Reflection Journal 2 (27/8/12)

Activity
Today's session we went through 'A Doll's House', a play by Hendrik Ibsen, 1879. We were devising a scene in Act one using the props and space. 'A Doll's house' portrays the power and dominion of husband over women, how women are perceived in households, and also the society and homes of a Norwegian life. The idea of feminism comes into play. Nora seems to be the 'ideal' wife at home and succumbs to her husband. However, later in the play, she realised that she was just a 'toy', or perhaps a 'doll' of her father and Helmer and claimed that she has not fulfill any of her dreams. Helmer called her names such as 'Little song bird' or 'little squirrel' and made no attempts to treat her with mutual respect. She started to fight back and left the house eventually to become an independent woman.

Description of play
Three act play on a realistic story in a Norwegian family. Consists of Nora (wife), Torvald Helmer (Husband/ lawyer), Dr Rank, Nils Krogstad (Barrister), Mrs Linde, Helmer's three small children, Anna Maria (nurse), Housemaid and potter.

Basically, it is about Nora who illegally borrowed money from Krogstad using her father's name. It was kept secret from Helmer. Nora told Mrs Linde, who has some relationship ties with Krogstad, about this matter and Mrs Linde said to help Nora with this burden by speaking to her old flame, Krogstad. After Krogstad met Mrs Linde and their love rekindled, he promised to let this matter rest. While in the home of Nora, Helmer discovered the note from Krogstad about the borrowing and was enraged. Before that, there was an irony that Helmer wished Nora was in some kind of trouble so that he will save her from it. But apparently, he did not keep his word. After Krogstad replied that he no longer wants to pursue the matter, Helmer rejoices and called her the 'little song bird' again. Nora, who was stunned, realised the truth about Helmer's love for her and decides to leave in order to find her true identity as a woman in society.

Devising script
It was interesting how the different groups portrayed Helmer and Nora. The first group portrayed Helmer as a strict man with a little sarcasm in his speech, suggesting that Helmer is just calling her sweet names just for the sake of pleasing her.

The second group had Helmer as the pleasing type, trying all means to please her with names and jokes. It was very interesting how Shah, who plays as Nora, becomes the maid when Mrs Linde came in. Shehanna then assumed the role of Nora. The audience was a little confused by the sudden change, but I guess it utilizes everyone to be part of the play.

Third group has the maid's presence very prominent in this scene. The maid was cleaning while the scene is taking place. The third character, though it is within the play, played a very strong presence in this scene.

Performance Discussion
We went to our respective groups to discuss on what plays we wanted to do. We did not know what 'ism' we wanted to take, except knowing that we did not want to work with feminism again. We wanted to do symbolism and were deciding between The Intruder and The Blind by Maurice Maeterlinck.

Research on Artaud and Theatre
Artaud felt that Theatre should not be a an appreciation to arts where actors are merely putting on a false front and audiences watching, or a stage where it mirrored everyday life. Simon & Ryan stated that 'Instead, he wanted theatre to provoke and confront spectators so that they could directly unleash what he saw as the primal, raw and real qualities in human behaviour' (Para 3) His view on theatre was not merely to solve social or psychological conflicts but to discover the hard truths of our real lives. Because of culture conditioning, we lived behind masks of our true selves. Therefore, he injected fear, violence, anxiety, pain in theatre as a mean to uncover the hidden truths, stripping away our masks and making us realize our true selves.  

During my research project, I am going to look into Interculturalism, the impact of Balinese theater and Kabuki influences upon the western theatre, especially Artaud's theater of cruelty. Hence, most of my research will be on Artaud's theatre concepts. Artaud's theatre concepts were influenced by cultures of the East, which had a big influence on the Euro-American theatre scenes. Frankly, he did not like the ideas of the traditions of the Euro-American theatre, where it is characterised by psychological, intellectual, dialogues, texts that limits possibilities and a way to solve everyday conflicts. Artaud declares that the West has lost it's idea of theatre and needed to rebuild it's idea of theatre. 

Artaud maintains that theatre should not be a reflection of everyday's life and dealing it with the most reasonable, ignorant and straightforward way. Instead, theatre should draw the deep within the deep and expose truths that are hidden. 

Artaud (1989) claimed that 'A real stage play disturbs our peace of mind, releases our repressed subconscious, drives us to a kind of potential rebellion...' ( Pg 116) Hence the coming up with the concept of Theatre and Cruelty, where it is a 'rediscovering a little of the poetry in the ferment of the great, agitated crowds hurled against one another, sensations only too rare nowadays...' (Pg 108) He also stated that theatre should appeal to the senses first instead of the mind, where plot must be felt by the senses instead of the intellectual mind. In order to do that, theatre has to be filled with the language of spatial poetry, where gestures, symbols, signs and sounds are used, rather than language poetry, where dialogues and texts are involved. He was inspired by the Eastern theatre, especially Balinese theatre, where a variety of gestures, sounds, costumes and minimal language were used. He was intrigued and wanted to apply to Western theatre.

Bibliography

Schumacher, C., Ed. (1989) Artaud on Theatre. London: Methuen Drama. 

Simon & Ryan, D. ACU National. Retrieved from http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/staffhome/siryan/academy/theatres/artaud,%20antonin.htm 

Reflection Journal 1 (13/8/12)

Reflection Journal 1 (13 Aug 2012)

Introductory lesson of the 20th Century Theatre. (1900-2000). Theatre of the 20th century was heavily influenced by global events that happened even before the 1900, probably in the late 1800s. 'ism's include Communism, Marxism, Nationalism, Imperialism, Impressionism, surrealism, Inter-culturalism, dadaism, etc. Perhaps the biggest event that triggers these 'ism's might be the world wars. Therefore, there was a development or dynamic shifts in the theatre scene. There was a raised awareness of individualism, which moved away from collective thinking, that resulted in change of values spiritually, culturally, socially and politically. People started to develop their own personal ideas and perspectives and brought it into theatre life.


Avant Garde (French for Advance Guard)
More than just a term for using in battle, it is now used in the arts, politics and culture. It not only taps on human consciousness but also the unconscious mind. The undiscovered, unknown human psyche. New thinkers such as Samuel Beckett, Bertolt Brecht, Jerzy Grotowski. They wanted to deviate from the mainstream cultural and philosophical ideas, hence a change in their perspective and practice in theatre.


Antonin Artaud - one of the prominent theatre directors who saw that theatre should not be theatre itself, and instead be lived out. Cast out the barrier, veil of the real life and theatrical life.

Antonin Artaud wrote, ‘I have not become a poet or an actor in order to write or recite poems, but to live them. I read a poem not to milk applause but to feel the bodies of men and women – and I mean their bodies – throb and quiver in harmony with mine.’ – (1976, vol 173)

It was interesting but yet contradicting to read this because how can a poet not write and recite poems? How can theatre be anti-theatre of itself? He loves to write but he says writing is filth (Pg xxiii) This great theatre director, poet or whatever you may call him as, impacted many dramatists and theatre directors such as Beckett, Weiss, Barrault, Brook, Grotowski etc. Some of the theatre companies such as Living theatre, Open theatre, Bread and Puppet theatre, Theatre du soleil all had taces of Artaudian influences.

Grotowski - Was initially interested in oriental theatre, especially in the techniques of Indian theatre, Yoga and Kathakali. But he came to realise that the techniques of indian theatre were useless and even affected his performer's performance. His idea of theatre is laboratory, not conservatory and it was never about virtuosity. He felt that the perfect moment of signs and actions on stage is not a practiced one, in fact, it should be spontaneous and improvised. This is one of the reasons why he dispose the concepts of Indian theatre. 

Bertolt Brecht - developed theatre to counter fascism, feminism and Marxism. He loved to listen and use Chinese opera as the basis of his theatrical practice. Back then, Mandarin language in Chinese opera were used in the Mongol's reign in China to spread political messages, which the Mongols do not understand. In the end, the Mongols were overthrown. It was where asian culture and the theatre impacted on the western. Brecht, like Artaud, also have this concept of the magic 'IF' taken away and live out the theatre.

Other than that, defamiliarization is another central concept of 20th century theatre. It attempts to make speech or actions unfamiliar, or foreign to the audience. They may be once familiar with these things but the reason behind defamiliarization is to create some sort of curiosity, alertness, awareness, stir up emotions, activate the spirit of energy.

'Future of Theatre is in Philosophical' (Brecht, 1929)      

I agree with Brecht simply because when we are doing theatre, we are free to become who we want, what we want, and how we want. Life is real and has many deep meanings that we want to exlpore freely and this is where theatre plays a huge part. Real life has its own boundaries but theatre provides a platform for us to safely imagine and be free in our thoughts. When great events such as the World Wars happen, we are restricted to say many things. But because theatre is a tool for us to express our thinking, it engages us into deep thoughts. Deep draws out the deep within and we need not suppress it. It is not just acting skills, staging, techniques or history of theatre, but it is now about hard truths, challenging conventions, discovering the unknown, personal growth and making the world a better place to live in. Because we want a better place to live in, we need philosophy to enter into the realms of the imaginary world and in theatre.

Hence, the 'ism' in theatre today has to be on a constant debate. The implications have constructed what theatre is today and it is at its highest point. Craig indicated that we (as in dramatists, performers etc.) are in submission to our superiors, who takes control of the whole political system. We are not 'thinking for ourselves but under the commands of our government and not of our masters.' (Pg 20, 1993) Colonialism plays a part in this thinking. Rather than continuing the spirit of their ancestors or historical line, artists are now being 'forced' to think under this new compulsion (nationalism, colonialism, imperialism etc.)

Bibliography

van Dijk, M., ed. (2001) New essays on Brecht = Neue Versuche über BrechtRetrieved from http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/German/German-idx?type=turn&entity=German.BrechtYearbook026.p0289&id=German.BrechtYearbook026&isize=text

Bharuch, R. (1993) Theatre and the World: Performances and the Politics of culture. London & New York: Routledge.