Monday, July 26, 2010
New Blog Address!
Transition in London
July 25, 2010
I discovered Hampstead Heath today! It’s a lovely little area, very hilly. These past two days have included lots of walking and exploration. I’m sitting her right now in my room at the Kings College Hampstead residency reading a book by Thomas S. Turgeon entitled “Improvising Shakespeare: Reading for the Stage”. I’m hopeful this book will provide applicable research for my critical paper that focuses on the question why teach Shakespeare through performance. Forgive me here at this may be a bit tenuous, but it’s a bit like my walks in London, yes? My London walks create meaning and understanding of the “place” that I’m visiting. Rather than hearing or reading about the narrowed, bricked streets, I’m experiencing them; rather than taking the guidebook’s word that Camden Market is touristy or my fellow classmates’ word that Camden Market is fabulous I take a bus and an underground train to experience Camden Market for myself. The journey leads me to an understanding that is richer, more nuanced than having either read or heard about it. When I visit Camden Market I can haggle with the woman in the stalls (they’re much better at it than I am!); I can search out the scarves and in the process find fun printed tights. So perhaps I forcing a comparison here a bit, but as Suzanne Langer has written, “Shakespeare is essentially a dramatist, and drama is not, in the strict sense, “literature.” So, if this is the case, if you get a clearer understanding of a geographic place by experiencing it (walking it) because it is a place and not a point on a map than can it be true that for students to understand drama it should not only be read, but experienced as a theatre artist even if that theatre artist is studying in what amounts to a traditional classroom? As Turgeon writes, “In theatre, drama isn’t a genre of anything. Drama stands by itself.”
Back to Hampstead – great, quiet, residential area to stay – fun shopping and a great “Heath” to explore! Also, very accessible to Central London city – except on weekends when they seem to close many tube lines for maintenance!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Two Posts in One - A Transition
A Word on the Scottish Play Performances
Bravo Globe directors and practitioners and bravo fellow Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance Educators! Under the guidance of these talented and creative Globe directors and practitioners we developed a full performance of scenes that told the story through movement and dialogue. I’m proud to have been involved with this performance! At an hour when Shakespeare’s Globe is silent and still, we breathed life into this old tale of power and passion, tragedy and ambition ultimately telling the story of these characters, their relationships, through their sometimes chilling and perverse actions and we through it all we became an ensemble of actors! We put techniques and skills of interpretation learned in this course with our own experiences. I’m excited to be able to bring this work back having been part of the work we created! It provides a solid and full range of experiences that I can share and continue to develop! Many thanks to all at The Globe and to The English Speaking Union! Cheers!
This is the end of my blog just a brief transition as I continue my explorations of London and England!
July 24, 2010
Last Night was out last night at The Globe! I just turned in my evaluation of the program and am sitting on the upper level looking out on the wooden doors that lead into The Globe theatre. I have three weeks of experiences, learning, relationships and reflections to draw on as I move forward as an artist educator. Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance has provided me with a solid foundation of the depth of understanding and care that has gone into creating Shakespeare’s Globe today. The individuals with the program have shared their work and love of Elizabethan theatre with us and I’m leaving with strategies and techniques applicable to many genre – much of which has been part of my work as a theatre artist educator. NOW, it’s specifically part of my repertoire in working with Elizabethan Theatre. The barriers that sometimes used to get in my way in bringing Shakespeare to life both as an artist and an educator have been turned into the challenges, expectations and creative explorations that I face in telling every story I tell! The background that I’ve experienced in how to tell these tales and how The Globe has been developed to celebrate these tales is inspirational!
Thursday, July 22, 2010
A Showcase of Process
July 22, 2010
Tonight we perform on stage following The Globe production. It’s a packed schedule through til tonight’s performance, which is really the culminating event of the course. It is called Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance. While I don’t want to reflect too much now as I want tonight to be fresh, clear, specific and energized, I can say with all certainty that the way to truly understand Shakespeare is through performance. The practitioners have engaged us with various performance explorations throughout these three weeks that are very similar to theatre games and exercises that I use regularly both with students in class in the rehearsal process. While there’s certainly a bit more “table work” to understanding Shakespeare the process we’ve engaged with has interspersed doing and experiencing with thinking about and it works. I’ve discovered new things about Macbeth and am enjoying every minute of playing with this guy – this guy who while at first would undo what he has done – lives his life fully, powerfully and ambitiously – with a huge nod to his wife though he continues to cleave on without her!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
London Walking
July 21, 2010
Just a quick post to catch up on my explorations today; I’ve absolutely loved walking around London and today was no exception. I had a couple of goals: find a post office, buy tea at the Twinings shop on Fleet St., find a Boots and most of all continue to use walking to fulfill my curiosity and bring deepen my understanding of London. Let me say that these walks and again today was no exception often take me always take me somewhere new and at least a little unexpected – of course this is my first time – but also give me the reassurance of glimpsing something I know – like the glimpse around a corner (and of course up) of St. Paul’s, coming around the bend in a narrow road and there’s Trafalgar’s Square or seeing the sign post for Southwark St. (I can now pronounce this correctly even in my head as I write). So today I found St. James Park, was on the Mall leading to Buckingham Palace and got a sense of the geographical relationship of Westminister and Buckingham Palace – all on a beautiful, sunny London day. And of course I ended in with a brisk stroll along the Thames. Even got a photo with Jack Sparrow – that’s for Gus and Dylan which I try to insert in the blog!
Rehearsals and Amazing Architectures
July 21, 2010
Last night included a visit to The Royal Albert Hall to see a BBC Poms Concert that included works by Mendelssohn, Schuller, and Wagner. We paid 7 pounds for a restricted view and although you could only see a portion of the orchestra, we could easily see the conductor, organist (pretty amazing) and soloist. What wasn’t at all “restricted” was our view of the interior of the building and the people in the audience. Being up in the nose bleed section allowed me to listen to the music, which at any time could be delightful, thrilling, foreboding, soul searching, reflective and silent – the moments of silence were truly magical and at the same time really engage with looking around the splendor of the venue.
Yesterday afternoon we got into the meat of the full ensemble scene. This is a cut version of the beginning of Macbeth just prior to and when Macbeth and Banquo encounter the witches. This is a large group scene as there are 22 of us, and Adam, a senior practitioner and our director for this scene, took movement that our movement teacher Gylnn had worked out and then played with it. The basic concepts were very clear to me and one’s similar to what I will often use in “blocking” or finding movement for a scene. Adam took the most important moments, action, relationships in the scene and physicalized those really into very briefly frozen tableaux/pictures and then used movement to go from one to the other adding the dialogue as action that moved the story through. In the case of the witches the movement is stylized and employs changes in tempo and vocal expression that are stylized as well. However Macbeth and Banquo speak, relate to one another and move in a naturalistic way, as two humans would relate to each other. This provides further contrast with the witches showing the relationship between those characters, Macbeth, Banquo and the witches and at the same time providing glimpses into their own unique natures. Well done,
Adam! And (as much of this work with Globe Education has been) nicely reassuring that this way of working can bring about understanding and is a successful process to connect actors, especially student actors with how to use their bodies as well as their voices to tell the story of the play.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
July 20, 2010
It’s Tuesday of our final week at The Globe. I’ve been remiss in updating my blog as I’ve been trying to move it to another site. Since I haven’t had any luck with that I’m going to update this blog. Rest assured that I’ll put the new link on this blog when it’s all figured out!
Friday evening July 16th we rehearsed our small scenes on The Globe stage. This was a truly magical experience. Five of us, five teachers from America, plus our British director, literally working on, playing on, exploring this stage, The Globe stage, which is as renowned in our theatre history as the ancient Greek stages. So, what in my opinion makes this experience unique? Well, first we are on stage at midnight – it’s quiet and empty. There’s a solemn atmosphere and yet it’s magically all lit up – all lit up on the stage and the audience, from the yard to the galleries, right up to the boxes. It’s easy to believe that you’re connection extends beyond the stage right to the audience at your feet and further, but never much further, to those seated in the galleries and boxes around the yard. We only had 30 minutes, but we began to make the space our home, moving in the whole space, playing, skipping, sitting, climbing stairs and filling the space with our lines from one actor to another and from actor to imaginary audience member. Connection.
And this is where The Globe stage becomes like other stages, in our work, our playing of the work, our playing with each other as our acting partners, our exploration of the relationships between characters and the actions (both implicit and hidden) of those famous Shakespearean words –
“Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:
Making that vision of a dagger with which to murder Duncan specific and real is what counts, so connection with words and connection with an acting partner, which in the case of the above example becomes the audience. And of course, there is connection with the space. How to make what is a massive space specific to the action that’s occurring? Rehearsals for this continue – our whole group performs a series of scenes that tie the play together from beginning to end. The scenes will be performed using various techniques and will tell the story of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Duncan, the Witches and Macduff, Malcolm and all the others in this tale of power, ambition, witchcraft and horror. How will our production differ from that of 1606 – there’s no recording to tell us and few writings, though we have a glimpse into the world of Elizabethan Theatre, (I believe I’ll save that for another post.) What remains the same is the story, the action and the characters who live and breath that story, performing Macbeth again this Thursday evening at the witching hour!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
On the left is from on The Globe Stage and on the right is in the audience as a groundling. The unique relationship between audience and actor is difficult to imagine until you experience it. Walking the stage today gave me insight into a relationship that I'll continue to explore as I rehearse the scenes for the program. More soon!
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Catching up! A long post, but worth it!
Connection. This morning, I began to consider the theme of connections in the study that I’ve undertaken. Connection; that word kept reinserting itself into the conversation in my head. It’s a reoccurring concept that is routed in us as human beings. While there are many examples of individuals who want to live alone; people build homes that are completely “off the grid”; even teen agers attempt to sail solo around the world; hikers who want to experience the Appalachian Trail by hiking its length from Maine to Alabama without a partner it’s rare that at some point those same individuals don’t seek to become part of a group to communicate with someone other than themselves to remain in contact with their loved ones. Today, with the vast array of communications at our finger tips it’s easier and faster than ever to connect. We can text, call (even from remote rural areas or from overseas), radio, tweet, facebook, skype, ichat, but when does connection become meaningful? When does communication fulfill that basic human need to connect?
That’s all pretty esoteric, but in my next few blogs entries I’ll be using that inquiry as a touchstone. I’ll reflect on the work at The Globe; as an engaged participant and audience member, exploring performance theories through critical and creative thinking about the text and aural and kinesthetic engagement with the text. I’ll also attempt to explore connection with and among my fellow students and Globe teachers and through my various explorations of London and the surrounding area.
So, I have some catching up. With any luck this may be on the Advocate Messenger site soon! Feel free to use this as some general thoughts about traveling to London… things to do and see with an arts emphasis.
FREE WEEKEND IN LONDON!
Not that everything was free – it wasn’t, but it was relatively inexpensive for a big city!
Friday evening several in my Teaching Shakespeare group took a trek to the Victoria and Albert, locally referred to as the V & A. This museum holds a lovely and fairly eclectic collection of artwork that includes 2D and 3D visual art from many genres and time periods, fashion, photography and an interesting architectural exhibit that was recently commissioned. The architecture exhibit consisted of small dwellings by seven architects from around the world and it was fascinating. The dwellings could be entered and explored. Out in the garden area (which included a very fun “paddling” pool and fountain was a structure constructed from bent and split tree trunks anchored in mesh bags of wood chips. To enter made one fill as if they had become a wood sprite for a moment in time. Another consisted of very small rooms cordoned off from a narrow angular staircase by red velvet curtains. Each space was lit almost like it could contain separate, unique and minimalist performances. The structure was metal and at the top on a small platform were small bits of hair gentled tied with a nametag. On a separate platform sat hairbrush and comb that looked like they set on a dressing table in the 1940’s. My favorite architectural structure was modeled after almost clandestine housing found in narrow alleyways in Mumbai India. Everything was narrow and very tight, narrow stairways, tiny rooms, low ceilings – if you met someone in a corridor you had to turn sideways to pass. Since I am slightly claustrophobic I thought this might not be from me, but the placement of “windows” and open spaces allowed for an open feel among all this closed narrow space. The interplay of light and air almost gave one permission to feel alive in these narrow closed spaces.
I’m finding myself drawn to 3D artwork. The connection probably being the theatre. As theatre artists we often create in 3D. Certainly The Globe stage requires that one think and explore relationship and text in a world where the audience sits around ¾ of the stage and even proscenium theatre requires depth and perspective. My exploration of theatre in the past week has included strong ties to space… I think often educational theatre ofteen superficially, fails to deal with actors in space, but our focus on the use of The Globe, on London in the early 1600’s and our visit to The Rose archeological site emphasizes theatre as a 3D art form. It makes us consider the actor in the space and the use of that space.
Today, one of my colleagues and I went to the Tate Britain and saw a great exhibit of sculpture by the artist Henry Moore. His shapes were organic, yet often were of figures. Mother and child was a reoccurring theme throughout his work and his powerful images evoked that relationship in many of it’s emotional states including a piece in which the child seemed to want to devour the female form of it’s mother and the mother was portrayed with a angular sharp head. Several of the other images showed the nurturing side of motherhood, but it was very interesting to have real emotional range portrayed in the sculptures.
Just an aside… most museums in London are free including the Tate and the V & A. There was a charge for the Henry Moore exhibit, but it was worth every penny!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Exploring Character from the Outside In or Inside O
Blog Entry July 6, 2010
Going back to Glynn MacDonald’ Movement Session: She’s trained in Alexander Technique has degrees in English Literature and Psychology and has been Master of Movement at the Globe since it began. Her work with us as students had a flow that moved from individual to group, from exercise to discussion, from evaluation to experience, from critical to creative thinking. Although I’ve worked with talented creative people and many have their own form of creative genius, I would label Glynn’s work as unique in perspective and execution.
What does it mean for the interpretation of Shakespeare? I would make the argument that it means far more than critical interpretation and that it goes to the very foundation of what was arguably Shakespeare’s original intent – to tell a good story! Three thousand audience members regularly attended performances at Shakespeare’s Globe, from the 1 Penny Stinkards to the wealthy business class seated in the balconies to the right and left of Juliet’s balcony who came as much to be seen as to be entertained. Shakespeare wrote for his audiences providing sides for actors with cues with as few as three words. Actors regularly had several plays memorized in their repertoire and little rehearsal time was provided; think of the example of Bottom and the Mechanicals in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
The movement work we explored with Glynn very quickly moved from an awareness of ourselves in space to how to use the body to create a character in that space. Drawing first on connection between actors and stressing the necessity of eye contact. Then adding to eye contact a touch of your hand to your actor partner. Next we added an awareness of the bum (that I just love) so that it follows you and becomes part of your movement. Lastly or perhaps just the end of this session was the sternum acting like a dagger to protect the heart. What a powerful image that gives you to work with and the dagger image comes from the Greek definition of sternum.
On to directions of movement and our homework: to take a few lines of a Shakespeare piece and apply the movement directions to the speech.
Oops - café lights coming up…. More tomorrow! And pictures from my walking Shakespeare day!
Cheers!
