Theatre Log Book Term 2 - November 5th 2013

In pairs we discussed a political story from the Metro newspaper, considering this term the theme for our future production is politics. Here is a website from the Labour Party which is focused more on the left wing. http://www.labour.org.uk/how_we_work

Then, we also did an exercise which helped us explore the 'V' effect where we gave moods to our body parts to communicate something. For example, we would have to show the angry emotion through our elbows. Then, in partners we then had to include the political story using one part of our body. This is an example of 'strange making'.

I found this exercise quite challenging because at first it was quite hard to get out of my comfort zone as it was something totally different, however, once I warmed up to it I was able to show the emotions through the motions of my arm/elbow.

From doing this I learnt that you can still communicate a story and emotions when using the Verfremdungseffekt, although I found it quite strange, I understood the weird effect it has, but I also learnt from the exercise that it does in fact highlight a certain situation, because in a performance, the audience would be attracted to this.

We then had a discussion about the left wing and right wing where we placed ourselves in the room based on our opinions of the left and right wing and conducted a huge debate concerning our opinions.

After, we did an activity where we applied the 'V' effect to the debate. Doing this, we made a small gesture and exaggerated it where it got bigger and bigger each time around the circle. We had a gesture each for: yes. no, and don't know and we applied these actions to several political statements depending on our opinion.

puppetry

After, we did character creation, where we worked with a different partner and manipulated them into the position of an old man/old woman. We had to imagine that we were pulling certain parts of our partners body. This task seemed like puppetry to me as it almost felt as if we were controlling them when manipulating them. We created the physicality of block characters which included: A capitalist; who was rich and fat, a pregnant lady; who was drunk, party goers; who were champagne drunk, and rowdy drunk people. Most of the character's personality was seen through the physicality which related to the Brechtian style of acting, in which he says you should narrate the actions/gestures of the actor.

We also found out the topic of our play which is race and immigration. Therefore I have done some research about how people can avoid immigration in the USA. This can be done by applying for a Green Card where you will then become an American citizen once applied. I found out some of the information from this website:  http://www.immigrationdirect.com/?r=ga-cpc-imm_world-immigration_usa:m=e&gclid=CPmOn--I07oCFbLJtAodCzwAwQ