Process Of Creating Perfomance

Our Teachers, Nick and Yusuf looked at our individual pieces of work we created and gave us advice on how we should come across the audience which was to make the message we are trying to portray as simplistic as possible. instead of making it more based on realism within the acting or abstract, we instead should make it as basic as possible.  from that idea of it being very simple, Nick decided to combine groups from both sets together into one piece weaving all of them together but to make it intelligible. The teachers then came up with the idea to have to whole group sitting in a chairs in a semi-circle. all of us wearing blacks (which is compulsory on Performing arts courses) and 2 seats at the end to be used for when we are performing. The semi-circle itself nick quoted 'looked quite nice' in terms of its simplistic features. The teachers then thought it would be good to incorporate forum theatre techniques but instead of allowing the audience to interact, we let the actors within the semi circle tell the story in a conversational style where anyone from the semi-circle can interject and ask questions relating to that particular character in the scene for example, i say "theres a girl" someone from the semi-cirlce replies "whats her name", I reply "Michelle, shes 17."Then someone else would ask a question like " where does she live" etc. so to the audience it seems like spontaneous questions revealing more and more about the character when they are answered. During these periods of figuring out how to come across to the audience during the pefromance, we was also getting prep talks from our teacher Nick which he constantly stressed the quote of " Acting is Reacting" were he means that in order to achieve a high standard of acting in a performance. we must react to communication being giving appropriately to fit the theme and happenings of the scene. But what I as an individual need to consider is not always react in a Stanislavski 'realistic' way for all projects yet to find the balance. This includes the use of gestures and facial expressions reacting to something in the scene.

Research On Forum based theatre

A technique pioneered by Brazilian radical Augusto Boal. A play or scene, usually indicating some kind of oppression, is shown twice. During the replay, any member of the audience ('spect-actor') is allowed to shout 'Stop!', step forward and take the place of one of the oppressed characters, showing how they could change the situation to enable a different outcome. Several alternatives may be explored by different spect-actors. The other actors remain in character, improvising their responses. A facilitator (Joker) is necessary to enable communication between the players and the audience.

The strategy breaks through the barrier between performers and audience, putting them on an equal footing. It enables participants to try out courses of action which could be applicable to their everyday lives. Originally the technique was developed by Boal as a political tool for change (part of the Theatre of the Oppressed), but has been widely adapted for use in educational contexts.


I also think that we achieved some Bertolt Brecht techniques such as breaking the 4th wall barrier between the performers and audience. We wanted them to feel involved in the play and to also to recieve the dialogue as if it were spontaneous. Brecht wanted the audience to become socially active in the peformance, creating conflict and issues in the play to conjure up arguements and debates in the audience. Brecht wanted to know all sides of a story, all opinions were valid in his eyes and i believe we had that sort of mindset as a group.