This is a reflection of the w9orshop that i attended during the holidays..
It includes stuff that we did, their objectives and what i personally though of them as. I have also included stuff that we were told to fdo druiing the workshop, like write stuff.. Have included the purpose for writing them as well..
It's really long so please bear with it...
Here is a bit of stuff that i found out about him before the workshop, and some other random facts....
- Tim Crouch
-British actor.
- Works for the national theatre of Britain.
- He is an actor and playwright.
- His play “The Oak Tree” is about the topic of grief of the loss of a loved one (daughter) by embracing sentiment but avoiding sentimentality. The girl’s father is played by different person from the audience every day. (Jerzy Grotowski)
- He comes up with the ideas to his plays first before weaving them into a story and play.
- “When I teach I talk about the subject of theater being what happens in the audience; and the object of theater being what happens on the stage. This is a guiding principle for my work.”
- I like the human imperfection -- the tensions, the blocks, the trapped voice, the wonky features. In An Oak Tree I try to create a place where those imperfections can be acknowledged and celebrated.
The stuff I write in black is what I write after watching a bit of the show “Oak tree” and “The arm”
- Obviously, most, if not all of his plays are monologues.
- He focuses in plays that have a theme and then he builds a story on that.
- He seems to do more story telling than an actually play.
- He doesn’t have explosive, expensive, bright props. Instead, he has very simple ones, if any.
- Sometimes, like in “My Arm” he introduces the people that affected his character with mere pictures.
- He enjoys and usually describes a situation, objects, motions, life to the audience instead of showing them.
- He always involves the audience in all his plays. He MAKES them imagine and thus contribute to the play in their own way.
- He tries sometimes to fit in jokes here and there to entertain the audience.
- When he talks, he talks like he is describing his life, telling the audience of what happened to him. He makes it feel real by telling us about little details, what people in is life said and did and introduces us to people who were in his character’s life.
- His aim is to communicate with the audience that is what he thinks theatre is all about.
- He tries to incorporate the problems of society and connect it to the play he does. Example- In Malvolio, right now he is trying to incorporate Singaporeans problems and what the youth in particular think of Malvolio and how they connect to Malvolio.
DAY ONE WORKSHOP
REFLECTION
Well, the day started off on a good note. We were the first college to be there. All the rest came annoyingly late. We started off with a simple introduction by the British Council and then by Tim. He told us a little bit about himself, how he came to be a prominent actor and play write. He also introduced us to his style of theatre and why he uses it and how he makes it work, also, he elaborated a bit on his expectations and reasons for conducting the workshop.
Our first exercise was about teaching us ‘not to be correct and the lack of the need to be perfect’. We sat in pair opposite each other and were given two pieces of paper. On the first one, we were given 30 seconds to draw our partners face. BUT, we could not, never ever ever look at the piece of part through the whole process. Mine was just so retarded; it was uneven, totally out of place and proportion. After than horrifying experience (for my partner), we were given 5 seconds to draw the same person’s face :O.
I was like ‘WHAT!!! As if 30 sec wasn’t short enough, plus the added torture (well it was actually good) of not looking at your drawing. He allowed us to do what ever we liked. We could focus on one part of the persons face, or do the whole face, and a girl even drew smiley faces with expressions that her partner could possibly have. Surprisingly though, the 2nd one was better than the 1st one. Why was this I asked myself? The answer was pretty clear, the less you think about it, the better it gets in a way. You don’t have to ponder about the details of what you are doing.
The next thing we did was to go through the play ‘Twelfth Knight” by Shakespeare which is the play we are focusing on. The character we were trying to study is called Malvolio. He asked us to get an object from our belongings, it could be anything at all, a pen, marker, glue stick, keys, umbrella, panadol tablets, you get the picture. We took and object and gave it a characters name and placed in on our ‘island of Illysia’ (which is where the play is set). Then, using these projects to represent the characters, we went through the WHOLE play. Yes, it did get a tad bit draggy and my leg hurt like hell. But it was fun never the less given than he was a very animated reader.
We had a lunch break after that. We all marched to J8 and ate, obviously, we were late for the next session. How in the world can students ever be on time!:O that would just be a crime. So yeah, after that we all sat around a table and picked a character from the play.
Example-
Sir Toby
T
Telephone booth (Write name of place starting with T)
Tearful (Emotion starting with T)
Tie (Item of clothing starting with T)
(Then, using all these words we had to come up with a monologue. The restriction, we had to add in these words AND all the words used HAD to start with the letter T)
So this is how mine went.. It was crappy really…
TOBY
Telephone booth (place…)
Tearful (Expression…)
Tie (Wearing a…)
Toby torn, tattered, thrown, trampled! Thinking that Task! That tormenting task! Toby tearing, Toby tearful, Toby trembling! Trembling… trembling… trembling. To tell them their trophy trampled! Terrible… terrible... terrible… This to torment them? Too treacherous...Terrible! Toby torment? Too terrible…Too terrible! This tragic transformation, tie tied to tie torn. This threatening to take Toby to the transformer! Transformer terrible! Terrible transformer! Toby terrified! Trying towards transformed tomorrow. Trying trying trying. Trying to think. Toby think…think…think… Try… think… Too tiring… Toby Tired, Toby tearful…
Everyone presented/ performed their pieces. And some of theirs were really really awesome; we had the whole FABULOUS language thing going on. What he wanted to teach us from that exercise was the fact that even with restrictions, in fact with restricts, a writer is able to write with more ease. Given a wide scope to choose from, a write would be very confused by all his choices. When given instructions and boundaries, it is easier and a faster process and it also shows us just how creative the person is. He gave us the example of Shakespeare’s play, like the 14 line sonnet that he used for ‘Romeo and Juliet’. He also imposes such restrictions on himself, which makes it easier for him to write his plays.
The last ‘exercise’ of the day was to watch a movie of the play ‘ I B…’ ( I forgot what its called!) which he wrote and acted in. It was a version of Mc Beth that he composed for young people aged 12 and above. I was really tired so am guilty of having lost the battle against my eyes occasionally. BUT, I did manage to get the main jest of the play and what he was trying to bring out. The play was basically written from the perspective of the smaller characters from Mc Beth. In fact, B is the Mc Beth (main Characters) best friend. This is the story portrayed from his point of view.
One may think ‘Wah! Monologue! So boring!’ Well, no, not really. His monologues (all his plays) include the audience. No, the audience is not asked to come up on stage and do an impromptu act, but they are involved in the play. In this one for example, Tim describes to the audience what they are in the play. He asks them to play Mc Beth by describing to them the character they are playing in detail and how the character feels. In this way, the audience does not need to have any previous knowledge of the play yet have fun with it.
Since the target audience for this play was young people above the age of 12, it had to be able to capture and hold their attention for 45 minutes! One of the ways he did this was to add in a very visual side of the play. Because the play has a lot of blood mentioned, with a lot of gory scenes involved, he brought on stage a sort of cauldron with a liquid that looked like blood. During the play, he splattered the blood on the white sheet of paper behind him. This created a very visual aspect for the audience. Also, while describing his own death and how he was cut up into pieces, he beats himself up with a blood stained hand.
Another thing I realized was that music was a very important part of Tim’s performances. In “I B….” his son played the electric guitar during the performance. At some points, it was meant to add on and build the atmosphere of intensity, hatred and anger of the character. At other times, it signified the change of scene.
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