STP Journal #??? (3/14/19):
For the last two and a half-three weeks (excluding this one), I have been out with a very unforgiving illness. This made working rather difficult, and being absent in class made it even harder. This is because that meant I was left with very few people able to comment on my work and critique it, which I think is very important. In addition to that, it meant I was unable to rehearse in the location I'll be recording in or work with anyone for lighting or sound. Luckily though, my piece is very simple on that part, so that's really the extent of the bad news. While I was out and immobile, I had the opportunity to do a lot of thinking about my piece. However, I made sure to avoid simply pondering technicalities like where I would stand after a certain line, or how I would use inflection specifically. Grotowski was known for his fixation with symbolism, and how important he thought it was to any piece. So I went through in my head and tweaked things about the script (which I wrote), and about my theatre convention that I thought would help make key elements of symbolism in my own piece flow more smoothly and connect just a bit stronger. I was able to practice my lines a decent amount, but wanted to slow down, and take a second to focus on the subtle, implicit details of my piece and selecting which ones I want to stand out.
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STP Journal #7 (2/15/19):
This week was also difficult to participate in, as again because of snow, we only got to meet once. On Tuesday though, we had a meeting on an app called Zoom, and had a brief pseudo-class period online, in which we all met up and discussed the dates for our performances, and how we were going to work around the snow. I liked this meeting very much, because we all got an opportunity to individually voice what we needed. For me this was especially helpful, because I realized quite recently that I made a mistake in my research of Grotowski, and I need to backtrack. I analyzed his work wrong, and discovered that I was not using the aspect of poor theatre correctly or in the way that I should. I plan to practice with my advisor this weekend with heavy alterations made so that I can be ready to perform next Wednesday.
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STP Journal #6 (2/11/19):
Last week I was not in class, because of a mixture of snow days and being sick, so there wasn't very much I could do besides practice what I have and think about specific details. At this point, I knew my aspect, but I didn't have a fully fleshed out piece yet. I had a couple of monologues in mind that I was thinking about, but I was having a problem deciding on the age of the character I would portray. I wanted it to be someone around my age, but some of the monologues that I'd had picked out seemed either too specific or too obviously about an older person to make that work. In thinking about the age, I had to think about why I wanted it to be a younger person. I want to be able to relate to whichever character i put on, so whether it's a young girl or a boy, I want to be around their age. I think it will resonate more with the audience if it's clear that I have a connection to the story I'm presenting.
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STP Journal #5 (2/5/19):
Most of this week has just been dedicated to understanding Grotowski's methods better. If I can gain a better understanding, It will be much easier for me to decide on a specific exercise, and figure out if the one I choose is the best fitting and most likely to actually help me with my piece. Again, it is quite difficult to find super varied information on Grotowski, a lot of different sources tend to repeat the same facts. Luckily, I have a book from the UW library that talks about many of the same things as other online sources, but it goes into far more detailed. Some information in the book however, is not necessary for my piece, so it has proven a little bit difficult to glean what will actually be useful in the final product.
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STP Journal #4 (1/30/19):
This last week, I finally was able to pinpoint the aspect of theatre that I'm going to be using to inspire my solo piece is the aspect of minimization, or poor theatre. What this means, basically, is that I am going to be telling a story using as few props and costume pieces as I can to convey a story to the audience. I am thinking right now that this will mean that perhaps I use one or two props, then repurpose them to be different things throughout the duration of my piece. So far, Grotowski has been a challenging theorist to work with, as his methods, exercises, and disciplines have been rather difficult to track down. The internet is an excellent source for finding lots of information about theatre and all of its intricacies, but for whatever reason information on Grotowski's specific theories and practices are very scarce, and when they can be found they are brief. Despite this, I am pushing forward with his poor theatre, and trusting that the materials and exercises I have been able to find will be sufficient.
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STP Journal #3(12/18/18):
As of right now, I'm having trouble deciding on an aspect of Grotowski's theatre to emulate in my performance, a convention. Although I like him very much, if I prove unable to find a proper convention to portray by the end of tomorrow's theatre class, I may have to decide on someone else who has more readily available, obvious conventions. I like the vocal and emotional elements of Grotowski's theatre, which is why I would like to use him as my theatre theorist, but if that ultimately proves to be too much, I may have to give him up and do Stanislavsky or someone similar. Another thing that is sort of up in the air is my decision on whether or not I will be writing my own piece, or if I'm going to use somebody else's monologue. I think that it really depends on who I chose as my theorist, so I may not know until after winter break. Right now, I am researching Grotowski in the ways that I am able to, which unfortunately is somewhat limited at the moment.
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STP Journal #2 (12/10/18):
At this point, I have not yet chosen my theatre theorist. However, I am heavily leaning toward Grotowski as a theorist. I like Artaud as well, and would perhaps consider choosing him, but I believe he has been used a lot. That, and, I do have a slight preference for Grotowski's theatre. I think that I will probably end up choosing him. I find his theatrical philosophy of getting past personal barriers and being left in vulnerability is quite admirable. I think it allows a more personal level of raw emotion that other theatre may not be able to match up to. What first tipped my favor in Grotowski's direction was the video of a piece based on his theory that we watched for last week's journal. I liked this piece more than everyone else's, because to me it had a very nice balance of surrealism and emotion. Sometimes in surrealist theatre, emotion can be sort of removed. For example, Brecht's theory of alienation is an effective form of surrealism, but it can be stale sometimes because the point is to be unusual and unlike the audience, who is, doubtlessly, full of emotion. In Grotowski's theatre, you get the best of both worlds, as an actor is able to channel surrealism through emotion instead.
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STP Journal #1 (12/6/18): Theater Theorists
http://libguides.westsoundacademy.org/solo-theatre-piece/theatre-based-on-theory
Stanislavski: Method acting This piece is quite haunting, and while it's artistic elements are beautiful and unique, it does make me somewhat concerned for the actress. She had to use Stanislavski's method of putting yourself inside a character, to kind of become them off stage. The character she portrayed seemed anxious, sad, and somewhat mentally unstable. However, she also delivered a very eerie and believable performance by using the Stanislavski method. Brook: Brook Method (simplicity) The simplicity in this piece is not embodied in the set or the props or anything like that, but rather in how the manner of the main character haschanged. She herself is more childlike, and so it seems that the simplicity comes into playin the character's thought. This drastically changes the whole piece's message. In Stanislavski's, the girl was more jaded and mature and present. This current role seems to show a sense of innocence lost. Brecht: Theatre of Alienation In this piece, alienation is quite clear in its effect on the piece. This piece uses alienation to perhaps make it even more eerie than the Stanislavski piece. The main character seems to be telling a story, and she narrates many of her actions just before doing them. In addition to this, she repeats them an unusual amount of times, and her initial lines about the flowers are accompanied by music which comes from nowhere which, coming from a piece that seems otherwise very real and in the moment, creates a sort of surrealism that lingers throughout the piece. Grotowski: Avant-garde This version of the piece is far more centered around physicality and voice. It starts with an uncomfortably long sequence of a shaking, jittering wail which sets the tone for the rest of the scene.Emotional boundaries are pushed as well in this video, and because the actress was able to overcome her own personal obstacles and revel in vulnerability, which serves to make this clip both entirely believable and very unsettling. Artaud: Theater of Cruelty This time around, the most notable change is the use of the fish as a main prop, one that serves to turn the entire piece into a work of surrealism. In this version, the words being spoken seem less like they are trying to communicate a thought, and more like they are trying to communicate a feeling. All of the staging is equally important to the uniqueness of this piece as well. It is difficult to tell if the viewer is supposed to be watching through the eyes of the fish, or if it is simply an angle used to achieve a level of absurdity common in theatre inspired by Artaud. |