6.05.15

In todays lesson we began devising SCENE 3. This I have written about on a different blog called "Scenes" I feel this scene will be very strong and witty after more rehearsals. I liked this scene and I volunteered to play Dockdaisy, who is a drunk, and is sleeping with Givola.
We filmed this scene and it is in my other blog, which I have created mainly for scenes, so I can keep updating it as we go through the scenes and complete all the scenes for the show!
We also today discussed a symbol we want to portray and Sav drew this on the board.
We wanted to incorporate The Cauliflower Trust with the dollar sign $, I think this symbol is a cool idea, and reflects two main factors of this play.
Sophie has said she is going to paint this on a canvas and we can use it as a repeating sign throughout the play, and we may take a picture of it and have it on the projector.

I like the idea of having sign-age in our play, but I feel we need to mix it up and not just have hand held signs, I like the idea of using the projector for signs as well, as we can use different sound effects, different transitions and it will keep the audience entertained, and it will not become repetitive,as that is never good when watching a performance, to see the same idea over and over again.

We were asking ourselves and each other what is the political opinion of the characters in this scene? We came to the decision together that Arturo Ui's main opinion in this scene is to become noticed again, he feels he is losing the interest of the public and he is slowly fading into the background again. And he expresses how "murder" always gets him well noticed in the papers and media, so I feel in this scene he is definitely considering another murder to gain more exposure and power. He wants his reputation and thrives from this, if he does not make an impact in society, he feels he is nothing. At this point, he is not very well known, but is slowly becoming powerful, but in this scene you see his power decreasing, as Ragg is rude and sly to Ui throughout, and does not seem very scared of him. But towards the end of the scene, you see Ui becoming more and more irritated by Ragg and makes him leave, and I want the audience to really feel and see Ui's deep rooted anger in this scene, and Yunis needs to make Ui much more intimidating and over whelming, as Ragg backs away from Ui, becoming frightened and leaves the scene, and this needs to be portrayed. 

I have watched Oh what a lovely war on the youtube playlist, I have picked the scene I feel uses Brechtian styles. I feel the play on the whole is very Brechtian and the acting is all very Epic. It is not naturalistic at all and the lighting is always very bright. It has a commedia theme to it, especially the opening, it is very grand and big and over the top, which is completely Brechtian, and it is very funny. but I feel some scenes stand out to me the most and these scenes are...

The scene that begins at 17 minutes 50 seconds. It is very Brechtian as the actors are very comical and they are kind of mocking the Germans, using the accents and the diction. The acting is very epic and over the top, and is not naturalistic at all. So this scene is very Brechtian and it works so well, it is witty and quite ridiculous. 
The characters all have their own gests which are VERY stylised, these gests are used throughout the performance, but in this scene I noticed them particularly. Everything is very sharp and upbeat, and the actors really succeeded in portraying Brecht techniques. Brecht calls this "The quotable gesture" which are stylised moves to sum up the character.
It is also very clear to the audience that the characters the actors are playing are NOT real, as they are opposite from Naturalistic characters, and could not possibly be a real life person, this keeps the audience awake and does not allow their minds to wander and to start to believe that the characters are real. The actors do this very well using their gests,facial expressions, voices and interaction with each other.