Jerzy Grotowski

Jerzy Grotowski's had works on 'Poor Theatre', his movement started in 1968-1980, he wrote a book called 'Towards a Poor Theatre' and this showed the theory of his work. It was that theater should compete with television film, and that it should be brought back to it's original routes where actors would act live in front of a spectator on stage. He saw this as an important factor, this was demonstrated through Grotowski's rehearsals as a black set was used and also black clothing, during this time he made it evident that actors needed to have control over their bodies and also their breathing and voice, strenuous and vigorous exercises were done to achieve this. His demand for the actor's was to have them engage in both themselves and also the audience to find something deep within them. Grotowski aims to train his actors to be 'holy' in the way that they had to leave their egos behind and their personalities in order to become the character that they are designed to be, also through extreme mental and physical training the actors helps to expose their innermost being. In class we did exercises involving physical training with our bodies then there are vocal training too. We did an exercise based off the harlem shake where we had to use every part of our body from our toes to our head and so Nour started the Harlem shake and everyone first started doing their own movement then to allow us to alter our body movement Mrs. Morris would shout at now you are walking on glass, hot coals, you are excited, you are sad and with each mood/feeling we were capable of changing our bodies. What I realized was everyone had quite the same mind set whenever we had to change our emotions, for example when it was time to get excited everyone was waving their hands high up in the hair and shouting and screaming, and jumping, using their whole body, actors had to do this for rehearsals for 5 minutes straight and I could not even do it for 3 minutes it was so exhausting afterwards, and if we had to act tired all our bodies would just slouch and down to our feet we would be wobbly, then we did some vocal exercises where we had to go from a low tone to a high tone, saying a specific word, it was quite peculiar to see how low we can start then go very high, and I found it fascinating how Grotowski's actors had to do this for 3 minutes and we only lasted 30 seconds, it had a long of constraint on our voice box because we weren't used to it. In class we also watched a scene from Woza Albert, where they used minimal props to depict certain things, such as the white boss by wearing a ping pong ball, and on set they would just have a box to represent different things, a car or a train, when we watched it they moved around a lot and so the actors have to be fit to be able to use their voice and body movements to the best of their potential, and also once they start sweating, you know they are doing their job well. By the end of all the exercises I was mentally and physically drained.

Peter Pan

After seeing the Peter Pan teaser for 45 minutes there were a few aspects that I thought were well presented and thought through whereas others were quite confusing. Firstly to comment on the set what I noticed straight away was the the zip line coming from the back of where the audience are sitting to the front of the stage, also on stage there was a huge brown/orange looking rock, however for me it was too shiny but maybe this was done intentionally for the kids to grab their attention, I noticed there was a black structure with stairs, it looked like a mini stage and under it there was empty space, so at first I thought it might be a boat, but then when I saw the mushroom on top with the humidifier I got confused as to what it actually was. With the characters I noticed that the Pirates were all singing and projecting their voices which was great and also their clothing suited their characters they wore reds, whites and blacks and also had swords with them. Peter Pan was handsome looking, he wore quite a lot of greens to blend in with nature, I loved the idea of having tinker bell not talk and every time she said something there would be a jingling noise, however I noticed as she was running or doing any kind of action her wings would go skew, but I don't think she could of done anything about it, but just something I noticed, also with tinker bell,  I noticed she had point ears on which made it look more realistic.The kids who lived with peter pan were very cute, they played their parts great and were very childish, also they had shredded clothing of browns and dark greens which helped them also blend into their surroundings. Wendy's brothers had on pajamas and both their characters were well played, Wendy wore a pink dress, and I thought her role was great, her projection was clear however sometimes she was mumbling as she was speaking too fast. As the play progressed the structure I thought was a boat became a hiding spot for the children when the pirates arrived, it was covered in leaves and was great for hiding. What caught me by surprise was when peter pan flew in, I thought it would be dangerous but he made it happen and he did so very well, he played he's character with passion. Also another thing that was quite humorous was when I saw the crocodile, moving on stage but with a skateboard I thought this was clever idea since crocodiles move very swiftly. 

Classical Monologue

For this unit, we had to choose a classical monologue to memorize and perform, meaning we had to research a classical monologue that referred to either Greeks or Shakespeare. Since I was not familiar with any classical monologues I had to do some research and came across a woman's monologue in one of Shakespeare's plays Alls Well Ends Well for a woman named Helena. As I read through the monologue I realized that she is deeply in love with a man and I also recognized her physical movements as she says I kneel before you. Before I could proceed to perform it, I first needed to research as to whom she was talking to and also her setting as this determines her actions as well. I found out that Helena, the orphan daughter of a famous physician, is the ward of the Countess of Rousillon, and hopelessly in love with her son, Count Bertram, who has been sent to the court of the King of France. Despite her beauty and worth, Helena has no hope of attracting Bertram, since she is of low birth and he is a nobleman. So, in this scene she is in the Countess's Palace, asking the Countess for her blessing to marry her son. I went through the monologue and wrote down stanza by stanza what type of tone I would use, and also what would I be doing physically. For the formative performance, I started off kneeling down to her, and afterwards got up and started pacing around as I was talking to her, then towards the end I came back to my knees and tried to look even more scrawny, since I wanted to depict that if she does not marry him she would die, because she even mentions that towards the end of her monologue and so I thought it felt appropriate to look like that. My feedback and what I also realized afterwards was that I was too much in a state of begging to her rather than in this genuine state telling her I love her son and that I want to marry him and even Mrs. Morris agreed, she said whenever I talk about him I should be serious, and at the same time be passionate yet delicate towards her, since Helena knows that this man is out of her league and so she has to be respectful. Also what was a challenge for me was memorizing the Shakespearean language which of course we are all not used to since we don't talk like that, however I think with studying Shakespeare in English it gave me an advantage and was quite comfortable and familiar with the language, the language is quite poetic and has that feeling of intense love, I feel when a person expresses themselves through Shakespearean language it sounds more pure and honest and so I adjusted my tone of voice and articulation to suit the character. By overcoming these obstacles I first practiced quite a bit to set the tone and mood of the setting, instead of pacing around I fixated my eye at one point and made that point The Countess and as if I was talking to her so I stood still when I got back, to emphasize my love for her son rather than starting on my knees I fell to my knees as I thought this would be more effective and would see her reaction as being surprised and also that Helena has the courage to tell her this. The class also told me that my facial expressions were very good when I didn't even realize I was exaggerating them that much, but I think it's because I was so endured into my character.

Whose afraid of Virginia Woolf

For Whose afraid of Virginia Woolf written by Edward Albee which is a drama, a black comedy, my partner Suyin and I were assigned to choose a scene from the play and perform it, we chose a part where Martha was talking to her guests Honey and Nick about George, however she was criticizing George on his career and also insulting him. We chose this particular scene since it portrayed their personalities quite well at the beginning of the play where Martha was empowering over George and the audience could tell that the two people were very distinct from each other, we wanted to make this evident by our performances. Also present in this scene emerges some of the themes throughout the play such as alcohol, mental abuse and fantasy. Suyin played George and I played Martha, I thought that performing this scene would be quite easy since I already knew the characters and their personalities, and how they act. When we presented the formative in front of the class, we had to think about blocking and so what we decided was that I being Martha would be sitting down while I talk to the guests and George would just arrive and also he stands up to pour himself a drink, which adds different levels to the scene, also another aspect I liked about this scene is that it adds suspense and tension towards the end where there's a climax. I thought for the first time we did the blocking great and in my mind I thought I depicted Martha's character well, however the feedback we got was that I was not 'mean' enough or not treating Suyin (George) more as if he were nothing, it was a challenge for me to play this type of 'meaty' character, since I'm not generally an aggressive person and also another struggle I found was that every time I have to play a person who is older than me, I can't seem to get the tone correct to make it sound more of the age I'm playing. For Suyin I noticed that for the first performance she was somewhat holding back her character, George is vulnerable however he should be reacting to everything I am saying since I am insulting him. To overcome these obstacles I just had to allow my myself to be more endured into the character and have that thought of talking to someone who is useless and has no purpose in life, someone who is lazy and slacking around, that's the image I had in my mind, and for the tone I just had to pace myself and had to lower and make my voice higher at times, also I changed my gestures and always faced Suyin when I was talking to her so she can know I am always focused on her and belittling him in front of people and even at times pointing at him, and making facial expressions which looked disgusted. Also I saw Suyins character come out more, because at one time he drops his drink in a glass on the floor, and so there she lashed out really well to build the suspense in the end where we end up screaming on top of one another, so at the beginning we were quite mellow however building up the tension.

Documentary

For theater class we were assigned to do a documentary on a traditional dance, since that was the unit we were covering, I was partners with Su and Amal and we decided to do a documentary on the Bhangra which is a type of Indian folk dance. Before we could start we needed to do some research, we divided it and I did research on the instruments and dance steps, Su did research about the history and Amal did about costumes and the characteristics of the Bhangra, we decided to make a Google doc and that way each of us could read what the other person has put down. When I learned about the instruments I learned that the Bhangra consists of many instruments and each is used for a different genera in the Bhangra. I didn't know that there were different sub generas I thought the Bhangra was just one dance, however I learned there were many different types like the Daankara is a dance with sticks, the Gatka is a dance performed with swords and daggers, the dance and dancers are very ambitious. Bhangra used a lot of string and drum instruments to give the dance a rhythm. Whilst researching I learned that the Sarangi and Ektar are stringed instruments which almost look like a violin and the Dhol and Dhad are commonly used drums, they normally combine the string and drum instruments together. I never knew that the Bhangra originated in the Punjab region in Pakistan and that workers who worked in the fields celebrated the harvesting season and cherish the last seasons fruit bearing. I somewhat knew that this traditional dance would be celebrated at weddings or festive events as I've seen a couple of Indian dances before on the television, the one thing I loved about the dance was all the vibrant colors associated with the costumes, it brings so much life to the dance, I learned that there was a certain traditional dress that both women and men had to follow,the men had to wear a Chaadra which looks similiar to a Turban and the women had to be dressed in a dress called the Ghagra. Interestingly also the lyrics in the Bhangra deals with social issues such as marriage and love which I didn't know about. I really loved doing this documentary, my partners and I worked great as a team, at first I was hesitant that it wasn't going to be fun but a lot of work and stress, however it turned out the opposite, it was an amazing experience, I always love learning about other cultures and so this is one thing I can keep in mind. Also the most fun part of it all was actually getting to learn how to Bhangra, we searched for some YouTube tutorials and we watched a couple of moves and created our own combination of moves, but wow it was so tiring like a workout but I enjoyed it a lot, I think also the reason why doing this type of dance was fun is because it is very vivacious and I never got bored of watching people dancing the Bhangra since there's so many moves. We asked a couple of people on UN day if they could come do the Bhangra, mostly people from Pakistan and India came to help as they were familiar with it, we showed them the dance moves but wow I was so mesmerized by how much they loved doing this dance, they never got tired and they also incorporated their own moves, I could see they genuinely had fun and loved doing it.  And I have to thank Amal for putting together such an amazing video, as I wasn't good with technology but overall we really thought out the process and what to include such as voice overs and a step by step dance for a person to easily follow, we kept that in mind. The other two groups in our class did their documentaries on Gum Boot dancing and the Maori. Gum boot dancing originated from South Africa, since I am from South Africa, I remember as a kid always watching people perform it on the streets and it used to be so appealing to me but I never really understood the meaning behind it, until now. I learned that Gum boot dancing originated in the mines where black people would work, however their boss who is a white man would tell them that they can't communicate, and so they would tap their boots they used to wear, certain taps meant certain words or they would chant words, usually it would be about their frustrations and issues, the boss and the conditions they used to live in, however the boss did say that they could perform these dances as a way to vent outside the mines. They would drink and dance and just chant about their issues, this dance became so popular not only in South Africa but in Namibia and Zimbabwe, also it is currently being shown on broad way, I think it is such a powerful dance with so much meaning and emotions, the miners would also use beer caps and wire and tie it around their boots to make a jingle noise for it to be more effective. I also learned some steps from the group, it was quite fun and I think the dance looks really amazing when it's done fast. Another dance I learned about was the Maori a dance that originated from New Zealand. I knew about this dance before since I always used to see it during Rugby when the All Black would perform it before a match, the dance would always look so intimidating and I'd think to myself.. what is the other team thinking? Moreover the dance is the Haka, I always thought that the dance could be only done by men however, mixed groups or women were allowed. This dance was originally performed by warriors, I learned the dance includes facial contortions such as showing the whites of the eyes and the poking out of the tongue, and a wide variety of vigorous body actions such as slapping the hands against the body and stamping of the feet. As well as chanting, a variety of cries and grunts are used. It's very entertaining to watch they use their hands, arms, legs, feet, voice, eyes, tongue and the body as a whole combine to express courage, annoyance, joy or other feelings relevant to the purpose of the occasion. It was really fun learning this dance however I get quite shy I think because it's like no other dance I've ever done or am used to. I'd be embarrassed because of all the facial expressions used, however it is a forceful and might dance. For Arsenic and Old Lace Su Min and I did Travis's makeup the first time we did it we had no clue what to do with his face however has we practiced, we became more experienced and got better, it developed my skills to make his face look realistic as possible with the wax especially, our job was to make him look ugly, however it does take time if the person is good looking,however the end results we could not be more happy about, we really focused on the wax to blend it into his face and make it brown to really enhance it for the audience to see, it was challenging but worth it.

Curl Up And Dye

 Recently we started a new unit South African Plays; we read a play called Curl Up and Dye By Susan Pam Grant which also explores Workshop theatre.  The play was set after the apartheid had occurred in South Africa, where black, white and colored people started to live together, as the setting of this play Curl Up and Dye was set in Johannesburg in Joubert Park, where originally it was a white area and started to become a grey area, the main reason being is that people from Soweto had to drive all the way to Joburg to work for the white people in order to make money and provide for their families, however all their money was being spent on transport, so they moved closer to their workplaces. The focal theme in this place is racism/discrimination since it is set in a grey area and in a salon where there is a lot of tension between the races, how they interact and their status. Susan Grant and her colleagues would collaborate and try to brainstorm ideas on social issues that they could portray and put on script and they would also use props. When Asceal and I were performing our formative, she was playing the character of Rolene and I was Mrs. Dubois and Max was our director. Max really took this play seriously and he did not allow us to waste a minute, we had to practice until it satisfied Max, he was really good at coming up with ideas that may be suit the plays intentions, the stage directions and blocking.  Rolen who Asceal is playing is a very sassy and tacky girl and who is also the owner of the Salon, she lives with an abusive husband which is why she always takes out her frustrations in the salon and especially at Miriam who is her assistant because she is black she is always discriminated against by Rolene and Mrs. Dubois who are white people. We started the first scene of the play where Rolene and Mrs. Dubois met outside the Salon and couldn’t get in since Miriam is not there yet. Rolene starts complaining to Mrs.Dubois about how horrible the black people are, Mrs Dubois who is in her mid 50’s couldn’t care less, she just wants to get into the salon and get her hair done, and she acts very higher class and demanding when really she is poor, she is selfish and whenever someone is actually trying to vent to her, she either walks away or pays her attention to someone else. Eventually Rolene finds the keys and enters the Salon, Mrs. Dubois critics the salon and how filthy it is and how Miriam must come clean, Rolene is angered to see her salon being such a pigsty, she complains about how she doesn’t want to be the sweeping girl. Eventually Mrs. Dubois just leaves to give in her lucky numbers her Six Picks. Rolene get’s constant phone calls from Denzil, and every time the phone rings Rolene gets excited thinking it’s a customer, when it’s just her abusive husband. The area is very poor, and so the salon does not get very many customers, the only customer might be Mrs.Dubois just because she likes to hear Gossip. After we performed our formative the class said that our blocking and atmosphere was really good, the mood of the scene, however our characterizations needed some improvement, Rolene who is Asceal could have been more dirty, tacky and girly but not too the point where she is a teenager, for example look in the mirror fiddle with her hair a lot, and chew gum and my character Mrs.Dubois to act more her age, my tone of voice and her gestures. We took their advice into consideration and rehearsed again. For the summative, we made improvements and it was a lot better than the first time we performed. My character though Mrs. Dubois still did not seem her age and as an old auntie. I don’t know I seem to find it difficult to play older characters; playing younger characters are much more easier and comfortable. For me though in my mind it seemed as though my gestures and tone of voice was better however that didn’t seem to portray to the class. Maybe I should have asked my mother for advice on how to be an old tannie, I mean I have aunties, I just don’t see them very  often, so I lack some of my south african culture as in how to act as a stereo typical grandma or auntie. Also whilst we were reading the play it was funny to hear other english speakers speak in Afrikaans, at times I couldn't stop laughing and also with the way the pronounce the swear words, it was hilarious.

I am also doing the makeup for Arsenic and Old Lace, the first time I did makeup, things were really hectic and I didn’t know what character to do but then I saw Travis who is an Einstein and I started to click, I knew his face had to be full of scars and he had to look ugly. It was a challenge though, finding his foundation was easy but making his face ugly was pretty hard since he is very attractive haha. Morcom helped me draw a line through his eye and make a line across his nose as if it were broken, and then I asked Amal whether she has gummy scar things we can maybe stick on his face to make it seem as if he has plastic surgery, which we found, however it was really hard to stick on his face.. in the end though the results were great, he looked very ugly, scars, a bit of blood, brown patches and brown lips, now I know what to do for him next time.  

Workshopping

Personally I really enjoyed the unit we did on work shopping, specifically Poor Theater because as we studied it more in depth I never knew that people are able to use minimal props to put on performances especially for social issues. I honestly always thought the directors had to spend millions of money to create a production, when in Poor Theater the opposite has to be done and use as little props as possible in order to convey the issue through the play, I never knew a small prop could make such a huge difference for example using a pen for a syringe in a case of drug abuse.I learned that it's not so much about what prop you use, it's how the character chooses to use it and how well they demonstrate their actions using the prop, that's why I learned gestures have to be exaggerated so do facial expressions, because that's what the audience pays most attention to when watching, so if the gestures and facial expressions are evident then the audience won't have any trouble trying to figure out what the character is trying to depict. I think with Poor Theater one can get very creative and it challenges your thinking abilities and also helps people develop skills to work in an ensemble, it allows for people's imaginations to first expand and brainstorm various concepts but afterwards the group has to collaborate and choose only one topic that would be the most important and to make the audience more aware of. With me, Mrs. Morris made us work and draw ideas from a stimulus which in this case was a picture of a fetus. The process of work shopping I realized does take quite some patience in putting together a play the theory and practical aspects, things won't simply come together by themselves I really have to sit down with my group and think things through before performing it, making sure the information that we brainstormed doesn't overwhelm our play and draws away from the actual social issue that we are trying to convey, we had to think about ways to portray good evident transitions for the audience and to make the play episodic, also in poor theater because they did not have many people acting we would switch between characters for example in my group we were only three people but two of the three characters played different roles and genders, my group and I always found ourselves making adjustments to the play mainly working towards what could we do to make it better and more realistic. The social issue we strongly believed how unsafe sex is bad,alcohol and drug abuse and abortion, we thought this was perfect since all three were in some way associated with one another and it's a major situation that occurs during teenage years. Our play was about a irresponsible girl who decides one day to party all night and have unsafe sex with a male and getting drunk. A few weeks later her attitude alters completely and she was not as innocent as she once was and becomes a whole different person by using drugs, her friends confront her of how much she changed and she did not want to accept it. Later she gets pregnant and her mother and her fight but later go to the doctor for an abortion. The doctor insinuates that it is not a good idea and after talking with her mother they both agree to keep the baby however once they return the doctor says that too much alcohol and drugs have been used and the baby is gone. I really genuinely loved doing this topic since it's very educational for people our age not to have unsafe sex whenever and wherever they want to and how  it can lead to being pregnant and because of all the stress of being so young and having a baby, stress kicks in and drugs become involved and in the end it teaches people how unsafe sex sometimes leads to abortion depending on the ethics of the person which can kill a person but at the same time because of the use of so much toxins the baby dies. I feel like the audience really feels for this girl getting pregnant at such a young age and would teach their children or even themselves not to ever do that. When it was time to perform the formative we were all nervous but at the same time we were keen to show what we produced. At the end of the formative, we got really good constructive feedback on what we can really improve on and make better, which we always appreciate. What we had to work on the most were transitions, to us the transitions seemed clear but to the audience it weren't as much and we had to respect that, the characterization of some characters were not realistic and the conversation that they were having sometimes, Mrs Morris told us that if one character did not have any lines to say they could hold up signs to describe the emotions in that moment for example if the mother and daughter were fighting one character would hold up a sign saying disappointment or despair which is an alienation device and adds more visuals, also the audience told us that our sound effects were good like when time was passing other characters would say tick tock tick tock in whispers to add suspense and build up tension to reach a climax.We took all the feedback into consideration and transformed our play a thousand times better than it was the first time round, the feedback from our peers really made a huge impact on the play and by the end of it we could really differentiate between good and great. Our summative went much better than we expected and I think it's because we practiced so many times that we got attached to our characters emotionally and physically, we were all in that state of mind. I can speak for myself because at first it was honestly really difficult trying to play a girl who had unsafe sex got pregnant used drugs and wanted an abortion, because I know I would never be that type of girl it was out of my league but trying to prove a very essential point I had to do it, I had to face challenges outside my comfort zone and by the end of it, I was more than happy that I did it because the whole experience was life changing in a way, I got so attached to this person that I felt her emotions in my gut, it was as if in the moment I was actually this person for a few minutes and playing along with the character also hits me in the stomach of what really could happen if I were pregnant, it ruins relationships and lives especially at a young age, it taught me a good lesson. We made sure our transitions were more clearer, by using music as a source of passing time and also the switching on and off of the lights gave a great effect, the second time I could sense that we were more prepared for our characters, we knew what was expected of us and to be honest we did an amazing job I would not have performed it any other way, we really did do it to the best of our abilities, we might have had a few faults here and there like rushing, blocking etc. but it was really good and at the end of it, I was so soaked into this character of mine that I even began crying when the moment was right and that was when I lost the baby because of my lifestyle by doing drugs and also I thought of how this girl is going to have scars for life, the memory will always be with her and for such a young person to live with such pain is just dreadful so I really put myself in her position and how I would react to the situation and even though this never happend to me before I think overall I did a great job trying. At first I could say we were not as serious minded about the play but as we progressed into our characters and practiced more we really did take it seriously, because if we were not serious then the audience would not take it seriously as well. We used minimal props such as for the syringe we used a pen, for chairs we used black boxes not many props were incorporated or even had to be used to send out such a powerful message, it was all about the acting. What would have been interesting and I wish I would have done is maybe interviewed someone or looked on the internet as to how people felt especially teenagers when they get pregnant, it would have given me even more to think about and take into consideration however I did watch a program called sixteen and pregnant and I was just shocked at how hard life really is for them especially finance and some boys are not even supportive so it's just the mother alone who has to go through all the pain which is really heartbreaking.