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