Directing Project.

All directors are unique. Their individual method and approach to performance is a synthesis of their theatre knowledge and influences, their understanding of stagecraft and acting techniques and their own bias in the huge historical and artistic theatre panoply. The purpose of this unit, therefore, is to enable learners to find their own vision, methodology and aesthetic as a theatre director. For this to happen they will study both historical and contemporary approaches to directing, how groups and ensembles work and have knowledge of stagecraft, the way actors and performers work and the demands of text. They will also learn to cast appropriately and an awareness of differing venues, audiences, funding and production contexts.

Learners will then apply this knowledge, together with their own creative vision and insight, to directing a short live performance piece within set constraints of venue, budget and scale, and evaluate the results.

Workshop Plan and Bibliography.

Introduction.

For this presentation and workshop we will be delivering a theoretical and practical workshop comparing Stanislavski methodologies and Artaud methodologies whist also covering how they were effected by the development of theatre. We will explain how their practices responded to cultural and social context. I will be covering the works of Stanislavski whilst Natalie will be covering the works of Artaud.

We will be completing a warm up in the style of our chosen practitioners to demonstrate the process of working within their practices, we will then explain how these warm up exercises are useful to the actor and how they engage our bodies appropriately. Then we will be completing a workshop based of our chosen practitioners. At the end of our workshop we will debrief together about the similarities and differences of our practitioners and how their works were influenced by the development of theatre.

Warm up games.

(In the case of the time limit being an implication, we have decided as a pair to remove the Artaud warm up game in order to assure we have suitable about of time to complete both workshops)

Stanislavski warm up game:

Step one: Lie down on your back with your arms by your sides, palms facing down, and knees bent, with the bottom of your feet touching the floor.

Step two: Begin by taking a deep breath in through the nose, count to four, then slowing release through the mouth. Repeat this four times.

Step three: Now turn your attention to your feet, and remember to breathe at a comfortable pace. Tighten the muscles in your feet for eight seconds. When finished counting release and breathe.

Step four: Now move on to the calves, and repeat the same exercise again.

Step five: Continue this exercise on every part of the body: the thighs, your bum, your lower back muscles, shoulders, upper arms, wrists, hands fingers, neck, and then face.

After this exercise you should feel light. This is something that should be done everyday, in order to reach a state of control over the tension in your body during performances.

Stanislavski practiced relaxation and concentration with his actors to develop a naturalistic performance, concentration was used to create solitude in public which means when you are in public (on stage) with attention on and around you, you feel alone within it.

By reaching this level of concentration you will be able to imagine that the audience, stage, lighting etc. is not there, and can imagine that you are in the setting and current situation given in the play, as if it were real life, creating a nautical performance.

Artaud warm up game:

In this exercise, everyone needs to get into pairs and play a game of non-verbal physical tennis, in slow motion. As they continue to play slow motion tennis, I will push them to work harder and not

give up and ensure they focus on their bodies. This would normally continue until the actors reached a point of fatigue. By exhausting his actors through this game is trying to stimulate an example of body over mind. Artaud believed that the body is inferior to the spirit and, therefore, that the theatre would only be worthwhile if the relationship between the body and spirit were truly understood, allowing the body its superior place over the mind.

Workshops.

Stanislavski Workshop:

Have everyone find a space in the room and tell them “ You are cooking. There is your stove in front of you, saucepans and so on. Now begin. “ This should cause them to be taken aback and not really understand the task but they will begin. Watch their movements for a while and once you feel the time is right begin asking people who they are in the kitchen/What are they cooking/ whos kitchen are they in/what time is it.

They should struggle to answer this or take their time to fill in answers. Tell them to begin the task again but now:

You are an older sister/ brother having to prepare supper for awkward younger siblings. They are fussy; neither eat the same things; Mum, however, has specified they must have a balanced meal...

You are a busy chef in a popular restaurant at half past ten on a Saturday night. Orders are coming from all directions, it is hot, the noise level is terrific...

You are preparing a supper for a boy/ girl friend, wanting very much to impress with your capability; your parents are out for the evening, your special visitor is due to arrive in half an hour.

From the end of this exercise they should see that given circumstances are important to embodying a character. Understanding the circumstances before and during for your character will effect how they are represented. Simply only understanding that they are just cooking will create a general performance but understanding the circumstances surrounding your character will help portray the character in a natural realistic and believable way for the audience

(If this workshop is finished too quickly interpret magic if: ‘what if you dropped the saucepan and have to start again?’ ‘what if you ran out of ingredients?’ ‘What if you burnt your hand’ - This will make your actors think of situations as the character and not just focusing on the script.

Artaud Workshop:

Artaud was influenced by Sigmund Freud, an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud founded the idea of ID, SUPEREGO & EGO. ID being the savage trait. He believed ID is our most repressed form but our true self. Artaud sought to create work from the ID. Within this workshop i want you to split into two gender groups, each group to formulate their own group movements and sounds to attract members of the opposite group. Use facial expressions, gestures and movements of the whole body to symbolise the meaning of the movement. Ensure to incorporate the conventions of Theatre of Cruelty, these include; actors and audience pushed to he extreme, universal language, physicality, concrete language of symbols,

actor/audience relationship, attack of senses/emotional release, based on dreams and nightmares, conforms around the ID, EGO & SUPEREGO, myths and rituals.

- “Stanislavski was a Russian actor, producer and director born in 1863.”

Debrief:

“He concluded that acting could be more effective as a result of internal motivations, instead of outside actions such as Shakespeare and melodrama.”

“Stanislavski blended psychology and the inner emotional life onto the stage, frequently through his work with Russian playwright Anton Chekov.” “After the 1917 Russian Revolution, Stanislavski faced some criticism for not producing communist works, yet he was able to maintain his company's unique perspective and not contend with an imposed artistic vision.”

“During the Moscow Art Theatre's early years, Stanislavski worked on providing a guiding structure for actors to consistently achieve deep, meaningful and disciplined performances.” “He believed that actors needed to inhabit authentic emotion while on stage and, to do so, they could draw upon feelings they'd experienced in their own lives.” “Stanislavski also developed exercises that encouraged actors to explore character motivations, giving performances depth and an unassuming realism while still paying attention to the parameters of the production. This technique would come to be known as the Stanislavski method or the Method.”

His attempts to imitate real life on stage mirrored the preoccupations of the naturalist movement in literature. Naturalistic or realistic theatre incorporates the concept of the ‘fourth wall’ – the idea that the audience is outside the fiction, peering in on the 'real' events taking place on stage

Plays tend to concern the lives of middle- or working-class characters in contemporary contexts, and often address topical social issues. Dialogue is based on conversational prose that reflects everyday life. He used improvisation as a key tool to enable the actors to explore their inner emotions, and encouraged them to train their bodies and voices in readiness for the physical and emotional demands of a role.

Stanislavski's system consisted of magic if, given circumstances, super objective, objective, emotional memory, subtext and method of physical actions. Stanislavski worked with the forth wall which was a divide between actor and audience.

Natalie debrief:

- Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and director born in 1896

• - He was extremely strong willed and was reluctant to conform to the conventions of society, as

a consequence of this his parents arranged for him to be incarcerated in a sanatorium in 1915.

• - Once release, Artaud embarked on a fascinating series of experiences that helped him to

formulate his extreme views on both society and theatre.

• - In 1924 he became an active and influential member of the surrealist movement. He and the

surrealists shared a political viewpoint based around anarchy and free-thinking, and a vision of

the theatre as a place not for bourgeois entertainment but for emotional discovery.

• - in 1931, Artaud witnessed a performance by Balinese dancers in Paris that acted as a catalyst

for the development of his theatre. Balinese dance-drama is religious in nature and involves the acting out of Hindu legends in a stylised way, with the use of deeply unrealistic makeup, symbolic masks and hand gestures.

- -His most famous theory is “The Theatre of Cruelty”, which aimed to shock the senses of its audience, sometimes using violent and confronting images that appealed to the emotions.

- Artaud believed that all people were savages with secret desires to commit outrages. He believed that by containing these themes and desires within theatre, living them with and through the actors, the audiences would not act on them. Artaud thought that society and the world of theatre had become an empty shell. (Directly referring to naturalism)

Similarities and differences:

• Stanislavski was a naturalistic practitioner where as Artaud wanted to stem away from the normalities of performance because he believed performing had become an empty shell through naturalism.

• Stanislavski and Artaud are different because Artaud focused more of physicality over the spoken word whereas Stanislavski’s work was very text based. However Stanislavski also worked on the importance of physical embodiment.

• Artaud theatre was to mirror not that of everyday life but more the reality of the extraordinary with dreams and nightmares, whereas Stanislavski wanted the performance as authentic as possible to everyday life.

• Artaud wanted to attack the senses of his audience whereas Stanislavski liked to work his actors behind a fourth wall so his audience were peering into a everyday life.

• Both Artaud and Stanislavski believed into pushing their actors to commit to their character, Artuad’s method to take them out of their comfort zones and Stanislavski wanted to push his actors to feel the emotions and embody the character they were portraying.

BibliographyWebsites:

Biography.com Editors. (October 26, 2016). Constantin Stanislavski Biography. Available: https:// www.biography.com/people/constantin-stanislavski-9492018. Last accessed 2018.

Bryde May. (2015). Stanislavski Workshop. Available: https:// brydemayproductions.wordpress.com/stanislavski-workshop/. Last accessed 2018.

Dominique. (8 MAY 2007). Stan's Physical Warm Up. Available: http:// stansmethods.blogspot.com/2007/05/stans-physical-warm-up.html. Last accessed 2018.

Drama Classes. (2017). The Stanislavsky method. Available: https://www.dramaclasses.biz/the- stanislavski-system. Last accessed 2018.

Hedvig Werner. (2018). Acting techniques. Available: https://www.raindance.org/top-5-acting- techniques/. Last accessed 2018.

Hill, G. (2011). Intro to Artaud + Artaud Workshop. Available: https://www.slideshare.net/garethhil/ intro-to-artaud-artaud-workshop-9769350. Last accessed 9th October 2018.

Hill, G. (2011). Rehearsing Artaud. Available: https://www.slideshare.net/garethhil/rehearsing- artaud. Last accessed 9th October 2018.

N/A. (NDA). Theatre of Cruelty Conentions. Available: https://thedramateacher.com/theatre-of- cruelty-conventions/. Last accessed 9th October 2018.

Soanes, S. (2013). Theatre Workshop Exercises . Available: http:// werejustexperimenting.blogspot.com/2013/01/theatre-workshop-i-exercises.html?m=1. Last accessed 9th October 2018.

Wade Bradford. (January 18, 2018). The Stanislavsky System. Available: https:// www.thoughtco.com/stanislavsky-system-acting-method-2712987. Last accessed 2018.

Books: Stanislavski (2013). An actor prepares. Reprint. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 20-23.

People:

DaecheGreenN (2018) Antonin Artaud