Monday, April 21, 2014

Brecht Text Study/Caucasian Chalk Circle-Evaluation

In our rough draft performance we had many flaws that needed to be improved on and also in our feedback we were specifically told what we needed to work on so that we get a better grade. Before our rough draft performance we were given time to work and rehearse on our chosen act (We decided to work on Act 2: The Noble Child Pages 145-146 for our performance). In that time span we didn't really work efficiently and left it till the last minute (15 min. before our rough draft performance). We selected pages 145-146 for our rough draft performance and for those pages we selected what roles/characters we would play and I chose to be the beggars and petitioners, Hamza chose to be the fat prince, Mushanna chose to be the singer, Ulughbek chose to be the soldier and Armin chose to be the governors wife. For our performance Hamza and I memorized our lines long before. There were certain people in the group who tried to rush in a few minutes by memorizing the lines and we had no clue about our positions on stage. So I had to take initiative with the help of Mushanna and Hamza we were able to stage it. Personally I think that if we didn't position the characters on stage then we would have lost a lot of marks for the rough draft, so the staging managed to save us some grade. There were mistakes in our performance such as who we were addressing and talking to and also things we have to improve on such as Energy level on stage, Gestus and such. The Caucasian chalk circle is a play that was written by Brecht himself so the elements of epic theater is evident throughout. As for us we have to convey what Brecht is trying to say by breaking the fourth wall. This is known as the alienation effect or Verfremdungseffekt which allows the audience to forget about their own lives and think about the major issues. (In this case a Montage and Gestus helps). In our rough draft the elements of epic theater wasn't clearly conveyed which confused many of the audience for instance the Montage was missing, It was hard to tell who the characters were, Who we were addressing and such. Although the Act that was written by Brecht himself, he did use the character (The singer in this case) to break the fourth wall. The singer would stand on one side and deliver her speech to the audience (Breaking the fourth wall) while the other cast members stood still (A Tableau) and when the entire cast/ play was talking then the singer would stand still in her position. This is how we initially planned out how we would portray this Act so that the elements of epic theater is evident. In our feedback we were told to have more Gestus and energy and the montage was missing so we have to work on that as well. 
In today's lesson we were really productive, We used all of the double period we were given and worked on what we think we need to prioritize. We divided our group into smaller group so that they can concentrate on or maybe help out another member of the group in staging and montage making. Mushanna, Armin and I are in charge of staging and Hamza, Ulughbek and I are in charge of montage making. Today we worked on staging and all of us gave an idea and suggestions for improvements and where we would stand, enter, exit as such. We divided the entire stage up into up stage, center stage and down stage where we placed all the characters and decided where each of them would enter from. We tried out what we had discussed and fixed our positions so that we do not block any of the characters while we carry out the scene. We just worked on the staging and it took the entire period. In the last few minutes of the class we kind of discussed how we would infuse the montage, Our chosen theme and the scene we decided to perform as our final draft for this unit. 

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