Arrest scene with guards staging

Stephen Berkoff Research

We have started studying the theatre style of Stephen Berkoff in our drama lessons. Berkoff's style is non-naturalistic, he focuses much more on the movement of the actor rather than the voice, he states that the only use for the script is to 'minimalise and physicalise' the story; it enables the story to be told in the simplest, most effective way. His Actor's use techniques such as background movement, repetitive actions and mime. Berkoff said that it was important 'to see how I could bring mime together with the spoken word as its opposite partner, creating the form and structure of the piece'. This very interesting concept provides the core of his work, the mimelike, staccato movements accompanied by vivid, imaginative language. Berkoff studied at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. Jacques Lecoq was originally a gymnast and athlete who later found physical theatre after becoming aware of the beauty and rhythm in athletic movemen...

The Haemon Scene

We worked on the Haemon scene in more frequent shorter sessions so I have condensed the process into one log. We first worked on Haemon's entrance in which he interrupts a conversation between Antigone and Nan, because Nurse is a comical character she is hesitant to leave and makes the situation a bit awkward and uncomfortable for Antigone and Haemon. Antigone and Haemon have had an argument the night before and that is immediately obvious due to the distance between them and Antigone's first line 'forgive me'. We staged it so that Haemon would come close to her twice, following her to front stage left and attempting physical contact by touching her hand showing his reasonable human efforts to comfort his fiancé, then she throws him off annoyed at herself for ruining her chances at making love to him and moves hastily to front stage right, again Haemon follows her and hugs her from behind which she enjoys and encourages and I think she forgets for a moment that t...

Woman Alone - first impressions, disecting the script

Woman Alone is a short play written by Franca Rame and Dario Fo. It is the monologue of a woman who has been locked inside the house by her seemingly very abusive and controlling husband who is talking to her neighbour across the gardens. It is a very comedic script: full of sexual innuendos, hilarious anecdotes and clever one-liners. However, this comedic language juxtaposes some very serious and sinister themes: domestic abuse, sexual exploitation, self harm, suicide, mental health and murder. Upon first read, I found the extended monologue to be very confusing as the woman changes train of thought very quickly and jumps from subject to subject very often. The language itself is very simple and the anecdotes can be followed easily but her character as a whole is very hard to understand as her intentions seem to change every second and she is constantly contradicting herself. I immediately thought that it was going to be a very challenging script to work with, however for our perf...

BTEC Perfoming Arts - Logs

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