Physical Theatre

Physical Theatre

Monday 9th September 2013

what is Physical Theatre?

First thoughts
Physical Theatre is when actors use their bodies to portray and object with in a scene as there is no limit to the objects that the actor can create with their bodies, also physical theatre can be used to let the actor imagination run free as well it can be use to relax.

As the book "though the body " by Dymphna Cavalry suggest that theatre during the 1880's theatre had change due to the arrival of cinema as the theatre couldn't keep up with what cinema could do which led to theatre changing it tactics.
                                                                                                                                             


Out of all the practitioner the one who I took the most interest into was Artaud because of what he created to theatre even though people thought he was made by creating different ways to present theatre to make an impact on the audience as he created theatre of cruelty, the reason why I liked the work of Artaud was because he was afraid to change theatre by creating new technic to perform in and different ways to perform by using the lighting and sound affects to help, I liked the fact that he changed thing that people thought were mad and thought that he was made but now in modern time people agree with what he introduced and teach his students is what I like about him.




Other practionier that we study

Monday 16th September 2013

evidence of what we were taught in by my peers

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Contempory development of Physical theatre

Berkoff

He focus on physical plays and performance, in his plays he looks at the exaggeration and stylized mine , exaggerated facial expression, abstract use of voice and ensemble playing the third person.

examples of some of Berkoff plays East, metamorphous, west, trail.

 

Pina Bausch
she looks more at the relationship between the male and female actors, her performance are a mixture of dance and acting with some movement and some dialogue, also she used elaborate set as if she wanted water she would have real water on stage and have the actor to perform in it.

DV8 (Digital video 8)

This company looked at acting and using media mixture together to make the performance they mainly focus on themes and issues to devise dance and theatre, also every project has a new cast so there projects are mixed up with different people playing the main characters, also they question how could film enhance dance and dance can enhance film, also they would challenged male and female role in society

Frantic Assembly

There creators had no knowledge of the performance arts industry when they first started up, they would give their audience a pre show of the show they were going to perform but wouldn't not give any of the plot away to audience and they create audenident and also used a heavy use of music.

Monday 23rd September 2013

as self study we  were set to watch a you tube clip of Berkoff, Pina Bausch, DV8 and Frantic Assembly.

Berkoff

In the "Trail" the actors would use part of the set as a part of their perform they exaggerated on their facial expression and body gestures and language to tell the story with not much dialogue used. the costume the actors wore was all black to represent the blank canvas.  

Pina Bausch

in this performance the actors would enter like a dance and then once they have got to their spot they would act and dance at the same time, there was no dialogue and the costume they wore was a bland cream colour also they use a lot of stylised movement.

DV8

They used more dialogue but had the use of narration to tell the story with the story being based on a current theme or issue also they used film and media that was intergraded into the set to explain the story more to the audience also they used stylised movement and dance to present the story.

Frantic Assembly

they perform an old story and use the original text but set the story in modern time by setting to play in a pub with all modern equipment like a gambling machine and pool tables and wearing modern clothing they also use stylised movement with dance to help resent the story to the audience.

What is Physical theatre?

Physical Theatre is the physical and verbal interpretation where physical and verbal are mixed together and they can be more themed base then scripted but do work on both.   

Monday 23rd September
DV8
methods taken from to be "straight with you", we were giving a context and we had to devise a scene with out words to start of with we read the context on drug and find the key trigger words for the movement me and Sasha was actors moving on stage with someone else reading the context to us I played a mixture of different characters from a father of a son who was on drugs to a school boy on drug to helping his friend stop on each trigger word we change our position and movement to represent the word we repeated the scene twice but change the element of the subtext as in the first scene we change when we herd the trigger word on the second scene we took the trigger word out and read the text and when we knew the word was coming up we change to show that word instead of some saying it.

With devising with out word I found creating the actions and movement easy to think of the action to represent to key trigger words was as you to try one thing then change it if it doesn't work or that you could have more then one idea on one word but I found hard was choosing the right trigger word from the context that the actions had to represent.

Out of the two situation one with the trigger words and the one with out I preferred the second one to the first as this one you could be more flexible as you didn't have to wait for the trigger word to be said by the narrator reading the context without the trigger words.

Monday 30th September
Frantic Assembly
methods taken from "Klub", this time we improvised movement around the given context of getting ready to go out. we thought on how we would get ready and used our own movements to a beat of 8 and also the music help keep to the beat, we developed it further by giving a character more etherized movement of a poses to show to the audience that a certain poses was important when getting ready, to add to this we change the setting to a toilet but still the same movement that we devised also we move the space were we had a smaller mirror which made us come more closer to the audience and experiment with leaves whilst still doing the movement this was a effective as the audience could see more of what you was doing closer up then we change to it to thing that was going wrong but still using levels this was effective as the audience could see more of our facial expression when thing went wrong.  The development that I liked the most was when doing the small  mirror and having things wrong as I could think of so many thing that could go wrong so it was fin to experiment with what was going wrong with the levels helping to show where thing had go wrong, once we did the levels we changed it in to a scene but we were all doing our own movement but also we could inter act with each other and include others within our own performances. at some point there was times where I could developed it with my own ideas, some of the ideas I had was someone comes around your house once you had got ready another idea was to have a situation once you had gone out and the last idea I had was doing the opposite to oringal movement instead of getting ready to go out to come back after the night out and start taking the clothes that you was wearing off and start getting ready for bed.

Monday 7th October
Stockholm
the exercise that we did was taken from Stockholm,

this task involved creating a scene which shows one room within a 24 hour period from the view of CCTV. the room that me and Amelia chose was the kitchen as it could show the couple from the morning eating breakfast though to dinner then though to going to bed once we created the scene we performed the scene to give the audience a clear understanding of someone story as well this task was a fun task to created as I had to think about my own daily routine to help create the scene.

then we had to think and write down 10 question we wanted to ask the other person me and Amelia went with the theme of a couple would have trust issues once we had written down the questions we had to look at the person reactions to the questions whilst they were doing the routine this part of the task was interesting to do and watch as I had to think about what my reaction would be to a certain questions and to watch Amelia reaction to my questions.

the final part to the task was we were giving a random script and we had to use the dialogue of the script to add to the movement that we had created we had to develop which parts of the script that we had to add movements to, to make the dialogue make scene with the movements this part of the task was the part that I found the most challenging as at some points the dialogue didn't work at all and I found it hard to trying to making it all work. If we were giving a different random script we could have change the movements or make new movements as the possibility could be endless.

THE END OF YEAR SHOW 

HOW TO DISAPPEAR COMPLETELY AND NEVER BE FOUND!

How to disappear completely and never be found is by Fin Kennedy and the play follows the character of Charlie who is a successful business executive who has a stressful life style Charlie is also a drug user as he uses cocaine as well the character carries around his mother's urn, The play follows the character through to his breakdown but as well the play works backwards as throughout the first act Charlie see his Pathologist called Sophie who is trying to work out how Charlie died, towards the end of the first act Charlie meets one of his mother's friend called Mike, Mike help Charlie disappear by changing his identity from Charlie Hunt to Adam Westbury, the play ends with the death of Mike and Charlie/Adam.


The character that I played was

Key             Characters that link together. 

The Tube Man - A character who works in lost property at Finsbury Park Tube station, character helps Charlie who has collapsed, the tube man tell Charlie about people losing stuff like umbrellas and mobile  phone and tells Charlie that people should be more carefully. The tube man also pick pockets Charlie after he has noticed that Charlie took a watch out of the lost property box.











Eric - Eric is Charlie best mate they meet up for a drink at a pub and that's when Eric notices the urn and the tablets that Charlie has, Eric is a character who is a bit up himself and tells Charlie about his behaviour at work his been noticed and warns Charlie by telling about how good his job is and that he doesn't want to throw it away. 










Landlord - The Landlord shows Adam around the flat that Adam is about to buy and discovers abut about Adam that doesn't seem right as Adam asks about the room that doesn't any furniture, the Landlord refers to his wife Jean a couple of times, once the Adam give the Landlord the money for the flat the Landlord discovers cocaine and kicks Adam out and keeps the money that he gave.  

















Pawn man - The Pawn man notice Adam walk in and noticed Adam not feeling very well, the Pawn man links to the Tube man scene as the character both talk about lost property and that people should be more careful with there stuff. The Pawn man scene also links to the Tube man scene with the watch that the tube man gave to Charlie but in this scene Adam is trying to sell the watch but the pawn man doesn't accept it and kicks him out. 

















Barry -Berry is the character that comes to Adam at the end  scene as Barry is after the money that Charlie/Adam they owe him but when Barry finds Adam his attitude towards him changes as Barry starts to feel bad for Adam for the state that he is in. 



I was giving the roles to challenge me on how well I can multi role on characters and how I could differentiation the character so they are all different from each other but for some of my character they link to each other so I had to present them in a way that they would link and at the same time be different to each other.

Cast 

Tom - Charlie, Ghost 

Ryan Y - Adam, Ghost, Fat Man

Sasha - Sophie, Ghost

Natasha - Ellie, Bureaucrat 3, Nurse, Medical Student, Party Person 1, Ghost, Young Women,  

Natalia- Doctor, Party person 3, American client 1, Dani, Bureaucrat 1, Ghost,Women, Medical student

Amelia - Party person 2, American Client 2, Angelina, Yevtsye, Priest, Medical Student, Bureaucrat 2, Man. 

Kat - Roberta, Mike, Older Man, Ghost. 

When we were giving the script we looked though each scene and looked how we could add physical Theatre to the performance for some scenes we decide that some scene we shouldn't add physical theatre to, We added physical to the performance as the script was non naturalist and using physical Theatre to make the performance more abstract and the Physical theatre can helps explore Charlie/Adam mind more. 

Pre Scene - Tube train- we used sticks to show that we were on a tube train a the sticks represent the pole that passengers hold on to as well we used the sticks to show the doors of the train where Charlie forces open the doors. we also positions our body is in away to show a tube train. 

Scene 1 Tube Man Scene- During the paragraph when the tube man address the audience talking about the umbrella, one of the Ghost brought an umbrella on and put it up the umbrella behind me and places it in to my hand on the line "The Umbrella the safety net of our nation" using the umbrella added empathise to the line and also backs up what the tube man is saying,  and then on the line "and now the shrill self promoting portable phone has taken it place" I pull the umbrella down to show that I wasn't talking about the umbrella any more and handing it back to the Ghost. 

Scene 2 Doctor Scene - We added physical to this scene to give a sense to the audience am I here or am I not, as the doctor is listing things that could be wrong with Charlie and the Ghost are doing the diagnoses for her, by having the ghost in the scene makes the scene more abstract and surreal to take the scene away from a stereotypical doctors and make the scene more engage.  

Charlie big speech Scene - We used Physical to this scene to back up  what Charlie saying by giving the audience a visual to what Charlie was talk, but as well we use voice over to this scene to break up the flow of the performance which help keeping the audience engage. 

Office scene ( Eat, sleep, rave, repeat)- we used physical to this scene to break up Charlie dialogue and to give the audience a visual reference to drug use and abuse as from the video we use the office people to show what the side effects of drug use and to show the audience what Charlie gets from taking drugs. By adding the movement we did it in the style of the frantic assembly as they move to counts of 8.

Charlie transition to Adam Scene - We added physical to this scene to make the scene more abstract as the scene is the key scene of the play where Charlie becomes Adam to show the transition to someone new we show Adam giving up his life but having the Ghost take Charlie soul away from Adam to show this we use over sized credit card which the Ghost broke up and throw in to a toilet which show Adam saying Goodbye to his old life.

Priest Scene - We added physical to this scene to make the scene more engaging to the audience by having on of the Ghost dancing in the back ground to back up what the priest is saying to Adam but as well to give a visual to the audience to make the scene more abstract and unreal to take the audience away from the stereotypical grave yard which you can see from the video.

Bureaucrat Scene - This is the final scene which we added physical we added the physical by using a props as we used sticks to forms the desk of the bureaucrat office desks the Ghost hold the sticks up then the sticks move to form the car for Adam driving test by using the sticks it adds the a different and engaging level to the scene as it give a visual to the scene and as well sets the scene so we didn't have to use projections to set the scene. 

When we added the physical to any scene we did it in a no liner way as we worked on scene that have needed more physical then others scenes but when we were doing the blocking we blocks the scene in liner, When adding the physical we decide to called the characters who did the physical Ghost to give them a physicals form but these character were always in blacks to show the blank canvas.

The ideas that I came up with is the tube man scene with having something to do with a umbrella in the scene as originally the scene was set with me bring the umbrella on when I came back on with Charlie glass of water but we change it to have the umbrella come in later when I talk about the umbrellas to Charlie. 

A scene that worked well was the office scene as the movement that we  created show someone who abused drugs and the side effects of drugs abuse but there is part of the that scene which didn't work which is where some of the movement were small and not noticeable so if it was done again the movement need to be more exaggerated and bigger to make the scene look bold and stand out. 

Blocking 

When we started the blocking we did it in a liner so we went though the script scene by scene and started with the basic blocking where should people stand when should they move before we added the physical theatre but we also went thought the script to find scene that could be recorded which is in the style of DV8 which breaks up the show from live to record by doing this it keep the audience engage and also gives them a new sense to the performance, the scene we used a recording for was the meeting with the American Clients we records this to get the full blocking of a meet by having a Skype call with the Americans all the dialogue would be pointing towards the audience as if they were the web cam that Charlie was talking to, the next scene that we record was the scene were Adam wakes up in Sophie's lab we recorded this scene to give the audience a different texture to the performance as the whole scene is supposed to be in Sophie's head so by having the scene record for the audience it gives them a sense that scene is not real, The last scene that we recorded was the end scene when Charlie and Adam walk off we recorded and change the scene from having Charlie falling in the to sea as one we couldn't present that in recording or live performance and we changed it to make the end of the performance more emotional for the audience as well for the audience to see that Charlie and Adam are the same person.

Lighting 

For the lighting we had a tutorial with Alex from Hertford Theatre who explain how to set up and used the lighting desk but we left the main controls of the light to Natasha who programs to light for every scene of performance and added the lighting effect but the rest of us help choose the colour gels were needed for each scene as the colour of the gels matter as they help set the mood and the emotion of the scene. for every scene we had some form of wash to help light the scene, for the office scene we use a range of colour such as greens, red and blue to show the mixture of emotions but as well the green light show the colour of someone who is throwing up. As you can see from the video of the lighting effects that we use for the scene also went in time with the music of the scene which adds more of visual lighting effects for audience and moves the audience away from simple lighting of a wash.  This is the diagram that Alex gave us and which we used to help us to work out what light is where and where the light connected to.

Sound 
For the sound we had a total of 200 different sound effects which were broken down to voice recordings and sound effects, for the sound Kat took charge of getting the sound effects that we needed such as the sound for the tube train and a mobile phone ringing, and Ryan Y did the voice recording getting the actors voice for certain scene.

We decided to use voice recording as they were one a great way for transitions for scene to scene but as the they also break up the performance from live to recorded which is a another way to keep the audience engage and gives them a different texture to the performance, another reason we used voice recording was because we didn't have enough bodies to play the parts of the characters on stage as if the lines recorded we live which would mean more costume changes and less time for the scene to change, but there is one recording which we had the actor who voice it was on stage by the having the recording and having Ryan Y reacting to the recording gave a different sense for the audience then getting it back to live performance. 

Costume 

With the Costume of the performance we all had a black base because having a black base mean that we are a blank canvas waiting to become and character or a item but we also decided that the Ghost should also be in a black base so the audience wouldn't notice them as much in a black out and when the lights came but on they wouldn't take the attention away from the main characters.

For other costume we tried to get a costume that would represent the character that we were playing at the time but we all had one item of costume apart from me that was using the start and end of the performance for me my item was used only at the start of the performance which was Hawaiian shirt.

The other costume my characters had...

Tube Man- A High Visibility Jackets and ID Card . 

Eric - A suit  

Landlord - Hoodie

Pawn Man - Jumper and Golden Chain 

Barry - Tracksuit bottoms, Zoodie and a Coat.

Projection 

With the projection that we required me and Natalia read though the script and decide what sort of projection we needed for each scene, most of the projection that we research we used to help set the scene to give the audience a sense where the characters at a certain scene.

Some of the projections were pictures other were video which we had recorded and other we pictures which help set the scene, For some of the images me and Natalia edited the picture to get the effect that we want for such the image we got of the Gravesend ferry we made the picture black and white to make the scene more more depressing as well we add a cross in front of the picture to show that the audience are looking though a window by doing this we could play with the blocking of this scene by having Adam look at the audience where the window would be and giving the audience and image of what Adam is seeing.

Another scene we got a video for the background instead of a picture was the Priest scene as we research the images for a backdrop but we could find any that work that we want so we got a video of You Tube which had what me and Natalia wanted and edited the video by making it black and white to show the emotion of the scene which would be sad and depressing,.  

My contribution to the overall performance we creating and ordering the projections that were needed for certain scene but as well the adding ideas to the scene on how the a scene should be presented the main scene that I added most of the ideas was the tube man scene and part of the end scene with Barry. 

If I was taken out of the equation of the performance rehearsals and blocking I wouldn't be missed as I didn't give many idea's for other scene I mainly gave ideas for the scene that I was in as well I didn't give any ideas for the sound or lighting I just helped the setting up the light but I was more giving ideas for the projections as I took more of a control.

If I could do this again I would try to give more ideas to the creation of scene and coming up with more ideas for the adding physicals to any of the scene but I should give more of a contribution to scene instead of letting over people take control.