The Dog Show!

In devising a performance, we were given a theme based around that of a dog show. Our aim, of combining Lecoq’s technique (in mask) and puppetry, was put to the test. The duration of the performance was set within a camping site, with the main event of the dog show taking place off stage, following a simular style to that of Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘Absurd Person Singular’. The play focused on the relationships of a range of different age groups of people, within the 1970’s.

To create a show with such a strong choice in terms of form and asthetic, was an exciting, but tricky challenge. While in many rehearsals people would ‘cheat’ and look where they were going, breaking the visual appeal of the mask, in a real performance environment it became clear that this couldn’t be done. As the performer we were allowed to look where we were going to an extent, however we are to rarely look any further away than 45 degrees from the audience’s vision. Peripheral vision was also blocked by the mask, and with other performers moving onstage at the same time, moving on stage became a risk. However, it was essential to minimise this through the use of continuous practice, listening for a que, being aware of the space, and knowing what was going on onstage at a particular time. It was also relevent to know that while this rule was one to actively stick to, it was also okay to break on occations, if the risk of not looking would have compromised the performance.

In terms of characterisation, our characters were based upon the facial expressions that our masks provided us with. With me for example, I was given a grumpy face, and the character of an old married man, this leading to my characterisation of an old grumpy man. With my characterisation it became clear to emphasis my character’s grumpy feeling through tension states, performing regularly at high levels of tension to communicate his anger at most things. I would then contrast this with levels of low tension in moments where he got what he wanted, to create a more defined and noticable distinction between his moments of anger and peace.

With my characterisation also, it soon became clear that my original chacterisation which involved me being consistently slow paced (as an old man) made my performance become flat. It became obvious that I needed to present age through a differnt form other than pace, which lead me to realise that this must be communicated through my physicality instead. Looking at posture, and my centre of gravity in particular I tried to give my character age through having a bent spine, and giving my character a low centre of gravity. This allowed my pace to become something that I was therefore able to play with more in terms of dynamics, making my performance less mono-paced.

As puppeteers, we decided to break the asthetic of featuring everyone in masks onstage, as focus was not on us, but on the puppet. The use of wearing blacks, and creating a distinction between the poeple with and without masks, allowed the audience to realise who and what to focus on. Our puppets, which were the dogs, reamined speechless, as did our masked characters, giving us a chance to communicate only through physicality. Other lip sync puppets did speak, and provided a number of moments in which they provided narrative for the audience.

Looking at existing theatre texts…

In devising and creating work, much of our idea is based on existing work that we have witnessed, read, or heard about. One may see this as cheating, or being void of originality, however if we had no point of reference, we wouldn’t know where to begin. Almost every company takes influence from other people within the industry, such as Tim Etchells (Forced Entertainment) and Elizabeth LeCompte (The Wooster Group). Yet, while we have these influences, it is useful to remember that many people like to see originallity, so it is essential to find your own level of creativity to use within your work too.

Looking at four different play texts wrote between 1960 and 1978, clarity occured in realising theatrical devices that were used, and how the social politics of the time effected the work produced. In ‘Saved’ by Edward Bond (1965), we noticed that through the use of devices such as phonetic spelling and specific character description that the writer can have a say in how the work is produced later on. By using phonetic language, the director and actors are forced to use this phonetic language too. In ‘Saved’ the phonetic language provided a vivid picture of the character’s class and locality, as Bond would have intended, in order to make a statement. Through presentation of characters in North London, in a state of culteral poverty, Bond made a specific remark towards a particular issue of his time, which he perhas didn’t want to become more generalised.

The use of shock tactic is also highly noticable in ‘Saved’. In his work a baby is stoned by a group of men for amusement, this perhaps making a comment on how high levels of unemployment, lead people to bordom, finding amusement in the most drastic way. While this may be a hightened portrayal that one may consider ‘exteme’, through artistic choice of portraying the problem at an emphisised level, we make the problem one in which an audience are forced to conciously consider, instead of allowing them to remain passive to it. I noticed this myself in the work of another current playwright, Philip Ridley, also known for controvertial work, in a play called ‘Shivered’ (2012), in which a story is told of a baby burning itself, as if it were a comedy. This level of controversy forces one to consider what is right and wrong, and what their opinion is. If the theatre wasn’t at this level, and audience may remain more passive to the ideas which are being communicated.

Again, in the play ‘Cloud 9’ by Caryl Churchill a noticable number of bold features were used to make a certain point. Set between colonial Africa in the Victorian times (Act 1), and London in 1979 (Act 2) we see a significant contrast in how society is stuctured. Using the same characters, as only 25 years passes for the characters, while 100 years passes in time, we see that the women and homosexual characters become more open and voiced in act 2, as opposed to a firmly male dominated society in act 1. Personally, as a spectator from the current time, I also found act 1 to seem almost absurd, with cross relationships and certain phrases to describe characters, while act 2 appeared to be more at a level of normallity, perhaps suggesting that in a society more devoted to equality, we would find an increased level of truth. This idea is futher hightened by the use of cross gender performers in act 1, which visualises through it’s juxtaposistion how different identities (male, female, homosexual) are seen in a time where, with a firm and defined structer, come firm and defined steriotypes.

In a third play, ‘The Caretaker’ by Harold Pinter (1960), we notice how much can be seen through the use of playing with elements such as Grice’s maxims, in particular the maxim of quantity. Throughout the play the contrast in volume of speech that occurs between the charactures Davies and Aston is highly noticable, and can tell a lot about the characters. With a character that might speak at a high quantity (Davies) we may find in the case of ‘The Caretaker’ a level of mis-trust with the character as opposed to Aston who speaks less, but we feel more trust towards, which might go against general ideas, that people would think vice-versa. This use of the maxim of quantity also suggests how, without directly communicating something in the language itself, an audience may come to conclusions towards a character through more subtle means, such as the amount that they express themself.

Furthermore with ‘The Caretaker’ we realise how import stage action is, as this is a way in which Pinter strongly expresses his characters and the situations they are in. For example, in a moment in which all 3 characters try to take a bag from one another, we lean about the status between them in terms of feeling towards one another and dominance. This use of precise stage action shows how many playwrights are not only involved with the langauge of a piece, but other defining qualities of the performance too.

The final play we looked at, ‘Absurd Person Singular’ (1972), by Alan Ayckbourn, takes place over three consecutive days of Christmas. Looking at the relationships between three couples, this farcicle comedy explores class, success and happieness in a way that can be relatable to a modern audience. The use of off-stage action is a key element used within the play, as the audience watch the action within the kitchen, yet the main action taks place within the living room next door. The use of this allows the audience to use their imagination as to what occurs as the ‘main’ action. Yet, the main action is what we see taking place in the kitchen, this questioning what the ‘main’ action in a performance is. In the kitchen, it can be argued that we see characters that are more genuine, as they are away from the pressures of ‘making an impression’ at the party within the next room, allowing us to see a more truthful dynamic.

Popular Theatre

Popular theatre, is a saying that originated from the French ‘theatre populaire’ (Schechter, 2003:3) in 1758, by Jacques Rousseau. Popular theatre meaning, theatre for the people, has been addressed through time in many theatrical forms such as Commedia, Music Hall, Mime and Lecoq. Taking on devises which intend to move theatre from the being only accessible to the middle-class and above, popular theatre aims to make theatre approachable, understandable, and useful to the significant working-class population too.

As Peter Brook states, ‘Every attempt to revitalize the theatre has gone back to the popular source.’ (Schechter: 2003:3) Devices found in popular theatre such as music, mask, puppetry, circus, communication with the audience, and parody, maintain a highly aesthetic element to them, which has remained, but altered with the changing trend of popular theatre, as society changes. Popular theatre uses these techniques in order to create a theatrical language which is easier to interpret by differing classes of the population with a varying level of cultural capital.

John McGrath believes that almost every creator of theatre, creates theatre with the intended response of a specific ‘normal’ demographic of audience, that is the a ‘well fed, white, middle class, sensitive but sophisticated literary critic’ (McGrath, 1981:2). He believes we do this because it is impossible to create a type of theatre that will be reacted to in the same way by every different country, group, or class, therefore we aim to appeal to what is ‘normal’, and where the mass audience potential is contained. The techniques of popular theatre described, such as with the use of circus and parody, while not necessarily universal, will be approachable to a wider range of people. Directors such as Piscator and Brecht (with the ideas of Epic Theatre) aimed to combat the bourgeois being the primary audience in theatre. Piscator for example aimed to ‘smash the bourgeois dramaturgy and set up his dramaturgical collective’ (McGrath, 1981:38), doing this by using ‘more elements of the language of the theatre than most of the writers could produce on a piece of paper.’ (McGrath, 1981:38) This idea of Piscator’s, in looking at a language beyond the text, parallels the idea of the devises of popular theatre (which are also beyond just the words of the text), to help to make theatre more accessible for a more working class demographic.

It is important however not to confuse popular theatre with populist theatre. Populist theatre is a creation of theatre that is intended to be produced for the highest rate of commercial consumption. Many west end musicals, and shows at the more local Bristol Hippodrome, are where populist theatre can be found, and are purposefully created in order to gain popularity and income. While these shows may contain a moral value, and feature many similar devices to popular theatre, they are also characterised by dazzling set designs, and well known performers, but consequently higher ticketing prices, to draw spectators and make money (as their main function). In the case of popular theatre, work is often created in order to have an impact, or provoke change. Agitational propaganda, an element of popular theatre can be used to drive this impact forward. For example, in a devised piece that I was involved in, we produced a piece about McDonald’s. Through our piece we used many conventions of popular theatre such as parody and music, yet our piece intended to agitate an intended reaction within the audience, to affect their lives after the performance.

In another piece that was devised, our work focused around a dog show. Taking many devices from popular theatre such as puppetry, music, parody and agit prop, we set out to create a piece that focused on the conventions of popular theatre, in relation to class. Taking an event such as a Dog Show, which has many associations with class, we set about setting strong character types to parody, such as a differentiation between rich and poor. We also aimed to present a negative view, of the affects of Dog Shows. Using agit prop we demonstrated through puppetry how puppy farming, is an issue that surrounded the overall theme, to develop a response from the audience that might continue once the performance had finished. I found that the effect of using these devices found in popular theatre helped us in creating a show that was easier to translate to an audience, as the audience were able to recognise and understand the forms that were being performed.

References:

– Schechter, Joel (2003). Popular Theatre. London: Routledge
– McGrath, John (1981). A Good Night Out. London: Methuen

Lecoq’s Technique and Mask

Whilst working on the techniques of practitioner Jacques Lecoq, paying particular focus to working with mask, it is clear that something can come from almost nothing. With a wide variety of ingredients such as tension states, rhythm, de-construction, major and minor, le jeu/the game, and clocking/sharing with the audience, even the simplest and mundane of scenarios can become interesting to watch.

When working with mask, as with puppetry and most other forms of theatre, there are a number of key rules to consider. Firstly, as Lecoq himself stated, ‘when no words have been spoken, one is in a state of modesty which allows words to be born out of silence.’ (Lecoq, 1997:29) It is vital to remember not to speak when wearing a mask. This is the case because mask is intended to be a visual form of theatre, communication is made through the physicality of the body, over that of spoken words. Also, mask is intended to be a universal form of communication, with the use of words, language barriers break down understanding between one culture and the next. Next, by speaking we are doing something that a mask cannot do. It is the same with touching the mask, or eating and drinking, the ability for a mask to eat and drink doesn’t exist. An illusion is intended to be created within the audience’s mind, that the mask becomes part of the actor, when the audience are reminded of the limits and existence of the mask, this illusion is broken.

When creating/devising work, influence was taken from Lecoq’s ideas of play and re-play. In mask work, it is important to keep work clean and simple. With mask, it is key to keep just one motor/situation/objective, such as ‘a prisoner trying to gain the keys from the police officer’ and ‘push the situation beyond the limits of reality.’ (Lecoq: 1997:34) When the performer moves too quickly through a situation, or pushes away potential opportunities, the idea of Lecoq’s to ‘demonstrate how theatre prolongs life by transposing it.’ is broken. Through exploring every possibility of a situation a level of play can be reached, which can engage the audience. In devising work, nothing was allowed to be too complex, as the more complex the situation the less able we are to play, and communicate with clarity. ‘Reduced to this motor, psychological themes lose their anecdotal elements and reach a state of hightened play. They enable us to observe with great precision a particular detail which then becomes the major theme.’ (Lecoq, 1997:34) As the performer wearing a mask, we should limit ourselves to a minimal number of ‘games’. One game may be a foot tap, another may be an exhale of a breath. We must then play with different variations of these two ‘games’, using the likes of rhythm, tempo, tension and clocking, and a performance will emerge, which may engage the audience’s interest more than the sitution itself. With play, comes a level of surprise and unpredictability, which is a key source in keeping audience engagement.

In working with mask it also became very clear that everything is to be expressed externally, rather than internally. To share your actions with the audience, brings and invites them on the journey with you. The audience are the reason you are performing in the first place, to exclude them would take away the purpose of everything that is being done. When we look at the technique of de-construction, sharing actions with the audience becomes a lot simpler, and it becomes much easier to realise the moments in which to share this action. De-construction simply means to break down your actions, from one single movement to the next. This use of de-construction is essential and very useful, as for the performer, the use of tempo and rhythm will then become simplified, as you could alter/play from one action to the next. The use of de-construction also enables us to stop at specific points within the action, to share/clock what is being done with the audience. Finally, the use of de-constructing the action makes the visual communication to the audience a lot more simplified, and easier to read, allowing our audience to follow what is taking place on stage.

Tension states, are an important device to express the emotion and character of the performer. Working with character masks, different tension states may suit different faces, for example a high state of tension for an angry person, or a low state of tension for a tired or bored person. This use of tension demonstrates the feeling of the character. Throughout a performance, tension states can change, and one can play with the dynamics and transitions from one state to the next.

In order to avoid a flat and mono-paced performance, one must address rhythm and tempo. Like with de-construction, ryhthm helps to break the performance down, with one beat to next. However, rhythm also builds a performance as we play with the dynamics of the tempo, between fast and slow. Tempo and rhythm can allow us to play with unpredictability in performance, to keep an audience engaged to see how the performance progresses. One may travel around the stage in beats of four counts, and then stop, once this rule becomes established with an audience, it is possible to then surprise them, by travelling on a beat of five counts perhaps.

When performing, a good actor will work with the overall performance and move in and out of major and minor, rather than remaining in just one or the other (unless you are performing in a solo show). Major and minor, simply means to be or not be the focus of the audience’s attention. One way in which a performer can move between major and minor would be their positioning on the stage, in composition to the other performers. If an ensemble of people were stage left, and one performer was stage right, the performer at stage right would most likely have focus. However, the ensemble may at times require to be in major, and there are other ways to achieve this. As with puppetry, where the focus (specifically eye contact) of all of the performers is placed onstage will determine where the audience consequently place their attention. Focus can be passed around through eye contact, if the one performer at stage right focused on the ensemble and the ensemble focused their attention outward, then the ensemble would take focus. Next, another way to play with major and minor, is via the use of movement and stillness. If everyone onstage is moving, but one person is still, the still person would most likely take focus. Alternatively, if one person is moving and everyone else was still, the person moving would most likely take focus. Major and minor is very much about the level of complicite an ensemble has with one another onstage, and how the dynamics of the space and focus are played with between them.

References:

– Lecoq, Jacques (1997). The Moving Body. London: Methuen

Working with Puppets

In working on puppetry, it has become apparent that there are many rules and techniques to follow in order to present a well crafted performance. Puppetry can be a theatrical device, or a theatrical form within itself. Many contemporary theatre companies such as Blind Summit, Wakka Wakka, and Kneehigh present full length work wholly within the field of puppetry and can keep an audience from an array of demographic engadged, for the duration.

Looking at technique, in order to get the best out of puppetry there are a number of compulsary rules that are key. Focus is something to stongly consider when working with puppets. As the puppeteer, where the focus is has a huge impact upon where the audience will focus their attention. A puppeteer must engage the audience through their focus on the puppet they are working with. To focus attension elsewhere from the puppet, would put the pupeteer in major, over the puppet. I have found it is also helpful to enable the other rules of puppetry, if you give compleat attension to the puppet, and what you are doing.

Another rule to consider would be to make the actions of the puppet as realistic as possible. Looking primarily at lip syncing and breath, it is important when using a puppet to activate a transition between the puppet being a lifeless object, to being a living character. It can be easy to forget or slip from the rules of lip sync and breath, however to keep this rule consistent will help ensure a better performance. In the case of lip syncing it has been noticed that the puppet must open and close its mouth on every syllable (as a real human would), and sometimes on the more stressed syllables there must be emphasis on the way the puppet opens it’s mouth. Breath, is a lot more simple, in that the puppet must move as if inhaling and exhaling (again, like a real human being) the trick with breath is to keep it constant, and to make it dynamic.

One thing I have found is that while puppets must take on a life of their own, they can also use their ‘non-living’ ability to their advantage. Puppets do not neccisarily need to walk on a hard surface. In the likes of popular west end show ‘Avenue Q’ puppets walk in mid-air. This is because, as with the fact that the audience are suspending their dis-belief in believing that a puppet is alive, they can also suspend their dis-belief in beleiveing that a puppet is walking on a surface, when it is infact not. In puppetry this can be used as a device within the show, for example in ‘The Table’ by Blind Summit, the puppet stops mid air. This use of puppets doing, what a human cannot do allows for the form of puppetry to have an ability over real life actors, and it’s a good opportunity to be taken advantage of.

While working on puppetry, I worked with an array of different types of puppets; Newspaper puppets, puppets made from inanimate objects, and lip sync puppets, which all took on different ways in which they required to be handled, by the puppeteer. While this was the case, all of the puppets despite the form they took, needed to follow the rules stated above. More so, all puppets have a face, while this is more clear with lip sync puppets (such as those found on the ‘Muppet Show’) it is also evident in inanimate objects too. How often have we put a face on a car, or a door handle? We need this face in order to have a point of reference to make communication with the audience. In the case of all puppets, especially with the inanimate objects, rhythm and the way of movement is key too. While working on puppetry, we also worked on mask, and with both forms, it became clear that for work to be clear and defined, it needed to be punctuated, via the use of breath and rythm.

On a final note, while on many occations only one puppeteer may handle a puppet, in types of puppetry such as Bunraku puppetry, up to five puppeteers can handle one puppet at a given time (This was the case in ‘The Table’). Puppeteers can handle different parts of a puppet, for example one pupeteer on the legs, one on the head, one for the arms, ect. A level of complicite and communication between the puppeters is required in order to travel the puppet around the stage and for all of the parts of the puppet to still act as one puppet within itself. This must be done while giving the puppet compleat focus, so techniques such as rhythm and tention are good ways to communicate with each puppeteer. It is always essential to rememeber, the puppet is the performer, not the puppeteer.