Practioners

Current theatre is in decline because on the one hand it has lost any feeling for seriousness, and on the other for laughter.  Because it has broken away from solemnity, from direct, harmful effectiveness- in a word from Danger.  For it has lost any true sense of humour, and laughter's physical, anarchic, dissolving power.  Because it has broken away from the profoundly anarchic spirit at the basis of all poetry. Antonin Artaud.

Laurence Olivier (1907 -1989) Was possibly the greatest theatre actor in Britain. His acting and direction of Shakespeare such as Richard III and Henry IV are considered definitive. In the cinema he achieved matinee idol success in films such as Rebecca. When Olivier died, his wife, actress Vivien Leigh was in season in the national theatre and pulled out. Berkoff was brought in to fill in the empty slots. Berkoff's admiration of Olivier is apparent from his one-man show Shakespeare Villains.

Edmund Kean (1787 - 1833) Was an actor Berkoff admired and someone he probably saw as a role model. Like Berkoff, Kean had an under-privileged background and fought to establish himself in theatre. Kean was popular presenter of the Shakespeare and combines passion with melodrama.

Bertold Brecht (1898-1956) The German playwright Brecht left Germany when Hitler came to power. His plays show his anti fascist stance and were also innovative in particular his verfrendungseffekt (alienation effect) which Berkoff uses in "East" where actors destroy Naturalism by, for example addressing to the audience

Antonin Artaud (1896 - 1948) Artaud's theoretical writing is the manifestos for a theatre of cruelty which accounts for his immense influence on modern theatre. Artaud wanted to move from staid structured melodrama towards a theatre reinvigorated by danger and cruelty, using power of words and gestures to release emotions. Berkoff followed Artaud and wrote his own Three Theatre Manifestos, and in the documentary "changing Stages" Berkoff talks of the influence of Artaud who wished to get rid of all playwrights with their domestic and psychological obsessions, since he felt they got in the way of true theatrical obsession. "The actor exists without the play...He can improvise, be silent, mime, make sounds and be a witness." Artaud suggests that the actor should look for texts, not written expressively for the recruiting of actors to bring them to life, but works that already exist in the public consciousness... ancient works and myths.
Artaud believe in the theatre of cruelty, and intimidating the audience and making them feel small and irrelevant. He believed in using unconventional settings, and very abstract movements and characterisation.

Total Theatre

Large scale mime and the juxtaposition of this with spare dialogue and phatic utterances.

The replacement of props and furniture with what can be created by the actors bodies.

The almost 'hieratic' leading characters, taking the audience through the narrative.

The link within the idea of the 'Total theatre' which seeks to attract an almost spirited response from the audience through using all the resources of theatre including athletics.

Emphasis upon the figure of the actor as the most important and creative aspect of performance.

Berkoff has a distinctively physical style of acting with the emphasis on physical theatre and mime.

Scenery is significant by its absence.

Through the actors words, position and physical attitude in relation to the audience, Berkoff's characters establish themselves as 'story tellers'.

Performances are orchestrated, the words uttered, the way they are spoken, facial expression and movement are all choreographed to inform each other.

An actor can be visually a lone figure on stage but take on different purposes.

 The video talks about Berokoff's earliest influences, his exploration of voice and physicality and the social and cultural contexts defining his creative development and evolution as one of the modern world's most controversial theatre practitioners.

Theatre Of The Absurd 

The Theatre of The Absurd was originally written by a number of European playwrights in the late 1940's, 50's and 60's and is something that is still developing to this day. It is expressed in the belief that "In a godless universe, human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. Logical construction and arguments gives way to irrational and illogical speech and to its ultimate conclusion, silence."

Harold Pinter makes many references to the theatre of the absurd in most of his work. Absurdist drama often contains a theme of puppetry; Man being controlled by invisible or outside forces. Despite most plays seeming comical they tend to be mixed with horrific images and a wide use of irony - I feel this is more effective to the audience than a direct approach of breaking the fourth wall by shouting or perhaps direct interactions with the audience.

Characters in Absurdist drama are often portrayed as lost and floating in an incomprehensible universe, they often appear as "automatons stuck in routines speaking only in cliché" The characters are often stuck in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions, the dialogue will almost certainly be full of clichés wordplay and nonsense, plots that a cyclical or absurdly expansive.

Language in Absurdist drama is often quite naturalistic despite its reputation for nonsense language. Language frequently gains a certain rhythmical, almost musical quality. The moments when characters resort to nonsense language or clichés- when words appear to have lost their denotative function- this creates a misunderstanding, making the distinction in the Theatre of The Absurd

 

"Not I" by Samuel Beckett

Below is a video of Pinter in an interview about Beckett, there is also a performance by Pinter of 'The Unnameable' by Beckett- This begins at 4 minutes - From this we can pin point the key features of both work from Pinter and Beckett, we can see how there works are similar, The piece is spoken in a thoroughly engaging way,  flowing with emotion and feeling and so it is a good performance to watch to help influence out own piece

Pinter was a very modest playwright similar to Samuel Becket - (One of his great influences, To the left is a video of Pinter talking about Becket followed by a performance of one of his pieces) and when faced with many question regarding his plays he would always be quite dismissive when people spoke about languages and silences and situations as being 'Pinteresque'. Once asked what his plays were about, Pinter replied with the phrase "The weasel under the cocktail cabinet" - which he regrets as even that has been taking so seriously and applied in popular criticism

Pinter Discusses the different perspectives experienced when writing a play and acting out a play.

"I never stuck categories on myself, or any of us playwrights. But if what I understand the word menace to mean is certain elements that I have employed in the past in the shape of a particular play, then I don't think it's worthy of much more exploration. "

Comedy Of Menace

It is quite possible for a playwright to create both humour and menace in the same play and even at the same time in the play (for instance, a character might joke about a bad situation he finds himself in, while he prepares a gun to deal with his situation - that is an example from one of the comedies of menace). The playwright's objective in mixing comedy & the threat of menace is to produce certain effects (like set up dramatic tension or make the audience think a character is a weasel because they are acting nice or funny, but planning to do something evil) or to convey certain social or political ideas (for ex., don't trust lawyers or politicians) to the audience.

Two Silences

There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed. This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it. that is its continual reference. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear, a necessary avoidance. Pinter believed that we can communicate only too well "In our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion... Communication is too alarming. to enter someone else's life is too frightening, to disclose others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility"

The Pinter pause has became a trademark for Pinter's dialogue, Pinter pauses a distinctive, the natural ones seem to be right where he wrote them, they convey a sense of rhythm to his pieces. A pause in a Pinter play is as important as a line as despite Pinter being a modest writer and saying "they're just pauses" he wanted to emphasis that its not what you say that matters, it's what you don't say...

Sarah Kane  "Theatre has no memory, which makes it the most existential of the arts."

Sarah Kane was born in Essex on 3 February 1971. Both parents were journalists and deeply religious. She studied drama at Bristol University, graduating with first class honours, then did an MA at Birmingham University. She suffered from depression and had spells in hospital. A suicide attempt with sleeping pills was unsuccessful but a few days later on 20 February 1999 she hung herself in the hospital where she was being treated.

Kane's work can be compared with Artaud's 'theatre of cruelty'. On the one hand, Kane uses the same technicality as Artaud, that is to say shock treatment, which aims at awaking the audience's awareness. If they use such a technical, it is because for them, theatre should urge the spectator to take a stand, to position himself towards reality. On the other hand, like Artaud, Kane confronts the spectator with the cruelty of things, that is to say his mortality. Despair and death are also important in Kane's work. One of her main issues is depression. When there is nothing left, the only way to fight depression is humour.