Hampshire: Artaud

Our group is basing our production on the ideals and aims of Antonin Artaud. He was a French Practitioner around the time of the period before and during WWII.

Antonin Artaud

He was strongly supportive of breaking down the barriers between the audience and the actor and did so by recreating the way that pieces were performed by moving away from the idea of a conventional theatre and performing in barns, stations, churches and other similar places. He really wanted to present ideas to the audience and not just entertain them. A lot of his pieces focussed on issues such as the degeneration of society, sex, incest and death.

He was influenced by three main areas:
1. Balinese dance and theatre: Artaud liked the effect of gesture and facial expression on an audience's consciousness.
2. Lot and his daughters: this paintin contrasts the calm of Lot and his daughters with the destruction and death that is so evident behind them.
3. The Marx Brothers: Artaud was impressed by "the juxtaposition of imagery" He suggested that the use of puppets alongside actors would produce powerful contrasts about power and status.

Artaud really wanted theatre to be "anti-character and anti-psychological" or basically, the complete opposite to what is generally considered to be acting. He didn't want the script to rule the play but the physical actions and the movements and expressions of the actors to be used to provide the audience with a message or an emotion. "Theatre takes gestures and develops them to the limit" and it should have all conventional restraints and limitations removed in order to challenge and disturb his audience, allowing the performance to become a "catalyst for our dreams to become reality"

Artaud felt that lighting and sound was incredibly important to theatre in order to intensify the effect of the acting on the audience. He wanted to "torture" an audience with "unbearably piercing sound or noise"


The actor, according to Artaud, should be athletic and rigorous who is able to control his breath well. He claimed that screaming was and good experience for freeing the actor and also suggested the use of masks and puppetry to provide a sense of natural beauty in his theatre.

Artaud was involved in the idea of Total Theatre, in which every action was choreographed, sound was amplified and every prop or action had a meaning or purpose in order to create extreme moods to give the audience and overwhelmingly sensory experience.

His theatre drew on the concept that there are two types of people: rational and logical, and passionate and irrational.

It is suggested by Peter Brook that to apply Artaud is to betray him. Which could mean that performing one of his pieces will be even harder than it already appears to be!

ERD

Smith: Oh What a Lovely War background

Oh, What a Lovely War! is a musical that was created in 1963 by Joan Littlewood and the Theatre Workshop. Subsequently it was written in script form by Littlewood. 

Joan Littlewood

It is based on Charles Chilton's BBC 1961-1962 documentary radio ballad The Long Trail. The songs are ones from the period but sung as they would have been sung, rather than by a formal choir as they were for the radio show. It is a satire on World War I (and by extension against war in general).

The music hall song "Oh! It's a Lovely War," is what inspired the title of the play and which is one of the major numbers in the production.

Oh, What a Lovely War! premiered at the Theatre Royal Stratford East on 19 March 1963. It is an ensemble production featuring members of the theatre's regular company who played multiple roles. The sets were designed by John Bury and was largely bare, with a balcony and a screen to be flown in and out at the very back of the stage.

The original Oh What a Lovely War

Songs include:

Belgium put the Kibosh on the Kaiser

Goodbye-ee

Pack up your troubles

Hitchy-Koo

It's a long long way to Tipperary

Are we downhearte

Oh! It's a lovely war

Keep the home fires burning

(Taken in part from Wikipedia)

ERD

Smith: WWI Research

The following notes are from the research I did into my family's experience of World War One (and Two) in preparation for studying the Joan Littlewood play, Oh What a Lovely War.

Battle of the Somme

1916: My great-great-uncle Herbert George Merchant was blown to pieces at the Battle of the Somme. He was the eldest of six children, four of whom died in infancy and as a result his mother was always very protective of her second son, my great-grandfather Leslie Merchant. Leslie was an RAF officer in WWII but was too old for active service so was based in London.
My Great-great-grandmother was blown out of bed by a bomb in their street.
WWII: my maternal grandmother used to spend many nights in their air raid shelter. There were huge black tanks of oil around the city that were lit to give out smoke so that bomber couldn't see the city. It stank.
A German POW worked in their garden and after the war ended they sent him food packages

ERD