2/6/14

What was the effect of having words and actions not connected to a scene?

How did the performers show meaning in their Absurdist piece?

Google Chrome really has no grasp of theatre. It hates the word Absurdist. I thought it hated some others too, but apparently not.

Today we worked on an Absurdist piece (see, there goes Google again telling me there's no such word) by creating a performance in multiple steps. First, each person grabbed an object (mine, for instance, was a toy telephone). Then, each person came up with something to do with the object that had nothing to do with the object's intended purpose (mine, for instance, was swinging the telephone in circles by the cord). Then, each person came up with a phrase that had nothing to do with anything (mine, for instance, was "There's a kitten on the floor"). See, repetition. I'm getting the hang of this Surrealism thing.

We were then divided into groups, and were tasked with creating a performance using those actions and phrases only. I worked in a group with Cody, Karen and Oscar, who was surprisingly cooperative. We were given a few scenarios to choose from, and we selected a bus stop, because if there's one good generic scenario for a drama performance it's a bus stop. We went through and blocked the scene, creating characters and working out their interactions as we went. One thing that I noticed in particular was how much more important tone of voice and body language were compared to in some other performances (they are fairly important anyway, but that just gives you an idea of exactly how important they are in this style).

The result of all these disconnected words and actions strung together to form a simple yet engaging narrative was quite interesting. Our group's performance was widely regarded to be mostly coherent - except for the bit at the end where I got hit by a bus and went flying, and people seemed to assume I'd had a heart attack despite the fact that heart attacks don't normally send people flying. One of the other things I noticed from watching the other groups was how important tone of voice really was - there were some groups that relied mostly on body language to convey their narrative and it was simply nowhere near as coherent or engaging.

Well, I guess that's that then.

The end.