Me and Taudy back in the day. Love this guy xx

Evaluation

I thought our piece went brilliant and I would love to perform it again, I can’t believe it’s over! I think all of us as an ensemble worked hard and committed 100% to the final piece which I think was evident.

The lack of energy was something I had mentioned that some of the cast had previously been struggling with in rehearsals, so it was pleasant to see everybody fully committing and being completely immersed in the production. It was always going to be imperative our energy levels remained high throughout our whole performance as the audience were always going to feed off of ours. I found this was possible because of ours and as long as were completely engaged, so were they.

I enjoyed very much how we involved the audience were during various moments in our piece. Many actors were breaking the fourth wall during different parts: we had people standing outside as bouncers and ushers and greeting the audience members as they came inside. This links to the Artaudian idea of effecting the audience as I think that they were effected by just how involved we made them feel in the performance. Certainly at some points, I think we worked hard enough for them to believe they weren’t actually at a performance anymore but inside an actual club.

 

Our performance never failed to be effective for almost the entire piece. The energy was high and we as actors never kept anything inside; we threw ourselves into the action which enabled the piece to run smoothly and fluidly with a good pace. Although the order of our scenes were only determined in the moment, I think we were able to make the audience question that by just how prepared and smooth we made it appear. We had to be on our toes throughout the whole performance and that made it that much more exciting and experimental.


I have always favoured the element in which our performance used much of technology within our scenes. We never relied on it to tell the story for us but it added so much more to our performance and made it that more effective. We allowed the sounds to influence the way we were acting and our feelings. We let the technology take some of the strain of filling the audience in on what was going on so that when we did personally perform, it was given our full concentration and energy.

I think everyone’s scenes went efficiently and smooth. I enjoyed how the ensemble never stopped acting when they realised it wasn’t their scene, or their scene had already been performed ect. Everyone remained 100% focused and committed and fed off of other people’s actions. Even those who remained behind the audience still reacted to everything that was going on. The transitions from scene to scene went smoothly also despite our final dress rehearsal lacking them completely. We all worked well together to help.

So many aspects of our piece were successful but there are always going to be the un-successes of a performance. Having never performed to a proper full room of an audience, we never anticipated space to a full extent. Some audience members had moved their chairs too close to the stage so that they were closer to us but that meant we didn’t have as much space to perform in. Some of the spacing issues were down to us as performers anyway. During the final section where we performed our physical theatre movements, people were grouping in certain spaces, leaving some completely empty yet no one thought to actually move into that space, thus generating more for everyone else. If we could perform it again I would wish that we were all more a bit space aware.

Another slight problem that we experienced as an ensemble were the late comers who turned up during our performance half way. It wasn’t dramatically deterring to our performance but it did take away some of the illusion we were trying to build. The room remained dark and the night club was in full swing and I think we were beginning to hypnotise and affect the audience into really believing they really were in a nightclub. Halfway through the performance, the curtains were drawn by the door, flooding in the bright light and capturing the audience’s attention and stealing it away from what we were trying to lure them in with our performance and a few people entered the room and stood by the door awkwardly, there being no seats left for them. It sort of threw us off guard as actors but we had to just get on with it and carry on, working 10 times harder to get the audience back on track with the performance.

I personally loved Experimental term and creating Experimental theatre. I’ve learned so much about theatre as a whole, not only experimental, and I’ve learned the theories and ideas of practitioners which really challenged my own. Theatre doesn’t have to consist of speech and a linear story, but it can be stories or messages inspired by nearly anything. Create a feeling, have an audience and you’ve got the basics of theatre. I had so much fun this term and it has been my favourite so far, definitely the most interesting. I learnt how to work as an ensemble but how to be individual with both devising and acting. I’ve benefited huge amounts from this experience and I hope to create a similar piece of immersive theatre in the future. Experimental theatre term has been incredibly enjoyable for me. If I could perform our piece again a million times over I would. Actually maybe not because the songs would kill my brain cells if I had to hear them again, but I really really really did like it and thank everyone for their hard work and for pulling it off. And thank you to the amazing director of course for all her time and effort and commitment, even if it appeared we weren’t at some point. We rocked.

Grading of myself

If I was to grade myself on my participation during the rehearsal period I would give myself a 10. Joking, at the most a 7. I’d say a 7 - 7.95. I have tried my hardest to give over ideas and to participate in group discussions and feedback sessions. I’ve been committed within each performance whether it was individually or as an ensemble.

Shanon the deviser

I’ve learnt about myself as a deviser that I can be very open minded, experimental but extremely bossy! Aside from that, it was much more stressing than I first thought. I am definitely an active deviser. I appreciate the discussion within a group on what we can do and the throwing of ideas out there, but there’s only so long I can do that for. I believe, as a deviser, it’s much more effective if you get up off of your arse and get moving – physicalise your ideas. There’s no point just discussing what should be done without actually doing it. How are you going to know what works better? I need to improve on how I keep myself posed. No one likes the bossy one and sometimes I need to step back and become an observer. Listen to others instead of instructing them.

What was challenging?

I thought that the devising of my group’s piece was quite challenging as a whole. Some members of my group were absent during a few rehearsals in the beginning, which made it harder for us to set on an idea and begin developing it as their absence affected us all as a whole. I also think that the pressure we all individually felt put a strain on us and made us less time efficient. We wanted to make it so exciting and so engaging that every idea we thought of just wasn’t good enough and we always had a feeling we could develop it further. All in all our scene worked well though, it wasn’t all bad. I had a very good group and we all listened and worked from each other to create the scene we did and it was a lot of fun!

My favourite part

My favourite part of our performance is the physical theatre movements we perform at the end accompanied by the distorted lines of the poem. I think it’s so experimental and really fits the aim of this term, not forgetting it’s fun to perform. At the same time it’s difficult as there are so many separate moves bundled together, but the devising of the moves were so organic and so basic it was amazing to see just what they created. It’s a beautiful way to end the show and it’s visually interesting. Most of the performance is so very random and fast paced and in your face and then this last section just brings it all right down… brings us down from our ‘alcohol.’

One target and improvement would be how everyone needs to appear 100% committed. At the moment, some people give it all they have and some just look bored and as if they don’t wish to be there. There’s no point having 5 people committing to their hearts content but that 1 person not, because the attention will just go on them.

The development of TNM

I am very happy with our experimental piece so far and personally believe that there is much strength to 'The Nerve Metre.’ Already it’s so very experimental and there is so much Artaud featured.

My favourite piece at the moment is the opening scene. The music is so chilled and of a type you would actually play into a club and each actor as a moment to themselves… to become whatever they wish as a character. We decided to start the piece by having a group visual image to reflect the classy, sophisticated feel at the beginning. We actually constructed this through improvisation. None of us were given directions or assigned poses to do, just told to sit around the edge of the room and to close our eyes and feel the music. When we felt it was time, our only job was to get up one by one and slowly move into the centre and create a visual image which represented a sophisticated and classy character.

At first, this exercise wasn’t completely successful.. but that was good! We could learn. We didn’t consider space or levels so the image didn’t look as effective to an audience as we wished it to be. Once a few of us walked out from the image and had a moment to inspect for ourselves, we were able to improve it.

It was a relevant idea for us to appear as posh, classy and sophisticated people as that set an image to be contorted and squashed as the journey of the play progresses. What makes it so exciting is that us actors move on pure feeling and motion, and that’s also experimental. There is no set order in which we walk onto the centre stage so it’s spontaneous and different each time.

We began devising separate scenes for the piece in small groups which I think is very interesting to see what we’ve all thought of and how we choose to perform it.

 

We created the piece by assigning gestures and movements to the words of 'The Nerve Metre' poem, and as the poem will be played in a distorted and edited fashion at the end, we will perform the actions to accompany it. I think this is an incredibly strong aspect of our piece as visually, it looks interesting, and the whole point of our piece is that when people enter the room, they will be overcome by unique and obscure visual effects.

Another effective element of our piece is how the order of our separate scenes has not been set. It will be improvised on the night depending on what the audience pick. I think it’s a good idea to involve the audience as it really brings them in on our performance and makes them feel even more as if they are a part of our performance and actually in The Nerve Meter. I think that including the audience is a really clever idea, as this will allow them to feel fully engaged in the performance.


In terms of how we need to develop our piece, I just think it needs to be tightened and more rehearsed. I’m a really big fan of our piece, I can’t lie, and if we keep the energy high and stay committed throughout it should be amazing. It has the potential to be awesome and so effective if we just rehearse it some more and make it as successful as we can.

Arrhfgjrfojpwerorpe

I thought this video would be good to use as a noise being played into the night club at one point, especially if it was on repeat. Literally listening to the first couple of seconds has made me feel uncomfortable and I found it unbearable so, depending on how hard we wanted to go on the audience, I think this would be annoyingly convenient.

DAAAAANCE

Ah…. the “body over mind” dancing exercise. I’m not sure I’m totally in the right to comment upon this exercise because I stupidly misheard the instructions and spent 20 minutes doing exactly the opposite of what was asked but…

We took part in a little workshop exploring Artaud in which we participated in a 'Body over Mind' dance. We had to find our own space in a room, listen to piece of music and literally just go with it. We were asked not to let our mind have a say in what we do and literally just feel it in our body.

Because I’m just so completely thick I thought we were asked to ignore our body and experiment with the opposite of what Artaud practiced, listen to our mind and stop ourselves from what we truly wanted to do. In my defence, I think that too would have been a beneficial exercise. Just saying.

When we discussed our experiences after, I found that people experienced some difficultly with this exercise in our group. They claimed that they couldn’t help but constantly think about what they were doing and it made them feel self-conscious. They didn’t want to let themselves go completely, which was asked of them, as their mind had too much control on what they were doing.

Some other people loved the exercise. They felt it was the most easiest thing letting themselves go and just enjoy the music and the movements their body was sending them into without even thinking about it. When watching the videos back I noticed how some people began really upright and stiff, not moving, clearly still remaining to let their mind take over their body. As time increases, they began to loosen up a little more, their body catching up with their mind. Towards the end some people are literally dancing, some are lying down on the floor ect and it was evident from an observers perspective that they finally let their body run all over their mind.

When the exercise was finished and the music stopped, all eyes open, it was interesting to hear the guesses of how long people believed we were standing there for. Because we forced into a world of our own, time wasn’t even a thought and none of us could feel how long we were made to stand there for. Some suggestions including 5 minutes, 15 minutes… I guessed at 10 minutes and when I found out we were doing it for 25 I was amazed!

I thought that it would be a brilliant idea to incorporate some of this exercise (if it’s been done properly, ahem) into our piece of drama. Playing with time would be a good idea if we could make the audience lose track of theirs during our performance. This could make it just that more unsettling for them when watching and that’s great as that is our intention this term. If we played one annoying song on repeat, that would be good too as it could really start to stress the audience out and unsettle them.

This exercise was very good and beneficial and I wish to do it properly sometimes. I’ve learnt to listen more often but also a lot about the exercise from actually listening to other people.

Mask work

In our workshop today, we spent the majority of the time exploring the art of wearing a mask during performing. It has been something I’ve enjoyed to watch for many years now so to be able to get properly involved was very exciting for me.         

We learned firstly how imperative it was to put on a mask properly. When using them, the idea is to immerse your audience and to make them believe you are no longer an actor, but seriously this masked person. If you were to stand in front of your audience and simply place your mask on your face, the audience wouldn’t fall under the illusion as they were able to see how false it was. You are not supposed to touch the masks when they are on your face during a performance either as this too ‘breaks the illusion' that you are playing the character of the mask as your hands do not have the same plastic effect as your face, so it would be quite apparent that the mask is just an illusion. I also learnt that when performing, it’s imperative not to turn your face to a side, as you can see the point where the mask joins the person and, again, the illusion is immediately broken.

I learnt that mask work is all about the physicality of your body. The masks have a fixed expression; you are no longer acting with your facial expressions but with your physicality and movement. I think this was both hard yet rewarding. You can’t speak as your words would be incomprehensible and your facial expressions are already set depending on what mask you pick, so you completely rely on your body to tell the story to the audience.

Our teacher did an example of how the mask is usually performed. This was beneficial as it taught me how to perform with it successfully and also gave me tips. I observed that it appeared better and more convincing for the likes of myself and my teacher as we have long hair and this can be structured effectively around your mask to support the whole image. I also became aware of just how much you do need your body. You can’t go “over the top” with your actions, it’s impossible as you are not allowed to use facial expressions nor dialogue during mask work, physicality is everything.

After, we performed mini exercises with partners to have a more personal engagement with the masks and see up close just how effective it is. The first partner exercises we did with our masks was just to introduce us into approaching how to work with them. We were all given a mask to share and took it in turns to alternate who wore it. The person wearing the mask would have to experiment with physicality whilst the other person would instruct them on just how to move judging from what thoughts the mask gave them and how to do it successfully.

The exercise was, in my opinion, beneficial because sometimes when you have the mask on you are unable to see what vibe you are giving off, you can barely see anything! So having your partner there to instruct you is really helpful. It was also as equally as beneficial when swapping and you get to see your partner in the mask and you have the opportunity to instruct them on how to portray an authentic image.

We then did an exercise where an actor went up to the performance space, tried on a mask, and were hot seated by the audience, asking them questions they had no choice but to answer with their body. An example of the questions included: "How are you feeling?" and "Do you have a girlfriend?". Although the task seemed easy, it actually proved somewhat difficult from an audience’s perspective, like I was in. As they were instructed not to use dialogue it was apparent it proved difficult for them to begin with. Speech which just comes naturally to actors, to people in general, and it was interesting to watch them purely focus on how to tell a story silently using only images. The exercise was effective to watch as we were shown the mistakes the actors were making and how to fix them or make it easier for ourselves, so that when it was my turn to do it I could use their performance to feed mine.

Artaud himself did use a lot of mask work during his performances and it was interesting to see how it linked with our work. One of Artaud's biggest theories was 'body over mind,' something we studied within the first week of experimental theatre work shop. Working with them masks practiced this theory to a high extent – without the use of facial expressions or dialogue, it really is imperative you use your body of your mind and create these clear images that portray to an audience the message you’re intending to give.

  

What is a nerve though?

When researching, I wondered if it would be interesting and beneficial to actually come to terms with what a nerve actually is. What is it? It takes pride in appearing in the title of Artaud's poem and his ideas are based around this body function. SO WHAT IS A NERVE?

Nerves, or neurons, run throughout the human body, connecting everything together like a telephone network. The nerves in the central part of your body and brain form the central nervous system, whereas those in your arms and legs form the peripheral nervous system. The nerves act as a communication system, carrying information from one area of the body to another.

What do nerves do?

There are different types of nerves, and each has a special function in the communication system. For example, if you touch something hot, sensory neurons carry information up the spinal column to your brain. The brain then processes the information and sends it back down to your muscles via motor neurons. This information results in muscle contraction, i.e. removing your hand from the source of heat. All this happens in a matter of microseconds.
In the eye there are special nerves, called optic nerves, which take information that you receive in your eye to your brain.

Staging

This was an idea I had when researching about things we can do for our performance. I thought laying out our stage like this would be great as the stage is centre which means the audience would get a view from each angle. This could represent the different interpretations some people have when reading the poem. I also think this is just a creative and interesting way to stage our performance as it isn't done very often.

My first impression of 'The Nerve Metre.'

My initial emotions when I first read the poem was that it was most certainly intriguing and I found I was engaged within the first line. During the first read, I may not have fully understood what he was trying to portray and what some of the lines meant, but I admired that and I enjoyed the obscurity. Some lines were used beautifully to describe personal emotions and Artaud also used such captivating metaphors. For example, the poem opens with the line “An actor is seen as if through crystals' and 'I have aspired no further than the clockwork soul.’ It’s not clear what he actually meant and that’s what I find so interesting. It’s open to interpretation.

Most of the lines screamed the potential physical movements of them that we could devise and be a part of as actors. The thought of performing something physical like using physical theatre movements interested me and sparked off more ideas. The poem appears to be quite intense and so sharp dramatic movements would fit best in my opinion.

We embarked on a class discussion and explored different ways of using the 'nerves' in our performance. What was mentioned a lot were the factors in this world that personally made an individual nervous, like their fears and things they generally dislike. I think this is a good idea personally because it’s all about effecting the audience and taking some of life’s most disliked and worst moments, creatures, fears ect, which is perfect for doing what Artaud wished within his theatre and writing.

It was beautiful hearing the poem read out aloud, each of us sitting in a circle and reading a line each just to get the feel of them poem. Each line was delivered in a altered way as it was read aloud by someone different, so each time it was a varied pace, tone and pitch. Although this was just a quick class exercise of reading the poem we were to be using as a stimulus for our piece, it gave me inspiration that we could use this within our theatre performance. The differences of the delivering of the lines symbolised how restless the poem was itself and how things were constantly changing. The ideas on the page represented how altered Artaud’s mind was when he wrote it and I think it would be great to incorporate it into our performance.

Thinking of the structure and layout of both the poem and our performance, I discussed with a few others how basing our piece as a promenade would be both appropriate and experimental. When you read through the poem, especially personally in your head, you’re taken on a journey through the mind set of Artaud and the poem itself. The idea of taking the audience literally on a journey throughout our performance would be appropriate to what you feel when reading the poem but it would also be completely immersive and engaging from an audience’s perspective.

Our teacher shared her own perception and idea of 'The Nerve Metre' with us which immediately I took a liking to, conveniently! She suggested that it could be presented as a night club. Not stopping there of course, but a night club where you would go to face up to your wildest fears and to find your true self, even if you don’t want to actually do it as you’re too worried about what you may find. I thought this was completely relevant to the theories and devising techniques of Artaud as he believed that everyone, whether they know it or not, does at some time fantasise about life’s most sensitive/disturbing/taboo subjects. Having a nightclub based setting for our performance in which characters attend to see these things fits nicely with my guy Toady.

I have many ideas and am very much looking forward to putting myself in an experimental directors shoes and unleashing in tomorrow’s workshop.

Theatre of Cruelty

I really enjoyed our first workshop exercises as they were highly beneficial and educational yet so very entertaining. It helped me learn new things about myself as a person but also as a deviser, whilst also educating me on Artaud himself. I believe that they introduced us to many new ideas for example "body over mind.” It will be interesting to use these in the future.

The Emotion Line

The Emotional Line was an experiment all about the build up of emotions and just how much you can push yourself to the limit of them. We had 6 actors in a line and our teacher gave them a number and an emotion. The number represented the stages in which the emotion is mostly to be portrayed at (1 being basic and 6 being it pushed to the limit) and then they had to act it out. You were made to feed off the person with the numbers before yours and this made it both easier and harder. It was easier because you had some idea of what to do just by witnessing theirs, but it was also harder because if someone had pushed it to its upmost limit, you still had to find a way to do that further, which was the point of the exercise. For example if the emotion was “anger” and you were number 6, it was your job to go absolutely ape shit despite the person before you already having gone those extra 15 miles.

Myself and those who joined me on this exercise had the emotion of ‘panic.’ I was number 6 so I was the very limit of this emotion and I found it so very exhausting! Number 5 was shivering and screaming and their body was just one giant convulsion and I wondered how on earth and all the planets I was going to top that. When you really put your mind to it and you work hard enough and let yourself go, it is achievable. It was a real joy and fun performing this exercise because it enabled you to do just those things – let go, explore these emotions, be free, scream and shout and know that no emotion ever actually has an ending.

 It was as equally as interesting from an audiences’ perspective too. It was really beneficial to watch these emotions progress, especially when the group after mine had two numbers, so number 1 ended up having to show the first stages of the emotion such as anger and also the 7^th, halfway through the pushing of the emotion. It was interesting to see how they differed.

The exercise really emphasised some of Artaud’s beliefs and theories as a practitioner. He believed that theatre is "not to entertain - nor instruct – affect.” We certainly exercised this theory by the emotion line task and practised the mind over body and the body over mind.
We explored our human mind as individuals and when things got really pushed, we dipped into our emotion memory and worked with that. We featured some “in your face theatre” within this exercise as our emotions that we extended and pushed and pulled to its limit were thrown up our audience.

Slow-motion Tennis

In this exercise, I believe it was a complete opposite to the first two that we did. This task was a reversal in which, I think, made the body flip over the mind and become superior. We had to get into pairs and begin playing a game of tennis. Then we were asked to play it in slow motion, and then slower motion, and then the slowest motion ever! This exercise was definitely the most fatiguing as every action was so miniscule yet used up an entire bag of your energy. Our teacher kept pushing us, as if she was Artaud himself as that’s what he would have done and told us not to give up. Despite there was no racket, no tennis ball and not even any room space (oh and the fact no one would ever play tennis like that) we had to – key word here – BELIEVE. My mind bowed down to my body and went numb, not engaging with what the task anymore. However, my body was so into it physically that, with the demands of my teacher too, I could not give up. My body strength took over and kept me involved in the task when my mind failed to.

Artaud found this was important within theatre in general, much less experimental, as your body needs to learn how to take control, to be able to experiment and have stamina of its own. A reiteration from before – he believed that acting wasn’t just saying a few lines on a stage. It involved as much of the qualities as any other profession.

GIBBERISHY ARGUMENT

I loved this experiment! We had to get into pairs and argue about a situation without using words, only grunts, howls, moans and facial expressions and body language. I understood straight away the purpose of this task and linked it back to the first week where my group performed a piece of non-verbal theatre regarding Sarah Kane’s poem. It was to display to the audience how emotions and messages could be portrayed without the use of language. Too many people rely on words in this century, especially for theatrical use, and it’s nice to see that it really isn’t imperative. It was interesting to see how people constructed their arguments and how the emotion was portrayed. At first I began to feel silly doing it but once you get past that it’s amazing to see how much fun you can have grunting about a pair of missing socks.

We then developed this exercise further by doing the exercise again but using just one word to express our anger and views within the argument. It was so interesting and amusing alone to see what words people chose; some went for the most obvious like words you are most likely to use in arguments (questions, swear words, insults ect) whilst others chose to go with colours or body parts. This really helped us explore different emotions and how one word can have a thousand meanings if you wish it to.

Grid Walking

Grid Walking was another tiring exercise we did that had the same goal and same effort as the first. We all had to walk in the formation of a grid that was supposed to be on the floor, only walking in straight lines and turning on 90 degree angles. We were told to picture something that we really wanted in our heads that could have been a place or a person or a goal and dream. We started off walking to this desire of ours and yet ended up running to it. The more we saw it and the clearer it appeared to us, the faster and harder we ran as we began to actually believe it was just a few metres away from us. Of course it never was but this again challenged our minds as actors and we forced to believe.

This exercise was a good example of “mind over body.” We began to get tired and hot and frustrated as, despite the pace and ferocity of our walking, we just weren’t getting any closer to the thing we so desperately wanted. I agree with this completely as I felt all of those emotions. I had to ignore my worn out feet and my fear of banging into someone else completing this task, and to just get on with it and really truly believe I was getting closer to my desire. This had complete power over my mind and my body and although I wanted to give up, I was suddenly put in this mind frame that I wasn’t just wasting my time, I really was getting closer. My mind was superior over my body and as an actor I believe that task was highly beneficial.

The Impossible Task

I loved the impossible task. I want to do it every morning, seriously. If you don’t believe there is nothing in life that can challenge, frustrate and make you believe in something to a very intense extent, this is it. Everyone in the room was given a piece of paper in which to write down an 'impossible' task that simply could not be accomplished inside our classroom. I wrote down, for example: “open the window with your mind.” We were then told to try and achieve these tasks which was the most frustrating thing ever when you first know you can’t do it. My impossible task was to “dig a hole in the ground with your hands” and although you’re completely aware it’s impossible, with the help of our teacher screaming at us and demanding we try harder and that it was possible, I actually did begin to believe, hey, maybe I can do it! I dug with all my might until my fingers began to feel sore and when I felt like giving up I was told it wasn’t an option and to keep going. We did this for about 10 minutes, getting more and more tired and frustrated once we made no dent in completing the task we were given.

This task was an emphasis on Artaud's belief that it’s imperative to 'push an actor to their limits'. Artaud disagreed that acting was purely just a passion instead of a job and that actors had as much work to do in their profession – use as much energy, put in as much effort and time – as any other employees for example who built houses or laid carpets. I agree with this after trying to complete this task as I realised what we were doing represented the art of acting as a whole – as an actor we are forced to believe in something that we know isn’t true. If you’re playing Bob who cheats on his wife Sally, you have to believe you really did cheat on Sally even though you know it’s not true. A weak example, but you get my drift. It was challenging, in my opinion, but fun.

"4.48 Psychosis"

We had the pleasure of reading Sarah Kane’s play ‘4.48 Psychosis’ during our first theatre workshop. Having read some of Kane’s work before, I was intrigued and very excited to begin the analysing and understanding of her chosen work. Having never read the one we were studying before, I did already have some idea of what her play might consist of: usually – physically or emotionally - death, torture, sexual desire and redemptive love. I’ve been aware that most of her plays  are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier work, the use of extreme and violent stage action. ‘4.48 Psychosis’ especially takes on the structure of a poem and that’s what caught my eye first. There were a lack of characters, stage directions and the play was clearly anything but linear. It appeared to me that, having known about Sarah Kane’s personal state beforehand the play was just her thoughts and feelings at the time on the page and that made it strangely and twistedly beautiful.

 

 This made it evident at first look that her play was an experimental text, which supported what I expected one to look like prior to reading it. My first impressions when reading the text were that instead of reading it from a an audiences’ POV, I found myself reading it from the play wrights, having known already Kane’s relation to the words on the page and how it was her last piece of work before she committed suicide. The play showed very apparent aspects and emotions of someone suffering with depression, like Kane, boasting very dark and very profound and emotionally raw feelings. It could be ambiguous in the way that it was structured and written by Kane, and by going around and listening to each person in the class’ thoughts on the poem and how they were all quite different, I wondered just how many interpretations of ‘4.48 Psychosis’ were out there, eager to hear them all.

 

Using the text as our first piece of experimental inspiration, we were split into groups to create a piece of experimental theatre. We were asked to be sure not to include any words or any sounds into our performance – keep it silent – for experimental purposes and to ensure that we focused more on telling the story through actions. I believed this was a great way devise and was so amazingly appropriate to our text. I believe, due to Sarah Kane’s serious depression; that she probably felt unable to speak during the whole time she felt so low, often like a depressor experiences. She felt like she couldn’t tell anyone about her problems, thus keeping it to herself and staying silent long enough for her to feel like there was no way out… like death was the only option. As part of experimental theatre, we were allowed to choose anywhere in the school to perform our silent work, and I was excited at the prosperousness of this. We chose two places close together to perform – the corridor and a small props cupboard - because firstly, we were able to position the audience so that they had two views, one of the long corridor performing space and one of the cupboards performance space. We also performed it in two spaces to show the alternation of Sarah Kane’s mind set and her thought process. The long corridor where a member of my group took a long walk through represented Kane’s long journey of the mind and all of the pain she went through to end up so enclosed in her own mind and so desperate (the small props cupboard) that she felt like there was no way out. The cupboard was cramped and dark and claustrophobic which, in my opinion, did very well to represent the mind of Kane. We used a few props fo symbolisation but our main one was a large, out dated TV that appeared broken. It had no reception and constantly showed a fuzzy screen. I thought that this symbolised the lost hope of the characters/Kane's mind. There was nothing on the TV, nothing left for Kane. Four of the actors in my group placed themselves in different positions along the corridor and portrayed the different emotions. One was sat, staring at the blank screen of the television, another slumped against the lockers, one staring hopefully out of the window, wishing for something better to come along, and the other sat down at the end holding an umbrella above them. All actors showed no emotion and held firm blank faces. I believe that this perfectly represented Kane’s emotions through non-verbal theatre. Another actor then walked down and mirrored the actions each of the actors was doing, as if they were Kane themselves. I think this showed how Kane succumbed and copied the things around her that bought her down. We then acted out a brief silent scene in the props cupboard. We had one actor in the group boarding up the window in frustration with sheets of card, blocking out any day light. Another actor was constantly doing the motion of pulling down the blinds of a prop window and 2 others were writing the numbers that were featured in the script on paper, starting off slow and calm before letting the frustration build and freaking out. I think this represented the emotions, the feelings and Kane’s situation very effectively and of course experimentally. Personally, I believe our piece was abstract yet completely comprehendible, our message clear for our audience despite our complete lack of speech. I really enjoyed performing a non-verbal piece personally as talking is something I do best (I normally don’t shut up) so to be given instructions of creating a piece of theatre that consisted of no speech was exciting and refreshing. This was the start where I first finally understood that theatre doesn’t necessarily have to have a beginning, a middle, a climax and an end, especially with experimental theatre. Theatre can be simply observed and the audience will still probably gain something from it. This was a great start to experimental theatre, and a beneficial preview of what is to come later. I’m excited!

Sarah Kane

Sarah Kane was born 3rd February 1971 and was an English playwright. Kane herself, as well as scholars of her work, such as Graham Saunders, identify some of her inspirations as expressionist theatre and Jacobean tragedy. Critics, including Aleks Sierz, have seen her work as part of what Sierz calls the In-Yer-Face style of theatre, a form of drama which broke away from the conventions of naturalist theatre. Kane's published work consists of five plays, one short film, Skin, and two newspaper articles for The Guardian.

Kane struggled with severe depression for years and was twice voluntarily admitted to the Maudsley Hospital in London. I think that the fact she sent herself to the mental instituation very interesting; it makes me respect her more. The fact she knew she was ill and wanted help. This also makes her death more of a tragedy; she tried to help herself yet still committed suicide. This also supports further how her work was written from her personal own experiences and emotions.  She wrote consistently, if slowly, throughout her entire adult life. For a year she was writer-in-residence for Paines Plough, a theatre company promoting new writing, where she actively encouraged other writers. Before that, she had worked briefly as literary associate for the Bush Theatre, London. Kane died in 1999, when, two days after taking an overdose of prescription drugs, she committed suicide by hanging herself by her shoelaces in a bathroom at London's King's College Hospital.

What are your expectations for Experimental Theatre?

"What are your expectations for Experimental Theatre?"

Well, the key word being “experimental” sums it up pretty well. I expect it to be spilling with actions of pure spontaneity and devising in such abstract and interesting ways. Experimenting means having to keep an open mind and that’s what I pride myself on. Don’t be too set on one thing and just let the moments and movements flow. I expect our performance not to be linear and created by a handing out of scripts and auditioning for characters, but to be taken on a journey of its own with inspiration from poems and novels and music.

 

Traditionally audiences are seen as passive observers, merely there to watch a performance and having uprising questions or situations answered for them with the act of movement by the actors. Many practitioners of experimental theatre have wanted to challenge this. For example, Antonin Artaud, the practitioner we are studying, wanted to affect them directly on a subconscious level. He believed that everyone, subconsciously or as wise as an owl, have shocking thoughts or fantasies about the most taboo subjects. He wished to make the audience face these subjects in an immersive way where it wouldn’t be okay for them to just get up and leave. I think this was a great idea and a very intelligent and engaging way of making people face situations they may have once experienced, thought about or were completely oblivious to. That’s the beauty of experimental theatre and the beauty of Artaud himself.  Peter Brook, another name that has made many appearances already this term with his experimental directing, identifies a triangle of relationships within a performance: the performers' internal relationships, the performers' relationships to each other on stage, and their relationship with the audience.

 

I’m looking forward to taking charge as an experimental director, deviser and actor; being free within the art of experimenting with theatre and making bold and clear choices within my individual work and group work. I am excited. Very excited.

What is theatre?

What is theatre?

 

Good question. What is theatre? What seems like such a basic question can have thousands of annotations drawn from it and can challenge everything you once first believed in. Theatre, to me, used to consist of a scripted piece of drama in which the actors told a story prancing around on stage for an audience. I realise now that if this is the case then I’m not ginger! (I am ginger, so basically what I’m trying to say is that theatre isn’t like that.) Especially once we explored Artaud more thoroughly, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Theatre can be anything once there is someone to perform and someone to watch. Theatre gives others a chance to witness something they may never experience in their own life. Theatre gives others a chance to behave in a way they may never experience in their own life. It’s about leaving yourself as an individual and becoming someone new, someone different with a new life and new beliefs and new attitudes. It’s an opportunity, not a misfortune. It’s a passion, not a job.

 

Theatre doesn’t have to be performed in a traditional stage with big red curtains and chairs below. Theatre can be performed anywhere, and that’s the beauty of it. Theatre can be educating, entertaining, frightening, ect or all of those words together. Actors or directors or playwrights can perform with the intention of changing or rectify the audiences’ mind set or views on certain issues. It’s wrong to put a label on theatre because it’s pretty much impossible. Theatre is open to interpretation and you can make it anything you wish it to be.

FIRST LESSON.

Our first Theatre Workshop was focused on Antonin Artaud and his techniques and beliefs when it came to theatre. We did this by sharing and analysing his poem together as a class, doing group exercises, and playing games. I think this was highly beneficial as we were learning the life history and grasping an understanding of the mind of a stranger through imaginative and exciting ways. His theories and ideas proved to be especially interesting to me as they challenged my own beliefs.