Boy Girl Wall Analysis

Punch-drunk is a British company that performs a wide variety of theatrical performances and transforms them into the wild and the peculiar. It was founded in 2000 (En.wikipedia.org. (2017) by Artist and Director Felix Barrett, who was award an MBE on July 5th 2017 for his work in the theatre industry (Anon, (2017). The Company has been producing shows for 17 years, taking classical storytelling and adding their own twist on the story. The stories are then turned into real-life pieces that are not staged in a typical classical theatre, but in various locations that are well-suited to each part of the story for example, an old warehouse or an ancient asylum. This gives the audience a sensory perception of the world around them and presents them with a joyful experience of witnessing a story told in a way that’s not just the lifeless classical proscenium arch stage layout and more of a place where they can watch the action at different angles taking audience awareness out of the picture and applying the “Fourth wall technique” used by Dennis Diderot (En.wikipedia.org. (2017). This keeps the audience on edge and scares ordinary audiences away from Punch-drunk as the work that they produce is regarded as “out of the ordinary “by most classical theatre audiences. Some of the parts of the story contains physical theatre (Punch-drunk (2017). making the performance non-naturalistic and naturalistic, simultaneously.

This is a very clever idea as it is really effective in helping the audience to remember the story because they can link it to something they already know. This tale is about a father who wanted a son but had a daughter, Maggie, instead. Sadly, when his wife finally fell pregnant with a boy, the baby died during birth so, trying to cheer the mum up, Maggie wandered into the bush to find flowers. However, she went too far and became lost only to be found five days later, dead in a hollowed out tree. Again, they release the child’s spirit from the orphanage by flinging a sheet into the air. The nursery rhyme used in this section of the play is ‘Ring a Ring a Rosie’ and it is a clever use of intertextuality as it creates a foreboding mood through the use of foreshadowing since Maggie sings it at the start of the section. This is the third story told so at this point the audience will recognise a sort of episodic plot. The orphans go through their daily duties, chores and horrific encounters with The Black Skirt, then at night time find themselves awoken by the storms and the restless spirits trapped within the orphanage walls. Space is used well within the set and location of the play as the actors find themselves on a relatively small stage that is quite full with few, but large props. They move around with what can only be described as perfect choreography that allows them to flow from each action to their next position on stage. It is interesting to note that this performance of ‘Children of The Black Skirt’ took place in an empty church, a clever use of symbolism that aided in the audience’s recognition of the spiritual elements that were key in the play’s

Once seated, we saw that the stage was mainly bare with a chair on the left hand side of the stage. This suggested to the audience that the play would be non-naturalistic unlike, a west end theatre production.

Brecht’s political theatre stems from his political views towards communism and the upper class society. Theatre that comments on political issues within society. Brecht began to have a dislike for the capitalist society he was brought up in and wanted more of an equal approach to the world and the people around him. With epic theatre, Brecht wanted it to be both didactic (able to teach others) and dialectic (able to create discussions and ideas). The audience at no time during an epic play can be seen to be in a trance or take what they see on stage for granted. Our performance is reflective of Brecht and his Epic and Political theatre as we address many political topics such as Marxism and the divides between classes and the corruption of the government. We have props such as protest signs and banners to communicate Brecht’s political theatre to the audience. In the first episode, Brown’s Boys, there is a scene where MPs choke and die after ignoring the recession and protesters emerge into the audience chanting that ‘politics is dead’ and ‘they don’t really care about us’ while holding banners saying, ‘politics is dead’ and ‘Gordon Clown’. This was done as it represented politics and the fact the seriousness of the situation was ignored; showing how quickly the issues with the recession spiralled out of control and became something that even the higher up in society were unable

This quote from Brook sums up the production of Boy Girl Wall by the Escapists as actor, Lucas Stibbard took an empty space such as the black boxed room and called it a bare stage. It used a conventional, ordinary room with pipes, a fuse box and doors, all been painted black to create a distinct world that we as an audience became submerged in. As the production progresses Stibbard is constantly setting the stage as he goes, such as drawing a pillow or an alarm on the wall with his one piece of chalk. This suggests that anyone could perform this piece or a piece similar to it as it uses everyday items to portray a narrative in a normal and simplistic setting. This gives insights of the battles young amateur actors and play writers face with

I selected this play mainly because I love the way Thornton Wilder chose to break the fourth wall. The fourth wall is the space that separates a performer or performance from an audience. The Skin of Our Teeth doesn’t just break the

How Brecht achieves producing this state of consciousness is more subtle and elegant than the previous technique of having actors walk out with blatant placards to remind the audience that they are watching a play. One of the marks of Brecht’s epic theater is his alienation effect, or “a representation which allows [the audience] to recognize its subject, but at the same time makes it seem unfamiliar” (Brecht 1948, 8).

Bertolt Brecht and Constantin Stanislavski are regarded as two of the most influential practitioners of the twentieth century, both with strong opinions and ideas about the function of the theatre and the actors within it. Both theories are considered useful and are used throughout the world as a means to achieve a good piece of theatre. The fact that both are so well respected is probably the only obvious similarity as their work is almost of complete opposites.

The space was a well-constructed thrust stage however, the stage was not raised off the ground and the seats appeared to be mobile which lead to the belief that this is an Environmental Theater. As for the layout of the stage, there was a couch and a table in center stage for the first two acts, a door to the unseen outside front of the house upstage right, there were two large double doors upstage center leading to the backyard garden, and a raised floor upstage left containing a piano, a bookcase and a door

For decades people found theatre one of the most enjoyable form of entertainment all across the world. With every play comes a cost. A value which somebody's story is told. Obviously it can be comic drama or despairing,. Each second of these plays are genuinely delightful and exceptional. Where the performing artists show a totally distinctive side of characters to the group of onlookers where they demonstrate to them something new and pleasurable. And behind the theatre and its plays is one person who keeps it all in check and that is the director. The director is like the heart of a person. You don’t see the heart but you know if it’s doing its job correctly

Bertolt Brecht and Constantin Stanislavski are regarded as two of the most influential practitioners of the twentieth century, both with strong opinions and ideas about the function of the theatre and the actors within it. Both theories are considered useful and are used throughout the world as a means to achieve a good piece of theatre. The fact that both are so well respected is probably the only obvious similarity as their work is almost of complete opposites.

The ideas of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1965) changed the theatre in many ways. Brecht along with Erwin Piscator developed the style of Epic theatre style contrasting to previous accepted styles. Presentational in form, Epic theatre is a vehicle for social comment through techniques such as: alienation, historification, eclectic influences (highly Asian), constructivism in scenery, disjointed and illogical scene placement, ordinary clothing and lighting, the use of music to detach the audience from emotion, placards and signs and projected images. Didactic in nature Brecht’s works aim to challenge the

In the words of Gay McAuley, “for an activity to be regarded as a performance, it must involve the live presence of the performers and those witnessing it…” (McAuley, 2009, cited in Schechner, 2013, pp.38). This statement recognises the importance of both the actor and the audience for something to truly function as a performance. In addition, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones highlights the significance of the theatrical space and how it can influence an audience stating that “on entering a theatre of any kind, a spectator walks into a specific space, one that is designed to produce a certain reaction or series of responses” (Llewellyn-Jones, 2002, pp.3). The relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space is no less important today than it was at the time of theatre during the Spanish Golden Age and the creation of Commedia dell’arte in Italy. Despite being very close geographically with theatre thriving for both in the same era, sources that explore the social, cultural and historical context of these countries and the theatre styles will bring to light the similarities and differences. This essay will analyse the staging, the behaviour of the audience as well as the challenges the actors faced, and how this directly influenced the relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space.

The characters are scattered throughout the theater, occupying some of the seats where audience members would normally be seated. Yasha sits pompously upright to stage left, lightly conversing with citizens of Steeltown. Once the play officially begins, almost half the cast remained within the audience, suggesting the audience is still playing a role within the production. When the actors on stage offered an opinion, the actors seated in the audience would urge the audience to clap or dissent with the voiced idea. This purposeful decision carried through by director Valerie Curtis-Newton breaks the fourth wall--a technique embraced by epic playwright Bertolt Brecht. The Cradle Will Rock follows Brecht’s ideology of connecting with the audience through this technique, displayed in Yasha’s scene with Mrs. Mister and Dauber, where these feuding female characters run from the stage into the audience, quite literally breaking through the fourth

This idea is relevant because on the stage, the Restoration actress, is nothing but an ornament in the male gaze. This attitude is apparent as Thomas Shadwell links the new phenomenon of female performers with painted theatrical scenes, both innovative commodities for audience consumption: