Mother Scene 3. Fourth Thursday. Class 11.

Egle as the Mother

DETAIL, DETAIL AND MORE DETAIL

We congratulate our ten-out-of-tenners in the attendance stakes by asking them to stand and then giving them a sustained and genuine round of applause.

Sadly, neither Josie or Claire, who should have been here to bask in that glory, are here.

The students are urged to read Newspapers! Brecht would have approved of us reading about the world. The Independent and, less enthusiastically, The Guardian are plugged.

Joleen reprimands her teacher for not doing the class on newspapers yet. She is told that her teacher has been sidetracked and that she must continue to remind him.

We talk, briefly about The World Turned Upside Down, a map of the world publlished by the New Internationalist Magazine with the North Pole at the bottom, the South Pole at the top and everything else in between likewise not as we usually expect them. We talk about this, Brechtianistically. (New Word. Why not?)

Our warm-up today is a version of Musical Chairs with some slightly different rules: all the contestants have to sing Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose (or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star if they don't know that one) together, then all stop together and only then can they sit down. Anyone who sits down before the singing stops is eliminated. Otherwise you're eliminated in the usual way. And another chair is subtracted.

We have a group practise of being Pelagea Vlassova in a circle refining our reading over the top of our books technique.

Steve, Linus Roache and Jim Hooper. Contact Theatre Manchester production. Director Di Trevis. Designer Bunny Christie.

While this is going on, the Gatekeepers position is set up. Table, chair and a broom over another chair that acts as the barrier into the Factory.

Practise over, the group sits down and now dons its group director's hat. A volunteer is asked from the group to be the Gatekeeper. A volunteer is asked for Pelagea. The Gatekeeper sits. But instead of starting, a third volunteer is asked to X-mark the spot on the floor for The Mother.

We are concerning ourselves less with the acting than the 'Stage Picture' from the Director's point of view. What story does it tell? Does it tell the story we want it to tell? Is there a better way to tell the story?

We talked about distance. How the picture often looks more interesting with distance. How by giving the Gatekeeper a lot of space round his area, we establish his area more strongly. It's the area - the minefield - that Pelagea will have to move into.

If she's already in it when the scene starts, perhaps we don't see how far her journey is.

How, if she is too near us, the audience, at the beginning of the scene, she and we feel uncomfortable. Do we, the directors, want the audience to feel uncomfortable at this precise point in time?

Using the Space. Here we've moved the actors much further apart. Jason as the Gatekeeper is good casting

How, if she stands near the back - and quite far distant from him - when she speaks about the Gatekeeper, we look at him. When she wonders whether he's the fat or the pernickety type, we actually look at him to see.

All this is remarked upon.

We also reflect upon Artificiality. About Soaps. How in a Soap you go: 'Oh look, that's like the wallpaper in our kitchen!' or 'That woman in The Vic's just like my Nan!' or 'No, one would ever act like that' (as a criticism of the writing or the acting, or both).

It's like saying that there is one 'True' world against which Eastenders is being measured. An unchanging world. An agreed-upon-world.

Politically and ideologically, that is a very conservative world. It's a world that can't be 'Turned Upside Down'. Its an unchanging world - and an unchangeable one.

One that Brecht was not interested in.

Soaps are there to be repetitious. To tell us that there's nothing we can do to move forward. Everybody is stuck in their own little world, their own little life, their own little Albert Square. To keep you in your place.

Whereas our world glories is it's artificiality. When you see the world we've created on stage, it doesn't look like anywhere you've seen in the 'real' world.

Our Vlassova's put on the teacher's coat and a scarf for a headscarf. Egle, the Lithuanian, ties a very genuine-looking Babushka's (Russian Granny's) scarf. Egle is definitely the Queen of that particular skill.

We look at props. We look very closely at props.

Annie Hayes, Ian Redford and Steve

We ask for four bags to be brought out and put on the floor. Which would we (the director, with the actor, too) choose?

We choose the best from those available. The second group insist on The Mother having two bags.

We look at how to carry the bags. We look at how the mother should stand. Hands across her body? Should she hold that shopping bag in the crook of her arm, or hanging down?

Everything tells a story.

We look at how the gherkin should appear when we first see it - how it should be wrapped. We look at how to take the gherkin out of the bag. How to drop the gherking. And where to drop the gherkin. (How many paces The Mother needs to take towards the Gatekeeper...)

Detail. A few lines takes an hour. And still we are not done.

Detail.

Detail.

Weigel's Props

one little dripping pot

Just as the millet farmer picks out for his trial plot
The heaviest seeds and the poet
Tbe exact words for his verse so
She selects the objects to accompany
Her characters across the stage. The pewter spoon
Which Courage sticks
In the lapel of her Mongolian jacket, the party card
For warm-hearted Vlassova and the fishing net
For the other, Spanish mother or the bronze bowl
For dust-gathering Antigone. Impossible to confuse
The split bag which the working woman carries
For her son's leaflets, with the moneybag
Of the keen tradeswoman. Each item
In her stock is hand picked: straps and belts
Pewter boxes and ammunition pouches; hand picked too
The chicken and the stick which at the end
The old woman twists through the draw-rope
The Basque woman's board on which she bakes her bread
And the Greek woman's board of shame, strapped to her back
With holes for her hands to stick through, the Russian's jar of lard, so small in the policeman's hand; all
Selected for age, fimction and beauty
By the eyes of the knowing
The hands of the bread-baking, net weaving
Soup-cooking connoisseur
Of reality.

From Brecht's poem Die Requisiten Der Weigel.

Meyerhold

Meyerhold

Do have a look at the Wikipedia entry for Vsevolod Meyerhold whose physical style of acting, 'Biomechanics' and the debate about 'Taylorism' - along with the visit to Europe of the Chinese actors - was highly influential.

All are believed to have had an effect on Brecht's thinking and praxis.

An American Dances Legong

Cradling

Interestingly, I found this on the net just after Anonymous's post. In it we hear of a New Yorker's experiences:

Yates, who portrayed King Lasem, is a native of New York who began learning Balinese dance in 1994. Her first contact happened at a workshop held at the Mahea Uchiyama Center for International Dance, given by Sekar Jaya's former member, Mimi Prather. She learned the classical Legong style when the ensemble toured Bali in 1995, and has performed it with Sekar Jaya many times before this year's movie screenings.

"I do consider the style very difficult to learn. The angles of the agem (basic dance posture) seem unnatural at first, and tend to be frustrating to achieve. However, one thing I found about the agem is that if you hit the position correctly it is actually quite comfortable!" Intrigued by the style and the music, she worked through the difficulties of the delicate hand positions as well as the head and eye movements.

She and Davies rehearsed extensively to synchronize their movements. They watched videos of Ni Ketut Arini Alit "and tried our best to perform the piece as she taught...it is very important for the two Legong dancers to move the same way and hear the music the same way. In Bali, the Legong dancers would be of similar height and would look similar. Kompiang and I don't really look similar, but we try very hard to match our movements. And we've danced a long time together, so we can 'feel each other'on the stage, and that helps in trying to move the same way.

Link to the original article

Fourth Monday Morning

Carlos and Grace

Our Warm-up Exercise this morning was to stand side by side with our partner, B leading A, and B's job was to initiate physical moves that A would be able to follow using her lateral/180 degree vision.

Hopefully, it would not be apparent to the onlooker who was leading and who was following, such would be the care taken on both sides. B to take responsibility for A, not initiating moves that A can't follow, but A also being as accurate in following as she can. The partners then swop.

To this we later add sound which the copier must copy.

Pairs Copying

Talked about learning our Mother Tongue. Talked about learning a song or a dance routine, a ballet or some complex choreography. Talked about how we learn a script or a speech.

Talked about how, as kids, we don't bother to argue - we just learn. But with the growth of the ego in us, we want to find our for ourselves, 'Don't tell me!','I know!' etc. Ego is vital, particularly to the performer but not so good if it gets in the way of learning changing and developing, maybe.

Later, at the end of the class, Claire is telling how she teaches 5 year old kids to swim. So she too is a teacher; maybe a better teacher than her teacher. How if she sees a tummy sticking out she says: 'Whats that?' and pokes her finger at it to remind her little pupil that it shouldn't be sticking out. She can see things her pupils can't see. She knows things her pupils have yet to find out...

VOICE WORK
Students take one line from Scene Three of Brecht's The Mother: (eg: 'Gherkins, tobacco, tea, fresh pasties') and try saying them to the far wall or the person on the far side of the room. Then to a a small child in front of them. Then to someone behind them but nearer. Then to a fly on the ceiling or a person on the the roof above.

They are in the market. As traders they have to call their wares above the din of the other market traders.

TEXT
In pairs preparation of Scene Three. How many units or subsections has it got? What's the position of the character called Another Worker to the strike some of the workers are demanding? Why is Karpov behaving the way he's behaving?

To these and other questions we try to come to answers during the last 30 minutes. Some students are asked or volunteer to improvise the meeting with the boss that Karpov has just come from. Others act as witnesses to that meeting telling how it seemed from their point of view. Some actually take the role of Karpov and try to defend themselves against the charge of 'selling out' or collaborating AGAINST the workers.

We wonder whether it is stronger for the actor to do his best to put the point of view of Karpov. It is a real point of view. If you accept that Capitalism is here to stay, you just have to do the best you can within the rules that are laid down etc.

The Factory Gate and Yard have been set up but we don't get to the scene. We promise ourselves we will do on Thursday and go away to prepare it.

Gherkins Like These

Gherkins
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

In the coming days we may well be exercised by such gherkins. Pelagea and the strikers' secret weapon...