Monday, 23 May 2016

Earthquakes In London Online Blog Assignment


Personal Introduction to Play
This play follows the lives of Robert Crannock's three daughters, Freya, Sarah and Jasmine. Freya is the mentally un stable wife of Steve who has been told to abort her foetus by her scientist father due to the Earth being over populated. Sarah is the environmental secretary for the government who is trying to prevent the extension of an airport owned by Carter who is a business man out to make money with little care for the environment. Young Robert back in the 1970's worked for this very company and due to being corrupted by money, he lied about his conclusions about how damaging green house gasses really are to the atmosphere and therefore damaging his career. With this and his  beloved wife Grace passing due to cancer, he becomes a bitter old man whom resents his daughters do to their likeliness to their mother. The youngest of the daughters is Jasmine who is burlesque dancer and very flirtatious and seductive. Overall, this play contains many individual story lines that all foreshadow and symbolise the dramatic conclusion to the play, the earthquake.

Research into Themes:

The Coalition Government
In May 2010 the UK's first coalition government was formed since 1945 between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats with Prime minister David Cameron and deputy Prime minister Nick Clegg. What this means is that there are several political parties cooperating in parliament to run the country reducing the dominance of each party. This happens when no party reaches majority of seats in parliament.


Deputy Prime minister during coalition,            Prime minister during coalition,
Nick Clegg - Leader of Liberal Democrats         David Cameron - Leader of Conservatives

                                                                                   
  Links:
http://cdn.unilad.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/david-cameron.jpg
http://www.independent.co.uk/ 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_government
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8693832.stm

Coalitions Policies in Accordance to Climate Change and Energy Relative to the Play

Mike Bartlett has brought up problems with the coalitions policies in this play. Three policies that the play addresses are;
  • Climate change
  • Foreign affairs
  • Energy
Examples from play;
  • Robert "...it's clear that releasing huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at such a high altitude will cause eat to be reflected rather than released, potentially causing rising temperatures and..."
  • Tom "...the crops don't grow anymore. The temperature is rising year on year. The people, my family, they're getting to the point where either they move or they die."
  • Sarah "I called the Prime minister's office to bring forward the meeting... he's very green. He's got a wind turbine on his roof..."
Starting from Roberts quote, he has been hired by the airport company owner Roy to carry out experiments on fuel efficiency and how their planes will effect the Earths atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Robert has proved that having planes in the sky is bad for the environment but Roy doesn't care for facts, he just wishes for his jolly planes to heat up the planet to get his share of the profits and to expand his company. To help prevent issues like this the coalition government has come up with the climate change policy. This states that they wish to cut EU emissions by 30% by 2020, letting Lib Dems to maintain their anti stance on nuclear power whilst the conservatives are pro nuclear. They will ban a third runway at Heathrow airport, with no permission for extra runways to Gatwick and Stanstead. To me it is obvious that this is what Mike Bartlett as used in his play as the Prime ministers office bans the runway that Carter wants to build. I believe he has done this because it shows how the coalition is positive in trying to act upon climate change and lower pollution levels. In order to make his play have an interesting and impactful and very daunting storyline is that he has made the audience think that with these changes in place, it is still too late to change anything and the world is doomed.

"you want to be green? Hold your breath. The planet can sustain about one billion people. We currently have six billion..."

Another aspect Bartlett has looked upon is foreign affairs. Tom is the device used to make the audience current with this policy. The governments policy states they will support permanent seats in Africa. That's honestly all I could find on that one. The government in the past has given money to African countries which has been used not by the people that deserve it, the communities that the  money was meant to help, the schools it was meant to build and the lives it was meant to better No. These countries are run by dictators whom have generously taken this money and spent it on the betterment of their own health and well being. "How much is a private jet you ask? But a few million pounds Sir. Ill take two." Point is that from much research, foreign aid hasn't really worked and has done more damage if anything. Funny really, I mean, they bought a plane with our aid money and the play is about preventing flying. Relating this back to the play, I believe that the character Tom is really Bartlett teaching the audience how the government hasn't figured out a way to help countries like Eritrea unless it involves money which has been proven to make things worse.


Me and Robert

Week one of the play me and younger Robert seemed to develop a meaningful connection. Whilst doing the workshops and trying out characters such as Colin and Older Robert, I found that, from the beginning, I was able to become young Robert. The first time I was Robert me and Chloe Smith who was playing Grace decided to stage it in a naturalistic way as we hadn't learnt about Brecht just yet. We were sat at the table eating our dinner on a date. From there we read through the scene to understand the context a bit more which helped me understand who my character was, that he was a young scientist studying a doctorate. I tried speaking with a slightly nerdy, intelligent accent, well articulated and chose to play my character as quite innocent and nervous and awkward. I feel this was a pretty good go for the first time playing him as I really feel I became the character and the scene became quite funny and humorous for the audience to watch but from the feedback it was nice and softly played.

Testing out older Robert was also a fun experience. I was paired with jack A who believe it or not was playing Steve. After reading through it and understanding the context more just like with younger Robert, I asked Jack who had been given some information previously about Robert and found out that this character has lost everything he ever cared about, his wife and career and whom despises his children and has become bitter and monotone. With this information I chose to perform this scene very monotone and I think it worked very well in displaying to the audience Roberts loss and how he is basically just an empty shell full of information and facts and missed opportunities. The paragraph;

"I told her to kill it"

felt really real when I was reading it and I felt like the tension was building up with Steve who was becoming angry and frustrated at Robert but Robert well passed any emotions stays monotone throughout talking about the way the world is overpopulated.
Conclusion of Workshops
Overall, the workshops felt really positive and working with these characters and experimenting with different emotions and energies and just cold reading from the first time seeing the script, I believe I characterised well and felt truth when it came to these characters. When being chosen to play Younger Robert, after many of these workshops, I was really happy and really looking forwards to this play to expand on this character and to learn Brechtian style and add this style to my performance.

Character Outfit
  • white baggy trousers
  • grey cardigan
  • large shirt
  • large nerdy glasses
  • black smart shoes

This outfit is something I have come up with after researching the play. Roberts scenes are in the late 60's and early 70's and these are the sort of things men would wear at this time. I'd say that due to Robert being a scientist he is way above fashion and doesn't care for matching clothes as much as the next man so maybe ill go with odd colours of odd patterns that don't usually go together but still look as though he has made an effort to get dressed for the date even though he hasn't got a clue what he is doing. I believe this gives him a very innocent and awkward person that the audience begin to like and become enrolled in his 'cute' little date with his love, Grace.

Smells and Colours
When I read my scenes in the play, in the prologues, I smell the 70's so herbs, old woods and hair pomade. I see bright and vigilant colours such as pinks oranges, greens and yellow but outstanding colours that people wear, painted cars, advertisements and houses. Everything is eccentric and unique and stylish but in a slightly crazy way. I think this because from the researching the 1970's clothing you can visually see the colours and style of clothes and how eccentric they really are. I think our play would be transported back if we performed it in this 1970's manner with bright colours that just pop to the audience. I believe that the Brechtian style being overacted and very visual will compliment the attire and staging that would enhance the play massively.

Brechtian Theatre
Brecht was a German playwright who disliked the likes of Stanislavski and Checkovs naturalism and wanted to, instead of portraying character through emotion, visualise the emotions through actions and also make the audience think to specify that they were watching theatre not real life.

"Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it."

Brechtian theatre has a very strong political aspect it which is why Bartlett has chosen to take the play in that direction as he was influenced by epic theatre. An example of a very Brechtian device Bartlett has used in the play is this stage direction;

"A number of swimmers are in ponds, swimming. They have similar swimming hats and swimming costumes. One by one they come and stand in the fresh morning air. Birds fly past, a clear blue sky. One of the swimmers has a ukelele."

 He has created a whole section of a scene dedicated to visualise what is going on in Freya's head during this part of the play. Freya is looking into the pond and she being a very 'out of this world' character, imagines all of these strange scenarios to show the audience that she is mentally not all there. I believe that this makes the play a whole load more interesting and fun to watch. What isn't funny about watching a bunch of lads in swimming costumes swimming in a pond in the outskirts of London inside the imagination of Freya. That is so Brechtian and just shows how Bartlett was inspired by Epic Theatres way of taking the normalistic, naturalistic way of moving and characterising things and turning it on its head and making it ridiculous but managing to make it work in a way that is entertaining to watch but can also be used to create deep, meaningful or sad powerful scenes as well as humour. I believe that visualising these emotions allows the audience to remember that they are obviously not in real life, and that they are watching the directors/playwrights vision of a story. I think this is great because why would you want to go to the theatre to watch a piece of naturalism when you could walk into your community and watch naturalism unfold in front of you. Surely going to the theatre should be memorable and a unique experience? That's what I think Bartlett wants from his plays and what Brecht has helped create.

Link - http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zwmvd2p/revision/3 

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