Evaluation of "taste of madness"

Evaluation Of "Taste Of Madness" 

Ensemble Evaluation 

As an ensemble something that we did that was rather effective was that the movement we did through the story telling of Artaud was very effective in both performance because we just went for it , Therefore, it looked engaging to look at and it made the audience feel something, for example I heard one of the audience member next to me say "wow" as they were watching the movement , however, something that we could have done better was that we faced away from the audience as we did it , moreover, this killed the vibe of appearance a bit because we closed ourselves off from the audience , resulting into them not having the full experience that they could have had.I strongly believe that the second show that we did was extremely better than the first because we let go more and just went for it, this was beneficial for our performance to let go and have fun because that the main aim of our performance it was mostly all about fun and playfulness through the physical movements we did and emotional reefing.

The emotional reefing and animalistic vibe we brought to the piece is something that I feel work then most out of everything we did in the piece because it was very strange because as humans we tend to become more restricted through the emotions that we let out for people to see, however, through this performance we were very lose and expressed a lot through our physicality and how much we just went for it.

In experimental theatre things tend to always change and you have to always think on your feet, for example, one of the groups had to move out their space and create the same capacity of work in a different space in a short space of time and I think as an ensemble we worked very well with change, another example of change that happen was that , throughout the duration of the first show my little section of Fifi and I was skipped by mistake and even when the ensemble noticed they missed something they carried on and didn't let on to the audience that there was a problem at all, therefore, I think this was effective of us because we read the space and the problem that accorded and how we could of fixed it without breaking character and the idea of the bar and the concept of Tom waits.

A strength in contribution to the piece is that I really went for it because as we start the rehearsal process I wasn't really sure how everything would have worked out but by me just going along with it and contribution when  I could , helped me as an actor to always think about what the ending process was going to look like but to just trust in what I was doing and be 100% committed to the ensemble as well as the piece that we were creating, Another strength that the whole company had was that when we did the ending piece all together the level of comment was really good because even after we had all do our main performance and came to the space to do the ending bit, We all were still in performance zone and the level of performance didn't drop at all, it was consistent throughout the two shows, this was an effective attribute to possess because as our energy raised so did the audiences energy to understand and watch our piece and actually take something from it.

A strength that helped to make the performance successful was the lighting used in our piece, I believe that it added a effective vibe to our piece and I strongly believe the idea of the colour helped us to express the ideas of emotions for example when the light was turned red for lust , you could see the physical movements on the blocks were more effective than in rehearsal when we weren't using the lights for effective, the lights imply that the staging of the piece helped us to bring it more to life for the audience to view.

A weakness that made our piece not as successful as it could of been was that when we came to the space the first time , the ensemble was talking and could be heared by the audience on the other side, which killed the aspect of surprise of the finale of the Theatre performance. The effect of this on the audience was that it made them not have the full impact of theatre that they could of had from our whole year ensemble piece, a way that the piece could have been made more effective was if we kept the idea of professionalism and concentration at the ending piece because if they could hear us it destroyed the aim of us hiding from them, however, I think a strength in the piece was when we were running round them in a circle because it made the audience feel trapped and enclosed , this helped to enforced the idea of mental health because mental health patients tend to feel closed off and lonely , therefore, the idea of trapping them in a circle was effective because it helped to create an atmosphere for them to experience.

Promenade Evaluation 

I am convinced that the second performances Promenade was so much better because they reacted more to the street freaks charterers , the characters had more of an effect on them because the audience took the time to truly look at the street freaks and listen to what we were saying, Something that we did very well as freak freaks was that the audience had to walk past us to get to the start of the promenade and I think the way we just stood in our various space and didn't make a sound but just looked at them really added the essence of freakishness of our Promenade and how we were a bit weird.

I believe that the first performance of our promenade was not as good as the second one because we weren't as ready as we could of been, moreover, the audience came quicker than we through, and this resulted into us feeling like we had to rush through our street freak performance and this lost meaning to who we were trying to be. Something that we should try to do for next time is that we should be constantly aware of our surrounds and where the audience was and how long it would take time to reach us since, we knew the group before us had a location change and were much closer to us.

As my character of street freak master something I really needed to work on was projection because you couldn't always hear me and since we were in a outside environment sound tends to get lost very easily, however, the second performance vocal clarity and projection was increasingly better than the first, I think it was very effective to have two performances because the first performance helps us to know what we have to tighten up and how to make things more entertaining as a performance, in the first performance we skipped something and this help us to understand the duration of our performance and running order.

A major weakness concerning our promenade was that we could of had more physicality through bolder character choices because we were meant to be "odd freaky characters"  and street freaks tend to have odd and intriguing physical stature but we kept to what we were use too , on the other hand a strength was also our physically at the start before we started our promenade because we were in interesting shapes before we began which made a audience members want to look and explore our characters for example, a man came up to us when he was walking past and just looked at us as we stayed there straight and without movement , I think this was an effective thing for our promenade because it is little communications, that tends to help the show come all together because you feel the piece is aimed straight at you and you take something from watching the piece of theatre.

Lesson 6

Lesson 6 

Looking at room 

At the start of the class we put cardboard around the class room all over the walls and windows, this was a effective thing to do because it helped to make us feel like we are in a box and it help bring darkness to the room, which made it more realistic to us and this helped us to believe more in the piece that we were creating.Something that I really liked about this idea was that when the lights were turn off for a split second I felt that you were in a think tank of emotions that everything around you was cut off expect for emotions.

Exercise on musical lines 

One by one we got up picked up a drink and went unto the big box and said the Tom waits quote, then We went up to the microphone and said a line from one of his songs.  

The strengths of the exercise was that it brought out interesting characters from what we have done and a weakness is that we could of done more with our vocals and our physicality, this is effective because it makes our performance more effective and engaging. 

Weakness 

The Idea of putting Cardboard on the floor could be slippery, we need to make sure we have a connection more with the audiences.  

We need to make sure that we balance the space because sometimes there is more people on one side the space and no one on the other ,therefore, it kills the vibe of the piece for the audience if we are constantly far away from them. Something that we need to improve on in our piece is that we need to make sure that we are 100% commitment to our work, for example, with the story telling we need to make sure go for it because when we do it becomes very interesting , however, when we do it not 100% committed , it killed became dead and the audience didn't look like they actually believe in what we were talking about but just were watching because they had too.

Strengths 

A key strength in our piece is that it is very fun , therefore, it makes it more engaging for the audience to watch and be apart of, moreover, as we performed the piece to the other class I saw that they were constantly laughing and laughing, therefore, I think our idea of fun was understood in a very effective way through the actives that we did, for example, the ending bit of the piece when my group all stands up and dances together, then sings the song together was amazing because it had a really impact-ful effect on the audience because they were living in the moment so much that that they decided to stand up and sing and dance with us as-well , this was not a planed thing, therefore, it made the piece creatively interesting.

Actions for the Weather 

As a group we have decided that for every weather forecast given there will be a emotion that will be behind it, this will be very beneficial for our piece because we understood that as humans the weather does actually impact our emotions and how we actually feel, I think the feeling for Thunder and Lighting was very effective because it does make you become so anger that you actually do become an animal, this contributes to the aspect of savageness that we are looking at through the practitioner of Antonin Artaud.

Fog - Anxiety (start asking questions) 

Snow - Breathing heavily 

Thunder - Animals moving around (Pig, Gorilla etc)

Images of the basic layout of our piece 

LESSON 5

Broto theatrical practitioner 

Butoh dance 

Butoh is known as the dance of darkness, that's was created first in Japan and its formally known as Japanese theatre. Butoh was created through the chaos of the second world war , this implies that butoh may have been seen as a type of escape , this is relevant to our idea of mental health because people mental health tend to want to escape and become free from everyday life. 

I believe that it is not really benifical for me to understand Butoh in that much detail because as a group we are looking on the lighter side of mental health and the creative things that have been made by people who have been seem to have mental health like , Tom waits, William Kurelek , Bryan charnley etc. 

Research Kaboki theatre 

Kaboki Theatre was created in the 1950s/1960s. It is known as Japanese theatre , also part of a dance of freedom and movement and how your body natural wants to move around, in class we did an exercise with our body moving naturally and just let out body move where it wanted to go , this was a benifical exercise because it helped us to loosen our selfs up to begin to start production theatre work. 

The Japanese performer that take part in Kaboki usually paint their faces with elaborate stage make up , Kaboki is a style of theatre , I believe that we could use Kaboki for the street freaks because we could use paint to help us bring out character for our individual street freaks , however , using paint would not be easy to take off straight away, therefore, this could cause there not to be a fluent process from the promenade to the actual performance of the bar. 

I feel that Kaboki theatre is relevant for our production because it helps us to create well developed characters that's have a meaning but not a story.  The idea of painting of the face that Kaboki could be very effective in our piece of street freaks because it will help make us look more like freaks and different to everyone else around out, this would also contribute to our idea of hiding in the trees because we would be blending in with out surrounds in a effective way. 

Starter exercise  

Put clin fill around your hand and try to stretch out your finger , this created a sense of freedom. Then we recreated this movement with just our hands and the  movement.

Even when we did it without the tape it still felt restricting but it was not as restricting with the clin file, I think that it's our mind that is actually restricting us not the clin fill, we are just telling our selfs that it's restricting , but it might not actually restricting our selfs. When u do it without clin file your mind , kind of plans which finger will pop out first but with using the clin file it makes the movement feel more natural to move. 

 

This was a interestingly weird exercise to do because it helps you to understand the restrictions that we put on our selfs and how we can do so much more if we just explore more what we are doing, This relates to the stories that we create , we need to make sure that we do not restrict our self with our stories and try to make them as extraordinary mad as we can because mad is not bad but good because it helps you to break boundaries that you put on your self as a person and actor. 

Walking around in the circle exercise

It felt un natural because you pay attention to how the person in front of you walk and then look how you walk and then try become insink with that persons body . That awareness with the body and the persons body 

After that we skipped around the room and skipping around the room as a sense of freedom and adandoment 

Movement active exercise 

We moved around in our own space and it was a sense of physical movement. We did this because it helped us loosing up our selfs to make work. 

Rehearsals analysis 

WWW: something that went very well was that everything flowed and we knew what we were aiming to do now. It was too staged , we were more feeling the moment more and this made our work look and feel so much better. 

EBI: something that we could improve on as a group is we need to build up the stories more and listen more to the person telling the story. We need to make sure we try to find a build and purpose for the story because...

LESSON 4

Performance workshop 

Today's we made the bar and created different stories and scenario of what can happen in the bar:

- post man brings box 

- Someone one picks somethings out of it and then makes a story

- Then 5 people make a story out of the situation 

-The bar is called " The Tastes of Waits"

Circus Street freaks 

Fire boy - Edgar

Lizard kid - Hannah

Delainey-  on a space hopper 

Acrobatic boy - Tobi (twins)

crumpit - razzkay (twins) 

Mute girl - shanay 

Forced entertainment 

Forces entertainment are a experimental theatre group that focused on work to do with live art, video and digital media , as circus street freaks, we can use their ideas and concept to help us stage our promenade for the show. 

We thought of using there idea of art to paint our faces as clowns and interesting characters that we believe we can use to help bring our characters more to life for the promenade. 

Museum of mental health

The maze 1953 by William Kurelek

William Kurelek was a man with mental health and his life and how he has related over the years of his relationships and family members is what this piece of art work is meant to be. He felt that other people's relationships are being manipulated by other people, therefore, this resulted into them doing, bad things. People that tend to have mental health, may use the arts as a way to escape how they feel and to find peace in certain situation in their lives. The picture below exaggerates the life that William had and how he had to deal with these certain situations and sometimes how he couldn't deal with these situations. The maze shows that William constantly felt like he was in his own little world because the people of his time didn't really understand mental health so no one understood how he truly felt.

Out of the maze ,1971 by William Kurelek

Out of the Maze is a piece of art that William Kurelek did later on when he got the help that he need and when people truly understood what mental health was and how they could help people that had mental illnesses. This picture named Out of the maze dramatizes how William Kurelek felt later on when people understood him. He felt a sense of freedom and communicating with everyone that he loved and knew because they knew how he truly felt and how the mental illness effected him,

This is a piece of work that I saw and thought was very effective because its shows how mental patience may actually feel because most of the time they do not really have anyone to really talk to because not everyone understands them. The picture shows that even though all three of this girls all have mental health and are around each other , they still feel alone and emotional disconnected from the rest of the world.

It is interesting that the artist used children instead of adults, this could suggest that mental health for him/her ripped away their child like joy and wonder and just left them to be scared and confused with who they were and who others around them were because the characters are around each other , however, they still give off a hint of being alone in their own thoughts or maybe feeling alone physically as well as emotionally.

Bryan Charnley called Sleep

This is a piece of work by Bryan Charnley called Sleep made in 1988. This is a painting of a figure sleeping beneath a window through which swans can be seen flying. The key message of this painting is that it is meant to celebrate the power of dreams and the existence of dreams and reality.                                                                                                                                           What I like about the piece is that when looking at it, you can really feel the idea of freedom that Bryan Charnley is trying to elaborate, this is effective because as a piece of art it actually makes you feel something, This piece of art can be really effective because in our production since we are working on the theme of mental health or madness , we could use this vibe of freedom in the play to show a moment where the character or characters actually feeling free and understood.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

This piece of art work is called Despair. I believe this picture is effective because it made me feel something, i felt like the person that drew this picture felt like they was not "light at the end of the tunnel". what I really like about this painting is that it makes an immediate impact with whoever that see it, it makes anyone question their fears or even what the picture is really about.

I think that this picture is a little insight into how this person with mental health felt inside and what they may or may not of found hard to live with. This picture suggest that there is no happy ending but just darkness in life and confusion. The foot steps in the picture is quite interesting and effective because it makes us ask questions of who's foot steps are those and where did they go? etc.

Lesson two exercises

Lesson Two 

Research On Tom Waits

Tom Waits is a american blue singer, actor and composer , who was deemed to have mental health because he did things and enjoyed things that were seemed to be weird and not "normal", for example, He enjoyed going to funerals and just watching and he ended up having a great laugh because he found them so funny the way people were crying so intensely.

Research On Mental Health & Madness 

The way society has place us , if you are someone who thinks outside the box , you are seen to be crazy or mentally Ill , therefore, as artist we should not conform to society and just be our self and not care. Theatrical practitioners like Artaud, peter Brook, Grotowski were seen to be mental ill because they decided to embrace madness and mental illness as a good thing instead of the rest of the world who have decided  

to "be mad is to be bad ".

Warm up game - Duel in the dark 

You have to find a newspaper and hit the other person by exploring the space around you while blind folded. We are doing this to think what is a performance? & what is a show? , does it inform? , does it entertain ?etc.

In the game there is a chase , and everything is a chase scene and conflict in the game. There is a bit of dramatic irony in the game because the audience knows and the actors doesn't do it make it more interesting for us. The relationship between the audience and actors is very intersecting because when the audience know before the actors know something it makes it very involvement in the game and it feels like it will never be the same because it's a type of organic nature of a rehearsal space. 

While playing this game you need to make sure that you are very spacey aware of the place you are working in. The main objects of the game is Simplicity , honest , truth. This game is very beneficial because it helps us as actors to become very spaciously aware and listen more to our surroundings more and react off that instead of what we see. 

Moments 

1) When people are so close to the paper and just miss it that is a very dramatic moment 

2) The audience knowing things that the actors didn't really know 

Warm up game 2 - Newspaper Game 

This game is when we put two newspaper on the floor and a person has to jump over it and there was a little type of danger that oh he may step on it and this makes us emphasis with Edgar because we wants him to win. This makes us fill on edge because when the actors is seemed to not know what they are doing , it makes us feel like we don't know what we are doing and this makes it interesting and intrigued. We like danger as a audience , however , as actors we need to make sure it's quite controlled. Edgar hesitated and he was unsure so we were unsure and it was a very theatrical moment because he breathed in and took time at the last newspaper and it seemed to be seen as he felt like he was about to jump off a cliff etc. This is a effective game to play as actors Because it helps us to play with the audiences emotions and it helps us become emotional connected to the character/person, I strongly feel this was a effective exercise because it helped me to understands the tension that a character can build for the audience. 

Traipse Dance 

It's was really gentle and beautiful because each person look like they had there own story and the connection of the music and actor made it more darker and meaningful, this is effective because it makes the Traipse Dance more engaging to watch and it make it more understandable for the audience to strongly believe how the person feels through the use of their body actions.

Lesson On The Three Practioners

Artaud the practitioner 

In the workshop on Artaud we played a game to help us get into the savageness of Artaud methods and to try get more out of our own comfort zone & go beyond what we will normal do to keep us on a creative mind set. We used his method of savageness to show a emotion of joy/happiness,sad,angry & excitement. The aim of the game is so show the emotion selected for example, happy , however, you had to make sure you were seen to be more happy than the person before you. This was challenging at first because we realised that we had to work as a team and build up the emotion from the beginning to the very end, moreover, Artaud uses workshops like this to help the actors/performer to work more and become stronger as a Theatre company.

Artaud methods are effective because they teaches us that it is not all about how you look while doing theatre but it is truly about how you feel and that is what will truly make a good and effective type of theatre to be watched. 

Peter brook the practitioner 

In the workshop on Peter brook we played a game with emotions, in which 5 people in the class go to one side of the classroom and the rest of the class goes to the other side and sits down and watches them. Then the 5 people chose a emotion to present and a body part to show it in and then they make sure the rest of their body is neutral and relaxed except for that one body part showing an emotion, for example,I chose the emotion anger and showed this in my hand by rubbing them together and constantly showing a fist and then the class guessed anger because they saw that is the only part of my body not flowing with the rest of it. This game was effective because it helps us as actors to use more physical movements to show emotion , instead of saying how we feel , we can show it, therefore, making our work more creative and intriguing to watch.




Grotowski the practitioners

In the workshop on the Grotowski we ran around the football field & beside outside theatre block because Grotowski main methods in theatre is to wear out his actors in the rehearsals because it helps them to become focused and for actors to bring out Untapped emotions. After we did this we talked about how we felt and surprisingly I felt very calm and at peace with my self as-well as the people around me. Grotowski does this technique to help his actors forget about the world they come from and everything about them, resulting into them only caring about and concentrating on the work that they are doing at hand. As an actor i think this is a very effective technique because after doing the exercise it go me very calm and ready to work on what we were planing to do in the lesson.  

The task of us running around was very relevant because it was a key ideal of Grotowski to make his actors tired to make them , emotional connected. This was effective because after I finished running around I felt very emotional drained and this made to feel certain emotions for different exercises, for example, we walk around as a characters and it was easier for me to show the certain emotions of the character after doing Grotowski's theatrical exercises we did.