Author Archives: Stuart Scott

A reflection on the theatre company process

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Looking back at the process it is possible to see where the company has diverted away from their initial ideologies. STAMP’s aim in the beginning was to create a performance that did not rely on aesthetics but on the performer and their relationship with the audience. Reflecting on the final performance of The Trial I feel that we potentially had a striking aesthetic due to the simplicity and intelligence of the set and as such contradicted our initial aims in the manifesto. As is stated, ‘we will play with our source, we will have fun with what we can do with it’ (Watson 2013, online), though the playing and creativity of the set unintentionally broke away from the manifesto’s aims, we as an ensemble were able to explore and play as Brook would have intended. I feel this still made for entertaining theatre.

Post-show comments from audience members suggested that the performances were excellent and the aesthetic of the piece was correct, though it could be argued that with The Trial there is almost a moment of sudden bathos that occurs in the second act with the story of Block, we tried to achieve this change in mood but still maintain the playfulness that occurred in the first half of the play. It was only when K was alone with the audience that we really wanted the mood to be turned on its head- possibly this was too late for the audience to make that distinction. The play itself was enjoyable to perform in and our end product was something to be admired and appreciated as good theatre, even if it had strayed from our initial aims.

Our aim was to create a pure theatre; perhaps we still achieved this but not in the way we envisaged. The entire process has been an eye opening experience into the industry and how it functions. Hopefully STAMP Theatre will revise the ideologies of the manifesto and continue to make interesting and diverse theatre.

Work cited

Watson, A. (2013) STAMP Theatre’s Manifesto, Online: (Accessed 22/05/2013).

Brook, P. (1968) The Empty Space, London: Penguin.

Joseph K – The dog of the law.

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This is a reflection of my experience playing Joseph K. My idea of this man has changed drastically since February (see previous post). Joseph K is the Everyman, he is a business man whose life is stuck in a monotonous rut. The course of the play is about his journey to defend his name. However, post-show, it feels like there is more. There is a depth to Joseph K that I could have never touched on at the start of the process.  Now, The Trial is more about the degradation of Joseph K and his sanity; as opposed to him finding out his crime.

Now, at the close of the show, I see him as an empty shell. A man used to inhabit his body but that man has become so beaten and destroyed by the journey he has taken that he is defeated. I felt the final speech by K in the play summed up the transition that occurs; from man, to dog of the law.

‘There must be some arguments in my favour that have been overlooked. Wait! Where is my judge? Whom I have never seen. Where is the highest court, which I have never entered? Will someone help me? I hold out my hands. Like…a…dog.’

(Berkoff 1988, p. 69)

By the end of the play, K has become this dog of the law. Berkoff implements the transition in those final lines; K starts arguing against his accusers until succumbing to the system. He deteriorates to the point of helplessness. For me I had little pity for K at the start of this process, but over the course of the three months, I began to grow this sense of sympathy for him.  This pity changed the delivery of those last few lines for me. It was no longer a man crying for help. This man needed help or he would reach his destruction.

The loneliness K feels at the close of the play was accentuated by the lack of chorus. For the first time they left the space and left K pleading to the audience. The lines above aren’t the lines I actually spoke, for me what I was saying was what I felt Joseph K would be saying, only on writing this post have I realised that I was incorrect. The holding out of K’s hands was to the audience and only them, for they were the only ones remaining to witness this end. The end of what is implied to be this man’s life.

Work Cited.

Berkoff, S. (1988) The Trial, Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, London: Gurnsey Press co. Ltd.

Character development – Joseph K

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With the show only six weeks away I want to make sure that I am doing enough to mould Joseph K into a believable and likeable character. As Miller suggests, ‘characters are most effectively created by playing their actions rather than their emotions’ (2010, p. 2); to prevent the script from going stale, I wanted to sit down once again with the play and re-action my lines. The process was more effective this time as I had been able to work with the characters in the scenes and so could develop a fresh and honest approach to some of the lines.’By approaching your work in this manner, the script can help you do clearer, more exciting, and more believable work’ (ibid.). Back to my post about creating an emotional response from the audience, it is imperative that they believe the story of Joseph K.

It is easy to slap an emotion on to the surface of the lines, but I have to breathe every word and take in every intention in order to have a fully formed intention and character development. This will help to achieve the character’s goals, as well as those of the actor and director. By working through my lines in this manner I begin to further develop the understanding and meaning of the lines and the play as a whole. It allows me to further understand Joseph K’s journey and hopefully it will give the audience the needed insight into the life of Joseph K.

Work Cited

Miller, B. (2010) The Scene Study Book: Roadmap To Success, Milwaukee: Limelight Editions.

Blackeyed Theatre – The Trial.

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The Trial by Steven Berkoff is an incredibly challenging play to perform. It is a play with dark undertones that arise from the confusion and insanity that K is thrown into. At the beginning of our rehearsals I felt that it would be a good idea to research past productions of the play and discover how other theatre companies have tackled the play.

I came across a company called Blackeyed Theatre. The company is a touring troupe that was established in 2004.On their website they state that ‘The company specialise in reviving modern classics and staging established titles in innovative ways’ (Blackeyed Theatre 2012, p. 2). It was the notion that they are innovative that compelled me to look further into this particular production.

Whilst exploring their work I came across a short clip of their performance on YouTube:

What is interesting about their performance is that they have explored The Trial in a similar way to us. They have opted to use a minimal set and chose frames for the actors to look through and move around on stage during the show. In this way the world of the play becomes mutated as frames are used to create the course Joseph K takes on his journey to the law. The actors’ physicalisation is exaggerated and which coincides with the grotesqueness of the chorus.

In another clip we can observe an interview between Blackeyed Theatre’s artistic director Adrien McDougall and Simon Wegrzyn, the company’s Joseph K:

Wegrzyn highlights how the company tried to keep the performance ‘as universal as possible’, which allowed the show to be accessible to people from all different backgrounds. In our own company we want to reach out to people who do not visit the theatre and bring them to our performance. Having Joseph K being presented as a normal person amongst the chaos of the other exaggerated characters will allow the audience to instantly connect with him. In the interview Wegrzyn goes on to discuss how Blackeyed Theatre used their set that shares some similarity with our own ideas.
The Director of the performance, Ella Vale, comments regarding the play that ‘the hardest thing about it, and also the most interesting thing, is that we as an audience must make up our own minds about what The Trial actually means’ (Blackeyed Theatre 2008, p. 12). The play opens up many possibilities regarding its meaning but what is perhaps most interesting is the fact that it is a different experience for every individual. The intention of the piece could be to question the law; or question our own lives and the trials we have to face daily. I hope that our audience can make meaning from our performance and appreciate it for a show as well as a potentially thought provoking experience.
Overall Blackeyed Theatre’s production of The Trial is a really interesting piece to explore in detail. Many of their show elements parallel our own. I feel our production can be inspired by them.

 

Work Cited

Blackeyed Theatre (2008) The Trial Education Pack, http://www.tomneill.co.uk/blackeyed/The%20Trial%20Education%20Pack.pdf (acessed: 22/03/2013)

Working with the director.

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With Joseph K being such a naturalistic character, it is easy for him to become lost in the foray of absurdity. It is important for me and for the play that the audience connect with Joseph K. He is the character whom they follow throughout the story; if there is no connection, the audience aren’t engaging with the piece. Me and Lucy sat down to discuss the sort of character we wanted our Joseph K to embody, and in what ways we wanted the audience to engage with him.

My main concern is trying to maintain a dramatic presence against such flamboyant characters that are found in the chorus, without slipping K into an unnatural demeanor. This starts mainly with the choices I make as an actor engaging with Joseph K. Bruce Miller states in The Scene Study Book (2010) that ‘actors must make choices for the characters they play, choices that get them closer to what their characters need’ (p. 146) my choices as Joseph K all lead to the conclusion of the play, where K’s emotional and physical capacity is exposed to the audience. Me and Lucy talked in depth about how we wanted our audience to react to K. We decided that the audience had to sympathise with K in order to come away from the play with any specific idea or feeling. If they fail to connect with K on any level then they merely fade away, just as the chorus do at the close of the show.

Director Lucy

Throughout the course of the play K has internal lines which, on reading, Berkoff seems to intend as K’s internals thoughts.  Me and Lucy thought it would be beneficial to explore these moments as asides; in the same way a Shakespearean or Restoration actor would engage with an audience to reveal his or her feelings, we decided that addressing the audience with K’s internal thoughts would generate an intimate response from an audience. They could share in K’s internal humors, ‘They look like tourists’ (Berkoff 1988, p. 14) and laugh with him, or share his fear. This intimacy is what forms the bond and stimulates the thoughts that generate throughout the piece; as the audience travel with K they will hopefully begin to contemplate their own trials and this only strengthens the bond k and the audience share. The main breakthrough for this came in act two of the play when K delivers a speech about preparing his case. The speech seems to be directed at a group of people who are assisting K in writing his defence. I thought that this moment should explore the intensity of K’s plight by sharing it with the audience, ‘we must banish from our minds any thought of my possible guilt. There is no such guilt.‘ (Berkoff 1988, p 49). The ‘we’ suggests that K and the audience are going to fight the law together. Lucy agreed with this choice suggesting me to find any other moments where I could strengthen the connection between audience and K.

 

Work Cited

Miller, B. (2010) The Scene Study Book: Roadmap To Success, Milwaukee: Limelight Editions Ltd.

Berkoff, S. (1988) The Trial, Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, London: Gurnsey Press co. Ltd.