Theatre Workshop Exercises

 The Soap Box Exercise:
 
We started this theatre workshop lesson by doing a soap box exercise. We had to stand on a box and talk about what we are passionate about politically. Personally, I found this exercise very important, as it helped to start off our term with us all thinking openly about politics and everyone's different views. This exercise helped us to understand how people speaking out and expressing their views is very important and allows other people to question their views, to explore whether they feel the same way or whether they disagree, which opens more dicussions. This refers to Brecht's idea of getting the audience, not to just accept what they see on stage, but to challenge it and to ask questions.

Moody Objects Exercise:

We then did an exercise which helped us to question the alienation technique. By Sarah asking us to get into groups and become certain objects with emotions, for example, a happy toilet, a sexy calculator, an angry motorbike or a shy car, it helped us to realise that this exercise links into the alienation technique or the v-effect because it makes the audience realise that they are watching something which leads them to think and question things. This made me realise that it is very easy to question things, which made me aware of how important the audience's "suspension of disbelief" is, when it comes to theatre.
 
Daily Tasks:
 
This exercise made us act out a certain moment from our daily routine and mime it. We then had to repeat this, whilst narrating every action we did. From this exercise I have learnt the extreme difference between Brecht and Stanislavsky. I found it really interesting to realise that in the mime, Stanislavksy would use it to make the audience focus on what the character is doing. However, in the narrated version, Brecht would use this technique because it breaks the fourth wall, allowing the audience to focus on why the character is doing a certain thing. Because none of their focus is taken by what the actor is doing, they can ask themselves much deeper questions behind the character's actions.