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From the Outside In. Fifth Session.

Ok, guys. The people you've got to do a bit of research for next week are:

Complicite Theatre Company. And Jacques Lecoq and Philippe Gaulier. Tony also spoke about the John Wright Theatre Company and a related company Told Like an Idiot. You could also look up stuff about Marcello Magni, Kathryn Hunter and Simon McBurney, some of the founder members of the Complicite TC.

As I have almost certainly said, go and have a look at Wikipedia first - it's the free online Encyclopaedia - but also use Google if that's no good. Complicite definitely have their own website. It's at complicite.org

PS. YOU CANNOT CALL YOURSELF A STUDENT OF THEATRE UNTIL YOU'VE SEEN AT LEAST ONE COMPLICITE SHOW. THEY RE-WROTE THE RULE-BOOK.

Ok. Today's class was definitely in two parts. The first was basically TABLE WORK. Even if we didn't have a table. We were sitting and we were analysing the text. And since the approach we have taken so far on the course is basically Stanislavskian, I would be expecting you to use that useful utensil as a can opener.

We were asking specific questions about objectives. About what the protagonists know at the beginning of the play. The fact that even though John tells Nina he's a journalist it doesn't mean that she didn't know that already. The writer doesn't have to tell his actors and directors EVERYTHING. Especially if s/he's already deceased or currently living in Antarctica.

We have to work a lot of things out for ourselves. Must expect to be given nothing on a plate. You have to earn your spurs....

Recall, we spent a lot of time deciding whether John wanted to sleep with Nina. How 'innocent' he was. But Steve made this point: think of the worst thing you've ever done in your life, and then think how you would - and DO - justify it. Nobody thinks they're evil or hurtful or basically cruel. They always have a reason for what they do.

So, maybe John would admit to his psychiatrist, five years later, that he DID want to sleep with her. Maybe at the time, he would have denied it. But at the same time he DID want to sleep with her and that WAS his real objective.

We talked about STAKE. If the stake isn't high enough, why on earth would he use such violent language at the end. We thought it was rather like the guy in the bar who's charmingly trying to buy a girl a drink but when she turns him down he ends up calling her a 'bitch'. 'What's up, love? My money not good enough for you?'... etc

Being thwarted he shows his real colours. His real intentions.

We talked about HOTSEATING John or Nina or both. About the director helping the actors to construct a watertight story. That we can all believe in (actors, director, audience).

We talk about how we should cast Nina and John. We talk about how casting by a different ethnicity would change things. Could John be black? What would change if Nina was 'Marco'? Would the 'exploitation' be more or less.

We talked about Nina exploiting her femininity to get what she wants from John (i.e. help for her sister). A version of the play where the audience feels that John is so wrapped round Nina's finger that we believe he WILL do something about Nina's sister in the next scene. i.e. Nina uses her sexuality as a TACTIC to obtain her objective of helping her sister. We wondered whether she might even sleep with John to obtain her objective. Another tactic.

We talk about power relationships. We talk about these being, perhaps, more important in a post-colonial age. How you can't ignore them so much these days.

We talk about feminist perspectives.

Second Half.

We briefly looked at Levels of Intensity as propounded by the Jacques Lecoq School method. By a variety of techniques we tried to get familiar with the physicality of

'Neutral'
'Out-Breath' or Lowest
'Californian'
'Attraction' sometimes called 'Virgin Mary'
Highest or 'Tragedy'
and 'Is their a bomb in the Room' or 'Agitation' or 'Never Quite Stop'.

Again, briefly, we try to apply it to News Flash.

We also sing Happy Birthday Tom in different levels of intensity. Just to show how pliable the text is. How a speech too could be flexible. "To be or Not to Be' in each of the Levels.

PPS: All Bring GOOD PERSON OF SZECHWAN for next week