Tic-Toc goes the clock

This week (21st - 25th May) in the world of IB Theatre

We have been up against the clock and time is quickly running out

Tuesday we were a person down, so group work slowed and didn't run as smoothly as usual. However that wasn't a massive problem since we had other things to discuss such as the upcoming IST's Got Talent which is on all of our minds as the moment due to the fact ticket sellers haven't been selling and whatever tickets have been sold it seems no money has changed hands yet but I'll get onto that later. For some part of the lesson we got up to work on our short piece 'A Brecht's House' where we try to implement Brecht's acting techniques into a naturalistic play which we have previously worked on (A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen) but this also was slow going as even though we were aware of techniques we were unsure of how to actually implement them into that piece since we were doing two separate extracts from the play itself. So Tuesday was more of a slow paced lesson with not much being done.

Wednesday however we were back up to the Fabulous Four of the ensemble. We planned what our moves were for IST's Got Talent such as when to see the acts and talking to the tour guides. But also taking a side step here I feel that doing and organising IST's Got Talent has shown us how much work something even this small scale is, such as reliability on others, trusting others which shows from our experience people have to be pushed and lead rather left to do their own thing which is something we need to keep in mind for any future events we organise or help to organise. So we discussed this along with dates things need to be done for since there is less than a week before the evening and everything is still very chaotic we really need to pull together and do this, so the first hour was pretty much admin on the whole IST's Got Talent Event. For the first half-hour of the second hour of our 2 hour lesson (TOO MANY HOURS!) we got to work more on our Brecht's house before we showed Mr. Fearnehough, in this half hour we were able to get alot more done (maybe because we had four people?) but whatever the reason it seemed to go much better than other rehearsals. Then for the final half-hour of the lesson we showed it to Mr. Fearnehough and took pictures throughout (which I will be annotating in a separate blog post) and after we had finished we talked about what we had used (Epic Theatre Wise) in our Brecht's House Piece. Discussing how each one has their own diverse affect on a piece and how it cuts it up and alienates (or Verfumdung's) the piece, such as having a narrator saying what is about to happen as this distances the audience, masks again give clear indication of distance, music, and following a message rather than a plot. We learnt that each aspect of Epic Theatre alienates in their own way (and in some cases some aspects depending on the piece alienates in more than one way)

Wednesday after-noon we stayed back after school to practise our Bloody mIST piece which we were lucky enough to have 2 audience members. So we performed our piece (as full as we possibly could have) to that audience which as first they were very and I mean VERY confused about, however after we took the time to explain where the idea originated from and why our piece is so confusing and weird to understand, which then caused them to get it much more. We did have a problem however, people had decided to stay back after school to practise for IST's Got Talent but they hadn't notified a teacher meaning they were not actually allowed to stay back, so after alot of huffing and puffing we had to send them home which is a shame since we could have benefited greatly from seeing the acts that were there. But what can you do?

Friday was a proper admin lesson talking about the action plan for the night of IST's Got Talent and also sorting out the title for our big IB Theatre Display and a Leaflet / Programme of what Bloody mIST and why and how it came about. One final thing however that bugged me Friday was that were had been told there would be people at the front desk or outside selling tickets for IST's Got Talent, I got our of school some 10 minutes later NOBODY WAS THERE. NOBODY. I mean come on? When you say you are going to do something, DO IT. It majorly bugged me. So now we really are up against the clock for this!

Anyhow and that nice and flowery note that is it for this week and just maybe for future reference for me I'll be missing Tuesday and Wednesday Theatre Lessons due to the fact I'm in Scotland looking at 2 universities.

Richard #1 

A Brecht's House

This week (14th - 18th May) again was a very bitty week, with Thursday and Friday off we only have had 3 lessons this week and we are a member of the ensemble down with Georgia in the UK rather than me this week so it has been slightly more difficult this week.

Tuesday was a theory lesson in which we covered many things. Firstly we look at the differences between dramatic theatre (things such as panto and many modern western theatre pieces as well as movies following close to this too). So we were given a table which compares it next to Epic Theatre (or Episodic Theatre as Spencer said). Here is that table for those who want to reference to it:

Dramatic Theatre	Epic Theatre
Plot	Narrative
Implicates the spectator in a stage situation	Turns the spectator into an observer but
Wears down	arouses his capacity for action
Provides him with sensations	Forces him to take decisions
Experience	Picture of the world
The spectator is involved in something	He is made to face something
Suggestion	Argument
Instinctive feelings are preserved	Brought to the point of recognition
The spectator is in the thick of it, shares the experience	The spectator stands outside, studies
The human being is taken for granted	The human being is the object of inquiry
He is unalterable	He is alterable and able to alter
Eyes on the finish	Eyes on the course
One scene makes another	Each scene for itself
Linear development	In curves
Evolutionary determinism	Jumps
Man as a fixed point	Man as a process
Thought determines being	Social being determines thought
Feeling	Reason

The thing that stuck me is the utter difference in it all, where Epic theatre throws away the character and focus' more upon what and how society will see this piece and making an audience think instead of feel (Head over Heart), finishes each scene in a cliff hanger (as if an series of Episodes), and right at the beginning of each scene tells you what is going to happen whereas we have dramatic theatre which wants people to be emotionally attached to the piece, and maybe the audience is involved in the piece somewhat and that man in the piece is unalterable. What is in the script is what you play. So this is something completely different to what I have ever seen done. We also learnt about Aristotle's 3 Unities which are: The unity of action, The Unity of Place and The Unity of time. The Unity of Action says that a play should have one main action that it follows, with no or few sub-plots. The Unity of Place says thata play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place. Finally The Unity of Time says that the action in a play should take place over no more than 24 hours (plot wise of the script). Which is something which many pieces that use Dramatic Theatre follow, whereas Brecht shatters this concept and chooses to ignore it. Dramatic theatre also sees the person as unalterable as if he is part of society and he is playing the role society gives to him. Whereas Epic Theatre sees it as society creates the people and ideas similar to Marxism which is quoted as “a theory in which class struggle is a central element in the analysis of social change in Western societies.”

One of the masks (Nora is now the Joker apparently?!)

Wednesday, we talked about the Talent show for some 30 minutes which seems to be full steam ahead and in the last 1hr and a half of the lesson we were told to try and perform Doll's House in a Brecht style. In a nut shell we failed pretty badly, we had the theory and what we wanted to do with the scene but we didn't seem to have the means of performing it. We had ideas for masks, narrator, scene titles, music, Gestus, attitude, political message and how the scene would pan out but we some how were unable to act it out and when we did it didn't seem right and seemed more like A Doll's House placed in a west-end show, as well as a Commedia piece.But I don't get why we struggled so much, but we'll see what happens next lesson I guess.

That's it for this 3 hour Theatre week. I want to get this Brecht's House nailed. Maybe with the full ensemble we can get it better!

Richard #1

3 Gestus to what we have been up to

Last week (7th - 11th May) was a very short week for me since we had the Monday and the Tuesday off costing us one lesson and for me since I was jetting off to the UK for the weekend I missed Friday too. Leaving me with just the double hour lesson on the Wednesday (9th May)

So I'm going to have to talk about Wednesday (9th). We began to study Gestus in class to show how much detail Brecht wanted in his pieces, which in turn is see as the "attitude of the charter". Meaning if Brecht were to freeze any moment of one of his pieces (i.e The Caucasian Chalk Circle) he wanted too see the attitude in that freeze. He wanted to see a woman who had taken a baby, saving it's life but putting hers at risk, giving up everything she loved and having to marry a pig of a man. All with Gestus, he wanted to see that history, that attitude on the character. So, naturally this was pretty darn hard for us.

First we were given titles which we had to apply a Gestus or attitude to. These 6 titles were

• War: Maker of Heroes
• The Waste of War
• Most popular kid in school
• Most unpopular kid in school
• Sincere Politician
• Insincere Politician 

Spencer and I worked on the first two, Georgia and Maria worked on the second and we all as an ensemble worked on the last 2. War: Maker of Heroes didn't go too well since we seemed to be giving off the the wrong attitude since it seemed biased towards one of the two of us. Whereas Waste of War seemed to go slightly better as it communicated all the Wastes of War with that one Frame. Also when we worked on the politician Gestus we realised how detailed you have to be with it, as Maria has mentioned in her previous blog, body language plays a key role even if it rotated slightly towards one person as well as contact between the two people. Everything in Gestus / attitude has to be so extremely clear so that the audience can look at it and realise automatically what is going on.

Then we did individual Gestus' for types of people read out such as unimpressed land lord, a bent copper, a foolish fireman and various others. Again everyone can imitate a fireman and police man but by adding a foolish fireman you have to think quickly to see how you can portray this clearly to an audience. Which is what was the key part for these 2 hours, showing with immense clarity what / who the character is to the audience.

That was pretty much it for this one lesson week for me. One quote that I took from this was "When does a pacifist become ready to kill?"

Richard #1

All for one and One for all

This week (30th April - 4th May) we had a look over a few things such as our new topic on Brecht and The Ist's Got Talent. I think this will be a long post!

But first after a long and intense week of exams (23rd - 26th April) we were left with one lonely theatre lesson that week. On that Friday Mr. F wanted us up and acting and introduced us to our new topic on Brecht which we began by looking at the piece of The Caucasian Chalk Circle which is a Brechtian play. We were introduced to the ideas and politics behind Brecht such as the fact that he believed in the communist party and what they were doing and so many of his plays adopted this, which is a frequent occurance with Brecht; the poor (which represent the communists) are always depicted as the protagonist or "good guys" of the plays whereas the people with money and power (factory owners, governors ect) are depicted as the antagonists of his pieces. The way I remember this is All for one (meaning everything goes to one person which depicts the "bad" in Brecht's plays) and One for all (meaning everyone gets something and everything is shared equally showing the "good" in his plays)  Brecht also very rarley names his characters for the reason being that he wants little to no emotional attachment between audience and actor, rather than making the audience "feel" and go awwwwww he wants the audience to think and reflect not only during but after also about what they would have done in a situation such as that, how their life refelcts the play, and so this was the main key feature behind Brecht's plays. So we began to learn how the lines are used and narration is used within his pieces which causes a distance between the actors and audience.

Tuesday was a day off so no need to catch up on that day. However on the Wednesday (2nd May) we spent an hour talking about IST's Got Talent and how we are going to get it to work and we also had to change the date, so we decided to bring in forward a day and so now it will be on May 31st. The second hour was chosen  down to a coin flip. Georgia and I wanted our exams back and Spencer and Maria wanted to continue with Brecht, so Mr. F tossed a coin and we ended up looking at our exams. The first 40 minutes was a general chat about the questions given to us (which were Compare and Contrast two separate times you have been in the role of actor and the other was What is the purpose of theatre?) and so we talked about what should be included, how  we found the exam ect ect and then one by one he called us in to tell us our grade and give us individual feedback. With the grade I got I was both happy with it but then again felt that I need to improve this grade. But I guess it is hard to base your entire grade on an exam when in the end we don't end up doing a "timed written essay". I'll just have to improve for next time.Wednesday after-noon we stayed time around 4PM working on Bloody mIST, it was nice to be working on it again since it feels that this is the piece that has brought our entire ensemble together, but as Spencer has mentioned in his previous blog post there are certain things that need to be done to improve it such as scripting and what not but saying we haven't done it for a good month or so we are at a good point.

Friday (4th May) we continued with some Brecht work where we worked on Gestus which is key in Brecht as it is facial expression and gesture and so we were paired and given an emotion which we had to portray to our partner through movement, gesture and facial expressions which went OK not amazing but we got the idea behind it and what it was trying to show. The second task given to use was we were given another emotion and we had to portray it 3 different ways in a freeze frame with a narrator. Georgia and I got love whereas Maria and Spencer got Regret, our 3 scenes were first meeting, marriage and holding a baby which I felt we were partially successful in portraying. This week I have also made a concept ticket for our IST's Got Talent from scratch and I was pretty happy with it!

Look at this Beauty!

Then on Friday and Saturday night a local English theatre group (TMA) which Mr. F runs a class for put on a charity event to showcase what they had achieved in the last year and I ended up helping with the lighting for the show. The last time I did the lighting was with Mr. F and it was pretty close to a disaster the fuses boxes were pretty much knackered and not all of the lights worked and everything such as the lighting shifts had to be done manually from a lighting board. BUT NOT THIS YEAR!!! TMA had invested in some brand new lights and lighting board which worked liked a dream, Friday night we programmed everything in so I learned how to program and store lighting scenes in banks and scenes which was interesting so when it came to Saturday it was basically press a few buttons and we were away, it was a good experience to work with functioning lights almost as much as it was working with broken ones!

Well, that is it for this week, its been a week full of theatre and has been pretty darn fun!

Richard #1