Acting: Lesson Ten

Tuesday 9^th December

This week in acting we start coming up with ideas for our 3 scene we have to do. We also made dolls to use in our scenes. We made the dolls look really unrealistic so the audience know that it a doll. We are did this to keep the audience so focus on what’s happening in the play and not wind up in the feelings about what happening in the play.

The ideas with came up with of our scene was we would use the dolls for the kissing scene between Adzio and steff as we want to distance the audience for the play. We also decide to swap characters at different sections of the scene and find we change when characters handed over an apple so we thought we could do a movement piece to change out characters and use the apple to move around. We are going to have different objects to show the different characters like a flower for steff and a cap for Adzio and a white coat or a something that a doctor would wear for Dr Korczak. We would all so talk to the audience instead of looking at the other actor to bring the audience back to know they are in a theatre. 

My strengths for the lesson were that i came up we some good ideas to help distance the audience but my weakness for the lesson was that I couldn't really remeber the technique he uses. I am going to bring in a lit of all his techniques that we could use in the play which well help me feel more confident in getting my idea.

Acting: Lesson Nine

Tuesday 2nd December

We read though the rest of Dr Korczak’s examples. Here are some of the techniques we find and the notes we made in class about the play.

As the story goes on Steff begins to turn against the resents the restriction lace on her by the government but she’s still attached to the orphanage where she lives and understand Dr Korczak’s points he makes. Steff is more practical minded, which prove that she’s the selfless and understanding young lady she  was  before Adzio come long, thinking about providing for the community whereas for Adzio is materialistic and selfish even though he has change Steff, she hasn't seem to change him to become more selfless.

Information is given out to the audience in scene21 by the actors not the characters, they talk about the orders given and it is also setting the scene of Cerniakov and his plan to help the orphans, how it fails which leads to his suicide. The dolls are used consistently as a distancing device e.g. the doll is broken before the character takes cyanide and dies, the benefit of doing this, is that the audience knows it about to help so they have no reason to feel sad and shocked. Playwright points out the humanity of the soldiers even though they are dolls. This shows how solider are as human as any of us. They are just following orders and know in their heart or head that they are doing wrong. The actors come out of the story to remind you it isn't real, it takes you out of the emotion, but somehow it is more emotion as it’s happened in real life and it just a remind of what happen to the children in times and how the right for children can about with the sacrifice and selfless of one man and his dreams. Korczak talks about being equal to children but can’t be honest with them about death at the end, which goes against one of the his right for the children which is “the right to desire, and claim, and ask” but he is being kind to the children and letting them have hope and dreams till the very end. Summary of political message at the end, a reminder to be thankful for Korczak, it’s relevant to a modern audience. Audience given the manifesto at the end as Brecht wanted the audience to actively think about messages of the play. This is a good idea as it keeps reminding the people in the audience of what happen and how they felt about this play.

The techniques that Brecht uses are Stereotypes, multiroling acting, distancing with dolls, direct address, montages. These will be use in our scene in which we were put ourselves in groups of three with one boy in each group. My group got the scene 15-17. We have the scene where Steff and Adzio kiss, to distance and take feeling out of the kiss I thought we could use the dolls which we help us remind the audience that we are in a play. 


My weakness from this lesson, are not commenting as much as I should but I feel like I did comment of important parts which I think I am glad of. 
My strength for this lesson would  be that I have a couple of good ideas of when it comes to thinking of the techniques to use in our scene.

Acting: Lesson Eight

Tuesday 25^th November

This week we started looking at Dr Korczak’s Example. This is story about Dr Janusz Korczak, a polish educator and children’s author. Dr Korczak was an owner of an orphanage which was move to ghetto during the Second World War. Dr Korczak is trying to pursuit the idea of children having natural rights while holding count between children. The story is base around fictional characters called Adzio and Stephanie, two orphans who try to resist the Germans violently.

We started to read though Dr Korczak’s Example. Point out Brecht techniques. Here are the different techniques we find in the play. At the start a storyline is played out twice in 2 different ways to show different outcomes –“This is how it probably happens but then we wouldn't have a story so we’ll change it”. This helps distances the audience from the story.  The actors tell the audience that their version of the story is a lie because they tell the audience that they are changing the scene because one of the main character get shot at the beginning. The actors talk about their character because they not want the audience getting attracted to the characters and this helps separate the characters form the actors. The actors tells the audience it is a real story with a made up character who Represents any kid you might know (an Archetypes are characters that could represent any kid you know in your life) which is show by using dolls, that are there to represent characters this also detaches the audience from their feeling using David Grieg uses dolls to enact scenes that are spoken about. E.g actor of Adzio examines the Doll Adzio’s scars Adzio is very blasé about this scar, this helps to removes feeling from the audience. The doll is used as a border between characters and their emotions.  In the scene between Adzio and Steff, the dolls slap each other first, then there’s a real slap between the characters/actors this distance the audience as they know that slap is coming. Jews are never referred to with names and neither are the flies, the killing of flies’ ends up helping another character which happens when Steff needs the loo. This is a metaphor for the sacrifices in war. The audience have less sympathetic to a doll than to a human so we are listening more to the political message rather than having emotional sympathy.  

The political message of the fly that people in power kill the flies. Adzio compares himself to a fly because he doesn't have the power to kill it but later when he start understanding that everyone has the power to kill just some people not use that power but he does use that power so he kills the fly. Later he compares the flies to Germans and kills them. There’s a sense of community in the Ghetto though out the whole play with the children running the count if there is someone the same age as them. The children get to said who stay and who goes because they are the one living with the other children. There’s a lot of description about characters explaining what is going on. The soldier Korczak speaks to is a tool for Korczak to say what is on his mind outside of the scene. When Adzio tempts Steff with the apple it is a metaphor for the Garden of Eden with Adam and eve. Then the priest kicks them out of the garden like Adam and eve were kicked out.  Actors looking at each other, not characters, show it is a significant moment. Adzio leaves. His doll behind to show he is leaving his old self behind. 

I feel my strength from this listen was that I understand the play and what was happening but my weakness was that I was worried about reading the play so I didn't really look and the techniques which I should of done so next week I'm going to find more techniques that Brecht using in the play.

Acting: Lesson Seven

Tuesday 18^th November

We perform our small plays using Brecht techniques. We watched all the groups and they were really good but one of them stood out which was a group who did the injustice of the World war 2.

The things I like and though work really well in their plays, which were they change the lyric of a song called “read all about it” by professor green. their use the quote “See no evil hear no evil speak no evil” which they use to show that when they did something to someone they would get abuse but if some other ten they did it they would not get abuse.

I like how the fame the judge they talked about how some judge abuse their right and power for different people.

Our play was really good and we use lots of Brecht techniques so we all felt it was strong piece but I feel that we should of work out a better ending because we just seen to stop and it didn’t feel like we finish. Adding the pelts was a really good idea and everyone understands what we try to imply. I think adding in about the asylum seekers was really creative as we could tell the history of IS so show we researched and really at what has happened about IS and how many lives they have destroyed.

My strengths from this performs was understanding what we were doing because I was worried that it would be complex in how we came up with but I felt I understand that I could come up with ideas for  the play.

My weakness was that I couldn’t hold focus face like when I was in the game I could stop smiling and I could hold it for some moments so I am a little disappointed in myself because in other scene I was fine and perform really well.

Acting: Lesson Six

Tuesday 4^th November

This week we were focus on setting out our play and we work out a short dance piece to beginning our play and it goes like this

I feel this short dance piece shows the conflict and team work as when we all join hands it seem we are joining allies to defeat our emery. When we sway together it shows that we are stronger together than we are apart. The beginning I feel like we try to defeat the emery by ourselves but realise that we need to come together.

My strengths from this lesson were that I understand where we got the different movements in the dance but my weakness was that I didn't really contribute to coming up with the dance moves. Next week I felt we need to set out what we are doing and then go in to more detail after wards we have more of a play structure out because I feel like we spend too much time of the dance movement instead of getting the whole play plan out.

Life's like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Acting: Lesson Five

Tuesday 20^th October

This week we were told to get in our groups and plan short play using epic theatre with a political message and use the different technique that bract uses in epic theatre.

To work out our political message we looked at everyone’s newspapers, and wanted to see if there was any common link between each one. We had a range of newspaper and we all had the link with innocent people getting hurt. We thoughts about using the terrorist group, IS (Islamic state) and the beheading of innocent people. One of the group members has a newspaper about turkey and IS, and how their Turkish president is not doing anything to help or support the Turkish public in sorting out this problem we thought that we could use that idea as it combination of two problem the world is facing at the moment.

We would be able to use a lot of ideas from this political message. One of group member speaks Turkish so we thought we would translation a conversation in Turkish and use signs to hold up to the audience so they know what is being said in the conversation. We would as so use songs and change the lyrics so it would fit with the play. We would also include verbatim theatre to help highlight the interviews we will include in our play. We worked out the different research points we need to look at and what member would do what. We need to insure our information we are giving out is accept and factual.

My research was about what the different generation think of their opinion on IS. I'm        going to ask the same questions to the different generations and we are going to use verbatim theatre. Verbatim theatre is documentary theatre in which plays are constructed from the precise spoken words by people interviewed about a particular event or topic. The group thoughts we could use this have conversation in Turkish. I am going to ask my grandparents, my parents and my brothers.

Here are the questions I am going to ask:

• -       How much do you know about IS?
• -       What’s your opinion on IS?
• -       What you opinion on government towards IS?
• -       Do you think the America should help kobane?
• -       What newspaper would you read to learn about IS?
• 
  

With any part you play, there is a certain amount of yourself in it. There has to be, otherwise it's just not acting. It's lying.

Johnny Depp

Acting: Lesson Four

Tuesday 4th October

This week, in our acting lesson we look at getting a social/political argument from a scenario. We showed our teacher the freeze fames we came up with for homework with the title: War- the maker of heroes, War- taker of lives, War- the division of people.

Our freeze fames were for war – the maker of heroes: on class member was held up with their fist in the air and the two people holding her up look down with one person on one knee in front of the hero. We thought this would be interesting because the hero is taller than everyone else and so she had a higher statue. And the two people holding her up would look down like being a shamed that they could be like her in a war so that why they are looking down. The people kneeing on the floor would think they were a god because she did something amazing.

This exercise help me understand Gestus a little better because you have to really think  and strengthen your poses to carry across what you wanted the audience to see.

We were given some scenario to creative small scenes with a social or political message, the group I was in choose this one:

Mother Courage

Kattrin the deaf and dumb daughter enters out of breath. She is carrying a variety of stuff – parcels, clothes etc. Mother Courage delves in to the sack and brings out Yvette the prostitutes red high heeled boots. Mother courage puts the boots on Kattrin.

We look at the trust the daughter had in her mother and used that to creative a scene that shows that all mothers aren’t nice to their children, we come up with the scene that the daughter would stand in the middle of the stage and the mother would come in put the red high heeled boots on, then bring a man to show what mother courage wanted her daughter to do. We use the facial expression to show trust and then terrified towards the mother and the man who came in.

We looked at montage which was about a mother turning to mad women then killer. We had to come up with small scene for each change we thought we would use a metaphor for turning mad, she would be swimming and it would get harder and harder for her to keep swimming. We used this because we thought it would show the struggles and pain she went thought then we did the final scene of a killer we used our bodies to created levels and our hands went around different group members necks. This shows that killing someone doesn’t just have effect on one person but many.

My strengthens from this lesson was that the idea I came up with, some of them weren’t used but people developed the idea so I feel like that was a strengthen but my weakness what to do with coming up with points for the other groups I found it hard to say what I saw.

Acting: lesson Two

23th September 2014

Hey,

Lesson 2 of acting was interesting because we had to talk about politics. Right and left politics which was harder because I don’t really understand politics very much, so it was good that we had some time talking about what it means and Brecht, who was a political worker, meaning he was motivated by his political views. His views were left wing because he followed Karl Marx which means he was more about what the people needed and wanted to make this world a better place.  We had three piece of paper which were places left, right and centre of the room, which one of us had to stand on to describe different political parties E.g. Labour, Conservative, Liberals, Tony Blair, Margaret thatcher, the idea of National Health Service, Comprehensive Education, West End theatre and Brecht.

Left winged- about the people	Centre – about both sides			Right winged- about the money
Karl max Brecht     National health service Comprehensive Education	labour party lair	West Liberals	Conserv En Margar		Hitler atives party    d theatre            et thatcher

This is a table I made to show you what we came up with for the different people we had to choose right wing or left wing politics. I understand more about politics now than I did when I first went in to the lesson and I think I am more left wing because I really do supported what the people need, more than what money is involved and the status people think they have power over others. We then went over what we learnt about Brecht techniques and about epic theatre, which help me because it reinforced my understanding. We then went on to do an activity which we had to be told a position from which we had to make a character from that position. We had one person with their hand on their back and the other person with their hand other their tummy while smoking, and I was the person with the hand on their tummy and smoking and I felt like a powerful man in a gentleman’s club because I felt pompous and secure in my position as a powerful man. So I imagined myself as a fat, controlling, untouchable old man with no hair.

My strengths from this lesson would be that I started understanding politic and I'm feel I am imaginative when it comes to thinking up ideas or characters and their life stories, my weakness would be from this lesson is that I'm slow at processes the information and because this lesson was more talking and lots of information give out I believe it wasn't my best lesson but I feel better when we started working practically regained my confidence. 

Bertolt Brecht devised the technique of Gestus, which is used emphasise to an action or gesture the actor is doing.  So for example if you give your fellow actor a push, the action is clear but not the intention or feeling behind it.  However if you add attitude to the gesture you can convey emotion and information about the role and story that is easily interpreted by the audience.

leave you with inspirationally word 

"To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new."
                                    Nicolas Cage

Acting: Lesson One

Hey all

My names is jenny and I’m starting to write a blog about my acting class which will include our work and techniques we will use and learn in this class.

We had three lessons already and they have been really good so far, we started this week by learning about Bertolt Braht, he was born on February 10, 1898, in the medieval city of Augsburg, part of the Bavarian section of the German Empire with his mum and dad. Bertolt was a playwright/director/poet, he wrote political poetry about social issues, like wealth and poverty. When in school around the ages 15-16 he started to write about anti-war poetry, about first-world-war and started to get in to Karl Marks theories about social just social justice, critical of capitalism, he asked who had power and money. He was interested in industrialisation and how it affected workers. Bertolt Braht created epic theatre when midstream theatre was Melodrama, Realism & Naturalism. Bertolt thought about what he wanted people to feel or think when they watch his plays and choose to write plays that make the audience think and know it wasn’t real, he also wanted people to challenge and question instead of just accepting what was in front of them. One of Bertolt’s techniques was to have the actors change on stage so the audience know that the play isn’t real.  

Here are some more techniques he used: “

·         Plays were performed with then house lights on so that audience members remained aware of each other during the performance,

·         Music and dancing were used to break up action of plays scenes were sung rather than speak, Placards were used to give information to the audience, 

·         All of the characters might be dressed in black rather than individually costumed, having actors also rearrange the set in full view of the audience,

·         Move as if blocking movements on stage for the first time or in robotic, dream like way, Treat voice and movement so that they do not match  Speak as if quoting someone else rather than speaking dialogue, 

·         Speak the stage directions aloud, 

·         Remain physically and emotionally detached from the other actors,

·         Play scenes with mismatched emotions, for example humour in sad scene, Perform directly to the audience  actors play multiple character,

·         Perform the role as if critically appraising the action from a far,

·         Actors to play characters believably without convincing either the audience or themselves that they have "become" the characters”

He became scriptwriter in Hollywood in 1940, Brecht died of a heart attack on August 14, 1956. When he died and he wanted to be buried with a stiletto heel through his heart in lead  coffin so his corpse would not be riddled with worms.

After we had a talk about Bertolt, we went on to look at a script that had no background story or what characters were in it. The script was this

A: I told you to stay away

B: I couldn't

A: if you don’t leave now . . . there will be consequences that we both will regret

B: I am willing to take the risk

A: I am warning you – I won’t be able to control my self

B: I can’t wait

A: I’d rather you would just leave

B: I am afraid you are stuck with me

So in pairs all had to come up with a storyline from the script in partner. my partner and I read through it and we thought it sounded cross and angry, so I stood and my partner walked around  me with a higher statue and I was scared, but still trying to not let her get to me so I was a little cheeky. Then we had to do the scene in some of Bertolt Braht style we had to do perform the scene nationalistically, perform it facing the audience, perform it standing back to back as if looking at each other, perform it twice, swapping characters in the second. I think we did really well, but watching other people I felt like our scene could have be developed more,  e.g. like my face could have  showed more emotion of being scared and maybe when I answered back I could look a little pleased with myself. I could have developed different scene to make it more elegant  and different from the other scenes e.g doing the scene facing the audience we could use more hand movements. 

leave you with some inspirational words   

"Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea" 
                                                                                  Robert half