This week in class we were presented with a challenge, though we did not realize it at first. The task seemed simple enough: choose one aspect of Brecht's theory and find a theatre exercise that related to it. The challenging part of the assignment was that each person was supposed to choose a different theory. We began to research, but the more that we looked into Brecht, the more we realized that all of the aspects of his theory are interconnected and that in choosing one, everyone was forced to touch upon most of he others as well. Almost all of the exercises that we found were directly related to with er Gestus or Alienation in some manner, these being two of the most important parts of Brecht's theatre theory. This was very frustrating at first, but I feel that as a class we were able to work through it and came out with a better understanding of how Brecht's theory works. It was also a good lesson in perseverance and collaboration with other people as we worked to solve the problem.
I ended up finding an exercise called the street game that is centered around alienation and being to take your acting out of your character in order for your character to become someone else on stage. One person acts as a police officer, and the rest of the people pretend that they have just witnessed a terrible occurrence (I chose to make this the robbing of a bank). The characters must describe what they have seen to the police officer related to the event by re-enacting what happened to the police officer, but pretending to be someone that they saw during the robbery. I hope that this exercise will be helpful in understanding the way that other characters and actors think, and I believe that it will be a good way to further understand the concept of alienation.
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This week, we looked at Brecht's theory of Alienation as a class. I had never been introduced to one specific type of theatre theorist before, and it was interesting to learn that there were so many different techniques and styles that were possible to consider when creating a work of theatre. Although we only looked at Brecht this week, I am excited to explore more theorists and discover more about different styles of theatre.
We had a short lesson on Brecht and what some of his ideas were, and then were left to do some independent research, with out ultimate goal being to produce a short skit using Brecht's theory. From what I had learned about Brecht, I knew that addressing the audience and letting them into the action that was known by the actors (but not the audience) was essential. I feel that we were able to incorporate this into our script. One of our characters predicts what the other character is going to do by directly addressing the audience, and the other character then does what they said. We also introduced the idea of an unreliable character telling the truth the way that they see it instead of the way that it really is. The character also addresses the audience about this, giving the audience a chance to see different sides of both characters. This week I had the opportunity to assist the seniors with their collaborative theatre projects. This has been a work in progress over the last few weeks, and I had been attending a few of their rehearsals to make sure that I knew what to do with the lighting. I was slightly apprehensive about this project, because I had never ran lights before and did not wnat my inexperience to put any additional strain on the performers, but I feel that I did not mess anything up too much. On the day of the performance, I helped with both of the groups that were presenting. For one group, I ran lights, and for the other I sat backstage and helped with a fast costume change. For the second group, I had never practiced the change before opening night, but luckily, everything went relatively smoothly. I felt that the lights went well that night too. To me, the lighting job on the actual performance as the best that I had ever done, and I felt proud of myself for sticking with this project, even though it was very new and challenging.
I hope that in the future I am able to apply these skills to the collaborative theatre projects that I do, and also to theatre in general. I feel that this project has given me a better appreciation for the craziness that goes on backstage, and I will not take the costume helpers or light operators for granted again. I also learned how to approach a new undertaking with an open mind and how to act confident even when I was not 100% sure of what I was doing. I know that these new skills will be of great use to me in the future. This week, I learned how to clean, identify, focus and run stage lights. First, I attended a lighting workshop at my school. During it, we began by walking around an looking at all of the lights, learning about their different bulb types and shapes and how they projected light onto the stage. At first I was a little overwhelmed because I had never worked with lights before and wasn't sure what to expect, but as the day progressed, I became more comfortable with stage lights. Next, we took down all of the lights and cleaned the dust and dirt off of them. It was interesting to get to see them up close, because I had never really noticed lights until I was holding them in my hands. After they were clean, we put them back up on the ceiling in a configuration that was more appropriate for the productions that would be happening. These included both the school production, and the student-generated ones. After putting the lights up, we focused them, which meant that one of us would stand on the stage while another person adjusted the light's angle and focus to make sure the actor was in the best light possible, and that the light was on the right part of the stage. Finally, we had and introduction to what using the light board to run the lights was like. I was especially daunted by this task because there were so many buttons and switches, but once I realized what they all did, I felt more confident in my abilities to run lights.
After the workshop, I began working with some other students to assist with lights for their collaborative theatre project. Though this is still a work in progress, I have enjoyed getting to put my new skills to use and to continue to explore lighting design for theatre. Now, whenever I am onstage, I am sure to notice the different types of lights and all of the thought that went into how they are run. The Urban Legend Project was a very helpful and enlightening introduction to theatre concepts. I had initially not known about the different assigned roles of creator, director, designer, and performer, and the project helped me to explore what there roles meant and how they could be applied to the production and design process of creating a show. Although our creative process got off to a slow start because we were having trouble finding a myth that we liked and all agreed on that would fit our needs for the project, once we had our myth and a direction to work in, we did not run into many major issues and were able to work fairly quickly. I felt that having assigned roles also helped the speed of our work. Because we all knew exactly who needed to do what, we did not have to constantly wonder if we were missing pieces of the project. I felt that this project was also helpful in revealing areas of show production that I did not usually think about. For example, although I often see ads for local theatre productions, I had never created one myself or thought about the many different ways to spread the word about the show. This aspect of theatre production was especially interesting for me to consider because in English class we have been looking at how media is used to reach and influence a wide range of people. Regarding our project pitch, I was glad that we had assigned an equal amount of work to each person with the creator, director, and designer roles. This made it very easy for us each to talk about a portion of our project that we were familiar with and could answer questions about. In past presentations from other classes, the workload has not been as evenly divided and it makes the presentation difficult and stressful. I also loved hearing the questions and comments from the audience that allowed us to reflect on the specific choices that we had made regarding our production and come up with new and improved ideas. I know that I will be able to use what I have learned from this project to improve upon future work in this class.
My first impression of Antigone was surprise at how the lines were constructed. Rather than the short lines and back-and-forth banter that I was accustomed to reading in scripts, the characters approached each line as a monologue. While this allowed each character to almost tell a small story every time they talked, it made it so that one person was talking for a very long time. Also, when a character would start to talk about something not directly related to the story, it made it hard to follow the message that they were trying to convey. Despite this, I loved the character of Antigone and how she was defiant and proud and unafraid to stand up for what she believed in. I felt that she was a great representation of how strong women can be, an idea that is especially important in modern times. To create our Urban Legend Theoretical Production, we began by dividing up the roles of creator, director, and designer. We did not include the role of performer because our production was theoretical and would not be performed. Once we had assigned each person in our group a role, we each focused on an aspect of the theoretical production.The job of the creator was to research the myth in depth in order to create a synopsis and generate main character descriptions. The director would choose the performance location, finalize the casting choices, and write the director's statement. The designer looked at the creative elements like costuming and sets in order to create the mood of the show. Once we had developed all of the pieces of our production, we assembled them together in a slide show that would allow us to easily present our ideas to the rest of the class. While working on this project, we had to take into consideration what the definition of an urban myth was. The Gravity Hill myth that we used is based off of a real phenomenon: a place where cars appear to roll uphill due to and optical illusion. However, we were able to find a myth regarding why cars the cars act this way on the hill, and that is the story that we told our production. We also had to consider how we were going to portray a car and a hill onstage somewhat realistically. This influenced our choice in performance location because we needed a stage big enough and strong enough to support our set. A challenge that we encountered was figuring out what time period we wanted our show to take place in. The myth did not give any specific time or date, so we used clues in the story to help us. We knew that the car in the story was a stick shift, and also that none of the characters in the myth had cell phones to contact each other. We decided to set our play in the 80s because we liked the mood that the 80s clothing and cars would bring to our story, and we knew that the technologies of this time period would fit with the clues that we found in the myth. Something that came easily in our process was creating the character descriptions because we were able to determine their characteristics and mannerisms through the way that they acted in the original myth that we found. Through the process of creating a hypothetical production of our myth, we were able to explore the different roles in theatre as well as gaining experience regarding troubleshooting problems in the creation of a theatre production.
Director-The director works to translate what the writers have written into a physical medium on the stage. They must remain authentic to the story, while also creating something visually and emotionally impactful for the audience. It is their job to make sure that the creative, design, and performance elements of a show all line up and fit with each other.
Performer- It is the performer's job to reflect the ideas of the designer, director, and creator to the audience. The actor must interpret the part of a specific character and form a connection with the audience in order to help them become immersed in the show. Designer- The designer works with the director and creator to develop an atmosphere and mood onstage. It is up to them to create the conceptual side of the story in order to present the audience with information Creator- The creator is responsible for the generation and compilation of ideas that will be formed into the show. In addition to coming up with ideas, the creator must also have an understanding of what will work onstage and what will not, and be able to reject or modify ideas in order to produce the best possible show. https://thoughteconomics.com/theatre-performance-and-society/
To me, theatre is used by humans to express a vastly wide range of emotions, ideas, and perspectives. It mixes the good and the bad, the lighthearted and the serious, the familiar and the foreign. Sometimes things that are confusing in life can become clearer when expressed through the art of performance. As James Houghton suggests, theatre has the ability to help us understand our relevance in the world. One important aspect of this is the relationship between the performer and viewer. In order for a mutual understanding to be developed, Sir Howard Panter feels that it is essential for the audience to be in the same space as the actors. Personally, I agree with this and believe that breathing the same air allows the two groups to connect in a way that is closer to real life than what we can get from a screen. I feel that this is what is so moving about theatre- what the characters experience is unfolding right in front of you. Like in real life, there is no pause button, mute, or rewinding. The show keeps chugging along whether or not you are ready to see what happens next. Sometimes what plays out onstage is fantastical and transports you to the deep parts of your imagination, and sometimes what is happening in front of you is all too real. Either way, you never leave the theatre with the same view of the world as when you entered. As Professor Alan Read said: "Theatre does not tease people out of their everyday lives like other expressions of wish fulfillment but reminds them who they are and what is worth living and changing in their lives every day." |
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