Exploring Tolkien text

In language of theatre we had been put into groups where we were told to begin exploring a booklet of text , picking out parts which stood out to us. My group choose this paragraph ,

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crown less again shall be king 

We all thought that this short poem said a lot about Enlgand in terms of its past and future. We thought about the taboo of treatment of people with mental disorders , control of people and people who are seen to be strange being prosecuted.  We were creating a total theatre piece and thought it would be interesting to keep a sense of ambiguity. We used a lot of torturous scenes with emphasis on physicality and noise. A particually powerful moment to this piece is where I am struggling on a chair that i am being tied to. I am marked insane and am forced medication against my will. As a group we discussed this moment and the audience found t particularly attention grabbing. 

When watching the other groups performances we saw an interesting concept. Charlie's group used darkness and a light box in the centre of the room. We were told before we went into the room to take our own journeys and that we could be as close or as ar from the actors just like punch drunks work. This was really interesting , everybody had a unique amazing experience. We then began to look into what it would be like to enocouporate this into the whole piece . On discussion we decided that we wanted to create non promenade theatre and have each audience have their individual journeys. We tried putting all of our pieces together and were told it worked really well. The challenge will be volume levels and retaining clarity. Yet by using this type of theatre we are creating a unique very experimental experience for the audience . 

Total theatre and further development to final piece

Today was an extremely exciting and yet challenging day. After our warm up we began looking at different physicialites of different characters form the lord of the rings. As we retained eye contact with a partner we moved around the room , experimenting with the way we could move and really pushing ourselves to exhaustion. As Grotosky would have pushed his actors. Building on the exercise we looked at different levels of intensities of our movement , we also added sound to our character. After this exploration we were put into groups and began working on total theatre , using themes from lord of the rings and writing we had written previously about England.

My group wanted to explore the city and country side , revolution , rich vs poor , and things being taken away. Originally it was very challenging devising. My group seemed to bne getting stuck on details and finding it hard to use the lord of the rings successfully. However once we stopped thinking so much about what characters in lord of the rings could represent people in our pieces about England the task became easier. We started focusing on our text more and using out of the ordinary physicality to express emotion. Our piece begins as a representation of the shire. We all wake up and create a soundscape of the shire while dancing around happily with lucid movement. We then all take a world from Jasmine's piece and repeat it. At first softly then we build the intensity to a very unpleasant over happy state. We then get punched down by a police man. Using again text from Jasmine. The revolution then starts. Here we are representing uprising in the cities. With a big influence being the riots. Our physicality become much more violent and animalistic. Each of us has words relating to all our topics we explore. Our speech is deserted giving the piece a creepy very intense feel. Will is a police man and we manage to take him down. There is a huge sense of relief as we sigh on the floor. Yet when he rises again we revolt even more passionately. Eventually Jasmine is killed. Representing the sacrifice of so many made for the good of a movement. We also incorporate some text from an inspector calls in this scene. Talking about learning from the people who revolt and realising we are all just people in the end , all responsible for each other and ourselves. Jasmine is then lifted and we all join to carry her back to the peaceful shire. Jasmine sings a song about coming home to a beautiful England. I particularly like how the song talks about coming home to a beautiful England just after all the horrors we have just demonstrated.

Interview with J.R.R Tolkien

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbzRrD2KA4g 

I think it was really interesting to watch real footage of Tolkien talking about his mystical lands he has created. The way he talks as if it is all real is particularly interesting as its like he knows this world so well that it is real to him. Also I think it suggests that his fantastical world was based on the one we live in.

Artaud , Taboo , Catharthis

Today we delved deeper into Artaud.  Firstly we looked at his personal life , as it was extremely tragic it was interesting to explore its effect on his work. By seeing that his art often followed his breakdowns we see that it was used as catharthis for Artaud.

We then started looking deeper into Catharthis and its effect and why Artaud felt it was so important. Artaud wanted his audience to be effected by his work and to come away feeling emotionally in tune to the piece. Like Stansivlasky emotional connection was important to Artaud. However he believed it should be less pleasant and that the audience shouldn't relax in their seats but instead be involved with the piece , rather more like Brecht.

Thinking about Catharthis and its effect led us to Taboo topics. By performing something Taboo and making the audience feel extremely uncomfortable a sense of Catharthis was created. We got into groups of 4 and began to work on a Taboo topic. My group decided to address sex and sexual abuse. Me , Jasmine and Megan were three girls being sexually abused by Oisin. We wanted to show that often quickly sex can turn very unpleasant. We started of by making sex noises on the wall , whilst Oisin went around us in a border line affectionate way. Oisin then became more violent to the point where we got a whip out and became very violent. Our noise transformed in to screams of fear and we all ended up crying on the floor — as broken women. The piece was a huge challenge , in order for it to be effective we had to completely commit. Yet this required a lot of self discipline as doing such awkward things meant we had to almost force ourselves to commit. Once we did perform we put in 100% and our piece was taken seriously and was also easier to act. Watching other groups it was clear how much effort we had made as a class. It was really lovely to see our growth together and it was like in a couple of hours we had all really grown as actors as we were now able to do very out there serious issues. Our exercise ties in perfectly with Atria's theatre of cruelty. Watching the performances it was easy to understand this type of theatre as we all really extensively experienced it.

Tolkien and Artaud together used themes of agitation and unrest of our times to create theatre half way between dreams and reality. Artaud especially created theatre which was extremely important and dealt with current issues with an extreme perspective that I think is really important to appreciate even though hard to watch.

Exploring the themes of Shire and our current world

Today we had a very interesting discussion about Tolkien's shire and what comments it makes on our society now. It was really interesting to make links between fantasy and reality and why Tolkien chose fantasy and what we can draw from the books being fantasy.

Interestingly I think fantasy is a really great way for the reader or watcher to realise a situation that may be less obvious yet one we experience. The fantasy shire land created and its contrasts to the industrial land is really useful for taking us out of our own bubble. Often we are trapped in our own worlds and there is quite a strong divide between people living in the country and those living in the city. Often both groups find it hard to relate to one and other. Yet showing the contrasts through the blown up fantasy land that Tolkien writes in really sends the message that despite our different classes and culture we are all just people part of one greater collective. In the fellow ship of the ring there are many different groups of thing like hobbits and goblins yet they are all part of the fellow ship , commenting that despite our differences we are all more similar than we think. It really amazes me how much I personally draw about the world I live in through something so out of the world I know , showing the power of fantasy and imagination. Tolkien makes us realise reality through fantasy.

We also talked about Tolkien's environment of Oxford that he lived in. Oxford has an almost mystical lay out with many side alleys. It's really interesting to think of Oxford a very similar place to the Shire. Oxford is also associated with academia therefor I can almost imagine Tolkien thinking very deeply and being immersed in the world of literature and deep thought when writing. Yet Oxford is not only a very academic place but also I think something often overlooked is the value of art. Art is not only taught extremely well in Oxford but also the articheture and landscape is full of art. I think the combination of academia in literature and art really help understand the craft of the book as not only is it full of literary genius but it also is detailed with emense creativity like the book has been painted.

Artaud

Artaud had an incredibly hard life , this definitely reflected on his art and the meanings he was putting across through his art work .

From a very young age Artaud was faced with extreme trauma , he was the eldest child of 9 , yet only 3 survived. Meaning he would have had to go through the loss of his brothers and sisters and also be effected by the effect of this on his family. During this time of his life he made lengthy visits to his maternal grandmother. They became very close yet she died too. Interestingly after her death Artuad began writing poetry. His art followed deep trauma and sadness explaining the nature of his art.  Not only did Artuad experience loss during his child hood but he also had meningitis which became the origin of life long nervous disorders.

In 1914 Artuad first properly suffered from depression. He was unfit to join the army and through the years that followed he was in and out of nursing homes. Interestingly through looking at his timeline its clear to see that after each tragedy in his early life he wrote or published poetry. This really shows that Artuad really was a tortured artist who depressingly worked best when he was least functonable as a person. By 1918 Artaud had began to experiment with drugs. His relationship between drugs and depression grew together. To escape the depression Artaud would turn to drugs , yet obviously the drugs maid his fragile mind worse. Yet through his self destruction Artuad's art became increasingly interesting. Through his use of opium he first dreamt of 'spontaneous theatre'.

From 1922 Artaud became very active in the theatre. He attempted to quit drugs yet his attempts were in vain. To me it is clear to see that though Artaud was bad at life he created great works from his despair and incapability to look after himself. As his life went on he became more and more involved with different art forms from poetry to plays to film. Artuad was also clearly un afraid to live and make bold decisions. In 1936 he left for Mexico yet was penniless.  Yet in 1937 the successful and almost happier days seemed to be gone. He had more failed drug treatment and a failed engagement to Cecile Schramme. After writing and publishing Les Nouvelles Revelations de l'etre he ended up first being arrested n Ireland and then being emitted to another mental institute. The next 9 years were  spent moving around different instates and Asylums. Artuad then died in 1948 from cancer of the anus.

Though Artuad lived an extremely terrible life were his tortured sole could never look after his body his offerings to theatre were immense. I think its very important also to understand how depressed he was when looking at his work as the themes of his art work clearly come from the dark places in his mind.

First Lesson

Today marked our first day of working on experimental theatre. We briefly talked as a group about what we would work on . We are looking at England and within in that the writings of C.S lewis in Narnia and Tolkien's Lord of the rings. Both of these books use England as a base for creating amazing imaginative worlds. Imagination is hugely important for creating experimental theatre as to make work exciting we must be bold and step out of our comfort zones creating worlds using broad imagination.

When we started practically working we first started to make a sound scape. This first sound scape was based on our own idea of 'shire' from Lord of the rings. The first sounds heard worked well together and created a sweet atmosphere. However as more sounds began to layer I feel the scape became less successful. There were hints of comedy and the focus was not 100% , this made it sound messy and chaotic almost opposite to shire. The sounds were not working with each other like cogs in a machine but instead it was like they were fighting each other. After we realised this scape was not the most successful we were told to keep our focus up and think about our sounds working to make one sound. We then created a dark erie scape. This was a lot more successful. Not only were the comedic sounds removed but also I feel every body had better sounds as it was probably easier to imagine and create more sinister sounds than happy and sweet. Also the sound sussed worked much better together , by increasing focus our ears for each others sound were more aware thus making our sounds work better together.

Then we moved on to the alphabet box exercise. This consisted of us first drawing a bows with our right arm around us , there were different levels to the box and on each level letters of the alphabet. After we had marked out our box we had to learn to spell our name using our right arm to point to the letters. When we were familiar with the combination we began to put different body parts to each direction , using Laban techniques. This was first challenging as it was very abstract and different from anything I had done before. However once I had familiarised myself with the task I found it exciting and interesting. It was nice to see what  could do with my body and expression just from creating essentially my name. My favourite part of the exercise was when I watched half of the class do there small pieces to some music. I found myself beginning to tell stories from there movements. There was no remelence to them spelling out a name and instead I saw mothers protecting their children and the next Dr Who villain. I also found it interesting how I was drawn in to certain people more than others. When I watched the pieces for the second time I looked at everyone as one body of movement , rather than focusing on particular people. This was very enchanting as everybody's movement began to sinc and tell stories together.

I really enjoyed the lesson. It really opened me up to experimental theatre and made me feel like I was going back to the core of acting. Instead of focusing on tiny technicalities I was being creative and opening up my imagination , getting back to epic story telling. It felt like I was becoming big and bold with my choices and also just having a lot of fun. It will be interesting to see where this exciting creating can lead in the up coming weeks.