TPPP Draft

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.