*Due to the random
and unconventional meltdown of my Macbook pro, which by the way is the farthest
thing from ‘pro’, I have to recall, retrieve and adapt the notes I can find on
my peers’ blogs as well as from my memory. But hopefully, I can bring forth
enough information to suffice for the future when I’m going to be in need of
these notes later. Many of my notes moreover were taken by hand on the handouts
given by my peers, which I shall show to you, Mrs. Moon on Monday.*
Practitioner
Notes:
Peter Brook:
Annie, Kevin, Andrew, Joel
HISTORY:
- Peter
Brook was born in England in March 1925.
- He
started his career at a very young age, directing his first production at the
age of 17. He directed at Stratford-upon-Avon and had an apprenticeship at a
film studio.
- He
moreover founded the International Centre
for Theatre Research in 1970. For the first three years, this group of
dancers, actors and musicians from many different backgrounds and cultures
joined together to try and answer the question: “What were the common stories,
the recognizable shorthands, the instant abstractions, the shared outlines of
story and character with which an international group could work?”
INFLUENCES:
- Peter
Brook, like many other practitioners, was influenced by a vast array of people.
- His
ideas for his Theatre of Cruelty were
deeply influenced by Artaud. It centered to push to emotional, physical and
mental limits.
- How
do you portray violence on the stage?
- Film
intrigued Peter Brook and had a profound impact on his life – he was also a
film director after all.
- Merce
Cunningham
- Jan
Kott
- Julian
Beck
- Judith
Malina
- Gordon
Craig
- Brook’s
works are also inspired by the experimental works of other famous practitioners
such as Jerzy Grotowski and Bertolt Brecht (those names sound sort of/kind of
familiar)/
KEY
PHILOSOPHIES:
- A key
element of Brook’s philosophies was that theatre should be relatable to the
audience’s scopes and life.
- As
evidenced by the International Centre for
Theatre Research, he was a strong proponent of theatre colonialism – the idea
that theatre could be translated over different cultures and could transcend
many boundaries that could be laid out in front of us. Experiment with all
styles!
n Putting
acting groups in different environments.
- Group
development is pivotal for the functions of a theatre company and thus the
exercises performed prove crucial. This can only happen through living with
your theatre group.
- The location
makes the performance rather than the performance making the location. Does
that make sense? This also brings to mind a viewpoint of Anne Bogart – how you
must utilize the architecture that you are provided with.
- Like
the Andong masked dance that we saw, Peter Brook incorporated the interaction
with the audience and really played with that idea.
- Perform
for everyone and make it mean something different for every group of viewers. “What
am I doing theatre for?”
- Make
sure you reach your audience, or you fail.
MANIFESTATIONS:
- King
Lear (1962)
n Worked
with trusted actors
n Experimentation
n Rehearsal
technique
n Director
as designer
n Simplifying
n Edward
Craig
n Broken
down
n White
light
n House
lights (oooh, very Brechtian as well)
COLLABORATIONS:
- Royal
Shakespeare Company
- Salvador
Dali
- Paul
Scofield
- Chrstopher
Fry
n Translation
- John
Gielgud
- Edith
Evans
- Laurence
Olivier
- Charles
Marowitz
- Jerzy
Grotowski
THEATRE
GROUPS ESTABLISHED:
- International
Centre for Theatre Research
- Theatre
of Cruelty (Royal Shakespeare Company)
Constantin
Stanislavski: Austin, Emma, George, Sammy
HISTORY:
- He
was born on January 5th, 1863 in Moscow Russia.
- At
the age of 14 (these practitioners sure do start at a young age), his family
turned a wing of their country estate into a theatre.
- His
family and he started their own theatre troupe “The Alekseyev Circle.”
- He
kept a journal of all his performances and reflected on them. He was known to
be very self critical and built upon his reflections.
- For
Stanislavski, reality was a key element of theatre that he truly believed in
even from a young age.
- You
seek art yourself – no one can teach it but you.
INFLUENCES:
- Childhood
theatre troupe
- Tomasso
Salvini playing Othello in 1882.
- Mikhail
Shchepkin
- Ernesto
Rossi – he told Stanislavski that his acting was in need of art.
- Stanislavski
was influenced by the ideas of a realistic set in 1898 with Hauptemann’s The Sunken Bell.
KEY
PHILOSOPHIES:
- “A
system is not a hand-me-down suit that you can put on and walk off in, or a
cook-book where all you need to find the page and there is your recipe. No, it
is a whole way of life.”
- Realism
– Selection and distillation o observations of daily life; capturing the
essence of life.
- Analysis,
perception, experience, objective/purpose, belief, discipline
- Naturalism
– Portray the intricate details of the world and make it seem like it’s actual
life.
- Research
your characters!!!
- All
actors must know the subtext of the characters. The actions and words being
stated must have a purpose and meaning. The actor is never unengaged and
believes in what is happening on stage.
- Actors
should always try to broaden their experiences to be able to relate to the
characters they are exposed to.
- Wherever
there is life, there is action; whenever action, movement, where movement,
tempo; and where there is tempo, there is rhythm.
MANIFESTATIONS:
- Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (Moscow Art Theater)
-
Anton Chekhov, the
writer of “The Seagull” and Leo Tolstoy, writer of “What is Art?”
-
Chekhov made
subtler, emotionally charged projects after he learned upon understanding the
implied messages hidden in the writing. This idea was shared by both
Stanislavski and Chekhov.
-
Tolstoy influenced
Stanislavski, which art had to be simplified and available for all. This helped
form the thinking of Stanislavski.
-
The Society of Art
and Literature (1888)
-
Stanislavsky, A.F.
Fedotov, F.P. Komissarzhevskii, F.L. Sologuh
-
Create a society
where they portray acting in a redefining way.
-
Moscow Art Theater
(1898)
-
Moscow, Russia’s
most valued company
-
Many classic
performances all depicting a sense of realism
-
January 17th,
1904 – written by Anton Chekhov but directed by Stanislavski,
-
Cherry Orchard
Bertolt Brecht:
Sabrina, Andy, Peter,
HISTORY:
- 1898: Bertolt Brecht is born in
Augsburg, Germany on February 10th
- 1914: World War I breaks out
- 1916: Newspapers begin
publishing his work under the title ‘Bert Brecht’
- 1917: At his father’s
recommendation, enrolled in a medical course at Munich University
n Inspired by Arthur Kustcher
to study drama and theatre
- 1918: ‘Baal’, first
theatrical piece
- 1918: World War I ends
- 1919: ‘Drums in the
Night’, second theatrical piece
- 1918: World War II ends
- 1919: Brecht and Paula
Banholzer have a son
- 1922: Brecht is awarded
the prestigious Kleist Prize for his first three plays
n “[Brecht's]
language is vivid without being deliberately poetic, symbolical without being
over literary. Brecht is a dramatist because his language is felt physically
and in the round”
- 1922: Married Viennese opera
singer Marianne Zoff
- 1923: Brecth and his
wife had a daughter, Hanne Hiob who became a successful actress
- 1930: First performance
of one of his most famous works, ‘The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahoganny’
- 1930: Remarried with
Helene Weigel, who would be the future Mother Courage
- 1939: World War II
breaks out
- 1939: ‘Mother Courage and Her
Children’
- 1943: ‘Hangmen Also
Die!’ first screenplay, first Hollywood film
n Collaboration
with Hanns Eisler
n Nominated
for Academy Award for Musical Score
- 1945: World War II ends
- 1956: Bertolt Brecht
passes away on August 14th
INFLUENCES:
-
Family – his family had a large influence on Brecht not only as a person but also
as a theatre practitioner
-
Born to a devout Protestant mother and a Catholic father, religion played
a large role in Brecht’s life.
-
His mother was the center of his religious teachings; she eventually
became the model for the ‘self-denying woman’ who features in many of his works
-
His father was the one to get him into a medical course in university,
which was the direct lead into his career in theatre
-
Street Theatre – looking at everyday life, the typical nine-to-five work day, and
the absurdity of how people live their lives; this routine and all these
rehearsed actions are ones actors must be aware of.
-
The contrast of Mother Courage’s disparity and misfortune to our everyday
problems yesterday and tomorrow
-
Changes in the World – looking at the changes in the world; promote non-bias
into problematic events that could or have happened in people’s lives
-
World War I
-
World War II
-
Spread of Marxism
-
Influence of Marxism – “order from chaos”; only in utter chaos can the world find order
-
“When I read Marx’s Capital, I understood my plays”
KEY PHILOSOPHIES
-
Due to Marxist influence, Brecht strongly believed in devising new ideas
and methods out of chaos – the same went for the ideas of his plays. Order is
found in chaos. Answers are found in the randomness.
-
He wanted a theatre where the audience could view the situation on the
stage with no personal or emotional connections – so that they could take a
moment to see and analyze the happenings – don’t get absorbed in them, but look
at them objectively; theatre where the audience thinks critically of the
happening events
-
The audience must know that they are watching a play and that the
characters are played by actors
-
‘Verfremdungseffekt’
n Poorly translated by most
into ‘alienation’, the actual concept refers to the use of the stage, lighting,
and methodology of a performance to distance the audience emotionally
MANIFESTATIONS
-
Gestus –
tableaus or motions that are symbolic of the character using it
n Mother Courage’s Silent
Scream
-
Masks –
remove the emotional connection from the audience by removing facial
expressions and connections
-
Lighting – have the audience aware that the actors are merely performing by having
unnatural lighting; lights are on, even in the audience
-
Set and Stage – all signs of the production are visible to the audience
n scaffold, equipment, and
stage crew are all visible
n the audience sees the
backstage-work and knows it is a stage production
n often there is no set and
only a projection on a screen
n props are purely optional
in Brechtian theatre; pantomime is common
-
Placards
n highlight situations
n emphasize key words to the
audience
n characters either hold
placards or the captions are projected on a screen
-
Music
n Bursting into song to,
again, prevent the audience from getting too immersed in the play
COLLABORATIONS:
Lion Feuchtwanger
-
German novelist and playwright
-
First collaborative attempt
-
Together, they adapted Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II into
a play in 1924
-
“the germ of the conception of epic theatre”
Hanns Eisler
-
Austrian composer
-
Wrote music for several of Brecht’s plays
-
Shared their interest and influence by Marxism
-
They were life-long collaborators
Kurt Weill
-
German composer
-
‘Threepenny Opera’ (1928)
-
‘Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny’ (1930)
-
One of Brecht’s most famous and controversial works
-
A political-satire
Edwin Piscator
-
Friend and co-creator of epic theatre
-
Reviser of existing philosophies
-
Developer of the set ideas; projected setting, visible scaffolding, etc.
I did have some (very minor) quibbles with the production. I'm rarely a fan of back-projection, though here it is at least used sparingly and wittily. I also found myself wondering whether the resurrection of a sub-plot involving heroin skewed the production, despite being Brecht's own revision; though I also wondered how Yang Sun's descent could have been so complete without it. And I couldn't help wondering whether the unexpected return of the house lights was accidental, as interesting as the effect was. But Brecht's aim was to make his audiences engage intellectually with his plays, so it could be argued that even these questions are part of the show's success.
