ANTONIN ARTAUD (1896-1948)

ANTONIN ARTAUD (1896-1948)

·          French Actor/Director/Playwright/Poet
·         His Dramatic theories have inspired others
·         Believed theatre must break away from literary connections and become an exorcism in which the audience is frightened/bewitched/spiritually overwhelmed
·         He saw theatre as an instrument of devastating power to free people from moral restraint
·         Believed drama is inside man himself
·         That drama transcends the need to understand language.

ARTAUD and Design:

·         Symbolic
·         ‘other than’
·         ‘Stands for’
·         Mind over matter
·         Things can become completely something else

YouTube Links:

Theatre of Cruelty, Antonin Artaud: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZAYe1HMIYU

BERTOLT BRECHT (1896-1956)

BERTOLT BRECHT (1896-1956)

An Introduction to Brechtian Theatre: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-828KqtTkA

·         German Playwright/Theorist/director

·         Wanted to use plays to engage the audience in political debate

·         He developed the alienation effect to remind the audience that they were watching a play.

The Alienation effect:

·         This Alienation method uses very specific devices to distance the audience so that they can debate themes within the piece/meaning of the play.
·         This follows the idea theatre can never be real.
·         Less attention paid to set and costume
·         Epic Theatre.

Political Themes:

·         BRECHT wanted his audience to be entertained, but detached/critical
·         This aim was for the audience to be rational/learn social lessons
·         He used songs to tell the audience what was gunna happen next
·         In order to disengage their emotions
·         His alienating devices: -Interruptions –No Theatrical Illusions –Not realistic scenery –props

BRECHT and Design:

·         Design is expressionistic
·         Items are ‘more than’, ‘Longer than life’, ‘Inside out’
·         Things can be used in a representative way

YouTube Links:

Memories of Bertolt Brecht: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbD_Frmga2E

Five Truths: Bertolt Brecht: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62-gYcO6jrY

Theatre of Ideas, Practitioners, STANISLAVSKI

Theatre of Ideas:

Practitioners:

STANISLAVSKI:

·         Acting Practitioner
·         Born in Russia 1863 in Moscow
·         Was a n actor but has become a director/teacher
·         Developed a new approach to acting.
·         As an Actor he saw a lot of bad acting
·         He termed this as ‘Artificial’
·         Wanted actors to work on characters from the inside
·         Making it a true/real performance

·         The STANISLAVASKI System is an intense character development process:

• Strives to make a performance ‘real'
• Bring an actor’s experiences into the role
• Expand an actor’s imagination

The System:

·         Believed that to make a character true, the character must be approached from the inside.
·         That means drawing on the real inside life of the actor.
·         Drawing on memories
·         The actor also has to create the inside life of the character
·         Back  Story’s/Beliefs/’I am’/’I want’

Given Circumstances:

·         The given circumstances are the character details in the script
·         What has the playwright told us
·         Location of the play
·         Time/Period/what Year is it set
·         People in the play?

Stanislavski and Design:

·         He liked Naturalism on stage
·         Items on stage are ‘no more than’, ‘Life like’, ‘’Outside in’

(To create a set or costume for a Stanislavski style you would need to do a great deal of research, things should be as they would be in real life.)

YouTube Links:

Actors Discuss: Stanislavski Acting Methods: 

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpEGXrDSXo8 

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGLavvUup_Y