Unit 1 - Skills development in performing arts

Tuesday 31^st January

Today we went to Brecon in Wales to visit Theatr Brycheiniog. We were going to Brecon to visit the theatre and to perform some pieces that we had prepared to perform in front of a professional practitioner. This enabled me to gain a new skill as I have not performed in front of a professional practitioner before.

When we arrived at the theatre, we were greeted by the theatre development manager Martin Green who we were going to be working with all day. He gave us a talk about the theatre, what his job role is and what we would be doing throughout the day. Once we had finished the talk, we went for a tour around the theatre. I found this quite interesting as I have performed in theatres before and tours of a few too. After the tour we headed into the performance studio where we would be performing our poems and monologues. Before performing my poem I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be. I managed to stay calm and remember all of the corrections and feedback that I had been given about my poem throughout the past few performing arts sessions. Here is a link to the video of me performing my poem:

After my poem, I was given some feedback from Martin which is also shown in the video. I felt like I performed the poem well because of the feedback that I was given from Martin. The main thing that I was focusing on whilst performing was the pace and when I was given feedback, Martin said that I did this very well.

Here is a link to the group having a discussion with Martin after we had all performed our monologues and poems:

In the video he gives us some useful tips as an actor who is going in for any audition.

After we had performed our poems and monologues, we had a lunch break. After lunch we would be carrying out some improvisation tasks on the main stage.

When we got onto the main stage, we spoke to the stage manager who told us a bit about the staging. We then carried out a warmup ready to carry out the improvisation tasks. The first improvisation task that we were given was to create objects using our bodies. This improvisation task was set to be in the style of Grotowski because he was a theatre practitioner who focused on psychical theatre and movement. Here is a video to us carrying out this task:

As you can see from the video, we did struggle with this task in some places. We spent too much time talking about how we were going to make the object rather than making it. Towards the end of the video you can see that we did start to get better at the task but we still spent too much time talking. If we were to do this task again we would spend less time talking and start to make the object straight away rather than standing around chatting.

The second improvisation task was the main task and we had been asked to prepare for this. This improvisation task was carried out in the style of Stanislavski which is a naturalistic style. Last week we were all sent an individual description of a character that we had been asked to play. We were then given a scenario that we were at a school reunion after not seeing the others in the group for 20 years. One of the people in the group has committed a crime and the others had to figure out who it was. However, this had to be as naturalistic as possible. Here is the character briefing which I was given prior to the day at Theatr Brycheiniog:

You are ashamed because your career went downhill. On results day you did fairly well in you’re a levels and went to university. However, you suffered mental health problems during your time there and dropped out. Since then, you have moved between various office jobs. Currently you work as a secretary at the local school. At this point in your life, you are starting to think about attending a part time course in social work but still lack the confidence. You would like to know what the others think about this. You need to be very pessimistic and downhearted. Try to shoot down any positive encouragement you are given. Also, try to avoid starting conversations and give fairly short answers unless someone prompts you for details.

Here is a link to a video of use carrying out the improvisation task:

As you can see from the video, we found this activity quite difficult. We didn’t know how to come to a conclusion and try and figure out who was the criminal. We all had traits that made us seem like we were the criminal so it made it harder for us to establish who actually was the criminal. I found the task especially difficult because, as you can see from my character brief, I relied on the other characters a lot which meant that they had to lead the improvisation. This made it quite difficult for me because not everyone in the group was truly solid with their characters which then meant that I was able to fully portray my character. If we were to do this task again we would listen to each other more carefully as this would have helped us to move forward in the story. We should also do some more research before the task. If we had all carried out some research then we would have had a clearer understanding of how to perform our characters and therefore would have meant that the improvisation would have gone smoother.

For the last improvisation task we were able to try and redeem ourselves. For this improvisation we were given the scenario of being involved within a therapy circle. This improvisation was being carried out in the style of Artaud which focuses on theatre of cruelty. This exercise gave us a chance to carry out a longer task of spontaneous improvisation because we had had no planning for this and had to think of a character on the spot. The character which I played was very shy and quiet and didn’t like to talk about their problems but had been forced to attend the session. Throughout the task I rocked forward and backwards to show that I was nervous and to make the audience a bit unsure of what was going on. After a while of being quiet, someone else in the group was talking about their problem and I suddenly screamed at them. Here is the link to the video of us carrying out this task:
The feedback which I was given from Martin about this was that this was really effective as it made him, as the audience, feel very uncomfortable and wanted to know more about the situation. The feedback that we were given from Martin was that we carried out this task very well. We were able to deliver our characters very well and we all made the audience feel uncomfortable which was the main aim of the task.

Overall, I found the day very useful as I was able to learn and develop a new skill – performing in front of a professional theatre practitioner. I performed my poem well as I was able to remember it and I was able to remember all of the corrections and feedback that my lecturer gave me in the weeks following up to this day.