Charchter synopsis : Emmanuel Giri

Emmanuel giri, my character is a killer- gangster in the ressistable rise of aruro ui is  brechts interpretation of Hitlers right-hand man Hermann Goring. Goring was a politician, military leader, and a leading member of the nazi party. 1940  saw goring at the peak of his power and influence .  Hitler had promoted him to the rank of Reichsmarschall, making Göring senior to all other commanders then in 1941 Hitler designated him as his successor and deputy in all his offices. Göring left from the military and political scene to enjoy his life as a wealthy and powerful man.

the resistable rise of arturo ui

It was written in 1941 It shows  the rise of Arturo Ui, a fictional '30s Chicago mobster, and his attempts to control the cauliflower trust by destroying  his rivals and anyone who gets in his way . brecht wrote it with Ui representing Hitler, his henchman Ernesto Roma representing Ernst Röhm, Emanuele Giri representing Göring, the Cauliflower Trust representing the Prussian Junkers, the fate of the town of Cicero standing for the Anschluss in Austria ect.

 It is set  Chicago in the 1930s, business is bad  and the members of The Cauliflower Trust are moaning about  their losses. Nobody, it seems, has any money, let alone any spare cash to buy cauliflower. Into this equation steps Arturo Ui, a local gangster seeking power, and here he sees an opportunity to hold sway over the city. But Ui is a paranoid sociopath, alternately swayed by the advice of his Lieutenant, Ernesto Roma and his partners(gangsters)  giri and givola  . As he begins to take a firm grip by threats and violence, Ui begins to see the possibilities of furthering his takeover  not only on Chicago, but on towns and cities he decides are the best for picking, such as the little town of Cicero. Through political manoeuvring he murders, bombs and machine-guns his way to power - but then his psychosis begins to take hold, the whisperings of his henchmen leading him to think of betrayal in his own ranks..blood,  sweat and tears.

bertolt brecht and epic theatre

Bertolt brecht (February 1898 – August 1956)



Brecht  was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director who influenced  theatre style by becoming  one of the most recognisable practitioners of his century.  

Brecht who discovered and developed the  theory and practice of his 'epic theatre',  was said to analyse and follow the likes of  Erwin Piscator and Vsevolod Meyerhold to explore the theatre as a  form that emphasizes the social/political content of drama, rather than its emotional manipulation of the audience, a style and “image”   that had been around for generations .

Brecht's concerns with modernist  drama  led to his creation  of the 'epic form' of the drama. This dramatic form is related to similar modern innovations in other  parts of the industry , including t

·         the strategy of divergent chapters in James Joyce's novel Ulysses

·         Sergei Eisenstein's evolution of a constructivist 'montage' in the cinema

·          Picasso's introduction of cubist 'collage' in the visual arts.

 However  Brecht had no desire to destroy art as an institution and its styles such as naturalism but  he hoped he could instead 're-function' the theatre to a new social use. Brechts theatre created popular themes and forms with avant-garde formal experimentation to create psychological and socialist varieties.

brechts works

• • Drums in the Night (1922)
  • Baal (1923)
  • In the Jungle of the Cities (1923)
  • Edward II (1924)
  • The Elephant Calf (1925)
  • Man Equals Man (1926)
  • The Threepenny Opera (1928)
  • Happy End (1929)
  • Lindbergh's Flight (1929)
  • He Who Says Yes (1929)
  • Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930)
  • He Who Says No (1930)
  • The Measures Taken (1930)
  • The Mother (1932)
  • The Seven Deadly Sins (1933)
  • The Roundheads and the Peakheads (1936)
  • The Exception and the Rule (1936)
  • Fear and Misery of the Third Reich (1938)
  • Señora Carrara's Rifles (1937)
  • The Trial of Lucullus (1939)
  • Mother Courage and Her Children (1941)
  • Mr Puntila and His Man Matti (1941)
  • Life of Galileo (1943)
  • The Good Person of Sezuan (1943)
  • Schweik in the Second World War (1944)
  • The Visions of Simone Machard (1944)
  • The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1945)
  • The Days of the Commune (1949)
  • The Tutor (1950)
  • The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1958)
  • Saint Joan of the Stockyards (1959)

People who have followed  Brechtian legacy withn theatre  include:

·         Dario Fo

·         Augusto Boal,

·         Joan Littlewood,

·         Peter Brook

·          Peter Weiss,

·         Heiner Müller,

·         Pina Bausch

·         Tony Kushner

·          Robert Bolt

·         Caryl Churchill.

Brecht also influenced film writers and TV writers these include:

·         Jean-Luc Godard

·          Lindsay Anderson

·         Rainer Werner Fassbinder

·         Joseph Losey

·          Nagisa Oshima,

·         Ritwik Ghatak

 epic theare



Epic theatre  was a theatrical movement  in the 20th century from a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht.  However  Brechtian epic theatre had been around for years as Brecht continuously developed the style, and popularized it. Epic theatre incorporates a style acting what bertolt brecht called “gestus” .

Gestus is an acting technique. Its a simple combination of physical gesture and attitude. A Gestus should reveal a specific aspect of a character: rather than his “casual” physicality and  psychological thought process.  A Gestus makes a character's social relations clear through his  behaviour to create  his/her  historical materialist perspective.

Brecht had many definitions to gestus such as....

"An attitude or single aspect of an attitude"   "Expressible in words or actions” “Embodiment of an attitude”

“The uncovering or revealing of the motivations and transactions that underpin a dramatic exchange between the characters and the "epic" narration of that character by the actor (whether explicitly or implicitly”.

Bertolt Brecht

"Every emotion" when treated under the rubric of Gestus, manifests itself as a set of social relations, For it is what happens between people, Brecht insists, that provides them with all the material that they can discuss, criticize, alter” Elizabeth Wright

What should the actor do?

Acting in epic theatre requires actors to play characters believably without convincing either the audience or themselves that they have "become" the characters. Actors in brechts productions often communicate with the audience directly out of character ("breaking the fourth wall") and play multiple roles. Brecht thought it was important that the choices the characters made were explicit, and tried to develop a style of acting wherein it was obvious that the characters were choosing one action over another. For example, a character could say, "I could have stayed at home, but instead I went to the shops." This he called "fixing the Not / But element the actor's attitude should be used as epic narration “the 'showing' that is 'shown' in the 'showing', in Brecht's turn of phrase” Brecht

 

pinter process and evaluation

The Harold Pinter project was my first project since "attempts on her life" by martin crimp and  There was a massive difference between the two . Harold Pinter project really outclassed attempts on her life . in a professional sense. i found new techniques , learnt new skills and improved on the skills i was struggling with in the last project.

Rehearsal process :

After missing the first 2 weeks i  knew i would be behind and knew i would be thrown in at the deep end . My Harold Pinter piece was "dumb-Waiter" and i was working with Laurence . that day we ran over the script just to get used to the lines, staging and experimenting with the lines. Laurence then wasn't in for a few days and so nick cut him from my piece and i was put with Aj who was already with Georgina doing another piece. i was disappointed that Laurence was cut because we work well together however i knew that me and Aj would struggle as we haven't really worked together and so i was anxious but i was still determined to get a good grade and perform Pinter to the best of my ability.

it was very hard for Aj being in two groups and  although i did rehearse with him,  he most of the time was focused on his other piece as he had been working on it for longer . we ran through a couple of times and the concentration and passion wasn't there  throughout the weeks. we performed in front of nick and Micheal and the comments were "below par" and so i told Aj " that we had to up are game otherwise are grades are in jeopardy" . we were also told to go back to the script as we were missing the timing of the pauses, the timing of movements and so it was back to the chalkboard.  after the weekend me and Aj then began to realise what we missed out ....we missed out a hell of a lot. things such as certain looks and movements that were key to making the piece stylish and funny however Aj's concentration still wasn't 100% and i still found it very hard to work with him so i confronted nick about it and we spoke to him and i said you need to prove this to nick which triggered off Aj into 100% concentration and willingness to work whenever to get this piece into good shape . we got gerogina involved in directing are piece which helped me out a lot as we both  drummed it into Aj that  with 2 days left we have to up the game. we started by setting it out with the use of the bed , the table and chairs and used props such as the newspaper for Aj . once we had all the props neccesery we then need to keep on running it over and over , making the piece slick and stylish . As you can tell style was very important as after studying harold pinter and his works , the completion of his works ( ideas and thoughts of style within my piece ) were very important as in my eyes it wouldn't of  been able to be known as "work of harold pinter" so ..it was Performance time.

Performance 
 Me and Aj arranged to be in college a few hours early to rehearse are piece as much as we could before the performance ,just the wrinkle out all the creases are performance had. in the dress run me and Aj slipped up a few times , which made me more anxiouse about getting the grades and putting on a good show. luckily me and Aj were both given more confidence than defeat after are dress run which made gave us the belief in ourselves that we could pull this off.

the performance went really well. me and Aj were ecstatic as we dealt with the piece proffesionaly and pulled a very hard piece of pinter off. we got alot of laughs from the audience and as a class we were the first group in 4 year to pull of Harold Pinters pieces according to teachers, and me and Aj new we had something to do with that! as for Aj i shook his hand and said fair play ...you proved me and nick wrong .

The Dumb Waiter - Harold Pinter Part2

The Dumb Waiter - Harold Pinter Part1

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter was born in hackney in 1930 and died in December 2008. Pinter was a English playwright, scriptwriter, actor, and  theatre director. Pinter's work is well know for being "absured" Pinter's dramas involved conflicts between hesitant characters who struggle with the vocal and body language in their character. He uses techniques such as  pauses and silences, comedic timing, irony, and menace to create the absurdness in his plays .He directed  50 stage and television and film productions and acted in radio, film TV, and theatre. Pinters main absurd playwrights are  .....

The Caretaker (1959)

betrayal (1978)

The Homecoming (1964)

Birthday Party (1957)

The Go Between (1970)

The Trial (1993)

The French Lieutenants Women  ( 1981 )

Because of pinters outstanding because of Pinters outstanding but as mentioned before "absurd" works he won variouse awards such as the David Cohen prize(1995) , Laurence Olivier award( 1996), companion of honour  (2002) Noble prize in literature. 

One of Harold Pinters well known play “dumb waiter” is the one I will be studying and performing over the next 4 weeks My charachter Gus is a submissive young hit man who is constantly bossed around by Ben. Gus and Ben are the ,main characters of the play, but the audience, also limited in knowledge, sees the play from Gus's point-of-view, and empathizes more with him. Gus is more sensitive and has a conscience about his job, and is bored by the stale routine of his lower-class life.

                                                     

The dumb waitor

Play synopsis

Two hit men , Ben and Gus are waiting in a basement room for their assignment. Ben is the senior leader of the team and is reading a newspaper when the action begins. Gus is the a new member and is tying his shoes as the play opens. Gus asks many questions of Ben as he gets ready for their job and tries to make tea, including questions about their job Gus seems to be questioning the concept of being a hit-man. They argue over the semantics of "light the kettle" and "put on the kettle". Ben continues reading his paper most of the time, and reads excerpts of it to Gus sometimes, it seems, to change the topic of conversation. Ben gets increasingly more animated in his newspaper story-telling, and Gus's questions become more and more pointed, and at points nearly nonsensical. As the tension rises the physicality of the two players increases accordingly. 

In the back of the room is a

dumbwaiter, which delivers occasional food orders. This is mysterious and both characters seem to be puzzled as to why these orders keep coming. At one point they send up some snack food that Gus had brought along. As these orders come in, the tension builds to the point where they even come to blows. Ben has to explain to the people above via the dumbwaiter's "speaking tube" that there is no food. This whole sequence is rather odd because the basement is clearly not outfitted for fulfillment of the orders. 

 

Gus leaves the room to get a drink of water in the bathroom, and the dumbwaiter's speaking tube whistles a sign that there is a person on the other end who wishes to communicate. Ben listens carefully - we gather from his replies that their victim has arrived and is on his way to the room. Ben shouts for Gus, who is still out of the room. The door that the target is supposed to enter from flies open, Ben rounds on it with his gun, and Gus enters, stripped of his jacket, waistcoat, tie and gun. There is a long silence as the two stare at each other before the curtain comes down the implication is that Gus is the person that Ben has been employed to kill.