Coriolanus P1

Recently, we have started on the creation of our next production; Coriolanus. The basic synopsis of this Shakespearean play is as follows. A great roman general (who's name escapes me) defends Rome from an invading army and manages to take their whole city, quite literally, single-handed. Because the city was called Coriolis his official title becomes Coriolanus. He is then put forward for something that would give him even more power, but to do so he would have to plead for the votes of the plebeians ( the commoners) whom he openly despises, for one reason or another. His friend and father figure, Meneus ( sorry, I am butchering these spellings) manages to convince him to go through with. Astonishingly, it actually works, the people backing him because of his recent triumphs. All is well and good, until at the ceremony, after being convinced to do so by two corrupt tribunes (fairly important people who's job is to make sure that the senate has the peoples best interests at heart), the people riot at the gates. Coriolanus is absolutely furious believing them to be traitors. He rants at them for a couple of minutes before being exiled for good. He spends a few nights sleeping rough and feeling sorry for himself, before hitting upon an idea. He presents himself before Auphidius, his arch-nemesis who he defeated when he took Coriolis, and offers up his services as a soldier. Auphidius is unsure at first, but is eventually very happy that such a mighty warrior is now on their side. They immediately start campaigning across Roman land, it not being long before they were at the gates of Rome itself. They lay siege, while inside Rome, the people take the tribunes and presumably kill them. Meneus goes to Coriolanus and demands to speak to him. He attempts to reason with him, but Coriolanus is now honor-bound to follow Auphidius. His family then speak to him, he ignores his wife and his son threatens to kill him when he grows up. But it is his mother who he has the strongest bond with, so she successfully makes peace. Coriolanus knows that when he returns to Auphidius he will be killed so he attempts to be humble. However,  it isn't really his thing, so when accused by Auphidius of being a traitor he goes very mad indeed before being set upon by a team of assassins. After their work is complete, Auphidius actually feels remorse for his actions, so agrees to give him the proper warriors burial he deserves.

To get started on this mammoth project, we had a whole day of drama with someone from Open Minds theater, who's name, I'm afraid, I've also forgotten. We did a lot of things centering around Shakespearean text mostly, including doing read through's of the text. We also practiced lifts and fight routines, which was about as much fun you can have outside of a roller-coaster. Me and Nikki worked through a whole routine including kicks, dives and elbows. The trick was to always find space and just move into it, although in a fairly aggressive and energetic way. We experimented with certain scenes, including a riot, and managed to choreograph them well. The riot scene mainly revolved around running and miming throwing, but it was done in a repeated way that, in my opinion really worked. I'm also particularly excited about the prospect of modernisng, not the langauge, but the way people act and dress. The rebels will be an amalgamation of infamous terrorist groups like the Al-Quaida and the IRA. I think we will also draw inspiration from the Riots across England a few years ago and the various rebellions and riots we have seen in the past couple years e.g. Syria, Libya, Ukraine.

All in all, I think the skills we learnt were the one's necessary in order to move forward with our act. It is never easy reading Shakespearean text and now I actually know what is meant by the words I know what kind of feeling is to be put into them. The fighting and the lifts are both integral to the performance we will be doing and thus are meant to be known by the class so anyone can play anyone. The day has made me very optimistic about the play and now I really look forward to be a part of it.

Trestle unfinished

Trestle theater is another workshop we did recently. It is mostly mask work, but our work on it was entirely mask work. The masks we were given were a multitude of emotions which we had to try and match. We were made to do bits of improvisation backed by music, before a scene at a wedding. This was helpful to distance ourselves from faces and focus on our physicality. We were then put into groups; mine consisted of myself, Luke, Zach, Lydia and Nikki. We were quick to decide our scenario, that of a late night in a bar. We assigned ourselves characters; me and Zach as two drunken mates, Luke as a barman, Nikki as a creep trying to hit on Lydia who was a girl on her own in the bar. We slowly choreographed a scene around these characters to the tune of  Chelsea Dagger. This came together until we had utilised both crosscutting and mime to make what was, in my mind, a effective performance

Brecht

A bit back now, we did about Brecht. Brecht is very different from everything we have done before. It is supposed to be thought about, rather than just taking everything as it comes and accepting it as it is. It is meant to challenge you, make you think about what's actually going on. It's meant to distance you from characters and focus you on what's actually going on. It means you have less of an opportunity to do plot holes, meaning you have to think harder about what you are doing. You have to focus on your ability to tell a story, rather than your characterization skills.

Me and Luke, who I was working with for this particular project, decided to use a genre which we had already modified to relative success; detectives. We set up a vague plot and the rest just kind of got invented along the way. I especially enjoyed the constant narration. I'm not sure why, but it appealed to me. We encountered some problems along the way, for instance we had some difficulties with having to keep one eye on the other pretty much all the time, so as to narrate the important things they did. This was dispensed with quite easily, as we found that if we get some choreographing we know whats going to happen before it actually happens.

Our end performance was quite good. I think we embodied what Brecht was saying rather well and got across something that would make an audience think. It was very interesting to be a part of this and would love to do Brecht at some time in the future.

My special CV

Drama things I've done, like.
Been in a couple panto's, lot of fun and learning experience
I've been to a couple drama clubs and whatnot
I've been in a couple of Derek and Enid's finest
Other than that, I'm not entirely sure why I bothered making this

Stanlavasvavsvavasvsski

In drama, over the past few lessons, we have been doing Mr. Stanislavsky, the first guy i'd kinda heard of. We did his objective thingymabob, which was interesting, to a certain extent. We watched a presentation, which talked about all sorts of things from his life to his teachings. How splendid. After we got these scripts we had to interpret which was rather fun. But then came the highlight, which was working with Luke and Alisha on a great performance. I played a kinda geek, who is trying to get his reluctant friend, Alisha, to play dungeons and dragons with his rather obnoxious friend Luke, who is trying to make Alisha leave to get me to himself. I feel flattered. In the end it was very entertaining to do and I hope it was entertaining to watch. We used our objectives well, mine being to make everyone happy, which was impossible to do. All in all Stanislavsky was very good to study because his teachings can make acting more believable.

My Really Rather Good Evaluation

My Really Rather Good Evaluation
(Sorry this took a long a time to do. I couldn't do it while at school because all of a sudden the internet became very restrictive and my email to myself wouldn't send. But it's here now, so all's well that ends well.)

This term we delved into the very dark world of Antonin Artaud, a take on the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. And I mean really quite dark. In fact, I can’t emphasis this enough, it was some of the weirdest, scariest stuff I have ever seen in my whole life. The things we saw were mainly unsettling because of the surrealism. It also made you think a bit, I suppose, about what kind of mental state this bloke must have been in. After some research, I found out that Mr Artaud wasn't exactly right in the head. He had grown up a sickly boy, often agitated and disgruntled. He was also rather schizophrenic, aggressive and all in all a not very nice person with which to share a flat perhaps or a boat. But I'm getting off topic so back to Artaud. He lived most of his life in insane asylums, drawing disturbing images and screaming. While it was, in his mind, a splendid way to spend an evening many people disagreed, leading him to a position where few people wanted anything to do with him. This led to solitude, apart from a few faithful friend who were very good to put up with him all this time. We kicked off with some idea making. Now, having just finished the rather hard going Water Station, I was hoping for something a little lighter. I did not get something a little lighter. I got something a whole lot darker, but I digress. I remember one of the first idea being, and I quote, “Santa kills kids and gives their body parts as presents for the parents”. Still gives me shudders.
Anyway, afterwards we went to the library to choose our characters and kick off a monologue. I took Jack, because when I watched the film I was too lazy to learn anyone else’s name, and immediately I set about trying to make a character. There were many failed attempts, but I stuck with one which showed him as really quite posh and complained a lot. This was mainly because, at the time, I wanted nothing to do with any of it. So while some people were going all out on the rape and murder, I stuck to my guns and formulated a different type of character.
Now we come to the YouTube videos. Deary, deary me. To kick off, we watched all these music videos. And I use music in its loosest possible sense. They were really weird pretty much everyone else was not affected by it, but I felt like I needed to take a shower. Then again, I’m rather sensitive and the other videos weren't as bad. They made me have to clamp my jaw shut, but other than that I could just about sleep at night with them in my head. They only very slightly impacted my role.
This was largely how it remained until I had to take a day off being ill. I spent all day watching TV and inspiration came in the form of a Doctor Who Christmas special from 2010, David Tennant’s last ever episode. I was just being nostalgic, me being a rather hidden Doctor Who fanatic, but there I saw my inspiration from Jon Simms’ Master. He was basically insane and there was a lot of shouting and facial expressions. I also sought help from David Tennant’s rage near the end when he is about to die. Couple this with some good old bipolar-ness and my Jack was born.
I didn’t have much time to formulate a proper monologue, so some of my old monologue was still included in the final production. I made sure my character constantly went from loud to quiet and back again, so as to keep people tense. I remember having a lot of fun on the night, despite still feeling that this Artuad bloke is a bit of a nutter. But never mind, eh? In the end, I decided that I would not act overtly evil, but I wouldn’t exactly be a good guy ever. I mainly focussed on a man locked in a battle with himself, trapped in a place he does not like at all. My only real troubles were that my knees really, really hurt after crouching for that long.
This performance is very different to anything I have ever done. Ever. To be honest with you I hadn’t done anything other than comedy really in my whole life. Even relatively serious plays I have had some comic element in, or been allowed to insert jokes. It was very hard at first to do, but I never had any massive doubts that I was incapable of doing serious theatre. I lacked in the surreal a bit perhaps, but only really because I wanted to give him a human element, so you can feel a little sorry for his predicament. Ok, right now everyone’s searching for murder victims, thought I’d come over to you in real time, and I think I’m about to vomit. Sorry, I can’t even begin. So I won’t. Anyway, I intended to have a few jump scares, loud noises and shouting and whatnot. These were incorporated quite well in my opinion.
If I were to do it again, I would probably have made it longer and made more interaction towards the audience. I did ask a question to them, where they lived, which worked well and got the right kind of response. For my character I decided to keep it less evil and more just insane. I had some fun doing that, plus I didn’t end up having as many moral quarrels with it. However, earlier on, I felt a large sense of repulsion towards it. I’m can’t really explain, but while I was watching Children in Need I just absolutely despised of it. I saw it as some kind of middle class attempt at being deep and meaningful, and using dark parts of your brain which, as far as I could discern, was only noticeable in murderers. I had to take some time to think, but in the end I just acted and had a hell of a lot of fun doing it.
I think this has proved to myself that I can do serious stuff if I put my mind to it. I often look out for a joke, because it’s easy to tell if it was good; they would laugh. But I really enjoyed doing it, I think I probably just enjoy acting, no matter how serious it is. However, I do find it hard to do anything other than rather righteous anger, which I suppose makes me feel better about myself to a certain extent. Although at times I absolutely hated it, in the end it was a valuable piece which can help in future dramas and things out side of school as well. Although I still enjoy comedies more, I am grateful for this opportunity to break that mould and mix up what I normally do. As long as comedy is on the way. Please.

First proper blog ting

Hello Sir. At least I assume you are Sir if you are reading it. If you are not then this will mean very little to you. In fact it would mean nothing to you. Now here is my Log of this, my first lesson on Theater of Cruelty. Yep, it's as weird as it sounds.

This week we have looked at The Theatre of Cruelty. This is a rather dark look at humanity, namely our fears and other repressed dark things. First invented by Antonin Artaud, it is meant to release bad things so they do not make us feel bad all the time.

The theory is that this, although being a fatiguing experience for both the actor and the audience, is a way of making you feel better. It apparently does this by showing you all these bad things and whatnot, to make you release your bad feelings. I have no idea if it actually works, but it is, indeed, an interesting premise.

I am not sure if it is really an exercise but I do believe that sir’s performance needs mentioning, although I will try to keep it brief. As I walk in I see sir on the floor, my first thought being: Aha! This is a tricky drama thing that sir is going to show us. However I wasn't quite ready when he screamed at Katie. Neither was Katie it seemed. When that ordeal was over we had a go at tapping into primal fears. My group worked on Luke’s very deep dream of feeling he has to open a door even though he doesn't want to. I slithered around the floor as he did this making people feel uncomfortable.  It was definitely weird.

To be honest my original response was one of bafflement. I had no idea what to expect when I saw sir curled up in a ball on the floor. However I soon though it was an interesting idea and had fun doing it.
In conclusion I can see us using it a lot in our next production.

Thus ends the blog.