Jacques Lecoq Essay

     Auguste Escoffier was born on October 28, 1846, in the village of Villeneuve-Loubet, France. He was the son of Jean-Baptiste Escoffier and his wife Madeleine Civatte. His father was the villages blacksmith, farrier, locksmith, and maker of agricultural tools. Escoffier's childhood dream was to become a sculptor. Unfortunately he was forced to give up that dream at the age of thirteen, just after he celebrated his first Holy Communion Escoffier was told he was going to be a cook.

“Audiences today want a real experience in their live performance, because they can get great script based entertainment at home, through various new media sources. Traditional theatre, which appeals on a mental, and hopefully also emotional level, has not been enough to compete with other media, and audiences have been declining. Physical theatre, by contrast appeals to the audience on a physical and emotional level, providing a much more immediate experience than traditional theatre” ~ (Artmedia Publishing in Zen Zen Zo’s “The Tempest” Teacher’s Notes)

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.

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.

Up to modern day, Aristotelian theatre has been commonly accepted as the way theatre works internally. Augusto Boal, a Brazilian theatre director, examines the extent to which Aristotle’s views apply to theatre in the modern context of severe governmental oppression. In his book Theatre of the Oppressed, Boal finds limitations in Aristotle’s thinking. He believes that Aristotle limited theatre to only pre-existing conditions, and calls for a theatre that allows for revolution against a pre-existing system. Similarly, Thomas Merton in his book The Black Revolution: Letters to a White Liberal calls for white American citizens to realize their comfort with pre-existing conditions, and to stop the oppression of black people. Merton examines the

“Theatre makes us think about power and the way our society works and it does this with a clear purpose, to make a change.”

when it was in the middle of a stride with its hooves in the air and

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.

Jerzy Grotowski believed in the supreme power of an actor's performance above all else and that great theatre does not need extravagant sets, costumes, props or gimmicks and that in fact “the actor's voice and body skills should be primary spectacle on stage”.

The above example illustrates not only how the theatrical performance affects the audience, but also how the audience influences its dynamics, development and the characters within it. The actors feel a certain level of acceptance from the viewer, who demands a certain way of depicting the character. Theatre is not just entertainment, itís something much more than that ñ itís education. Theatre should always represent things, rather than

This view gives us a deeper understanding of behaviours as performances. A personal example of looking at a performativity culture and analyzing it, is the roles people play in everyday life. The role of a

     France, which is the largest nation in Western Europe, is a presidential republic. France is a very important nation in Europe and it continues to be involved in contemporary policy issues. Helping the world as one of the great trading nations, France is a very important trading partner with the United States. Not only is France important to the United States, they are also important to countries all over the world. Their abundance of both mineral and agricultural resources make them a very important supplier of products all over the world. I chose to report on France because it is an interesting county and I wanted to learn more about it.

The French are all about preserving their culture and being individualized. They often take great pride in the French products and the French style, and believe in keeping the French culture “pure” so they also limit the amount of foreign goods that are being imported. But during the World Wars the French began to allow foreigners to immigrate into France to take jobs due to an increase in job shortages. The immigration from the World Wars added to the diversity of the French culture. Ever since the 1850’s there has been a steady flow of immigration into France, and now nine percent of the French population is made up of immigrants (Gofen 62). The break down of the cultures in France is eighty-five percent of the French population is Roman

The Theatre of the Oppressed is a form of theatre that uses a variety of games/exercises that seek to help people and communities to find solutions to problems and create greater harmony within groups. Augusto Boal, a Brazilian director, created it in 1973, however had the inspiration for it during the 1960s when he would invite audience members to stop performances and suggest different actions for the actors to carry out. Legend holds that at one of these performances, a woman was so irritated that the actor could not understand what she meant that she went on the stage and acted it out her self. Thus was born the spect-actor; a term that Boal used to describe audience members who would come on stage and act out the movements as they saw it should be. In doing this, he discovered that audience members had the power to not only imagine change, but also carry it out, creating an ability within them to reflect this idea of change within society and to view theatre not as a spectacle but as a language to be used. He was then exiled to Argentina because of this work, where he wrote his first major text, ‘The Theatre of the Oppressed’. He then moved to Paris where he continued to teach, establishing many Centres for the Theatre of the Oppressed.