In this component of our drama A-level, we had to compose our own devised piece. The requirements of this were that it had to be based on the work of a practitioner. We chose to do our piece based off of the works of Steven Berkoff, this is because collectively we enjoyed learning about his style of performing. His work is often portrayed as being abnormal and thought-provoking. ‘In addition to this we were asked to bring in three items from home that fell into three subcategories; something we hate, something from another part of the world and something with a background story. These would act as our stimulus for the devised piece. Collectively as a group we had a selection of stimuli which included items such as a mobile phone with the link to social media, a phone charger, and a letter from a friend who moved country, a mirror, and a few other items. As a group, we discussed our stimuli explaining the items we had chosen and the reasons for this. This then stemmed into a conversation of our mutual dislike for social media and how as a society we are consumed. From this, we were able to create a mind map (pictured above) of different ideas that we had surrounding our stimuli and how we could use these in our performance. As a group, we had also spent a long amount of time thinking of not only our dramatic aims and intentions we wanted to provide the audience with but also what we as performers wanted to gain from this. Collectively we came together to produce a mind map of our aims and intentions. Our aims and intentions directed at the audience include; making the audience feel uncomfortable with a level of uncertainty about what the future holds. This was so the audience would question their own knowledge on much they know surrounding social media. To do this we recognised that we would have to make the audience feel on edge, and effectively build up the tension. This links into the idea that we wanted to provide the audience with a message about the dangers surrounding social media, the impacts of social media and how social media is making society become detached from real life. To effectively do this we understood that our piece
would need to be unique, this is because there are many other forms of material that promote awareness. However, these are not always successful. We wanted our piece to catch the audience off guard. To do this we wanted to make sure that our performance required the audience to stay focused at all times, because of the intensity of the piece. As mentioned previously we also discussed our own personal aims and intentions that we wanted to be able to gain and use within our future performances.
Before we came up with our ideas for our performance we decided we needed to do some more research about Berkoff – our practitioner of choice- as well as different materials that could help our performance. One resource we had come across was this piece of work online by another A-level drama student. Abigaillewisdrama.blogspot. (2019). This piece of research is referenced above. We decided to then print the research out and start to stem our own ideas that can be linked to Berkoff from the research. Proof of this can be seen with the image attached. Within this passage, the author highlights that Total Theatre (the type of theatre Berkoff based his performances off) is used to create extreme moods to give the audience and overwhelming experience and to shock, amuse, scare or amaze them. In addition to this, we had recognised that when we were performing a berkovian piece of drama if it didn’t feel weird we weren’t performing it correctly. Therefore we decided to come up with a phrase that we continually instilled throughout our lessons “If it doesn’t feel weird, you aren’t doing it right”. This soon became the backbone that we used for self-reflective moments. We decided to use this phrase because Berkoff’s work as mentioned before is often thought-provoking and weird for the audience. So, therefore, the actors performing these pieces may also experience some discomfort, especially if what they are performing is outside of their comfort zone. We then applied this to all aspects of our performance. If it wasn’t ‘weird’ or didn’t feel ‘weird’ when performing we needed to make it weird. A good example of this would be the synchronisation of our movements to the snapchat sound effect. Before applying our method, we would just walk normally to the snapchat sound effect. However, we realised this felt normal. We then tried moving to the beat and found this slightly uncomfortable. So we decided to stick with the latter decision of moving to the beat.
Another piece of research we used to help us was the music video of ‘This is America’ by Childish Gambino. YouTube. (2019). We watched the video and highlighted that this video emphasised some important issues in a unique stimulating way. This video can be described as controversial as it presents topics in disturbing ways. For example; mass shootings in the middle of a church choir scene. The video itself was also quite intense. There was a lot of physical movement In this video which then sparked the idea of us using more physical theatre in our work. To help us with this we looked at the work of ‘Frantic Assembly’
Abigaillewisdrama.blogspot. (2019). Research: Berkoff. [online] Available at: abigaillewisdrama.blogspot/2016/09/research-berkoff_8.html [Accessed 6 Mar. 2019].
Assembly, F. (2019). Frantic Assembly | Energetic and Uncompromising Physical Theatre - Frantic Assembly. [online] Franticassembly.co. Available at: franticassembly.co/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2019].
Studios, A. (2019). Frantic Assembly - Chair duets - Frantic Assembly. [online] Chairduets.franticassembly.co. Available at: chairduets.franticassembly.co/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2019].
YouTube. (2019). Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video). [online] Available at: youtube/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY [Accessed 6 Mar. 2019].
YouTube. (2019). Joyner Lucas - I'm Not Racist. [online] Available at: youtube/watch?v=43gm3CJePn0 [Accessed 6 Mar. 2019].