Who pushed Humpty off the wall?

This week (24th - 28th September) we have been talking about surrealism, Humpty Dumpty and 4.48 Psychosis 

Monday (24th) we were set the task over the week-end to do some research on Surrealism and come back with an image that describes it for us and how it could link into Artaud. I brought in the image which can be seen in my previous blog and tied it into how with Artaud what we see (in this case a church or government building) is corrupted and brought into a dark reality, tying into the monster holding up this building dragging it down into hell, or in another sense an evil that lies beneath religion or law. The bias and the darkness. We also mentioned how surrealism is part of a perception formed by one's dreams and nightmares. We also discussed how in an idealogical sense it could represent a truth, however this was only briefly mentioned due to that fact Mr. F wanted to convey how language isn't needed to understand something but first here are the three images that we brought into class to represent Artaud and Surrealism. From left to right Georgia's, Maria's and Mine.

Magritte's "Key to Dreams"

We also looked at a surrealist artist called Magritte and examined the painting called "Pipe" and "Key to Dreams". The idea was to show that objects and names exist separately and that even though automatically we use word associations to rationalize and object this is something Artaud wanted to break, break this normal reality of word associations and see something as a symbol and this was the aim of al surrealist artists where they hoped to limit these associations and let the imagination take hold and thus leading us to see that language is limiting. What also I realised was the more you looked at it the less of the object it became and more of a symbol it became as if to challenge the view of the audience and to send the mind on a journey of mystery showing how limiting language actually is which Mr. Fearnehough was linking into Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty. 

Tuesday (25th) was out double lesson which was not actually planned due to a school trip however that didn't go ahead due to a broken down bus so we got out 2 hours of Theatre in. The first hour was long, dull and full of neon colours. We were given lots and lots of background info on Artaud and his theatre of cruelty. However for the second hour we were given the task to make Humpty Dumpty into an Atraudesque style performance. So that means weird masks, grunting and loud screaming which we were pretty successful at I have to say. Mr. Fearnehough shall witness that on Monday! We did some further work on how langue is useless in terms of Artaud through a task where we had to go around the room point at things (for instance the floor) but calling it a completely different name such as a pig, which I didn't get but in the I understood the meaning that when we call things different names their purpose changes also. One final activity we did on Tuesday was the INSULT GAME. Where you stood close to a partner and insulted them without using bad words, this was just a fun little activity to again show how language is challenged by Artaud. The best I head that day was "Your a complete and utter Tangerine, with bitter pips that no-one likes".

Friday (28th) was kind of hijacked for half the lesson talking about the IB and Predicted Grades which none of you really need to know about. We also want to put on sometime this year a Drama Showcase and so part of the lesson was taken up by this too, whether or not we will be able to put one on is a story for a different day. But what was left of the lesson we talked about the strangeness that is Artaud's Spurt of Blood script which even though is 3 pages long makes no sense, so we tried making sense of the senseless by tying in symbols and images into it, and by the end of the lesson we understood it slightly better. We also found out what our Artaud production is going to be - Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis (DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN!)

A very mind bending and boggling week, but it seemed I faired well that Georgia and Maria who seemed confused at the whole thing. Till next time!

Richard #1