Frantic assembly:
Devising/Writing Methods:
If an idea is still being worked on it will be passed around from writer to writer or to whoever is going to devise it in hopes it will change into something they feel they can work with.
Performance Features:
The plays generally focus on naturalism when just doing the normal scenes go more into a surreal more dance like display in order to convey something deeper. They often have regular sets but with something extra like in "Lovesong" the used screens as their background in which they would show surreal images on or even images of birds flying.
Character/Plot/Design:
From what I can tell there is only one characteristic that the characters have in common from the plays and even then it's not to do with the characters themselves it's how they're done. they are portrayed in a realistic manner using naturalism for the normal scenes and are then silent and maybe more expressive for the physical surreal moments.
Frantic also like to use things they refer to as "Building Blocks". These can include "Round by through" which is 3 basic moves called "Round", "By" and "Through". This means going through someone under their arm, moving by them or just moving around them. These are very basic moves that need to be added to, so you could add some aggression or weight to it to imply an emotional connection. These can also be used to help with finding other moves for a sequence such as finding the right time to do a lift or turn. They think that it is important for every move should help the story flow or move forward rather than just having meaningless choreography.
DV8:
DV8 are a physical theatre company founded in 1986 by Lloyd Newson and is still led by him to this day. He formed the company so that there would be far less restrictions in the kind of productions that he would make. He wanted there to be less of a disconnect between the artists and the art. He wanted to portray human issues to do with psychology and society but doing that in dance does not do it justice and I can see why. The company love to tackle social issues for their pieces and express a viewpoint in a physical manner. The one performance of theirs I have watched is "Enter Achilles" which was a very very impressive piece altogether. It questioned and mocked the "Lad" culture of the 1980's and 1990's and from what I could tell had a theme of repression in gender or sexuality. It's something that shows how good control, focus and fluidity can be mesmerising.
Forced Entertainment:
We had a session on forced entertainment where we talked about some of there devising techniques and they're style in which the present themselves. Forced Entertainment are a devising company that has a style with more or less no rules with the exception that they may have to confuse, humour or at the very least entertain the audience but not necessarily in a way that you can see coming. They seem to pride themselves on being surreal or just plain nonsensical. Their devising methods are very interesting, for example, they'll tell secrets, mess around, get drunk, take clothes off or just tell jokes. They have all these simple methods that can produce and spark any number of ideas and of course they go with the ones they find the most confusing or funny depending on the play. We watched and had to perform parts of their play "Bloody mess". We got the script for a section of the play with no context and asked to just make what we thought it would be or simply our own version. This was unbelievably funny and entertaining. Although when actually watching the real scene it was admittedly disappointing. I will admit that from what we saw of bloody mess, I didn't enjoy it much at all. I don't blame the style for this or even the ideas with in the play. The issue I had with it was really just it's pacing. it was very slow and whether or not it was intentional, it made what we saw very unengaging. However the scene we saw that had good pacing and seemed to embrace it's absurdity the most (The "Born to be Wild" sequence) was so entertaining and even funny despite making no sense and being very random. I admittedly love the ideas they have and the style appeals to me a lot. It is something I would love to do but not necessarily for this project since we need a focus on physical theatre too. I'm not sure if we can combine the styles but if we can I'd love to add some elements of these guys in.
Commedia Dell'arte:
The style has quite a few archetype characters with somewhat fixed personalities but their situations are the only thing that can be changed. So you could adapt a story and change the characters in that story to Commedia characters and if done properly it could work. You can even take them and make them defined characters but with the personality types of Commedia. This means you could have it potentially in a school and have a Zanni be a child with low confidence but enthusiasm or he gets bullied or even Brighella being the teacher since he's the one that wants things to go to plan and no one change anything or something along these lines. Our first session was spent going over some of the basic archetype characters that are used in the style. These were:
Harlequin: A very energetic, acrobatic young man servant who has a very big apatite and eats almost anything or at least thinks about it.
Brighella: A very high servant who will do anything for money and always wants everything to go according to plan.
The Captain: A man who claims to be a great fighter and a brave man but will weasel and cower his way out of any trouble he gets into.
The Doctor: A very knowledgeable fat man who often talks too much about what he knows but doesn't actually understand any of it. He is a fraud of a man.
The Lovers: Two very spoiled young people who will have fits of rage if one minute thing doesn't go their way. Even when it does they compliment each other but in a hollow way and are very arrogant
Pantalone: An old merchant who is very tight with money and is very needy, hard to please cynic. He stands with his back arched and has been described a vinegary.
Zanni: Practically a servant who is very willing to help but also very stupid and nervous in the
presence of authority. They seem to mainly communicate in noises that are similar to a bird or just very little words. They're very keen and curious.
Mime:
We had a single session to do with dealing with mime masks more and how we would use them. The masks had one emotion on it but due to the body language of the actor this emotion can be conveyed in a number of ways and you can seemingly change the level of the emotion for this session we would be put into group and then choose a mask each with a different emotion on it and then have to devise a short scene with the masks using the right amount of energy and physicality to bring the masks to life as much as we could. I was put with Jack A, Mike and Elle. We discussed our ideas of where the varying emotions could happen or what situation do people often like or dislike and I suggested a class room due to people either loving school or despising it or the people/situations there. We had to come up with something that could really only be expressed through movement so we decided to just do a little improvising first even though we had very little time. thankfully Mike decided to go with the idea that he is annoying the people in class and is blaming me for it which I think was great. It's a basic idea that can be told effectively using these masks. In the time we had we couldn't think of a structure for it so it was not very good when rehearsing although I could see the potential in there and I was worried when we actually had to perform it to the class. Although I thought that I'll just improvise and try to put more energy into it than I did initially and it turned to be quite good. I had a grumpy mask so I thought that he really doesn't want to be in school and doesn't want to associate with anyone. I had my arms crossed the majority of the time and any movement I did was exaggerated but not to the point where it looked like I was trying to be imposing or anything along those lines. The improv worked and even some of the stuff we made up was quite funny, mainly our unrealistic movements. The other groups did very well too especially Becky who had a worried/scared mask that seemed to change the level of fear even though it was just using her body it could go from nervous to very scared in a few seconds and be believable just due to how her body was moving. That alone made me see the importance of body language. I have been aware of this before but that seemed to emphasise it and make me more interested in this style of physical theatre. I'm now intrigued to do it myself for the devising project and if my group chooses it then I shall be quite happy.
Christina's world session on devising:
This session was a look at how the devising process would go or at least very closely of how it should go. We were shown a stimulus and then split into 2 groups and then asked to come up with ideas about what the stimulus was about. The stimulus we were shown was the Andrew Wyeth magic realism style painting "Christina's world" which depicts a girl in a field crawling back to her house in the distance. This initially made me think of the themes of running away yet wanting to go back or being in a bad situation that you can't leave but I think I may have been over analysing because my first theme didn't seem to match it since the girl in the picture was disabled which we found out after we gave our ideas and that changed my perspective of the painting a bit. After this we were told to go and make a still image based off of the painting and it's themes. My group came up with the idea of that about 5 of us would hold Christina (Elle) at her feet and literally be her disability while Pau and Logan were the painter who didn't help her but just decided to make art based on her. After that we had to add move and even add sound if we wanted. Elle decided to do a movement where shes trying to move but then we keep pulling her back. When asked to add a sound to it or words we all agreed we should say "We can not move. We are broken.". All this combined made a visually interesting and engaging moment. This small session was actually quite useful to show that something simple like the stimulus can inspire very different, unique and interesting ideas
Steven Berkoff:
We have done 2 sessions on the work of Steven Berkoff, more specifically the style in which his work is done and communicated. His style involves things such as over articulation, exaggerated movements, clockwork moments or anything to a rhythm. That's just his movements, he also has some naturalistic acting in but that's not his focus
The work we were given was to be put into groups of 5 and then be given a location to act out a small scene in which we had to have 16 movements each and act them out to a beat and even and sound effects to them. Me, Jack, Max, Brad and Rhys were given a pub scenario and it in all honesty didn't go that well. We misunderstood that we had to do 16 initially and we found out half way through the devising and I kept my four movements but changed the body language on them as they went along to sort of tell a story but unfortunate that was not the point. Our piece was not very good and seemed very unorganised, this is mainly due to misunderstanding both the task and style and due to it being off beat at times which didn't help. At the time I had little understanding of what the specifics of the style actually was and the task overall for us was a mess but the other groups pieces were actually quite impressive so I can see the potential in the style and it seems promising I just wish we understood it for this task.
After that we were set a task where we were given a piece of text and then have to apply Berkoffs style to it. I was put with Katrina, Sam, Becca and Georgia. I had to play a servant to Katrina who is very nervous yet willing to help in a similar vain to a zanni for Commedia Dell'arte. This was admittedly fun. The scene revolved around a baptism and dropping the baby and the mother not really caring that much which was to me quite funny. Ideas that I came up with were to actually help Katrina up onto her chair but also her waiting and then me realising and panicking while also holding a baby in my hands. I also thought of any thing to do with my character and how he acted such as the high pitched panicky laugh and the well spoken yet nervous and enthusiastic voice and even how happy he got when his master uses his head as an arm rest. this whole task was really fun and interesting to do and I think it went pretty well in terms of implementing the style such as there was the occasional clockwork movement, some slow motion and controlled body language but there was admittedly not enough and the was definitely room for more including some sound effects but we simply didn't include those much if at all. There was also very little exaggerated speech in the piece so overall that task went very well but needed some improvements.
The same could be said of the next task we were given the following day. We were given a piece of text that Berkoff had used for one of his plays that was based off of a Greek tragedy where a man had an affair with another mans wife and then that other man fed his children to him at a dinner and then told him. Quite a dark yet weirdly interesting story/piece to adapt and I was actually quite intrigued by the task. I was put with Katrina, Sam, Elle and Jack T. We were either the people at the actual mean or we were the conspirators planning the evening out and that was what I thought was the more interesting approach even if it probably didn't fit or would've made the play but as a stand alone piece I thought it worked. I did suggest that to the others but they seemed to go with the actual meal interpretation which means the ideas may have clashed when we performed it but it seemed to go well. I was sat at the table as the conspirator pretending to be the father while the others were acting out handing me the food and the potential taunts and phrases said and describing in detail what would happen. Overall I think it went well but same as the last task there was just a few things we needed to add. We're being too subtle and that's something we need to sort out. We needed more sound effects and exaggerated and over pronounced speech there was barley any in there. This style to me seems interesting but out of all of them it's one of the few I don't find especially interesting but I think it's unfair to dismiss it so during rehearsals if I get the chance I will suggest trying it out if it fits the situation.
Links:
http://www.franticassembly.co.uk/media/media/downloads/Frantic_Assembly_Resource_Pack_2012.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUqZPfGIX6U
http://www.forcedentertainment.com/about/
https://www.dv8.co.uk/about-dv8/faqs#top
https://www.dv8.co.uk/about-dv8
http://www.moma.org/collection/works/78455
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_0TAXWt8hY
http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa110800b.htm
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