Bert on Holloway Road

Ten Things I Remember of Brecht

2005-05-19T11:33:00.000Z

Here, just a few thoughts to help with the written work.

Forward and the Future.
There is no such thing as no such thing. Everything is possible. Wo/man's fate is in her/his own hands. Don't capitulate to your emotions. Superstition might be a refuge but don't let it be your last refuge. Tears are natural and understandable but when tears finish and your reason begins, you're in a better place. You need to have your wits about you to fight unfairness and injustice. Both the unfairness and injustice you do and that which is done to you.

Change.
Everything can be changed. Even the policeman or the soldier who is shooting you can be changed. He is the same as you. You are not divided from him. Nothing is static. Nothing will be forever. The tyrant will be overthrown. The rubble of his statues, his laws and his palaces will one day lie in the sand, smashed and forgotten.

Women.
Mothers. Carers. The powerless. But strong. The people who you don't see. The servants. The butchers. The cooks. The nannys and cleaners. The hidden army of people who make the the goods, empty the garbage and scour the toilets. Brecht asks how they can have the power.

Peasant Cunning
If you're at the bottom of the heap, cunning and patience are your best weapon. Respect for that on Brecht's part. All his protagonists have it. It's a strength based on dispossession.

Learning.
Learn stuff. People who can't learn can't change. And are of no use - to the world or themselves. Learning and teaching are intimately involved. Learn so that you can teach. Teach so that you can learn. Pass on information. Be open. Don't shut off. Learning is living. Stop learning and what happens?

Clarification
Brecht wanted to say something first and foremost about the world. Not about acting. Not about theatre. He wanted to say something so that the world could be changed in ways both large and small. His job, the job of his actors, the job of his designers, his composers, his musicians, the stage hands and the wardrobe department was to CLARIFY the play. If he, his actors, his musicians, his wardrobe department, his electrians obscured the play, that had to change. I think he believed that all good actors, artists, craftsmen, thinkers, people clarify things rather than obscure them. Or become good when they are clarifying.

On the run.
Brecht was 30 and married with two kids when he was forced to leave his homeland and live for seventeen years on handouts in countries where German wasn't spoken. Who made his plays? Other people. He had no control. They had the paintbrush, not the painter. The chisel not the scultor. The fooball not the goalscorer. His theory might have been written to try and help them in his absence but it was still an absence. Finally, when he got his theatre, he could show them what he really meant. The paintbrush came alive. The chisel transformed the stone. The goals went in.

False Friends
The function of many commentators/editors/directors/academics is to obscure Brecht. Politically they detest 'what he stands for', making it impossible for them to see what's happening under their own noses. The simple things are so hard to see! Brecht's humanity, for example: his amusement at Vessovchikov, his understanding of Lydia Antonovna, of Smilgin, of Karpov, even of the soldiers who shoot Pavel, these False Friends attribute to Brecht's 'inconsistency'. It's the very thing that Vera Stepanovna accuses Pelagea of in the Bible Scene. They're glad that they've heard you crying through the wall. That's where reason gets you, they say. But, as Pelagea answers, it's only when you overcome your grief that you can go forward. Ordinary people's lives are about about loss, self-sacrifice, disempowerment, disinheritance, self-delusion and being robbed. Brecht shows it, truthfully - puts it in context and shows why - but he also wants us to see how we can move on from that place.

Energy. Passion. Deadness.
Brecht can't be played cool. Or dead. Not on the inside. Can't be played laid back. Behind the stillness there is loads going on. The work has to be played with energy and massive focus because the plays originate from a place of passion in Brecht himself; a passion for justice and change. The main thing is: don't play it sentimentally. Sentimentality obscures; it doesn't clarify. As all good actors know.

Comedies
All his plays are comedies in the Shakespearian sense. They end well. Brecht's plays are not dark, not 'mysterious'; the polar opposite of most 20th Century Euro/American theatre, film, dance, TV, video and art. Think of Kafka, Pollock, Munch, David Lynch. Think of the 'comedies of Chekhov: in the Seagull, Konstantin blows his brains out at the end. In Three Sisters, the sisters are left alone in the provincial town, nothing has changed; they've failed to escape their 'fate'. Brecht's plays, on the other hand, never leave us looking into some personal abyss with a sense of hopelessness. There is no fate.

Nor are they about Brecht's mum and dad making him an alcoholic because they drowned his pet kitten. They are not about being personally fucked up; that 'nothing can be done about this so don't even try'. About being stuck up the creek without a paddle. In that sense they are more true than, say, Chekhov; most people don't just give up. They strive. They try to find a way round their difficulties. Wo/man is naturally optimistic: even in front of the firing squad we are planning our escape.

Nor do Brecht's plays leave us in an 'Everyone is against me' type of Paranoia World. Brecht's plays do, however, suggest how we're being screwed, collectively, and what we might do about it - but that's something else entirely. Parents are not all abusers, in Brecht's plays, Nice people don't turn out to be psychos. His heros are just the people you see on the bus in the morning.

He is not cynical or depressed. He's cheery.

Report on May 13, 2005

2005-05-19T11:32:00.000Z

After the Demonstration May 13
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

Hundreds of people are thought to have died when violence erupted in the Uzbek city of Andijan on Friday 13 May. The BBC News website has compiled this account of how events unfolded, based on media reports, eyewitnesses and official statements.

THURSDAY 12 MAY
People have been protesting peacefully outside a city court for four months over the trial of 23 local businessmen accused of Islamic extremism.

Protests had been mounting all week
Their families say the men are innocent and have been unfairly targeted. The BBC's Jenny Norton describes the protesters as quiet, orderly and very well organised.

But late on Thursday evening, some of the protesters are arrested and taken to the town's jail, according to Galima Bukharbaeva, country director for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR).

FRIDAY 13 MAY
Gunmen storm the jail in the early hours and free the 23 accused men, their supporters and scores of other inmates. A small number of people are reported killed during the violence. By early morning, several thousand people are gathered in the town's main square.

Men armed with Kalashnikovs can be seen on the streets, but most demonstrators are ordinary people and the atmosphere is calm, says Galima Bukharbaeva. "They are holding meetings, and people are making speeches and talking about injustice and respect for human rights. It's not just a political protest - it's also social and economic."

I've got three children, I was trying to cover them up, I was crying: take my life, don't shoot my children
Eyewitness

Roads to the city centre are blocked and protesters control the area, including government offices. No security forces are in evidence, but government troops and tanks are said to be concentrated at the town's airport.

The crowd on Andijan's main square in front of the provincial administration building swells to about 10,000, the Ferghana.ru news agency's correspondent reports at 1446 (0946 GMT), and speakers use a "free" microphone to vent anger at economic problems. Some chant slogans against President Islam Karimov and the Uzbek government.

Quoting "confidential information", a correspondent for Uzbek freedom of speech group Arena is quoted by Ferghana.ru as saying security forces received orders to "eliminate" the group behind the storming of the prison and seizure of government buildings. Troops attack the administration building around 1800 local time.

The initial assault by security forces begins with a convoy of armoured vehicles opening fire on the crowd. Many people flee.

One woman later told the BBC: "We don't know what happened to us. All of a sudden these heavy armoured vehicles came, we don't know how it all happened, we are simple citizens, ordinary people. I don't know if it was an armoured vehicle or a tank. A helicopter was flying above, and after this helicopter turned up above our heads, the shooting started. Can you imagine, they were shooting us from above, with our children. We lay on the ground, and panic broke out."

Another woman told the BBC: "We never expected they would shoot at women and children. I've got three children, I was trying to cover them up. I was crying: 'Take my life, don't shoot my children.'"

Soldiers moved in soon before dark

A large number of protesters - including gunmen and 10 police officers who have been held hostage - moves from the city centre towards School No 15, just over 1km away, unnamed witnesses tell Reuters news agency.

An armoured car fires into the crowd outside the school.

A woman doctor in the town, identified only as Gulbohor, later tells the BBC she saw "at least 500" dead bodies at the school, which has been turned into a temporary morgue. Most of the dead are men, all of them adults. An unnamed man tells Reuters he saw "literally hundreds" of bodies.

Armed soldiers stand guard at the school, but people are being allowed in to identify relatives.

Reports later emerge that injured people were summarily executed, and that many bodies, especially of women and children, were taken away and concealed by the authorities, says Galima Bukharbaeva.

There is evidence to suggest government security forces carried out further killings once the mass shooting was over.

Once the crowd had dispersed, eyewitnesses say the security forces went around finishing off the injured as they lay on the ground.

A middle-aged woman who gave her first name as Muqaddas told IWPR that at 2100, uniformed men were still shooting anyone who was moving.

"I myself saw how before the assault, a truckload of vodka was delivered to the military servicemen," she said. "They got drunk, and in this condition they shot and killed the wounded. In my presence, they shot down a woman with two small children."

SATURDAY 14 MAY
On Saturday morning, the authorities cart off most of the bodies using three trucks and a bus, according to witnesses.

A secondary school, a technical college and local parks are turned into impromptu morgues. Hundreds of Andijan residents search for missing relatives - on Babur Square itself and later at the collection points.

President Karimov blamed the violence on Islamic extremists

The school is said to house the bodies of men only. The remains of women and children are out of sight - somewhere near the construction-industry college, local people say - and, unlike those of the men, are not being released to relatives.

President Karimov appears at a press conference in Tashkent. He blames the violence on Islamic extremists who he says used women, old men and children as a "human shield". He puts the death toll at 10 soldiers and "many others".

There are further demonstrations on the streets. A BBC News website reader in Andijan, who says he is a lawyer and former worker for a non-governmental organisation, says "police and soldiers fired towards peaceful people gathered for a meeting near the cinema. Without any warning soldiers fired towards women and children. Police took many men at the meeting to buses and we do not know what happened with them".

A group of some 540 refugees - mostly men, with some women and small children - escape from Andijan at night on foot headed for the Kyrgyz border, says the BBC's Ian MacWilliam.

They say several of their number are killed and others are wounded when Uzbek troops fire at them near a remote border crossing in the Kyrgyz region of Jalalabad. But they are allowed to cross by the Kyrgyz border guards and officials house them in a small encampment of tents in Kyrgyz territory.

One refugee tells the BBC: "We are fed up, we do not need such a state. We won't go back to Andijan. Even if Kyrgyzstan shoot us dead here, we'll stay here. But we won't go back to Andijan. We will die for our children, to save them."

SUNDAY 15 MAY
The BBC's Sharifjon Akhmedov describes the scene in Andijan two days on.

Funerals continued for several days

"I can still see the traces of blood on the street around me. They've tried to wash it all away but you can still see the blood and bits of hair on the tarmac. There are bullet holes in the telegraph poles and trees," he says.

The 50-year-old father of one missing man says: "Karimov's people shot women and children. I saw young men with their hands up, shouting 'Don't shoot'. But they just shot them."

Easter Break

2005-03-31T10:05:00.000Z

Hope you all had a great Easter Break. I did.

I also hope you didn't lose track of the work we need to do in the next three weeks.

Here's to a great month or so. Good luck everyone.

Demonstration May 1st

2005-03-31T09:46:00.000Z

Individuality in a Group

Classes 17th and 18th March.

Our last of the half-semester. We have now sketched out, hopefully, the the casting of the scenes, the scene changes and an overview of the scenes.

We have all now, hopefully, a picture in our heads of 'the set'. Of the chairs down each side, eight on each side, and, hopefully, our seating positions. Or if not all of them, at least the challenge of finding economical solutions to our moving around the set during changes.

The work was good during these two sessions - as evidenced by the above photograph taken from the Scene 5 rehearsals we made. Notice the energy in the actors above: it's strong, clear, focused and still flexible and open.

At the same time, each actor is in the moment and has found her/his own way to the moment. These are not puppets or 'clones'.

This moment was not posed but caught by the camera and it's the best photo yet of the work. In my opinion it is not forced but 'true'. Not 'acted' but shown.

It's very encouraging.

Abigail

2005-03-15T14:36:00.000Z

Dear Abigail
I wanted to include that song very much because it starts that scene off and is really important. I knew you sang and I felt I could entrust you with it. As for the acting side, I hadn't put stuff down on paper though some thoughts were coming together in my mind (not to do with the beginning of Scene 10). I didn't want to say something that we found later didn't work.

But we will find something good.

If our rehearsal doesn't throw up something really interesting, then another option is for you to have something juicy in Scene 5 with Rebecca and Carly.

Let me know what you think. Either on Thursday or on the Blog.

I promise that neither you, Carly or Rebecca will be disadvantaged in any way by having your information later than other people.

Steve

Carly and Rebecca ... Plus?

2005-03-15T14:28:00.000Z

Dear Carly and Rebecca

I'm totally open to your own suggestions.

One option, though, would be to add a seventh scene; namely 5. It's a wonderful and powerful piece of theatre - and if there are other students who would like to undertake a bit more than they have already, then I think we would have time both in rehearsal and in the performance on the day to do the whole thing.

Speak together, both of you. See what you think of the idea - and present me with any others you might have first thing Thursday morning.

Out of my lack of attention, I'm sure we'll get a great result...

Steve.

Street of Crocodiles

2005-03-14T22:09:00.000Z

Street of Crocodiles

Carlos is participating in a performance of Complicite's 'Street of Crocodiles' this week.

The play is based on the book by the darkly Surrealist Jewish writer Bruno Schulz about how his family is swept up by the Holocaust in the years preceding WW2.

Performance at The Albany Theatre. Wednesday 16 and Thursday 17.
Time: 19.30
Douglas Way. Deptford. se8 4ag.
BR Deptford/New Cross 11 mins from London Bridge.

Theatre de Complicite.......The Albany

Intensity and Energy

2005-03-14T19:59:00.000Z

Monday, March 14

Our last day of 'Training'. The Casting has been posted. Work on the different 'States of Intensity' used by the LeCoq method, by Philipe Gaulier in London and most prominently by the Complicite theatre company in Britain. For Performers like Hayley Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter and Marcello Magni, teachers like John Wright and other companies like Told By an Idiot, it is their Bible and Mantra. Their 'Method'.

It's based on Commedia work, on the use of mask and the idea that you already 'know' all your emotions. That they are already there in what dancers would call your 'muscle memory'. That you find the emotion through your physicality.

According to this technique, if you 'collapse' your body on an outbreath, allowing your head to loll forward onto your chest and slump towards the floor, then you begin to connect as a performer with a state of tiredness, disappointment or hopelessness; a connection which may lack none of the truthfulness of other 'methods'.

And, then, if you turn your focus out to a person or an object at a distance from yourself and allow yourself to be drawn as if by a powerful string attached to your breastbone, you discover, within yourself, a feeling of hope, inspiration, determination, blessedness, salavation, enlightenment etc.

We look at 'Neutral', 'California', 'Lowest (or 'Outbreath'), 'Virgin Mary' (or 'Attraction'), 'Bomb in the Room' and 'Highest'('Tragedy').

There are different names. Each one locates an area of physical intensity.

That each state can be played in all 'genres'. Big as in Melodrama, Ballet, Opera, Noh. Tiny as in Film acting.

We work on transitions from one state to another. And back.

We apply it to song. Rose, Rose etc on the floor from Highest to Lowest and back to Highest - in the space of one verse.

We do not have time in the 90 minutes to apply it to text - to a monologue, for example - but it would be perfectly possible.

Some students may choose to thus employ it over the coming Rehearsal Weeks. Support and encouragement in its use will be given if required.

Whether this technique will prove useful or not to students in the future will depend on individual preference, but as an excercise it does show the energy that is contained within the body. And is needed in any moment of performance.

Dialectical Windowlene

2005-03-12T17:52:00.000Z

That helped me, Tony, thanks. The only thing I'd like to add to that is that although we can't alter the fact that all our actions are political, that's the only thing we can't alter. Everything else is changeable: the Firing Squad that shoots Pavel; people's consciousness of their true interests; fighting for places in the lifeboats.

Everything is material. Nothing - nothing! - is static.

(Brecht's The RESISTABLE Rise of Arturo Ui. 'You can change the world with your last breath' etc. Einstein's Quantum physics etc etc)

Post from Tony Gardner

2005-03-12T17:47:00.000Z

Gestus is indeed a tricky one Steve. As i understand it, the notion of gestus is a three-dimensional text that runs parallel to the words on the page. It is the text made physical and it is always political because it belongs to a world where things are learnt and nothing is a matter of instinct; nothing can exist independently of the conditions that influence it. Oooh, I know, this sounds like Marxism and indeed it is. The Mother is a play that seeks to persuade us that we cannot escape the political implications of ourselves - the views we hold, the opinions we express, the bread we eat (or don't eat). We are as political as a bomb dropped on Baghdad, or a donation to Comic Relief and we cannot alter that. Our actions betray our political intent and Brecht calls that Gestus. Phew, this is my first blog!!!!

Originally a comment on the Feb 24th post 'Different Strokes'. Thanks Tony. Very helpful.

Scene 4. Friday March 10

2005-03-12T17:21:00.000Z

Posture Policeman

PELAGEA'S FIRST LESSON IN ECONOMICS

Good work. Improvement from many.

80% of the group when left to their own devices now know how to sit. Still a few cross-legged slumpers - but their behaviour has been noted by the Posture Police and the necessary measures will be taken...

(Yeah but, no but, I'm knackered, right, 'cos me and Tracy were up all night drinking these Scrumpy Cocktails round Angela's, right, and I can't be bothered, as it happens, if you want to know the truth, and it's all your fault, anyway right, cos you're just boring and I don't understand a bleeding word you're sayin').

Charlene's Transformation: Pavel's speech from a very chopped-up delivery (Mince) when she starts to a totally lucid one at the end of a bit of practice by biting off bigger chunks of text each time before she looks up. (Steak). The rhythm of the writing, the structure of the language is, therefore, allowed to shine through. Great.

This particular day, Joleen and Jordan (the J-Highs) are the Crystal Clear Queens but most other students are only a whisker behind in terms of clarity.

Hannah Patricia can't get her mouth round Suck-Lyn-Off but hopefully she will one day...

The main thing we discover, both Groups, is that neither side (the Mother or the Revolutionaries) get 'stumped' by each other's points. Nobody goes: ' Oh. I'd never thought of that. Duh. That's got me.' No, each one has an answer and in many ways the Mother gives as good as she gets.

Also, that after her actions in the Swamp scene, actually they look up to her: 'Respect'!

They need her. She has some of the experience, maturity and steadinesss under fire that they lack. Not to mention a native cunning.

We talked about this cunning. Brecht particularly liked it: peasant, working class cunning. Well, if you're at the bottom of the shit-heap you have to have something to even even things out.

Also remarked upon the fantastic parts Brecht wrote for women. Something seldom mentioned by academics, critics or practitioners. Pelagea, Senora Carrera, Good Person of Sechuan, Grusha, Mother Courage etc Fabulous strong, complex, dialectical parts for ballsy female actors unrivalled by any 20th Century practitioner.

Both Groups very healthy going into their sixth week and the one before Easter.

Excellent.

Casting

2005-03-12T12:25:00.000Z

The Casting is as follows. Each Group, A and B, will start with the first speech of Pelagea's. Everybody must learn it in English, EXCEPT those with another language. They must translate (or have help to translate) the speech into their first (or second) language and learn it in that language. This section is called Vlassovas of All Countries.

GROUP A
Scene 1 Vlasssovas of All Countries
Dean, Luisa, Charlene, Amir, Egle and Rebekah plus rest of Group in English.

Scene 2 The Police Raid.
(Starting Page 98 at the point below:)
Anton:I don't think your mother's very glad to see us here, eh, Pavel.
Pavel: It's so hard for her to see we have to do this so that she can buy her tea and pay the rent.
Pelagea: Talk about thick skinned! They're carrying on as if they hadn't noticed.
(Then cut to:)
Andrei 1: Police!
(Then continue all the way to the end of the scene. This is the casting:)
Andrei 1(Police!):Egle
Mother: Josie
Andrei rest of scene: Amir
Ivan: Claire
Masha: Luisa
Inspector: Dean
Policeman: Charlene
Pavel: Vineta
Anton: Natalie

Scene 3 The Swamp
Mother outside the Gates: Louise
Mother inside Gates: Sandra (taking over at 'Just what I told her P.104)
Gatekeeper: Claire
Ivan: Amir
First Worker: Charlene
Second Worker Luisa
Third Worker: Rebekah
Karpov: Claudia
Anton: Natalie
Another Worker: Dean
SONG of the Patches and the Coat. Ensemble.
Factory Guard: Vineta
Mother after Song: Egle
Karpov after Song: Rebekah

GROUP B
Vlassovas of all Countries
Nuria, Carlos, Tanya, Grace. Everybody else in English

Scene 6 b/c The Teacher's Kitchen and the Teacher's Schoolroom.
Woman: Grace
Mother (SONG in Praise of Communism, P.116 ) Abigail
Sostakovich: Carlos
Teacher in Kitchen: Tom
Mother in Kitchen: Hannah
Teacher in Classroom: Chris
Mother in Classroom: Azuraye
SONG: Learn your ABC. Ensemble
One of the Workers: Nuria

Scene 10 Pavel is Arrested and Shot.
Voice saying 'Comrade Vlassova, Your son has been shot': Carlos
SONG: Gabrede P.138. Ensemble.
Landlady 1 Kayleigh
Mother 1 Cat
Peasant Woman 1: Grace
Poor Woman 1: Jordan
(down to: P141. Peasant Woman: I've heard tell of that. Then the cast changes to:)
Landlady 2: Joleen
Mother 2 Tanya
Peasant Woman 2: Nuria
Poor Woman 2: Polly.

HEALTH WARNINGS:

Please start studying your roles from this point forward. Also begin to find costume for yourself and YOUR OWN PROPS. For example, Josie has to find the Dripping Pot, Louise and Sandra the goods they sell plus the wrapping paper. Start getting this stuff as early as possible. Not getting it early, bringing it to rehearsals and using it will be interpreted as lack of professionalism.

All costumes to be dark/neutral; scarves, caps, berets, belts boots, shirts etc AND BE READY TO BRING THEM IN WITH YOU AFTER THE EASTER BREAK.

WE WILL BE REHEARSING IN COSTUME FROM APRIL 4th.

Please be at rehearsals 15 minutes before the sceduled start times, in the appropriate clothing and footware so we can all begin on time. Unless otherwise announced, rehearsal calls are for the entire group. Individuals will be expected to do a physical and vocal warm-up before the class starts either alone or - if the Group prefers, as a Group - BEFORE THE REHEARSAL IS SCEDULED TO BEGIN.

MALE CHARACTERS WEAR TROUSERS, WOMEN CHARACTERS LONG SKIRTS ACCORDING TO YOUR ROLE, YOUR CLASS AND THE APPAREL FOR THE YEARS AROUND 1900.

Kindly do not wear any jewellry or make-up for rehearsal. Women tie and pin your hair back so that the whole face is revealed.

We will spend some time next week (March 14 to 18th) quickly deciding who - if anyone - will be playing a role across their own gender. Women playing any male roles to find ways to conceal their hair convincingly with hats etc.

We will perform in MG80, the audience facing towards the Door so that we can use it practically, if need be, for exits and entrances. There will be identical chairs down each side of the room, one for each actor, facing into the room.

There will be a tressle table. A working duplicator which we will have to find between us; any help on that will be very favourably looked upon (mark-wise).

Please bring a pencil and rubber to each rehearsal. You will be expected to write down, as soon as decided, all movement decisions, energy changes, beats and Gesti. There will be no stage manager on the Book. Failure to mark these down, study and practise them at home and be ready to present, develop and elaborate on them at the next rehearsal will be taken to be obstructive to the smooth running of rehearsals and detrimental to group endeavour. And penalised accordingly in your individual 'Process' marks.

We have 36 hours to rehearse both goups so let's make a deadline for ourselves of performance-ready by Friday April 22nd (week 9). This gives us only 6 hours of rehearsal for each of the six scenes, starting Monday.

Enjoy.

10th March 2005

2005-03-10T22:06:00.000Z

4 Classes to go until Easter. Hopefully by this time next week we will have decided which scenes we will be doing for the Showing and have all parts cast so we can go away for the two weeks and prepare ourselves.

The day goes well. We look at the end of Scene 3 (P 107 Methuen Willet trans) between Karpov and Pelagea. Again it's asking the questions that allows us to get under the skin. Some we ask today are:

How much detail does Pelagea know of what's in the leaflet?

Why does she say 'We' in : 'We have our reasons'?

And what does she mean in saying it? Does she mean: she, Pelagea, has her reasons (ie to protect Pavel) which are slightly different from Pavel's and the other Revolutionaries' reasons. Or that she doesn't know what the reasons are but she doesn't want to appear thick in front of Karpov? Or that she's coming more towards the Revolutionary position?

Or a mixture of both?

What she DOESN'T say is almost as instructive. She doesn't tell Karpov she's just doing it to protect her son. She comes back at him pretty strong with: Why are our people being arrested? Note the use of 'our'. But at the same time she uses the 'No, I can't read' - a 'Nothing to do with me, Guv' type of get-out clause.

Something we didn't fully discuss - or explore concretely at all - were the lines 'to herself'. What none of us had taken into consideration was the stage direction:

After she has sold the gherkin to Karpov, 'SHE SITS DOWN TO COUNT HER TAKINGS'.

It is as she does that that she says the lines: ' They can't be allowed to cut wages; it's very wrong, and particularly hard on me...' Brecht has given her a concrete action. She's counting her takings and they probably aren't very much. The men have already decided on a strike so they know that they're in for a hard future. They won't have been splashing out on gherkins, tea, cigarettes and pasties today... So, we can imagine she's not done particularly good business. And the coins she's counting will be few.

At this point then, although Karpov and Pelagea are on stage together and he's just spoken to her to buy a gherkin, each of them is in their own little world: Karpov watching the receding backs of the workforce he's representing - disastrously; they've just told him where to stick it - and Pelagea worrying about how she's going to manage with the threatened wage cut.

It's him seeing the pamphlet when he unwraps his gherkin that snaps him out of these thoughts. And why does he order a gherkin? Is it comfort eating to cheer himself up, seeing how badly he's done?

And why is Pelagea still selling her wares? The workforce have just gone back to work. Is she trying to make that one last sale because trade has been so poor?

A moment ago the stage was full of life; the workforce, united, singing their hearts out for the whole loaf; sod the crumbs. Now all thats left on stage is a couple of isolated and lonely 'saddos' with their gherkin....

We talk about Karpov's objections to the strike. Whether he would betray strike organisers to the Management. Most thought not. He's disagreeing on tactics not objectives. Both he and the workforce know the strike will be tough. The workforce are prepared to take it on. He thinks the human cost will be too great. Maybe he's quietly frightened.

This then leads to a detailed analysis of why Karpov doesn't betray Pelagea to the Guard and the Gatekeeper, instead taking the blame himself. A number of students use the phrase: 'Because Karpov and Pelagea are both on the same side'. That deep down he knows it. She's just an ordinary woman. Furthermore, most students felt instinctively that they too would have taken the rap for Pelagea in the same situation. Brecht humanises Karpov.

At no point does anybody suggest that he's just out to feather his own nest. It's his choice of tactics that Brecht is questioning, not his personal morality or corruption.

In fact he's actually a bit of a hero. He takes a beating for her. Karpov protects Pelagea. It's what most people would do. Even though she's just a moment or so before given him quite a bit of lip.

We then put the thing on its feet. Or rather 'on its chairs'. We sit down. We don't have too much of a discussion about the positions. The chairs are placed oppositionally across the space and two other chairs are placed more on the diagonal. Volunteers are asked to fill the chairs. We stick with Karpov and Pelagea facing one another pretty much all the way through. Gatekeeper and Guard coming in side by side at the angle.

I felt there was some very good work all round from some of the usual suspects but also some particularly pleasing development from Josie, Tom, Natalie and Luisa in Group A and Azuraye, Grace, Jordan, Carlos and Rebecca from B, giving, I thought, their best work on the course to date. Very heartening to see such step-progress from so many: vocally strong in their delivery, direct and absolutely in top gear with their energy.

As a result the passion and intensity of the scene came through, and caught fire on all seven occasions it was performed.

Excellent dialectical playing. Two hands clapping.

A Karpov or a Suchlinov?

2005-03-08T12:54:00.000Z

Blair Caring

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

The final lines of George Orwell's Animal Farm.

It Says Something!

2005-03-08T08:13:00.000Z

Nuria and Tanya

PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Gherkins, tobacco, tea, fresh pasties!
IVAN: And the wrapping paper is the best part.
PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Gherkins, tobacco, tea, fresh pasties!
IVAN: And the wrapping paper is free.
A WORKER: Got any gherkins?
PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Gherkins, yes here you are.
IVAN: And the wrapping paper mustn't be thrown away.
PELAGEA VLASSOVA: Gherkins, tobacco, tea, fresh pasties!
A WORKER: What's so special about what's printed on the wrapping paper? I can't read.
ANOTHER WORKER: How do I know what's on your wrapping paper?
FIRST WORKER: You're holding one clever.
SECOND WORKER: Quite right, it says something,
FIRST WORKER: So, what?
SECOND WORKER: Good for them, they say if we get drawn into negotiating the more fools us.
PELAGEA VLASSOVA (Crosses the yard): Gherkins, tobacco, tea, fresh pasties!
THIRD WORKER Here they are, with the police after them and factory security tightened up, and here's another pamphlet just the same. They know what they're doing that lot and nobody's going to stop them. There's somehthing in what they say.

Analysis
Cooking on Gas again after Rocky Friday - everyone had been tired and fractious at the end of a long week and we'd bitten off too big and too complicated a chunk of scene to chew.

Today, Monday March 7th, though, we look at 'The Swamp' scene again. In particular the scene between Workers One and Two. By focusing on such a 'detail' we can happily spend over an hour and still not get all the way to the bottom of things. We learn to ask questions: Is the gherkin that Vlassova dropped earlier in front of the Gatekeeper, wrapped? We'd had it wrapped before (we'd been talking about detail, but had we thought deeply enough about it?). We decided, in fact, that it shouldn't. If it had been wrappped the Gatekeeper might have been litererate, read it and the whole operation would have been sabotaged.

We ask, in particular, why the Second Worker says: 'How do I know what's written on your wrapping paper?' We'd already established, through asking a number of other questions of ourselves AND FROM INFORMATION IN THE TEXT ONLY, that

1. Pelagea had delivered to the factory before.

2. That there is, therefore, nothing strange for the men to see her selling stuff there.

3. That the men know who Ivan is. Also that he is a Marxist, a revolutionary and against doing deals with the management.

4. That they all know that the cut in wages is imminent and that at that very moment Karpov is having a meeting with the management and will be coming out shortly to tell them how it's gone.

5. That this is not, therefore, just any old lunch break.

6. That what IS strange and new, however, is Ivan wrapping the Canteen lady's goods.

7. That even before Worker One gets the wrapping paper in his hand he knows that he's getting a leaflet.

8. So does Worker Two. The only problem for Worker Two is: He can't read it.

9. That Worker One will have spotted that Ivan has a lot of 'wrapping paper', that they are all the same and that all the other people who get food will have the same 'wrapping paper' too.

So, why does he say: How do I know what's written on your wrapping paper?

Strange? Not really. BECAUSE S/HE IS TOO BUSY READING WHAT THE WRAPPING PAPER SAYS TO HEAR THE QUESTION. The next line makes it doubly clear: "Quite right, it says something.' And 1st Worker's: "So, what?" also makes clear that she wants to know too. The Second Worker's "Good for them" is actually about WHAT SHE'S READING IN THE TEXT. SHE'S AGREEING WITH WHAT IT SAYS. She then turns to to Worker One and informs her: "they say if we get drawn into negotiations the more fools us."

The picture of Nuria and Tanya shows that Gestic Moment.

Tanya (Worker 2) has the leaflet in her hand; she has the information. She looks strong, clear and determined. Nuria WANTS the information - she appears less strong and she's leaning more than Tanya. However, she's looking straight at her, she's engaged and she looks as if she wants that information. And it's clear that Worker Two is not about to withold it it from her. Both are open to one another.

What is nice here is that this little episode is also an example of Brecht's SPASS, German for 'Fun'. First Worker's response: "You're holding one clever", indicates that both workers know one another and can 'josh' and tease one another. Brecht humanises them. They are not 'cyphers' : The Workers. They are not robotic automatons. They are two workmates with a sense of humour - and are made from real flesh and blood.

And so, from our careful - and patient - archaelogy of the text, we have excavated the scene ... The relationships of the characters emerge. But also the economic and historical relationships. The heart of this unit is not where we perhaps first thought it was. That it's not about Ivan and Pelagea but about two (and then three) workers' attitude to the strike.

In point of fact, they are all three for it. And had been even before Pelagea turned up. They haven't been 'converted' to the strike, or tricked into it by the revolutionaries. But they do want to know what the leaflet says.

And that was another thing we discover: the leaflet does not just say: 'STRIKE! TOMORROW! 9.00. DON'T BE LATE'. No, it contains a case. Arguments. Why the strike should be called. What others might say to stop it. Why their ideas have to be resisted.

And the three workers we see are hungry for this information. In the next unit (Karpov's speech) and the following song we can deduct that these workers are ALREADY highly politicised (not by the revolutionaries but by the situation) and in the next scene Ivan tells Pelagea that the strike vote was almost 100%.

Furthermore, in Scene Five we can see that the whole economic and political situation is highly volatile. There are troops on the street. The police are armed. And they shoot. All these 'little' events in this one 'little' factory are not isolated but part of something massive, perhaps cataclysmic that's sweeping the whole country, unless the authorities can keep the lid on it.

Even in Russia, even in 1900, troops didn't shoot people in the street every day of the week. In good times, a good worker can eat. And so can her children.

It's interesting to think, by the way, that these event are taking place at almost the same moment in time as the events in The Seagull, Three Sisters and Uncle Vanya.

In the same country - the same country, which is another country.

While Vanya is bleating on about the fact that he's 47 and hasn't done much with his life or Nina dreams of being an actress, the Suchlinov workers don't know whether they eat tomorrow and Smilgin lies dead in the street, a police bullet through his heart.

Black Friday

2005-03-07T00:30:00.000Z

Laura Van Dolron

What's Laura Van Dolron, got to do with last Friday? Nothing - directly - apart from me trying to cheer everyone up with an eyecatching photo, but I've spent most of my weekend organising a showcase of her work in London at the end of the month.

Laura recently graduated from De Toneelacademie Maastricht and has been carving out a successful career as a theatre maker in Holland and Belgium and this month starts a tour of European cities. My theatre company is very pleased to be hosting her visit to London.

So, if you're around on April 1st, in the evening, in Covent Garden, there a special performance of the show to which London Met Students are invited. There'll be some wine type stuff there as well. Not a date you're likely to forget, April Fools Day Evening...

And the show is particularly of interest to students - I'm inviting my third years as well - because Laura was a student herself until three years ago. And yet she has made, with the barest essentials, really exciting theatre - on a shoestring.

So, Sunday night. No blog from Friday. Slapped wrists. But there will be. Briefly:

We look, both groups, with our 'director's hats on' at the beginning of 'The Swamp' scene. How, in partiuclar, to place the participants in the scene in such a way as to tell the story well and economically. We wonder whether all the workers should be sat together or more spread out. We look at where Ivan should be when Pelagea comes into the yard. We allow ourselves to fall into the trap of wondering where to place Ivan so that his lines can be heard, rather than analysing the scene for what is happening - and, therefore what it means.

And therfore how to present it.

Nonetheless, despite my pre-weekend dopiness, some very good student contributions. Dean for directing work on the scene. Charlene for a brilliant - and truthful - portrayal of Hitler writing his favourite poem. To Cat in the other group for her brave taking of the bull by the horns and giving us a stirring Karpov speech off a chair (reading off the 'autocue' of the OHP). George Bush could have done no better.

This is the second time that Cat has overcome reluctance, either her own or someone else's, to say: 'I'll do it'. Someone stepping forward. A volunteer for a suicide mission which turns into a hero mission worthy of the Victoria Cross. And I have to say most people admire such bravery.

Bravery not unlike Vlassova picking up Smilgin's Flag...

This followed by similar bold work by Abigail, Tom and Chris. Grace also had a shot at it, carrying on Cat's baton. Chris, please remind me if I've missed anyone out - or misremembered some names. I'm losing brain cells by the handful, remember.

Mother Scene 3. Fourth Thursday. Class 11.

2005-03-04T01:08:00.000Z

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

2005-03-04T00:00:00.000Z

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

2005-03-01T16:52:00.000Z

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

2005-03-01T14:17:00.000Z

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

2005-02-28T16:00:00.000Z

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

2005-02-27T13:55:00.000Z

Gherkins
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

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

Friday February 25th

2005-02-25T22:00:00.000Z

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

2005-02-25T11:12:00.000Z

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

Has Anything Changed?

2005-02-25T10:25:00.000Z

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

The Bread Trick

2005-02-25T10:13:00.000Z

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

2005-02-24T23:54:00.000Z

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

2005-02-24T10:00:00.000Z

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

2005-02-22T12:11:00.000Z

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

2005-02-21T10:00:00.000Z

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

2005-02-20T23:01:00.000Z

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.

Second Friday - Another White Room

2005-02-18T21:52:00.000Z

Back in Room 57 we continue our work on the text. Our second day.

But first, a warm up. In the spirit of improvisation we add to our repertoire of 'contact' and 'non-contact' - 'sound'. Again A and B. A has to stand behind B this time and must offer to B a way of changing her physicality - but only by use of her voice. At no time should A touch her partner. Or even be seen by her partner. Keep to the back.

We vary this too. We have two 'conduct' a whole line of subjects. We pair off again and we combine non-contact with sound and A and B take it in turn to 'alter'. Later on, we 'break out' and everyone is free to go and play with anyone in the group who takes their fancy.

There is no chaos. Openness reigns. Receptivity reigns. People both offer and accept within the blinking of an eye.

In the script, Pelagea Vlassova has guests. The revolutionaries come round to print their leaflets but she's not happy. When her son Pavel asks her to make them some tea she says she hasn't enough tea to make them tea. So he says: Make them weak tea. She tells them that she's behind with her rent as it is and doesn't want to get into trouble with the landlord. However, one of the revolutionaries tells her that their main concern is her rent...

With the second group (though I could equally have done it with the first) I ask the audience: "Who looks the more open?" "Who looks the stronger?" "Who looks the more awake?" They decide. I then ask Polly to physically rearrange the actors in any way she wants. She makes them look very much more strong and open. And alike.

It could have been done for the first group. It may well be in the future....

We continue.

At that point in the story the police burst in. Neither Group has an immediate solution to the saying of the line: Police! The most intense first efforts sounding like: I've cracked my nail varnish! Both actors charged with the line in this rehearsal need prompting to find more vocal energy. In Group B Carlo demonstrates and the actor charged (Rebecca) finds a more appropriate level. Hesitantly at first. But then more confidently.

With both Groups - but the second in particular - the question of the Brechtianness of the performances raises its ugly head. Are they putting too much 'emotion' into the saying of the lines? Are they saying the lines 'neutrally' enough? I ask them how they say the lines neutrally? Some say: Well, in a Brechtian way. ie Brecht = Neutral. Yes, I say, but what, PRACTICALLY speaking is this 'Neutral' they're talking about? Do they mean 'without life'? 'Without energy'. In a dead way? How?

Hannah says she is confused. She thinks we may be using too much vocal energy. Pushing our voices. Articulating from the throat. I lay a card on the table. I say I think that we may be, but it is important to commit vocally to the text. Better, perhaps at this stage in the process, to overcommit than to undercommit. Grandmother's Footsteps again come up. Chi, too. The energy that you have in Tai Chi or in Yoga or Martial Arts. Something very alive and strong but not necessarily showing - until it shows.

We must be patient. These are early days. But no one speaks in a foreign language today. We stick to the Engllish text. And we go off for the weekend knowing that we will not be able to go off to Off Stage until Monday afternoon at least. And even then I have my doubts.

Also, still no music.

Second Thursday

2005-02-17T22:00:00.000Z

We move on to the text. Only one person in Group B has a script - they've not ordered enough at Off Stage - but we survive.

Non-contact improvisation. More difficult than the contact kind. Some people seem to want to complicate the task. Or to lose some of the simplicity that they had before. Whereas one of the main goals in the first instance was to make something strong and clear with their partner, now some start to work against their partner. Someone jars her shoulder. Others lose focus. Become repetitive. Stale. But not all and after reminders all re-focus.

We look, both groups, at Pelagea's first speech in which she tells us that she's ashamed of the soup that she's forced to give her son Pavel. She tells us that her son's wages have just been cut one kopek at the factory. She tells us that she's worried that she can't do her job properly as a mother, that her son is growing away from her and will leave her once she becomes completely useless.

We use our lack of scripts to our advantage. Only some can read. Most have to listen. Most have to watch. Listening and watching are good things to do. We do a variety of things with this one speech. We read it. We practise reading it with the read, engage the audiences eyes - and say method. We do it (with one group) where a 'prompter' reads it to an 'actor' and the actor says it - again using the eyecontact so vital. We do it from memory after spending a few minutes with a partner deciding the main points of the speech or the structure or narrative of the speech.

We do it that way in Swahili, in Farsi, in Portuguese, in Spanish and in a little Catalan and in Lithuanian. I like it this way and although not everyone does, it does seem to fit with the title of the Act: Vlassovas of all Countries. It gives me some ideas as to how we might begin our 'showing' at the end of term.

St Valentine's Day Session

2005-02-14T22:00:00.000Z

a.. What the students knew, understood, imagined concerning Brecht,>> what he was as a man, playwright; what they knew about his writing, politics, theory of presentation, what is alienation?, etc. Many knew something and a few had a grasp of 'epic theatre' and how it differed from theatre they knew and the type of characterisation on display. >most understood the concept of 'context' and it's importance in the expression of socialist drama.>>>>>>>>>

b.. Fortuitively and as it was St Valentines Day we talked briefly and generally about the nature of 'love'>it's expression, nature, demonstration, context, etc>identifying samenesses and differences i.e. between lovers, siblings, close friendships, between parents and children, etc. Then specifically related this to the play and a 'mothers love for her son', what she would be prepared to sacrifice [personally and politically] for the well-being of her son and, eventually, the well-being of her greater family, or her class, etc. All of this was re-related back to their own lives, relationships, etc What is loyalty? Support for another? Is this a 'love'? Who would you do anything for, and why? What are the boundaries? Kill for love?

c.. Work-out in the space>>>concentration, listening, imagination, physicality, etc>lot of talk/sharing in pairs and small groups with emphasis on generosity, acknowledgement, etc. Led to each choosing a mark/colour/shape/line on floor which they focussed on in different ways incl eventually using it as the focus for their own sense of belonging and security, their need to protect, etc as a mother with her own son. Experiencing a sense of loss as they moved away and need to protect if threatened and fulfilment on return. Both groups entered into spirit of work-out with enthusiasm

d.. Gave each student pairing a list of 'Brecht quotes' [copy enclosed], which I pulled down from the Internet. Each pair were asked to 1] choose a quote, 2] agree what they thought he meant given the circumstances at the time, 3] what this meant to them now [did it still mean the same or have any modern currency] 4] talk about a scene or scenario that best demonstrated [dramatically] the quote chosen. This was later shared with the others. The exercise worked well but demonstrated where they are politically i.e. most analysis was domestic and few had any real sense of a wider political world where a workforce, or class struggled against the power-broker.>along the lines of 'if I strike because I can't make ends meet it might mean that the boss might not also be able to feed his family!!!!

e..Enjoyed working with them. Think some students very insightful but articulate from the relative comfort of 2005 western society.

Roger Watkins

Roger Watkins

2005-02-12T12:08:00.000Z

Roger Watkins
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

Roger Watkins, actor, director, writer, teacher, colleague and friend will take Bert's class on Monday 14th February - Valentine's Day - from 10 to 1.00. Hopefully, students will have mostly acquired scripts of The Mother by the beginning of next week. And now, in week two, we will begin to get to know the play....

Friday

2005-02-11T22:03:00.000Z

Observation. We do the Installation exercise. I tell each group that everything in the room has been put here by an artist, including all the articles, bags, coats, shoes, water bottles they've brought in with them. They've come here, by themselves, to see the installation. I suggest that this is not an imaginative exercise but one of observation. What do they see? The other people are in the room, I tell them, but they have no need to interact with them, other than stand next to them or walk by them.

They begin to walk round. I let them do this for ten/fifteen minutes. We then stop. We go into a circle and people in turn talk about what they saw, what they liked, what caught their attention. People notice: the arrangement of electricity sockets round the room; a spoon with a piece of used chewing gum resting in it; a cutting from a newspaper stuck on the front of the TV saying: Unhappy ending; a hole in the ceiling through which someone may be watching us; 'stars' shining through another series of small holes round a light fitting; the pattern made by the fold-up desks on chairs looked at from a certain angle, a single unswept-up 'pearl' from a broken necklace in the corner next to a dustpan and broom; some fluff; a mark on the wall; a pipe on the wall; a pin on the floor; a beautiful poem written on one of the fold-up desk tops; another fold-up desk with God is Dead written on. Etc

Many of these individual observations are greeted with both amusement and murmurs of recognition from the others in the group.

We then do another circle of the circle and I ask everyone how they think this exercise might relate to Brecht. Many comment on how the simplest things contain a lot of detail or history or information. How when they first came into the room - and most hadn't been in it before - they thought it was rather boring and uninteresting, but that when they were asked to do the exercise they found more in it than they'd at first thought.

Quite a lot of people thought the exercise was interesting because it corresponded with the idea that Brecht had about looking at things afresh. About really looking at something. About not taking it for granted. About how he wanted you to look at something you thought you knew but actually didn't. Maybe that this was connected with this idea of making something strange. Making the familiar, unfamiliar.

I asked both groups why Brecht might want to do this. Was it just for its own sake? Just to get people to be more questioning about 'life'. Both groups thought it was more specific than that. Felt that it was because he felt that there was another way of looking at society....

We didn't really go any deeper into that issue .... it's only our first week! we can't get everything at once! Anyway, it's Friday, it's almost 5.00pm. It's been a pretty long first week. Let's leave time for thoughts to simmer.

The second half I asked each student to recall an accident or event that they witnessed. There was a drowning, a number of street accidents, including a man pulled into the path of a car by his dog, a 'happy slap' incident, a fight outside a club in which a man had a row with a doorman and then got punched by someone else who wouldn't let him back in the queue. Before each witness spoke of the incident to the group s/he 'roadtested' it with another students, in formal and more formal ways.

What was interesting was the simplicity of the stories' telling. The simplicity of gesture. In Carlos' story, a blonde girl who was knocked off her bike had long hair. He didn't say she had long hair, he only said she was blonde - but he did a gesture of drawing his hands down the side of his head which indicated long hair and I believe he did it both times - the first time when he told the story in Spanish and the second time when he told it in English.

I'm really glad I asked him to tell the story in Spanish too. Because Nuria in also a Spanish speaker and she was the only one to understand it the first time. From time to time she expressed surprise or horror as he heard the details. The only thing the rest of us could understand was 'Waterloo Bridge'. Then I asked Nuria to tell the story - again in Spanish. To my eye it was pretty similar. It seemed true to the original. Then I asked Carlos to do his same story - but this time in English - and now we understood it. Then I asked Abigail to tell the same story again - in English - but as Carlos had told it, including using his Spanish accent. To my mind she did it pretty accurately.

A number of people told other peoples' stories in the way that they had told them. Tanya told Tom's skateboard story like Tom. Hanna told Kayleigh's story about laughing at a woman who slipped in the street.

What I liked about all the work was it's economy. Amir's story about the man being pulled into the road by his dog was illustrated by a very memorable - and economical - gesture of the lead being wrapped round the man's wrist. It was so strong that in each subsequent version of this the 'imitator' adopted the gesture. Similarly Claudia's drowning story had one real gesture which was the way she saw the woman being lifted out of the water by her arms. It looked both playful and functional, the way two people might throw a flour sack off the back of a lorry.

We drew no hard and fast conclusions. The only point I made at the end was that though the stories were told economically they were not told, or retold in a lifeless or deadly fashion. That economy ≠ deadly or lifeless.

I announced that Roger Watkins would be Monday's teacher.

Die Mutter

2005-02-11T10:10:00.000Z

Listen to excerpts from Hans Eisler's score for Die Mutter from the Amazon Germany site! Samples include The Song of the Soup, In Praise of Communism, Stand Up!, In Praise of Learning and Under the Red Flag.

Enjoy!

Warcrime

2005-02-11T09:57:00.000Z

Hope you've had a chance to look at the warcrime site. If not, just follow the link:
Warcrime

yin\yang

2005-02-10T22:47:00.000Z

yin:yang
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

Learning Thursday

2005-02-10T17:14:00.000Z

Everyone present. Everyone on time.

Lots of paperwork to start. Reading assignment texts. Reading assignment instructions. Links to websites - including the blog. Chance to go to the Amazon Germany site and listen to a few samples from Die Mutter. Tony has a couple of these CD's ordered at the moment.

Today, all about LEARNING AND TEACHING. We started with Hide and Protect. (and Grandmother's Footsteps). We then did quite a lot of work on Contact Improvisation in pairs.A and B. One offers. One accepts. The main points here are that:

The energy of accepting should be no more and no less than the energy of offering.
That while the one who offers must have confidence, the one who accepts should have trust.
That both the offering and accepting should be unconditional

Then, in pairs, we taught one thing to our partner and learned one thing from her. Maybe a dance step, a rhythm, a nursery rhyme, a trick. In pairs we had to present it to the rest of the class.

We then looked at the whole question of learning styles; visual, auditory, kinesthetic.... Of how both learning and teaching are entwined. Of the teacher's responsibility to the student... and vice versa. And the trust, vice versa. About the presentation of what has been learned. Of performing it with confidence. As well as with care.

Of the ying and yang of Brecht. The dynamic of opposites. Of discipline and playfulness

Talked about discipline balanced with playfulness. Alertness of the people waiting to creep up on Grandmother. Stillness of people ready to sneak up. But the moment she turns her back - they are full of tricks. Full of mischief. Full of life. Full of movement. Stillness doesn't = lifelessness.

Yin and Yang connected to Dialectics?

Diesel

2005-02-08T13:08:00.000Z

Diesel
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

A motor for the poor designed by a German socialist engineer. Diesel fuel was once one fifth the price of petrol.

Bertolt Brecht

2005-02-08T12:14:00.000Z

Bertolt Brecht
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

A German Marxist playwright, director and poet.

Bertolt Brecht

2005-02-08T11:17:00.000Z

Bertolt Brecht
Originally uploaded by stevie t.

An English diesel train named after a German Marxist playwright, director and poet.

Steve T

2005-02-08T10:55:00.000Z

Originally uploaded by stevie t.

An English teacher, student and lover of the lessons of a German Marxist playwright, director and poet.

Happy Monday

2005-02-07T22:24:00.000Z

Dear Students

So. We've met. (Most of us; most of us on time. It will be ALL of us on Thursday). No more dead Grannies. We pray.

Here are my, observations of what happened:

Group A. A lot of time taken up with talking about lateness. About not being there. But then we started. With a warm-up. We walked round the room in a number of ways. We changed direction at 90 degree angles. We tip-toed. We crawled. We made curved lines. We slithered. We tried to observe what other people were doing as we walked. To be observant. A little later we formed a circle, joined hands and sent a squeeze round the circle to make sure we were in contact as a group. The group very important. Focus very important.

We split into pairs and we had 3 minutes each to find out as much about the other person as we could. At the end of it we all got in a line against the wall and indiviuallly came out to speak. But as the person we'd been speaking to. Some boys were girls. Some girls grew babies. Some mothers were childless for a few minutes.

We made a circle and we went round in turn, each person saying one thing about BB. If you didn't want to say anything you said: Pass. Steve said YES or THANK YOU after each comment, but it wasn't meant that any one comment was 'correct' or 'better' than the next. Steve kept his own clear opinions to himself.

We then had to form into groups of about 4 people and perform a scene from 'an undiscovere Bertolt Brecht play' from the year 1930. The idea was to incorporate each group's IDEA of what such a play might contain. There was about 5 minutes allowed for the brainstorming and rehearsal of this. They were then performed in front of the rest of the group.

Steve asked us to then say what happened or what we SAW. To describe the events. Like a witness or a reporter. What went on. We then sat in a circle again and Steve asked us what was going on in 1930 in the world. We talked briefly of some of the events. Of what it might have been to have lived at that time. Talked of the First World War. Talked of The Great Depression. Wall Street Crash. This led to Steve asking if anyone in the group was a mother. And one person was. Sandra. Steve knew that already but didn't let on. Sandra was a student of his last year who had to drop out for a while.

Steve was pleased that Sandra was in the group. We had real experience to measure our discussions by.

We talked of the qualities needed to be a mother. Some spoke of being less selfish. Of thinking less of yourself. Taking care of another. Steve then said that we would be studying a Brecht play called The Mother. What would happen if it was the Depression and you didn't have any food for your baby? What would you be prepared to do? Beg? Steal? Prostitute yourself?
Sandra spoke strongly about her knowledge of women who'd been in such extreme states. Of women in Jamaica who would go out to earn a little rice or chicken for her babies. Our time came to an end. The two tasks for Thurs: to write our (B)log for the class and to research a bit more on the period leading up to 1930 in Europe, the climate in which BB was writing.

Group B
Very much the same as Group A but with these differences:

When I mentioned the question of Dead Grannies and how the Grannies stopped dying once the students at Mountview were threatened with losing good parts in next term's show, Nuria said that she had two children. What would happen if one of them was taken ill and had to go to hospital? That her father died two months ago in Spain.... Did the Dead Grannies Rule still apply? Steve said that he thought she already knew the answer.

We didn't do a physical warm up. It was now mid-morning.

Nuria was, of course, our real mother. We also had, in this section of the class, more time at the end to probe the idea of what would you do if your baby needed feeding and you had nothing to give it? We concretely asked the NI student (Hannah?). Ok. So. You've tried everything. But you can't find any money to feed the baby. And she's been crying all day. Now this lorry driver comes along (the student sitting next to me in the circle). He says he'll give you five rand if you sleep with him. What would you do? Hanna ? said she wouldn't do it? Steve asked her what would she do instead? There are loads of women in this town. None of them have any real work or money. Many of them would be happy to sleep with the lorry driver.
Even though it might mean another baby or - particularly in this country - a big risk of Aids. Hannah? then asked 'the lorry driver' if he would wear a condom and he refused. One student said she'd just kill her baby. A number of students insisted you'd do anything to protect the child, no matter what the 'morality' of the situation: stealing, deception, prostitution. Bread before morals. Nuria - the real mother in this group - kept saying you'd do anything, with similar intensity to that of Sandra in the first group. Our time came to an end and the tasks they had for Thursday were the same.