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Stanislavski

Stanislavski was a famous acting teacher born in Russia who influenced the lives of actors to perform more realistic and natural using his acting methodology. His method consisted of three core principles when performing; super-objective, stage action and “suspension of disbelief”

The super-objective is the actor's character long-term goal which they “need” to achieve by the end of their performance. This helps actors understand why they are voicing their script and why they are doing a certain action.

Stage action is the obstacles and struggles which the character must face to achieve their super objective which gives them a more purposeful performance and more interesting for the audience.

Suspension of disbelief is what gives the actor sincerity by using personal memory in a scene to help them convey a more heart felt performance.

Stanislavski believed in naturalistic performances that were as realistic as possible and invented techniques that could be used. For example, we used one of his many techniques such as endowment, where we attached physical and emotional attributes to a physical item such as an empty mug. By using the empty mug, my group and I acted out different circumstances with the mug for instance, when the empty mug was filled with” coffee” we attached emotional elements to it such as the heat of the drink and how that effected our facial expression and therefore affecting our body language, the physical attribute. This acting methodology was successful because we were able to identify small but key elements in our performances so that we could improve on them, making our scenes look more realistic, natural and therefore successful. However, I did not prefer the emotion memory technique because it could interfere with an actor's mental health as it could bring back a lot of past traumas. This has been demonstrated through many actors who use the Stanislavski method as it has been shown to be exhausting and have negative side-effects, leaving the actor feeling mentally venerable. On the other hand, it may be beneficial for some actors who do use the Stanislavski method, such as Robert Downey Jr who has used emotion memory multiple times and has won many academy awards. However, it is clearly shown that using emotion memory to embody your character has its positives for your performance, but it can affect you negatively in the long-term and perhaps make it hard for one to continue acting. In the coming future, I would like to learn one of Stanislavski's internal techniques called” The magic if” as it would help those actors who do struggle with their mental health and instead can just picture themselves being in the characters circumstance rather than their own.

Frantic Assembly

During my workshop today we explored physical theatre (Frantic Assembly) which is a form of theatre that puts emphasis on movement rather than dialogue, as a result it is using movement in a stylized and representational way. Many productions, such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time have used frantic assembly to make the performance very emotional and poetic without it being realistic. Mark Haddon wanted to take his reader into Christofer Boones' mind, therefore the production wanted to bring the audience into that mind by using frantic assembly as a way to transmit Christophers brilliant and imaginative mind rather than dialogue to express that. The effectiveness of using frantic assembly has been demonstrated through the work that I did in the workshop today as we had used the round, through and by technique with our partners and created a performance using movement only which as a result, produced an emotional piece when we put soothing music with it.

Moreover, my favorite technique that we explored in the workshop was the chair duets as every group had different but interesting actions which created different interpretations from everyone on their storyline. Using the chairs duets helps you build a story through movement and therefore create a working scene from it. For example, my partner and I began touching various parts of our bodies taking it in turns at a fast and slow pace, which began to build a story, which ours was about two ex-friends who want to reconnect again. I found it interesting how many people had different perspectives on our story line with diverse types of music on top of the performance and some people understood it as a tragic story or a comforting one. The effectiveness of our chair duet created the links that allows my partner and I for a more fluid and meaningful piece. Overall, it is clear that you can make your chair duets as imaginative and as diverse as possible. However, one technique I disliked from the frantic assembly was marcia takedown as it may be hard for the partners to trust each other in that quick moment as they may not know each other as well and feel a little tense. My partner and I labelled ourselves A and B and A closed their eyes whilst B placed their hand gently on their partner's back and led them around the room with slight pressure. This made me feel very weary, conscious and on edge that I would bump into someone and hurt myself. Although this technique did help me understand physical theatre more as it helped everyone to build trust and work as a team, it was hard for me to adjust at the start.

Furthermore, throughout the workshop I used many acting skills such as emotion memory which I had learnt from the Stanislavski workshop. This incredibly helped me in the chair duets as my personal memory of an ex-friend who I do want to reconnect with in my life became my guide for my partner and I’s piece about two friends wanting to reconnect. Using my own personal memory improved my physical movements to feel more dedicated and meaningful as sometimes throughout the chair duet I would hesitate to move a part of my body towards my “my ex- friend" as I thought about the memory. Moreover, this also helped my facial expressions to make the performance come alive. As a result, using emotional memory was effective because it made the emotions attached to that memory in my life of my ex-friend arise, making the scene feel more powerful.

In the future, a technique which I would love to understand further for frantic assembly would be music because I really feel like it helps highlight how music performs in theatre, not just as a theatrical element, but as an entity on stage along with the actors. Furthermore, the use of music also feels like you are telling a different story than when there was no music to the movements. For example, when I performed the chair duet with my partner, Liberty, with depressing music, the story was seen in the perspective of it been sad and tragic, however when uplifting music was put on top of the chair duet, the story seemed to have changed among the audience to a more exciting and enjoyable performances. As a result, it is clearly shown that music plays a huge role in frantic assembly because it heightens the emotions involved in the scene and enhances its performance.

Physical Comedy

In today's workshop, we explored two practitioners, Jacques Lecoq and John Wright who both produced methodologies to create physical comedy.

Although both practitioners produce methodologies for physical comedy, they do it in separate ways. John wright places more emphasis on finding the ‘game’ in rehearsal and performances when creating content. On the other hand, Lecoq focuses more on the states of tension which encourages performers to be always aware of their physicality.

During this workshop, we explored many conventions such, finding the game, the double take game, and the states of tension. One of my least favorite conventions that we explored was one of John Wrights techniques called finding the ‘game.’ Wright wanted his actors to find the game within their scene, rather than following strict objectives. One of his examples that we did was imitation exaggeration, where in pairs we labeled ourselves as A and B, and A would follow B around copying the way they walk. Once we were comfortable finding the game of copying that person, we would then exaggerate their movements as much as possible, which I found did not help us to try and not be funny but did the complete opposite, as many, including myself took advantage of this use of exaggeration and used that to try and be funny which we should not do. On the other hand, a convention I really enjoyed was one of Jaque Lecoq’s which was the states of tension, 8 different ‘levels’ that encompass the physical tension within the body, from exhaustion to rigor mortis. This really helped me when performing with my partner as I was able to match any states of tension to certain circumstances and situations, which we did in our police officer scene. I found this technique successful, as my partner and I were able to make the audience laugh whilst performing this scene.

During this scene, one of my acting skills that I used was objective, which emphasizes my characters (the police officer) motivation, catching and arresting the thief. This helped me with my moments before and my emotions throughout the performance. I manipulated this acting skill with this style as although the states of tension helped with my body language and how it was responding to the situation I was in; I used the objective to help with my facial expressions which both corresponded to produce a funny and realistic performance.

On the other hand, a technique I would have loved to explore more from this style would be Lazzi as during this workshop we did not have enough time to go over this, however I am extremely interested in finding out what it is.

Verbatim Theatre

During this workshop today, we explored many conventions in the Verbatim Theatre such as recorded delivery and transcribed delivery. My favorite technique that we did was the recorded delivery where we listened to a recording and repeat back the words as they are being said. I found this technique more successful performing as my mind was not focused on which line comes after which, but instead I was able to pronounce each word that the celebrity I picked (Emma Watson), said perfectly. This also helped me to focus more on her physicality and vocals which made my imitation more realistic and after a while of just focusing on her actions, they would come to me naturally during the performance. However, I disliked transcribed delivery as it was the opposite of recorded delivery. This is where we write the words into a script and record a visual of that person. We then rehearse and deliver the lines as accurately as possible. The reason I did not like this technique was because you must focus more on the lines as well as the physicality and the vocals of the person you are analyzing, which I found difficult. For example, in my group we were analyzing the video of Leonardo Dicaprio winning his Oscar:

We had to work as a team by directing each of us in the group to a certain role that would all combine to help that person who is going to be transcribing. Firstly, one of my team members (Lexie) wrote up the script and I was pointed of the role to do the physically of Leonardo Dicaprio, noting down on each line when he does an action. My other team member (Lily) was focusing on the vocals and noted down when he goes high pitch, low pitch, and his accent. Altogether, this was given to Martha who was transcribing everything that he was saying. In my opinion, this seemed like a lot of work and information for her to take in, in the short amount of time we got. As a result, this could lead to the actor feeling unprepared as they may have just wanted to focus on memorizing the lines rather than the vocals and physicality, producing an unrealistic imitation of the person you are focusing on.

One convention I would love to learn more in depth within this style would be the transcribed delivery because I am not extraordinarily strong on this yet. So, I would really like to know more about how other actors are able to tackle this technique and perform it realistically and naturally without having to worry about the lines as well as the exact movements and vocal sounds of the person they are analyzing.

Radio Drama

During this workshop, we learnt about Radio Drama, drama that takes place on the radio which was extremely popular in the 1950s.

Whilst developing our understanding of Radio Drama, we looked at a few conventions such as, how we can use our vocal voice effectively and how to use sound effects to grasp the audience's attention. My favorite technique that we used for radio drama was how we can use our voices successfully to make sure it sounds believable and grabs the listeners attention all the way through. Learning about our vocals for the radio was key to our performances as the listeners cannot see our faces, so we must use our voices to put across any sort of emotion we are portraying, which can be difficult. For example, in Sam and I’s radio drama piece, we were portraying two love interests on a date. We were taught to use our voices in a way to show the listeners that we are really into each other than it sounding like we are reading lines from a script. My teacher, Mr. Wyer, gave us some tips for us to successfully portray that, such as adding any words such as ‘well’ or ‘Um’ that come to us naturally when speaking. He also said that we should react to our partners lines in the script in our own way, such as laughing or gasping even when it is not written on the script. This helped our radio drama to flow more and sound realistic, like we were on a date.

However, my least favorite technique we learnt from our radio drama workshop was the use of sound effects. Although sound effects in some elements are key to creating that live scene you are in and make it as real as possible, it can be difficult to create these sounds. For example, in our scene, our date was set in pizza express. On the script it told us multiple times to create ‘eating pizza’ sounds, however this was difficult for us to create as we did not have real food to eat, but instead how to use the sounds from our mouths to make these ‘chewing’ sounds, which I found did not make it realistic. As a result, I found making the sound effects difficult and awkward. However, to get over this feeling of awkwardness when using the unrealistic sound effects, I used one of Stanislavski's acting methods which I had learnt in previous workshops which I focused on throughout, called the objectives. I was able to manipulate this skill into this style because it helped my character gain motivation, which was to get the other character on the date to like me and this contributed to the sound of my voice too as I was more friendly and affectionate towards him which you could tell through my vocals. I found this successful using the objective as an acting skill and I was focused on getting what my character wants.

In the future, I would love to look more into creating your own sound effects for radio drama as I am not overly strong on this, and I would love to be able to be more confident when doing radio drama again.

Bertolt Brecht

This week, in my workshop, we explored the playwriter Bertolt Brecht who was born in 1898 in Germany. Brecht was a communist who was appalled by the effects of the First World War which led him to flee his country and become a US citizen in 1941. This is where he began his career as a theatre practitioner. At the time, naturalistic theatre was at its height where the audience cared about the lives of the characters on stage, forgetting their own lives and escaping into others which Brecht was totally against. He wanted his audiences to remain objective and distant from emotional involvement so that they could make considered and rational judgements about any social comment or issues in his work. To do this he used a range of theatrical devices and techniques so that the audience were reminded throughout that they were watching theatre. His kind of theatre was called Epic Theatre.

A convention that we explored in class was Gestus, which is a clear character gesture used by the actor to portray a moment rather than delving into emotions. I really liked this technique because instead of being the characters on stage we got to show the type of person they are, which I found interesting. For example, the soldier who has no respect for human life and only takes orders from their Sargent is the representation of most soldiers in both wars, which we explored in our workshop. Moreover, this Gestus of “The soldier” was also a social comment because if he were saluting as he marched over a stage strewn with dead bodies, it would be Gestus as a social comment about the type of person he represents. In my group, we created two contrasting Tableaux of the theme of war and soldiers, one being the maker of heroes and the other being, the waste of land:

Furthermore, my group and I also explored two different contrasting Tableaux with the theme of capitalism, one being, make or take what you want and the other being, have what you make, taken from you:

On the other hand, another one of Brecht's techniques which we explored was the use of placards, which is a piece of written information presented onstage, for example the musical, Miss Saigon, used a slideshow to demonstrate the loss of lives in the Vietnam war which was effective. However, I was not very keen on this technique. Firstly, although the information shown on stage may be effective, the information does not just comment upon the action but depends on the audience's understanding of it. For example, when my group and I did a scene from the Caucasian Chalk Circle, we created a placard which said on one side “All heart but no womb” to represent Grusha “the poor "and on the other side said, “All womb but no heart” to portray the Governers wife “the rich.” However, it was difficult for our audience to quite understand the meaning behind it at first, Secondly, the placard may be distracting for the actors who are holding it and they may lose concentration on their lines and performance, meaning they will need to multi-task.

Furthermore, I found that the scene my group and I performed of the Caucasian Chalk Circle was highly successful as we were all able to work as a team on the ideas for our placard and how we can each portray our characters. For example, we were all able to throw in different names for the placard, leading to us combining all our ideas and producing a final name for our placard, “All heart but no womb” “All womb but no heart.” Moreover, we all thought of how we could use our own characters we were portraying to also make the other actors in the group look good whilst they were performing their characters, e.g. small gestures that we did to each other.

Fourth Monkey Workshop

In this week's workshop, the drama school, Fourth Monkey came into BOA Stage and Screen and taught us some of their methods for physical theatre.

During this workshop with Fourth Monkey, we explored many techniques that would help us get out of our comfort zone whilst performing and becoming our character, such as the bamboo stick method, moving various parts of our body to the sound of music and moving parts of our partner's body. My favorite technique that we covered was when we moved the distinct parts of our partner's body. I preferred this convention to the others because I felt that I was more guided by my partner, which therefore made me more confident in my actions and become more fun to work with. For example, we were shown by Darcy (Our acting coach from Fourth Monkey) and her partner, that when you touch a body part like a shoulder, the partner can either fall forward or fall backwards or even just move their body the slightest bit depending on the direction, therefore showing us that we can be do any bodily reaction we want to our partners touch, making it more playful but to also build a sense of a storyline which I found interesting to work with. This therefore helped me convey a more powerful and confident storyline as I knew what body parts to move and how I can control them to make different emotional effects. However, I did not like it when we had to move our own body parts ourselves this was because our partner was not there to guide our body parts in a certain direction, but instead we had to move them ourselves.

Moreover, I also struggled with the bamboo stick method because the aim was to hold eye contact with your partner without dropping the bamboo stick. For example, my partner and I had to put the bamboo stick in-between us and hold it with our fingers whilst making strong eye contact with them. I struggled with this one because I am not very used to making eye contact for a long time with someone, therefore I felt awkward and silly. Furthermore, I struggled with this as I could not see where I was walking as I had to keep eye contact, leading to me bumping into many people and dropping the bamboo stick frequently, as a result I did not find that effective.

Moreover, an acting technique that I manipulated into when I was moving my own body parts, was dance work. Using this technique helped to encourage my performance when moving my body around to be less awkward and to help me when I felt lost at times. Using dance work made my body movements feel more natural and flow better rather than them being forced movements. Furthermore, this technique helped to inspire me to come out of my comfort zone and therefore create my own storyline which I found fun. As a result, I found that using dance work in my own physical theatre piece was successful as I was able to take a more positive approach on my performance and felt assured

A physical theatre technique I would love to investigate more from Fourth Monkey would be when we said our monologues to our partners whilst holding the bamboo stick as I found it very interesting.