Stanislavski

Stanislavski, Stanislavski – my first introduction to him was when Mrs. Moon mentioned him to me in ninth grade on the London Theatre Discovery Week trip. I came back from Europe with a whole book on his practice and advice to actors. I hope this presentation will grant me a better understanding of his philosophy.

Constatin Stanislavski

Born January 5^th, 1863 as Konstatin Sergeyeich Alekseyev in Moscow, Russia

           Influences on Peter Brook

-       Childhood theater troupe

-       Tomasso Salvini playing Othello in 1882

-       Mikhail Shchepkin (1788-1863)

-       Ernesto Rossi; told Stanislavski that his acting needed art

-        Let him discover the ‘life’ in a role

-        Stanislavski developed the idea of a realistic set in 1898 with Hauptemann’s The Sunken Bell

Key Philosophies

-       “A system is not a hand-me-down suit that you can put on and walk off in, or a cook-book where all you need to find the page and there is your recipe. No, it is a whole way of life…”

-       Key Principles

-       Analysis

-       Perception

-       Experience

-       Objective/Purpose

-       Belief

-       Discipline

-       Realism/Naturalism

-       Definition:

-       Realism – selection and distillation of observations of daily life; capturing the essence of life

-       Naturalism – ‘exposing a slice of life’ and portraying the intricacies of the world; complete attention to detail

-       Terms are generally used synonymously, but they are different

-       Ardent supporter of detail

-       Detested ‘meaningless’ avant-garde

-       Physical Realism

-       Sometimes overrepresented details

-       Lived for character research

-       Psychological Realism

-       Acknowledge the emotional subtext of the characters

-       All action must have a purpose and meaning

-       Always be analyzing your actions

-       Who are you? (funnily enough, this is what I do every time I make a character for a roleplay or a story >w>)

-       Where do you come from?

-       What do you want?

-       Why are you doing this?

-       Where are you going?

-       What will you do when you get there?

-       Outward action (physical) & Inward action

-       The actors is Never unengaged

-       IT MUST HAVE A WHY

-       The Magic If – a way of creating new context

-        The context creates the subtext (oh, I love this >w<)

-       Believe in what is happening onstage

-       Emotion Memory

-       The most controversial part of Stanislavski’s system

-       ‘Scars on the nervous system’

-       Actors should make an effort to broaden their range of experience

-       Recreation > Imitation

-       ‘Always and forever, when you are on stage, you must play yourself. But it will be in an infinite variety of combinations of objectives, and given circumstances which you have prepared for your part, and which have been smelted in the furnace of your emotion memory’.

-       The most difficult and dangerous aspect of the System

-       Stanislavski later disavowed this aspect of his System in 1930

-       Movement, Tempo, Rhythm

-       “Wherever there is life, there is action; wherever action, movement; where movement, tempo; and where there is tempo, there is rhythm.”

-       Every character/actor has his or her own tempo/rhythm

-       Rhythms must be distinct

-       Rhythms can drive a performance

-       Stillness is a powerful instrument

-       Other Aspects of Stanislavski’s System

-       Circle of Attention – helps an actor relax and refocus himself and his character, like the ripples of a pond where the focal point of the ripples is the actor.

-       Units and Objectives – plays can be broken down into Units of Action

Manifestations of the Philosophy

-       Collaborated with…

-       Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko (Moscow Art Theater)

-       Anton Chekhov, the writer of “The Seagull” and Leo Tolstoy, writer of “What is Art?”

-        Chekhov made subtler, emotionally charged projects after he learned upon understanding the implied messages hidden in the writing. This idea was shared by both Stanislavski and Chekhov.

-        Tolstoy influenced Stanislavski, which art had to be simplified and available for all. This helped form the thinking of Stanislavski.

-       The Society of Art and Literature (1888)

-       Stanislavsky, A.F. Fedotov, F.P. Komissarzhevskii, F.L. Sologuh

-       Create a society where they portray acting in a redefining way.

-       Moscow Art Theater (1898)

-       Moscow, Russia’s most valued company

-       Many classic performances all depicting a sense of realism

-       January 17^th, 1904 – written by Anton Chekhov but directed by Stanislavski,

-        Cherry Orchard

-       “A man who didn’t find acting through reality, yet reality through acting” – Austin

Oh, I loved the activity. There are just sooooo many options! I hope we can do it again soon, because I really love subtext and there were just so many unrepresented scenarios running through  my head!

Also, I forgot to ask: Stanislavski, or Stanislavsky? 

Peter Brook

I already have a base knowledge on Peter Brook thanks to his book, The Empty Space, but that is all it is: base. Basic. There’s so much more to Brook than I know now, and hopefully this presentation will help me to understand him and his teachings in a stronger way.

Peter Brook: Randomly Relatable

           Influences on Peter Brook

-       Interested in film as a child and in present day

-       Interested in Jean Paul Sarte

-       Gurdijeff

-       Gordon Craig

-       Artaud (Theater of Cruelty)

-        Push to mental, physical, and emotional limits.

-       Merce Cunningham

Key Philosophies

-       Theater should be Relatable

-       Everyone should understand

-       The power of words (different aims for different purposes)

-       Use incredible phrases like the end of a whip

-       Truest expression is ‘silence’

-       A certain degree of applause or laughter

Manifestations of the Philosophy

-       King Lear (1962)

-       Extraordinary Theater with the Royal Shakespeare Company

-       Trusted actors

-       Experimentation

-       Outlandish rehearsal techniques

-       Director as designer

-       Simplification

-       Salvador Dali

-       Salome

-       Christopher Fry

-       Ring Around the Moon

More than any of these notes, I think that the group’s adaptation of the Korean folktale into a short play was able to convey the true essence of Brook’s philosophy to me more clearly than the powerpoint and handout combined.

[will elaborate when there is time and I don't feel ill ><]

Theater and the World Notes

(Uh... these will be incoherent to everyone but myself, probably xD)

Post Modernism

l   Self Reflection

-            Paying homage to itself

-            Take material from the past and re-envision it

l   How do we view…

-            Post Modernism comes from the unrealistic

-            Realism à Naturalism à Surrealism à Post Modernism

l   No multiple theme – experimentation and multiple themes

l   First  postmodernist play = Dada/Dadaism

-            A Dadaist poet is like they get a group of words and throw them in the air, making a poem of the words they collect in the order they do so.

l   Theater of the Absurd

-            Post-war

-            Loss, disillusioned

l   Non-linearism

-            Watch the movie Memento

l   Open Theater

-            Joseph Chaiken: started open theater in the 1960s and 70s

-            Open gender roles, actors are actors playing a role – characters are not alive

l   Women

-            Sarah Ruhl

-            Mary Zimmerman

-            Susan Lorry Parks

-            Sarah Jones

-            One-woman play of fifteen different ethnic groups

l   Non-traditional Casting

l   Globe Theater

-            Upheaval, freedom

-            What kind of response can we get?

-            International focus

-            International interest

l   Macaronic Theater

-            Bodies, gestures, ‘macro=close up’

-            Assimilation, inter-cultural life

-            Focuses on cultural problems

-            AIDs (Angels in America)(Philadelphia)

-            Burktel Brekt (Meryl Streep & Tony Kushner) – The War of Art

l   Spectacular Theater

-            Cirque de Soleil

-            Not the spectacle that which is seen, but something completely spectacular

l   Theatre of Community

-            Clifford Odets/Group Theatre: Waiting for Lefty

-            Cornerstone Theater by Harvard Graduates

l   Movement Art and Dance/Theater

-            Stomp

-            Blue Man Group

-            Pina Bausch

-            Matthew Bourne

l   Verbatim Theater

-            Anna Divere Smith

-            Does not act, she embodies them (L.A. Race Riots)

-            David Hare

-            Take current politics

-            Eve Ensler (Vagina Monologues; interviewed women of Serbian Wars)

-            Solo performances

l   Dangerous Theater

-            Pushing the boundaries

Norman McCleran

l   Dance performance called Norman

Natasha Tsakos

l   Up Wake

Andy Warhol

l   Pop Art (Marilyn Monroe)

Burtel Brekt

l   Director/Genius/Actor/Scriptwriter/etc.

l   Wanted to lose the relationship between the stage and the audience

l   Let the audience know that ‘this is a play’

-            Distancing

TPPP

Plays Seen

-          Wicked

-          The Odyssey

-          The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
-     Les Miserables

-          Phantom of the Opera

-          Cirque de Soleil (recording)
-     The Pajama Games
-     Legally Blonde
-     The Sound of Music
-     Fiddler On the Roof
-     The Book of Mormon
-     Avenue Q
-     Pirates
-     ArtiFacts
-     Pina Bausch's Movie
-     Chicago
-     Shadowland
-     American Idiot

Plays Participated In

-          The Good Soul of Szechuan

-     Romeo and Juliet

Plays Read

-          Romeo and Juliet

-          Hamlet

-          Much Ado About Noting
-     A Midsummer Night's Dream

-          Taming of the Shrew
-     Twelfth Night

-          The Phantom of the Opera
-     Les Miserables

-          The Pillowman

-          The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

-          The Crucible
-     The Good Soul of Szechuan
-     The Love of Three Oranges
-     Mother Courage and Her Children
-     Antigony
-     Yotsuba Ghost Stories

Production Work Done

-          Lighting
-     Dramaturgist

Festivals Attended

-          Seoul Performing Arts Festival
-     The World Festival of National Theaters

Types of Theater Studied

-         Practitioners
             - Stanislavski
             - Bertolt Brecht
             - Anne Bogart
             - Tadashi Suzuki
-         Postmodernist Theater

-          World Theater
-     Greek Theater
-     Physical Theater
-     Masked Theater
             - Commedia del Arte
             - Neutral Mask
             - Found Mask
             - Korean Masked Dance
-     Japanese Theater
             - Kabuki
             - Noh
             - Kyogen
             - Bunraku
             - Underground

Plays to See

-          [too many]

The Pillowman…

The Pillowman…

How does one even begin to describe a play, a story, an idea such as The Pillowman?

This postmodernist piece, written by one Martin McDonaugh… well, I simply had no words for it when I was done. I’m not sure what I expected from it, but definitely not what I had found in it.

Well, what had spurred me to pick it up at first? I think it was largely due to the fact that the collaborative horror story I was participating in online collapsed on itself and I still longed for a fun little scare. I assumed that the story of this play would be straightforward, violent but tolerable when distanced with words and without visuals, would be simple and have jump scares sprinkled here and there throughout the plot.

… Thinking back, I severely underestimated not only the author, but postmodernism, theatre, and the power of words as a whole, didn’t I? ^^”

The Pillowman is something most would consider a ‘black comedy’. There is humor, yes, the funny bits, but there is a darkness etched into every word of the script that enshrouds the mind and wraps around the reader (or audience, I suppose, when performed), and I confess that every chuckle that left my lips was the unwilling company of a cringe. That, of course, doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy it – this play was astounding, amazing, and I simply couldn’t put it down…

… but it definitely didn’t leave me happy.

The darkness lingered long after I finished the play. There was no happy ending for any of the characters. There were no perfect characters, no – every character was flawed to the point of being almost pitiful yet I could muster no pity because each man (for there were ‘real’ women) was too strong in personality. I don’t want to spoil this play for anyone, because there are twists and turns in the plot, even within a limited time frame, that I want those interested to discover for themselves.

However, I believe that any fan of a good postmodernist work (who can stomach the gore, violence, and heavy atmosphere) will be able to appreciate and perhaps even enjoy this play, for there are so many different methods incorporated in the most fascinating of ways into the play.

l  Nonlinear – oh, this play is anything but linear as the reader/audience is forced to delve into the past, the future, and the imagination of the characters, back and forth, into a place where time and reality are nothing but a distortion of what it should be. Fascinating.

l  Narrator Plays a Role – the main protagonist is a writer, and in between acts he often slips into a void of reality where his stories come to life.

I have no more time for now, but I will be adding to this post later.

[This one as well - I was sick on the day, made this up a while back, thought I uploaded it, but I didn't?! I hate being sick TT-TT]

I had never held an interest in choreography before, and when I was first directed to this video, I admittedly did not expect much of it. I assumed that I would, as always, simply watch it and analyze it without truly immersing myself in the task with genuine interest. I was, instead, met with an unexpected surprise.

Wayne McGregor is an outstanding man.

What I found particularly fascinating is how he takes a simple shape, and turns it into, as Mark Hill would call it, an extraordinary figure. He took the letters of TED, and in mere moments, with just a few gestures and experimenting of the body, McGregor managed to create an image. I would never have thought that the letter T alone could be represented in so many ways. He also performed it in such a distinct variety of styles – dynamic, subtle, static – there was so much variation that even though I knew that he was merely presenting one image, a common letter, I found it interesting to watch.

It was also astounding how quickly the two dancers behind McGregor picked up on his movements so quickly, and it was interesting to see how ideas evolved as it was passed along. Both dancers seemed to have picked up different aspects of the initial demonstration, with the girl following the more stocky movements while the other seemed to have picked up on the more fluid motions.

I think this would be interesting to try in class.

I also did further research on McGregor’s performing troupe, by the name of Random Dance. I found it ironic how something called ‘random dance’ could feel so complete, and not erratic or out of place as the name would suggest. He works with so many aspects of the performing arts: theater, choreography, visual arts, film, technology, science… it is clear as day that Wayne McGregor is an outstanding man. I have found that he has one countless awards, with the most prestigious being the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire in January 2011…

…

I think I will be reading about this man very frequently in the future.

Sick Days...

[written back in late September, but for some reason I haven't uploaded it?!?! I don't understand myself...]

I think one of my greatest regrets this year is that I was unable to make the trip to Andong with the rest of my class… all because of an unfortunate illness that thereby lasted for two more weeks. However, through an experience lost, I suppose I also have an experience gained – I spent the time I was ill, reading. Well, at least when I was lucid enough to do so.

It was then that I discovered that it was fascinating to imagine some of my favorite novels as stage plays. Perhaps it was due to the numerous ‘space studies’ that we had worked on in class, but instead of the usual immersion, I suddenly found myself blocking movements and placing actors inside a room in my mental image. This novel was none other than my favorite Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. 

Please forgive me for the incoherency of this post, since I am still under the influence of cold medicine. Perhaps this is not even what the blog posts were supposed to be, but the idea’s been harassing me for some time, and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to get it down on paper… or a blog.

In any case, it was an unusual experience. Many people know of one interpretation of the novel as an animated film, and have experienced the world of Ingary in that manner… but as far as I knew, no one had yet to explore this fascinating world on a stage when it was literally a plot and setting with infinite possibilities… particularly in conjunction with space.

Diana Wynne Jones was an authoress who greatly enjoyed playing with the boundaries of reality and twisting it to her own will – this is even more prominently evident in her distortion of space. For example, the moving castle mentioned in the story is a strange one: it is just that, a castle that travels across the wastes… however, that is only one of its doors.

Should one visit and enter a store in the district of Porthaven, they will be entering this moving castle. Should one visit the shop in the other district of Kingsbury, they will find the same room of the castle. Doors do not lead to where they should, or rather, the rooms they lead to are not always the same. Who’s to say that rooms do not change and move about when we leave a door closed?

I just thought that this would be a fascinating idea to explore through space studies – doorways. Perhaps a stage play of this specific book might not work, but rereading this made me realize that there is a lot to be explored in the most simple of things: doorways.

What can we do with doorways?

… I think I’ll revisit this idea when I’m more coherent…