ARRGGGHHHHHHHHH.

 

DRAMA IS SO CONFUSING RIGHT NOW....
byyyyyeeeeeeee
I AM SO CONFUSED

It has been so good getting back to drama this week. Maria did an excellent presentation on Artaud on Friday. While we had already read a bit of Artauds writing (the First Manifesto) his ideas and the concepts of Theatre of Cruelty seemed kind of abstract and alien. Maria's presentation really helped me understand it more, she put it in a langauge which I could understand much more. And we still have tomorrow to look forward too, Maria has chosen a practical Artaud exercise for us to do. We also have to share our dreams, something I am not really looking forward too.

The artwork above corresponds to my feelings on the theatre course at the moment. I am still trying to find a better piece of art for where I think I am on the course, but this piece kind of relates to where I am this weekend.. Kind of anxious about the upcoming Artaud work and sharing my dream. Although I am very excited about learning more about Artaud I am a bit apprehensive, I think it's becuase I don't like the idea of talking or thinking about the "dark truth/reality", I don't feel any sort of release/cleansing from talking?thinking about it, instead I just feel really uncomfortable. The experience will probably be good for me.


Georgia

Moving on up, Moving on up, and nothing can stop me!

And we are back for yet another instalment of.....THEATRE IB!

-insert claps and cheers here-

So this week (10th - 14th September) we have been getting back into the swing of things. Such as checking up on Extended Essay, RI and talking about upcoming assessments such as the PPP, and the TPPP as well as the Independent Project (IP). TOO MANY P's!

Monday (10th) was mainly talking about how our research for our RI's were coming along, and then we spoke somewhat about the TPPP. As for the RI so far I'm confidant that I have enough sources to use to write it however I am still struggling for primary research, I have been in contact with French/Asian company as well as Japanese Embassies (due to the fact that my research investigation is on the Japanese Theatre of Kabuki). Which after doing an extended amount of research on seems to be a very interesting and unique practice. We also were all set the task to come up with one image that represents where we are within the course at the moment as well as to find a piece of artwork that represents this too. This is what I came up with for the task which made us use each other to represent this:

Even though it is not too easy to see with this image we are forming a triangle, which the aim with this was to represent moving forward (this isn't to represent who's better or anything), but by showing this formation shows that we are still moving forward and still learning, and putting myself on a highr level is supposed to emphasise that moving forward or moving up. Also though the use of a triangle it shows that everyone is equal in theatre and no one person is better (thinking about it in the way of an equilateral triangle). So the key words I would associate with this image are: moving forward, moving up, equal, and ensemble. I will post the image of the artwork and the end of this blog.

Tuesday (11th) is now our double lesson day. So for this lesson we did two things, for the first hour we had an in-depth conversation about the RI's, how everyone was doing, where we were all at and where we could potentially find more resources for them too. We spoke about using Google Books, Google Scholar, and ITunesU as well as being reminded to always critique your sources. Another useful piece of info we were given was think about: Author, Authenticity, Bias, Comparison, Origin and Value of the source. For the second hour we were introduced to the one, THE ONLY, ARTAUD! Who (from what we got a glimpse of) had very particular views about what he wanted theatre to be, he was a genius however he was also insane from what I gathered however aren't all geniuses? But that is all I got I think it will take me a while to get comfortable with Artaud and hopefully when I do I will begin to understand him slightly better.

Friday (14th) is our final lesson of the week and for this lesson Maria gave an excellent presentation on Artaud and really broke down his system of Theatre of Cruelty which I think both me and Georgia both benefited from. As well as that she tied this into real examples that Maria had previously done with another class. Here is her break down of theatre of cruelty for anyone who wants to know (all credit goes to Maria on this one!)

• Language of screams, cries and gestures
• Lighting and sound used as characters
• Unusual audience seating arrangements
• Shock Tactics
• Symbolism
• Juxtaposition
• Puppets and Masks
• Non-chronological storyline
• Spitting, breathing, violent acts, ripping clothes, slapping, red lights
• Centre of Vortex (where action takes place)
• Anti-Character - The non-human roles people play
• Sounds to replace langue
• Cruel not in the sense of violence but in the sense of towards actor and audience
• grotesque
• Trapped
• Taboo
• Showing life in all it's horrible reality
• Dark Reality
• Catharsis (a cleansing, that one was Georgia)

That is pretty much it for this week however before finishing I am going to put in my piece of artwork that represented me at this point in IB Theatre: This piece of art is by a street artist called Typoe. To some people it would appear that the skull is vomiting all these colourful pieces of paper (which would be the case) however I saw it backwards. I imagined that the great cluster of papers at the right hand side of the image was me in year 12 not knowing what to expect and full of ideas and thoughts and everything else to do with theatre. However as I have progressed though this course I have realised how channelled you have to be to actually do well in theatre, as if I have got to reduce this pile of expectations and ideals down to something manageable and refined so that I know what I need throughout this course. That is how I saw this image so once again I will add key words to this for my benefit: ideals, expectations, scale, unknown, refine, knowlage, unlimited possibility and unknown.

That is it for this week, been an interesting week back at school but I think I shall be able to live! Oh and by the way just a subconscious message to Mr. F......TAPS O_O

Richard #1 (even though we have lost Spencer, sad times)

Tackling Year 13

So back after the summer holidays, and lots of RI researching, we spent the first theatre lesson talking about the RI and also what we have left to accomplish this year for the theatre course. I'm exciting about starting work on Artaud.
Today we did some journal work which I am following up with here (I have not yet learnt how to pop the picture in but I will). We created a freeze frame to show we thought we were in the IB course. We each had three different goes before deciding on a final tableau and taking a picture. My first freeze frame was very much like my final one, I used the evolutionary man type pose, to show my progression throught the theatre course. My second freeze frame showed me and my ense;mble walking forward. My final freeze frame, which was used for the photo, was the idea of the evolutionary man but with me (the last person) walking forward which I took from my second  freeze frame. Afterwards I also had the idea of putting Richard and Maria next to one another and taking a boxing stance, as if I was tackling year 13 (haha)

Georgia

Sandy, can't you see I'm in misery.

Last week (18th - 22nd June) all we did was do further research into our birthday party characters and talk about the RI.

PARTY!!!!

Tuesday, and Friday (19th and the 22nd) all we did was continue researching for the Stanislavski birthday party we have coming up. I have been given the influential acting teacher Sanford Meisner, who focus' largely upon Stanislavski system and his factor of communication. But largely is has just been fakebooking (http://www.classtools.net/fb/57/jTNAST), so it is a full blown birthday party for Stanislavski who will be his 149th birthday! Happy Birthday to him. Not much can be said about this apart from that it sometimes is a tedious way of doing such research.

Wednesday (20th) was just as slow as the other days due to the fact we were doing admin upon the research investigation and looking in depth into the marking criteria.

Unfortunately due to this being the end of the year, there is very little to do practically since we are winding down for the end of the year.

Richard W

RI, Extended Essay

Our Extended Essay write up is in two days, and this week I've been freaking out about it so much. I haven't been able to think properly since I was panicking about not having a title yet, so what I did was a massive research about finding titles which I did, titles that even don't interest me, but I just though"doesn't matter, haven't got a choice any more, it's too late!" I regret so much for not having thought about this earlier and I do hope this will teach me a good lesson to not leave everything for last minute. I've always been able to find a solution to "escape" these kind of problems but for this one, I really take the Extended Essay seriously which is why I keep freaking out about it. I will have to work on my organization skills which I am TERRIBLE at, I have nothing that motivates me for doing this EE!!!!! I am so upset about it, I thought it would be really interested doing this project and everything...

I really appreciate all the help I am getting from my supervisor. At the start of year 12 when everyone started talking about how hard the extended essay was (especially the year 13, and lots of them warned me to start early and get as much help from the supervisor). Of course, as I always do, I thought :" Naaah this isn't a big deal, better focus on my 6 IB subjects instead of this essay!" And as usual, I was wrong to think that. It seems as I can ,ever take someone's advice given to me, I always have to experience the dangers and stress to figure out my own weaknesses and strengths, I don't know why, maybe it's not just me, but I'm that type of persons that doesn't anything until I've experienced it.

However, I am super motivated for this RI! I already have my idea and title for it, so it's all good! Besides, I've done most of the research about it as well, which I am happy and confident about. It also relieves all stress, fiou!

I am happy with my self I can keep up blogging my theatre week  every week, I expected my self to miss out the blogging since I have quite a lot of work and everything, and I apologize if I don't write as much as before though! But hey, "Ce qui compte c'est la qualité pas la quantité!" (don't know how to translate it in English, but it's a French expression I use all the time :p )

Good Woman of SETzuan. Get it? Set.

Well it is a bit late but here it is. Last week (11th - 15th June) we pretty much did set designing and eventually got it finished.

The problem with this blog is that it is gunna be tiny. I mean for Monday (11th) and Wednesday (13th) all we did as a class was continue on our set design which was due in for the Friday, so each one of us was working individually so there is very little to say about it.

This is how I imagined mine would turn out.....It didn't

However I am going to say this, I really am not a fan of set designing, my artistic skills are at the level you would see in a 3 year old I really didn't enjoy it, I enjoyed drawing and planning the set. However creating the scale model was hell, at first I had this elaborate set design which would have lights and projections and everything else but instead it was more in the end a very decorated shoe box. IT DID LOOK PRETTY THOUGH. But I am going to admit that Set Designer is definitely not my most preferred role in theatre so I plan to keep my set deigning to a minimum in the future, I'll leave that to the others to do, in my head I feel like I am quite a creative person however tell me to make a scale model and my creativity begins to lack. But anyway it is done now and it wasn't too bad.

Friday (15th) was the give in day where we would explain and pitch our ideas to our fellow class mates, talking about the ideas behind each part of the set and what each feature would be. I felt I could explain it alot more than I could create it, I found myself in the end being proud of what I had achieved so I wasn't too dis-hearted, but this was clearly a project we all worked very hard on and we should all congratulate each other on being able to do this. Sure some looked better than others but each was a good piece of work and was clear worked on hard, so well done guys!

Really that was it for last week since pretty much we set deigned

Richard #1

I said 10:45 / We Must Build Higher! (Two Weeks in One)

Great, due to technological errors (yeah, sure its raining but should that really affect the wireless) and me just forgetting I'm now to weeks behind. So long post ahead, but I can really wrap up several events rather then two different weeks, so I guess it won't really be too long. (or will it?)

On Tuesday, we went to Victor Hugo (the french school that is right next to ours), and as much it is directly behind ours WHY do we have to walk so far! It would be less then a minute if we jump a gate or two, but due to a large series of housing complexes, the walk takes around four to five minutes (once again, why?). Anyways, we left in the morning and missed our morning classes (Physics and Drama), which came back to bite me later... but anyways our reason for going was a Shakespeare workshop run by Helen Leblique. What really made this special was she was the Director of the Royal Shakespeare company's production of Anthony and Cleopatra, the text that the Victor Hugo class was studying. So Important+ Knowledgeable+Used to Classes=Profit! We spent the entire two hour or so Master class discussing status and its importance in the play. The first activity we did was to draw a card from a deck and put in it on our head so that other people could see it but we couldn't. We then mingled with the class, and the twist was that our importance was related to the card we held. Some unlucky people ended up drawing only low cards and had to play the fool. I personally drew around 9, so I wasn't powerful but I wasn't unpopular. It was really interesting to how people treated the difference in power, both from a theatre perspective and from a personality perspective. As I had no idea where my card was I treated everyone politely and observed their reactions, other people though were much more upfront about their treatment of others, Shoving them aside or jostling for a position. When we finished the activity, we were told to arrange ourselves based on where we thought that our rankings were compared to each other. We actually managed to arrange our selves perfectly. The second activity the opposite, only we could look at our card. This also lead to sharp contrast in actions, some people were very bossy because they held a high card, but others were polite and subdued about it. The arranging at the end resulted in only a few mistakes again. We then read through a section of the play and acted it out. It took a long time so I'm going to abridge what we leaned: 1. Characters interpret status differently 2. Depending on how they are said, words can have very different meanings 3. Character Interaction is defined by Status, assumed or otherwise.

Then there was a performance of Bloody Mist for the Victor Hugo students. I did in fact arrive late, but only around 10 minutes late for the time that I said I would be there. I didn't plan for the weight and bulkiness of my school supplies while biking, I even crashed into a bush. Anyways, it was our worst performance yet. I think that the cause lay in the fact that no one started out with any energy, people were tired, sick, or just grumpy. By the end though we had really gotten into it and the audience was really enjoying it, but not so much at the beginning(this is actually a common theme, the "WTF is going on" section of the piece, where they are still trying to figure it out.)

And that leaves the set designer project, we were basically told to pick any scene out of The Good Woman of Szechwan (Chez-long, or something like that apparently) and design a set for that scene. I totally forgot about it over the time we were given to get started, fortunately most people had only selected the scene and a basic concept. Personally I had been drawn to the public park, where a unemployed pilot attempt to hang himself but he gets saved by the main character, so I picked that scene. Many people really just dove into the design but I wanted to make sure that I understood the space that I had before adding glamour and flair to my design. So I went through the piece and marked every scene change to produce a flow chart. From this I was able to mark out three major areas, the cigarette shop, the outdoors area(park+market), and the minor building(contains all the random places). I then drew out a scale drawing of what I wanted, the two buildings on opposite sides with a courtyard in the middle with proportions. Then on this scaled drawing I added gimmicks to create a real set. Thanks to this I was able to come up with plenty of ideas that didn't really conflict for space (by the way, I'm trying to conserve space, I ended up writing a page on a summery of the different elements so I really don't want that to go up here) My plans end up sounding really cool, but then came the part of the project that I knew I would fail at modeling the stage. I actually know a fair bit about craft work and modeling but I lack the hand coordination so.... yah, right idea, really bad execution. There is a reason why I was good in CAD, there were machines that cut it as you had drawn it on the computer. Overall,(beyond the horrible end product), I found the project to be really fun, but I was really surprised when people just jumped into the design and in some cases into making it. In Richard's case, this attitude resulted in a very very large bridge and what looked like a tiny lamppost, not that I can really say better...     

I really wasn't sure what to put for a title, maybe a Double dose of Demanding Drama would have been better... Or I could have just gone with Double D or something... Meh Two weeks = Two Titles

Designing project FINALLY FINISHED :D

I have enjoyed working on our Designing Project this week in our Theatre classes; I wasn't here on Tuesday so I had a little bit more work to catch up with than the others, but I managed to finish everything for Friday. Although I was very proud with my own maquette, I would just like to say that it tok ages to do! I thought I would never finish in time and I was stressing out so badly on how I could finish it. I hate handing in homework late, it makes me feel so guilty and week! But I am also the kind of person that starts doing all homework last minute (still trying to find a solution for this one!), which I confess I have been doing with my Extended essay, I haven't done the amount of work I already should have done. 

I tend to think that the work given to us will disappear if I don't do it and that if a teacher would give me three weeks for a project, I would always start the 2 before it's due. It's always been like this with me, but I better find a way to sort my priorities out before next year, and especially for all of the Theatre exams! For the PPP(I think?) we are given 4 weeks to prepare for it, now I better move into the library if I want to get some proper work done on that!  

Anyways, I don't know how I managed to finish in time but I still did it, so I was really proud of myself. Everyone seemed to look particularly interested in my idea of rotating the props on stage, by using the mechanical revolve. I have to admit it, that was a pretty original idea I got there!

I have seen some interesting stuff I would want to "borrow" from all of them.

 

Saturday evening was the TMA performance, the theatre group I go and help with which took place in Leguevin. Two performances took place, the musical Bugsy Malone, and a Breath of Fresh Air (the group I am in). 

It was a very hot day and the children seemed to have a little problem for concentrating on stage. I wouldn't say this was their best performance, I have seen them do a lot better; a few of them seemed to have forgotten all of their lines and the dance routines which was a shame. All of these months of hard work, and now they forgot everything for the big night! Perhaps stage fright was behind this?

But the audience didn't really see to care (which was a good thing, fiou!) and the children still had a lot of fun on stage.

Just like Georgia, I too am looking forward for our next project, and I think I might have a clue what we will be doing from now on, and that will take up our summer. The Research Investigation, if I am not mistaking?

Set Designer Georgia Stanley here :) ...

So I missed last weeks entry because I could not log onto my account for some reason :/ was not impressed. We continued with our set designing project and also got to perform Bloody mIST again, which was fab as I didn't think we would get too. We performed to the premier class from Victor Hugo (so people our age, and I was surprised to see a few of my friends there, which was lovely!) I know the performance was not one of our best, I was having a bad day and can not yet completely leave my outside emotions out of my performance, so yeah I probably was not on top form. But what was lovely was that at the end we did like a question time, something we haven't done before. Although you don't have the chance to study drama/theatre in Victor Hugo they asked some really good questions, and a few people were't afraid to put up their hands and ask us things which was super lovevly. Although no new questions cames up, or things we hadn't really thought about before, it was good to get a chance to explain the bits of our piece to the audience when they asked their questions.

On friday we also handed in our set design piece. While not everyone was like dead arty the thought and ideas and creativity that went into each set design was incredible. I heard some fab ideas that I will definitely be borrowing, such as using a revolve, it never even crossed my mind to put a revolve in my set design. I was pleased with my set design, despite my lack of arty skills it fit the picture of the space I had in my mind, something new to me. I'm dead excitied about the project we will start next ...

Georgia STanley

THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!( i swear I didn't write this?)

Once again, this week has been filled with lots and lots of drama and performances!!

Monday, the year 7 and 8's had their arts and creativity day at school, along with the 5eme students from Victor Hugo. Two actresses and one writer was there with them the whole day, and they came from London. I of course wanted to meet the actors and have a little career chat with them SO MUCH, which I did at the end of the day. I was really excited to get to know how an actor's life would be. I got to talk to one of them, and before talking I already knew what she was going to tell me; that the pay wouldn't be that great, all actors don't get to be famous, it's very hard to get into business and to find an agent, you have to be a 100% sure you want to do this... Well, that's what I expected her to tell me; she did tell me all of that, but she also focused on all of the positive things I should do; just go for it, go and watch as many plays/movies/performances you can, London is an incredible place to get contacts... So I was a little bit surprised, so far what everyone keeps telling me when I say I want to be an actress is :" Oh well, goo luck, by the way did you know that 99% of actors are unemployed?!" Surely I know this is true and so boring to hear each time I talk about my future with someone, but you know I'm prepared for it and just like the actress told me "you've got to do what you like to do in life". I was really pleased to hear that, and pleased to know I could contact her if I had any further questions. At the end of the Arts and Creativity day, right after their performance, a woman came up to me congratulating me on our show. At first I thought she though I had just performed, so I told her"Oh, I wasn't in it" and I got a bit confused. But then she told me she was talking about the Talent Show, our Bloody mIST performance! It's pretty weird to have a performance and you get feedback about 4 days afterwards. She said that it was a really interesting and original performance, and that it got her think. "I've been thinking about it for 3 days now, it's incredible, I really do get your show/message now".We were pretty successful in this performance I think,most of our audience pretty got the message and what it was about.

Tuesday, we went to Victor Hugo  and we got to meet a director from the Shakespeare Royal Company who was also an acting teacher in the acting school in London, East 15. She was there for the Terminales L and S (which is year 13) who had their English exam on the play Anthony and Cleopatra, next week or something.

Wednesday, we worked on our individual design project. I think it's good to finally get to do some individual work, where you're not working as an ensemble all the time, it gets annoying at a point. I need to work a lot on it, we only have ONE WEEK LEFT!! So long, I'm in between step 3 and 4 from the action plan, which isn't so bad, but I feel I haven't really done anything, and I need to start making and building it.

Friday, we performed our Bloody mIST piece to the Victor Hugo students, the première class this time. Personally, I thought this was our worst one we've ever done (for bloody mist). We definitely didn't get any reactions at all from our audience, and I can tell, because I was staring into their eyes the whole time( héhé, I can do this now) and I kept the eye contact. Of course they looked away when I looked at them (good), but they all looked like freaking zombies to me. They looked so miserable and moody, it didn't somehow seem they enjoyed our performance? So I got a little scared.

Anyways, we had a couple of issues before starting. I was the only one setting everything up since everyone (NERALY) had their self-review appointments. First, One of our group members came very late and he had said that he would have come earlier, which he didn't. So we discussed how we were going to do the performance whiteout him, and last minute, he walked through the door. Still, I think we should have done the relaxation exercise before, to relieve all of our stress and frustration. Secondly, my whip broke (AGAIN) so I couldn't use it at all, which was a shame. Oh, and thirdly, I was very ill. I have performed ill several times before so it wasn't an issue for me, but my energy level was down to zero. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't bring out my dynamic and energetic side (perhaps I did, but I faked it all). I looked around my self and it seemed that nobody else was really energetic and full of enthusiasm in our piece, and, unfortunately, we were filmed this time. So now every time I will look back at this, I will be disappointed into seeing my poor performance on stage, where I know I could have done better if I wasn't ill.

That's it for this week!

THUNDERBOLTS AND LIGHTNING. We are Set Designing!!!!!

This week (4th - 8th June) we have crammed so many things in!

Set Designing, Anthony and Cleopatra Masterclass, Bloody mIST Performance and BLOOPERS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yoq9CWz-GA

I'm going to be unconventional and start backwards in this blog! So on the Friday (8th) it was a day off school for self review day but also we had a performance of Bloody mIST to Victor Hugo (school across the road) in which the students were our age. I think it went pretty well, I don't feel it has been our best performance but it still went pretty well and we recorded this one! I have also put together a video of images and blooper videos from our unconventional rehearsals and here it is: (click the image)

Wednesday (6th) was our double lesson and basically we continued with planning and designing our set for The Good Woman of Setzuan, so I began to sketch out some rough ideas for how the set will be brought on and look. Since I am doing a scene set in a park it will be very interesting to do with a river, bridge, projection and various other things to consider. But that was the basis of the lesson, each student to themselves and work on planning your set.

Tuesday we were very privileged to be invited over to the school across the road (Victor Hugo) to have a workshop with a Royal Shakespeare Company Director (Helen Leblique) on the play Anthony and Cleopatra (since the English class at Victor Hugo are studying it) we began by playing a game which was all about status. The first was you are given a card (King is High and Ace is Low) and you put it up above your forehead for everyone to see but you cant see it, so if a person with a 2 above their head approaches you, you have to act as if they were that status however what must be kept in mind is your status because you could act like a king but you are an Ace, you have to be aware of how others treat you and mould yourself to that. The second game was an alteration of the first however now you are the only person who has seen your card and you have to act accordingly for example as a King you would strut, order people, keep away from the lowers. Whereas for an Ace they will be sitting in a corner not talking to a single person. We then worked with Act 2, Scene 2 in the play which is a rather diplomatic scene, however depending on how the lines are spoke can  make a massive difference on the whole scene, it was really interesting to see the power of lines and how they can be manipulated and but standing up and acting it out you could see a true difference to just sitting down and reading it (unlike what we have done with Hamlet in English Class).

" The three things we discovered as a Theatre class from the workshop were How important status in each scene  since it is always constantly changing and also the difference in characters and how they themselves see their status compared to others. Nearly all stage directions seen in Shakespeare plays have been edited in by an editor and were not in the original manuscripts. The setting whether or not it is a domestic or public scene, the dynamics of language change so much. "

That is it for this week, it has been a pretty good and fun week! Enjoy the bloopers!

Richard #1

Its time...

Wow, what a week, we finally preformed the talent show.  What started off as a feeble idea over a month  ago has finally come to fruition. It really taught me a lot about organising events, like including breaks so that the actors don't have to preform 3 times back to back. We were all so tried by the end of the performance, and I had to walk home after all that...
What really pissed me off though was the number of people who dropped out at the last minute, they were informed of the date way ahead of time and yet still couldn't make it. Grrrrr, it doesn't cause them any issues but it caused us plenty. If they had just told us a week in advance it would have been much easier. There was also some lucky incidents, Hero, who hadn't attended any of the meetings, sent us a really good stop motion video. We ended up showing it in the reception area. It overall was really successful, raising over seven hundred euros! We really should have started the administrative roles much sooner though and communicated more. We were frantic communicating on the night before in order to finish the organisation of the tickets and who was going where. This really should have been done a few days before the show but we were only just finishing it in our few waning hour before the show.
The performance itself went pretty well, there was a sketchy moment where I was caught on a chair, but Richard covered for me, so it all worked out. It also seemed like doing the actual performance caused stuff to break all over the place, Maria accidentally broke her whip (which is a shame, it was rather fancy), and the push broom snapped in half when I tried to use it (really cleanly) but thank goodness for duct tape. Unlike the Doll's house performance, I really wasn't nervous for this one. I don't know if it was because we had practised it so many times (but kept changing it) or more likely, because it came from us and our ideas. Our character's were us and by extension we were able to do whatever will still staying in form. It was much less pressure then Stan's system where it was black and white in the context of characters. It was really nerve racking not knowing how the rest of the talent show was going, even now I still don't know any details. While it was successful, we are so getting everything prepared three days ahead of time and make that we communicate with people, we ran into the issue of the actors not know what they were supposed to do which caused issues during the registration and preparation.

You will be mIST... Bloody mIST

Well it has been a broken week for me this week (28th May - 1st June) since I only can back from Scotland Wednesday Afternoon so really I have only had 1 lesson this week.

Ridiculous Richard (It's ME!!)

Well I arrived back on Wednesday (luckily to no drama rehearsal) but I had to go into school any way. But I was disappointed I missed over 3 hours of lesson but it made be rather happy to hear that we had managed to sell over 100 tickets, so my afternoon was made up of making 20 or so more tickets for the next night! IST'S GOT TALENT!

This was it Thursday, I was looking for to it so much all day and was getting really impatient by the end. But I was (just like Georgia) disappointed and slightly angry at a few people for dropping out literately last minute, and was astonished of how the Guides were treated when they arrived at school, but other than that it was a great night!

Spectacular Spencerella

However I'm going to have to disagree with the other two and say the second audience was my favourite (maybe cus they got really into throwing sweets at me? I dunno I just really enjoyed the easy-going atmosphere they gave off). It was so nice being able to see all the hard work we had put into this such as making the posters, making the tickets, selling the tickets, keeping track of the acts, and everything else come alive and work in unison with everything on the night of the 31st of May. It was really something, and with it being for charity it just made everything so much sweeter. Hearing everybody getting great feedback no matter what the act, was great too! It was a really really fun night and I really hope to see something along the lines of it happen again next year! Where do I sign up?

Gory Georgia

Mean Maria

I just want to say a huge thanks to Mr Fearnehough too even though he said it was run by the students without him we wouldn't have been able to sort the whole security thing out, and the friends (who were doing refreshments) too! So a big thanks to you guys too! After hearing that we raised 766 EUROS!!!! it made you see how the night was so worth while despite all the bumps along the way. All the hard work really paid off that night, I WANNA DO IT AGAIN! However I really wished I could have seen some of the other acts though cus I didn't get a chance to see many of them in rehearsal. As you can see from the 4 images of us here and there, we had a blast!

 Friday was a slight wind-down lesson since we were all exhausted, I was filled in about what I had missed over the past 3 lessons so I am currently catching up on that (all to do with Brecht's way of set designing and action planning). Also after last minute rushing around on Friday we are now going to meet a director from the Royal Shakespeare Company on tuesday so it is going to be really interesting!

Well that is it really for this week, I'm so proud to be part of this Year 12 Ensemble since we all worked just as hard as each other and performed just as well as each other on the night too! And now that over 1,000 Euros for Theatre Versus Oppression, it has been a really nice week. Thanks Everybody who help with IST's Got Talent!!

Ridiculous Richard

The End.

So in our lessons this week we have started looking at set design for Brechts play "The Good Woman of Setzuan". We began by looking through action plans for acting and set designing and discussing asking questions about the action plans. I have been rereading the play and highlighting key stage directions or parts with relevance to the setting so I know what the stage has to look like according to the script. We have also been talking about the set of a Brecht play that Mr F saw which used scaffolding, which sounded very exciting. The scaffolding stayed on stage at all times and backdrop type things were used to change the way they looked, they could become mountains and homes, and in typical Brechtian style projection was also used. For our set design we are to use key Brecht ideas, such as projection and placards, but we can also used other set designers we have studied, such as Appia and Craig, as inspiration.

Also this week the wait ended and we had out Talent Show. So much hard work has gone into this. I worry about sounding a bit negative as I write about it but I want to highlight things that did not go as well so when I look back on this I can see where I went wrong and improve. However, I must stress I think the night was a huge success and I had so much fun. Personally, one of the best comments I heard all night was a teacher saying I'll do something for it next year, which just made my night knowing it had inspired people to work on it next year as well.

One little difficulty we had was some people dropping out, we all put a lot of hard work into the show and I sent out countless emails and messages (not nagging, simply explaining details etc.) about the Talent Show and how it was going to work and how excited I was and how I would like replies if there was anything I needed to know. Some people did not even reply to my emails, even after saying they would be in the Talent Show and making a committment, they did not have the ( for want of a better word ..) decency to say to me they would not be attending. I got told through other people they would be pulling out, one such person pulled out on the actual day of the talent show.

But all was not lost, other acts upon hearing people had dropped out asked if they could perform another act. So many people asked if they could do a second performance that I had to say no to some people! The enthuasiasm the acts had for the Talent Show was so heartwarming.

One other things I was a bit upset about was the ticket giving out thing. I am very close to the Guides and it was my mum who told them about the Talent Show to see if they fancied coming (I have promised that in future I will tell them of any more events, as they are keen to get involved). When the Guides arrived no one greeted them, gave them a ticket, explained what group they were in or how the night would work (as this was not a typical Talent Show). However, this was out of my control as I had a show to prepare for myself, and whats happened has happened and I can't change it now.

I am incredibily pleased with how the night went though, everyone put in so much hard work and effort and it really paid off. I really wish I could have watched the whole things, but it is impossible to be in two places at once haha.

Performing Bloody mIST again was fab. I had an absolute blast. The piece is exhausting and hard work but so much fun its all worth it. I agree with Maria when she says the first and last performances were stronger bit I still think it is the best we have ever done. The audience was great and not at all shuy when it came to joining in, whether it be shouting out, throwing sweets or dancing with the actors. I wish I could do it all again and again and again. I'm at a bit of a loss at what else to write about the night as I'm like lost in my memories of the evening (and I'm hungry) but if I think of anything else I will add to it.

Georgia Stanley

SHOW TIIIIME!

Thursday night was finally the night for the TALENT SHOW!! We pulled of a great show and we had a great audience!

However, we got very disappointed with the lack of professionalism and responsability some people didn't have. Several groups dropped out from their acts the night before the big show! I mean come on, seriously, when 4 year 12 students are running this show and some of the acts come to us and just say:"Yeah, I won't be in it tomorrow, soz I can't" SOZ?? SOZ?? I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that!  This got me very angry and frustrated, I mean when you sign up for something you have to commit to to it, and especially don't drop out last minute, great team work guys, thanks!

But it didn't really matter, we didn't need them, I mean they will regret this their whole life and when they'll look back at it they'll start crying. Good for them.

We were in school earlier than the others because we had to prepare everything and check everything was at its place. I had a last talk/check with the CAS students to check if they were ALL okay and if they knew what to do in case anything went wrong. They were all happy with what they were doing and had everything under control( as I've heard)

We started with
 The night itself went SUPER well, we had over 100 people who came to watch us!  Personally, I thought that our first performance and our last one were the most successful and best ones; the audience interaction was better the first and the last time, no doubt, I felt closer with the first pack of audience we had and the last one. The second, I don't know, there just wasn't any connection for me. And I did try, but I though they weren't as much entertained as the 2 others. Our audience did laugh when they were supposed to, and OOH EMM GEE! By the first 5 minutes of our performance, MY LITTLE WHIP BROKE! I was so so sad and I had to think of something quickly to say, which wasn't very difficult. WHatever happened, we could just go with it and pretend as it would be in the act! Compared to our performance of a Doll's House, we certainly couldn't have done it! If a phone would have gone on during the performance, Nora could definitely not jump out and say:"Oh my good, who's phone is that.????Is it my little Dr Rank?" This is a great advantage for these kind of performances where you can interact with the audience as much as possible, without failing as an actor in your performance in a way when something goes wrong (phone on, whip breaks, Spencerella's scarf get's stuck on chair...), we just played along with it.
Also, at one point, the music seemed to have a little problem when it started to make that funny "BZZ-BZZ" so we all started to say :" Oh my goodness, what is happening to the music??" "Just go and fix it Georgia, can't you do anything right????" "Hello, I am on stage and I have no music?????"

One part of our performance I was really really scared off in order to not be successful as an actor, was the part where me and Spencerella talked about the different types of fear. We were supposed to have eye contact with our audience and I don't know what is wrong me me, but I can't look into someones eye while acting.I can do anything else while being on stage, dance, "sing" (lol)... BUT LOOK INTO SOMEONE'S EYE WHILE PERFORMING, NO! It deconcentrates me so so much, and all my focus just drops and I start laughing. Well, that's what I've assumed so far. I've never really tried to look into someone eye while performing, only for some performances but just for like 5 seconds (which seems like 10 MINUTES)
So I was really nervous about that and thursday morning I was running around the whole school yelling at people I couldn't do it and that I was going to fail. Those were my exact words :" I CAN'T DO THIS I'M GOING TO FAIL NOOOO" Some people were quite surprised hearing me saying "I'm nervous about a performance", well I am sorry, but I do get nervous while performing sometimes, usually I cover it up and just say"I NEVER GET NERVOUS" but that's all a lie and an act, I get scared as much as you lot people! I just try to hide it and I've also learned how to control my nerves to not show it everyone. There, I said it, I do get scared as well before a performance. So please stop assuming that just because I've done a lot of performances and shows that I don't get nervous too, well that is what my mum thinks. HA!
Anyways, I decided not to be a pussy and just do it; and somehow, I went really really well, I just happened, I did not start laughing or blushing, I just started right into their eyes. I was successful in this, people started to stare away when I looked right into their eyes telling the stories, and some had a little nervous laugh, WHICH IS GOOD because you're making them feel uncomfortable!

At the end, I got to sign AUTOGRAPHS I was so so happy to do that! A little girl (from primary I think?) came up to me with the prospectus we had done and gave it to me with a pen, and then said:"You were my favorite, you were really scary". I was so so happy to sign autographs, I felt so PROFESSIONAL(again!) and it was a lot of fun! Some of the children at TMA wanted my autograph as well, I was really pleased with that! (the children I help with )

And OMG! I got so so many compliments from random people! Yes, random people, which made me even happier coming from strangers than my friends!Of course my friends went up to me and said:" Ooh Maria you were amazing, you were my favorite" but coming from a stranger that you don't know and you haven't been telling:"Sooo who was your favorite character wink wink!"(hint, better say me or i'll start crying) This is why I never ever ask my parents if I was good and who their favorite character was, because as a parent, of course, they will "Yes you were amazing, you were so so good!" I also read this in my book "So you want to be an actor" (bought it at the national theatre in London) that you should avoid asking your parents how good you were on stage, because they might lie or encourage you even if you're not that good. So whatever my parents tell me, I don't listen to them, HOWEVER I do when they start with the critics, because I know they're being honest
Anyways, a woman congratulated me while walking out the door; she first asked me how long I had been acting for, how old I was and if I wanted to be an actress later. Of course I started to get these weird thoughts that she might be a director under-covered looking for talented actors to bring back to Hollywood where she came from (DON'T LAUGH AT THIS I AM SHARING MY THOUGHT HERE WITH YOU AND WE HAVE ALL HAD THESE THOUGHTS once in our life) She then said:" When you'll get famous, I will tell everyone I went to see you here at IST's got talent and I knew you!" I was really happy with this, and a little later when I went back inside two parents came up to me and congratulated me on my performance. They thought I looked so confident on stage and that I was born to act. They also said:"Hey, you should be an actress!"  This made me very very very happy, you might not understand it but for me it means a lot!!! :D

OH MY GOD SO MUCH STRESS!

This week has been one the most busiest week of my life; I have had a huge amount of work to give in to every single teacher I have. I have done more and more research for my EE and universities. I have done the dance lessons who took place for 2 hours right after school... and much more. This week has been very tiring for me, and thinking of the Talent Show just makes me want to cry.

We are running out of time and things aren't going as we planned at all. First of all, the tickets sale isn't going well, so I am gonna have to step into that and "show them how to sell tickets" (which is apparently a very hard job to do). We've only seen two acts so far, out of the ten. Today, me Georgia and Richard went around the school asking the acts when and where they were willing to show us their act.
We got that sorted now, most of them will come Tuesday showing us what they've done. Our Bloody mIST piece is fine; we had a run-through Wednesday afternoon and we had 2 audience members to watch it and to give us feedback.  They seemed to enjoy it a lot, although at the end, one of them said:" I really wasn't expecting something like this, I thought what you did in theatre were pieces such as a Doll's House," (which is a very naturalistic piece and she saw our Doll's HOuse performance). We explained to them our piece, and since this reaction might come from a lot of people, especially our audience we will have on Thursday evening, we decided to create a little guide, a prospectus so they will know everything out it; who we are inspired by, what ideas we are using, AND we shall tell them this isn't the only thing we do in drama (they might think all we do in drama is have fun and mess around) etc.

Today, we discussed the issues of the Talent Show, what has been done and what hasn't, and what should be fixed if necessary. If think we are all stressed about this, well I know I am, and I realize how hard it is to be responsible and running this production. You have to look out for everything and make sure EVERYTHING is alright, not just your self! By the way, this is a nice link with Brecht's work, that one stage you are working as an ensemble and your acting isn't supposed to affect just yourself, but it affected the whole performance if there is no proper communication. Speaking of Brecht, we showed Georgia our little devised work we had done while she was away, "A Brecht's House" as we called it. We struggled a little bit to get one with; instead of thinking what the message was and get on with improvising the scene, we argued a lot with the ideas. We weren't agreeing at all who the one was in this scene who had the power and control. At the end though, we went with the idea of Nora gaining power and Torvald submitted (if that's the correct word). Our second scene was the one we struggled the most with, we had to swap around actors several times for this. (more details will be found in my journal)

Also, I know no one was there for the tickets on Friday afternoon, and if you could please stop telling me off for it I would appreciate it; I do know I am responsible for the CAS students for the tickets sale and also for the guides, and I did put specific people responsible for the sale. I had provided them a timetable for each of them and told them "If you have any problems, please come and speak to me about it". Someone told me she couldn't make it that day and I had to re arrange the people responsible for it. No one was there as it seemed, and none of them told they they had to go, I had to go up to them asking them "Why weren't you there on Friday selling?" So yes, I was quite shocked about this!
We are Year 12 students now and we can no longer push the blame away to someone else; younger students are supposed to look up to us and we have to set a good example. I have been creating problems and issues, I am aware of that but instead of just sitting there wining about it am I trying to fix them, so you can either chose to support me or just be quiet.
So I do apologize for this misunderstanding that happened on Friday and I am not going to play the "it wasn't me it was her!" game, and I will take full responsibility of the consequences so it seems.
However! I have made up for this, I have talked to the Victor Hugo people about the Talent Show, the German School and my french friends,and  lots of them seem really interested in this Talent Show. I have about 10-15 ish people (or more) who will be buying tickets on Tuesday after school. YES I WILL BE THERE! Also, people wanted to book their tickets or buy them on the night, the booking will be possible but I will only be doing this with the people I know really well.

I am sure we can learn a lot from our lack of responsibility/communication/organization for this Talent Show (which is a good thing!) for the next time, and especially for next year in Year 13! I realize what it feels like to have all of this pressure on your shoulders and everyone is relying on you! We've made it, with some difficulties of course, but we still made it !
I hope we will be able to put off a great show this Thursday, and I certainly hope students will look back at this saying: "WOW, why didn't I audition for this, it looks so cool, I should have been in it"
Next year another one maybe, I don't know, let's see how it goes for now! But if you do want to put another Talent Show on, DON'T PUT US IN CHARGE OF IT :)

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 

Missing Theatre :(

I was away from school last week and missed 3 hours of drama, which sucks. However, Maria and Richard have been filling me in on what I have missed and I have been able to read the blog. While I was away the Talent Show was discussed, tickets will be going on sale and posters are ready to be put up on Monday. The drama group also did some work on transforming Ibsens play 'A Dolls House' into a Brecht style play, I can;t wait to find out more about it!

Lately due to lots of bank holidays and exams we have had a few days off school and missed some more theatre lessons. But in the time we have been in we got our drama exam back (I was pleased with my mark and quite enjoyed thinking about the purpose of theatre), handed in our drama design work and started on Brecht. Over the April holiday we were given the Brecht play 'The Good Woman of Setzuan" (which has sometimes been translated as "The Good People of Setzuan" not sure how useful this piece of information is now but if there is one thing a debate in English lit taught me it is that the way texts and titles are translated is important) to read. As well as reading the play and learning about scenography we will also be learning a bit about Brechts ideas about acting.

Despite my limited knowlegde of politics etc. I find Brecht's ideas on acting and using theatre to convery a message really interesting. Through doing acting exercises I have learnt a lot about Brecht, although I imagine there is much more that I do not know. Obviously in his work he wants you to sympathize with the poor proletariat/peasant and dislike or even hate the nasty, horrible capitalist (who he will very often not name so that the audience has no chance to emphathize with the them) who makes there life such a misery. But he wants to do it in such a way that you do not leave the play just having watched a play/story and felt sorry for the poor little worker, he wants to make it so that the story is disprupted for the audience and instead of feeling sorry for the worker and as if they have just watched a story.

We did this task were we had to make stage pictures, tableau, freeze frames. While Stan the Man was all into putting on your character, and being your character, making sure you were showing your character as a person, Brech was much more concerned that at every single moment every single one of the actors on stage were showing the right picture and converying the right message. While his actors were rehearsing he would take pictures and afterward they would all sit and analsye the pictures, making sure the message was being shown. We practised this with our freeze frames, and learnt a lot. At one point we wanted Maria to be the most dominant character in our tableaum but because we had her turning around to face Spencer he looked to be the more commanding person, as if he was controlling her. It was crazy to see how small a detail could change the entire look fo something on stage.

Unfortunately, I missed Tuesdays lesson becuase I was sick, and my blog post from last week didn't save properly but I can edit it so this is like an extension. On Wednesday, I watched Maria, Spencer and Richard perfrom their first part of A Brecht House and then I took part in the second, in which I played Doctor Rank and Maria Nora. Because at the end of the first extract we performed we painted Nora as quite a manipulative character we kept her in this role for the second extract. However, this is not really the way I saw Nora when doing A Dolls House and I found it interesting how we changed out perception of her to keep it fitting with the first extract.

We have also been very busy preparing for IST's Got Talent, which has taught me many things, for example, children simply cannot be trusted, you need to be on them every second making sure they have understood what you have told them and that they have passed the information onto their parents. So far it has been quite tiring but finally I understand my mistakes and hopefully the night will be a blast. It has been great getting back to Bloody mIST again and I am going to have a search through my house in a bit to find exciting props/costume/make up for the piece again..

Georgia Stanley

Not so much Drama, Huh...

This week was ridiculously short in terms of Drama activities. We had Monday and Tuesday off, and we spent Friday discussing the Talent show. I think this is why we didn't realise that we hadn't blogged.

 Wednesday, was based around learning Jest. Jest is Brecht's method of bashing the audience over the head with his message. While his objective is already extremely clear in the plot of the story, Jest finalizes all possible doubt. The concept of Jest is really quite simple, showing the emotions and thoughts of your character through clear actions. The actual execution is rather difficult though. For one, the action has to spend an extermly clear message without ANY other possibilities, and Secondly, you cannot see your actions as the audience while doing them. In one of our practice poses, I was the focus point even though we were trying to highlight another person and we just couldn't see that our pose was having such an effect. Jest is one of the main examples of why Brecht still wants good acting, even though enjoyment isn't too important for him. 

On Friday, we discussed the talent show and arranged the acts into different sections. We have finally gotten down some concrete details and times! I just hope that we do get some more time to practice Bloody mIST before the show, 3 consecutive showings ouch...

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