Exercises

During the course of the devising process in which we learned about Artaud , we did a series of different exercises that helped us understand what Artaud wanted from his audience. The exercise 'Slow Motion Tennis' Helped us to understand how he physically pushed his actors to extreme lengths to achieve an emotion or an objective on stage. This was also to promote the honesty of actors/characters emotions on stage. We had to play tennis at an unnaturally slow pace which was very physically demanding for us as actors. This exercise also was about keeping concentration throughout the duration of the task as it is very easy to slip out of character or loose focus. An excercise that promoted near enough the same values was the 'Walk The Grid' excercise as it was about walking while keeping concentration and energy even while being tired. The  key to all these excercises is maintaining focus even while doing physically demanding tasks and physicality. The 'No Language Argument' also promotes physicality as it is about managing to portray emotions without being able to use words. An excercise I especially found interesting was the 'Emotion Line Task'. This is because I found myself facinated by how the physical actions got bigger and bigger as each emotion was explored. The emotion line that I found myself in was 'Love'. This one was interesting as there are many different forms of love that could be portrayed (Which was said in the feedback). I started with the idea of 'partner' love and I found it really interesting to see the physicality increase up the line.

The Nerve Meter

An actor is seen as if through crystals.

Inspiration in stages.

One musn’t let in too much literature.

I have aspired no further than the clockwork of the soul, I have transcribed only the pain of an abortive adjustment.

I am a total abyss. Those who believed me capable of a whole pain, a beautiful pain, a dense and fleshy anguish, an anguish which is a mixture of objects, an effervescent grinding of forces rather than a suspended point

—and yet with restless, uprooting impulses which come from the confrontation of my forces with these abysses of offered finality

(from the confrontation of forces of powerful size),

and there is nothing left but the voluminous abysses, the immobility, the cold—

in short, those who attributed to me more life, who thought me at an earlier stage in the fall of the self, who believed me immersed in a tormented noise, in a violent darkness with which I struggled

—are lost in the shadows of man.

 

In sleep, nerves tensed the whole length of my legs.

Sleep came from a shifting of belief, the pressure eased, absurdity stepped on my toes.

It must be understood that all of intelligence is only a vast contingency, and that one can lose it, not like a lunatic who is dead, but like a living person who is in life and who feels working on himself its attraction and its inspiration (of intelligence, not of life).

The titillations of intelligence and this sudden reversal of contending parties.

Words halfway to intelligence.

This possibility of thinking in reverse and of suddenly reviling one’s thought.

This dialogue in thought.

The ingestion, the breaking off of everything.

And all at once this trickle of water on a volcano, the thin, slow falling of the mind.

 

To find oneself again in a state of extreme shock, clarified by unreality, with, in a corner of oneself, some fragments of the real world.

To think without the slightest breaking off, without pitfalls in my thought, without one of those sudden disappearances to which my marrow is accustomed as a transmitter of currents.

My marrow is sometimes amused by these games, sometimes takes pleasure in these games, takes pleasure in these furtive abductions over which the sense of my thought presides.

At times all I would need is a single word, a simple little word of no importance, to be great, to speak in the voice of the prophets: a word of witness, a precise word, a subtle word, a word well steeped in my marrow, gone out of me, which would stand at the outer limit of my being,

and which, for everyone else, would be nothing.

I am the witness, I am the only witness of myself. This crust of words, these imperceptible whispered transformations of my thought, of that small part of my thought which I claim has already been formulated, and which miscarries,

I am the only person who can measure its extent.

A spurt of blood

When first reading this poem I found myself extremely confused. I could not figure out what the poem was about or why it was written. I found myself very confused as the play seemed to immediately switch from one thing happening to another and by the time the play ended, It was hard to establish a link between the beginning and the end of the play. Aside from the fact I found the play hard to understand  I still found the play very interesting to read as I was intrigued as to where the play was going to go by the end. I also found the play to be very comedic which helped to keep me reading the play as I did not get bored of it very quickly. From what I could read, I could gather that his 'Theatre of cruelty' was very prominent within this play. I could see in the stage direction that at certain points within the play there would be intense flashes of light  (lightning bolts) and there would be big points of sound also at certain points within the play ( noise of the big wheel turning). Artaud also experiments with different pitches of voice at the beginning of the play and also with a random change of accent in the middle of the play (The Priest). Another thing I found myself questioning was the the scale of the lighting and visual effects such as scorpions traveling in between the nurse's legs and the Bawd's dress suddenly becoming transparent.

Body over mind

I found the body over mind excercise very interesting as it was a very weird way of exploring my body and its natural movements and emotions. When first told to just stand and respond how your body wants to, I was still confused as to how or what I was actually supposed to do. I was not so confused about the actual instruction but when the music started playing, I think I simply began to over think about what I had to do to the music. This feeling eventually passed and I began to 'embrace' the music. When in this state I did not find myself naturally moving very much to the beat apart from a slighthead nod/sway. During the duration of the music I found I did loose track of time due to a mixture of me listening to the music and the constant repeat of the song. Though after hearing that the song was on for 20+ mins I was not suprised as I did basic maths in my head. When watching the footage of the changes in the room I was surprised and interested at the same time to see the different levels of changes that everyone went through in the room. I found it facinating to see how differently music effectseveryone, as I stood still with a slight sway where as some people in the room were huddled in a ball or squirming around the floor.

The Nerve Meter Response

When first reading The Nerve Meter, I struggled to understand what the poem was about or where it was coming from. What I did initally enjoy about the poem at the first read, was the fantastic visuals that the poem provided with me with and the rich methaphors that are rife throughout the poem. Phrases like: "The clockwork of the soul", "Voluminous abysses", "Fleshy anguish" and many more  provide me with powerful and strong visuals that help me connect with the poem emotionally even though I did not understand what the poem was about. When first reading the poem I knew nothing of Antonin Artaud which made the reading all the more interesting as I was trying to figure out what the author was like aswell as what the poem was about. I got the impression that Antonin was disabled with lines like: "In sleep, nerves tensed the whole length of my legs". I wondered if Antonin had some kind of physical impairment that was inspiration for the poem.  After doing slight research I realised although he was not physically impaired he was somewhat mentally, which I was not suprised to hear. The poem kind of sums up how fractured Antonins mind was and comes across as Uber intelligent ramblings of a man describing his mind.

What Is Theatre?

I would say that Theatre has no set standard definition and it can be interpreted differently by every individual person. I personally would consider Theatre to be a vision that is portrayed, whether fictional or non fictional. I dont think that theatre has to portray a message but rather portray the vision of whoever is directing or writing the play. I also there is no such thing as a 'Theatre space' as anywhere can be used as a theatre space like Site Specific or Invisible theatre.

I look forward to experimental theatre due to the fact that I have no idea what to expect to do or perform this term. I also look forward to this term due to the fact that I enjoy experimantal forms or art (Music, Film and theatre) and I find surrealist things interesting.  I like to see the boundaries pushed and see strange things and where they can go without being conventional at all and how far I can be pushed to do unconventional things as an actor.