ction, I will be reflecting upon my work as a director and the rehearsal methodologies I applied in preparation for my live performance. I will also be analysing the reasons for my choice of text, the specific directorial strategies I engaged and also reflect on both the success and failures of these strategies.
It can sometimes be very challenging to clearly distinguish the difference between naturalism and realism. However, there are ways in which understanding each term is simplified. Set out to showcase real life on stage, realism swept the nineteenth century theatre movement. One of the most dedicated followers of realism, would be Stanislavski who studied realism throughout his career. But naturalism can sometimes be referred to by similar
…show more content…
Stafford continues by stating that a successful production has two main elements: a workshop and the rehearsal. The workshop process, is fundamentally a process that has no official authority. Everyone is stripped of their prescribed identity e.g. director, stage manager, sound and lighting, actors etc. The entire production team are considered equal and the play is developed by the entire group. “The practitioner actors love to hate” – Bertolt Brecht, in comparison to Stanislavski began his work as a writer and director with a clear message. That theatre had been designed to engage more unswervingly the “political climate of its day”. He almost wanted to force the audience into learning his …show more content…
I know exactly how I wanted the end product to look like, however achieving it proved harder than I expected. One main thing that stood out to me as to what was causing the creativity block, was my lack of authority. As this was my first directing role, having to tell my actors just exactly I wanted them to do with enough discipline was hard. And as a result of this, progression within our first few rehearsals was very limited. Nevertheless, by the time my group and I had met up during outside lecture time for the fourth time, we made sensational progress. More progress had been made on my part as director as I had to create the foundations that all live performances required, I just needed my actors to seal the envelope of live
It is difficult to imagine a play which is completely successful in portraying drama as Bertolt Brecht envisioned it to be. For many years before and since Brecht proposed his theory of “Epic Theatre”, writers, directors and actors have been focused on the vitality of entertaining the audience, and creating characters with which the spectator can empathize. ‘Epic Theatre’ believes that the actor-spectator relationship should be one of distinct separation, and that the spectator should learn from the actor rather than relate to him. Two contemporary plays that have been written in the last thirty years which examine and work with Brechtian ideals are ‘Fanshen’ by David Hare, and ‘The Laramie Project’ by Moises Kaufman. The question to be examined is whether either of these two plays are entirely successful in achieving what was later called, ‘The Alienation Effect”.
“Devised theatre can start from anything. It is determined and defined by a group of people who set up an initial framework or structure to explore and experiment with ideas, images, concepts, themes, or specific stimuli that might include music, text, objects, paintings, or movement.” (Alison Oddey 1). Devised theatre, also called collaborative creation, is a form of theatre in which the script is created through a collaborative process with the actors and the playwright, rather than the traditional method of theatre with a premade script. Devised theatre is created through the process, collaboration, and multi-vision of the group. Similar to improvisational theatre, a devised theatre play is created in the rehearsal process from the performers interacting with each other. By the time the devised play is performed the work is a cohesive piece that is, for the most part, set in stone. This form of theatre is a modern form of theatre, that came about from the collaboration of many different type of artists, because of the need of the performers to have some input into what they are performing. The devised theatre form is most utilized in the USA, Great Britain, and Australia, but especially in our country. Devised theatre utilizes physical movements, rather than focusing on only the language.
Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright, theatre critic, and director. He created and developed epic theatre with the belief that theatre is not solely for entertainment but also tools for politics and social activism. Previous theatre performances offered a form of escapism. The audience would become emotionally invested in the performance. In contrast to the suspension of disbelief, Brecht never wanted the audience to fall into the performance. He wanted the audience to make judgments on the argument dealt in the play. The aim of epic theatre is to detach the audience from any emotional connection in order for them to critically review the story. The ultimate goal of this theatre is creating awareness of social surroundings and encouraging the audience to take initiative on changing the society.
Brecht argues that the ultimate purpose of play is to induce pleasure and to entertain, and that--because of this purpose--play needs no justification. Plays should not be simply copied from or seen through older performances, but need to develop on their own to better relate to a new audience. Through the use of alienation which aims to make the familiar unfamiliar, play and theatre can be seen under a new perspective, and the actor can feel more free to perform under a new guise.
Fiske writes that Watt and Williams “….tend to define it by its content. Watt traces its origins to the rise of the novel in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” And Williams “…whose historical perspective covers the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, lists three main characteristics of realism in drama: he finds that it has a contemporary setting, that it concerns itself with secular action … and that it is “socially extended”.
Realism in film is significance in actual and present things, and how things actually come out. now, it is afar the capacity of this part to converse the extent of realism, we support are description upon things such as sanity, experiences, believes, manner and extra communal things such as olden times, political affairs, and finances. No matter how we identify authenticity, realism in film can be judged by administrating what we observe in own world and the world of others. Realism is also a way of conducting subject matter that follows everyday life. Practical characters are anticipated to do things that are conventional to our prospect of real people.
In conclusion to this essay we can say that Stanislavski’s system in the training of the actor and the rehearsal process is effective. The system helps actors to break down their characters gradually and really know the role. Some may even the say that the system helps them to almost become the character. The system has played a significant part in theatre training for many years. It has been used, adapted and interpreted by several practitioners, actors and tutors. For many years to come Stanislavski’s system will still be used in theatre training. Not only is it an effective system it is the past, present and future of theatre training and the rehearsal process.
Realism started in France in the 1830s. It was very popular there for a long time. A man named Friedrich Schiller came up with the word “realism.” Realism is based on contemporary life. There is a very accurate and honest representation of characters in this style of art. Realism tries to combine romanticism and the enlightenment. Life isn’t just about mind and not just about feelings either, it’s about both feelings and reason together. As said in the na...
Bertolt Brecht and Constantin Stanislavski are regarded as two of the most influential practitioners of the twentieth century, both with strong opinions and ideas about the function of the theatre and the actors within it. Both theories are considered useful and are used throughout the world as a means to achieve a good piece of theatre. The fact that both are so well respected is probably the only obvious similarity as their work is almost of complete opposites.
For a play to be considered realism, Janie Jones implies it [the play] must hold the idea of the stage as an environment, rather than as an acting platform (Jones). Actors are trained never to give their backs to the audience. This is apparent when the chara...
During the post-Civil War period the major literary movement of realism began to flourish. Coinciding with this movement was another writing technique known as naturalism. Naturalism took the philosophies of realism to the extreme, and began to pull the focus from the middle class, and instead targeted the lower class of society. Naturalism can be defined by the unpredictability of the world, man vs. the universe, and a realistically grim view of nature. Naturalism, though not always, was often times more concerned with urban environments.
It was the style of views that brought much praise to these artist of Realism in America. Naturalism is a category of realism in fact. Naturalist are realist accept they look at it situations as forces based beyond human control.
“The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation,” says Stella Adler. Theater is unique and intriguing because it blends literary and visual arts to tell a story. Before Theater 10, I viewed theater on the surface level: cheesy plot lines with dramatic scenarios for entertainment purposes. Throughout the course, I have learned what it means to appreciate theater, such as understanding Brechtian and Chinese theatre; however, I believe understanding theater’s ability to convey crucial historical and social messages, such as in the production of RENT, is more relevant and important for theater appreciation.
Applied Theatre work includes Theatre-in-Education, Community and Team-building, Conflict Resolution, and Political theatre, to name just a few of its uses. However, Christopher Balme states that “Grotowski define acting as a communicative process with spectators and not just as a production problem of the actor” (Balme, 2008: 25). Applied Theatre practices may adopt the following “theatrical transactions that involve participants in different participative relationships” such as Theatre for a community, Theatre with a community and Theatre by a community Prentki & Preston (2009: 10). Whereas, applied theatre one of its most major powers is that it gives voice to the voiceless and it is a theatre for, by, and with the people. However, Applied Theatre practitioners are devising educational and entertaining performances bringing personal stories to life and build
In the seventies, we could do anything. It was the rainbow coalition, anti-Vietnam, all of those elements. And then we morphed over to where it became extremely straight-laced and non-risk taking. I think we are beginning to take risks again but within those societal norms.” Theatre only goes so far as society will allow it, as showcased by the Conservatory and it being influenced by the culture surrounding it. The mirror that is theatre reflects a culture and what it may want or not want to know, depending on how far it is allowed to