TS1101e Complete Notes

Disclaimer: All notes are painstakingly typed out on Evernote across the semester. You can bookmark this page and read it as much as you like, you can copy it to your own notes, you can share it with friends. All I ask is that you respect my notes as a publicly available and free resource. Plagiarism and unauthorized scalping and selling will be named and shamed on public NUS telegram pages.

This page is organized with notes and lecture review sessions first, and reflections on theatre lab sessions in a separate post.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that the new module, GEN2001 Theatre and Community Engagement, has wildly similar content. If you want a head start for this module, this is the place to be.

WEEK 1 and WEEK 2:

The role of actors in the theatre

How actors form the conduit of the theatrical illusion

What theatre is:

Text: Use of language, plot, character and dialogue

Acting: How characters are generated and presented

Mise-en-scene: Lighting, sound, set design - how these elements come together to form a coherent setting for the story to take place

Theatre is live in both space and time

A pretends to be B while C looks on

What theatre can do:

Influential ideas of theatre and major ideologies

The relationship between theatre and the world

The impact of theatre on the world

Performance and the media

THEATRE - Greek. Theatron: To behold, to look

Theatre is a spectacle (so why are its spectators known as audience?)

Theatre is a social art which reflects on the human experience of society

It mirrors, questions and portrays political and social beliefs of the particular space and time

Theatre has been used as a  metaphor for life itself

Theatre is in itself a language, coupling verbal with visual images and assists humanity in its quest to understand itself

Theatre defines our culture - it is not a recreational activity for the gifted few or the ruling elite

All theatre is make-belief, a world of marvel and illusions, pretended action, game or play, yet this fairy tale world of artifice must be rooted in the real world, either through its characters in speech or behavior, or through the action represented if it is to be recognized by the audience and to awake any response

Duality of theatre

The actor is neither himself nor his character

The theatre is neither the stage nor the place of the action

The audience knows that it is not real, yet they choose to suspend their belief

Due to this dual nature, expectations are constantly negotiated

Every aspect of the theatre is dependent on a few shared conventions for it to work

Asian theatre - Japanese Noh, Indonesian Wayang Kulit, Chinese Opera, Indian Theatre

Western theatre - Dramatic plays, musical theatre, physical theatre

Acting: Stanislavskian realism - given circumstances and imagined realities

TEXT AND PERFORMANCE

A lot of English language theatre is based on text

Greek theatre is very based on text

Theatre is known as an audience because the spectacle is secondary to the poetry

Reading text - decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meaning

There are cultural nuances and experiences that theatre must be able to access for its audience in order for the reading to make sense

The performance is shaped by the prior knowledge of the audience as well as the performer's cultural understanding

PLAY TEXT vs THEATRICAL TEXT

The play text is the dramatic text - It is presented in linguistic text form and it can be read like a novel in our heads

The theatrical text has a real stage in mind, moving away from private imagination to a performance that an audience can "read"

Theatrical text hence includes acting choices, mise-en-scene

The difference between the play text and the theatrical text is developed by the actor's craft and the director's vision

Emotional content of the theatrical text is completely transformed by how theatrical code is put into plain dialogue

Character dynamics and relationships play out in the theatrical text

The tension becomes apparent and the emotional action draws the audience in

One character can know something that another doesn't

The actor's body is very important in portraying the theatrical text

Even in the absence of an actual stage production, the dramatic text produces the sense of one - what might actually happen on stage

The dramatic text implies a production, provides a template for one

Stage directions - View of the production, information

Conjunctive stage directions - Add or complements intention

Disjunctive stage directions - Add tensions, goes against dialogue

Dramatic characters

Conception - Stereotype to psychological complexity, emotional and psychological states

Plot function - Utility of the character

Stereotyped characters are flat, you are not encouraged to find out more about who they are

Archetypes can be complex, they can have greater depth vs stereotype

Stereotype, archetype, psychological complex, ethically complex, morally complex

We have certain expectations for what constitutes a complex character, especially in psychology

What experiences have led to the psychological landscape of this character?

Eye in the sky (2015 movie)

Moral and ethical depth

Greek theatre is incredibly wordy!

Rounded characters are a western concept

Asian theatre presents complexities in moral and ethical plot

Demonstrates and exemplifies philosophical and cultural underpinnings of the drama rather than specific individualism

Case study: Beijing Opera, Sanskrit drama

Shakuntala by Kalidasa

Western theatre - Individual, psychological

Asian theatre - Universal, sociological

DIALOGUE

Sending a message to another character and/or an audience

Anton Chekhov play - actors sending signals to each other through text and subtext

Exposition grounds a story in reality, but too much of it causes the story to lose its effectiveness

Character voice - Ideolect, sociolect

Dramatic irony - when the audience knows more information than any one character does

Suspense is the opposite of dramatic irony

Locutionary Act

• The "bare" sentence or utterance, a speech act that can mean a variety of things

Illocutionary Act

• The intent behind the sentence, with a specific meaning defined by the speaker which may or may not be apparent to the listener

Perlocutionary Act

• The effect of the sentence, the actual act that is performed based on the sentence, regardless of whether it was intended or not

Action can take place without physical action taking place

An event is used to describe things done and said in a play which do not change the situation

Waiting For Godot, a play by Samuel Beckett - nothing happens throughout the play

Every play we encounter is the specific embodiment of a story

Social Drama vs Aesthetic Drama

Breach: A situation that threatens the stability of a social unit - family, corporation, community, nation etc

Crisis: A widening of the breach into an open public display

Basic Plot Structure - research

WEEK 3:

Film - Les Miserables, I Dreamed A Dream

Theatre - Same song

Acting on the screen is completely different from acting on stage

The performance genre is different

The actor is ALWAYS in control

The craft of acting is measured, controlled and calculated

Even instinct is built from characterization and construction

A lot of strategizing and orchestration behind the scenes

THE ACTOR'S PRESENCE

First, the "real" person - physical characteristics, his voice and temperament

Second, the person himself, transformed, disguised by costume and make-up, an assumed voice, a mental attitude derived from the study of and empathy with the fictional character he is playing. This is the "stage figure"

Third, "fiction" itself, the intended effect, for which he stands, and which would ultimately emerge in the mind of the spectator watching the play or performance

The physical presence of the actor contributes to the erotic nature of theatre. What the mechanically reproduced media lack in physical presence, they more than make up by their ability to bring the viewer into far greater proximity to the performer, by close-ups that create the illusion of physical proximity to the attractive person far greater than the theatre could ever hope to achieve

THE ACTOR'S DRAMATURGY

Kinaesthetic empathy - Movement of another person which evokes the onlooker's own experience of the same movement, where the visual information generates an embodied kinaesthetic commitment in the spectator. Kinaesthesia is the internal sensation of our own movements and tensions, as well as those of others, in our own body.

A performance must possess a coherence based on the actor's presence - or scenic bios - independently from the story which it tells. This coherence convinces us at the level if the senses.

The performance is an experience of an experience. The spectator should intuit and grasp the sense of the story or of a succession of actions in a performance. They should live the performance emotionally, recalling it with the same degree of ambiguity with which they live their own lives.

ACTORS GENERATING EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONS

Imagine a room packed with a thousand people, tense and rigid. The actor is connected to the audience by this emotional energy, and through the empathy for others

Why is empathy important? - I see you, I know how you feel. It makes us feel less alone in the world.

SOCIAL COGNITION IN SPECTATING

Evolution has equipped human beings with more sensitivity to the needs and emotions of others than is evident in other mammals, we carry these cognitive capabilities with us into theatrical viewing

Identification - Spectators project themselves onto the emotional life of the actor on stage

People watch each other for facial, postural and vocal clues, then process this information with their bodies and minds

Auditors can catch emotions through sounds as well as sights

The real or imagined safety and closeness of a space

The questioned morality of an actor - how do you know we are not acting right now?

ACTING IN ASIAN THEATRE

Some are non-mimetic, some do not have conventional text

The Japanese conception of theatre focuses on spectacle above poetry

Role enactment is not a dominant function of Japanese theatre, in Noh theatre, the skill of the performer lies in carrying out and fusing highly codified movements and speech acts into a performance

Do. Not. Assume. Cultural. Proficiency.

What about Indian theatre?

In Indian theatre, role enactment is also not the primary concern

Performance > Drama

Stylized and codified performance vocabulary

Is this acting? Hell yes. It's just not Western acting.

WESTERN ACTING - REALIST vs GESTIC

Constantin Stanislavski articulated the process of psychologically motivated acting - THE SYSTEM

The actor's self is involved in the creation of the character

Emotional memory:

You have to find a technique so that you can replicate this every night

Acting upset is not the same as being upset

Do not get paralyzed by your emotions

Objective, superobjective and the through-line-of-action

The actor breaks down the role into units and objectives that together provide a score

Several stages involving complex interaction of physicality, cognitive and affective emotions

Gestic acting - BRECHT

Acting is less psychological and emotional, but should be able to demonstrate social relationships

"Gesture" - Physical movement which accompanies speech

The actors use their bodies and gestures to communicate the social role and status of the character. Role enactment should serve as an alienating or distancing effect

Perform in the 3rd person

Gestic acting is not exaggeration, it's not miming, it's not clowning

It is the externalization of emotional and physical state

LECTURE REVIEW 1:

1. What is the duality of theatre?

Duality means existing simultaneously at the same time. The duality of theatre refers to how theatre is both fiction and reality occurring at the same time. The actor is neither themselves nor their character, the theatre is neither the performance space nor the fantasy location. The audience knows that it is not real, yet they choose to suspend their belief in order to allow the story to take place. Due to this dual nature, expectations are constantly negotiated and every aspect of the theatre is dependent on a few shared conventions for the illusion to be maintained.

2. What is liveness and what are its efficacies?

Liveness is being present in the same space and time as the performer. A live performance is unpredictable because of how it happens in the moment, and part of the experience includes exploring the theatrical text created spontaneously by the players on the stage. A live performance is dynamic and responds to changes. It is directly affected by its environment even as it retains its purpose, which is to present a story through an audiovisual illusion.

3. What is the theory of ritual origins for theatre?

Unexplained elements such as volcano and thunderstorms were feared by early human communities, who invented rituals and made them more elaborate to appease any deities they believed existed. Over time, humans discovered that rituals do not actually have any bearings on natural events, but the act of the ritual remains an integral part of the culture, thus inventing theatre as we know it. Drama has its roots in pagan or Christian ritual, where a ritual refers to social rituals rooted in the earliest cultural constructs among human civilizations. Where social rituals are concerned with shared values and beliefs, theatre is thus derived from the need to communicate those beliefs either in smaller and more private groups, or publicly. Such rituals thus take on a performative aspect, and therein lies the creation of live theatre as a medium for storytelling.

4. What do you understand from this statement? What, in your opinion, is the fundamental difference between film/television and theatre?

From this statement, I realize that theatre may take on more forms than representational (mimetic) portrayals of reality. It may communicate its poetry in ways that are not representative of real life, thus freeing up space for more artistic liberties which may access its audience in ways that film and television cannot. For example, heightened acting styles such as musical theatre and physical theatre use song and physicality to create greater meaning in the story above and beyond the language-based dramatic text. This creates a theatrical text which the audience can read through additional dimensions such as analyzing the melody and the musical language of the musical, or in the case of physical theatre, the "dance" is its own theatrical code. Both art forms are not mimetic, which defines how theatre does not need to be representational.

In recent times the lines between what constitutes live theatre and what is film and television has been blurred, particularly with Zoom performances and pre-recorded theatre. Musical films and "proshots" threaten the very existence of such a definition. As an actor who graps that the fundamental craft of acting across the screen and the stage are rooted in the same techniques, I ask if there is a need to segregate the two communities. That said, live theatre - theatre where the performers and the audience coexist in a common time and space - is a special experience that creates an emotional bond which are spontaneously and instantaneously communicated within the shared venue. That energy which bounces back and forth between the performer and the audience, and the corresponding awareness of each other may hence be the fundamental difference between theatre and film.

Do not make theatre like TV!

A Small Family Business by Alan Ayckbourn

5. What information can you gather from the stage directions? What can this information tell you about the world presented on stage?
6. Identify in the excerpt:
1. Dramatic irony (The audience knows something that one or more characters in the text do not)
2. The operation of illocutionary and perlocutionary forces (the actual meaning of the speech act vs the actual effect of the speech act)
3. Exposition (elaboration of the play by a character)

EXPOSITION: Events that are happening on the outside of the play

Either spoken or implied by a character to lengthen the plot and setting of the play

Show, don't tell

The thrill of audienceship is the discovery of what is happening for yourself, hence too much exposition is not good

WEEK 4:

Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare In Love

Myths about acting

• Stage effects, emotional empathy

Even though the text of Shakespeare is not mimetic = it's not the way people speak in real life and the audience and the actors are both aware, but both choose to suspend their beliefs in order to allow the illusion of the theatre to take place.

DRAMATIC IRONY = The audience knows that Juliet is just asleep but the onlooking peasants do not know

We are fully in control in connecting ourselves to the intensity of the moment on the stage

HISTORY OF MODERN ACTING

Diderot

Stanislavski

Strasberg

In theatre, actors' emotions do not need to be real or lived, but they must be visible and legible to the audience

Emotions are manifested by the rhetoric of the body and of gestures in which emotional expression is systematized or even codified. The greater the degree to which emotions are translated into attitudes or physical actions, the greater their freedom from the psychological subtleties of the unspeakable and of suggestion.

Psychology centric acting demands that the actor must always be in control

THE WESTERN ACTOR

The actor disappears into the role, and creates the illusion of embodying the character. They do not necessarily imitate real people, but they must suggest actions by using certain conventions or through verbal or gestural narrative means.

We need to establish when an actor begins to act - when does a human start being perceived as an actor? What are his specific features at that time?

1. An actor is constituted as an actor the moment a spectator or audience member watches him/her AND
2. When the spectator considers him/her to be "extracted" or "removed" from the surrounding reality AND
3. When the spectator accepts him/her to be the bearer of a situation, a role or an activity that is fictional, or at least distinct from the spectator's reality

It is necessary for the person observed to be aware of the fact that he is performing a role for the observer, thus clearly defining the theatrical situation.

Once the convention has been established, nothing that the observed person says or does is taken at face value: instead it is read as a fictional action that only acquires meaning and truth from the imaginary world that the spectator perceives the actor to be living in

On the other hand, Asian actor-singer-dancers produce the real action of singing, dancing or reciting in terms of themselves as performers, they make no attempt to pretend to be someone else in the spectator's eyes.

WESTERN ACTORS AND THEIR TASKS

Psychological tradition - they establish a role systematically

They compose a vocal and gestural score which is inscribed into the behavioral, gestural and vocal signs that provide spectators with the illusion that they are being confronted with a real person

Actors lend their body, voice and emotions to the performance

They pass themselves off as actual people

They create in us impressions of a similarity with what we know of our own character, our own experiences of the world, of emotions, and of moral and philosophical values

They must be physically present for the audience, live in the here and now without any intermediaries

They must stay in character and sustain the illusion for the spectator at all time, that he is really this complex person that the spectators choose to believe in

The composition and exposure of these signs must be sufficiently clear for them to be perceived, and subtle enough for them to be nuanced or ambiguous.

The work of actors themselves must be visible and readable by the spectator = it only has meaning under the gaze of the spectator

Actors must know how to manage their emotions and to make them readable. They are under no obligation to actually feel those emotions, even if it is a significant part of their training i.e. Stanislavski and Strasberg

Actors often attempt to identify with their roles, dozens of tiny tricks are used to help them persuade themselves that they are the characters the text describes

ACTORS + SPACE + AUDIENCE

Theatre is concerned with presentation -- representation, imitation, expression

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching, and this is all we need for the performance to be called theatre. -- Peter Brook

THE SEMIOTIC APPROACH TO READING ACTORS

The science of signs, the study of how meaning is created and communicated via various processes of signification

Semiotic interpretation - how meaning is conveyed through a system of signs

It has to conform to what society recognizes as reality

Through forms, means and methods

Meaning is relational, not essential

They work together and in isolation as part of the system - only meaningful within specific and specially constructed contexts and environment

Meaning making in theatre depends on how much you know and your personal associations, and works by observing the relational and interactive ways in which the elements on stage are crafted together

Actors generate signs to create their characters, which in turn help to create the fictional world. We as an audience identify and read these signs and construct meaning based on what we know. Signs only have meaning in the context it was created.

Sometimes the actors create an illusion that is easy to read - signs are analogs and close to our lived reality, other types create illusions that are more stylized, abstract and indirect. Actors can create visual, aural and verbal signs. They can complement or juxtapose one another.

ACTORS GENERATING SIGNS

Cultural specificity - The signs may not be readable to all

Vocal interpretation of the text - Naturalistic, realistic or iconic

VS Declaratory

Facial expressions (reproduction of natural expressions vs highly formalized artistry)

Costumes and makeup (literal vs symbolic)

Vocal interpretation (how a person speaks - character actors vs leads)

Externalized acting =/= Gestic acting

READING MOVEMENT IN SPACE

Movement within the dramatic space (vs moving with the camera)

Proxemics and kinesics

P: How space is used

K: How movement is used

Proxemics: Changes in the spatial distribution of the characters can convey increasing or diminishing significance of the characters, transitions, plot changes and so on

EVALUATING STRATEGIES

Vocal interpretation

Facial expression

Gesture and movement

Costume and makeup

How the actor relates to the spoken text and the immediate stage environment

Conventions - What is the genre of the performance? Identify the mechanics associated with this genre

Concordance - Relationships between the actor and text

Coherence - Whether they work well together, whether the signs make sense together

Consistency - Were the signs always clear? Were there any lapses in the actors' performances?

A theatre assessment should not be about whether one likes or dislikes the actor's performances - but whether it is effective in conveying the play's vision

WEEK 5:

Take Home Test 1:

10am to 11.59pm

2 questions, one on Undercover and one unseen video

Presentation:

Facial expression

Vocal interpretation (use of voice and speech)

Character presentation (realizing the character as a stage figure)

Group capabilities:

Concept of presentation

Actor interactivity

Collective communication

Mise-en-scene

Space has a very important place in theatre

What you can perceive (lighting, costuming, makeup, sound)

Spaces are full of histories, ghosts, pressures, opportunities, and constraints. They are full of ideology and culture, which is powerful and pervasive due to their invisibility. (Ric Knowles)

Proxemics in theatre spaces and audience segregation perform a greater role than mere segregation, but they also provide distance, which "is the condition not only of sight but of the beginning of understanding". There is a collective consciousness derived from being in a space with other audience members that facilitates understanding and engagement. Physical presence and corporeal being in the space are crucial to the audience's understanding of the performance.

Theatrical art is a spatial art. This should not be understood in the sense that the representation of space could be an end in itself in theatre... The space that theatre creates us rather an artificial space which only comes into being through a substantial transformation of actual space...

Kinaesthetic empathy - powerful feeling experienced by a viewer in the same space (Yi-Fu Tuan)

The primacy of space in Theatre:

time space and action

• Without space, time would be pure duration i.e., music, for instance
• Without time, space would resemble paintings or exhibitions
• Without space and time, action cannot occur

Objective space: Visible, frontal space. The theatrical site is the building and its architecture

END STAGE/PROSCENIUM - One side, resembles a screen

• Passive spectatorial consumption

TRAVERSE - Two sides, "walkway", audiences watch each other

• Dialectic, binary conflict

THRUST STAGE - Three sides, stage protrudes into audience space

• Forum for public debate

IN THE ROUND - Four sides, actors are completely surrounded by audience

• Lends itself to athleticism, vulnerability and the "mob" audience

Compromising visibility, playing with space and the unknown

Site specific theatre - performance, watching and being watched

Mise-en-scene: The total visualization of theatre, anything that is perceivable

The Stage Picture can operate on four levels:

1. Functionalistic to support stage activity
2. Sociometric to reflect social status or realities
3. Atmosphere to provide ambiance
4. Symbolic to supply extra-textual or metaphoric meanings

4 Stages:

1. Dramatist encodes text
2. Director decodes text
3. Set designer re-encodes text
4. Audience decodes text

What happens when the director and the dramatist disagree?

Accept, adapt, reject

There is no such thing as an original or classical text

A text enters LOCAL SEMIOSIS when it is removed from their originating context and is conditioned by the artistic tools of the artist's own culture

"myth of origination": Performative tradition, successive imitations of previous interpretation vs "troue" - possessing holes which permit improvisation

The painting as an analogy

Realistic vs Artistic

MATERIAL ELEMENTS OF MISE EN SCENE

The art of stage production is the art of projecting into space what the original author was only able to project in time - Adolph Appia

Set/Scenography

Props/Objects - An object is manipulated by an actor. Actantial role of a prop e.g. dagger. Characterizing role of the dagger in the context of a murder. The dagger is now a sign of murder and flight, hence it becomes part of the action.

Costume - Characterization - individual preferences, genre of the performances, relationship between character and set. Nudity is deliberate. The costume is part of space and action - it constitutes space even if it only surrounds the actor. Color, texture, movement, symbolism matters in the creation of costume.

Makeup - Consider it as part of the actor's repertoire or costume. Codified forms of facial expression, breath and precisely placed gaze. Expressions are enhanced and enlarged by makeup. Autonomous makeup work e.g . Chinese Opera

Lighting

LECTURE REVIEW 2:

Answer the following questions with reference to the video clip entitled: Geisha (available on TS1101e Luminus: click on Multimedia on the left side bar; click Introduction to Theatre and Performance; click on the clip entitled Geisha)

1. Is the main actor performing in the realist or non-realist mode?

The main character is performing in the non-realist mode as her actions do not imitate life.

2. Assess the main actor’s performance in the following categories
• Vocal Interpretation: The actress speaks normally in a flat and monotonous tone and manner, but she appears to be speaking directly to the audience about her life and other characters on stage. (Do not interpret! Loud (characteristic) vs angry (interpretation)). Clear vocals and diction
• Facial Expression: Somewhat naturalistic facial expression, smiling face
• Gesture and Movement: Hopping, dancing, moving around the stage to represent her emotional turmoil, conscious movement, repetitive movements
• Costume and make-up: Large comical wig juxtaposes against traditional Japanese clothing

3. Apply the principles of Conventions, Concordance, Coherence & Consistency (as per the lecture) – assess the main actors’ performance. What are the difficulties?

4. What is the function of the second actor in this excerpt?

The second actor serves to illustrate the living doll which the main actor emphasizes on, and provides a juxtaposing counter to the main actor. It draws parallels to how the main actor is also a living doll. 

WEEK 6:

https://www.digitaltheatreplus.com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/

Reading and Classifying Mise-en-scene

How do you analyze and explain mise en scene with acting?

How do you determine genre - realist or non-realist? Is it a comedy (a lot of dramatic irony) or a drama?

Am I able to identify the fictional space in which the event is unfolding?

Am I able to identify the historical period of this excerpt?

Was the set or decor legible, and does it tell me about the action on stage?

Function of lighting: Practical, atmospheric, actantial, iconographic

Does the production information help you to understand the concept of the play

How do you interpret a play? Go element by element

Naturalist mise en scene: The actor's performance, scenography, diction. and rhythm all claim to be a mimesis of reality.

Realist mise en scene: The real is no longer rendered photographically, as in naturalist MES, but is codified in an ensemble of signs that are deemed to be pertinent: mimesis is selective, critical, inclusive and systematic

Epic mise en scene: It narrates by means of the actor, the scenography and the plot e.g. Piscator and Brecht and actor-storytellers

Symbolist mise en scene: Reality represented is idealized through symbols and metaphoric elements on stage

Expressionist mise en scene: Particular aspects and features of reality are emphasized to showcase the personal attitude of the director

SET AND DECOR

Basic configuration - Designer must establish infrastructure of spaces

This determines the pattern of the actors' movement

Spatial configuration has important implications for the timing of the performance

Informational: Set and Decor pictures the environment and tells us about the time period and location of the imaginary stage

Semi‐abstract sets may merely suggest selected features of the reality for which they stand, such as a door‐frame for a door, a skeleton outline for a house, etc. – they do not have to be completely representational.

– Indeed they can become formalised abstractions (the schematic figures of a man and a woman outside lavatories, the crossed knife and fork in airline timetables) to the point where they gradually merge into hieroglyphics or ideograms and eventually turn into wholly conventional symbols

The photographic nature of film requires a naturalist mise en scene

In the theatre, paradoxically, real human beings‐ the actors – can convincingly interact with highly stylised or abstract representations of their environment. They can open schematic or even non‐existent doors and freely move between several such schematically, suggested environments within a very narrow stage space.

LIGHTING

Obvious function indicating day and night, sunny and gloomy conditions

Max Reinhardt: The first director to speak of the potential of electric lighting in the theatre, by painting the stage with colored and modulated light

Deictic: The lighting can draw attention to the focal points of the action, almost literally an "index finger" pointing at the area of maximum interest.

The style and detail of the lighting may determine the whole texture of the performance

CHALLENGES OF READING MES TODAY

Is it inconsistent or is it deliberate?

Inventing new conventions as the means for representing increasingly complex meanings about the human condition

Those conventions have become increasingly complex and demanding for the audience

Simplicity of logic - ordinary, recognizable characters using ordinary communication modes. Stories of any kind often have the simple logic of a beginning, a middle and an end.

In some cases, a story may not have a linear structure - these performances are much harder for audiences to watch

If MES is not used to tell the story, what else may they be used for?

Conceptual or abstract painting: We are presented with a greater puzzle

Non-linear performances make us more aware of what is going on and what is happening to us as an audience

Awareness of the live experience

We become more self-conscious and intensely aware of our discomfort

Brecht - Theatre of the Epic - episodic theatre

Theatre practitioners questioned the comfortable familiarity of realism and its claim to be truthful

WEEK 7 (Performance) - No Lecture.

Lecture Review 3:

1. Mise-en-scene is the craft of manipulating  anything that is perceivable on the stage. This includes light, sound, set design and stage configuration etc.

2. See "Stage Configuration" in Lecture.

3. The Scenographer is the architect of the space. Do you agree?

WEEK 8:

Some genres of theatre specifically address the audience

Can theatre exist without an audience? At least one spectator is needed to make a performance. - Jerzy Grotowski

Greek theatre - Audience plays an active role

Theatre is a communal experience

Configuration is not the same as space

Change in the nature of the audience - change in the status of theatre as a cultural event

"Any artistic form depends upon some readiness in the receiver to cooperate" - Alan Cooper

Not what it means, but how it is meaningful

Brecht Epic Theatre

AUDIENCESHIP

Cognitive vs Affective audience response

Frames are principles of organization which govern social events and our subjective involvement in them - Erving Goffman

Intersubjective communication

Developing a complex thought process about what works in theatre and what doesn't

Frame competence must be developed

Frames are contingent and subject to historical change

They are culturally specific and not homogenous

All actions on stage, including naturalistic actions found in the real world, are governed by the rules of the theatrical frame

The horizons of expectations

Citational and intertextual

The general cultural conventions which are iconically represented in the performance cover the entire scope of life and behaviour within that culture, its language, manners, moral standards, rituals, tastes, ideologies, sense of humour, superstitions, religious beliefs, the entire body of its store of ideas and concepts.

An awareness of the specific dramatic or performance conventions within that culture, society or subculture, as well as those of the specific dramatic medium or sub‐genre: stage‐ play (e.g. tragedy, comedy, farce), opera, cabaret, site‐specific performances etc

The individual's interpretation of what he or she is seeing, the whole meaning of the performance will, in addition, be conditioned by a variety of factors inherent in his or her own personality: his or her visual sense and taste, say in clothes and furniture, personal preferences for certain physical types among the actors, or, indeed, specific personal interests.

WEEK 9:

Stanislavski's Naturalist Theatre

Psychologically realistic acting

scientific/systemic pedagogy known as THE SYSTEM

Organic process

Interweaving the action of the play-text with the operating social situation and the actors' imagination and experience

A coherent and logical system with specific objectives and processes

Based on emotional memory

Humanity and truth

Not to be mistaken with the Lee Strasberg's Method

Strasberg and Stanislavsky both share a limited concept of emotional memory in acting, but they apply the concept differently

Strasberg - What would motivate ME, to behave in the way my character behaves?

Stanislavski - What would I do if I were there?

Critically analyzing versus substitution

Stanislavski is not about mimesis, but about creating an order of reality that is coherent in the context of the play-text

The system aims to conjure within the actors' mind the thoughts and feelings which cause observable and physical behaviour to occur.

Thus, Stanislavski tells his actors that they must never aim to portray emotions.

Instead, they must evoke the internal forces that makes one behave that way.

Metamorphosis, not mimesis

Psycho-logical

Based on the logical construction of a character through an analytical study of the character's emotional composition, relationship with her circumstances and with other characters

MAGIC IF - Placing yourself on a fictional situation and extrapolating the consequences

Stimulus to the actor's imagination

Constructing a coherent and consistent psyche

Given Circumstances

The external environment that affects the psychological and physical behaviour and action of the character. Includes the "facts", events, epoch, time and place of action etc

Objective, superobjective and line of action

Driving force of the character

Superobjective: Overarching driving force of the character throughout the play

Intermediate Objective: The character's objective for each scene or unit

Objective: Line by line analysis of the character's motivations that is explained by the intermediate and the superobjective.

Transform your own emotions into the character

Stanislavski is a system that stresses the actor's inner truth

METHOD OF PHYSICAL ACTIONS

Focusing on physical actions which stirs the psychological side of the the psychophysical act

Once the right internal states have been established, Stanislavsky maintains, these will shape the physical performance automatically; just as in everyday life our thoughts and feelings automatically appear as words and actions, so the 'physical materialisation of a character to be created emerges of its own accord once the right inner values have been established'

• The Stanislavsky system of acting is characterised by a smoothness, an absence of discord and disjuncture. Being composed of gestures, postures, regimes of movement, intonations and facial expressions which accord with that narrow and unitary conception of the character's psyche ‐ which are chosen precisely because they signify it ‐ the Stanislavskian performance text offers an image of the illusory coherent self no matter what character is being portrayed or which text staged, and this is the result of the very practices employed.

Fluid performance within the play's established parameters

Internalizing structure and limits of the character

Marked coherence to the acting, with all signs disciplined to stay within set limits

Signifies the single, defined character

BERTOLT BRECHT

Feelings and emotions should not be the be all and end all of theatre

Epic Theatre - The antithesis of naturalistic theatre

Epic Poetry vs Dramatic Poetry

Epic Poetry should focus on one particular story that remains an organic whole

It can jump back and forth through events

Realism = Illusion

Brecht feels that we encourage empathy through realism and we don't think anymore

Hypnotized by emotion, Brecht argues that the audience no longer thinks critically

He describes realist acting as audience being forced into empathy

– The ‘through line of action’ into which objectives are arranged … effaces the socially constructed and therefore changeable nature of political reality. – By immersing the audience in a swift current of objectives and their consequences, it fosters the illusion that the causal sequences it depicts are in some way absolute. A sequence in which a causes b causes c overwhelming suggests that give a (the given circumstances), c is inevitable

Brecht proposes to dislocate the spectator's habitual framing through a critical counterpoint designed to provoke a need for reappraisal. Where the power structures that underline social situation become invisible when considered natural, Brecht will attempt to make starling what seems obvious, curious what seems inevitable - this is alienation

Brechtian vs Brechtian Elements

Defamiliarization - making something strange

Forcing the audience to re-examine thing that they have taken for granted

Utility of estrangement is not propaganda but insight

EPIC NARRATIVE

Dissociation of adjoining segments of a work as though the narrative was independent of time

Dislocation of the through line that Stanislavski depends on so heavily

Brecht is about externalizing the character's representation

ARTAUD'S THEATRE OF CRUELTY

Lifting the veil of appearances which conceals the violence of creation

Influenced by Balinese theatre

Gesture, body movement

WEEK 10:

Feminist theatre aims to be anti-essentialist

It critically analyzes and questions the status quo

Gender is a social construct

Women's Culture

The male gaze: Objectification

Mary Stilwell and Mary Shelley - why are their roles reduced to being the counterparts to their male partners?

Postcolonialism - Reclaiming the Asian identity

Postcolonial theory - individual emotional commitment and outrage with larger community effort

Against simplistic essentialism and stereotypes

Theatre has been colonized for so long that it has become a foreign language

When postcolonial writers reject a standardized language, it's called abrogation

British English is not the centre or the norm

There is no right or wrong English

Alterity - Otherness, alternate

Alterity enables us to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the world

Colonial culture constructs the native as the radical Other of white cultures

Not just an other but an inferior other

Primitive, pagan and non-modern compared to the modern and advanced white man

Constructions of alterity in the colonial context takes recourse to stereotypes: The savage, irrational, emotional narrative vs the calm, rational and systematic white

Construction of Otherness is institutionalized into practices that justify discrimination by skin colour

Appropriation - Act of usurpation by which the dominant imperial power assumes the culture of the smaller minority groups

In the postcolonial context, the tables are turned. Minority groups reclaim their power

Theatre can create illusions of what it can be

WEEK 11:

Theatre generates empathy for others

What is applied theatre?

Storytelling to educate and influence

Healing properties of theatre - drama therapy

Psychological outreach through play and imagination

Creating art means creating change

Theatre and Media

• Epochal shifts in media technology
• Media and mediation - a filter through another channel
• Media refers to an extension of man
• Puppetry is the most evident use of media

Circle of Life: The Lion King

Theatre meets new innovations with openness and accommodation rather than with rejection

Area of drama is the domain where theatre interacts closely with radio, cinema and television

Although each area has its own dramaturgical concerns, they share the use of actors, directors and concepts of design

Electrify My World

The inclusion of multimedia alters space, perspectives and introduces other elements of storytelling and action

2 kinds of multimedia - Linear multimedia and interactive multimedia

WEEK 12:

Performance Studies - concept of play

Whereas work takes place at a certain time and place, play can occur anytime and any place

Play: Active play, playing with things and playing with others

Each of these is a kind of performance because each involves a measure of pretending, a "magic if" which enables the player to enter a world of make-believe

Speech and communication

Gender and race studies

Roles of performance

Performance focuses on the process rather than the outcome as opposed to traditional text-based drama

It mediates between performance practice and theory

Conclusion < process

Performance as a way to study behaviour and culture

Study of sociology, fine art, psychology, anthropology etc

Any consciousness of an audience would lead to an involuntary performance

Identity is a performance

Gender as a performance - we are acting our gender role based on given circumstances

Duality, liveness, audience

WEEK 13 (Performance - No Lecture)

For lab reflections, refer to my upcoming post.