At the Roundhouse theatre La boite in 2012 the play boy girl wall was performed by one man, Lucas Stibbard. The play is essentially a love story unlike what Stibbard says at the very beginning. The story is about a star-gazing boy, Thom, and a matchmaking wall, as well as Alethea the girl with the magpie after her. Along with a range of other characters, those three make up the title. This play’s didactic purpose to the audience is to make the audience overcome their fear. Stibbard effectively transmits this to the audience through conventions Brecht Theatre, such as V-effekt, Spass, Gest and multimedia.
Looking at the convention Mulitmedia, Stibbard used sound and projections. The space Stibbard used was large and was all painted black, like a floor plan, he would draw in his props with white chalk, he would pause the play to explain what he just drew, this goes on to V-effekt. Back to stagecraft, everything was in plain view, the projector stayed on stage the entire time. The set is split into three sections, a square for Thom’s apartment, a square for Alethea’s apartment, and a corridor where the days of the week are. The lighting on set is used for location, to locate
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areas as well as Stibbard, so the audience is able to see where he is, the lighting on the projector is also used, at some points in the play, Stibbard would stand behind the projector’s light and this portrayed a new character. How this all relates to the didactic purpose, is that the stagecraft is what sets the mood, and is how certain characters are portrayed like the magpie, the magpie is projected on the screen, which makes the bird seem larger and scarier. Stibbard didn’t have any costume changes, he was wearing a black suit, white shirt, black shoes and a navy blue tie which contrasts from the black and white, for the whole duration of the play, this was done to not create a connection between the characters and the audience, as having a costume for each character (There are a total of 27 characters) would detract from the meaning of the play as the audience would focus on the different costumes and not listen to the words being said. His costume is also used as a prop, his socks are used as sock puppets. This kind of stagecraft and multimedia elements are Brechtian and are used effectively for portraying the didactic purpose. Spass is the fun bit of the play, all the jokes and humour were all related to the convention Spass. The audience would laugh at all the sudden character changes, and that the magpie has balls the size of a kiwi fruit. This makes the audience laugh at the characters, not ever letting them connect with the characters, rather make fun of them. Stibbard uses his voice in varying tones for the characters, which makes the audience laugh. An example of this is the Scottish accent of the old cabbie driver, it makes him sound funny and the language is found funny to an Australian audience. Language creates character, with the weekdays, it is known that all the weekdays do not like Friday, other than Friday himself, who is always saying ‘Friday’ in a cheery, but manly way. The audience can’t connect with weekdays, because they are just weekdays and aren’t real people. How this matches up with the didactic purpose, is that it makes fun of people’s fears, using satire and stereotypes helps the audience laugh and overcome their fears, simply by being funny about it. The technique of alienation, in terms of Brechtian Theatre, Verfremdungseffekt/ V-effekt, is what makes the audience, not relate with the characters, the audience must be alienated as that is a must for Epic Theatre. How this is portrayed is by the narrator, Stibbard narrating the play, and occasionally pausing the play to explain something and breaking that relation with the audience. An example is the drawing of props, and explaining what it was he drew so the audience knew. There was also the constant 4th wall breaking with the audience. Stibbard would interact with the audience, he was paying attention to what they did and didn’t laugh at. He would tell the audience what he’d observed, “Wednesday night audience didn’t like the IT joke….”, and at one point an audience member was in charge of what would happen on stage. Making a wall, a ceiling and a floor different characters is strange, as they are inanimate objects and walls are not usually considered matchmakers. However the audience wouldn’t be able to connect to the wall and his friends, they aren’t meant to talk and have feelings, whether or not two people come together romantically or not, the audience won’t start having conversations with their walls, they’ll just think that it is weird and hence feel alienated from them during the performance. This convention is very effective for this kind of theatre, the didactic purpose is clearly directed through, mostly because the play is being explained by Stibbard the Narrator and acted out by Stibbard the Actor. Gest is another technique of Epic Theatre, and are gestures with an attitude that easily convey meaning to the audience.
Some examples that Stibbard used are when he uses his hands, he used them at one point as voices in Alethea’s head by using them like a puppet speaking, and then pressed them to his head to symbolize that the voices were in her head. Other examples are during the Disco, to symbolize a crowded area, Stibbard was moving his body, like he was trying to move between other people’s bodies. This clearly shows he was in a crowded disco to the audience. The big gestures involve exaggerated movements, like leaping up into the air while running, to symbolize being carefree, exaggerated movements like these are able to convey the didactic purpose of the play to the audience with
ease. Overall the play was enjoyable, it was like a lesson and the audience were being taught how to overcome their fear with the help of puns, magpies and weird bosses. The Brechtian conventions were extremely helpful in portraying this didactic purpose and with Stibbard just leaving the stage via a back door and leaving the audience to comprehend everything they just witnessed was a good way to end boy girl wall.
The setup of the stage was very simple. It was the living room of a home in the early 1980’s. It looked like a normal household, and it had small things such as crumpled up pieces of paper lying around the wastebasket. It also had a couch, circular class table and a recliner in the living room. The dining room was to the left side of the stage and only had the dining table and surrounding chairs. There was a door in the back of the set where characters entered and exited through. Beside the door was a table and stool where Willum presumably worked on his blueprints for the hotel. The lighting design was great; it put you into the atmosphere of the
The play, “Riley Valentine and the Occupation of Fort Svalbard”, by Julia- Rose Lewis is an exploration of the resilience of teenagers. The play is heavily symbolic and supports the dramatic meaning of the show. Throughout the Queensland Theatre Company’s interpretation of this play, the director, Travis Dowley, expresses forms of dramatic elements to articulate three types of manipulations. These manipulations include the manipulation of body and voice, space and the creation and manipulation of dramatic mood. Through these types of manipulations, it portrays the dramatic meaning towards the performance. Although, the use of space throughout Travis’s performance allows the audience to identify this dramatic meaning.
Butler, Judith. "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory." Theatre Journal 40.4 (1988): 519-31. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Web. 11 May 2011.
...transition between each stage was flawless. I enjoyed that screens were used to create the background for each scene allowing for the smooth transitions. The screens gave the appearance of being three-dimensional making the scenes seem much more real. I also enjoyed the lighting being used as spotlights during some of the scenes and being used as a transition between scenes, or day and evening.
Many stories talk about relationships, especially the ones between man and woman as couple. In some of them, generally the most popular ones, these relationships are presented in a rosy, sentimental and cliché way. In others, they are presented using a much deeper, realistic and complicated tone; much more of how they are in real life. But not matter in what style the author presents its work, the base of every love story is the role each member of that relationship assumes in it. A role, that sometimes, internal forces will determinate them, such as: ideas, beliefs, interests, etc. or in order cases external, such as society. In the story “The Storm” by American writer Kate Chopin and the play A Doll’s house by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen I am going to examine those roles, giving a special focus to the woman´s, because in both works, it is non-traditional, different and somewhat shocking, besides having a feminist point of view.
This paper will look at the different conceptions highlighted by Bulman in his article through the use of different methods used by the actors in the play. Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare captures the different conceptions of gender identity and different sexualities within the Elizabethan period.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll House. The Bedford Introduction to Drama. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. Boston: Bedford/ST. Martin’s, 2001. 659 – 688.
Henrik Ibsen was the first to introduce a new realistic mode in theater when he wrote the play A Doll’s House. The ending of the third act of this play was not accepted due to the controversy that it caused during the nineteenth century, because in this era women were not allowed to act the way Nora did, but through women’s movements society slowly started to accept it.
In a recent performance of the two-man murder mystery at the Geffen playhouse entitled, Murder For Two, the show actively breaks the illusion of the fourth wall by addressing the audience throughout the performance. For example, one of the two actors, who plays multiple characters, breaks character and the fourth wall in order to address the audience when sound effects for a ringing phone are played. In the plays world, its simply the phone of the second actor’s character who is trying to receive a phone call to advance the plot, but in the audience’s world for a split second it seems like the noise is embarrassingly coming from a member of the house. This created some of the funniest moments of the show because of how separate the moment was from the play’s reality. It had such an effective response from the audience simply put, because it was more poignant about the world’s infatuation with cell phone usage than the content of the play, which was purposefully implausible and unbelievable. A choice like this could not be made without directly addressing the audience’s world politically; otherwise it simply would not get a laugh. Whether or not the audience continues to use their phone in public places, the audience, in that moment, took a critical look at their societal state and laughed at it. True Brechtian Theater encapsulates all genres and emotions with the political and
Even in today’s society, sexism is still prevalent and inhibits the people who are affected by it. For the purpose of this essay, sexism will be defined as any action that consciously contributes to a gender stereotyping society. In her essay, Marilyn Frye notes this definition of sexism stating that “making decisions on the basis of sex reinforces the patterns that make it relevant” (846). Therefore, any decision that contributes to the gender binary and its framework is considered sexist. The musical Gypsy has instances in which the main character, Rose, can be considered both going against and contributing to the “patterns that make sex relevant.” In one scene, Rose can be seen subjecting her children to gender roles which feeds in to sexism,
In the Elizabethan period, it was "forbidden" for women to appear on stage and considered "immoral", and so boys played...
...her defiance to no longer comply with the gender constructions of society. Ibsen, therefore, criticises society’s compliance with the constructions of the culture and urges us to be more like Nora is at her epiphany. Lady Bracknell is memorable for her comically masculine traits and character. Not only does Wilde shatter our gender expectations, but ridicules the compliance of individuals in the performances that they make for society. Both plays raise questions regarding the submission of men and women to society’s presumptions and pressure regarding gender, and criticise individuals for conforming without asking questions. Each play makes us question our own performances for society and the performances of others in our lives. Nora’s realisation that she has married a construction is as unnerving now as it was to its contemporary audience because it forces us to look at our own behaviour and that of others around us, presenting us with a frightening and menacing awareness that we also may be existing in false and constructed lives.
On stage, these points were, looking at the opinions of a majority of both the audiences and the critics, presented successfully by Brook and the cast he worked with. From the prison guards who loomed in the background, clothed in butcher aprons and armed with clubs, to the half-naked Marat, slouched in a tub and covered in wet rags, forever scratching and writing, to the small group of singers, dressed and painted up as clowns, to the narcoleptic but murderous Charlotte Corday, Weiss and Brook offered a stage production that both engaged and amazed the audience, while at the same time forced them to question their role as the audience; no better exemplified than at the very end of the play, where the inmates, standing menacingly at the edge of the stage, actually begin to applaud the very people who applaud their performance, aggravating and confusing some, but forcing most t...
Henrik Ibsen catches the world off guard with his play A Doll House. The world is in what is known as the Victorian era and women and men have specific roles. The way the story unravels takes the reader by surprise. Ibsen wanted to write a play that would challenge the social norms and that would show the world that no matter how hard they press, they would not always win. Ibsen uses society’s customs, deception, and symbolism to keep the reader on their feet and bring them a play that they would never forget.
My experience watching a live theatre performance on stage was a fascinating one, most especially since it was my first time. I attended a staged performance of “The History Boys” in a small theatre called “The Little Theatre of Alexandria” at 8:00 pm on Wednesday June 8, 2016 in Alexandria, Virginia. The overall production of the play was a resounding experience for me particularly the performance of the actors and the design of the scene made the play seem real.