TPPP Draft – Emma Sheldrick
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One of the very first things that we
studied and researched in IB Theatre Arts was a theatre practitioner. I chose
to study Stanislavski and we were asked to put together a presentation and mini
workshop to teach Stanislavski’s practice. I was mostly interested in learning
more about Stanislavski because of the term “method acting” that I had always
heard of but never really understood. One of the things that influenced me
greatly while studying Stanislavski was how he was always trying to find truth in a performance or in art. Discovering
that he spent his life trying to find a way to perfectly convey the truth was
one of the first times that I realized that acting and performance was for more
than just entertainment and that there was a depth to performance that I hadn’t
yet discovered or understood. Through this new understanding of the depths of
characters and stories in plays, I tried to look for so much more within the
play when preparing for our IBTA Play: Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Soul of
Schezuan.
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Bertolt Brecht was another practitioner
that another group researched at the same time as my research of Stanislavski
however, when taught about Brecht, the class as a whole seemed to have huge
difficulty trying to understand grasp Brecht’s concepts. The Brechtian style of
theatre is one that tries to alienate the audience from the action on stage in
order to force the audience to think about
the events that happen in the play rather than live in them. I think that this was extrememly important in
expanding my understanding of what theatre is for and why it is important. It
really made me realize that theatre exists not as a form of escapism but to
highlight what happens in our world and how people react, how people should
react and forces audiences to think about these things. Growing up in London, I
always grew up watching musicals, which I absolutely adore, but after learning
about Brecht I started feeling extremely guilty for being ignorant to the fact
the theatre is not about entertainment and showbiz but is a medium to force
people to think about life and think about our world.
Brecht’s approach to getting the audience
to think about the play rather than live in them was to try to isolate the
emotion from the audience. The audience should see the emotion rather than feel
it. This was something that I think was quite difficult for me to understand at
first. I didn’t think that there was much of a difference between the two. This
was, I think, the biggest reason why we decided to do a production of Brecht’s
The Good Soul of Schezuan as our year 1 performance.
Brecht was the first time that I was forced
to approach a play in a unique way – through Brecht’s V-effect - and to try to
interpret that alienation of the audience and the action from the page to the
stage.
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Although, as I mentioned earlier, I felt as
though my performance in the Good Soul of Schezuan was not very strong at all,
it was one of experiences that I felt as though I grew the most through. This
was my first time really having to tackle a character and dig deep into what I
interpret that character to be. I approached my characterization with constant
references to Brecht’s alienation approach. I always had the questions “how will
I play Shente truthfully but still keep a sense of distance from the audience
so that the audience is able to think about the things that are happening to
her?” I find this a challenge because I didn’t want to try to hard to be
truthful to the character and end up over acting. If this had happened it
would’ve not only be distracting to watch but it would also take away from the
Brechtian approach that we were trying to have.
In addition to being cast as Shente, I was
part of the costume production group. I did some research into typical costume
design in Brechtian productions and found that the style of costumes is meant
to be extremely simplistic. Sometimes the entire cast may even wear the same
costume. After speaking to the directors about the style of costuming in Brechtian
productions we decided that it wouldn’t be very effective for us to go in the
direction of everybody wearing the same costume so we decided that it would be
best to go in the direction of everybody having costumes that would distinguish
their characters but keeping them simple so as to not distract from the story
and the message of the play.
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Since most of the characters in the Good
Soul of Schezuan suffer from poverty and often find it difficult to come across
jobs and places to stay, we wanted tried to portray the sense of this hardship
through the costuming. May of the costumes we ended up using were found in the
school’s costume room. The costumes we used were quite plain. There was never
anything that really stood out in them that would be distracting but were just
about distinctive enough to help portray each character. For the everyday
costumes of Shente and Shuita, I designed very simple Chinese style clothes
(Shente’s costume can be seen in the next image). Both costumes were very alike
in design and were the same material and colour. The only difference between
them was that one was a female design and one was male which was distinguished
by the placement of the buttons, the cut of the shirt and the trousers (in
China the gender of the clothing is determined by features such as the
centering of the buttons, which is a male feature, or placing the buttons
slightly to the left, which is a female feature). My purpose for these designs
was to show that the two characters were actually one person so that it would
be easier for the audience to understand that. My purpose for choosing black
was so that it would give a sense of contrast of Shente and Shuita from the
rest of the town and somewhat isolate them as well as making them stand out
very harshly against the red wallpaper of the shop (red being a colour of luck
and fortune in China). However, this choice ended up being one that didn’t
really work in the end because it cause both Shuita and Shente to blend into
the darkness of the set and end up not standing out at all. One costume choice
that I think did work out alright was the wedding costumes (that are shown in
image 3) where I designed a plain, red dress for Shente and Yang sun was in a
plain, black, formal outfit. I think my idea of the contrast between black and
red worked well between these two costumes and it really reflected the
differences in personalities between Shente’s trusting, naiive and loving
character and Yang sun’s colder and deceitful character.
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I was cast as Shente in the Good Soul,
which was my first large role in any production that I’ve been in. It was a
challenge for me because I wanted to be able to merge what I had learnt about
Brecht’s alienation effect along with trying to stay as true as possible to the
character of Shente. Although this was my intention, I don’t think that I
really successfully incorporated these techniques in my performance because I
spent to long thinking about what I wanted to achieve rather than actually
achieving them. In addition, since it was my first large role, I think I was so
caught up on worrying about lines and not being bad that my concern for
Shente’s relationship with the audience diminished. My apprehension of having
my first big role was what I think harmed my performance. It is something that
I am always regretting and looking back on in other performances. However,
through playing Shente and getting to know her and the world that she lives and
suffers in, I found myself thinking a lot about how it would be like living in
poverty. You always hear about how people starve and don’t have the luxuries
that we do but through doing this play I started to notice the side of how that
sort of lifestyle affects how people act with one another and how people are
constantly deceiving one another and are willing to throw others under the bus
in order to survive. I always considered myself to be a good person but around
the time of doing this play and after I found myself constantly thinking about
how my actions, no matter how good the intentions, may harm others or even harm
myself. One small example of these questions that really affected me at this
same time was the conflict between spending time with a person when I was very
stressed with work or benefitting my own intentions by completing my work but
at a price of leaving the person feeling rejected or feeling as if they’re
friend was slowly drifting away. Which one would be considered more important
or good?
The Good Soul of Schezuan showed me how
theatre not only made me think about the world and the effects poverty has on
people but also made me evaluate my own actions and choices in my life outside
theatre.
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The Last Days of Judas Iscariot helped
reinforce my discovery that theatre is for more than just entertainment (as I
had mentioned earlier).
I learnt through the process of this play
that the audience also plays a huge part in the play and in the performance of
the actors. As Peter Brook talks about in his “An Empty Space” this play really
couldn’t have worked as well as it did if it wasn’t for the energy feeding off
of the audience and the audience’s understanding and appreciation of the action
happening on stage. This play forces the audience to question the role of
forgiving. Whether there are specific times that we should or should not be
forgiving. What is despair? Who decides whether we are forgiven: someone else
or yourself?
A large amount of this was thanks to the
fact that the school is Christian school and so the audience had a much better
understanding of the story between Judas and Jesus. However, it wasn’t just a
play conveying the story. It was a play to make the audience think about the bible story and the
significance of it. How it relates to their lives and in turn, the reason that
it is in the bible.
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We spent a weekend going to
a traditional Korean folk village called Andong in the midlands of Korea.
Andong is well known for its traditional masked dance: Talchum. Korean masked
dance (much like Comedia del’arte) is a form of theatre that was traditionally
performed by and for the “common people”. It is very satirical and uses themes
based off of everyday life.
Learning this form of theatre was another
thing that made me understand this purpose of theatre that I never realized
before. It is a medium for people to be able to express their feelings about
politics and the hardships of life and it is a way for people to relieve these
feelings through humour.
Learning talchum also made me more physically
aware of myself, particularly when rehearsing or performing. We learnt how a
little difference in the way you move your arms, positioning of your back, the
amount you bend your knees, etc. can make a huge difference to the
characterization of whatever character you’re trying to portray. I think this
was the most fascination to learn about. It was really interesting and I think
very useful to learn about the various combinations of body movements that each
character has and how those movements affects how the character is perceived.
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In addition to Korean
Talchum, we also spent some time studying Commedia Del’arte. Commedia shared
many similarities to Korean Talchum. This showed me that even though cultures
may be extremely different, that humans experience the same difficulties all
around the world and all people cope through humour.
Not only did Commedia teach me about
theatre and humans around the world but it also taught me to relate character
personalities and movements to those of animals. This relates back to me
learning to find the truth in a character and trying to portray a character as
truthfully as possible.
Learning Talchum and Commedia also helped
me gain confidence in performance and in using my body in a performance.
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Other Desert Cities was the
last production I did in my first year. It was an independent student
production put on by six students (three of whom were not in IB Theatre and
were underclassmen). It was a very similar experience to putting on an IB
theatre performance, only we had practically zero teacher supervision and had
about three weeks. It was one of my more stressful experiences doing theatre
but it forced us (particularly my two fellow theatre student and me) to think
about various set and costumes under huge pressure. We also had to develop the
characters and the interactions between characters at the same time as
developing the simple production elements.
My character, Silda, was a tough character
for me to understand. In the play, she is a recovering alcoholic and is forced
to stay with her sister’s family and is put into the centre of the drama that
takes place within the family. She’s a very out going and strong presence in
her scenes, even though I think she’s one of the most conflicted character, and
is often the source of comic relief in scenes. I wanted her to be the most
primal in behavior out of all the characters since she’s very outgoing yet has
suffered quite a lot. I tried to incorporate a low, wide stance and walk and
tried to put on a chestier, huskier voice. Much of my ideas for playing the
character in this way came from my experiences in learning about Talchum and
Commedia. I wanted to not only give her a certain kind of personality but also
physicalize her in ways that I had not attempted with previous characters.
Although I had felt this with our IB year
one performance, I feel as though I truly felt the importance of teamwork and
having to pull our weight as well as help others during the process of putting
on a production. It was the smallest team that I had worked in on a play and so
I really felt the pressure on me and on the other members. It helped reinforce
my opinion on theatre being collaboration and that it is not possible without
collaborating.
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I chose my symbol for my growth to be this
glass sculpture by artist Christopher Ries.
I chose this because of the effect that it
has on light and the effect that light has on it (light being the world of
theatre and the sculpture being me). This piece of art work is extremely
beautiful but it wouldn't be so if it weren't for the light that passes through
it and the effects that happen within the sculpture. The way the light reflect,
refracts and splits into many colours changes as the positioning of the light
and the sculpture changed. I feel like theatre has been the same way with me.
It brings out the most in me. I find myself working the hardest when I'm doing
something theatre related and that's what I find beautiful. Whenever I'm
studying a new form of theatre it is reflect and refracted within me in a new
way. When I'm being pushed or pushing myself into a new situation (whether it
be taking on the main role in the IB play, taking part of the Butoh workshops
or being left alone to come up with an idea for a performance all by myself) I
find that I am pushed into doing new things, alter previous ideas that I had,
having to accomodate other people and learning to work as a team, etc. In
addition to theatre having all these effects on my internally and externally, I
like to think that I'm also bringing something new to the world of theatre.
Although, like the small amount of light that is shone outside of the
sculpture, the amount that I have to offer to theatre is small, it is still
something and that important because if there is one important thing that I
have learnt during IBTA it is that theatre is collaboration. It is the merging
of all the reflected and refracted lights of everybody involved.
