Berlot Brecht

BERTOlT BRECHT

Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Germany on 19th February, 1898. He studied philosophy and medicine at the University of Munich before becoming a medical orderly in a German military hospital during the First World War This experience resistant his hatred of war and influenced his support for the failed Socialist revolution in 1919.After the war Brecht returned to university but eventually became more interested in literature than medicine. His first play to be produced was Bale (1922).

Brecht attempted to build up a new approach to the theatre. He tried to convince his audiences to see the stage as a stage, actors as actors and not the usual make-believe of the theatre. Brecht required disconnection, not passion, from the observing audience. The purpose of the play was to awaken the audience minds so that he could communicate his version of the truth.

BRECHT METHOD

Brecht developed a style of theatre known as epic theatre. He believed that in conventional theatre the audience hung up their minds with their coats as they entered the theatre. He wanted to remind the audience that they were watching a play. He used representations of characters instead of real characters. He also encouraged the actors to talk to the audience before the play began. He used minimal props; usually only one per character. There was a use of character labels. A half curtain across the stage was also a feature, and the actors changed costumes on stage. The characters changed costumes on set because they wanted enforce the idea that the actor's were not completely one with the character. In making this distinction, they helped break the fourth wall between the audience and the stage. Brecht did not want the audience to be comfortable with the play instead he wanted them to judge society and go out to make a difference.

 

 

EPIC THEATRE

It took Brecht approximately 10 years to devise his Epic theatre. His main influences were: Travelling fairs; Elizabethan style theatre (props minimum, quick scene changes, ) He wanted to make clear the distinction between Dramatic theatre (romanticised, emphasised theatre) and Epic theatre, which distances the audience so they look on neutrally. Through Epic Theatre, Brecht was not providing truth, but rather opinions, and a method with which to interrogate them.

Epic theatre is almost the direct opposite of Dramatic theatre. Dramatic theatre aims to copy ‘real life’ on stage and make its audience into feeling for the characters on stage. The human being is unchangeable. It shows man as a fixed point.  Dramatic theatre wears down the spectator’s power for action. Epic theatre wants the audience to be significant observers questioning what is happening on stage, realising the characters are actors and that the stage world is not attempting to pretend to be real. The human being is inconsistent. Epic Theatre is a means for social change. The spectator is forced to face something and see man as a process.

Brecht did not want you getting too attached to the characters on stage, but instead focus on the meaning of the story. Actors could be swapped around in roles during the piece to keep the audience alert. Unlike Stantanislavski he was a theatre consultant who believed in creating “truth” on stage, meaning that he wanted an audience to feel that what was happening in a performance was as natural and real as possible. In order to present his ideas to other actors and directors he created his own system which is generally familiar as the ‘Stanislavski system’. Within his system, Stanislavski comments on how an actor may use emotion memory to help them make their performance as believable as possible. 

In order for an actor to make their performance seem real to the audience, an actor must first believe their performance themselves, which, Stanislavski commented could easily be done by the actor finding a similar situation to what the character is in and relive the feeling which they felt at the time as Stanislavski was adamant that an actor on stage must live a “repeated” experience not a “primary” one because it is their own past experiences which shape the characters on stage and an actor must always remain themselves on stage but use the ‘given circumstances’ and the ‘magic if’ to imaginatively adapt to the situation on stage. 

Brecht did not believe in Stanislavski naturalism, he came up with the theory that if you come to see a play and pay for the play then that can never be Natural, so epic theatre was Brecht's way of theatre, what he wanted to achieve was to make the audience know it wasn't real that it was fiction.

So Epic theatre was very humorous, which made it successful, Brecht could put one of the most despicable crimes such as murder, and make it comic by adding music or making character's puppets, it also made people see different aspects of the scene so even though he/she has murdered someone, that person may think.

TIE PROJECT

    


  

 

Progress of Creating Peformance

We were all working as separate groups and we each had a script to make once we had our own scripts we combined our scripts together. We staged our scene by sitting in a semi-circle for simplicity reasons. Nick came up with an idea which was to lean forward whenever a character was being introduce because it gave an powerful feeling that something is about to happen. Also we came up with voice overs which were done in a very original way by creating a life for the character. Each person had to describe a character and give clues about what’s happening to them however not give away too much away. We also did it in unplanned orders since we thought it would be interesting, we kept the actors dialogue simply because we know that teenagers want the truth so we didn’t want to over exaggerate and we made sure that the word abusive was not used or exposed in the acting. At the end of our piece we had Ayo and Ahmed who both said a speech to let the teenagers know that you can't change what happened but you can move on from it then better yourself also always remember that there are people who can help you get out of the situation.

 

 Then we had Shabil and Chrystal who were doing the monologues for each character explaining in depth how they all feel by confronting the characters. When I watching the peace what stood out the most to me was Mariesha monologue at the end of her piece, the monologue was about decision making which was very inspiring and powerful because it made the audience think about the situation and how serious these topics are. Also we broke the fourth wall because we interacted with audience when Chrystal and Shabil were delivering their monologue for the characters they were giving the audience insight into his or her thoughts. It was a good idea because we were interacting with the audience and we were including them in the situation

 

 

Us a group decided to do a piece on domestic violence and sexting because they're major issues in society. The majority of teenagers go through this and don't realise how serious it it is. I honestly thought it was a good topic to work on because many teenagers are affected by it. however teenagers find it difficult to speak out because they feel afraid to speak to someone, which leads them to being becoming depressed and not focused in school, starting to use drugs and alcohol, overdosing themselves  and attempting suicide.

Teenagers think by running away from a situation will solve the situation. They believe that running from their problems is an appropriate means of dealing with crisis instead of communicating with others to get problems solved. We want the teenagers to understand that being in a violent household and relationship can physically, emotionally and mentally destroy you. We decided to sexting since it has become very controversial because people don’t realize that once an image makes it onto the internet you no longer have any control over it. And it come to haunt you year later.

 

Teenagers may not think it could be a problematic right now but it will affect them in the future.Many young people who thought sexting was a harmless game ended up having their lives destroyed. In one tragic incident, Sexting may seem like harmless fun, but teens should think twice before hitting the “send” button. There is no turning back once a message is sent. 

 

 

Decisions Making


 

Our TIE project was based on making decisions for you. There is no doubt that all of us need to make decision in many situations and depend on these situations we make either quick decisions or deliberate ones .However ,sometimes we must make fast decisions and most of time they are right . But we need occasionally to take time to think before build any thought about things that maybe affect our life. The thing about difficult decisions, and decisions you need to make under pressure, isn’t just that they’re hard to make in the first place

 

 

 Developing Ideas

 

  

As we were doing our research on sexting we came up with an Idea which was to do a forum. We thought it would be different. In the forum we gave different opinions on what the character should do, we had ¾ people who thought the same thing and ¾ who thought different which interesting because we got to see people’s opinion.  We also decided to repeat what we said again to make an affect.  When Prince says he last line which was “disgusting” we stopped saying our lines and looked up and all said together “enter” which was a very important powerful line but we kept messing up because we all weren’t saying it at the same time, therefore we kept going through the scene again until it was perfect but we kept struggling with the ending because we wasn’t saying “enter” at the same time. Some of us were too fast and too slow but then we thought of the number game that we do in warm up which helped us 10 times better.

 Furthermore we came up with another scene which was mine, Brendon and Prince’s scene we came up with a story line which was Prince was an aggressive step dad who was an alcoholic who is violent towards his wife (Me) and his step son (Brendon) we came up with an idea how to start off the scene which was My character Charlene and James were in the kitchen and she was telling him how she struggling with finance but he doesn’t care all he wants was a drink and prince made it clear that he doesn’t care and all he wants is a drink. And because he aggressive and violence towards her she has to respect him and listen to him because if she doesn’t he will hurt her.  But we decided   that she shouldn’t let him drink at first because Charlene knows how he is when he is  drunk he is very abusive hence why she refused to get the drink for him but because she knows how he aggressive he can be she went to go and get the drink for him.

 

 As I came up the stage the scene Adam arrived home late and James was asking him irrelevant questions because he wanted a reason to hurt Adam he tripped him up and Charlene came back in the kitchen and tried stopping James from hurting him, Adam left the scene and Charlene and James began to argue then he grabs her by the neck and threatens her. This scene was a challenge because we wasn’t connected to it we played around with the scene by try doing it in different ways which was helpful.

 I used Stanislavski technique which was sense memory by using sense memory it helped believe in the moment and thinking back of something that affected me in the past to get a real feeling.  Prince and I also did excises that we learnt in BTEC first which was called Meisnar method acting which helped us to say words in different ways until we felt the right emotions we had to keep repeating  the word until we feel a emotion.   

 

We had good ideas but they were too over complicated and we didn’t want to scare the kids away we wanted them to understand the message.  We didn’t want to put any actions in the abusive scenes because we don’t want the students to focus so much on the acting but focus mainly on the message.  I do think we used a bit of Bret because with Bret he wanted his audience to go away and think about the situation and understand the message but with Stanislavski  he wants the audience to feel sympathy for the character.

 

Like I said before in rehearsal we sat down in group and discussed certain circumstances based on domestic violence. Once we all came up with a idea we got up on our feet and started to improvise scene and played around with the scenes. As a group i think we worked really well together because not only one person was doing the work, each and one of us would go home and do research on domestic violence to help us with our devise piece. We were all contributing and getting up experimenting until we came up with a solid idea.

There was days where we were running out of ideas because they were too good but were rather to complicated and people were getting frustrated because people stopped being committed to the group and started to be half hearted about the work which brought the group down because if one person isn’t willing to contribute it distracts everyone else’s focus which made an big impact in our rehearsals. I think that became one of the downfalls in our group because it affected our rehearsals time because we could not rehearse  through each scenes if someone turn up or we would get someone else from our group to fill in for the person that has not turned up to rehearsals.

During rehearsals I honestly think that I was really helpful because I was giving out my ideas. And I also helped others with their scenes. If someone from my group never turned up to rehearsals I would play their character.  As a group we worked really well as a team because we all listened to each other, gave out ideas, and helped each other with our scenes because everybody has their own strength and weaknesses. Furthermore i did research on my topic to get facts about them. 

 

Sexting

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a growing trend among children and young people to take indecent photographs of themselves (and sometimes even of friends) to send on to each other or post in public places. This could be on the internet for example Facebook or by sending the photos to each other on their mobile phone. Sending images in this way is known as 'sexting'. Information from child abuse and online protection Agency (CEOP) suggest that this practice prevalent among young people.

Sexting, where people send photographs and sexually explicit text messages to titillate them and perhaps increase the likelihood of a sexual relationship, is a fairly new phenomenon. The internet has made the act of unfaithfulness much easier and though sex and unfaithfulness is now only a keyboard away, the goal for many seems to remain physical, face to face to contact, at least in sexual relationships. Obviously plenty of people lie to try starting cyber- relationships with no interest in actual human contact.

Sexting was one of the topics that we decided to do because majority of teenagers are affected by it and we thought it would be a great idea to do a piece on sexting. By doing research I found out teenagers often feel peer pressured when it comes to sexting, they feel afraid to say no because they don't want to disappoint the person. Some teenagers enjoy sexting because they think it’s fun and flirtatious but yet not knowing that it’s illegal.

I think that people often feel like they can say things in texts that they would feel to embarrassed to say in person or even talking on the phone. So people sort of "let loose" and cross personal boundaries and standards that they would normally keep. This can lead to setting themselves up to do things that they would never have seriously thought about doing had the sexting not occurred. Like sleeping with someone they hardly know or engaging in sexual behavior that they are not comfortable with but that they went along with in sexting in order to turn the other person on. 
 

Some people think there's nothing a wrong with it if two people are in a committed, loving relationship and they are just having fun. But random sexting can lead to pretty bad situations, especially if you're a young person and things get out among friends & other people you know. I disagree I honestly think regardless if his your boyfriend it’s still risky and pointless because what are you going to gain out of sending a naked picture?  

 

 



Domestic Violence Script

                         

MY SCRIPT

Domestic violence

Sarah:  Why you treating me like this? Am I doing something wrong?  I don’t understand why you treat me this way.

 Sam:  Listen, I don’t want to hear it. I haven’t got time for your bullshit.

 Sam:  Play your fucking role right before things get ugly between us and I don’t want that to happen. So stop acting up.

Sarah: What do you mean play my role right? Are you trying to say that I’m not being a good girlfriend? After everything I’ve done for you, the shit I’ve put up with. I was the one who was there for you when you needed a shoulder to cry on, not you’re so called friends, not your family.  ME! 

Sam:  Why you making a big deal out of nothing? All I said is play your fucking role right. Enough said. I don’t want to listen to what you have to say. So shut up and stop being an emotional bitch before I’ll give you something to cry about

Sarah:  You know what you remind of my dad. He didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself.  Always thinks he’s right, and he uses to hit me. Spare the rod, spoil the child. Is what he believed in and that was a load of bullshit.

Sam: Don’t try and turn this around on me.  I’m not your fucking dad am I?  I don’t care what he did to you. If he use to abuse you that’s not my business don’t cry to me about it. Because I won’t   pity you. If you did your job in the first place we wouldn’t be having this argument right now

How do kids of this age learn?

 

•The primary school kids they learn from interacting with other people and also the performance on stage. Furthermore they find it more exciting taking part and observing engaging.

 

 

•The kids find elaborate bold over the top acting entertaining and intersecting as well as funny regardless of whether they completely understand the things going on the stage such as jokes a bit above their age.

 

 

•Children tend to ask a lot of questions, we have to be able to answer all the questions and must know all the answers to the questions that the children may ask us. However we do have to break it down to them in a way they will understand how vocabulary.

 

 

• We are role models to the children therefore we have to set a good example for the kids to pick up from us. For example if we were to behave in a certain way the kids will attempt to copy our behaviour because children pick up from each other.

• Using a variety of learning styles, you can help children of all ages to absorb information and become curious about the world around them. Parents are a childs's most important teacher, and the home can be the best learning environment.

Theatre in education

Rumpelstiltskin

 

 

 

A husband  brag to a king that their daughter can spin straw into gold, so the king marries the daughter, who is just a normal person and cannot spin straw into gold.

So the king locks the princess  in a room with a spinning wheel and a pile of straw, the princess who i play is so upset because Rumpelstilskin  is going to kill her or her parents if she can't do it. So a little man shows up, and for her golden necklace, he agrees to spin the straw into gold for her.

The king is very happy so the next night he locks her in the tower with even more straw. Again the little man comes that night and for her wedding ring agrees to spin the straw into gold.

The same thing happens again, the king is so pleased, that he locks her in the tower for a third night with a whole ton of straw. She has no more jewelery to trade anymore so this time she agrees to give the little man her first born child to spin the straw into gold.

All is good and they live happily until eventually she gets pregnant. the little man comes back and lets her know that he will be taking the baby when she gives birth, but makes a deal, if she can guess his name in 3 nights then she can keep her baby. And that is the story of Rumpelstilskin.

My group and I have been working on how we could make the play big and intresting  for the children, We decided as a group to invole the children in our sence because we want them to be a apart of our play and enjoy it. We want to the children  to be intrested and not bored. We are going to  make the storyline clear for them and also exaggerate every scene and make into a comdey. and our characters, have more energy and infusasctic and make it fun and believeable for the children.

My group and I performance went well. The children loved our play because we had good energy and we were engaging with the children which kept them interested in our play. However we made sure we kept the piece simple for the children to understand, for the children not to get fed up of us. Every person played there character lively which was up lifting for the children. However As much as we were entertaining the children we were also enjoying ourselves being on the stage and having fun which was a good because if us as peformers are enjoying ourselfs the children will too.

 

Performing to primary school children was a challenge for me because it was hard to get their attention but the children were actually very energetic then I thought they would be. I thought performing to children was simply but it isn’t as easy as it seems you have to make sure the kids are having fun and interacting with the performers. Children are very fussy if they're not having fun they start to act in a certain way to demonstrate that they're bored.