First Performance Feedback

First Performance Feedback

What could be improved?

• Greater use of levels in the movement sequence.
• MORE CONTEXT- Why is the dead man drowning? Is the water taking him away or is it a peacefull drowning? Struggle or surrender?
• More speaking from the drowning man.
•  More exaggeration and synchronised movement.
• Perhaps address the audience at some points.
• How can we transition from the downing scene without leaving the stage?

What was good?

• Movement made it clear that we were suppoosed to represent water.
• Clear use of voice with distinct child-like qualities. 

Devising: The process so far.

Devising: The process so far.

To start, we read our stimulus text and analysed it. Doing so, we were able to pick out some key themes and ideas to research (e.g isolation and finding out the origins of Estaban).

In our group we originally thought of the idea of a man washing up on the shore and the people who live their all feel some sort of guilt towards his death. This brings the town together in a sort of trial scenario where each person tells the story of how they knew the dead man and why they feel they are responsible for his death. However, this started to wonder away from the stimulus and we found that it didn’t work as the coming together wasn’t a positive thing like it is in the story. We then decided to scrap that idea and focus on how people could come together in a positive way and celebrate the death of the drowned man like they do in the story.

From this, we decided to have a sort of “story time” scenario of who Esteban was and how he came to die. We have different stories to suit different age groups and levels of imagination. For example, the youngest character talks about adventures on a pirate ship, and the oldest talks about a long lost relative. Other stories include references to the titanic and native Indians.

So far in devising we have started to develop a movement sequence that shows the “handsome drowned man” drowning. At first we wanted to create the movement and have an audio backing of ocean sounds. We were going to start with a lift and slowly bring the drowned man down to the floor. However, this didn’t work as we could not control the weight of the person we were lifting. We also figured out that it was hard to use the sound of the ocean for the movement sequence as this was very monotonous and gave a weak start to our piece. From this, we decided to do more of a dance movement sequence to give us more options on variety and the speed/ energy content of the movement. The music also builds to a climax so that we can create suspense and have impact in our final movements.

What works for our group…

·         Generating material out of practical work i.e briefly discussing an idea and then trying it rather than discussing it for a long period of time.

·         Everyone doing research individually at home and then doing feedback as a group.

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Jane Eyre and Medea

Jane Eyre and Medea

Jane Eyre-National Theatre

Things that were good...

·         Physicality of the dog was endearing and believable. Actor picked up a stick (representing a tail) and instantly became a dog.

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·         Music + soundtracks that were used throughout were effective and kept interest. Mixture between live/pre-recorded sounds and voice over.

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·         Characters change buy one costume or prop addition.

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·         Transition through time by listing the months in unison. Added a physical action to important months.

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·         Coat into a baby. Play ends how it began.

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·         Time passing through movement transition in a circle.

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·         Use of lights (hand held): used to create fire, pathways etc

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·         Thoughts being said by other people which represent the consciousness of a single character. Mind is arguing amongst itself.

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·         Clever use of multi-role: different accents and costume additions to represent different people.

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·         Different light colours represent different places, e.g red  = isolation room for Jane.

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·         Running on spot to signify traveling.

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·         Simple set, running in different directions to occupy the space.

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·         They all fall asleep on top of each other in a line.

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·         The deaths were simplistic and represented by the actors going under the stage.

Medea- Almeida Theatre

Things that were good…

·         Silhouette effect in “yummy mummy” murder movement sequence. 

·         Use of staging, pit in stage for ‘grave’.

·         Smooth transitions between scenes.

·         Children onstage during arguments, looking away was effective. They were not part of the actual scene but it demonstrated that they are the ones being caught up in anything.

  

Things that could be improved…

·         Use of shouting in key moments instead of throughout for more impact.

·         Shorter monologue from half man/woman at end so audience don’t lose track/interest.

Brecht/Epic Theatre Research

Brecht/Epic Theatre Research

About Bertolt Brecht

·         Born in 1898 and died in 1956

·         Brecht was a German playwright, poet, director and theatre practitioner.

·         In his late 20’s,Brecht became a life- long committed Marxist

(Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that analyses class relations and societal conflict).

·         Brecht created epic theatre.

EPIC THEATRE

“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” –Brecht.

Brecht wanted to create theatre where his audience had the ability to think critically and judge what was going on on-stage. He believed that the world of naturalistic theatre, where the audience lose themselves in the lives of the characters, meant that the audience could no longer think as they were emotionally invested in the play. To keep his audience emotionally distant, so that they could make rational judgements about any social comments or issues Brecht brought up in his plays, he created EPIC THEATRE. He used a range of theatrical devices to remind his audience that they were watching theatre (not real life). Brecht called this process of distancing the audience from emotional involvement verfremdungseffekt or “alienation”.

Examples of “alienation” include…

Ø  Songs used as commentary on action

Ø  The use of captions/placards

Ø  Narrators

Ø  An episodic format

Ø   Masks

Ø   Gestus

Ø  Juxtapositioning

Ø   Props/set

Ø  Lighting

Key elements of Brechtian Theatre

Ø  Breaking the fourth wall

o   Actors directly address the audience.

Ø  Gestus

o   Presenting an emotion through gesture

Ø  Didacticism

o   Teaching of a moral lesson

Ø  Narration and song

o   Adds commentary on/or narrates the story.

Ø  Acting techniques

o   Multi-rolling characters

o   Exaggerated/ repetitive actions

Ø  Alienation technique

o   Audience is left to question characters

o   Use of lighting/ sound is simple and exposed.

Brecht’s plays:

o   Mother Courage and Her Children.

o   The Good Person of Szechuan.

o   The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui.

o   The Caucasian Chalk Circle.

Useful links:

Introduction to Brechtian theatre

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-828KqtTkA

The Caucasian Chalk Circle Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M14jcmTQGwk