Tuesday 26 March 2013

Commedia dell'Arte


Commedia dell'Arte is a very ancient theatre style, dating back to the sixteenth century. However, it is also a very adaptable theatre form, and its focus on current events and contemporary jokes mean it is always relevant today. The simple, sometimes coarse, humour and silly stock characters are used to make the audience laugh, both at figures of authority, but also at the characteristics they recognise in themselves.

Commedia is centred on the audience, and the improvisation element of the style means that it is able to respond and adapt depending on the audience. There is a sense of collusion with audience members demonstrated by frequent asides and no fourth wall.

There are several key aspects of Commedia Dell’Arte that make it distinctive. Nearly every play is based on a set scenario. The scenario is adapted to a particular audience by referencing current events and generally involves some form of mistaken identity, or conflict.

Stock characters appear in most scenarios and always are always the same. The Zanni are low status, always wanting food or sex. They are the main cause of misunderstanding due to their stupidity. The lovers are dignified, unconcerned with anything except their mutual adoration. Pantalone is a greedy merchant, the Doctor pretends to know everything, the Captain is a cowardly soldier, and so on. Each character has an unmistakeable physicality setting them apart. Didi Hopkins on Youtube describes the characteristics and physicality of the Commecdia characters and seeing professional actors construct them step by step was useful to me.

Within a scenario a character will often have a Lazzi, a repeated action that builds up the comedy of their character. For example, if the Doctor tries to be dignified, his hat might repeatedly fall off so he has to bend over to pick it up. Lazzi are also used in individual scenes to increase humour; cross talk occurs when a character repeats questions to avoid answering them. Long strings of silly insults such as “cat’s bottom” are also used. 

Useful Resources:

Books
  • Commedia Dell’Arte: An actor’s handbook – John Rudlin
  • Lazzi – Mel Gordon
  • Commedia Plays – Barry Grantham
  • Playing Commedia – Barry Grantham
  • A Servant to Two Masters – Carlo Goldoni
  • The Magic of Pants – Jonah Maidoff
Videos
Websites

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Sunday 10 February 2013

Production Seen: Oh What a Lovely War


Description, what it told me, successful?

The Connaught Theatre, Worthing (11/10/11) (Joan Littlewood; the Theatre Group)
Small proscenium arch, also a cinema

Aims: distancing (V-effect, Brechtian), against war, class differences, soldier solidarity, harsh conditions, tragedy of war, magnitude, effects of war (good/bad)
Genre: Ensemble musical piece with comedic and Brechtian elements



Cast (5):                 
Robert Harding (moranneville, Scotland, drill sergeant, church officer, German Kaiser, spy, Hague)
Ben Harrison (nurse, America, keen new soldier, lanrezac, solier chucks boot, plant pot/women)
Joseph Mann (scared soldier, French aide, hell song puppet, Switzerland)
Paul Morse (singing lady, hell song puppet, England (shooting), trench inspecting officer, French, wipers gazette, washing line lady-SR, MC)
Tom Neill (awkward soldier, English aide, French (shooting), mrs pankhurst, washing line lady-SL, vicar)

Director: Adrian McDougall                  
Set Designer: Victoria Spearing
Lighting: Oliver Welsh
Costume: Fiona Davis; Pamela Wiggin



Set-non naturalistic

Preset
·         18 white crosses – 9 across the back/3 groups of 3 SL: used as costume and prop stands
·         White screen on back wall (blank) - news panel
·         DSR: music stands and instruments: keyboard, drum kit on block, percussion, trombone, flute, drum, accordion, trumpet, saxophone, ukulele

Other
·         Trench: rostra create “wall” or entrance
·         Church: rostra stacked one, then one on top of one behind (+ slightly SL) = levels
·         Mrs Pankhurst: rostrum create podium
·         Puppets for hell song: 2 rostra = screen (puppets kneel behind), 1 rostra = platform for singer
·         4 crosses = female dancers in ballroom scene – floaty material = dresses
·         Costumes/props gradually removed – final image: white crosses, shadows, actor silhouettes
·         Washing line

Lighting
·         Generally cold, full washes, often spots on characters/isolated scenes (nurse, church, shooting)
·         Actors started before house lights went down
·         House lights up before play started + stage lights up = v effect
·         Dim lights during trench scene, blue lights = sinister; creates silhouette for meeting w/ German
·         Low lights for final silhouette

Sound
·         music created by actors on stage
·         explosions used in many scenes
·         songs all sung by the men, even female ones

Costume
·         sepia: brown trousers, cream shirt, brown waistcoat w/brown Pierrot pompoms, detachable ruffs, braces?
·         army jackets used, drill sergeant had red sash, vicar = black shirt + dog collar underneath jacket, tail coats
·         officers hats, tin helmets, national headgear, German ‘spiky hats’, admiral’s tricorn, headscarves, ladies hats w/ feathers
·         black dress (I’ll make a man) feathers on shoulder, matching hat, sparkly, worn over trousers/shirt
·         nurse: apron, Mrs Pankhurst: hat/black shoes, spies: long black coats, BIG moustaches
·         long grey coat for German, other long coats for English/French, ‘knee shoes’ Moranneville

Acting
·         funny, mime/props equal, moving

Acting – moments
·        
Lambs to the slaughter – shows meaningless loss of life and how the soldiers were forced to obey: non-naturalistic scene but naturalistic lines/emotions
o    Four soldiers crouched USL
o    Stand up, walk forwards (towards DSC) ‘baa’ing, jerk suddenly, shudder as they fall, stand up, walk…etc
o    Went into a sad French song so no contrast w/ happy song. Moving moment
o    Meeting actors at start = greater emotional attachment
·         
Drill Sergeant – shows lack of preparation, humourous
o    DrSe has swagger stick, feet together, chest out, archetypal; loud booming voice, nonsense words
o     [T.N./J.M./B.H.] scared, awkward, enthusiastic. In order DSC facing audience. DrSe at SR end facing SL
o    BH looked like corpsing (‘that’s not v. professional’) but contrived moment, laughing at their mistake – then he makes mistake
o    Attention, explain carry rifle, fix bayonets, lunge
o    V- effect, reminds us we are in theatre ‘broken the 4th wall man!’ – jumps off stage
·         
Ballroom – shows class system w/in officers, officers uncaring about death
o    Tail coats/dress uniform [all but BH]
o    Held cross under intersection, held end of cloth out like hand = v-effect
o    Exaggerated, clipped, upper-class accents
o    Ladies voices + plant pot provided by BH (at keyboard playing dance music) over shoulder, falsetto voice for ladies
o    Waltz in a circle. Officer ‘dances out’ to DSC and holds out cross to side. Speaks to them as if private conversation, bows to cross
o    Swap partners = handing over crosses in a lilting movement, like the lady is walking
·         
Christmas in trench – shows all soldiers = same (even class doesn’t matter), heart warming
o    3 rostra, all upside down, CS [PM, BH, RH, JM] sit/lean (hunched w/cold - naturalistic).
o    PM w/ notebook, BH w/parcel, RH + JM w/ cards (rowdy, laughing, look out over audience)
o    TN = German USR unseen
o    Silent night sung in German, no music = moving: soldiers peer over trench wall, US, look at each other
o    Settle down and sing parody song = low class (don’t speak German, German soldier = better educated)
o    Boot = panic. They dive to floor and cover heads, one prods boot
o    Chuck boot back, w/ stuff, dive to floor as explosion – by flickering flash of light and SFX – surprises audience
o    Break tension ‘Christmas pudding that strong…’
o    See German soldier and freeze: German moves CS slow motion. Silhouetted by cold LX
o    British soldiers slow motion leave trench (climb over/walk around) to meet him = tension, nervousness
o    Hand shake = brief freeze frame w/ silhouette then: tension broken and they all relax (shoulders slump, hand push helmet back, etc), audience relaxes too, happy moment (Contrast w/ next scene?)

French, Lanrezac – humourous, shows stupidity of officers when making decisions
o    Moranneville [RH] on knee shoes SR. (blue coat)
o    British have sticks + big folded map, green jackets + flat officers hats
o    Lanrezac = hat and glasses
o    French and Lanrezac: Big gestures, talk loud and slow shows they think they are stupid
o    Fold out map and Moranneville’s indignant stand up = funny
·         
Woman singing
o    Feminine, exaggerated movements: emphasise he’s in drag (Brechtian) funny
o    Put on dress: “My mum would…proud” = humour
o    Theatre = more like a music hall, authentic (not Brechtian?) = ineffective?
o    Falsetto voice
·         
Other moments – washing line(flags), shooting (no wheelchair, hats), church, preset,
·         
References to later wars: The newspanel shows a series of pictures – wars from today (Mugabe, Afghanistan, etc) through time to WWI
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Steven Berkoff Theatre Technique


Berkoff is a British practitioner whose career has spanned from 1965 to today.
His physical, exaggerated style of theatre is both popular and controversial, defying the norms of naturalistic theatre.

In his productions East and West, Berkoff used the Shakespearean style of language to create an complexity but pairing it with “low” cockney slang and swearing. Complex language that an audience has to focus means they rely on actions to understand the plot. This enhances Berkoff’s physical style.
Shakespearean language benefits physical movement as it provides images to work from. In his adaptation of Coriolanus, Berkoff uses mime to show the attack on the gates of Rome that is referred to in the script but not the play. Language does not have to be included in the performance to be shown. Berkoff said of Shakespeare that he wanted to “evoke and resignify”[1] the language of Shakespeare through movement and modern slang. 
Berkoff often left rejected ensemble acting in favour of one or two-man shows. Most notably, Berkoff performed in Decadence along side Joan Collins in a play that mocked the lives of the upper class.
In Decadence we see much of Berkoff’s technique manifested. His mime; exaggerated movement, facial expressions and accents; his use of monologue and dialogue; and intra-dialogic stage directions are all present. 

Berkoffian actors use techniques such as background movement, repetitive actions, and mime to explore further the ways in which Berkoff approaches exchanges between two characters.  Berkoff said that it was important “to see how I could bring mime together with the spoken word as its opposite partner, creating the form and structure of the piece”[2]. T
For monologues we can draw on the material from East and West in which the two main characters use monologue to tell a story. Berkoff ensured that although they were long, they were not devoid of action and they were very physical performances.

Berkoff’s approach to theatre is incredibly physical. Kenneth Reah titled an article, “Like smoking, naturalism can damage your health”[3] which sums up Berkoff’s approach to naturalistic theatre. His style is non-naturalistic, often focusing on movement rather that voice. According to him, the only purpose of a script is to help “minimalise and physicalise”[4] the story; stripping it down to its most basic components.
The theory of Total Theatre is key to Berkoff and stemmed from Artaud’s theatre style. Total Theatre maintains that every aspect of theatre must have purpose: every movement, that is choreographed; to each line, that is learned perfectly; to each lighting effect, that is used to convey a mood or message; to each sound effect, that enhances the audience’s experience; to each prop that has a use. The aim of Total Theatre is to create extreme moods to give the audience an overwhelming experience and to shock, amuse, scare, or amaze them. Berkoff particularly embraced this in his Kafka adaptations such as Metamorphosis, The Trial and In the Penal Colony. As a result of Total Theatre, performances are often minimalist, with bare stages and little language so that the focus remains on the physical movement and not on all the effects or the creation of a scene. This serves to detach the audience from the play and make them think about what was being said.

[1] Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self Performance (Robert Cross, 2004, Manchester University Press)
(page 139) note: not a direct quote, correct quote: “evoking and resignifying”
[2] http://www.iainfisher.com/berkoff/berkoff-study-a4.html : ‘Creating the “Berkovian” Aesthetic’ by Craig Rosen, Ph.D. (2000)
[3] http://www.iainfisher.com/berkoff/berkoff-study-a4.html : ‘Creating the “Berkovian” Aesthetic’ by Craig Rosen, Ph.D. (2000)
[4]Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self Performance (Robert Cross, 2004, Manchester University Press) (page 115) 
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