With Hope, Rob's and my scene from Advice For The Young At Heart, we needed to decide how we would certify that our blocking matched that of our chosen acting style: Epic Theatre.
We created a mind map for our piece where we listed all of the Epic Theatre conventions which we're using in our performance and explain how we use them. Below is the mindmap in bullet point form:
- Fourth Wall Breaks
- On certain lines, Hope, Rob and I will speak our lines to the audience. For example, when Sam talks about the times where he was there for Candice, I deliver this all to the audience; to tell them about my frustration.
- Placards
- For the box of phones, we'll have a box with a placard on it with a phrase like, "box of phones," written across it.
- Projection
- We'll have an image of a lock up garage projected onto the background to represent where the play is set.
- During the scenes where Candice is "remembering" conversations between Sam and Kenny, when she shouts over the pair, her words will appear across the already present projection backdrop.
- Minimal Costume
- We'd all start in blacks and we'd walk onstage to where our representational costume would be in place ready. Hope would be wearing a hoodie and Rob and I would be wearing suit jackets.
- Conveying a message
- Brecht's plays were always didatic which is the same case for our piece. The basic messages of our scene are:
- "Listen to advice given"
- "Be your own person"
- "Racism is terrible"
- Verfremdungseffekt
- Sadly, due to Rob having stitches at the time of the performance, we're unable to perform the high energy fight scene we were hoping to perform. However, this isn't an issue as we now have the opportunity to perform it in a more Epic Theatre style. Besides just running at each other and fighting, the fight will now begin with me lunging at Rob (to stop him from talking to Gloria) to which he throws me back and then grabs my throat. We freeze. Blackout. Rob exits. Lights up and I'm left on the floor crippled. I feel this is much better in terms of using Epic Theatre techniques as it takes something as simple as an alleyway brawl and turns it into something stranger.
- When Candice is, "remembering," conversations between Sam and Kenny, she shouts at Sam which doesn't affect the pair as they're merely a vision from the past. This takes the thought of memories to a whole new level.
- Episodic Storyline
- Throughout the play, Candice constantly remembers different memories involving conversations between Sam and Kenny. Each memory seems to follow a second storyline and the story progresses further and further after each memory in an episodic fashion. This was very popular with Brecht.
- Representational lighting
- Brecht was a big fan of representational lighting which we're using to make the change from memory to reality very distinguishable. For reality (scenes between Sam and Candice) we're having a white wash lighting but for memory scenes (scenes between Sam and Kenny) we're having a warmer sepia tone to the lighting to show that the scene is in the past. Additionally to represent this, we're having a sound effect alongside the lighting change.
- Proscenium Arch
- We'll be having our piece performed proscenium arch as this was the typical favourite for Brecht performances.
- Stereotypes
- In Epic Theatre plays, most characters were big stereotypes based on where they come from or their occupation etc. For our scene, Rob and I are using 50's "Londoner" accents and Hope is using more modern and common "chavvy" accent.
- Historical Context
- Brecht aimed to link his plays to real events in history ranging from wars to topics like racism. This play features strong opinions on racism from the 50's and takes place during the London Riots of 2011.
We repeated this exercise for our naturalistic scene from People, Places and Things. Below is my conversion of our mindmap:
- Realistic setting:
- Our play is set in present day which is always better for naturalism as the audience can relate to it much easier. It's also set in a more realistic setting for our era: a hospital. This has the same effect as having our play set in modern day.
- Relatable characters
- Our character are very believable as they are not only set in familiar environments for the audience. Most, if not, all characters have rich backstories which allow the audience to get connected them easier.
No comments:
Post a Comment