Antonin Artaud.

Monday 3rd October 2011.

(Absent) 

Tuesday 4th October 2011.

Read through poem by Antonin Artaud. Then we all had to act it out using techniques from Artaud. The poem was called love. As I was absent Monday I found it really difficult to understand. Nick then set out a large banquet table, we then all started putting costumes together. I was a fat man in a dressing gown with  a large cigar. we all had to create a signature move, my move was pulling out my cigar from my pocket and toking on it. We had to repeat this several times as there was only 8 of us it was easy for nick to direct us. We then rehearsed most of the day so we could perform to the year 2s and Micheal.  They really liked and enjoyed it. Micheal then told us we all had a good understanding of Artauds techniques. I think we all worked really hard and everyone enjoyed today's lesson.

Bertolt Brecht.

Monday 26th September 2011.

This week we are learning about Bertolt brecht. In this lesson we had lots of fun we done freeze frames. Micheal put us in  groups of 2's and 3's and made us create freeze frames which had to include either the riots in London during august 2011 or the war on terror. This was very Practicle and fun. Then we had to get into groups of 5 and had to create a story through freeze frames. My group decided to do war on terror. Our story was three soldiers going in to a house killing the daughter and leaving the mother distraught. We had to do this in 10 freeze frames. This was difficult because they had to make sense and follow on from each other. Then Micheal told us that one scene doesn't  have to link to the next it can be muddled, this made us even more confused. We decided to continue to link the freeze frames together. After showing our freeze frame story we had to extend it with little notes to the audiences. This added sense of humour and it made the audience smile. The message behind the story was still there but instead of the audience feeling sad they would smile because that's brechts style.

Tuesday 27th September 2011  

Understanding Brechts Epic Theatre. we got handed a script and started reading it through. Nick slowly started giving out Character's to people. The play was written by Brecht and the play is about Hitler and was based in Germany. Once all of us had character we read through the script adding in the stage directions. Nick got really creative and gave us all costumes and made it more realistic. nick is a very strong director he knew what he wanted. I was part of the ensemble and without us the scene would have died. the ensemble was so funny and tiring but very enjoyable.

konstatin stanislavski :)

Monday 19th September. In this lesson we discussed Konstantin Stanislavski. about his technique's and about his system. we also discussed his objectives and super objectives when playing  a character. we talked about how the actor should work on thier character physiclly emotionally and psychologically.  We then used one of Stanislavski techniques which is emotional memory. Micheal made us lay on the floor and use our imagination. We had to listen  to noise's going on inside the arts depot then take our imagination to Trafalgar square and imagine what it looked like at that time of day was it loud,was there loads of people. Then we had to imagine the same thing but in Westfield shopping Centre. I found this easier then Trafalgar Square because I've been Westfield recently and I know the layout.
Tuesday 20th September. This lesson we had Nick. We carried on with Stanislavski's technique using emotional memory. Nick made us close our eyes and think back to the morning we woke up. What we ate what we did,who was the first face we saw.This was very interesting.Then we added sence's to it, what could we taste, smell, hear and see this was easy because it was fresh in my memory what i did that morning. Then we had to partner up and tell our partners an emotional story.My story was the day my sister gave birth to my nephew, I choose this day because it was filled with emotion and it was a day id never forget. Then  my Partner told her story and I had to ask loads of Sensory question.we then picked one of the 2 emotional stories and had to act it out to  nick and the class in stanislavski's realistic method of acting. This was good because I choose my partners story and i felt her emotion in the piece and Nick was pleased with Eva because she was able to show her Emotion with no dialogue.