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adventureswow-blog · 7 years

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#23

We have finally finished our Theatre of Cruelty unit, after about one month of research and devising a piece. Our Theatre of Cruelty unit began back in November, but our (by "our" I mean the HL Y2 students) interest in the Theatre of Cruelty began back in year one, when we saw that the year two students were doing their Theatre of Cruelty unit. The year two students at that time had plastered large white sheets of paper on the walls of the black box and had painted red hand prints. That eeriness and creepiness led to an interest in the Theatre of Cruelty that all of shared, and it seemed so much more interesting than what we were doing at the time, which was studying "A Doll's House". During the collaborative project that year, some of my peers decided to study theatre of Cruelty and attempted to make their piece align with the genre of theatre. That did not work out for them at that time, but their prior research and study of the genre was definitely an advantage for us when we began our collective research and devising during the Theatre of Cruelty unit.

It came as a bit of a surprise that we would not be going through the Theatre of Cruelty unit without teacher, but that does not go to say that the newfound independence was not beneficial in the long run. We were to do all of research, devise, and apply said research on our own. One challenge that we faced is that we are all friends, and this unit was the first time that we working in one large group. Because we are all friends, at times it felt like we were just hanging out and it became hard to focus. However, since we all had a special interest in the Theatre of Cruelty, so that allowed us to eventually pull through and focus enough to research the genre of theatre to a better extent. We were separated from the Year One students as they stayed in the black box, while we went up to the library to brainstorm and research. Last year, our past theatre teacher had sent us some links to great websites for theatre, so we started there in terms of research. We found that Theatre of Cruelty, rather than trying to scare an audience, it aims to convey the emotions and feelings of fear that an audience member might feel. We researched some background information about Antonin Artaud, the mind behind the Theatre of Cruelty, and tried to see how his personality and life experiences may have had effects on the the genre and the aspects of theatre that make Theatre of Cruelty what it is. Once everyone realized that the objective was not to make the audience be scared, but rather feel the emotions of fear, discomfort, or terror, we were able to start brainstorming what we wanted our piece to be like and to begin our devising process.

The first thing that we did was that we sat in a circle and talked about our fears. We asked the simple question of “What scares you?” and talked about our fears. First, the fears like spiders, snakes, cats, roaches, clowns, etc. were discussed. We talked about the feelings that we felt when we encountered said things, tried to pinpoint what the source of the fear was, and tried to explain exactly what happens when we are scared. However, soon enough, the discussion took on a deeper level, and we discussed more internal fears, the more emotional and psychological fears that we all had. Fears like the fear of trusting others completely, of gaining weight, of losing our loved ones, of knowing what is real and what is not, of being alone, of trusting ourselves, of not constantly having control, all came out and we all learned more about each other on a deeper level. However, though none of us explicitly stated it, we all had a fear of being controlled. I think that the sort of uneasiness that we had an image of in our minds aligned with the idea of people being controlled. So what makes being controlled such a scary thing and why were all kind of drawn to the idea in a sense that we thought it could be portrayed well in this genre of theatre? Theatre of Cruelty takes performers away from a physical performance and attempts to connect the audience with the performance on a deeper and more mental level. Having control is not an option during a piece for the audience, so we thought it would be interesting to play around with that lack of control and show even the performers having total uncontrol, almost being slave to an unknown force. We threw around different ideas, some kind of outlandish, some a bit cliche, but eventually we knew that we would not be able to devise until we just went into the black box and played around with different ideas in the space in which we would perform.

We had heard of an activity to just turn off all of the lights and scream as loud as we could for as long as we could. We decided to test it out, and the results were genuinely cathartic. Just screaming into a dark space with no limits was freeing and in a way relieved a lot of stress. At that time, I was a part of the school production of The Importance of Being Earnest, so I actually did have a limit to how much I was allowed to scream, but I still enjoyed doing that warm up for this unit. One thing that happened during this time in terms of the group dynamic that I was not particularly thrilled about was how one extra group member was added by the some group members without consulting the other group members. I have absolutely nothing against the new group member (and she is in fact a lovely performer, but this is not about her level as a performer), but I felt like when impulsive decisions are made without the approval and discussion of the entire group, things can get messy. I just felt as if that in a group where important decisions were made without the opinions of the entire group, some people’s voices get drowned out, which is never fair. Nonetheless, we went to work and began devising.

For me personally, I think in sounds and in music. I am a visual learner, but a auditory creator, as much sense as that might make. When learning new concepts, I need to look at images of words to remember things, but I think and feel with the help of music. Certain sounds or songs or rhythms make me think of different moods, images, and in this case, scenes. While in the library, I had played a video of Guy Fieri saying “flavortown” but it had been multiplied to about four million times, and had created an uneasy and uncomfortable sound. My groupmates agreed that they thought it was creepy, and I loved the fact that something as everyday as Guy Fieri could be incorporated into a theatre piece. When we began devising in the black box, we put a GIF of moving eyes on the projector and turned off all of the lights. We also turned on the “Flavortown” noise. To go along with the idea of being controlled, I played around with moving my hand in front of the projector. I was thinking about the film, Coraline, in which hands act as an omen for bad luck and being controlled. One of our group members stood right in front of the projection, so the light hit them but still was visible. I used my hand to guide their movement and exaggerated the movement of my hand to show control and manipulation. That, along with the “Flavortown” noise led to the creation of the first scene that we created.

We played around with sounds, lights, and were able to continue the devising process. Rather than focusing on a concrete story, we thought it was more important to focus on creating a feeling of fear. I felt a connection between Theatre of Cruelty and Butoh, a Japanese theatre tradition that I had conducted a workshop on last year, and decided to look for music that was used in Butoh. I found soundtracks and in my mind, images of possible scenes formulated in my mind. We all worked together marvelously and we constantly were trying to help each other. There was never a time in which I felt like the work load was just on one person. During this whole process, my favorite scene was when we had two people in boxes facing each other, with Lulu standing in the middle of the two. From those boxes, hands came and tried to grab at Lulu and pull her down. Lulu hoisted herself into the air and was almost climbing to get away from the hands. During that part of the performance, there was a red light shining and the song playing had a melancholic gong and violin combination, which I think made one of the most powerful moments of theatre that I have ever been a part of. That bit made me remember exactly why I love theatre so much, and just how tender the emotions are in creating pieces.

For this piece, I took on more of a directorial role. That was difficult because I love performing, as well. Finding a balance between the two has always been a struggle for me, but this time I decided to let go of being both a performer and director, and just decided to direct. I’ve realized in the past few months that I am a bit of a control freak, so being in control of some aspects of this performance was something that appealed to me. However, I think that the real learning will happen when I am given relatively little control, so I can learn to adapt to both a leader and a follower. We received amazing feedback from teachers and faculty and students, that fulfilled all that we could have wanted to hear from the audience. As a creator and a designer, this performance was extremely fulfilling, as I was absolutely amazed by what my peers and I accomplished together. As a director, I was able to grow from this experience and experiment with my creative limits. For me, art is bigger than just a summative that can be graded or something that get a round of applause. Art is something that sticks with humans, long after they go home and return to their regular lives, it lives on in the minds and souls of those who it touches, which makes me feel blessed everyday to have opportunities to create art.

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