Friday February 25th

WARM-UP
We warm up by saying yes. In pairs everything your partner suggests you agree to utterly: 'Hi!'. 'Hi!'. 'You look great!'. 'So do you!' 'Shall we cook an omlette?' 'Yes! Let's!' 'This is great fun!' 'Yes' Shall we crack the eggs on our heads?' 'Yes. Crack ten on mine' 'OK' all the while miming the actions.

We then do it in bigger and bigger groupings until the whole group is agreeing to whatever is proposed; jumping up and down like frogs, singing a-ring-a-ring-of-roses or doing the Hokey Cokey.

MUSIC
We listen to four or five tracks from the Brecht/Eisler CD freshly arrived from Amazon Germany. Students are asked before they hear the Overture to think of adjectives as they listen. At the end, some of the adjectives are: shocking, dramatic, lively, mysterious, searching, frantic, exciting, loud, clear ....

We listen next to Praise of Learning in which a group of workers who want to learn to read sing it to the disillusioned teacher Vessovchikov. As the recordings are in German we read the English text first:

Study your ABC. True, it's not enough, but
Study it. Don't neglect your potential
But learn! Knowledge is essential.
You must be ready to take over

(or 'You'll be the ones to give the orders' in another translation I've used)

and this in the final verse:

Don't hesitate to question things, comrade
Don't just accept them but
See for yourself.
What you yourself don't know
You don't know.

and these lines that seemed particularly graphic:

Check through the invoices.
You have to pay them.
Learn how to point to each single item
Ask how it came to be there.
You must be ready to take over.

We listen next to the song the revolutionary workers sing to Pelagea after Pavel has been arrested and shot. In particular the complex ideas contained in:

But
As he went to the wall where they intended to shoot him
He went towards a wall which had been built by men of his own kind
And the rifles they aimed at his breast, and the bullets
Had been made by men like himself. Merely absent
Were they, therefore, or dispersed...

The ideas appear to be about something very strong and concrete in his death; that even the bullets that entered his body and the rifles that fired the bullets were made by people just like him. The people who made the bullets may not have been there physically when he was shot but they were there in the form of the bullets they made, or in the form of the bricks that formed the wall in front of which he stood to be shot. So he wasn't alone. He was with his own kind. Even in his death.

All the other workers were 'merely absent.. or dispersed' but for Pavel

... were still there
And present in the work of their hands...

And then this, perhaps the most extraordinary and 'forgiving' line of all:

Not even
Those who were ordered to shoot him differed from him, or were ever incapable of learning.

The revolutionary workers sing that they haven't given up on the police or the soldiers who shoot Pavel, because they are no different from him. Or themselves. In the economic sense, they are workers too. They are part of this huge throng of people who are present at Pavel's death. Even though it is early morning when he's taken out to be shot, the workers are there in the factories and the chimneys and the guns and the bullets that form the whole picture as he is taken to the wall...

At the very moment she is told of her son's death, Pelagea Vlassova receives a song of comfort and reassurance: this was not an accident; it had a meaning. It was not in vain.

We listen to the 'Vlassovas of all Countries'. We listen out for the number of places we can make out from the German. We think we hear Shanghai, Calcutta, Berlin. Some think they hear Moscow. Hannah thought she counted ten but has forgotten some of them.

We listen to the music of 'Get Up!'. Pelagea Vlassova is ill. She is ground down by her work - and by the death of her son and the doctor has said she must rest. While she lies in her sick-bed the revolutionary chorus sing to her:

Get Up!
You are sick, but the Party's dying
You are weak, but you must help us....

WORKING ON THE TEXT
We then look at the end of Scene Two. Pelagea's flat has been raided and wrecked by the Police but they didn't find the duplicator that was hung out the window. The police have now gone but the Revolutionaries have some explaining to do - and - just as important, if not more - leaflets to distribute to encourage the Suchlinov factory workers to join tomorrow's strike...

In pairs our students prepare the text. Meanwhile chairs are set up: one on one side of the stage for Pelagea. Four chairs facing her, square on, for the Revolutionaries Andrei, Anton, Masha and Ivan. And one chair on the same side as them but not quite with them for Pelagea's son. As the text is about to make clear, he's rather Piggy in the Middle. It's his fault his mum's house has been wrecked by the Police, but the revolutionaries still have a job to do and ... it's his turn to distributes the leaflets in the factory.

This is the first time the students are not playing the text out front. But all the old 'rules' apply: read as much text as you can, look up from the text, make eye contact with who you are meant to be speaking to and say the bit of text that you have just read. If you are in the scene but don't have any text, don't look at the book. Keep your eyes in the scene. Remember, also, that, once you're up there on stage, your physicality is a big giveaway. You have to be physically in the scene the whole time - even the tiniest things 'read' to an audience watching you.

While not speaking and not looking at the book, though, you have to be ready to come in with your cue. You have to be aware of your place in the scene. In the structure of the text. Our two excellent casts are:

Group A: Louise, Rebekah, Natalie, Claudia, Charlene and Dean.
Group B: Abigail, Chris, Tanya, Carlos, Kayleigh (not Jordan) and Carly.
(Thanks for the comment pointing out my mistake, Chris, and apologies to Kayleigh).

Some of the things we discover:

The strength of the two sides. That both have 'right' on their side. When Anton says: 'There's not that much risk', Pelagea's reply is withering, and as she quite rightly concludes: 'stick your head through that noose; there's not much risk'. But at the same time, what are they to do? The stike has to be called. If they don't distribute the leaflets, who else will?

That when the revolutionary workers talk to each other about how many leaflets they have and who is meant to be distributing them, it works best when they actually say it more for Pelagea's sake than for their own. They actually know the answers to the questions they're asking one another.... What they're really doing is dropping big hints in Pelagea's direction...

That there is a musicality in the writing. Which has to be mirrored in the playing. Hannah offers us a good word: cadence. There are cadences, indeed. Not to mention phrases, 'builds' and climaxes all of which we ignore at our peril, not only within a monologue but also in long or short scenes involving two - or twenty voices.

By that logic there will also be pauses, slowing-downs, speeding-ups, bits that get louder, bits that get softer, bits that get harsher - just as in a musical score. One excellent example of this is at the end of the monologue 'Not much risk?' At the end we expect Pelagea to say: 'Pavel's not going!'. Instead she says: 'I'll go.' The actor just has to be aware of the build to a pause. The architecture of the writing. And just as with the musician reading his score, why shouldn't the actor be fully aware of that from the word go?

We continue with the idea that clarity and simplicity are everything. As ever.

And that by the end of each ninety minute session, the playing of the scene elicits a spontaneous round of applause from each audience. And rightly so. Both teams have worked really hard to focus down to exactly what was needed to make the scene clear to us. No excess gestures. No sentimentality either of voice or face or body language. Everything strong. Everything clear. For participants and observers alike.

We talk about this term - perhaps from Yoga - that there is a CORRECT ENERGY for everything. For chopping wood. For holding a baby. For splashing water on your face. Once you know what it is you're doing - you know how to do it...

Great third week. Everyone - I hope - goes away clearer.

We may be beginning to Cook on Gas.

Exporting Jobs

This from today's BBC website about what may happen to 2000 jobs in the West Midlands.

Has Anything Changed?

This is the link to Jonathan Freedland's article about his recent trip to South Africa.

The Bread Trick

The Bread Trick

from Stephen Lowe’s play based on the novel Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressle.

PHILP: Gentl'men. Professor Owen is goin' to give us 'is well known lecture, Money the Main Cause of Bein' Ard Up, proving as money an't no good to nobody. At the hend a collection will be took to encourage the lecturer.

OWEN: Let me eat me dinner.

PHILP: Come on, Frank.

CRASS: See, It's all very good saying these things. Provin' it is a different thing.

OWEN: Right. I'll show you the great Money Trick. Now for the purpose of this demonstration I shall need the help of members of the audience. May I borrow your knife, sir?

(He collects knives from Harlow, Philpott, Easton)

OWEN. Has anybody got any bread they can spare?

(He adds the bread he collects to his own) I

OWEN: These pieces of bread represent the raw materials which exist naturally in and on the earth for the use o mankind; they were not made by any human being, but were created by the the Great Spirit for the benefit and sustenance of all, the same as were the air and the light and the sun.

HARLOW: Well, that's nice and clear.

PHILP: Clear as mud.

OWEN: Now. I am a Capitalist. And all these raw materials belong to me. Don't matter for now how I got hold of them, or whether I have any right to them. Fact is that all the raw materials are now the property of the Landlord and Capitalist class. That's me.

PHILP: Good enough.

OWEN: And you three. (Harlow, Easton, Philpott) are the Working Classes; you have nothing and while I've got all this raw material, they are no use to me what I need are the things that are made out of these raw materials by Work; but I am too lazy to work myself, so I haye invented the Great Money Trick to make you work for me. Now not only do I own all the raw materials, but these three knives stand for all the machinery, all the tools of production; factories, railways. And these three coins (takes three hal/pennies from his pocket) stand for my Money Capital. Got it?

CRASS: We got it. Git on with it. (Owen cuts on of the slices of bread into small square blocks)

OWEN: These squares represent the things which are produced by labour, aided by machinery, from the raw materials. Let's say three of these blocks make a week's work; And let's say each of these ha'pennies is a sovereign. We'd be able to do the trick better if we had real sovereigns, but I forgot to bring any with me.

PHILP: I'd lend you some. But I left me purse on the grand pianner.

OWEN: Now you three say you are in need of work, and as I am a kindhearted Capitalist I am going to invest all my money in industries, to give you PLENTY OF WORK. I'll pay you a pound a week, and for a week's work you must produce three of these square blocks. Then I give you a pound. I take what you produce, but you can do whatever you want with the pound. Fair enough? Set to then.

(The men cut the pieces into threes)

OWEN: Here's your pound. (he gathers the pieces to himself) Now these blocks represent the necessities of life. Food, Housing, Clothing, Everything. Now you can't five without them, so you-ve got to buy them off me. And my price for one of these is - one pound.

(The men buy and devour the bread)

OWEN: I'll have two 'cos Fm greedy. So I've got four pounds in produce, me three sovereigns back, what you got?

PHILP: Nothing. I just ate it.

OWEN: Want to work then, do you?

MEN: Ye' course we do.

OWEN: Off we go, then.

(They repeat this several times, until a pile of wealth has accumulated for the Capitalist). (Owen suddenly grabs back the knives from the men)

MEN: Here, what's going on?

OWEN: Bad news, chaps. Owing to Over Production all my warehouses are glutted with the necessaries of life. So I've decided to close down the works.

PHILP: What the bloody 'ell are we to do then?

OWEN: That's not my business. I've paid your wages, fair and square,
given you PLENTY OF WORK for a long time. No more work at present. Come round in a couple of months.

HARLOW: But what about the necessaries of life? We've got to eat someat, an't we?

OWEN: Course you have. And I shall be very pleased to sell you some.

EASTON: But we ain't got no bleedin' money.

OWEN: Well, you don't expect me to gi' you my stuff for nothing. You din't work for me for nothing. I paid you. You should have saved something. Should havo been thrifty, like me!

PHILP: Here, if you don't gi'us something, what's to stop us takin' it.

OWEN: I appeal to your sense of decency. Fair play.

PHILP: That don't wash wi' us, mate. We're hungry.

OWEN: If you are not more polite, I'll have to get my friends the police down here, and they may be forced to bash your faces in, so as to protect an honest man from villains.

HARLOW: Well, that about takes the biskit.

EASTON: What are we going to do?

PHILP: We'll 'ave to 'ave an unemployed procession.

(They make a procession).

MEN: (sing) We got no work to do We got no work to do. We've been working too damned hard. We've got no work to do.

(The crowd jeer at them, and ity to spit in their hats)

PHILP: We won't get nothing out of this lot. Let's try the old religious dodge, that always makes them part up.

HARLOW: Trim your feeble lamp ....

(The others join in the song. At the end the kind Capitalist drops a coin in)

PHILP: A sovereign. Bless you, sir.

OWEN: What are you goin' to do wi' it, my good man?

PHILP: Buy food.

OWEN: There you are. (He takes the coin back)

(The unemployed sing For He's A Jolly Good Fellow).

HARLOW: Here, Mr Kind Capitalist, would you allow us to elect you to Parliament?

(BLACKOUT)

Duplicator

Duplicator
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

This is a modern version of a stencil duplicator, made in China, as it happens, by the Gold Company. But it works very much as such a machine would have worked in 1900. A stencil is typed onto a special sheet of stencil paper that is then wrapped round a drum. As you turn the handle the drum rotates and ordinary paper is fed in at the base. The ink prints through the stencil onto the paper and you can then print many copies of the original.

Different Strokes

The two Groups were very different today.

B went first. They launched themselves wholeheartedly into the warm-up but when it came to throwing the ball round the circle, the words butter and fingers came to mind. 8. 2. 11. 5 catches were all they could manage. I wondered how long it would be until they could even begin to throw two balls. But slowly - slowly - focus came and we did get to thirty throws and beyond with three and four balls.

We went round in turn in the circle to say anything we knew about Marxism, what 'the revolutionaries' of The Mother would have studied and known intimately. Very little, it seemed was known formally among the group. However when we opened the subject up, instinctively and indirectly, much more came to light. We touched on the idea of Ownership; 'Ownership is Theft'; Selling your Labour. We talked of the situation in South Africa. About whether Nelson Mandela was a stooge cooked up to manage the CONTINUATION of the same system in power after Apartheid as existed before Apartheid - except without the Apartheid bit.

A different energy emerged among the group than had existed as we went round the circle. Much more focused. Much more committed and passionate. We talked about Nike. What we pay and what the people who make them get paid. Profit. The international trading system. Cash crops. Low wages. Good contributions from Tanya, Chris, Hannah and Joleen - who's from South Africa. Good focus from everyone. Grace asked me at the end where she could find out more...

Gestus. Or not. I admit I'm not sure if I understand Gestus. But I say I understand 'Body Language'. We look at each others. We copy it. Accurately. We look at its variety. We look at the story it tells. The are some chairs put into the space round which we stand and I ask each student in turn to sit in a chair to tell a story. Some slouch. Chris sits like a ballet dancer. Some are attentive. Some bored. None are unclear. We watch and say what the story is we see.

We then move to the door. I ask for a volunteer to come in and say the 'Police!' line. We have a number of attempts and each attempter has a number of shots. The tendency in the early stages is for people to do too much. To run too far into the room. Not to realise the power of the doorway itself. Of the entrance. As ever. Just by bursting through the door you achieve so much. Little more needs to be done. We coach this and the results are much better.

We then take the line of the Policeman: 'Don't move or I'll shoot'. Tom has a go. Chris. We are much exercised with details. Just as in the Installation exercise, SMALL THINGS TELL BIG STORIES.

We take the entrance of the Police Inspector. We position the policeman in the doorway looking out but we have the door half closed so we, the audience, can't see the Inspector. The Policeman then has the line: 'It's Sidor Kalatov's sister, sir' and the Inspector is to come into the room. Jordan is the first Inspector. She does pretty well. Not too much. We have observations but what she does is economical. Tanya has a go. Again good. Again economical. Joleen too. We notice Joleen's tapping on the back of the chair. I comment on how she put clasped her hand behind her back at the beginning and at the end of her version and how I felt that when she allowed her arms to be free she looked - and was - much more high status, relaxed and in command. She agreed.

Interesting this: that I then asked Cat to have a go and she didn't seem keen and said she was 'too tired'. I persist. Maybe, 'insist' is the better word. She accepts. I whisper to her that this time, as before treating us, the audience, as the revolutionaries, she comes up very close, right into our faces.

She does this and she does it really courageously. Very strong eye contact. She improvises good lines and uses our reactions, at one point bawling out Tanya who starts to laugh with embarrassment: 'What? Find it funny do you? I don't think there's anything to laugh about. You're in really deep trouble'. etc

Sometimes the least willing can find a piece of gold. Energy lurks where you least expect it.

We finish by looking at The Bread Trick from Stephen Lowe's Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and a brief discussion on what the title means - why RAGGED TROUSERED philanthropists? Are the men complicit in their own exploitation? Electing their exploiters to Parliament etc.

Group A were strange. All the same stuff. But reactions? Different. They were the star team in throwing the ball round the circle. They were the star team when it came to the discussion of Marxism. Again we had a South African - Charlene - to comment on Cape Town and it's lack of black people in a country where 75% of the population is black. Certainly a lack of black people driving nice cars and not working as street cleaners, waiters and people to park your car. Egle, the Lithuanian, talked very interestingly about her parents experience - and her own - in a country that when she was at Junior school was a 'Communist' country. And is now, certainly, a capitalist one. A little bit of 'Ostalgia' on the part of her parents, maybe?

There is also Josie. She thinks Empire was a good idea. Good luck to those who went out and won land and resources for their country! Good on them!

But progress elsewhere is slower. We get to the Inspector. But only just. Natalie is strangely impatient of us taking our time to take our time. Sandra leaves early, citing family reasons. But then comes back five minutes after the lesson ends, having forgotten her notebook in the rush. However, Claudie and Charlene will not be deflected and they do good work. I suggest to Charlene that she uses the door. Doesn't rush in. Her first attempt at the Inspector is a little scary, tragic even. Egle says it looks like Chekhov. Charlene holds on to the door handle maybe too long for our liking and when she comes into the room, Claudia follows her, both walking with folded arms and both stopping next to each othe as a mirror image. It's a strange, slightly formal picture. We coach. Charlenes takes the notes. Is looser. I suggest to Claudia that she doesn't lean in towards the door. She takes the note.

I suggest to Claudia that she waits much longer before she begins, giving the audience time to focus; insisting the audience focus.

But we don't have time for the Inspector(s) to walk round the room. We don't have time for The Bread trick at all..

Focus. Energy. Saving your energy for what it is needed for...

And Another

Mimeograph
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

Another, much older, model. Probably much closer to what Brecht was thinking of. This one was called a Mimeograph

Third Monday

It's Monday. We're back together. Though not Natalie, Claudia or Charlene.

Student A places the back of her right hand under her partner's left palm - and raises it up. A then walks B - blind - round the room. We take care. We listen. We stay in the moment. We hear Claire's too-long jeans shuffling along the floor. I roll them up. We watch a couple of pairs. We look who looks open. Who looks strong. Who looks trusting. Who looks imaginative.

We also learn the value of clothing that doesn't keep revealing your knickers.

We look at the script. In particular The Police Raid. In particular the Pollice Inspector smashing the furniture; how he tears down the curtains by the window out of which the revolutionaries have hung the duplicator. How the revolutionaries try three things to distract him. One jumps up in panic but another orders him to sit down. Pavel tries to distract the Inspector. And Andrei orders the Policeman to pick up the smashed dripping pot. It works. They don't find the duplicator.

We are continuing to work on contact with the audience in our reading. To get more and more comfortable with reading the line on the page, then looking at the audience and finally saying the line. This is not about getting it right first time. Or about getting it wrong first time and then giving up. It's about getting better. Everyone can get better. Wherever you start.

Louise has a hard job. She's playing the Inspector. The Inspector has a lot to say and a strange way of saying it. At first the actor Louise shows too much of it on her face and is asked not to. She colours an adjective. Ditto. Don't paint the adjectives. Let them take care of themselves. When she resumes, she stops showing things on her face but her eyes go dead and she becomes a bit like a speak your weight machine. This is pointed out. She says it is difficult. No one disagrees. But she perseveres. And then there is a definite change. Her body (and spirit) connect with the text and it comes alive in front of us. Her head and neck become free. She begins to swim. She finds the Inspectors enjoyment of his power. His irony. And finally when Pavel cheeks him, his anger.

In fact all make good progress. Egle 'connects'. Luisa, Amir, Josie, Sandra, though she has missed a couple of sessions and at first is a bit adrift from what we're doing. Dean, too, who's already connected well in a previous session.

A similar patten of work with Group B. But a different group. We spend a little more time on the warm-up on TAKING CARE. PAYING ATTENTION. I demonstrate the exercise with Grace and she is very open. But some of the work from the others is careless. Rebecca's work with Hanna looks automatic to me. I try and show with Hanna how you should take care of your partner. Take nothing for granted. Observe. It has to be an act of real empathy. Even tenderness.

We start work on the scene. A mistake on my part, I think, to ask people who were absent on Friday to begin the work in the way that we have been working because they didn't see us working. Slow progress. Well, slower progress than the first group, but progress. Hannah is our inspector and Azuraye acts as her prompter. Azuraye doesn't read loudly enough - or Hannah can't hear and loses her composure. Hannah starts listening to herself because she hears her own Irishness and starts to censure it. She loses confidence and focus. She also colours her adjectives and shows on her face. It appears Hannah, when asked, doesn't think her 'Irishness' works for the Inspector but the audience disagrees - when asked. But finally - painfully - the confidence comes back. We hear the flat text read by Azuraye re-energised by Hannah.

We work on Azuraye's own focus . Her eyes dart about. She is asked to direct her words to one person. We look at her physicality. We also ask her to employ her own energy with regard to the text. Her Stafford mischievousness seems at first almost totally to disappear. She is asked to include it. She does - a little, still not nearly enough. We work with Tom. Christopher. Abigail, a litttle too.

Grace takes over from Hannah as the Inspector. An interesting case in point. Having been so open in the warm-up exercises, she loses trust in herself. Can't allow her own obvious strengh and charisma to shine through. Finds it very difficult to focus. Loses her repose. Looks about. The pressure of 'having to perform' robs her of herself. But even Grace finds some of her grace. With work. She settles down. And when, at the end, we work on the lines in which the Inspector loses his cool with the revolutionaries in failing to find the duplicator, she is quite strong.

Many lessons today. For all concerned. Care needs to be taken.

Group A Sound Impro

Group A Sound Impro
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

Second Friday. Group A warm up with a sound impro. Two 'conduct' the rest of the Group with sound.