Process

A Response to Simplifying Theatre- A Workshop with Andy Smith

Kelly Bramall

Peter Brook states, “A normal stage action will appear real to us if it is convincing and so we are apt to take it, temporarily, as object truth” (2008, p.87). The idea of truth within a theatrical setting seems somewhat unattainable. Surely nothing is truthful in a theatre, how can it be when you invite your audience to envisage a representation of a suspended reality. Performance most certainly challenges expectations and relies on an audience’s ability to suspend their belief and to disconnect with an authentic world. Brooks goes on to comment, “everything is illusion…the shared association is language” (2008, p.86). This is such a superlative quote to sum up our work as a contemporary theatre company. We present to our audience white middle class females embodying Nigerian male London centred teenagers. For us Brooks idea of a representation being convincing is void, it’s more about hiding the pretence, we are white female actors we are not hiding the reality of the situation. Therefore, we are simplifying characterisation in the sense that we as actors are telling you as audience members this is who we are, inviting them to engage with our situational reality.

When we were presented with contemporary theatre practitioner Andy Smith’s illusion that a glass of water is infact a fully grown oak tree, with instantly engaged with his artistic ethos. Smith creates work that is “characteristically simple and accessible in form but unafraid to approach and address big subjects” (Z-arts, 2012, online) In the same sense we stand a white female on the stage and say this is a black male, Smith delivers through his informal and conversation style theatre reduced to its very essence. It was incredible how instantly we as audience members actually began to believe that this glass was in fact a tree. There was on technical advancing, no direction, it was just an empty stage and a half full glass of water. Referring back to Brooks’ idea of language, we were presented with a piece of conversational text to aid our belief.

An Oak Tree- By Michael Craig-Martin

Q. To begin with, could you describe this work?

A. Yes, of course. What I’ve done is change a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree without altering the accidents of the glass of water.

Q. The accidents?

A. Yes. The colour, feel, weight, size …

Q. Do you mean that the glass of water is a symbol of an oak tree?

A. No. It’s not a symbol. I’ve changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree.

Q. It looks like a glass of water.

A. Of course it does. I didn’t change its appearance. But it’s not a glass of water, it’s an oak tree.

The part about the glass of water becoming a symbol for an oak tree is interesting. The fact that the oak tree needs water in which to grow and develop is a metaphor for Smiths theory. In the sense that, this is the starting point and it’s us as audience members to expand the objects potential through engaging with belief.

 

Works cited:

Brook, Peter (2008) The Empty Space, Penguin Modern Classics: London

Roberts, Paul (2005) Craig-Martin, Michael- An Oak Tree at the Tate Modern, online: http://prade.blogspot.co.uk/2005/05/oak-tree-at-tate-modern.html (accessed 22nd May 2013)

Z-arts (2012) Commonwealth-Andy Smith- Flare Festival, online: http://www.z-arts.org (accessed 22nd May 2013)

Verbatim speech – Dwayne Brooks

Leanne McKettrick

“I think of him every day. I’m sad, confused and pissed about this system where attackers go free.
I never knew him to fight no one. He wasn’t used to the outside world. He wasn’t street aware of the dangers. I shouted run. He had ample time to run” (Wake Up Theatre, 2013, p.42).

This speech was said by Dwayne Brooks, during the inquiry into Stephen Lawrence’s death. Dwayne was 18 when he saw his best friend stabbed and has blames himself for what happened to Stephen. The extract expresses his frustration at the justice system and how no one at the time had been arrested for the crime. It was highlights the possible guilt and helpless Dwayne feels by not being able to help Stephen.

Tackling this extract was the biggest challenge for me during this process. Possibly because these are real words, I felt a sense of pressure in being true to the speech and delivering it just as Dwayne Brooks would have said it, which being a white girl with a rather high pitched voice was troublesome. As rehearsals progressed and I kept working on the speech, it became about not trying to express it just as Dwayne Brooks would have but trying to feel as he would have, an almost impossible task as I have been lucky to never experience anything like what Dwayne Brooks experienced. To help get inspiration , I researched into Dwayne Brooks, reading articles and watching a lot of interviews with Dwayne found on you tube

and also watched The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, a dramatization of Stephen’s death and the investigation and trial that followed.

I felt sicken watching all the clips about how Dwayne was treated and I began to start to understand why Dwayne Brooks felt and that the extract really meant. I felt that once I started picturing how he would have felt, angry, guilty, sad, I found that expressing the speech with the anger and frustration Dwayne felt began to came naturally. I hope that I did Dwayne Brooks justice and that the audience got a sense of how someone directing involved in knife crime felt.

Works Cited

WAKEUP Theatre (2013) 130,000 an adaptation of Fallout by Roy Williams, Lincoln: Lincoln School of Performing Arts.

Emile – The street killer.

Julia Curry

This is a reflection of my experience playing Emile in ‘130,000’. My idea of this teenager has changed drastically since March (see previous post). Emile is a street gangster whose search for respect resulted in the death of young Kwame. The course of the play for Emile is about his journey to gain this respect from his fellow gang members, especially Dwayne. There is a depth to Emile that I could have never touched on at the start of the process. Now, 130, 000 is more about the deterioration of Emile’s guilty conscious and his realization that he will never gain this sought respect; as opposed to him being a vicious young male with no purpose but to cause upset.

Now, in the final scenes of the show, I see him as a broken young man. A teenager who committed a horrific crime who now can’t bear the guilt. In Emile’s final scene, the play takes one final breath when he confirms to the audience that he is in fact guilty,  re-confirming that characters such as Dwayne lead Emile to this heartless attack on Kwame.

‘I ain’t takin any more of this shit from no-one.. you want me Dwayne? I’m ready come get me!.. It was me that killed Kwame not them, their jealous… You don’t wake up every night seeing his face!’ (WAKEUP 2013, p. 56).

 By the end of the play, Emile has lost respect for himself and for others. He deteriorates to the point of helplessness. For me I had little pity for Emile at the start of this process, but now over the course of three months, I began to grow a sense of sympathy towards him. This pity changed the vocal, emotional and physical delivery of those few last lines for me. I was no longer a sadistic gangster who held no conscience. I was a teenage boy crying for help, wanting to receive the respect he sought.

 

Work Cited:

WAKEUP Theatre (2013) 130,000 an adaptation of Fallout by Roy Williams,Lincoln: Lincoln School of Performing Arts.

 

 

 

‘How thrilling…’ A George and Sarah story

Joshua Stephen Rivett

In the performance I appeared in a scene as a man sat on a sofa, discussing the news of a stabbing with his partner. The scene was short and appeared simple, however it proved to be far from. I was surprised that it took genuine character development to create such a short scene. However it was the significance of the scene which mad the characters portrayal important.

I was cast as the character around mid way through the process after the director decided that it would be more beneficial if an actor with a smaller role played the character. I began acting the character as a simple, ordinary working class man who just flicked the channel over and the news happened to be on. However, during rehearsals I was advised to think of the character as a middle-class man, distancing the connection between the characters portrayed in the performance. It seemed to make the character more comical, yet more believable as it better represented the people which would have the opinions which the man and woman in the scene discussed. These two characters were representations of the audience of the piece  who may have found themselves sharing the opinions of either the man or woman, yet still forgetting about the issues moments later.

A strange thing which I feel aided my performance was simply giving the characters a name and back-story  The man became George and the woman Sarah. This simply began as a joke between the cast but eventually I found myself creating a story for these small characters, which explained why they think the way they do. I felt they have never been exposed to the volatile and unpredictable people who committed the crime they so casually discuss, as well as never knowing any victims of knife crime and therefore have no real connection to it.

There were less significant details which I had to work on, such as how to act watching the television, as this is such a regular thing for people that we rarely give a second thought to how we look when we do it. I simply observed people when they watched television, mimicking their behavior in my performance.

 

‘Your mum don’t even know your dad’ Becoming Perry.

Joshua Stephen Rivett

I faced many challenges attempting to portray a character which was so different in every way from myself.

Perry is an uneducated, aggressive teenage delinquent who is involved in the murder of Kwame, along with Clinton, Dwayne and Emile. His purpose in 130,000 is, along with Clinton, provide a comic element to the place. The comedy in the play was used as a meas of making the audience comfortable, so when the true nature of the performance is made evident, the audience are shocked into thinking about the issues, and realising they are no laughing matter. This is similar to the Brechtian theory of Spaß.

To portray the character I had to completely relearn my mannerisms, from the way I walk to where I placed my hands when I sat, everything was different and felt very unnatural to me. To learn these, I watched Fallout the television film and observed how the actor playing Perry acted in that. The problem I faced with this however is that the Fallout Perry was very different from the 130,000 Perry. In Fallout, Perry is portrayed as a much more aggressive character, and is much less comical.

Yet, I felt their mannerisms and physicality would not differ too severely  and used the character as a basis for my own. I decided to exaggerate the mannerisms slightly, playing more to the stereotypical Chav, whilst attempting to not become too caricature. It was a fine line between being comical and being ridiculous, but it would make a world of difference to the effect we wanted the play to have. The characters needed to be representations whilst still being believable.

As there were lots of gaps between Perry’s lines, it was essential that my reactions to what people did or said onstage when I was not speaking still appeared natural, yet weren’t distracting. I also observed people in day to day life, what people do when they talk, and when they listen and observe others. I applied my observations to my performance, trying to appear nervous any time Kwame was mentioned, and joking around with Clinton when something didn’t interest me.

The other challenge I faced whilst developing Perry’s character was with my voice. I speak naturally with a high, soft voice and had never learned to deepen it before. I had to learn to speak lower in my diaphragm to sound more deep, therefore more masculine, whilst also speaking louder to portray the character’s personality. It took direction with my voice to get it right as, when performing, I was not entirely sure how the sound was coming across to people viewing. Along with this, I had to develop an accent for the character. To do this I watched films like Kidulthood and Fallout where the characters spoke in this dialect.

Though portraying the character proved a struggle in the beginning, I feel the efforts paid off and in turn helped to improve my acting capabilities.