As mentioned in my previous blog, one concept that became of great importance was focussing on the shared story. One way I looked to do this was through the actor’s body. With all the elaborate sets stripped away, our production of The Trial became heavily focussed on creating a new world with just a few props and the enthusiasm and creativity of my cast.

When speaking of Berkoff’s adaptation, Cross states;

“he used the actors’ bodies and their physical performance and mime skills to assert fantastical stylisation over what he has characterised as the mainstream obsession with creating the impression of ‘reality’ on stage. In short, he employed performance (mime) in attempt to undo the logocentricism of theatre (text and naturalism)” (2004, p.211)

Therfore, by focussing on the use of the body, the cast were able to overcome some of the limitations that the theatre inhabits, and utilise the space to create an ensemble piece that was focussed on allowing the audience to suspend their disbelief and be engaged within the performance.

Another concept that stemmed from this was the use of the grotesque. When beginning to work on the script and the characters within, it came to my attention that by focussing on the physicality of the characters haunting Joseph K, the more these characters became stylised caricatures of themselves. This was something I wished to pursue further so that the more grotesque the chorus and characters around Joseph K became, the more isolated he would become as a character and the more sympathetic an audience would feel towards him.

As mimetic and stylised styles were a technique not many of the cast had used before, I had to find ways of breaking down the barriers and allowing their characterisations to evolve.

One way of doing this was by taking away the text from the performance. With the actors not being able to rely on the text to support their character, their bodies became their only way of communicating to the audience. I often would start the rehearsals by splitting the cast into smaller groups. I would then give the actors two minutes to work on a 30 second-1 minute mute version of ‘The Trial’ or other well known stories for the other members to guess.  By doing this, not only did this help bring energy and pace to the group before we began, but it helped to utilise their bodies enabling them to focus on creating atmosphere, characterisation and telling the story in a stylistic manner.

Below is a video of one of the exercises before rehearsal:

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Works cited

Cross, R, (2004) , Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self-Performance, Manchester university press

One practitioner who I have been highly influenced by when directing is Peter Brook and this was projected within my direction of ‘The Trial’; In particular his theory of  ‘Immediate Theatre’.

Theatre is a pliable art form that is constantly shifting day by day. Styles are ever changing and new forms of theatre are created each year, defining the concept of what ‘theatre’ is. The Theatre world can have such an impact on this world, and as a director, my job is to be the messenger between the story and the audience, enabling these two worlds to come together.

As Peter Brook states in the opening to An Empty Space, Theatre can be as simple as “a man who walks across an empty space whilst someone else is watching him” (1996, p.9). When this simplicity is fully embraced, and theatre is stripped back to its truest form, the power of what that story represents within the world can be put at the forefront of the performance; where audience opinion cannot be clouded by elaborate stagings the story can flourish. This is what we as a company wanted to represent, and this is, in short, is what ‘Immediate Theatre’ represents.

By stripping back the staging to 8 hanging photo frames, a door frame and a prop per-character, I wanted the audience to rely on the actor’s body and voice to create the world of the play. The actors could use the few pieces on set on stage in order to create different spaces and atmospheres that the audience would help build. Similarly I used the lighting states to highlight the actors and the story rather than tell it for them.

“Truth in the theatre is always on the move” (Brook, 1996, p.140), and Immediate Theatre represents that truth, where the Imitation of a remembered style is eradicated from performance and a reliance on the actor, the story and the shared experience becomes of utmost importance. Immediate Theatre strives to reinvent old styles and this is what I found particularly influential, and what became a key concept in our Manifesto and performance of ‘The Trial’. By using different forms of Theatre styles and merging them into a re-invention of these styles, we as a company were able to avoid ‘Deadly Theatre’ where the style becomes static and un-relatable to the modern audience. Therefore another fundamental aspect of directing the play was ensuring that I didn’t imitate previous productions and focused on using different aspects of styles of theatre to create a fresh innovative approach to the script. Therefore I ultimately decided to not watch any previous performances or adaptations of the play. I felt by doing this, the work we created would be a new approach to the text and would avoid the issues of ‘Deadly Theatre’. Instead I focussed on watching or reading about other work that I had enjoyed and utilising those to their fullest extent. Below are some of the many inspirations I took.

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Works Cited

Brook, P. (1996), The Empty Space, Atheneum

As Murray states, when first deciding what play to put on;

“The best scenario is straightforward.  You have a play you are desperate to do. You feel at one with an author. The play is something you care for passionately; you may even have a vision of how to do it.” (2012)

This was certainly the case when choosing our companies play. I knew that in order to create the high quality performance of a professional theatre company I was going to have to be enthusiastic and committed to the play.

I had wanted for years to direct Berkoff’s adaptation of ‘The Trial’ and being strongly influenced by Peter Brook’s theories as a director I craved to merge these two theatrical worlds. I felt this was achievable as both directors focus on “the actor [applying] his physical and emotional efforts to achieve [the] aim of simple forms of theatre that are both understandable and simultaneously packed with meaning” (Coing, p.149).

Once deciding upon ‘The Trial’, I chose to work with company members that shared a similar attitude to me as to what theatre should be; a performance that focusses on the actors, the storytelling and the shared experience. From this stemmed our Company Manifesto, which further confirmed a unanimous agreement that ‘The Trial’ was a play that correlated with our company aims.

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Works Cited:

Murray, B. (2012) How to Direct A Play:: A Masterclass in Comedy, Tragedy, Farce, Shakespeare, New Plays, Opera and Musicals, Oberon Books

Coing, H., Ius Commune 27, Vittorio Klostermann