Cokey
6. Airplanes
7. Piggy backs
8. Number game
9. Eden angelic singing
10. Snuggle train
11. Joe tormenting screaming
12. Mummy Help me exercise
13. Find pair
14. Brain holding
15. Tribal dancing to Jimmy Hendrix

This was the first attempt at created a proper running order for the piece, and although it is not set in stone, it is likely the finished product will resemble this order. The mummy help me exercise was based on an Artaud idea called the Theatre of Cruelty, and involved creating an extreme physical and vocal stimulus to evoke a strong internal emotional response. We knelt down, lifted out heads above our hands as if in chains and screamed "mummy help me". I imagined it as being as if I was a young child who had awoken from a nightmare and calling to a mother that would never come. This evoked a powerful emotional response inside me, and made me cry. I took the lead in this part of the final production.

In Chris' class we worked on blocking our own scenes based on extract from Oliver Sachs' novels. Our piece is on a man with Alzheimer's who can remember memories from his life when listening to certain music, so we created a piece in which a guitar replaces various elements of important life events, such as becoming the baby at a birth or the bride at a wedding.

The Amygdala: The Sacred Space and Beach Boys

We began again with Misorgi and with Octopus, Dolphin, Moonfish. This week we used Brian Eno songs and the Beach Boys' 'Warmth of the Sun' as stimulus.

We then undertook an hour long exercise called 'The Sacred Space', an exercise created by Complicité and their director Simon McBurney, who based the idea off of the Peter Brook idea that the only things needed to create a piece of theatre is a space, an audience and someone in that space. 

To add stimulus to the piece, we were asked to bring in our "objects of joy". I chose my guitar, as i felt it also tied in with the theme of music, but these ranged from jaffa cakes to a bicycle.

We gathered in a circle and took off our shoes to mark the perimeter. It was then agreed that once you stepped into the circle, you were no longer yourself but a neutral actor who's only objective was to follow any stimulus given to them by the circumstances and people around them. Throughout the exercise a number of events occurred that would go on to form the skeleton of our show. 

These included:

• Jake riding his bike, everyone following suit
• Benji, Lloyd, Joe and I sporadically play our guitars in and out of time with each other, orchestrating and narrating the piece
• Daniel making love heart out of party rings, then I present him with a jaffa heart I have bitten into shape
• Michelle protecting herself with the twister mat
• Screaming in sync with each other
• Daniela with fairy lights around  her head
• Jaffa cake vehicles

Although I took part in a number of exercises, I finished the exercise regretting that I hadn't stayed out and watch for longer, as there were many moments that I missed because I was focussed on myself and I could have had a greater understanding of what worked in our group and what didn't.

Chris
In Chris' class we watched a couple of videos on the brain and music, and I discovered that there is a scientific link, as often in the climax of a song the brain releases dopamine and you get a rush of excitement. I also learnt that learning to play an instrument is one of the most effective cognitive exercises around as it challeges your brain to do many different things at once.

We then worked on blocking a piece of physical theatre to The Beach Boys' "Surfin' USA", in order to open our show. This piece was picked because Brian Wilson is an interesting link between the brain and music, as he has suffered long term depression and used music to express and combat this, as well as suffering aural hallucinations after taking too much LSD.

The Amygdala: Practitioners; Peter Brook

We began the lesson with last week's Misorgi exercise in order to cleanse our actor's pallets. 

Three different songs were played: Adagio by Mozart, Violent Noise by XX, Our Prayer by Brian Wilson. 

We started off imitating a lone octopus and experimenting with movements that fed of the music, then we combined as dolphins by joining into small groups of three/four and creating a single synchronised movement, then we formed into a shoal of Moon Fish and moved as one being. Each of the pieces created very different movements, although there was far more diversity between octopi than between moonfish, as synchronised movement is far harder to differentiate between.

We then worked on becoming an ensemble by trying an exercise called trust falls. Half the class had to traverse the room with their eyes shut and the other half had to tap them on the shoulder. If this happened they must fall and the tapper must catch them.

Peter Brook

We then spent the day presenting workshops on various practitioners. Our group had to do a workshop on Peter Brook, a theatre practitioner and writer who has had a massive impact on the way theatre is presented internationally.

Peter Brook Breakdown

The Amygdala: Misorgi and a First Look into Music and the Brain

We began this first session by practicing a body cleansing exercise called 'Misorgi' a Japanese technique used by East Asian actors and pioneered in the west by Yoshi Oida. The exercise focuses on cleaning the 9 holes (although we focus on the first eight...); these consist of:

• The Eyes
• The Nose
• The Ears
• The Mouth
• The Hara (belly button)

The idea is that by taking some clean water and cleaning each of these areas, the body becomes open and cleansed, free of any doubt or evil that has accumulated before the rehearsal, and allows us to be free as actors. It is based on an Indian fairytale of a God that tried to better himself by attempting to adapt himself to live under the sea. The Hara is particularly important in this exercise, as eastern traditions believe the Hara is the location of the soul. It is the reasoning behind "hara kiri", the practice of samurai splitting their gut open after losing their honour in battle. It is also why the belly button piercing is so prominent in eastern cultures as it symbolises the importance of the soul.

After this we looked at Smardhi; attempting to totally focus on one simple task at a time, and committing to this task completely. This is calming yet frustrating, as it eliminates all negative thoughts from the brain yet is very difficult to achieve.

Finally to complete our warm up we attempted Walking into Nothing, a Peter Brook experiment in which we had to walk around the room with our eyes closes in order to enhance our spacial awareness and connect with the other actors in the room.

We then looked at our first practitioner, Brian Eno, who has worked on a lot of interesting musical projects. One in particular interested me, 'Music for Airports', because it was designed to relax those in a stressful environment, something that incorporates both music and the brain.

We then did an experiment on ourselves based on music and different stimulus. Stuart played us four different pieces and we were allowed to write, draw, or move to the music. 

• 'Winter Wind' by Chopin my first instinct was to draw as it is what I felt most comfortable with. I started by swirling my pen around the paper, however, i found that this wasn't satisfying me so I moved to the movement section and begun to let the music move me. I found it felt like I was being swept up and down the room, twirling and moving. It became less controlled as the piece spirals into a more and more hectic melody
• 'Goodbye Irene' by Lead Belly This piece was slightly calmer, I wrote a story for this and it did end up being about sleeping in a forest, which is interesting because I did not know the name of the piece at the time
• 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' by Judy Garland I was very familiar with this piece, so I found myself preempting what was going to happen, which felt like it slightly ruined the experiment. I ended up slow waltzing with an invisible partner.
• 'It's Not Unusual' by Tom Jones This piece brought everyone together in the movement section as it was so upbeat and lighthearted at it's surface, and I ended up dancing between partners in a swinging, clicking movement.

It was interesting to see that I was most drawn to the movement section; it is obvious which area is most affected when I hear music.

The Debating Chamber Performance and Evaluation

Our performance as a group and as a class was, overall, excellent. We competed what we set out do do, presenting a range of political issues using Brechtian Technique and creating original responses to the text. The audience were encouraged at the end to write down something that they would do after being inspired by our piece, and the board was filled with some fantastic points. Overall, we set out to make the audience reconsider these things, and therefore we were successful.

One reason we were successful was because we kept in mind that this was political term. Our pieces did not necessarily align with our personal views, but we used our passion and commitment to our own political views; our own political awareness; to influence how we presented our pieces. This meant that all the pieces felt important, as if they were were issues that needed speaking about and could not be left ignored by those presenting it. This was vital as there were topics that of not handled correctly could have lost the audience's focus, leaving the next group to pick up the slack, which would not have been good ensemble work.
Another thing that led to success was the teamwork and ensemble ability form the he entire cast. This was very much an ensemble show, for most of the performance the performers are sitting and spectating. However, this did not mean hat we switched off, as this would have led to a lack of energy that would have sapped the life from the central performances. Instead, there was continued commitment and enjoyment of each other's work, leading to the audience feeling more open and relaxed, and ready to receive new information.
A third thing we did excellently was be open. This term, both in performance and in rehearsal, there was an atmosphere that felt as if we were far more comfortable sharing our personal views and accepting other's disagreements without disregarding their opinion. This led to an attitude in performance that it was far easier to take risks and experiment, be free to explore slightly different aspects of politics and character, as there would not be any judgement - we had a significant amount of trust in each other.
A final thing we did well that led to our success was using Brechtian techniques. All of our performances included Brechtian techniques of some sort: some were more obvious than others, but it was evident that everyone had made an effort to distance themselves from the naturalistic style we had studied last term in order to fully engage with this new style, adjusting accordingly and adding elements to this performance that would have been impossible in naturalism term.


One thing we could have improved on is the audience engagement. It became obvious at the start of our show that we all found t difficult to speak to the audience as if we were not here to entertain them, and this meant that some of the original energy was lost form our opening as there was not as stark a contrast between ourselves and our characters. It is vital to have this in a Brechtian show, as distancing is what transforms dramatic theatre into epic theatre, transforming the audience form just observers to spectators who can make their own decisions and become angry or enthused by what we are prestentinrbgg. If the audience sees the actor through the guise of the character, that connection is lost to a certain degree.
Another thing we could improve on is presenting a more objective point of view on our political subject. One of the important points that I grasped form our workshop lessons is that the audience should be the ones making up their mind this term, we should not be doing that for them. That is what makes them emotionally connected, havoc the chance to decide for themselves what is right or wrong, and if we interfere with that, we stand the risk of breaking that emotional connection that the audience has, so that they feel as if they are just being patronised with information they assume they already know.

Lesson 6: The Debating Chamber Final Rehearsal

We began the lesson by choreographing an opening to our show. This was set to the song "Standing in the way of Contol" by Gossip and involved our class dressed as politicians and performing a high energy routine that demonstrated our approach to the topics being covered in the show. This was followed by a mock parliament scene on which we explained the course of events for the evening as well as mentioning some of the recent events that require pieces like this to be put on. It was interesting to analyse the opening as there were a number of Brechtian techniques used here that made this very different to our first term performance. We mixed with the audience at the beginning and chatted, making a clear difference between the character and the actor. We also went through little to no character development for the opening, instead using power and energy to convey emotion. Finally, our costume contrasted with our actions, further disassociating is from the characters and their political opinions, allowing the audience a more subjective view as to what it meant.

After staging the opening, we had a final chance to run through our pieces and gain some feedback from our peers and tutor. We added two new scenes, including a scene where the group offer me water repeatedly to show how there is a lack of respect for the victim in the text and and another where they hand be pieces of paper with information on capital punishment written on which I proceed to screw up and throw away to represent the grotesque nature of the people asking the victim to sign someone's life away. These went down well and were understood by our peers, who enjoyed taking the facts as they were thrown as it was an interactive way to give information without bombarding the audience. We learnt hat our piece was short enough for us to add some extra pieces, including a scene where we paraded the cast around tied to a rope as if they are being shown off before the slaughter. We also learnt that we needed to change the end slightly as t was not safe to tip a table on the surface we were performing on. We instead used a chair as it was easier to maneuvre.

Lesson 5: The Debating Chamber Initial Rehearsals

At the end of Lesson 4, we were assigned our groups for the final political show, The Debating Chamber. We were each given an except form a playtext; in our case 'Hang' by Debbie Tucker Green; and were told that we were being commissioned to create a response to the text that was between 5 and 7 minutes long. Our theme wasn't capital punishment, so we decided that we would each take one of the forms of capital punishment mentioned in the extract to look at. I chose hanging.

At the beginning of Lesson 5, we split off into groups to work on our pieces. The first thing we did was brainstorm how we were going to present the text. We decided that we liked the text, it was well written, so we would keep most of it in the piece. However, in keeping with Brechtian themes, we decided to rearrange a lot of it in order to tell our own narrative while still using the stimulus. The extract begins with many an explanation of different forms of capital punishment, so we decided to make these into monologue and say them simultaneously. We also decided that we wanted at least part of the piece to include some symbolic physical work, as the act of putting someone to death is very physical, so we decided a short sequence in which I was tipped back as if in an electric chair, then flipped up into the shoulders of Kaimani, then stood on a table, ready to hang. This was important as it brought the identity of the victim into question, and, one of the main philosophical debates about this subject is how much does a criminal deserve to be treated this way, so much that they themselves become the victim.

We showed our ideas to our class in order to gain some valuable insight on what our peers thought was good and what could be improved. We got a positive response from this early devised piece, our peers said that they liked the physical aspect as it disconnected the speech from the action and made them think twice about what was being said. They also liked the way we had restructured the text so it was less clear which perspective I was talking from, and what my opinion on capital punishment is, which was a nod to the not-but moments from previous workshops. The main piece of criticism, similarly to many of the groups, is that the political agenda was not clear enough so we needed to incorporate this more into our performance. We combatted this by adding another section of text from another part of 'Hang' in which a letter is read out showing the criminal's remorse. This made it clear that we were highlighting the lack of black and white circumstances that are needed to justify taking someone's life for committing a crime

Political Protest Group in Costume

In costume, not character

Lesson 4: Final Protest Rehearsal and Evaluation

We rehearsed our protest in the few hours before we had to publically present them. We had decided after our initial run through that our piece would be most effective in the canteen, so we practiced setting it up in a similar space with similar environmental qualities, including a tables and benches. We then ran through each of our "moments", as this is what we had decided to do after our test run last week. My moment stayed the same as it had worked well in the test, but we came up with more distinct ones for others, including a moment that demonstrated the effects of autism and a moment where a prisoner passes on information via drawings. This was effective in the protest as the multimedia meant that the audience continued to be engaged.
We also worked with our props and costume for the first time. We all had white overalls on to symbolise prison jumpsuits, and we wrote information about our illnesses on them to passively convey more statistics to the audience. If we did this again, I would have waited to put the overalls on as they got slightly damaged before the beginning of the protest.

Our protest went well because we engaged the audience constantly, both shocking them with bold spots that left them wanting to continue watching as well as giving them information meaning they had learnt something. This relates back to our first lesson when we discussed what theatre's purpose was, so because we were successful in doing this we can be sure that we created an innovative, exciting and important performance. We were well rehearsed, so everything ran smoothly, allowing us to play and bring some of the original plan to improvise back on the day. We also were well prepared in terms of knowledge, which is vital when touching on subjects such as this as it is easy to offend people without proper knowledge.
If I was to redo this protest, I would not change much, but one thing that I would change was the involvement with other prisoners, as often it felt quite isolated, that we were not engaged with each other so the group aspect did not seem as important. I would also make an effort to make time for audience interaction, as the brief spells that there were during the piece were some of the most truthful acting moments, as well as the most harrowing for the audience

Lesson 3: Brechtian Technique continued

This lesson we continued to develop Brechtian technique. We began by exploring the idea of Spaß, or 'Fun'. We did this by doing an exercise called 'Servants and Snobs' where we were assigned the role of "servant" or "snob". The servants had to go about their daily lives, while also making sure to attend to the snobs. the snobs could decide when they liked that they needed to sit down, which they announced with a yawn. They then go to sit, and the servants must catch them. The most playful part of this exercise was the creation of characters and the difference in levels between the snobs and the servants. It taught us more about the use of stereotype to convey clear character, and that, much like in last term's Stanislavsky style, playfulness can sometimes be the best way to create interesting new scenes.

We took this idea of Snobs and Servants further when exploring gestus. Gestus is a technique that shows the audience a side of a character's personality in a way that is easy to absorb and understand. We split into pairs, and our tutor gave us various scenarios that we had to freeze in and find a way to show the power struggle. We ended with the rich versus the poor, and there was an obvious use of different levels throughout the room, which was interesting.

We then got into groups and explored a third Brechtian technique - the "not but" moment. This is a breakdown of a text or scene that shows a different course of events by exposing a new perspective on the scene. To test this, we used a part of Brecht's 'Caucasian Chalk Circle' and played the opening scene twice, first as it was depicted in the play and then afterwards from a perspective that allowed us to see the mother's moral dilemma regarding her lost child. This allowed the audience to empathise more with the supposed antagonist, distancing the audience and causing them to spectate instead of watch.

We then put all of this into practice as we toyed with a scene from 'Mother Courage'. The text was irrelevant but the story of the scene had to still come across the same. We used Spaß is my group as we had songs throughout the scene, and they followed the genre/tune of songs from the present day. This is also V-Effekt as it pulls the audience out of the setting and makes them compare to present day.

Lesson 2: Initial Protest Rehearsals and Brechtian technique

This lesson we formed our groups for our performance protests and began working on some initial ideas. After discussing what we felt were current topics and what could be protested against successfully, we settled on the maltreatment of mentally ill prisoners.

We came up with a narrative and assigned ourselves characters. Each of us were decided on a mental illness that we would do some research into, meaning we would have a wide range of mental illness being covered. Benji decided that he would play the guard, so instead he did research into the lack of experience and training for the guards relating to mental illness in particular. I decided to research anorexia and bulimia in prisons, as it is a topic close to my heart and I felt I could become impassioned during a performance related to this, while also being able to find sufficient information.

Our structure was originally a lot less rigid, we were going to focus on character development and then let a scene develop through improvisation with a few key rehearsed moments. One of these key moments was the opening, in which we all lined up to receive medication, and it is discovered there is not enough to treat everyone. Another key moment was when I became aggressive towards Benji and he gets violent, hitting my head against the table. We did not rehearse any more than this in the first lesson.

After this, we performed our initial protest ideas to each half of the year to get feedback and to test our ideas. From this, we discovered that far more people were engaged to our rehearsed scenes, as they were bold and eye catching as opposed to nuanced work that requires attention, which is something our improvised work leant more towards. In an environment like this, where a lot of information has to be portrayed quickly and in a short space of time due to a short attention span from the audience, it is more beneficial to use more rehearsed movement as it is more likely to hold the audience’s attention.

Brechtian Technique

In the afternoon, we worked as an entire year group to start to play with some Brechtian techniques.

The first exercise we explored was Verfremdungseffekt, Which is the idea of defamilarisation or alienation from a character - it means strange-making.

We explored this by walking around the room and then getting into groups of a certain number when told, creating an inanimate object from our bodies. When we finished, we were then told an emotion and had to somehow distort our creation so that the object projected that emotion. This disassociates the surroundings from the idea that they have to be just that - the surroundings. It is possible to take anything in a Brechtian play and present it with life, distancing it form its original or real-life purpose.

In the second part of the lesson, we continued to walk the room and were given simple adjustments to our body stance, be that by leading with a certain body part or repositioning ourselves to walk in a particular way. What was important was that they were only physical instructions, making it so any character decisions were entirely created by the performer and what the new body positions mean to them in terms of character. This led to the formation of stereotype and very caricature-like personalities, something much associated with Brecht's style. This exercise was useful as it taught us the importance of bold, lucid characters in Brechtian acting, as there is often fast pace changing of character's in Brecht so it is vital that there is a clear distinction between different personalities.

Lesson 1: Epic Theatre and Theatrical Philosophy

We began lesson one by discussing in groups why theatre exists and what is it’s function. My group took a piece of paper and created a mind map, contributing all the reasons we believe theatre exists for.  Some of our points were that it exists to give audiences a chance to spectate different lives; that it allows artists a chance to spread new ideas ad thoughts in an easy to digest format; and to explore the bounds of the human body and what is capable to portray and become. There were common threads running throughout all the conversations in the room: that some of theatre’s main purposes are to teach and to entertain

We then had an entire group discussion on whether or not these two things are possible simultaneously or if there was instead a double pronged approach to creating interesting theatre. I personally think that there is no way of entertaining without teaching, as an audience has come to a theatre with an open mind, expecting to see something new. After all, if an audience learns nothing, what is it to say that the piece of theatre is in any way innovative; could it be the same as every other piece of drama that they have seen previously? At the same time, an audience will learn nothing if they are not engaged by the piece, so it is equally important to make a piece of theatre entertaining in order to open the audience up and make them susceptible to the message of the play.

Our next task, this time in our smaller groups again, was to create a piece of theatre based on a news article we found. We were then given a sheet detailing the differences between dramatic theatre, the style we have previously studied, and epic theatre, the style Brecht was fond of and the one we were beginning to study this term. We were then challenged to create a piece based on the article, first in a more dramatic style, then using epic theatre. Our group decided to use an article based on government cuts leading to a lack of medicine in wards, pictured left.

For our Epic performance, we adapted our piece so that instead of speaking, we used the sound of heart monitors to express the tensions that our voices would normally make clear.

Dramatic and Epic Theatre Differences

Brecht Fact File

Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsberg, Germany in 1898; part of a middle class family in a small farming town at the turn of the century. Brecht was not a typical bourgeois German citizen, however, and his political attitudes were revolutionary even at a young age.

When Brecht was my age, World War One began. Brecht did not believe in war, holding many pacifistic views, but was eventually conscripted into the army in 1916, where he served as a medical orderly - this was what he had been training toward in his education at home, studying medicine at university. While serving, he witnessed awful injuries while having to attend to the horrors of military injuries. This led to him reevaluating what was most important to him politically and ethically, as he continued to let pacifism lead much of his creative and political work.

In 1924, Brecht moved to Berlin, where he wrote a number of plays. He was influenced by a major theatre maker of the time, Erwin Piscastor, and the two collaborated on many projects

Brecht lived through the rise of Fascism and the Nazi regime in Germany from 1933 to 1945. He fled Germany to Austria in February 1933 and was officially exiled soon after due to his left wing views. He then travelled the world to create new theatre, including a visit to the USA.

He returned to Berlin in 1948, putting on his play ‘Mother Courage’ and creating a new theatre company, ‘The Berliner Ensemble’, which toured Europe.

Brecht died in 1956, having shaped the world of theatre through his combination of a seldom expressed communist political view with a dynamic and innovative approach to devising and directing new works.

Fact File
In addition to our own research, we pooled our knowledge in lesson 2, assembling a quick-read fact file

Bertolt Brecht
* German practitioner
* Born 1898 died 1956
* Lived through both World Wars and Nazi Germany
* Worked as a medical orderly in the First World War
* Saw horrifying war injuries at a young age
* Exiled from Nazi Germany in 1933
* Travelled the world and observed the Second World War, visiting America and Scandinavia
* Studied drama at Munich university
* Acknowledged the artificiality of theatre
* Inspired by Charlie Chaplin the silent film star
* Was a poet, playwright and director
* Called in front of the Un-American Activity Committee to investigate his "communist like" activity

Exercises
* Verfremdungeffekt -Strangemaking/distancing/defamiliarisation/alienation
* Simple character creation

Chekhov's 'The Seagull' and 'Konstantin Stanislavsky' by Bella Merlin

Chekhov's 'The Seagull' immediately made an impression on me in that, from the offset, it was presented in a way that has many parallels with contemporary theatre. Bearing in mind that the play was written over a century ago, is remarkable. True, the English adaptation may have adapted some of the language to flow more fluently with the English language, but even the structure, character arcs and the description of set bear remarkable similarity to that of today's theatre, even film and television. For example, the use of "love triangles" as a plot device is seen in half of the romantic comedies to come out of Hollywood, as it's simplicity makes it a useful and engaging plot forwarder. This device has been used since the days of La Commedia Dell'arte, with love triangles forming between the "Hero", "Villain" and "Clown" characters. However, Chekhov writes them in such a way that the triangles only feel melodramatic when melodrama adds to the entertainment factor of the play (such as when Konstantin ends his life after discovering Nina is still in love with Trigorin) which gives a new sense of believability to a plot device and makes it feel 'new' - 'The Seagull' is a predecessor of contemporary or 'new' theatre.

The depth of the plot is carried by the multitude of different characters. By giving even the smaller characters a clear motive and the suggestions of a real life outside of the pages of his script - such as Polina's desire to reveal Dorn's affections for her or Medvedenko's lust for Masha's hand - Chekhov allows intertwining stories to run alongside each other and create the impression that the audience is viewing snippets of the thriving community on Sorin's estate. This community could believably exist outside of the captured scenes, making Chekhov's world all the more believable.

The story is one of unrequited love and a desire to become loved, both by individuals (Polina, Nina, Konstantin, Medvedenko and Masha) or by all those surrounding them, be that peers or superiors (Arkadina, Konstantin and Shamrayev). Konstantin's case is particularly interesting, as he desires all of these things - Nina's love, his mother's respect and approval and acceptance by Trigorin and the artist elite that he represents. His desire for acceptance is by far the strongest, and it leads to his demise, as he is only character in 'The Seagull' that cannot accept that his desires are not accomplishable, and instead settle for less - one of the main themes of the play.

'The Seagull' was, at first, a theatrical failure, as it's nuances and contemporary storytelling could not be comprehended by the average director or cast. It required the brilliant mind of one Konstantin Stanislavsky in order to begin to breach the hidden meaning Chekhov's every word. Stanislavsky's production of 'The Seagull' saw him begin work on his famous "system". Stanislavsky's system, as well as a number of his other contributions to the acting profession and a series of rehearsal techniques, are covered in Bella Merlin's 'Konstantin Stanislavsky'.

It is quickly stated by Merlin that the system detailed in 'An Actor Prepares' is a precursor to the more intuitive Method of Physical Actions and Active Analysis. However, this does not stop the system being a vital part of an aspiring actor's knowledge. It is an attempt to bring the often non-corporeal world of immersing oneself in a character in order to become believable into an obtainable mindset. Stanislavsky does this by creating a number of ways one can harness their mind, body and feelings and direct them to feel truthful emotions.

The exercises detailed in Chapter 4 of Merlin's book originally frustrated me, as I found that I could not recreate the desired effect. However, it was not until Exercise 4.10, in which the actor must imagine dipping their hand into a bath of hot water, then again but imagine trying to retrieve a ring lost in a pond. I noticed that both actions used the muscles in my arm in reverse order of each other depending on which scenario I imagined, and that each of these actions conjured up completely different emotions. The first exercise, I was tentative and fragile, and I moved my muscles from the peripheral to the centre. In the second, I was confident and sturdy, and I moved my muscles from the centre to the peripheral. This proved to me that the connection between mind, body and emotion was real and possible to tap into with the correct training and guidance.