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