Brecht

Brecht

• Brecht was reacting against a traditional view of theatre.
• “To think, or write, or produce a play also means to transform society, to transform the state, to subject ideologies to close scrutiny” He is one of the greatest inspirations of theatre today.
• Brecht was famous for a particular style of acting called GESTUS. The combination of gesture and facial expression and body language is deliberately used to create meaning and communicate a message to the audience. The actor carefully uses GESTUS to provoke debate and educate the audience.
• We explored the stereotypes of different characters, and without finding the deep emotional feelings of the character, we just focused on the stereotypical characteristics of the character.

• Exercise 1: We all walked around the room in neural and Clare would shout out a ‘thing’ for example: vet, car mechanic, librarian and brain surgeon. We needed to create a freeze frame individually of a heightened image of the occupation. This exercise allowed us to explore the physicality involved when playing a heightened stereotypical character.
• Exercise 2: We got into groups of 4 and each person was either, a ‘stay at home mum’, a 'cool uncle', ‘workaholic dad’, a ‘glamorous granny’ or a ‘concerned neighbour’. I played the ‘glamorous Granny'. We had to come up with two opposing sides of the characters personality and create a short line, so for the glamorous Granny's advantage, I chose“I knitted you a sweater!” and exaggerated my arms knitting quickly in a repeated movement, and for my disadvantage, I stood with my arms folded and mimed that I had a cigarette in my hand and shouted “Well, I was having sex before I was 12”. From this exercise we explored lots of different dimensions of a stereotypical character. By heightening a character you can find really exaggerated characteristics, that when they are toned down, create really realistic and believable characters.
• Exercise 3: Everyone had a prop and had to let that prop determine what sort of character you were. I had a cup and saucer which I frequently shook, communicating the nervous nature of my character. It would help my walk and facial expressions to become frantic and suspicious looking. Adding the text 'It's tea' in a soft whisper, subtly yet distinctly helped indicate that my character was a possible alcoholic. This exercise emphasised how much a prop can help exaggerate a characters personality. Another example was Harry's cigar that assisted in creating an accentuated version of a posh British man. The prop instinctively heightened the character for Harry to work with, without the use of increased body language, just taking emphasised puffs on the cigar to signify his superiority.