In our rehearsals this week, since we haven't been assigned parts yet, we've been exploring many different ways of constructing physical theatre. We've been exploring the relationship between Polynices and Eteocles, Antigone's brothers, and creating physical theatre that reflects their anger and tells their story.
We were given the task today to come up with the key points of Antigone, simplifying the story into a summary that could be translated both through physical theatre of some sort, and through a limited amount of spoken word. The main goal of this physical theatre piece was to explain the plot line of Antigone and wrap our heads around the sibling relationships in this story. The only sibling not mentioned in this physical theatre piece is Ismene, which I think is significant, because in the end, she is the only one left alive in her immediate family -Creon, her Uncle, being the only one we know of left in her family at all by the end of the play. Her being left out of this sequence may signify her lack of involvement in the burial of Polynices and her being cast as a character that escapes death.
Overall, I think that this physical theatre piece was decent, it could have been a bit faster, however, it accomplished it's aim of telling the plot of Antigone in a simplistic, yet interesting manner. This is what my group came up with in the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYE-3cCkH70
I've talked a little bit about different ways to construct physical theatre in earlier blogs but I wanted to elaborate and do some further research on some physical theatre companies to fill my metaphorical physical theatre bank. This way I can suggest more ways to make suggestions about what we could do when creating physical theatre in the future.
Frantic Assembly
One physical theatre company that Mr. Chipp has told us about is Frantic Assembly; so I've decided to research them a bit further. This company was started in 1994 by Scott Graham, Steven Hogget, and Vicki Middleton.
"We were three students at Swansea University. We were suddenly inspired and then encouraged to form our own theatre company. This reckless and terrifying leap was the best thing we ever did.
We were English Literature and Geography graduates and as such we were untrained in any aspect of theatre or dance but we were willing to learn and devoured any opportunity that came our way. As soon as we learned something we tried to teach it and pass it on.
This simple starting point of encouragement, learning and training has been at the heart of the company ever since."
Scott Graham, Co-Founder & Artistic Director - https://www.franticassembly.co.uk/about
Some of the techniques used by Frantic Assembly are absolutely brilliant. For instance, they do something called chair duets, that I had never heard of before doing a little research on them. This technique is quite simple and only requires two participants. The two actors sit on two chairs (or anything really), side by side, and start with their hands on their knees. From there, the actors are able to create a sequence that motivated by the other participant -if person 1 moves their arm, it must touch person 2, and this will motivate person 2 to move to touch person 1. Whenever, they are done with the sequence, it loops and they return to the start position. Not only does this technique present a well-rounded form of physical theatre, it has simple rules that make it easier to create a sweet little piece of physical theatre.
I think that we'll probably be touching more on physical theatre techniques in future rehearsals and productions, but learning a little bit about it beforehand is quite beneficial for Antigone as well. We've been playing around with a lot of techniques, and although we haven't tried this specific technique in class, it's a good thing to file in the back of my mind. Perhaps we can try it sometime in the future. Here's an example I found on YouTube of a chair duet that Frantic Assembly choreographed for Othello:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLrabSNRHhg
I also watched this video on the Frantic Assembly YouTube page that is essentially a workshop on lifts and making it seem like people are effortlessly floating. Whilst our class is made up of all girls (who perhaps aren't as strong as these men in the video), if you think about it, we may be able to accomplish these lifts nevertheless because our weights will be lighter than the men in this video. It may be harder for us, but perhaps it won't matter? I've got a desire to get lifts and real cool looking physical sequences into Antigone (and any other future performances) because they really create a sense of awe in the audience. I love it when the audience is wowed; there's no point in creating a mediocre performance.
I like what the Artistic Director, Scott Graham, had to say about lifts : you want to make them look effortless, and "hide the work". Here's a link to this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7R_V2iCZoY
Overall, I think that Frantic Assembly is a great example of the potential physical theatre has to create a dynamic piece of drama. I think that I can definitely use their example to create more abstract pieces of theatre in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment