Over the past few terms, I think that as an actress I have developed greatly. In my skills, I feel like I have built up a toolbox with a number of different ways to approach texts, learn lines, become a character, represent a character and research a practitioner but I am sure that the 'experimental term' will continue to add to this greatly. Before starting the course, I had fixed viewpoints about what theatre was - something I would now describe as bland and narrow - and was extremely naive to the vast amount of artwork that comes under the title of 'theatre'.
We had a discussion in class about "what theatre is", something we were hesitant to answer, finding it almost a trick question, but upon exploration of the question and the discussion that it sparked up, found that it was the most important question that had to be asked. Some people thought that theatre was "fictional and physical", others that it was "something happening in a space with someone watching" as Brook proposed, "expressing opinions in an artistic way", "believing something although knowing that it is not real", "people pretending to be other people and people watching".
From all of the answers that we gave, it was very interesting to see that a group of people who had been drawn together by the same interest all had slightly different thoughts on what that interest was.
We then moved on to talking about what the purpose of theatre is, again a question that divided the class in a number of different ways. Some thought that theatre is "only successful if it breaks ego boundaries and goes straight through to the heart", others that it is to "entertain", others that it is "not only to entertain". I initially said that it was "to present a problem, either with a solution or not; either way, it is intentional". I am not entirely sure how much I agree with my initial thoughts, as all of my classmate's opinions seem plausible too, and I am sure that throughout this term my thoughts will change again as I know that Artaud wanted "to shock" an audience, but whether this is what they went for is a different matter.
After those discussions, it was clear that experimental term is going to challenge, question and confuse me but in a way that I am excited to see the direction it takes me in as a performer and, perhaps, a human. I knew from the reading I had done that the three practitioners we were going to study were all very experimental in different ways, and their work was clearly subjective; many hated their work, whilst others loved it. This is something I am expecting the term to be like: I imagine I will hate parts of it, while loving other bits.
I have never watched a piece of experimental theatre before, as far as I am aware, and this is the only thing I am slightly upset about upon entering the term. I would have liked to be able to talk about a piece of experimental work that I have actually experienced being a spectator to, rather than having to be a participant of straight away. This worries me slightly, as I am sure there has been the opportunity to go and see the work, it has just never appealed to me or I have inadvertently been too scared to branch out of my comfort zone to see the work. However, this is something that I am sure will change in the near future and I will not shy away from again.
The first lesson was both challenging and extremely interesting for me. It was not what I was expecting to go into as although I had read about Artaud, Grotowski and Brook before entering the term, I did not presume that we were going to be doing such a full out session on the first day back. I thought that I was fully prepared for the start of this term, having read all the literature and researched the appropriate people, however finding the practical element of the first lesson a shock told me that as an actress, I need to be much more open-minded and ready to do such tasks in the future. We did a number of Artaud-style physical exercises which each revealed different things to me. They were:
- 'walking across grid-lines'
These were imaginary vertical and horizontal lines on the floor which we had to walk across with precision and at a fast pace. I found this very simple and was able to concentrate easily on making my turns at the corners crisp. The next part of the exercise was that music was added which kept stopping and starting. I found this quite difficult to deal with, as the music was very irritating and the irrational element to the music made my pace vary: sometimes I would speed up, sometimes I would slow down and this annoyed me that I couldn't shut off and ignore the music. As I was concentrating so much on the music and how much it was putting me off, I was thinking less about the pace and sharpness of my turns, something I should get better at. As well as this, the leader of the session, Sarah, kept shouting at us telling us that we weren't working hard enough and should be doing better. I felt this was harsh as I was working what I thought was my hardest, but when she kept on saying it needs to be better, I noticed an improvement in my drive to walk quicker, bump into less people and make my turns sharp. She then introduced an objective: at the end of the grid-line was something we wanted very badly, so I imagined my parents. I thought this made my performance improve as I was able to shut out the music after a short period of time and really imagined my parents being at the end of the line. The drive that the lines kept changing so I was always trying to get them kept me motivated and I managed to stop crashing into people, inadvertently using my peripheral vision to change just in time. I learnt that as an actress, I find it distracting to have disorientating music and lighting, and in the future shouldn't let this put me off. I also found that I am very determined and will push myself to the maximum, always striving to be better. At the end of the exercise I noticed that I was quite exhausted from working so hard, and I was pleased that I had worked hard. I also found that we were in sync as a group of actors occupying a space, as although the music changes were getting quicker and our pace was very fast there were very few collisions by the end, showing that we had united together. The exercise linked to Artaud because he was very interested in the effect of music and lighting on actors and stimulating the brain a lot in rehearsals. At the time I was slightly confused as to how it would relate to me as an actress, but upon reflection I know that it was to get us warmed up, to get us concentrating, and to push us to keep getting better in preparation for the next exercises.
- 'knee fights in pairs'
We were paired with the nearest person to us and had to have one hand behind our backs and with the other, try and tap the other person on the back of the knees. I found this exercise extremely difficult. Firstly, I was worn out from the first exercise and there was no time in between the exercises to catch my breath or cool down (now I realise this was part of the effect). Secondly, I was paired with a Judo champion, someone very agile and tactical. This is something I am glad of though, because knowing she was so good made me up my game and prepare to fight properly. I was surprised at how much tactics had to do with the success, as based on fitness and agility, she had the upper hand, but my determination and tactical approach to the fight made us quite evenly matched. I knew that I had to defend primarily, and then attack because she was a strong attacker. Going into the fight, I had a negative, defeatist attitude which I have found that I often have if I think someone is better than me, and often I just let this take over but on this occasion I used it to propel me to fight her. The lights were turned off for this exercise which I think helped me a lot because I detached from the fact that we are good friends and concentrated on her being a body that I needed to overcome. The music was like the first exercise: kept getting turned on and off and was very unpredictable. This did not distract me as much in this exercise possibly because there were two of us trying to get the same outcome, meaning I had to ignore whatever else was going on in order to win. This links to Artaud because he was focused on 'assaulting the audience', so the actors had to have some experience of this and how it impacted them before putting it to an audience. We were both extremely competitive (although very good friends outside the fight), each wanting to get the other out. I found this exercise quite gruelling and fully entered into the mindset that it was a life-or-death fight, which I felt really helped me to get the most out of the exercise. I have heard the expression 'fight or flight', where people generally fall into either category and I learnt that my body has a 'fight' reflex. I would not say the exercise was enjoyable but it did help me learn how my body works and how successful I am when I put my mind to something. The purpose of this exercise was to engage the muscles in the body and to get the actors into the mental state of having a fight. This concept of actor training and rehearsals by tiring out the actors so they are in a state in which they are able to take on any emotion was something Artaud was very passionate about and which featured heavily in his sessions.
- 'fishing lines'
In the same pairs from above, we stood at opposite ends of the room from each other. We began by having my partner as the 'fish' and I as the 'fisher', having to use an imaginary fishing rod to catch her and then reel her in. The most difficult thing about this exercise was the weight of the other person. It caused all my muscles to really engage and I felt like I was really dragging her across the room. I think I would have been able to do the exercise more effectively if we had done it at the beginning, because my muscles felt weak, but part of the effect of the exercise was battling through the weakness to draw them close. This was the exercise in which I felt the least impact from the changing music and lighting because I was very focused and converted my frustration at the irrational music into energy that I could use to drag my partner. I think I was most effective at pulling her rather than being the one that was pulled because I found it hard to judge how much I should move when she was pulling me. This task completely tired me out but I felt there were a number of things that I got out of the exercise as an actor; a developed understanding of my body's muscles, engaging my imagination and working as a partnership. After the exercise was finished, I felt both relaxed and alert, that I was able to move around freely. This told me that I had worked well in the exercise.
Those are the three exercises I felt benefited me the most throughout the lesson and really made my body exhausted, a feeling that was interesting to have because I felt like I could take on any emotion. It was very interesting to experience an Artaud-style workshop and I enjoyed it.
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