Author Archives: Thomas Cliff

Post-Show Review

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The final performance of The Trial went extremely well! Firstly our marketing was a success, having sold nearly 190 tickets we reached and even went over our objective of 150. Having only performed using the real frames the night before during a tech rehearsal I myself was nervous about what could go wrong but after two runs of the play using them, we were all comfortable with them.

For some scenes I struggled using the frames as there was a lot of tension in the bungee rope however, Lucy stated that I didn’t need to use it for them which was far easier and made me more relaxed. One thing that I particularly enjoyed was hearing the audience’s reactions, particularly in parts where we had repeated the scene so many times that it lost its comedic value for us. When playing the bailiff, I received a positive reaction from the audience even before I had said any lines, people were laughing at the character, which spurred me on.

I did however nearly forget one line of Huld’s however; I used the pipe I had to cover it up until I remembered it, even receiving a laugh after delivering the line after. I felt that my concentration in Huld, The Bailiff and the chorus was at the best it’s ever been when the audience was there. The play also received very good feedback from the audience who commended the set, lighting, direction and performance.

I felt that because Alex Watson was in the tech box that it was far more comforting for me as a performer as I knew that if there was a technical error, then he would’ve known the play well enough to step in. I felt that the other members of the cast were also the best I have ever seen them perform, however grotesque peoples characters were in rehearsals were magnified by the presence of an audience. I found this myself, that I actually performed better with having an audience this was possibly because the more reactions you got from the audience, the more grotesque you needed to become to get a further response.

The Flyer (Second Design) and Distribution

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After receiving feedback from the first Flyer, considerable improvements have been made. Firstly the size of the font has not only been increased but a different font has been used altogether. Corrections have been made to the time and ticket prices and the QR code now works properly. The picture has been made much darker as we felt that the prototype did not seem as powerful as we wanted. It also magnifies the initial impression we wanted to give of making the audience believe that the world in which the play is set is surreal and absurd. This is the design for the new flyer:

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We have ordered 200 flyers from the company Decon Design who have also chosen to sponsor us! We will begin with on-campus advertising by placing flyers in the LPAC and ensuring that there is a flyer on each table at the beginning of the day. We will also place flyers in the University Library as it is close to the LPAC and has many students passing by. Outside of the University we will kindly ask if various coffee shops and cafes will display our poster in their windows. We will then head to the city centre and hand out flyers at our designated distribution zones.

Character Development: The Bailiff, Huld and The Chorus

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As an actor I found that The Trial would be an excellent play to experiment with characters, particularly because the surrealist and absurd world that Berkoff creates allows for characters to be pushed to their absolute limit. Lucy stated that we are to make our characters grotesque; therefore the nature of the play and the way it is written allows us to create these grotesque images. On particular challenge for myself as an actor was to constantly keep up with the fast pace of the play, which is both physically demanding and difficult due to the specific blocking. It’s important that the characters reflect this grotesque imagery. I found that taking influence from the stock characters of Commedia dell’ arte was important to me in creating exaggerated characters especially as big gestures are used to emphasise meaning.

The Bailiff was my first character. He enters the scene questioning others onstage if they have seen his wife and then proceeds to tell a story to Joseph K, describing how the student and magistrate attempt to steal the laundress (his wife) away from him. Before the characterisation, Lucy stated that she wanted my character to have a cockney accent with a cocky, arrogant attitude. When attempting to use this in character development I felt that it was necessary to walk with a swagger whilst turning my head and then turning my body to follow which looked very comical. During a rehearsal, I had a breakthrough; I explored the character using the walk of Il Capitano from Commedia dell’ arte. John Rudlin states that Il Capitano uses the “Mountain walk: the heels of his high boots come down first then the foot rolls onto the ball. Straight back… Big strides… Feet on the ground, head in the clouds” (Rudlin, 1994) When using this I felt that it reflected the arrogant, cocky self-important nature of the character, particularly when kicking out my feet and holding my head up.

When reading the character of Huld, I attempted to bring uniqueness to the character, which was particularly important when defining a distinct difference between the two characters. I found that although the lines of Huld were insinuating he was suffering from illness such as “Don’t ask, I’m terrible. Getting worse, difficult to sleep and I’m losing my strength daily”. I found that it would be even funnier, if not more ridiculous if he was lying to crave attention. I explored this further by emphasising the fact he is over-dramatically pretending to be at a loss of breath for during this one line. As Lucy stated that Huld was to be sitting in a chair for the performance, I envisaged that this chair would be a worn armchair, in a rustic old house with a fireplace. With this in mind I envisaged that Huld would be relaxed in the environment he is in and perhaps gives reason to the way he treats Block. One struggle when portraying how I envisaged Huld was that I wanted the audience to see him as pathetic and useless at being a lawyer yet show that he still appears to take great pride in his work, unaware of how deluded he is. One character I found that helped this was Commedia dell’ arte’s Il Dottore as I found a few similarities between the two. Rudlin states that Il Dottore is “From Bologna, the home city of Italy’s oldest University, not that he ever went to it. Specialises in everything, and can talk a load of old boloney about it.” (Rudlin, 1994, p.101) Although it isn’t implied that Huld specialises in everything, I found it useful that he could specialise in being a lawyer without understanding it, nor even having studied it. Particularly as he rambles, stating such line as:

“The legal records for the case with charges are not available to the council for the defence. Consequently, one doesn’t know with any precision what charges to draw up in the first plea.”

Another interesting connection I found with Il Dottore is that he “Makes crude sexual jokes and has a weakness for pornography” (Rudlin, 1994, p.101). I felt that this could be related to Huld’s odd (almost lustful) relationship with Leni. This is shown in the line when he is describing her, stating “It’s a peculiarity of hers in finding nearly all accused men attractive, she sleeps with all of them and they all love her. I must apologise to K, she tells me these affairs to amuse me, which I allow.” This was particularly useful as it gave an almost creepy undertone to the character which I emphasised through the grotesqueness of my character.

One of the greatest challenges when performing as the chorus is the necessity to make sure that we were all working in unison and as one. Because of this you can feel if one cast member slows down which could jeopardise the play entirely, although at first we struggled, after a few rehearsals, we began to move together and work off one another, particularly in terms of lines and how they were delivered. One thing that influenced me when working with the Chorus was exploring what Peter Brook describes as ‘The Holy Theatre”. When discussing ‘The Holy Theatre’ he states that “it could be called The Theatre of the Invisible-Made-Visible: the notion that the stage is a place where the invisible can appear has a deep hold on our thoughts” (Brook, 1968, p.47) it was a great challenge to find this raw connection between one another.

Lucy would often warm up with a workshop in which Stuart (Joseph K) would leave the room and we would decide who would choose to lead whatever movement they wanted and we all had to mimic this person. Stuart would then enter and he would have to guess who was leading the movements. The more we repeated this. The more Stuart would struggle to guess as we began to move almost simultaneously.

When behind the frames, we could treat it as though they were gateways, staring into the world of Joseph K. This meant that we were not limited to staring out at the audience, but we could also react to what is taking place onstage. Particularly as we can use out eyes to judge Joseph K and almost criticize his actions with our eyes.

I found that I struggled at first with staying fast paced throughout the performance, particularly because the blocking was so concentrated and precise. As we went through the play it almost felt as though you had to think about the action that was ahead of you whilst you were doing your current one. I found that once I had my costume, I found it far easier to create the grotesque faces, particularly because I found it easier to concentrate.

What I found most fun about the chorus was that you are not limited to one character; a chorus member can be anything from an overly camp office worker, to a cockney clothes washer to a gargoyle in a church! The grotesque nature of the performance allows you to push these mini characters to their absolute limit thus keeping the audience interested because they don’t know what’s coming next.

Brook, P., 1968. The Empty Space. London: the Penguin Group.

Rudlin, J., 1994. Commedia dell’ arte: An actor’s handbook. New York: Routledge.

The Flyer (Prototype)

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When developing the Flyer for The Trial I believed that it was most important to ensure the audience were given all the relevant information such as:

  • Title, Company name and director
  • Ticket prices
  • Date and Time
  • QR code that links to social media groups
  • LPAC Logo
  • Permissions

When taking the photo for the image used on the flyer I wanted the audience to understand that Joseph K was being judged by the chorus whilst giving the audience a taster of the grotesqueness that Lucy wanted to create. I turned the photo black and white to reflect the surrealism and absurdity of the play, particularly as it takes away any personality of the performers and so alienates the audience. It also suggests that the events of the play are not necessarily happening; it could be an echo from the past, a memory or a distortion of reality. Here is an example of the prototype Flyer.

 

Prototype Flyer

In this image, I experimented with blurring the photo slightly but leaving the faces of the characters as they were. I did this to show that the world being represented in this photo is distorted and exaggerated. It also implies that the grotesque facial expressions we are using are a particularly important focus of the play. By leaving the faces unblurred it means that the choruses judgement of Joseph K is magnified, particularly as the black and white sharpen the actors eyes, making the even more penalising.

Within the image I wanted to depict Joseph K as an everyman, a character that the audience could relate to immediately thus it was necessary to ensure that he was exactly in the centre of the flyer. As Stuart’s expression is far different from that of the chorus and shows he is in a state of distress the audience will immediately understand that he is the main character.

The key problems with this flyer are that the QR code became distorted when using Photoshop and the font can be improved, I will how an improvement in a later post.