Machine of tragedy Lesson

Antigone is a tragic play: exhibits many saddening events and centres the downfall of one main character. This downfall can be represented with the metaphor of a machine. It shows how after a certain number of actions have been made the consequences of those actions are too large and the play reaches a point of no return in which the machine of tragedy begins to work and not stop, pulling in and ruining the lives of many of the characters, especially the protagonist or 'tragic hero'.

In this lesson we created a piece of physical movement with the use of sticks to show this 'Machine of Tragedy'. The way we did this was everyone was to think of a profession and create a short mime for that profession, one that could be looped. We then made this movement larger and more fluid, experimenting with levels and sing different parts of the body. Once we had our short fluid movement we were put in pairs and had to incorporate our two movements without speech, completely improvise. We experimented with proxemics, getting closer and further from one another, speed, levels and the use of eye contact. Even without the movement being choreographed or planned we still both felt that are movement had narrative to it and appeared visually interesting. once we had that sequence of movements in the pair, we were to join our movement with another pair and incorporate the use of sticks. To increase the effect of the movement we were to imagine that one member of the group was desperate to leave the 'Machine of Tragedy' we had created and another was desperate for that person to stay, in our performance this is shown through the two standing members of our group. We also changed the pace of the movement to go with the music, this could represent a pivotal moment in the tragedy, perhaps the death of a character.

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Stephen Berkoff Research

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