Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Greek Theatre



Greek Chorus [1]

GREEK THEATRE

Intro

Our new project is Greek Theatre.  This project is to help us discover a new physical theatre and learn particularly about Greek Theatre Chorus to learn how to be in a chorus as a group.  Our aim at the end was to understand and perform several parts of The Oresteia Part 2 - libation bearers.

Research

One of the two main ways that people still know about Ancient Greek Theatre from Classical Athens is they still have 45 texts plays so people understand the stories behind each when understand about it from the playwrights meaning.  Also they have many ancient sources, that have remained like Pots. Greeks loved and were known to paint theatrical scenes from their famous myths on vases or pots.

Greek Pot - Left to right from the play Agamemnon -  Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, Agamemnon, Electra and Cassandra [2]


Aeschylus was the Greek playwright we have been looking at.  The picture above on pot is about when King Agamemnon comes home from war he brings the Trojan priestess called Cassandra back to his home who has become his slave.  Whilst he has been away Aegisthus, his cousin has ruled the Kingdom since he's been  away.  His children Electra and Orestes but, Electra is only one shown here to meet her father when she gets home.  I found out later on Clytemnestra the wife of Agamemnon isn't pleased when his husband has returned home finding out Iphigeneia there oldest daughter was killed by him and ends up killing him. [3]  This play is a Greek Tragedy which is one of the genres of drama by the Greeks. 

The other two genres of drama are Saytr and Comedy.  The way that each actor performs in the play is they use an over exaggerated mask that will give all the detail and expression they want to depict this emotion.  Depending on the mask, will depend on the character.  Low and poor classed masks where used for Comedy whilst beautiful masks are used for Tragedy.  However, the masks used for comedy could also be used for Saytr they were 'very rude comedy plays' as Dr Sean McEvoy explains. They wore the masks as to the actor it was a religious ritual.  The were allowed 3 masks which meant they had 3 different roles to speak theatre in that play. [4]
  The Festival of Dionysus happens around March or April time also known to people as the time that the sailing season has started.  Greeks everywhere would come to this event and they loved competitions. In this festival, 3 of the Tragic playwrights would compete against each other but, they'd all be sponsored by a rich man who had paid for the production too.   A jury would of been selected so they could judge and pick who's was the best play.  It wasn't all about money but, having your name and the playwrights name of who won on a Theatre's wall showed recognition and pride. Something people would always remember when coming to that Theatre. [5]

The Orestia 

The Orestia Part 2 - Liberation Bearers [6]

The Orestia Part 2 - liberation bearers themes that are including in each play are fate, justice and revenge. Exile is very important too.  Orestes at the beginning of the play, wants return home and to a moment where he was happy when he's father was alive.  The belief for Orestes is that he would reclaim some past happiness if he kills his mother as he's doing it for his father.  It doesn't seem to make me happy though as the chorus ends up haunting him. [6]

The Greek Tragedy story where Orestes, son of King King Agamemnon has a quest to kill his mother Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus.  The Furies which are the chorus in this case are his persuasion to murder but, also end up hatting him from murdering them.  The God Apollo has promised him that he will not suffer for the crimes he was persuaded to commit. [7]

Group 2's start - Spring board moments

Karen separated us into groups based on our thoughts of each part that we read as a class.  The group that I was put in already had an idea.  One of the group members, James had an idea about we could modernise it and have a Mother's meeting that Orestes was the waiter and we were the mother's gossiping about it.  James's idea was hit, we did a spider diagram of ideas and also made some notes about what character we could be e.g. arrogant.  The video about Antigone a play performed in 2012 by to give them a identity and that even if they were individuals they were still part of the chorus. [8] 

We spaced out to show a mother's meeting from different areas of how the chorus would be haunting Orestes about murdering his mother and our views of what the chorus would think.  Instead of being crowded round a table, we were bringing the energy to life through the space.  To reveal Orestes we moved the table over his head and found ways as a group to grab the person who was Orestes down to great that the happiness wouldn't return the way he thought it would.

Using the idea of clockwork it turned out to be creepy and reveal that idea of something bad either happen or will happen based on the part we were given.  Adding the sound of cutting food also made a realistic but, the way we didn't seemed that even the things that could have been once normal didn't feel normal to Orestes any more. 

At times, when people were giving ideas I felt that this project was confusing me and struggled to understand how we could make it more effective than a mothers meeting.  My target would be to interact more and if I was confused I would find a way to understand.  Also another target was make sure I felt part of the chorus.

Different spring board idea - Senior children 

We jumped to a different idea about being senior school kids as we were told to modernise this piece and depict a different way to tell it than the original way that the playwright imagined it.  Remembering that we needed to perform to 15 to 16 years old as our audience.

To help us find a way to find out how to depict our group piece we wrote down on the board several lines and underlined the key words that we thought would give us an idea for an image.  For example, in the first line 'Let all who have prayed for justice.'  The key words that we agreed on were all, prayed and justice.  Katrina's idea was for us to show that the whole chorus would be in a praying position whether they were standing up or kneeling but, in this case praying for justice.  Saying it as a chorus sounded good but, the way we said it sounded chavy so, throughout the piece we would all sound like chavy school kids which worked very well as this piece was modernised.

The second line after that was about the throne of Argos.  Everyone agreed and liked the idea of creating a throne so, from our praying positions we were in me and Katrina creating the throne by becoming the throne's arms.  The rest of the group behind us became the rest of throne.  It created a clear image about a memory from Orestes past and the throne that was once his father's.

Continuing through the rest of the lines, that we wrote on the board we pieced together and creating some usual images that I didn't think we could come up with in a short space of time.  We all were involved and felt part of a Chorus.  The bit that I liked was that as a group they came up with having the imagery of me representing Orestes's mother and for me to put my arms away from my sides a bit so, the rest of the chorus could put the arms around me and surround me with knifes.  This depicts that it may have been one sword but, it felt like many swords and it showed us how much pain one sword could do because it was a murderous crime.

To add the idea that we were in a school and we were school kids we used the idea of having a school bell that would also give the idea that we would be starting a lesson but, adding a small scene that showed we had finished our break with the odd words it could give us a little introduction to the piece.  Also using props like bags made it more realistic than not just miming. Katrina and Becky liked the idea of the chattering off students being hushed by the bell to create it with a more realistic school effect.  As a group we liked there thinking and have used it in our piece, it's given it meaning but, made it more effective.

The idea of 'na na na na na' was Becky's choice because it was something that people would sing to tease otherwise.  I loved the idea that we could make it creepy with our Berkovian clockwork movements, I felt like we were being creepy clockwork dolls.

Karen gave us feedback to help us improve and find a way to complete the ending.  The idea that brought others in to mind was using the 'na na na na na' and humming together didn't show the creepiness and didn't seem like it would be uncomfortable to the audience.  So, we changed it to a hum that continued on for a long time as people joined in with me.  The stare and the head drop made people feel uncomfortable as Katrina watched us perform as a Chorus.  However, it only got ruined when it looked out of time with the hum or the head drop.  We did manage in the end.

The idea that made it very unusual from the start was that we wore tights over are faces where the audience saw our facial expressions exaggerated from the way we spoke to a give a creeper side to each character in the Chorus.  Also we could have a different identify but, use the same type of material to show we are all part of something.

Evaluation

Our performances included many strengths and improvements that we can take on board for other projects which are physical theatre based.  One of my strengths was that as a group I managed to remember the lines of the chorus which has been something I have been confused to remember and focused more on getting the physicality right.  I have managed to do perform the movements whilst speaking the words.  However, the weakness was towards the end of the piece I struggled to remember who said which line.  My target would be to find a way that I can remember my lines whether I record myself or practise with other members of my group more out side of lessons.

The story felt like an understandable piece for audience members of year 10 and 11.  The accent did feel like it disappeared half way through my performance and this became a weakness when I continued and covered it up with emphasizing words that were key to me.  Another target to help this weakness is to over exaggerate more when I spoke with the accent to help me complete the piece with the Berkovian accent because everyone else seemed to manage to get through the performance with that accent.

From only having two weeks to put a piece together, I feel like it was successful and we have worked well together.  We were able to resolve a weakness when Pau wasn't in the performance and it made us stronger as a group.

 Bibliography 

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)