Week Four Part One - The Truth

The Truth behind Drama and Acting

Monday 29^th September 2014

Acting

     To begin this week, we came together as a class and we had to discuss, with at least everyone inputting ideas towards what we thought were the principles of acting.   As well as the principles and the origins of drama itself.  To begin  with in our group discussion we all had to express/explain, in one word only, what we thought the purposes of acting are.  I stated it was to “embody”, such as it is the actors job role to fully embody their given character and tell their, either factual or fictional, story.  Once everyone inputted their singular word, some examples would be "storytelling, present, depict, and many more".  But it all came to the point when we all discovered that it is the purpose of drama, and all performers taking part in the drama performances to “react”.  It was then our lecturer stated that “anyone can act, as long as they’re reacting.” 
     This statement implied that anyone can stand on stage and deliver lines, but it is more of the matter of reacting towards other characters and scenarios.  Personally I found this statement to be extremely interesting, in a factual meaning, as truthfully it had never occurred to me that that is the purpose of acting, and all the more the purpose of the actors job role.  I always considered the actors job role to be to understand and embodying their given character, thereby resulting in them making the storyline and the storytelling, of their play, all the more convincing and entertaining for audience members.  But the truth is, if there was two people on stage and one was delivering a speech and another just stood still emotionless, than that isn’t acting, that’s just boring an audience. 

     But once we concluded the discussion on what is required of an individual, in order to act, we then turned to discuss the origins of drama.  Previously I had researched into the origins of drama and the theatre industry, and I already knew that it all began, dating back to 550BC, in ancient Greece.  It all began as a ceremony in honouring their God Dionysus, God of Wine and Entertainment.  But as we looked into more detail we discovered more factual elements behind the origins of drama.

     One key element that stood out, to me, was the actor’s use of masks.  I personally thought the masks purposes, similarly to today’s standard use of masks on stage, was to convey and express the performers emotions.  But that wasn’t quite the case back in ancient Greece.  Because their performing roles were to impersonate, give different yet entertaining interpretations, of people from foreign countries.  It could have been, and was in some performances, considered offensive, resulting in some unhappy audience members.  Therefore it was the mask’s job to hide their identities.  Not only that, but because their theatre layouts were ginormous it could have been rather difficult for audience member to understand what is going on.  Therefore the masks were designed to highly express the emotions of happy and cross.  All of which was backed up by the actors overly exaggerated movements on stage, to further project their current state towards the audience.
     Another element that I hadn't looked at in more detail before was their performance foreshadows particularly included in their tragedy play.  One repetitive element that stood out in their newly found genre of tragedy, was the use of characters deaths.  In the Greek Tragedy plays it was apparent that the lead characters were going to die at the end of the play.  But little details were placed within the performance to emphasis and foreshadow their upcoming death.  One feature, that I found genius and interesting, was the input of the characters constant gases towards the sun.  This would suggest that the character was looking to the God of the Sun, and "looking into the light", thus emphasising that he wishes to step into the light, and go from this life to another.  In other words the lead character looking into the sun was suggesting that was where he was going to end up.
     But the final detail I found interesting was the first playwrights competitiveness.  It was said in a documentary about the Greek Tragedy genre that every year there was a festival honouring the God Dionysus.  But at this festival there were three successful playwright's, and at this festival there was a panel of judges and they would come together and debate which play was better.  Better presented and better performed.  I liked this little factual detail, as it for me expressed the playwrights original ambitions, not just to be recognised, but to be recognised as the best writer of their time.   

Chorus

     All in all I found this extremely interesting, and I was beginning to sense that this was all building up to the main purpose of the lesson, and sure enough I lecturer then asked us about what we knew about a Chorus.  Once again, I did some research and performed, in the past, into a group chorus.  But this time we all worked together to discover the true purpose of the group chorus, and in particular their roles in Greek Tragedy productions.  From last year’s assignments focusing on our productions we looked at a group chorus and how they fitted into the play and alongside the lead characters.  From what I could remember, it was the job role of the chorus to express and back up the lead characters sudden emotions; giving every amount of detail that the audience needed to fully understand the play and the character.  But going back to our previous discussion about the principles of acting, our lecturer revealed that it was the chorus’ job role to react to what was happening on stage.

     We came to the conclusion that the chorus were like the audience.  In the sense of them being a group of citizens reacting to what was happening on stage, but they were fully embracing the storyline and the storytelling.  Plus the chorus could express their own emotions, only increasing the enthusiasm in their movement, to, in a way without distracting the audience from the main plot of the play, increase the audience’s attention to detail and fully engage them towards their production.

     All of this was extremely interesting and came in handy for our practical exercises.  As we practised on stage with two volunteers to read an argumentative speech aloud and see what the rest of the group, whom were now the chorus, would react to the argument, and take sides and express emotions towards their specific side of the argument.

Tragedy

     After exploring and discussing the principles of acting and all the details behind the chorus’ job role, we now looked into Greek Tragedy.  We turned to watching a series of documentary videos, all which explored Greek Tragedy and the impact it has in today’s theatre industries.  From theatre’s origins we know, as a fact, that there are countless elements still used in modern theatre, but it was these specific elements that are still used professionally and keep a high impact on their specific storytelling.

     Elements such as the chorus, once again it is still used in modern theatre, but it is presented in a style that can interact and intrigue their audience even more.  One example was a modernised production, with a large cast roll call, but with many characters having little to no dialogue, it is their job to back up and exaggerate the lead characters emotions and reactions to certain prop devises and/or plot events.  But why it is done in a different style is what I found to be the most interesting.  Because some of the theatres directors and artistic directors stated that increasing and including elements such as different pacing for lead cast member and chorus members.  All of which would back up their changing thoughts and feelings, as well as emphasis the dramatic feeling throughout the entire production.  With the pacing, there can also be rather theatrical movement, where the chorus seems to be rather unnatural and unearthly, all to enhance the feeling and the curiosity of whether the lead characters on stage are even aware of the group chorus.  I found these new element fascinating, and it made me wonder, slightly if we could implant these particular chorus elements into loads of modern plays; all to enhance and expand the unique possibilities of storytelling in a new and original fashion.

Conclusion

     To wrap up the lesson, we continued our rehearsals for our first production of ‘13’.  In this rehearsal session we looked at certain scenes, involving big speeches or monologues, and we looked if we could include any chorus elements into our version of the play.  So we looked at one speech in particular and for those who weren’t involved in the scene became the chorus.  For this we included the expressions of excitement, disappointment, curiosity, approval and disapproval.  All these moods, I thought, came in quite useful as if did give a convincing feel to it that the chorus was representing an audience of citizens reacting towards this individuals speech.  The end result was quite impressive, but with a few more rehearsal session I think we can make the scene increasingly convincing and of course intriguing for our audience.