Vaudeville evaluation.

Today we performed our scenes from The 39 Steps. I believe it went very well. I worked well with my partner and we exchanged ideas well, listening to each other and working out how we could turn a normal script into a quirky and funny piece by working out our tone and body language.

I think this was hard at times as making our body language funny could be quite difficult and look rough and not funny in places. There was a fine line of exaggerating the piece and going too over the top. Which was difficult to contain. In addition, getting the tone right was hard as well. Most of the humour came from the way we delivered our lines, so making sure our tone was correct allowed for maximum humour of our lines, but did take some practice to get hold of.

If we were to do this piece again, the one thing I would change is the pace at which our piece moved. Too many times did we slow the pace of the scene, which wasn't representative of the vaudeville style. It's meant to be fast paced and move quickly from line to line to add to the humour and impact of the punch lines. I think if we had more time to work on our scenes and had time to learn our lines more thoroughly, then this would be achieved with success.

Vaudeville 1881 1920

Before the American civil war America was dominated by burlesque acts and risqué performances. Theatre was not only a place to be entertained, it was for men to have a drink and predominantly aimed at men.

In 1881 a pioneer, Tony Pastor decided theatre shouldn't just be for men, that the shows were missing a whole audience. He wanted to make shows cleaner as a variety to appeal to a wider audience. The style was similar to that of a Cabernet or Britains Got Talent and was called Vaudeville. This was aimed at the middle class not just the rich. He then went on to removed risqué and crude performances. Also, he banned drinking in the theatre as he wanted to make it a family orientated activity.

He found that they could make a huge amount of money from performances such as the ones they were doing. And as the years went on the variety shows increased in diversity. Eg: mimes, riverboats were introduced. However there were still some risqué performances to cater for the rich with the burlesque taste.

The purpose of these performances wasn't to get emotionally attached to a scene. the sole purpose was to entertain.

Over the years from the 1880-1920 easiest way to entertain people was to make them laugh. Which was why an increasing number of performances contained comedy sketches and slapstick comedy.

The Demise of Vaudeville

Vaudeville became much more popular as the years went on as it appealed to many audiences featuring Irish and black people. However, these performances were designed to be racist, with people laughing at them whilst watching stereotypical racial performances.

However technology also become Vaudevilles competition as silent movies had started to come out and the cinema was much cheaper. Theatre was more expensive.

Consequently. Vaudevilles became less common as they could not support themselves as much as they once could leading to many theatres shutting down.

As we have progressed Vaudeville has been reborn into something called New Vaudeville, examples of which are BGT or the Royal Variety Show. However comedy sketches have been kept that were brought to life by Vaudeville by presenters such as Morcambe and Wise, Laurel and Hardy and Ant and Dec.


39 Steps is a spoof of Vaudeville performances.

What makes it New Vaudeville.

• Overtop physicality
• Comedy
• No character relationship
• Overtop voices
• Acknowledge audiences presence

Today, we were split into small groups of two or three and given separate scenes from 39 Steps. I took the role of Hannay whilst my partner, the Milkman. One of our main focuses early on was making sure our body language was over the top and exaggerated, as that would be a huge part in the comedy aspect. In addition, we noted that our voices needed to be distinctive and over the top, again, to engage the audience and make it funny. We included slapstick elements to our piece, such as when Hannay bumps into the Milkman, he runs round to catch him before he falls, as it would be a funny and unusual sight to see. In addition, we worked on a very slick coat change where we switch in a matter of seconds. These little things are just as important as dialogue in engaging our audience and making them laugh.

Afterwards, we performed short pieces of our scene in mime. The purpose of this was to see how good we were at portraying the situation and our characters personality and emotions purely through body language. This helped us understand just how important body language is in Vaudeville performances and that it tells a huge story on its own.

Acting Styles: Evaluation

Today, we performed our scenes from A Midsummer Nights Dream. Our group decided that it was best for me to take over the role of Oberon as the Shakespearian dialogue was proving difficult for the original person we cast. This meant I had little time to get used to the character. We researched the context of the scene and I knew what my character was saying and how, which is annotated on my script below. I knew what tone to use and knew that I needed to show a flirtatious relationship with Titania, but at the same time a degree of tension and a bit of dislike, even though they are attracted to each other, without letting each other know.

I thought, considering the time constraints we had to prepare, which was one double lesson, we done well. The difficulty we had was trying to make the performance interesting and exciting, without any modern techniques. Shakespearian theatre had no movement or projections. It was very basic and we had to try and adopt this acting style as we'll as we could. We used our space and staged carefully so the set appeared more interesting.  Another feature was that we had to exaggerate our lines and body language to enge the audience more which I think we done with moderate success. But I think if we had more time we could have learnt out lines to an extent where we could have relaxed and acted without having to refer to our scripts constantly, then our acting would have been more over the top and thespian like. I found  this task very difficult as there was very little we could add and it was hard to understand.

Naturalism

Afterwards, we moved onto the style of naturalism. We were split into new groups and were given one lesson to create a naturalistic piece that focused solely on acting, with no visual aids. I came up with the idea of a funeral at which people bad mouthed the deceased only to realise that he wasn't dead and was standing outside. It worked very well as a dark comedy, but for the piece we were trying to create it did not. We decided to scrap the idea and devise one in twenty minutes, where people turned up to a funeral pretending to be the deceased best friends, as people are at their most popular when dead. I played the husband who became angry at the fact that everybody was claiming they knew his dead wife so well, even though he had just heard them bad mouthing her. Again, this task was difficult as there was little we could do, we just had to make sure our acting was very good, which we did.

Acting Styles: Shakespeare

The Elizabethan and Jacobean period.

In 1576 James Burbage, father of  actor, Richard Burbage, purchased a lease and permission to build The-Theatre in London.

The Lord Chamberlains men, a theatre company led by Richard. Performed Shakespeare plays and were the company in residence from 1594 to 96.

Writers began by presenting their ideas for a plot. The actors and managers then decided whether they liked it or not and  offer a down payment for it's completion.

Writers created their characters with certain actors in mind. For example knowing that Richard burbage was the Chamberlains leading man and  that he had a good memory for long scripts. Shakespeare created the parts of Richard 3. And hamlet for him. And as he grew older. Shakespeare made his characters more mature

Each player or actor received their own role. A long sheet of parchment with lines written on. This meant that they would not see who else was going to be on stage until they actually rehearsed the scene

Rehearsals were used to sort out the details not specified in the script. Entrances costumes and songs were all filled in by the actors

1593. London theatres had to close due to outbreak of bubonic plague.

1596-97 the city of London authorities banned public performances of plays within the city limits

1597. Dispute over the lease of the theatre. The Puritan owner. Giles Allen. Disapproved of the theatre and the acting troupe. Burbage opened negotiations to renew lease of the theatre
Shakespeare's company of actors moved to the Curtain Theatre after failed negotiations to re new lease for the theatre.

1598. Timber from TheTheatre taken to use for the building of a new venue. Called the Globe Theatre

1599. The globe theatre is opened on bankside. Southwark. London.

1603. Bubonic plague re-emerged  and killed over 33000 people.

1608 the theatre closed.

1613 June 29. Fire at the globe theatre during a performance of Henry VIII..

1614. Globe theatre is rebuilt on it's original foundations. This time the roof of the globe is tiled. Not thatched.

Two years before Shakespeare's death.

Not all theatres were outside. Until 1609 the indoor theatres were used by boy companies. These grew out of choir schools that performed privately. They usually played just once a week rather than almost every day. As the adult companies.

The audience was thought to be more educated and richer than an outdoor one. Indoor plays had more music more sparkly pros sucks as pearls and more speeches than action

Indoor theatres grew into existing theatres. They were open to a public and charged an entry fee. First permenant indoor theatre St. Paul's opened in 1575. Held 500 people.
Tickets more expensive. Lit by candles.

Quen Elizabeth died in 1603. King James took throne. Jacobean era ran until 1625.

Jacobean theatre was dark and disturbing. Grotesquely violent and often shockingly obscene.

Sexuality was very prevalent in Jacobean performances. Along with a heightened sense of violence and general immoralities.

As the economy declined. So did the delicacy of the theatre performances moved from outdoor to indoor because of the changeable weather.

Jacobean drama.

Revenge plays
Obscene and violent

Tragicomedies were more grotesque with dark humour and very sexual in nature.

 The two most producers of Jacobean revenge plays were John Webster. The Duchess of Malfi. And the White Devil. Ben Johnson and Shakespeare were also performed a lot at this time including Othello, Macbeth and King Lear.

1642. The English civil war role out between the parliamentarians puritans and the royalists. Parliaments suppress plays that didn't for their religion. And the globe was pulled down. Houses were built in place

1648 the puritans orders all playhouses to be pulled down. All actors were arrested and anyone caught attending was fiend. It took 12 years before theatres re opened

1649. The civil war finally leads to the terrible execution of King Charles 1 by parliament

1653 Oliver Cromwell becomes lord protector of England

Theatre stops it will take 7 years before the restoration begins.

Our task

We were split into new groups and handed scripts a section of A Midsummer Nights Dream. Our main challenge was trying not to slip into the reading the lines in a typical Shakespeare style, we had to read into the context of our scene as we didn't understand what it meant. We found that the Fairies and Puck are actually mocking each other, whilst Titania and Oberon argue, but flirt at the same time. This helped us alter our tone and body language as a result.

Our next task was to stage our scene. We knew that Shakespeare plays staged two sides on separate sides of the stage and stuck to this, however, we wanted to allow our characters to move round to appear more interesting and exciting, but were wary of how we blocked the scene and made sure not too much movement was happening. With Oberon and Titania, we wanted to show them coming close to the boundaries of the two sides to show their flirtatiousness and the fact that they aren't true enemies, just hiding a love for each other. As Shakespearian Theatre limits us to what we can do in terms of techniques, we really have to exaggerate our lines and body language to engage the audience, whilst improvising in places such as they would back then. I think this style has been the hardest so far, simply because it is hard to understand.

Physical Theatre: Evaluation

Overall, I think our piece was performed relatively well. I think we used a range of techniques and carried them off to a good standard, especially in the time we had to construct the piece. I also like the message we wanted to show, as we felt it had a deep meaning and a real sense of sophistication about it. I think we displayed creative movements and showed, in terms of staging and dialogue, how well thought out our piece was, I think we had really nice elements of showing repression. Also, I think the way our piece flowed and how quickly we came up with it was down to our group working productively and professionally to achieve what we all wanted.

However, after feedback we realised that, perhaps, our piece wasn't clear enough in terms of the message we wanted to get across. Perhaps we should have added some pictures or projections to aid our idea of repression and how religion shapes people. Another thing that was a problem is that we only had two lessons to come up with a piece, which is a very short amount of time. Ideally, we would have liked to spend a couple of weeks on conducting workshops to experiment different styles of physical theatre, like DV8 or Frantic Assembly, to gain a wider knowledge of styles and a greater knowledge of what movements we could use. I thought the time and lack of knowledge of styles limited us, as we had to work quickly to get a piece done. If we did have longer, I think the piece would have been longer, more creative and more polished as a result, but in the time we had  think we showed we have creative minds, can work efficiently as a team to get things done and that we grasp an understanding of Physical Theatre.

Physical Theatre

Our task, after research, was to devise our own Physical Theatre piece based on a political stimulus. In our group we spent a while coming up with a motive. We decided that we should go for a piece that highlights the issue of repression and how, from a young age, people are moulded into what religion wants them to be, that being individual and different is unacceptable. Our stimulus was the school girl Malala Yussuf, who was attacked as she was a girl going to school. We wanted to show that religion has a strong control on peoples lives, not necessarily for a good reason.

With this decided, we decided that we should choose music first to build around it, which happened to be Kanye West, "I am a God" ironically. We set our beginning in which people mould our main actor into shapes they want him to be in, before they surround him and he breaks out. Whilst this occurs some of us are on the floor slamming the ground at intervals. Our main focus of the piece was to show repression, to show the conflict religion causes, the expectation that everyone should be the same, that no ideas are challenged and those that do challenge society are unable to break out in the corrupt world of religion.

A lot of work went into devising this piece, as well as careful thought. This time, we cut back on the techniques and made sure we only used what worked. In our piece we have used motif, contact improvisation, movement, status  and proximity. Our main use of status was to show the power between people, and that those who are fixed in their beliefs have more power over those speaking out for change. Once the movement was set, we decided that we needed to add some dialogue in, but didn't want to add something in without meaning, so we researched the rosary in Latin, to which we found the line In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. This was very useful and we implemented this into our start and all say Amen in unison. The prayer, we decided, would be good to play also, so we managed to combine the song with the prayer, which created a really quirky sound.

Acting Styles: Physical Theatre

Physical theatre, in essence, is theatre that puts emphasis on movement rather than dialogue. In other words, anything that puts the human body at the centre of the storytelling, therefore, it is often very abstract and unique in style, using movement in a stylised and representational way.

One famous drama company who specialise in Physical Theatre are DV8. They use Physical Theatre as a full art form and focus on looking at the dramatic potential that can be unlocked from movement. They describe their work as combining the crossroads, where dance and drama meet. They use Physical Theatre to explore complex aspects of human life, issues and relationships.

In their production of "Can we Talk About This?" the performers used Physical Theatre to express extremely complicated and delicate social and political issues surrounding Islam.

Another company called Frantic Assembly combine dialogue with movement, and worked with the National Theatre for the production of the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night.

The companies production of "Lovesong" by Abi Morgan, demonstrates a different way of performing Physical Theatre. They use more dialogue, but most of the impact comes from movement, to show relationships and changes over a couple of years.

Stylised Movement: Normally, in Shakespearian plays, actions are described. For example, the battle scene before the beginning of Macbeth was described, however in his production of Macbeth, Kenneth Branagh was hailed for the physicality of the piece. Movement can make a play much more exciting.

Physical Theatre can also be used in the way of the director. Steven Berkoff used it in "The Trial" to provide scene, whether it is furniture for a room or a busy street, he always used people, allowing for great impact. The stage for his production was a cast, simple frames and a rope, in order to allow the actors to create the staging and show off their versatility and talents.

Combining Art Forms: Physical Theatre has a focus on movement, but at the same time can be separate from the spoken word, or combined with it. It can be devised or contain elements of improvisation beyond the script. These elements may include music, dance or media.

Commedia: Commedia dell'arte is recognised as the starting point for Physical Theatre. It began in Italy in the 16th century and was a popular form of street theatre in which actors carried out improvised scenes with stock characters. The main focus on this type of theatre was that the actors wore masks, so facial expressions couldn't be seen, so emotions must have been obvious through their body language.

Techniques

• Proximity
• Gesture
• Harshness and Tenderness
• Stance
• Mask work
• Contact Improvisation
• Mime
• Status
• Dance work
• Not moving
• Movement
• Motif

Contact Improvisation: Was developed from improvisation and is usually performed by two people. When there is contact between the two people, there is a response, for example if someone was to go up and push another actor the actor would respond in one of three ways. Absorb the impulse, to resist or to respond with the motion.

Bertolt Brecht: Part 3

Today we performed our piece to the rest of the class. Unfortunately, two of our cast members were missing today, so we had to borrow someone in the other group who had missed both of the last two lessons to fill in for Yussup and another old woman. Which wasn't ideal as he only had about half an hour to get familiar with the piece. Thankfully the girl who played Grusha in the other group agreed to play the part in our piece too, which made things a lot easier.

Putting the setbacks aside, I think we done well. We implemented a lot of techniques that Brecht used in his time and I think we were organised in how we set about our piece and it flowed very smoothly. One thing we struggled with was trying to come up with ways in which we could make the piece quirky and interesting. We all found the piece boring and one thing we should have done was to discuss how we could add flair and excitement to the piece, we didn't do this, and as a result I found the piece a bit flat. We needed to add some quirkiness to the piece, give it some character, we all seemed to be very restricted in what we did, this impacted on our performance, which seemed basic. In future, I think we should express our ideas as a group to show off our creative talents.