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Week 1, April 17th - April 21st: Annotate the Script and use those annotations to slowly build a unique version of the character of André: I'll need to analyse the script in-depth and pick out key information.

Week 2, April 24th - April 28th: Learn my lines, while also playing around with body language, pauses and tones: I'll have to trail certain ideas in order to see the approach I'll use on camera.

Week 3, May 1st - May 5th: Planning my outfit in a subtle, seemingly unplanned way: look at characters in film and mimic those patterns in styles to match my own.

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Using Vocal Elements To Enhance Characterization

When choosing a voice for a role, you need to study the script and the playwright’s description of the character. Vocal elements is a technique that really helps me play with the text, some I can just speak in almost one way, but implementing pace, pauses, helps me with rhythm and to break up the text and help to find intention. There are several things to consider.

Age

Is the character young, old or middle-aged?

Would their voice be deep and mature or young and light?

Personality

What kind of person is the character, are they shy and quiet or loud and domineering?

Accent

Is the character from a specific country/county? Wherever they're from, you'll need to master the correct accent.

You can also use Received Pronunciation (RP), which is the standard ‘neutral’ English accent, if the character’s accent isn’t specified.

Mannerisms

Should the character have specific vocal mannerisms, eg a nervous cough or giggle, lisp, a booming laugh or a squeaky tone?

Register

Does the character speak with a low or high register? Usually, low registers are used to show softness and kindness and are used by mature characters.

Type of performance

Is the play a comedy or a tragedy? Your vocal choices must blend in with the overall tone of the play.

Is your performance a vocal one only? Remember, if the audience can't see you, you can’t rely on facial expressions or body movement to enhance the dialogue.

Are you providing a voice-over or narration? If so, you’ll need to ‘overdo’ your vocal work slightly, making sure that it conveys as much as possible to the listener.

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Stage VS Screen: A Comparison of Acting Techniques

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Stage VS Screen: A Comparison of Acting Techniques

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Whilst rehearsing for our film shoot, I took note of multiple differences between screen and stage theatre:

1. Facial Expressions and Body Gestures

The biggest difference between acting for stage versus acting for screen is the location of the audience. In a theatre, the stage tends to be far away from the audience. Depending on the size of the theatre, the actors need to exaggerate their facial expressions and gestures so even the patrons in the back row can see what’s going on. For example, actors cannot express sadness with just a single tear onstage, since only the audience members closest to the stage will see it.

When acting on screen, however, the camera can get extremely close to the actor, which closes the gap between the audience and the actors. Because of the close-up perspective, actors on film must use more subtle, controlled, and natural expressions and gestures. Large, exaggerated “stage acting” can look awkward and silly on screen.

Choose a short scene or monologue, and perform it twice–once for “stage” and once for “screen.” For the stage version, use large, exaggerated gestures to reach the back row audience members. For the screen version, use small, controlled expressions. Use a video camera or cell phone to record the two performances. Zoom in on the actors while recording the screen version and stand farther away while recording the stage version. Compare how your facial expressions and gestures change when your audience (or camera) is close vs. far away. Are you over-the-top, too subtle, or just right?

2. Voice and Volume

For each live theatre performance, actors have just one chance to get it right! That’s why it is so important to have a strong and healthy voice, and to ensure that lines are memorised. Depending on the show or production budget, microphones may or may not be used during a performance. Even with a microphone, actors must practice and perform their lines accurately each time, with crisp diction and clear enunciation. In musicals, actors must get their notes and lyrics correct on the first try. There are no do-overs during a live theatre performance!

For screen performances, actors have multiple “takes” to get a scene right. If they slur their diction, stumble over a line, or mess up the words, they can do the scene again. Film and television sets have microphones everywhere on the set to pick up the lines. In post-production, actors frequently go back to re-record lines to fix any errors that they made during filming.

Choose a short scene or monologue and perform it twice. First, record yourself performing the scene for film. Concentrate on accurately, projected lines. Do as many takes as needed to get the lines letter-perfect. Next, record yourself performing the scene onstage in front of an audience. Follow up your stage performance by presenting your filmed performance to the class. Compare how your expressions and delivery change in the two performances.

3. Preparation and Performance

In theatre, performances happen in real time. Stage actors spend many rehearsal hours developing their characters’ personalities and quirks, and spend even more hours memorising their lines so they can be performed in the sequence of the show. Despite all this preparation, stage actors need to be quick on their feet in case something goes wrong (which, in theatre, it often does!). A missed cue, a forgotten prop, a dropped line or a wardrobe malfunction–no matter what, the show must go on somehow! Giving live performances can be taxing on stage actors. They must deliver the same performance with new energy each time they perform, to get the job done.

In film, performances do not happen in real time. If an actor flubs a line, it’s easy to refer to a script and fix the mistake on the next take. However, one challenge of film acting is that scenes are often shot out of sequence due to budgetary concerns, time of day, or weather. An actor may have to perform an intense scene with lots of running and screaming immediately followed by a happy scene with laughing and smiling. There is little time in between to mentally “re-set.” This can be emotionally draining on an actor. Screen actors must also be prepared to deal with impromptu script changes. Film actors must often memorise a whole new section of script on the fly.

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Aerial Shot
An exterior shot filmed from — hey! — the air. Often used to establish a (usually exotic) location. All films in the '70s open with one — FACT.

Close Up
A shot that keeps only the face full in the frame. Perhaps the most important building block in cinematic storytelling.

Medium Shot
The shot that utilises the most common framing in movies, shows less than a long shot, more than a close-up. Obviously.

Long Shot
A shot that depicts an entire character or object from head to foot. Not as long as an establishing shot. Aka a wide shot.

Deep Focus
A shot that keeps the foreground, middle ground and background ALL in sharp focus. Beloved by Orson Welles (and cinematographer Gregg Toland). Production designers hate them. Means they have to put detail in the whole set.

Dolly Zoom
A shot that sees the camera track forward toward a subject while simultaneously zooming out creating a woozy, vertiginous effect.

Dutch Tilt
A shot where the camera is tilted on its side to create a kooky angle. Often used to suggest disorientation. Beloved by German Expressionism, Tim Burton, Sam Raimi and the designers of the villains hideouts in '60s TV Batman.

Establishing Shot
The clue is in the name. A shot, at the head of the scene, that clearly shows the locale the action is set in. Often comes after the aerial shot. Beloved by TV directors and thick people.

Handheld Shot
A shot in which the camera operator holds the camera during motion to create a jerky, immediate feel.

Low Angle Shot
A shot looking up at a character or subject often making them look bigger in the frame. It can make everyone look heroic and/or dominant. Also good for making cities look empty.

High Angle Shot
A shot looking down on a character or subject often isolating them in the frame. Nothing says Billy No Mates like a good old high angle shot.

Locked-Down Shot
A shot where the camera is fixed in one position while the action continues off-screen. It says life is messy and can not be contained by a camera. Beloved by Woody Allen and the dolly grips who can take the afternoon off.

Over-The-Shoulder Shot
A shot where the camera is positioned behind one subject's shoulder, usually during a conversation. It implies a connection between the speakers as opposed to the single shot that suggests distance.

POV Shot
A shot that depicts the point of view of a character so that we see exactly what they see. Often used in Horror cinema to see the world through a killer's eyes.

Steadicam Shot
A shot from a hydraulically balanced camera that allows for a smooth, fluid movement. Around since the late '70s, invented by Garrett Brown. Beloved by Stanley Kubrick, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron.

Tracking Shot
A shot that follows a subject be it from behind or alongside or in front of the subject. Not as clumsy or random as a panning shot, an elegant shot for a more civilised age.

Whilst blocking my scene for my performance, I decided on two alternating camera angles. One camera held a full frontal MS, while the secondary lens on the diagonal captured a clear MCU. This was to represent the intimacy of the dialogue.

Researching these varied camera shots gave me an insight into how cinematography is used in screen acting to communicate alongside a piece's performance.

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Good cinematography is about choosing the right shots for your project.

shot sizes:
-- Shot size refers to how big or small the frame is in relation to the subject.
- types of shot sizes; close up, long shot, mid shot, single shot, two shot, three shot and the POV shot.

camera angles:
Once you’ve decided on a shot size, you can add a bit more perspective to your shot by choosing an angle. The camera angle can help you create a sense of fear, empathy, or disorientation in the viewer.

- types of camera angles; eye level, low angle, high angle, birds eye view, dutch angle & over the shoulder angle

camera movements:
By adding motion to a scene, you can move between camera angles easily, sometimes even within the same shot.

- types of movements; pan/tilt, whip pan, tracking shot, dolly shot, crane shot, zoo shot, 360 degree

I think using different camera movements can lead to different perspectives on a scene. When using a close up shot, you can see more of the characters facial expressions, which helps the audience understand how they are feeling. Using a long shot can help the audience uncover the body language of the character, which then helps defer their attitude.

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- It was difficult for me to have a smooth rehearsal process due to outside factors such as part-time work, requiring me to sometimes have to read through lines during my break instead of at a designated time which would allow for more focus and accuracy.

- Another barrier in my way was the lack of recording equipment such as a microphone, camera, etc, making it hard for me to look at my rehearsals and get a better understanding of my strengths and weaknesses in my performance.

- My main problem was being alone during the whole process, being around other actors allowed me to make comparisons between me and other peers which allowed for me to not only the development of a friendly, yet competitive, rival like spirit but some collaboration. The lack of that required me to watch over some performances of the same scene I was interpolating.

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- the Bandage on my arm was supposed to represent how André feels wounded by the death of his partner, in the original piece André tries to hide his pain through humour , while in my adaptation of the monologue, he uses a bandage to show that he feels wounded emotionally while not letting anyone see the full extent. This is the common approach for people who are depressed, suppressing or obscuring the issue with everything else except the solution which is to work through it preferably with external support. A more literal explanation of the bandage is a representation of a karmic cycle, since we know nothing about his boyfriends previous suicidal ideation or the reason for his suicide, I made the assumption that they weren't happy with eachother and most importantly themselves. Andre represents a half measure and his deceased partner represents a full measure.

- the white and orange t-shirt shows that André wishes he was happy and things were better in his life, giving an aura of blind optimism even if it's not reflected in his words. white represents peace, optimism and purity, In some Eastern cultures white represents mourning. Orange can represent positive cheerful energy. this could be why his boyfriend committed suicide and he didn't, Andrés fascination with brightness whether that's mood or colour has tricked his mind into feeling better and being perceived as happy when it's the opposite way sometimes.

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We did a workshop based on Stanislavski's 'Magic If'. The Magic If is a tool that helps an actor to develop their character, asking questions and discovering new elements that can be used any time they approach the creation of a role.

From this workshop, I felt like I had gained a new way of really developing my character. With this method, I could gain a deeper understanding of what kind of person I'm playing, getting to know their thoughts, feelings, and raw emotions.

I would definitely use this technique in the future to develop and get to know the character I'm playing since it has been so effective for me.

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We did a workshop on the Alexander technique, which is an educational process that helps actors to overcome habitual limitations in movement and thinking. As humans, we carry tension in many different parts of our bodies and this technique helps you rid your body of them.

I would take this technique with me in the future as a way to reset between characters. It helps rid you of your habits and makes you a blank slate for whatever character you want to portray.

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Danny, Chloe, and Holly chose Meisner for their workshop. Meisner works with a lot of naturalism incorporated into his techniques, and the one they chose is called the repetition exercise.

This exercise helps force an actor to draw on their natural reactions, instead of pre-empting a response. It makes each performance unique and real and helps give it a sense of naturalism instead of it feeling scripted to the audience watching. It takes actors out of their comfort zones and forces them to completely take on the idea of their character instead of what the script says to do. This completely strengthens the actor's perspective of their character.

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Meisner Technique: Everything You Need to Know - NFI

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In 1935, Sanford Meisner joined the faculty of The Neighbourhood Playhouse School of the Theatre (a full-time professional acting conservatory, located in New York City) and developed what is now known as the Meisner Technique. The intention is to grant the actor an opportunity to concentrate on the other people in their environment.

These were split into three different components: Emotional preparation, repetition, and improvisation.

Emotional Preparation is the preparation Meisner believed
actors were required in-order to create the scenarios in this character's life. Meisner believed that an actor needed to the portray the full emotional range of the character to be interesting. What makes a character joyous, what upsets them, amongst other complexities.

This technique aided actors in understanding the emotional life of their character and strengthening the contention with a characters past and present experiences. The preparation helps the actor react naturally instead of as a character, instead of acting distraught or happy you actually feel those emotions.

The Repetition Exercise helps to train how an actor responds to a given action or circumstance. Two actors would be required to face each other and practice repetition while applying the Meisner Technique, repeating the same phrase over and over again while tweaking the tone, intensity and emotion with each alteration while the words stay similar or identical. The actors are able to exit their comfort zone and develop their spontaneity, therefore allowing for truthful performances.

The Repetition Exercise allows actors to focus on their emotional responses instead of the words of dialogue. Instead of seeing performance as the act of illusion, Meisner wanted actors to become their characters as opposed to it being a mere persona.

Improvisation allows you as an actor to train your spontaneity by acting before you think. Meisner's form of improvisation includes actors expressing what their given character would do based on emotional connection and pure instinct.

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Meisner Technique: Everything You Need to Know - NFI

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The Meisner Technique is a unique training form that teaches actors to respond to stimuli and trust their instincts.

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- I enabled myself to step out of myself and into the character, eliminated small mannerisms like putting my hands in my pocket.

- I shortened my use of ad-libs (pauses, sighs)

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I played the character of Andre from the play Eight by Ella Hickson.

My take on Andre is unique in the fact that I use elements of melancholy, frustration and nihilism in contrary to his charismatic, distracting, bubbly nature which he implements to hide his pain.

00:00 - 01:09: I play with my ring, slightly shake my head and overall possess an assumed lack of care. I transformed Andre into a defeated man, there's a sense of deflation mixed with nonchalance in his body language and micro expression, this is to show that he's used to being hurt and this isn't an emotion exclusive to this situation, He's numb so while he may seem unbothered, I put my hands on my chest while reminiscing his hopes, It's difficult for him to say the words "Prince charming and Prince charming", almost like he's forcing the words out

01:10 - 01:58: I swing my arms like a pendulum, disengaged, disinterested and my head is tilted to represent how drained and floppy Andre feels in this moment like a marionette being held up by string, the way he details the situation of his boyfriend feels he's being forced to open up (the short pause between 01:14 - 01:15 expresses his hesitation.)
(01:21 gaining a sense of frustration as talks about the situation not being the happy ending he was anticipating.)
Taking my hand off my jewellery when talking about the scarf signifies the idea of trying to soldier forward instead of dwelling on the way he feels about his boyfriend, the way he holds it shows he's holding onto him not in physical form but spiritually. I put my hand on my back to represent the weight that the scarf had to hold up and equating it to the back pain from the stress and emotional pain.

01:59- 03:14: I pause and gesture (01:58 - 02:03) to show He's running out of things to say about his boyfriend and that he's just collecting thoughts for a second. the line "he cant be up there like that" is a double entendre in reference to him hanging up by the Hermes scarf and him being in heaven. the way i deliver the line is supposed to show his co-dependence and the inconvenience his absence is causing Andre, My eyes are looking up darting back and forth, looking at the body and his boyfriends soul in heaven

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Jacques Lecoq discovered seven points of tension which were tweaked by him and other talented practitioners. These archetypes are seen as guidelines for any given actor to dance around with while exploring scenes, therefore smoothing out the production time and allowing for easier experimentation.

1: Exhausted (a.k.a The "Jellyfish") There's zero tension in the actors body, completely relaxed, Even speaking requires a lot of effort.

2: Laid Back (a.k.a The "Californian") This a mundane and non-chalant state, lacks credibility (often reserved for comic relief characters).

3: Neutral (a.k.a The "No Story") The actor lives in the moment, completely present and aware. It's the state of tension before any sort of action.

4: Alert (a.k.a Curiosity) These are subtle, sometimes observant non-verbal characteristics, aware of your surroundings yet undecided, and sometimes clumsy and buffoonish.

5: Suspense (a.k.a The "Melodrama") The action is about to happen, There's a sense of tension in the body, concentrated between the eyes. There's a delayed reaction.

6: Passionate (a.k.a The "Opera") There's an explosion in tension, Hard to control discomfort, fear, anger. There's an obstacle to confront and overcome.

7: Tragic (a.k.a Petrified) Body paralysed by fear and tension.

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Jacques Lecoq developed an approach to acting using seven levels of tension. These changed and developed during his practice and have been further developed by other practitioners. The following suggestions are based on the work of Simon McBurney (Complicite), John Wright (Told by an Idiot) and Christian Darley.

There can of course be as many or as few levels of tension as you like (how long is a piece of string?). This is a guideline, to be adapted. You can train your actors by slowly moving through these states so that they become comfortable with them, then begin to explore them in scenes. The exercise can be repeated many times. Get your characters to move through states of tension in a scene. Play with them.

This is a list of names given to each level of tension, along with a suggestion of a corresponding performance style that could exist in that tension.

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Seven Levels of Tension - Drama Resource

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An approach to acting that enables performers to explore different levels of tension.

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Developmental Change:
Why embracing change is the key to a good life - BBC Culture

Berkoff:
Steven Berkoff - Wikipedia

Brecht:
Bertolt Brecht - Wikipedia

Antonin Artaud:
Antonin Artaud - Wikipedia

Guilt:
https://psychcentral.com/health/what-is-guilt#guilt-when-its-not-your-fault

How stress affects the human body:
Stress effects on the body (apa.org)

Eight by Ella Hickson:
Eight (play) - Wikipedia
Ella Hickson - Wikipedia

LECOQ:
Jacques Lecoq - Wikipedia

7 Levels of Tension:
Seven Levels of Tension - Drama Resource

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Jacques Lecoq (1921 - 1999) was a French actor and movement coach, His previous experience in sports studies served as a baseline for his works in physical theatre, movement and mime which he taught at École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq (which he personally founded) from 1956 till his death.

Lecoq taught students according to their specific strengths with various tasks and exercises to increase the self awareness of their strengths as a professional actor. The extensive rehearsal period provided to students allows for the physical and visual aspects of skillbuilding under his guide and supervision

I think Lecoq helped to revolutionize the way actors are trained and productions are created, Theatre groups such as Justice in Motion and 4th Monkey take heavy inspiration from Lecoq's approach.

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Jacques Lecoq (15 December 1921 - 19 January 1999) was a French stage actor and acting movement coach. He was best known for his teaching methods in physical theatre, movement, and mime which he taught at the school he founded in Paris known as École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He taught there from 1956 until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1999.

Jacques Lecoq was known as the only noteworthy movement instructor and theatre pedagogue with a professional background in sports and sports rehabilitation in the twentieth century.[1]

As a teenager, Lecoq participated in many sports such as running, swimming, and gymnastics. Lecoq was particularly drawn to gymnastics.[1] He began learning gymnastics at the age of seventeen, and through work on the parallel bars and horizontal bar, he came to see and understand the geometry of movement. Lecoq described the movement of the body through space as required by gymnastics to be purely abstract. He came to understand the rhythms of athletics as a kind of physical poetry that affected him strongly. Following many of his exercise sessions, Lecoq found it important to think back on his period of exercise and the various routines that he had performed and felt that doing so bettered his mind and emotions.[1] In 1937 Lecoq began to study sports and physical education at Bagatelle college just outside of Paris. He received teaching degrees in swimming and athletics.[1] In 1941, Lecoq attended a physical theatre college where he met Jean Marie Conty, a basketball player of international caliber, who was in charge of physical education in all of France. Conty's interest in the link between sport and theatre had come out of a friendship with Antonin Artaud and Jean-Louis Barrault, both well-known actors and directors and founders of Education par le Jeu Dramatique ("Education through the Dramatic Game"). While Lecoq still continued to teach physical education for several years, he soon found himself acting as a member of the Comediens de Grenoble. While Lecoq was a part of this company he learned a great deal about Jacques Copeau's techniques in training. One of these techniques that really influenced Lecoq's work was the concept of natural gymnastics.[1] This company and his work with Commedia dell'arte in Italy (where he lived for eight years) introduced him to ideas surrounding mime, masks and the physicality of performance. During this time he also performed with the actor, playwright, and clown, Dario Fo.[2]

He was first introduced to theatre and acting by Jacques Copeau's daughter Marie-Hélène and her husband, Jean Dasté.[3]

In 1956, he returned to Paris to open his school, École Internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq, where he spent most of his time until his death, filling in as international speaker and master class giver for the Union of Theatres of Europe. The school was eventually relocated to Le Central in 1976. The building was previously a boxing center and was where Francisco Amoros, a huge proponent of physical education, developed his own gymnastic method.[1] Lecoq chose this location because of the connections he had with his early career in sports. The school was also located on the same street that Jacques Copeau was born.[1]

Lecoq aimed at training his actors in ways that encouraged them to investigate ways of performance that suited them best. His training was aimed at nurturing the creativity of the performer, as opposed to giving them a codified set of skills. As students stayed with Lecoq's school longer, he accomplished this through teaching in the style of ''via negativa'', also known as the negative way. This teaching strategy basically consists of only focusing his critiques on the poorer or unacceptable aspects of a student's performance. Lecoq believed that this would allow students to discover on their own how to make their performances more acceptable. Lecoq did not want to ever tell a student how to do something "right." He believed that was supposed to be a part of the actor's own experience.[4] The goal was to encourage the student to keep trying new avenues of creative expression.[5] Many actors sought Lecoq's training initially because Lecoq provided methods for people who wished to create their own work and did not want to only work out of a playwright's text.[6]

His training involved an emphasis on masks, starting with the neutral mask. This neutral mask is symmetrical, the brows are soft, and the mouth is made to look ready to perform any action. Lecoq believed that this mask allowed his students to be open when performing and to fully let the world affect their bodies. This is because the mask is made to seem as if it has no past and no previous knowledge of how the world works. This is supposed to allow students to live in a state of unknowing in their performance.[4] The aim was that the neutral mask can aid an awareness of physical mannerisms as they get greatly emphasized to an audience whilst wearing the mask.

Once Lecoq's students became comfortable with the neutral masks, he would move on to working with them with larval masks, expressive masks, the commedia masks, half masks, gradually working towards the smallest mask in his repertoire: the clown's red nose.[3][7] The larval mask was used as a didactic tool for Lecoq's students to escape the confines of realism and inject free imagination into the performance. The mask is essentially a blank slate, amorphous shape, with no specific characterizations necessarily implied.[4] The expressive masks are basically character masks that are depicting a very particular of character with a specific emotion or reaction.[4] The mask is automatically associated with conflict.

The last mask in the series is the red clown nose which is the last step in the student's process. Because this nose acts as a tiny, neutral mask, this step is often the most challenging and personal for actors. Lecoq believed that every person would develop their own personal clown at this step. He believed that to study the clown is to study oneself, thus no two selves are alike.[4] Three of the principal skills that he encouraged in his students were le jeu (playfulness), complicité (togetherness) and disponibilité (openness).[8]

The French concept of 'efficace' suggesting at once efficiency and effectiveness of movement was highly emphasized by Lecoq. Lecoq viewed movement as a sort of zen art of making simple, direct, minimal movements that nonetheless carried significant communicative depth.[4] Lecoq emphasizes that his students should respect the old, traditional form of commedia dell'arte. But Lecoq was no period purist. He believed commedia was a tool to combine physical movement with vocal expression. He emphasized the importance of finding the most fitting voice for each actor's mask, and he believed that there was room for reinvention and play in regards to traditional commedia dell'arte conventions.[4]

One of the most essential aspects of Lecoq's teaching style involves the relationship of the performer to the audience. Lecoq thus placed paramount importance on insuring a thorough understanding of a performance's message on the part of its spectators. In this way Lecoq's instruction encouraged an intimate relationship between the audience and the performer.[4] Lecoq's pedagogy has yielded diverse cohorts of students with a wide range of creative impulses and techniques.[4]

In collaboration with the architect Krikor Belekian he also set up le Laboratoire d'Étude du Mouvement (Laboratory for the study of movement; L.E.M. for short) in 1977. This was a separate department within the school which looked at architecture, scenography and stage design and its links to movement.[9]

Lecoq wrote on the art and philosophy of mimicry and miming. Therein he traces mime-like behavior to early childhood development stages, positing that mimicry is a vital behavioral process in which individuals come to know and grasp the world around them.[6] Lecoq also wrote on the subject of gesture specifically and its philosophical relation to meaning, viewing the art of gesture as a linguistic system of sorts in and of itself.[6] Lecoq classifies gestures into three major groups: gestures of action, expression, and demonstration.[6]

In 1999, filmmakers Jean-Noël Roy and Jean-Gabriel Carasso released Les Deux Voyages de Jacques Lecoq, a film documenting two years of training at École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. The documentary includes footage of Lecoq working with students at his Paris theatre school in addition to numerous interviews with some of his most well-known, former pupils.

Annabel Arden, actress

René Bazinet, actor, mime, and clown act creator of Cirque du Soleil

Steven Berkoff, theatre director, actor and writer

Malachi Bogdanov, theater director and writer

Luc Bondy, theatre and opera director

Peter Bramley, actor, teacher, theatre director, founder of Pants on Fire

Julian Chagrin, British-Israeli actor and mime

Chris Channing, performer, designer, and theatre maker

Avner Eisenberg - performer ("Avner the Eccentric"), teacher

Isla Fisher, actress

Sacha Baron Cohen, actor, comedian

Oliver Foot and Andrew Simon, co-founders of the Footsbarn Theatre

Philippe Gaulier, teacher, actor, pedagogue

Toby Jones, actor

Beejan Land, actor

Simon McBurney, actor, director, and founding artistic director of Théâtre de Complicité

Gates McFadden, actress, choreographer

Ariane Mnouchkine, theater director and founder of Théâtre du Soleil

Yasmina Reza, playwright and director

Geoffrey Rush, actor

Sylvaine Strike, writer, actress, theatre director, co-founder of Fortune Cookie Theatre Company

Julie Taymor, director, designer, and choreographer

Le Theatre du Geste (1987)

Le Corps Poetique (1999)

1. ^ Evans, Mark (2012). "The Influence of Sports on Jacques Lecoq's Actor Training". Theatre, Dance and Performing Training. 3: 163-177. doi:10.1080/19443927.2012.686451 - via Ebsco.

2. ^ Dunning, Jennifer (28 January 1999). "Jacques Lecoq, Director, 77; A Master Mime". New York Times.

3. ^ Callery, Dympha (2001). Through the Body: A Practical Guide to Physical Theatre. London: Nick Hern Books. ISBN 1-85459-630-6.

4. ^ Chamberlain, Franc (2002). Jacques Lecoq and the British Theatre. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 27, 55, 73, 76, 77, 79, 81. ISBN 0-415-27024-3.

5. ^ "Moreover: Eloquent Bodies". The Economist. 9 September 1999. p. 89.

6. ^ Lecoq, Jacques (2006). Theatre of Movement and Gesture. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 1, 2, 6, 9. ISBN 0--415--35943--0.

7. ^ Gehman, Geoff (1 July 1994). "Moving with the Master". American Theatre. 11 (6): 56-58.

8. ^ Murray, Simon (2003). Jacques Lecoq. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-25881-2.

9. ^ "What is LEM?". Archived from the original on 2008-12-07.

Teaching style/method Edit

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Jacques Lecoq (15 December 1921 - 19 January 1999) was a French stage actor and acting movement coach. He was best known for his teaching methods in physical theatre, movement, and mime which he taught at the school he founded in Paris known as École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq.

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Berkoff is an actor, author, playwright, theatre practitioner and director most known for his formation of the genre of "In yer face" theatre, his philosophy as a director was to illuminate the text instead of merely presenting it: using elements of over exaggeration in relation to facial expressions, accent and movement; he also had the fair share of controversial material in his monologues.

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Steven Berkoff (born Leslie Steven Berks; 3 August 1937) is an English actor, author, playwright, theatre practitioner and theatre director.

As a theatre maker he is recognised for staging work with a heightened performance style eponymously known as "Berkovian theatre",[2] which combines elements of physical theatre, total theatre and expressionism.[3] His work has sometimes been viewed as an example of in-yer-face theatre, due to the intense presentation and taboo-breaking material in a number of his plays.[4]

As a film actor, he is known for his performances in villainous roles, including the portrayals of General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy (1983), Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Lt. Col. Podovsky in Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and Adolf Hitler in the TV mini-series War and Remembrance (1988-89).[5][6][7]

Berkoff was born Leslie Steven Berks on 3 August 1937, in Stepney in the East End of London,[5] the son of Pauline "Polly" (née Hyman), a housewife, and Alfred "Al" Berks, a tailor. He had an older sister, Beryl (1930-before 2010).[8] He comes from a Jewish family; his grandparents emigrated to England in the 1890s, his paternal grandparents from Romania, and his maternal grandparents from Russia.[9][10] The family name was originally Berkowitz, but Steven's father anglicised it to Berks in order to aid the family's assimilation into British society. Steven (who had been known as Leslie growing up) later legally changed his surname to Berkoff and went by his middle name.[11]

During World War II, Berkoff, his sister and their mother were evacuated to Luton, Bedfordshire in 1942. In 1947 he and his family emigrated to the United States, sailing from Southampton aboard the Queen Elizabeth to live with relatives of Berkoff's mother in Nyack, New York. However, Berkoff's father struggled to find work, and after a few months the family returned to England. Berkoff attended Raine's Foundation Grammar School (1948-50)[12] and Hackney Downs School (1950-1955).[13]

In 1952, he was arrested for stealing a bicycle and was sentenced to three months in borstal. He took drama courses at City Literary Institute (1957-58), trained as an actor at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art (1958-59), and later trained in physical theatre and mime at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, graduating in 1965.[14]

Plays

In the Penal Colony (1968) - adaptation of the Franz Kafka short story of the same name.

Metamorphosis (1969) - adaptation of the Franz Kafka novella of the same name.

The Trial (1970) - adaptation of the Franz Kafka novel of the same name.

Agamemnon (1973) - adaptation of Aeschylus's play of the same name.

Miss Julie versus Expressionism - adaptation of August Strindberg's play Miss Julie.

Fall of the House of Usher (1974) - adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name.

East (1975)

Greek (1980) - originally written in 1979. Inspired by Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.

Decadence (1981)

The Tell-Tale Heart (1981) - adapted from the Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name.

West (1983) - originally written in 1978 as a TV play which was later filmed in 1984. Inspired by Beowulf. A companion piece to East.

Lunch (1983) - originally written in 1966.

Actor (1985)

Harry's Christmas (1985)

Kvetch (1986)

Sink the Belgrano! (1986) - inspired by the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano.

Brighton Beach Scumbags (1991)

Pitbull later renamed to Dog (1993)

Massage (1997)

Shakespeare's Villains (1998) - inspired by and exploring the villains in the plays of William Shakespeare.

The Bow of Ulysses (2001) - sequel to Lunch.

Dahling You Were Marvellous (2001) - originally an unproduced television play written in 1989.

Sturm und Drang

Messiah - Scenes From A Crucifixion (2000) - inspired by the New Testament.

Ritual in Blood (2001) - originally written in 1965 under the titles of Hep, Hep, Hep and Blood Accusation.

Sit and Shiver (2004)

Purgatory (2009)

Biblical Tales (2010) - consisting of four short plays adapted from stories from the Old Testament:
Adam and Eve,
Samson and Delilah,
David and Goliath,
Moses and Pharaoh

Oedipus (2011) - a version of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.

Six actors in Search of a Director (2012)

Religion & Anarchy (2013) - consisting of five short plays about Jews and the holocaust:
Guilt,
Roast,
Line-up,
How to Train an Anti-Semite,
Gas

An Actor's Lament (2013)

Harvey - inspired by the Harvey Weinstein scandal and performed as a work-in-progress in 2019.

Film

West (1984) - TV movie written by Berkoff.

Silent Night (1991) - TV film starring Berkoff, based on his one-man-play Harry's Christmas.

7th November 1938 - short documentary film from the series The Day the World Changed. Presented by Berkoff talking about an important historical event of his choosing, which is Herschel Grynszpan's assassination of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath.

Decadence (1994) - film written, directed by and starring Berkoff, based on his play of the same name.

Eat Dollink! (2017) - documentary written by and starring Berkoff.

Venice Beach (2017) - documentary directed, produced, written by and starring Berkoff.

Shakespeare's Heroes and Villains (2019) - documentary written by and starring Berkoff, based on his one-man-play Shakespeare's Villains.

Steven Berkoff's Tell Tale Heart (2019) - film starring Berkoff and adapted by Stephen Cookson from Berkoff's one-man-play The Tell-Tale-Heart.

Brighton (2021) - film adapted by Stephen Cookson from Berkoff's play Brighton Beach Scumbags.

Memoirs and essays

Steven Berkoff's America (1988) - poetry and essays.

I am Hamlet (1989) - based on Berkoff's working journal of his 1979 production of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Overview (1994) - memories of Berkoff's travels around the world.

Meditations on Metamorphosis (1995) - Berkoff's analysis of his various stage productions of Kafka's Metamorphosis.

Free Association (1996) - autobiography.

Shopping in the Santa Monica Mall (2000)

Tough Acts (2003) - memoirs of working with various high-profile actors and directors.

My Life in Food (2007) - Berkoff's memoirs about food.

Diary of a Juvenile Delinquent (2010) - autobiography.

Tales from an Actor's Life (2011) - autobiographical stories told in the third person.

A World Elsewhere (2019) - writings on Berkoff's work as an actor, director and playwright.

Short stories

Gross Intrusion and other stories (1979)

Graft: Tales of an Actor (1998) - semi-autobiographical short stories.

Published poetry

Steven Berkoff's America (1988) - poetry and essays.

Requiem for Ground Zero (2002) - inspired by the September 11 attacks.

You Remind Me of Marilyn Monroe (2009)

Poems for the Working Class (2021)

Novel

Photography books

The Theatre of Steven Berkoff (1992) - photographs of a variety of Berkoff's theatre productions, featuring written commentary by Berkoff.

East End Photographs (2012)

Gorbals 1966 (2018) - photographs of the Gorbals area of Glasgow during Berkoff's time working at the Citizens Theatre

Awards

Honours

The Berkoff Performing Arts Centre at Alton College, Hampshire, is named for Berkoff.[56] Attending the Alton College ceremony to honour him, he stated:

I remember in my younger days questioning what life means. Finding a place like the Berkoff Performing Arts Centre, I found myself as a person. Having a place like this sowed the seeds of the man I think I am today. A place like this is the first step in changing the life of a person. There's something about theatre that draws people together because it's something connected with the human soul. All over the UK, the performing arts links people with a shared humanity as a way to open the doors to the mysteries of life. We should never underestimate the power of the theatre. It educates, informs, enlightens and humanises us all.

He taught a drama master-class later that day, and performed Shakespeare's Villains for an invited audience that evening.

1. ^ Dorney, Kate; Gray, Frances (14 February 2013). "1969-1979". Played in Britain: Modern Theatre in 100 Plays. Great Britain: Methuen Drama. pp. 92-93. ISBN 9781408164808.

2. ^ "Steven Berkoff - Selecting a practitioner - AQA - GCSE Drama Revision - AQA". BBC Bitesize.

3. ^ Sierz, Aleks (2001). In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. England: Faber and Faber Limited. pp. 25-26. ISBN 0-571-20049-4.

4. ^ "Steven Berkoff". filmreference.com.

5. ^ Else Kvist. ""Normally I'm the villain" says Steven Berkoff". Bromley Times. Archived from the original on 2 October 2012.

6. ^ Sorrel Kerbel (2003). Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century. Routledge. pp. 155-156. ISBN 1-57958-313-X.

7. ^ Alan Levy (24 July 2002). "Steven Berkoff: Caught in a web". The Prague Post. Archived from the original on 31 January 2013.

8. ^ Room, Adrian (2010). Dictionary of Pseudonyms: 13,000 Assumed Names and Their Origins. McFarland. pp. 58. ISBN 9780786443734.

9. ^ Michael Coveney (4 January 2007). "Steven Berkoff: The Real East Enders". The Independent. UK. In his latest play and in an exhibition of photographs, Steven Berkoff revisits his past in the vibrant melting-pot that was riverside London.

10. ^ Akbar, Arifa (17 September 2010). "Steven Berkoff: Rise of an 'up and coming nobody'". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022.

11. Steven Berkoff, "Free Association: An Autobiography", ^ Faber and Faber, 1 July 1996, p.373. ISBN 978-0571176083

12. ^ "Steven Berkoff filmed - Iain Fisher". Steven Berkoff.

13. ^ Aleks Sierz (2001). In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber and Faber. pp. 25-26. ISBN 978-0-571-20049-8.

14. ^ "Evil roles are 'flattering'". BBC News. 1 August 2010.

15. ^ Steven Berkoff: who will dare to stage my one-man Harvey Weinstein play?. Guardian, 20 November 2018.

16. ^ "Steven Berkoff early films". iainfisher.com.

17. ^ Expelling the Demon at IMDb

18. ^ "tardistime.com".

19. ^ "The Heist" at IMDb

20. ^ Fiona Ramsay (4 August 2008). "ITV to Air British Heart Foundation's Two-minute 'heart attack' Ad". Media Week. BrandRepublic.com (Haymarket Group). Archived from the original on 14 August 2008.

21. ^ Annette Pankratz (2005). "Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self-Performance, by Robert Cross". Modern Drama. 48 (2005): 459. doi:10.1353/mdr.2005.0035. S2CID 191557332. Archived from the original on 6 August 2011.

22. ^ Mark Lunney and Ken Oliphant (2007). Tort Law: Text and Materials (3rd ed.). London and New York: Oxford University Press. p. 704. ISBN 978-0-19-921136-4.

23. ^ "Back to the Light". Amazon.

24. ^ "BRIAN'S SOAPBOX". brianmay.com.

25. ^ Miska, Brad (11 January 2022). "'Death Wish' Meets 'The Exorcist': Charles Bronson Lookalike Robert Bronzi Stars in 'Exorcist Vengeance' [Exclusive Trailer]". Bloody Disgusting.

26. ^ Gingold, Michael (12 January 2022). ""Death Wish" Meets the Possession Genre in "Exorcist Vengeance"; Trailer & Poster". Rue Morgue.

27. ^ "Walking tall against searching opposition". Evening Standard. London. 22 November 1994. pp. 12-13.

28. ^ "Film stars line up for awards". Evening Standard. London. 23 October 1980. p. 8.

29. ^ "Front of Berkoff Performing Arts Centre". altoncollege.ac.uk.

Berkoff started his theatre training in the Repertory Company at Her Majesty's Theatre in Barrow-in-Furness, for approximately two months, in June and July 1962.[15]

As well as an actor, Berkoff is a noted playwright and theatre director.[16] His earliest plays are adaptations of works by Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis (1969); In the Penal Colony (1969), and The Trial (1971). In the 1970s and 1980s, he wrote a series of verse plays including East (1975), Greek (1980), and Decadence (1981), followed by West (1983) (later adapted and recorded at Limehouse Studios for transmission on Channel 4 in 1983), Harry's Christmas (Lunch) (also recorded at Limehouse Studios in 1983 but was never transmitted by C4 as it was considered "too dark"), Sink the Belgrano! (1986), Massage (1997), and The Secret Love Life of Ophelia (2001). Berkoff described Sink the Belgrano! as "even by my modest standards... one of the best things I have done".[17][18]

Drama critic Aleks Sierz describes Berkoff's dramatic style as " In-yer-face theatre":

The language is usually filthy, characters talk about unmentionable subjects, take their clothes off, have sex, humiliate each other, experience unpleasant emotions, become suddenly violent. At its best, this kind of theatre is so powerful, so visceral, that it forces audiences to react: either they feel like fleeing the building or they are suddenly convinced that it is the best thing they have ever seen and want all their friends to see it too. It is the kind of theatre that inspires us to use superlatives, whether in praise or condemnation.[19]

In 1988, Berkoff directed an interpretation of Salome by Oscar Wilde, performed in slow motion, at the Gate Theatre, Dublin.[20] For his first directorial job at the UK's Royal National Theatre,[21] Berkoff revived the play with a new cast at the Lyttelton Auditorium; it opened in November 1989.[22] In 1998, his solo play Shakespeare's Villains premièred at London's Haymarket Theatre and was nominated for a Society of London Theatre Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment.[23]

In a 2010 interview with guest presenter Emily Maitlis on The Andrew Marr Show, Berkoff stated that he found it "flattering" to play evil characters, saying that the best actors assumed villainous roles.[24] In 2011, Berkoff revived a previously performed one-man show at the Hammersmith Riverside Studios, titled One Man. It consisted of two monologues; the first was an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Tell-Tale Heart, the second a piece called Dog, written by Berkoff, which was a comedy about a loud-mouthed football fan and his dog. In 2013, Berkoff performed his play An Actor's Lament at the Sinden Theatre in Tenterden, Kent; it is his first verse play since Decadence in 1981.[25] His 2018 one-act play Harvey deals with the story of Harvey Weinstein.[26]

In film, Berkoff has played villains such as Soviet General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy (1983), the corrupt art dealer Victor Maitland in Beverly Hills Cop (1984), the Soviet officer Colonel Podovsky in Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), and gangster George Cornell in The Krays (1990). Berkoff has stated that he accepts roles in Hollywood only to subsidise his theatre work, and that he regards many of the films in which he has appeared as lacking artistic merit.[27]

In the Stanley Kubrick films A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Barry Lyndon (1975), Berkoff played, respectively, a police officer and a gambler aristocrat. His other films include the Hammer film Prehistoric Women (1967), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), The Passenger (1975), Joseph Andrews (1977), McVicar (1980), Outland (1981), Coming Out of the Ice (1982), Underworld (1985), Revolution (1985), Absolute Beginners (1986), Prince's film Under the Cherry Moon (1986), Prisoner of Rio (1988), the Australian film Flynn (1993), Fair Game (1995), and Legionnaire (1998).

Berkoff was the main character voice in Expelling the Demon (1999), a short animation with music by Nick Cave. It received the award for Best Debut at the KROK International Animated Films Festival.[28] He has a cameo in the 2008 film The Cottage. Berkoff appeared in the 2010 British gangster film The Big I Am as "The MC", and in the same year, portrayed the antagonist in The Tourist. Berkoff portrayed Dirch Frode, attorney to Henrik Vanger ( Christopher Plummer), in David Fincher's 2011 adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Another 2011 credit is the independent film Moving Target. He also stars in Decline of an Empire (2014) playing the role of Liberius.

In 1994, he both appeared in and directed the film version of his verse play Decadence. Filmed in Luxembourg, it co-stars Joan Collins.

In television, Berkoff had early roles in episodes of The Avengers and UFO episodes " The Cat with Ten Lives" and " Destruction' in 1970. Other TV credits include: Hagath, in the episode " Business as Usual" of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Stilgar, in the mini-series Children of Dune; gangster Mr. Wiltshire in one episode of Hotel Babylon; Dr. Paul Jorry in the episode "Deadline" of Space Precinct; lawyer Freddie Eccles in "By the Pricking of My Thumbs", an episode of Agatha Christie's Marple; and Adolf Hitler in the mini-series War and Remembrance. In 1998, he made a guest appearance in the Canadian TV series La Femme Nikita (in the episode "In Between"). In 2006, he played celebrity/criminal Ray Cook in the New Tricks episode "Bank Robbery".

In 2010, Berkoff played former Granada Television chairman Sidney Bernstein for the BBC Four drama, The Road to Coronation Street. He has played the historical Florentine preacher Girolamo Savonarola in two separate TV productions: the 1990 TV film A Season of Giants and the 2011 series The Borgias. Berkoff appears as himself in the "Science" episode of the British current affairs satire Brass Eye (1997), warning against the dangers of the fictional environmental disaster "Heavy Electricity". In September 2012, Berkoff appeared in the Doctor Who episode " The Power of Three".[29]

In 2014, Berkoff played a supporting role in the second season of the Lifetime TV show Witches of East End as King Nikolaus, the patriarch of the Beauchamp family.

In 2016, he appeared in series 3, episode 1 of the Channel 4 sitcom Man Down as Mr. Klackov, a "terrifying" caretaker with an Eastern European accent "who makes covering [series protagonist] Dan's mistakes even more complicated" when his job as a schoolteacher is threatened.[30][31]

In 1996, Berkoff appeared as the Master of Ceremonies in a BBC Radio 2 concert version of Kander and Ebb's Cabaret. He provided the voice-over for the N-Trance single "The Mind of the Machine", which rose to No. 15 in the UK Singles Chart in August 1997. He appeared in the opening sequence to Sky Sports' coverage of the 2007 Heineken Cup Final, modelled on a speech by Al Pacino in the film Any Given Sunday (1999).

Berkoff voices the character General Lente, commander of the Helghan Third Army, in Killzone. He provides motion capture and voice performance for the PlayStation 3 game Heavenly Sword, as General Flying Fox.

Berkoff's 2015 novel Sod the Bitches has been described as "a kind of Philip Roth-like romp through the sex life of a libidinous actor".[by whom? ] His 2014 memoir Bad Guy! Journal of a Hollywood Turkey records his time working on a Hollywood blockbuster.[26][32]

Berkoff appeared in the British Heart Foundation's two-minute public service advertisement, Watch Your Own Heart Attack, broadcast on ITV in August 2008.[33] He also presented two episodes of the BBC Two Horizon episodes: "To Infinity and Beyond..." (2010) and "The Power of the Placebo" (2014).

He is a patron of Brighton's Nightingale Theatre, a fringe theatre venue.[34]

According to Annette Pankratz in her 2005 Modern Drama review of Steven Berkoff and the Theatre of Self-Performance by Robert Cross: "Steven Berkoff is one of the major minor contemporary dramatists in Britain and - due to his self-fashioning as a bad boy of British theatre and the ensuing attention of the media - a phenomenon in his own right."[35] Pankratz further asserts that Cross "focuses on Berkoff's theatre of self-performance: that is, the intersections between Berkoff, the public phenomenon and Berkoff, the artist."[35]

Berkoff married Alison Minto in 1970, and Shelley Lee in 1976; both marriages ended in divorce. He lives with his wife Clara Fischer, a German pianist, in Limehouse, east London. Fischer appeared onscreen with Berkoff in his film Decadence. He has two daughters, Mylea and Sarah, from previous relationships.[5][14]

In 1996, Berkoff won Berkoff vs. Burchill, a libel civil action that he brought against Sunday Times journalist Julie Burchill after she published comments suggesting that he was "hideously ugly". The judge ruled for Berkoff, finding that Burchill's actions "held him to ridicule and contempt."[36]

Berkoff has spoken and written about how he believes Jews and Israel to be regarded in Britain. In a January 2009 interview with The Jewish Chronicle, in which he discussed anti-Israel sentiment in the aftermath of the Gaza War, he said:

There is an in-built dislike of Jews. Overt antisemitism goes against the British sense of fair play. It has to be covert and civilised. So certain playwrights and actors on the left wing make themselves out to be stricken with conscience. They say: 'We hate Israel, we hate Zionism, we don't hate Jews.' But Zionism is the very essence of what a Jew is. Zionism is the act of seeking sanctuary after years and years of unspeakable outrages against Jews. As soon as Israel does anything over the top it's always the same old faces who come out to demonstrate. I don't see hordes of people marching down the street against Mugabe when tens of thousands are dying every month in Zimbabwe.[37]

Interviewer Simon Round noted that Berkoff was also keen to express his view that right-wing Israeli politicians, such as Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, were "wretched".[37] Asked if British antisemitism manifested itself in theatre, Berkoff responded: "They quite like diversity and will tolerate you as long as you act a bit Gentile and don't throw your chicken soup around too much. You are perfectly entitled occasionally even to touch the great prophet of British culture, Shakespeare, as long as you keep your Jewishness well zipped up."[37] Berkoff also referred to the Gaza war as a factor in writing Biblical Tales: "It was the recent 'Gaza' war and the appalling flack that Israel received that prompted me to investigate ancient Jewish values."[38]

Speaking to The Jewish Chronicle in May 2010, Berkoff criticised the Bible but added, "it inspires the Jews to produce Samsons and heroes and to have pride". Berkoff went on to say of the Talmud in the same article: "As Jews, we are so incredibly lucky to have the Talmud, to have a way of re-interpreting the Torah. So we no longer cut off hands, and slay animals, and stone women."[39]

In a Daily Telegraph travel article written while visiting Israel in 2007, Berkoff described Melanie Phillips' book Londonistan: How Britain Is Creating a Terror State Within, as "quite overwhelming in its research and common sense. It grips me throughout the journey."[40]

In 2012, Berkoff, with others, wrote in support of Israel's national theatre, Habima, performing in London.[41]

In the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy, struggling actor Dexter King ( Jeff Goldblum) auditions unsuccessfully for an imaginary "Berkoff play" called England, My England. In the audition, characters dressed as skinheads swear repetitively at each other and a folding table is kicked over. Afterwards, Dexter's agent Mary ( Anna Massey) muses, "I think he's probably mad ..."

"I'm scared of Steven Berkoff" is a line in the lyrics of the song " I'm Scared" by Queen guitarist Brian May, issued on his 1993 debut solo album Back to the Light.[42] May has declared himself to be an admirer of Berkoff[43] and his wife, Anita Dobson, has appeared in several of Berkoff's plays.

Works as author (incomplete) Edit

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Steven Berkoff (born Leslie Steven Berks; 3 August 1937) is an English actor, author, playwright, theatre practitioner and theatre director.

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Bertold Brecht (formally known as Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht) was a well-known German playwright and theatre practitioner.
His work was mainly influenced by the sociopolitical issues and events going on around him.

He wanted to provide the audience entertainment and provide them an opportunity to think, but most importantly he wanted to distance the audience from the action allowing for opportunities for him to implement elements of direct address and epic theatre.

I feel like Brecht was ahead of the curve when it came to immersing the spectator into a story as we see most of Brecht's elements inserted in today's film and theatre.

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Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht[a] (10 February 1898 - 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Kurt Weill and began a lifelong collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, he wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the so-called V-effect. During the Nazi period he lived in exile, first in Scandinavia, and during World War II in the United States, where he was surveilled by the FBI[3] and subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Returning to East Berlin after the war, he established the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.[4]

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (as a child known as Eugen) was born on 10 February 1898 in Augsburg, Bavaria, the son of Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1869-1939) and his wife Sophie, née Brezing (1871-1920). Brecht's mother was a devout Protestant and his father a Roman Catholic (who had been persuaded to have a Protestant wedding). The modest house where he was born is today preserved as a Brecht Museum.[5] His father worked for a paper mill, becoming its managing director in 1914.[6]

Due to his mother's influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity that would have a lifelong effect on his writing. From her, too, came the "dangerous image of the self-denying woman" that recurs in his drama.[7] Brecht's home life was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins implied.[8] At school in Augsburg he met Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a lifelong creative partnership. Neher designed many of the sets for Brecht's dramas and helped to forge the distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre.

When Brecht was 16, the First World War broke out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht soon changed his mind on seeing his classmates "swallowed by the army".[6] Brecht was nearly expelled from school in 1915 for writing an essay in response to the line "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" from the Roman poet Horace, calling it Zweckpropaganda ("cheap propaganda for a specific purpose") and arguing that only an empty-headed person could be persuaded to die for their country. His expulsion was only prevented through the intervention of his religion teacher.[9]

On his father's recommendation, Brecht sought a loophole by registering for a medical course at Munich University, where he enrolled in 1917.[10] There he studied drama with Arthur Kutscher, who inspired in the young Brecht an admiration for the iconoclastic dramatist and cabaret-star Frank Wedekind.[11]

From July 1916, Brecht's newspaper articles began appearing under the new name "Bert Brecht" (his first theatre criticism for the Augsburger Volkswille appeared in October 1919).[12] Brecht was drafted into military service in the autumn of 1918, only to be posted back to Augsburg as a medical orderly in a military VD clinic; the war ended a month later.[6]

In July 1919, Brecht and Paula Banholzer (who had begun a relationship in 1917) had a son, Frank. In 1920 Brecht's mother died.[13]

Some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part in the political cabaret of the Munich comedian Karl Valentin.[14] Brecht's diaries for the next few years record numerous visits to see Valentin perform.[15] Brecht compared Valentin to Charlie Chaplin, for his "virtually complete rejection of mimicry and cheap psychology".[16] Writing in his Messingkauf Dialogues years later, Brecht identified Valentin, along with Wedekind and Büchner, as his "chief influences" at that time:

But the man he learnt most from was the clown Valentin, who performed in a beer-hall. He did short sketches in which he played refractory employees, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers and made them look ridiculous. The employer was played by his partner, Liesl Karlstadt, a popular woman comedian who used to pad herself out and speak in a deep bass voice.[17]

Brecht's first full-length play, Baal (written 1918), arose in response to an argument in one of Kutscher's drama seminars, initiating a trend that persisted throughout his career of creative activity that was generated by a desire to counter another work (both others' and his own, as his many adaptations and re-writes attest). "Anyone can be creative," he quipped, "it's rewriting other people that's a challenge."[18] Brecht completed his second major play, Drums in the Night, in February 1919.

Between November 1921 and April 1922 Brecht made acquaintance with many influential people in the Berlin cultural scene. Amongst them was the playwright Arnolt Bronnen with whom he established a joint venture, the Arnolt Bronnen / Bertolt Brecht Company. Brecht changed the spelling of his first name to Bertolt to rhyme with Arnolt.

In 1922 while still living in Munich, Brecht came to the attention of an influential Berlin critic, Herbert Ihering: "At 24 the writer Bert Brecht has changed Germany's literary complexion overnight"-he enthused in his review of Brecht's first play to be produced, Drums in the Night-"[he] has given our time a new tone, a new melody, a new vision. [...] It is a language you can feel on your tongue, in your gums, your ear, your spinal column."[19] In November it was announced that Brecht had been awarded the prestigious Kleist Prize (intended for unestablished writers and probably Germany's most significant literary award, until it was abolished in 1932) for his first three plays ( Baal, Drums in the Night, and In the Jungle, although at that point only Drums had been produced).[20] The citation for the award insisted that: "[Brecht's] language is vivid without being deliberately poetic, symbolical without being over literary. Brecht is a dramatist because his language is felt physically and in the round."[21] That year he married the Viennese opera singer Marianne Zoff. Their daughter, Hanne Hiob, born in March 1923, was a successful German actress.[6]

In 1923, Brecht wrote a scenario for what was to become a short slapstick film, Mysteries of a Barbershop, directed by Erich Engel and starring Karl Valentin.[22] Despite a lack of success at the time, its experimental inventiveness and the subsequent success of many of its contributors have meant that it is now considered one of the most important films in German film history.[23] In May of that year, Brecht's In the Jungle premiered in Munich, also directed by Engel. Opening night proved to be a "scandal"-a phenomenon that would characterize many of his later productions during the Weimar Republic-in which Nazis blew whistles and threw stink bombs at the actors on the stage.[15]

In 1924 Brecht worked with the novelist and playwright Lion Feuchtwanger (whom he had met in 1919) on an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II that proved to be a milestone in Brecht's early theatrical and dramaturgical development.[24] Brecht's Edward II constituted his first attempt at collaborative writing and was the first of many classic texts he was to adapt. As his first solo directorial début, he later credited it as the germ of his conception of " epic theatre".[25] That September, a job as assistant dramaturg at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater-at the time one of the leading three or four theatres in the world-brought him to Berlin.[26]

In 1923 Brecht's marriage to Zoff began to break down (though they did not divorce until 1927).[27] Brecht had become involved with both Elisabeth Hauptmann and Helene Weigel.[28] Brecht and Weigel's son, Stefan, was born in October 1924.[29]

In his role as dramaturg, Brecht had much to stimulate him but little work of his own.[30] Reinhardt staged Shaw's Saint Joan, Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters (with the improvisational approach of the commedia dell'arte in which the actors chatted with the prompter about their roles), and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author in his group of Berlin theatres.[31] A new version of Brecht's third play, now entitled Jungle: Decline of a Family, opened at the Deutsches Theater in October 1924, but was not a success.[32]

In the asphalt city I'm at home. From the very start
Provided with every last sacrament:
With newspapers. And tobacco. And brandy
To the end mistrustful, lazy and content.

Bertolt Brecht, "Of Poor BB"

At this time Brecht revised his important "transitional poem", "Of Poor BB".[33] In 1925, his publishers provided him with Elisabeth Hauptmann as an assistant for the completion of his collection of poems, Devotions for the Home ( Hauspostille, eventually published in January 1927). She continued to work with him after the publisher's commission ran out.[34]

In 1925 in Mannheim the artistic exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit (" New Objectivity") had given its name to the new post- Expressionist movement in the German arts. With little to do at the Deutsches Theater, Brecht began to develop his Man Equals Man project, which was to become the first product of "the 'Brecht collective'-that shifting group of friends and collaborators on whom he henceforward depended."[35] This collaborative approach to artistic production, together with aspects of Brecht's writing and style of theatrical production, mark Brecht's work from this period as part of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement.[36] The collective's work "mirrored the artistic climate of the middle 1920s," Willett and Manheim argue:

with their attitude of Neue Sachlichkeit (or New Matter-of-Factness), their stressing of the collectivity and downplaying of the individual, and their new cult of Anglo-Saxon imagery and sport. Together the "collective" would go to fights, not only absorbing their terminology and ethos (which permeates Man Equals Man) but also drawing those conclusions for the theatre as a whole which Brecht set down in his theoretical essay "Emphasis on Sport" and tried to realise by means of the harsh lighting, the boxing-ring stage and other anti-illusionistic devices that henceforward appeared in his own productions.[37]

In 1925, Brecht also saw two films that had a significant influence on him: Chaplin's The Gold Rush and Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin.[38] Brecht had compared Valentin to Chaplin, and the two of them provided models for Galy Gay in Man Equals Man.[39] Brecht later wrote that Chaplin "would in many ways come closer to the epic than to the dramatic theatre's requirements." They met several times during Brecht's time in the United States, and discussed Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux project, which it is possible Brecht influenced.[41]

In 1926 a series of short stories was published under Brecht's name, though Hauptmann was closely associated with writing them.[42] Following the production of Man Equals Man in Darmstadt that year, Brecht began studying Marxism and socialism in earnest, under the supervision of Hauptmann.[43][citation needed ] "When I read Marx's Capital", a note by Brecht reveals, "I understood my plays." Marx was, it continues, "the only spectator for my plays I'd ever come across." Inspired by the developments in USSR Brecht wrote a number of agitprop plays, praising the bolshevik collectivism (replaceability of each member of the collective in Man Equals Man) and red terror (The Decision).

For us, man portrayed on the stage is significant as a social function. It is not his relationship to himself, nor his relationship to God, but his relationship to society which is central. Whenever he appears, his class or social stratum appears with him. His moral, spiritual or sexual conflicts are conflicts with society.

Erwin Piscator, 1929.[45]

In 1927 Brecht became part of the " dramaturgical collective" of Erwin Piscator's first company, which was designed to tackle the problem of finding new plays for its "epic, political, confrontational, documentary theatre".[46] Brecht collaborated with Piscator during the period of the latter's landmark productions, Hoppla, We're Alive! by Toller, Rasputin, The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik, and Konjunktur by Lania.[47] Brecht's most significant contribution was to the adaptation of the unfinished episodic comic novel Schweik, which he later described as a "montage from the novel".[48] The Piscator productions influenced Brecht's ideas about staging and design, and alerted him to the radical potentials offered to the " epic" playwright by the development of stage technology (particularly projections).[49] What Brecht took from Piscator "is fairly plain, and he acknowledged it" Willett suggests:

The emphasis on Reason and didacticism, the sense that the new subject matter demanded a new dramatic form, the use of songs to interrupt and comment: all these are found in his notes and essays of the 1920s, and he bolstered them by citing such Piscatorial examples as the step-by-step narrative technique of Schweik and the oil interests handled in Konjunktur ('Petroleum resists the five-act form').[50]

Brecht was struggling at the time with the question of how to dramatize the complex economic relationships of modern capitalism in his unfinished project Joe P. Fleischhacker (which Piscator's theatre announced in its programme for the 1927-28 season). It wasn't until his Saint Joan of the Stockyards (written between 1929-1931) that Brecht solved it.[51] In 1928 he discussed with Piscator plans to stage Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Brecht's own Drums in the Night, but the productions did not materialize.[52]

1927 also saw the first collaboration between Brecht and the young composer Kurt Weill.[53] Together they began to develop Brecht's Mahagonny project, along thematic lines of the biblical Cities of the Plain but rendered in terms of the Neue Sachlichkeit's Amerikanismus, which had informed Brecht's previous work.[54] They produced The Little Mahagonny for a music festival in July, as what Weill called a "stylistic exercise" in preparation for the large-scale piece. From that point on Caspar Neher became an integral part of the collaborative effort, with words, music and visuals conceived in relation to one another from the start.[55] The model for their mutual articulation lay in Brecht's newly formulated principle of the " separation of the elements", which he first outlined in " The Modern Theatre Is the Epic Theatre" (1930). The principle, a variety of montage, proposed by-passing the "great struggle for supremacy between words, music and production" as Brecht put it, by showing each as self-contained, independent works of art that adopt attitudes towards one another.[56]

In 1930 Brecht married Weigel; their daughter Barbara Brecht was born soon after the wedding.[57] She also became an actress and would later share the copyrights of Brecht's work with her siblings.

Brecht formed a writing collective which became prolific and very influential. Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Emil Burri, Ruth Berlau and others worked with Brecht and produced the multiple teaching plays, which attempted to create a new dramaturgy for participants rather than passive audiences. These addressed themselves to the massive worker arts organisation that existed in Germany and Austria in the 1920s. So did Brecht's first great play, Saint Joan of the Stockyards, which attempts to portray the drama in financial transactions.

This collective adapted John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, with Brecht's lyrics set to music by Kurt Weill. Retitled The Threepenny Opera ( Die Dreigroschenoper) it was the biggest hit in Berlin of the 1920s and a renewing influence on the musical worldwide. One of its most famous lines underscored the hypocrisy of conventional morality imposed by the Church, working in conjunction with the established order, in the face of working-class hunger and deprivation:

Erst kommt das Fressen
Dann kommt die Moral.

First the grub (lit. "eating like animals, gorging")
Then the morality.

The success of The Threepenny Opera was followed by the quickly thrown together Happy End. It was a personal and a commercial failure. At the time the book was purported to be by the mysterious Dorothy Lane (now known to be Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's secretary and close collaborator). Brecht only claimed authorship of the song texts. Brecht would later use elements of Happy End as the germ for his Saint Joan of the Stockyards, a play that would never see the stage in Brecht's lifetime. Happy End' s score by Weill produced many Brecht/Weill hits like "Der Bilbao-Song" and "Surabaya-Jonny".

The masterpiece of the Brecht/Weill collaborations, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny ( Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny), caused an uproar when it premiered in 1930 in Leipzig, with Nazis in the audience protesting. The Mahagonny opera would premier later in Berlin in 1931 as a triumphant sensation.

Brecht spent the last years of the Weimar-era (1930-1933) in Berlin working with his "collective" on the Lehrstücke. These were a group of plays driven by morals, music and Brecht's budding epic theatre. The Lehrstücke often aimed at educating workers on Socialist issues. The Measures Taken ( Die Massnahme) was scored by Hanns Eisler. In addition, Brecht worked on a script for a semi-documentary feature film about the human impact of mass unemployment, Kuhle Wampe (1932), which was directed by Slatan Dudow. This striking film is notable for its subversive humour, outstanding cinematography by Günther Krampf, and Hanns Eisler's dynamic musical contribution. It still provides a vivid insight into Berlin during the last years of the Weimar Republic.

Fearing persecution, Brecht left Nazi Germany in February 1933, just after Hitler took power. After brief spells in Prague, Zurich and Paris he and Weigel accepted an invitation from journalist and author Karin Michaëlis to move to Denmark. The family first stayed with Karin Michaëlis at her house on the small island of Thurø close to the island of Funen. They later bought their own house in Svendborg on Funen. This house located at Skovsbo Strand 8 in Svendborg became the residence of the Brecht family for the next six years, where they often received guests including Walter Benjamin, Hanns Eisler and Ruth Berlau. During this period Brecht also travelled frequently to Copenhagen, Paris, Moscow, New York and London for various projects and collaborations.

When war seemed imminent in April 1939, he moved to [ Stockholm, Sweden, where he remained for a year.[58] After Hitler invaded Norway and Denmark, Brecht left Sweden for Helsinki, Finland, where he lived and waited for his visa for the United States until 3 May 1941.[59] During this time he wrote the play Mr Puntila and his Man Matti ( Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti) with Hella Wuolijoki, with whom he lived in Marlebäck de].

During the war years, Brecht became a prominent writer of the Exilliteratur.[60][60] He expressed his opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in his most famous plays: Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Good Person of Szechwan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, and many others.

Brecht co-wrote the screenplay for the Fritz Lang-directed film Hangmen Also Die! which was loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Deputy Reich Protector of the German-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Heinrich Himmler's right-hand man in the SS, and a chief architect of the Holocaust, who was known as "The Hangman of Prague." Hanns Eisler was nominated for an Academy Award for his musical score. The collaboration of three prominent refugees from Nazi Germany - Lang, Brecht and Eisler - is an example of the influence this generation of German exiles had on American culture.

Hangmen Also Die! was Brecht's only script for a Hollywood film. The money he earned from writing the film enabled him to write The Visions of Simone Machard, Schweik in the Second World War and an adaptation of Webster's The Duchess of Malfi.

In 1942 Brecht's reluctance to help Carola Neher, who died in a gulag prison in the USSR after being arrested during the 1936 purges, caused much controversy among Russian emigrants in the West.[61]

In the years of the Cold War and " Red Scare", Brecht was blacklisted by movie studio bosses and interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee.[62] Along with about 41 other Hollywood writers, directors, actors and producers, he was subpoenaed to appear before the HUAC in September 1947. Although he was one of 19 witnesses who declared that they would refuse to appear, Brecht eventually decided to testify. He later explained that he had followed the advice of attorneys and had not wanted to delay a planned trip to Europe. On 30 October 1947 Brecht testified that he had never been a member of the Communist Party.[62] He made wry jokes throughout the proceedings, punctuating his inability to speak English well with continuous references to the translators present, who transformed his German statements into English ones unintelligible to himself. HUAC vice-chairman Karl Mundt thanked Brecht for his co-operation. The remaining witnesses, the so-called Hollywood Ten, refused to testify and were cited for contempt. Brecht's decision to appear before the committee led to criticism, including accusations of betrayal. The day after his testimony, on 31 October, Brecht returned to Europe.

He lived in Zurich in Switzerland for a year. In February 1948 in Chur, Brecht staged an adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone, based on a translation by Hölderlin. It was published under the title Antigonemodell 1948, accompanied by an essay on the importance of creating a " non-Aristotelian" form of theatre.

In 1949 he moved to East Berlin and established his theatre company there, the Berliner Ensemble. He retained his Austrian nationality (granted in 1950) and overseas bank accounts from which he received valuable hard currency remittances. The copyrights on his writings were held by a Swiss company.[63] At the time he drove a pre-war DKW car-a rare luxury in the austere divided capital.

Though he was never a member of the Communist Party, Brecht had been schooled in Marxism by the dissident communist Karl Korsch. Korsch's version of the Marxist dialectic influenced Brecht greatly, both his aesthetic theory and theatrical practice. Brecht received the Stalin Peace Prize in 1954.[64]

Brecht wrote very few plays in his final years in East Berlin, none of them as famous as his previous works. He dedicated himself to directing plays and developing the talents of the next generation of young directors and dramaturgs, such as Manfred Wekwerth, Benno Besson and Carl Weber. At this time he wrote some of his most famous poems, including the "Buckow Elegies".

At first Brecht apparently supported the measures taken by the East German government against the uprising of 1953 in East Germany, which included the use of Soviet military force. In a letter from the day of the uprising to SED First Secretary Walter Ulbricht, Brecht wrote that: "History will pay its respects to the revolutionary impatience of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The great discussion [exchange] with the masses about the speed of socialist construction will lead to a viewing and safeguarding of the socialist achievements. At this moment I must assure you of my allegiance to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany."[65]

Brecht's subsequent commentary on those events, however, offered a very different assessment-in one of the poems in the Elegies, " Die Lösung" (The Solution), a disillusioned Brecht writes a few months later:

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?[66]

Brecht died on 14 August 1956[67] of a heart attack at the age of 58. He is buried in the Dorotheenstädtischer cemetery on Chausseestraße in the Mitte neighbourhood of Berlin, overlooked by the residence he shared with Helene Weigel.

According to Stephen Parker, who reviewed Brecht's writings and unpublished medical records, Brecht contracted rheumatic fever as a child, which led to an enlarged heart, followed by lifelong chronic heart failure and Sydenham's chorea. A report of a radiograph taken of Brecht in 1951 describes a badly diseased heart, enlarged to the left with a protruding aortic knob and with seriously impaired pumping. Brecht's colleagues described him as being very nervous, and sometimes shaking his head or moving his hands erratically. This can be reasonably attributed to Sydenham's chorea, which is also associated with emotional lability, personality changes, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and hyperactivity, which matched Brecht's behavior. "What is remarkable," wrote Parker, "is his capacity to turn abject physical weakness into peerless artistic strength, arrhythmia into the rhythms of poetry, chorea into the choreography of drama."[68]

In the 1930 novel Success, Brecht's mentor Lion Feuchtwanger immortalized Brecht as the character Kaspar Pröckl.

In the Günter Grass play The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising (1966), Brecht appears as "The Boss", rehearsing his version of Shakespeare's Coriolanus against the background of worker unrest in East Berlin in 1953.

Cuban songwriter Silvio Rodríguez started his song Sueño con serpientes from the album Días y flores (1975) with a phrase of Brecht.

Brecht appears as a character in Christopher Hampton's play Tales from Hollywood, first produced in 1982, dealing with German expatriates in Hollywood at the time of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings on supposed Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry and the beginning of the Hollywood blacklist.

In Peter Weiss's monumental novel of 1981 Die Ästhetik des Widerstands (The Aesthetics of Resistance) Brecht is a teacher for the narrator who aspires to become a writer.

The 2000 German film Abschied - Brechts letzter Sommer (The Farewell), directed by Jan Schütte, depicts Brecht (Josef Bierbichler) shortly before his death, attended to by Helene Weigel (Monica Bleibtreu) and two former lovers.

In the 2006 film The Lives of Others, a Stasi agent played by Ulrich Mühe is partially inspired to save a playwright he has been spying on by reading a book of Brecht poetry that he had stolen from the artist's apartment. In particular, the poem "Reminiscence of Marie A." is read.

In Robert Cohen's historical novel Exil der frechen Frauen (2009) Brecht is a major character.

The 2013 film Witness 11 draws upon historical events exploring the justice-thirsty courtroom through the eyes of Brecht as he is called to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

In the 2013 Italian film Viva la libertà the Brecht poem To a Waverer forms the text for an important and moving speech.

In the 2014 novel Leaving Berlin by Joseph Kanon, Brecht appears as a cynical returnee to Soviet Berlin, lauded by the authorities as a symbol of communist German culture and willing to ignore moral issues to pursue his art.[82]

Collective and collaborative working methods were inherent to Brecht's approach, as Fredric Jameson (among others) stresses. Jameson describes the creator of the work not as Brecht the individual, but rather as 'Brecht': a collective subject that "certainly seemed to have a distinctive style (the one we now call 'Brechtian') but was no longer personal in the bourgeois or individualistic sense." During the course of his career, Brecht sustained many long-lasting creative relationships with other writers, composers, scenographers, directors, dramaturgs and actors; the list includes: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Ruth Berlau, Slatan Dudow, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau, Caspar Neher, Teo Otto, Karl von Appen, Ernst Busch, Lotte Lenya, Peter Lorre, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, Carola Neher and Helene Weigel herself. This is "theatre as collective experiment [...] as something radically different from theatre as expression or as experience."[83]

Entries show: English-language translation of title ( German-language title) [year written] / [year first produced][84]

The Modern Theatre Is the Epic Theatre (1930)

The Threepenny Lawsuit (Der Dreigroschenprozess) (written 1931; published 1932)

The Book of Changes (fragment also known as Me-Ti; written 1935-1939)

The Street Scene (written 1938; published 1950)

The Popular and the Realistic (written 1938; published 1958)

Short Description of a New Technique of Acting which Produces an Alienation Effect (written 1940; published 1951)

A Short Organum for the Theatre ("Kleines Organon für das Theater", written 1948; published 1949)

The Messingkauf Dialogues (Dialogue aus dem Messingkauf, published 1963)

Brecht wrote hundreds of poems throughout his life.[85] He began writing poetry as a young boy, and his first poems were published in 1914. His poetry was influenced by folk-ballads, French chansons, and the poetry of Rimbaud and Villon.[citation needed ] The last collection of new poetry by Brecht published in his lifetime was the 1939 Svendborger Gedichte.[86]

Some of Brecht's poems

1. ^ "Brecht". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House.

2. ^ "Brecht, Bertolt". Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press.

3. John Willet, commentary to ^ Bertolt Brecht Letters 1913-1956 (NY 1990) pp. 312-13

4. ^ "Brecht-Weigel-Gedenkstätte-Chausseestraße 125-10115 Berlin-Akademie der Künste - Akademie der Künste - Berlin".

5. ^ Thomson (1994).

6. ^ Hässler, Hans-Jürgen; von Heusinger, Christian, eds. (1989). Kultur gegen Krieg, Wissenschaft für den Frieden [Culture against War, Science for Peace] (in German). Würzburg, Germany: Königshausen & Neumann. ISBN 978-3884794012.

7. Thomson (1994, 24). In his ^ Messingkauf Dialogues, Brecht cites Wedekind, along with Büchner and Valentin, as his "chief influences" in his early years: "he," Brecht writes of himself in the third person, "also saw the writer Wedekind performing his own works in a style which he had developed in cabaret. Wedekind had worked as a ballad singer; he accompanied himself on the lute." (1965, 69). Kutscher was "bitterly critical" of Brecht's own early dramatic writings (Willet and Manheim 1970, vii).

8. ^ McDowell (2000).

9. Herbert Ihering's review for ^ Drums in the Night in the Berliner Börsen-Courier on 5 October 1922. Quoted in Willett and Manheim (1970, viii-ix).

10. Culbert (1995).^ [page needed ]

11. Meech (1994, 54-55) and Benjamin (1983, 115). See the article on ^ Edward II for details of Brecht's germinal 'epic' ideas and techniques in this production.

12. Brecht was recommended for the job by ^ Erich Engel; Carl Zuckmayer was to join Brecht in the position. See Sacks (1994, xviii), Willett (1967, 145), and Willett and Manheim (1970, vii).

13. According to Willett, Brecht was disgruntled with the ^ Deutsches Theater at not being given a Shakespeare production to direct. At the end of the 1924-1925 season, both his and Carl Zuckmayer's (his fellow dramaturg) contracts were not renewed. (Willett 1967, 145). Zuckmayer relates how: "Brecht seldom turned up there; with his flapping leather jacket he looked like a cross between a lorry driver and a Jesuit seminarist. Roughly speaking, what he wanted was to take over complete control; the season's programme must be regulated entirely according to his theories, and the stage be rechristened 'epic smoke theatre', it being his view that people might actually be disposed to think if they were allowed to smoke at the same time. As this was refused him he confined himself to coming and drawing his pay." (Quoted by Willett 1967, 145).

14. Willett and Manheim (1979, viii); Joel Schechter writes: "The subjugation of an individual to that of a collective was endorsed by the affirmations of comedy, and by the decision of the coauthors of ^ Man is Man (Emil Burri, Slatan Dudow, Caspar Neher, Bernhard Reich, Elisabeth Hauptmann) to call themselves 'The Brecht Collective'." (1994, 74).

15. Willett (1998, 103) and (1978, 72). In his book ^ The Political Theatre, Piscator wrote: "Perhaps my whole style of directing is a direct result of the total lack of suitable plays. It would certainly not have taken so dominant form if adequate plays had been on hand when I started" (1929, 185).

16. See Brecht's ^ Journal entry for 24 June 1943. Brecht claimed to have written the adaptation (in his Journal entry), but Piscator contested that; the manuscript bears the names "Brecht, [Felix] Gasbarra, Piscator, G. Grosz" in Brecht's handwriting (Willett 1978, 110). See also Willett (1978, 90-95). Brecht wrote a sequel to the novel in 1943, Schweik in the Second World War.

17. Willett (1978, 109-110). The similarities between Brecht's and Piscator's theoretical formulations from the time indicate that the two agreed on fundamentals; compare Piscator's summation of the achievements of his first company (1929), which follows, with Brecht's ^ Mahagonny Notes (1930): "In lieu of private themes we had generalisation, in lieu of what was special the typical, in lieu of accident causality. Decorativeness gave way to constructedness, Reason was put on a par with Emotion, while sensuality was replaced by didacticism and fantasy by documentary reality." From a speech given by Piscator on 25 March 1929, and reproduced in Schriften 2 p. 50; Quoted by Willett (1978, 107). See also Willett (1998, 104-105).

18. The two first met in March 1927, after Weill had written a critical introduction to the broadcast on Berlin Radio of an adaptation of Brecht's ^ Man Equals Man. When they met, Brecht was 29 years old and Weill was 27. Brecht had experience of writing songs and had performed his own with tunes he had composed; at the time he was also married to an opera singer (Zoff). Weill had collaborated with Georg Kaiser, one of the few Expressionist playwrights that Brecht admired; he was married to the actress Lotte Lenya. Willett and Manheim (1979, xv).

19. Willet and Manheim (1979, xv-xviii). In Munich in 1924 Brecht had begun referring to some of the stranger aspects of life in post-^ putsch Bavaria under the codename "Mahagonny". The Amerikanismus imagery appears in his first three "Mahagonny Songs", with their Wild West references. With that, however, the project stalled for two and a half years. With Hauptmann, who wrote the two English-language "Mahagonny Songs", Brecht had begun work on an opera to be called Sodom and Gomorrah or The Man from Manhattan and a radio play called The Flood or 'The Collapse of Miami, the Paradise City', both of which came to underlie the new scheme with Weill. See Willett and Manheim (1979, xv-xvi). The influence of Amerikanismus is most clearly discernible in Brecht's In the Jungle of Cities.

20. In this respect, the creative process for ^ Mahagonny was quite different from The Threepenny Opera, with the former being durchkomponiert or set to music right through, whereas on the latter Weill was brought at a late stage to set the songs. See Willett and Manheim (1979, xv).

21. ^ "Barbara Brecht-Schall - About This Person". The New York Times.

22. ^ "International Brecht Society - Brecht Chronology". www.brechtsociety.org.

23. ^ Exilliteratur.

24. [ [^ Walter Held de]: "Stalins deutsche Opfer und die Volksfront", in the underground magazine Unser Wort, Nr. 4/5, October 1938, pp. 7 ff.; Michael Rohrwasser de], Der Stalinismus und die Renegaten. Die Literatur der Exkommunisten, Stuttgart 1991, p. 163

25. ^ Brecht HUAC hearing

26. ^ GradeSaver. "Bertolt Brecht Biography - List of Works, Study Guides & Essays".

27. ^ "St. Petersburg Times". 21 December 1954.

28. Letter published in the ^ Neues Deutschland, 21 June 1953.

29. Brecht (2000b, 440). The poem was first printed in the West-German newspaper ^ Die Welt in 1959 and subsequently in the Buckow Elegies in the West 1964. It was first published in the GDR in 1969 after Helene Weigel had insisted on its inclusion in a collected edition of Brecht's works.

30. ^ Bertolt Brecht at the Encyclopædia Britannica

31. ^ Parker S. (2 April 2011). "Diagnosing Bertolt Brecht". Lancet. 377 (9772): 1146-7. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60453-4. PMID 21465701.

32. ^ Squiers, Anthony (2015). "A Critical Response to Heidi M. Silcox's "What's Wrong with Alienation?"". Philosophy and Literature.

33. On these relationships, see "autonomization" in Jameson (1998, 43-58) and "non-organic work of art" in Bürger (1984, 87-92). Willett observes: "With Brecht the same ^ montage technique spread to the drama, where the old Procrustean plot yielded to a more "epic" form of narrative better able to cope with wide-ranging modern socio-economic themes. That, at least, was how Brecht theoretically justified his choice of form, and from about 1929 on he began to interpret its penchant for "contradictions", much as had Sergei Eisenstein, in terms of the dialectic. It is fairly clear that in Brecht's case the practice came before the theory, for his actual composition of a play, with its switching around of scenes and characters, even the physical cutting up and sticking together of the typescript, shows that montage was the structural technique most natural to him. Like Jaroslav Hašek and Joyce he had not learnt this scissors-and-paste method from the Soviet cinema but picked it out of the air" (1978, 110).

34. Brooker (1994, 193). Brooker writes that "the term 'alienation' is an inadequate and even misleading translation of Brecht's ^ Verfremdung. The terms 'de-familiarisation' or 'estrangement', when understood as more than purely formal devices, give a more accurate sense of Brecht's intentions. A better term still would be 'de-alienation'".

35. ^ Hsia, Adrian (1983). "Bertolt Brecht in China and His Impact on Chinese Drama". Comparative Literature Studies. 20 (2): 231-245. JSTOR 40246399.

36. ^ Squiers, Anthony (2014). An Introduction to the Social and Political Philosophy of Bertolt Brecht. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ISBN 9789042038998.

37. ^ Jacobi, Johannes (14 March 1957). "Zur Brecht-Uraufführung in Frankfurt: "Die Gesichte der Simone Machard"". Die Zeit (in German). Hamburg.

38. ^ Hammer, Joshua (24 March 2015). "Joseph Kanon's 'Leaving Berlin'". The New York Times.

39. Jameson (1998, 10-11). See also the discussions of Brecht's collaborative relationships in the essays collected in Thomson and Sacks (1994). John Fuegi's take on Brecht's collaborations, detailed in ^ Brecht & Co. (New York: Grove, 1994; also known as The Life and Lies of Bertolt Brecht) and summarized in his contribution to Thomson and Sacks (1994, 104-116), offers a particularly negative perspective; Jameson comments "his book will remain a fundamental document for future students of the ideological confusions of Western intellectuals during the immediate post-Cold War years" (1998, 31); Olga Taxidou offers a critical account of Fuegi's project from a feminist perspective in "Crude Thinking: John Fuegi and Recent Brecht Criticism" in New Theatre Quarterly XI.44 (Nov. 1995), pp. 381-384.

40. Note: Several of Brecht's poems were set by his collaborator ^ Hanns Eisler in his Deutsche Sinfonie, begun in 1935, but not premiered until 1959 (three years after Brecht's death).

41. Bertolt Brecht, ^ Poems 1913-1956, ed. by John Willett, Ralph Manheim, and Erich Fried (London: Eyre Methuen, 1976), p. 507.

1983. Short Stories: 1921-1946. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Trans. Yvonne Kapp, Hugh Rorrison and Antony Tatlow. London and New York: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-52890-1.

Brecht developed the combined theory and practice of his " Epic theatre" by synthesizing and extending the experiments of Erwin Piscator and Vsevolod Meyerhold to explore the theatre as a forum for political ideas and the creation of a critical aesthetics of dialectical materialism.

Epic Theatre proposed that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. Brecht thought that the experience of a climactic catharsis of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognise social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effect change in the world outside.[69] For this purpose, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was equally constructed and, as such, was changeable.

Brecht's modernist concern with drama-as-a- medium led to his refinement of the " epic form" of the drama. This dramatic form is related to similar modernist innovations in other arts, including the strategy of divergent chapters in James Joyce's novel Ulysses, Sergei Eisenstein's evolution of a constructivist " montage" in the cinema, and Picasso's introduction of cubist "collage" in the visual arts.[70]

One of Brecht's most important principles was what he called the Verfremdungseffekt (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", and often mistranslated as "alienation effect").[71] This involved, Brecht wrote, "stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them".[72] To this end, Brecht employed techniques such as the actor's direct address to the audience, harsh and bright stage lighting, the use of songs to interrupt the action, explanatory placards, the transposition of text to the third person or past tense in rehearsals, and speaking the stage directions out loud.

In contrast to many other avant-garde approaches, however, Brecht had no desire to destroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to " re-function" the theatre to a new social use. In this regard he was a vital participant in the aesthetic debates of his era-particularly over the " high art/popular culture" dichotomy-vying with the likes of Theodor W. Adorno, György Lukács, Ernst Bloch, and developing a close friendship with Walter Benjamin. Brechtian theatre articulated popular themes and forms with avant-garde formal experimentation to create a modernist realism that stood in sharp contrast both to its psychological and socialist varieties. "Brecht's work is the most important and original in European drama since Ibsen and Strindberg," Raymond Williams argues, while Peter Bürger dubs him "the most important materialist writer of our time."[74]

Brecht was also influenced by Chinese theatre, and used its aesthetic as an argument for Verfremdungseffekt. Brecht believed, "Traditional Chinese acting also knows the alienation [sic] effect, and applies it most subtly.[75]... The [Chinese] performer portrays incidents of utmost passion, but without his delivery becoming heated."[76] Brecht attended a Chinese opera performance and was introduced to the famous Chinese opera performer Mei Lanfang in 1935.[77] However, Brecht was sure to distinguish between Epic and Chinese theatre. He recognized that the Chinese style was not a "transportable piece of technique,"[78] and that Epic theatre sought to historicize and address social and political issues.[79]

Brecht used his poetry to criticize European culture, including Nazis, and the German bourgeoisie. Brecht's poetry is marked by the effects of the First and Second World Wars.

Throughout his theatric production, poems are incorporated into this plays with music. In 1951, Brecht issued a recantation of his apparent suppression of poetry in his plays with a note titled On Poetry and Virtuosity. He writes:

We shall not need to speak of a play's poetry ... something that seemed relatively unimportant in the immediate past. It seemed not only unimportant, but misleading, and the reason was not that the poetic element had been sufficiently developed and observed, but that reality had been tampered with in its name ... we had to speak of a truth as distinct from poetry ... we have given up examining works of art from their poetic or artistic aspect, and got satisfaction from theatrical works that have no sort of poetic appeal ... Such works and performances may have some effect, but it can hardly be a profound one, not even politically. For it is a peculiarity of the theatrical medium that it communicates awarenesses and impulses in the form of pleasure: the depth of the pleasure and the impulse will correspond to the depth of the pleasure.

Brecht's most influential poetry is featured in his Manual of Piety (Devotions), establishing him as a noted poet.

Brecht's widow, the actress Helene Weigel, continued to manage the Berliner Ensemble until her death in 1971; it was primarily devoted to performing Brecht's plays.

Besides being an influential dramatist and poet, some scholars have stressed the significance of Brecht's original contributions in political and social philosophy.[80]

Brecht's collaborations with Kurt Weill have had some influence in rock music. The " Alabama Song" for example, originally published as a poem in Brecht's Hauspostille (1927) and set to music by Weill in Mahagonny, has been recorded by The Doors, on their self-titled debut album, as well as by David Bowie and various other bands and performers since the 1960s.

Brecht's son, Stefan Brecht, became a poet and theatre critic interested in New York's avant-garde theatre.

Brecht's plays were a focus of the Schauspiel Frankfurt when Harry Buckwitz was general manager, including the world premiere of Die Gesichte der Simone Machard in 1957.[81]

Brecht in fiction, drama and film Edit

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Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht [a] (10 February 1898 - 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Kurt Weill and began a lifelong collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler.

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Antonin Artaud (4 September 1896 - 4 March 1948) was described as being a avant-garde and was somewhat of a Jack of Trades with his huge amount of specialities, Artaud was a French born writer, poet, actor, director, dramatist, essayist and visual artist, He was widely commended as a huge figure of early 20th Century Theatre.

Artaud was mostly known for his experimental texts with raw, surreal and transgressive themes of introspection, drug use, unorthodox political ideologies, and his experiences with mental health (specifically schizophrenia.)

Artaud is known for spawning the influential "Theatre of Cruelty", where artists assault the various senses of the audience. Artaud didn't want to be restricted by the tradition of having: a stage, an auditorium, sets and props, Artaud was left with an empty room with the audience seated the center of the room while actors perform around them.

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Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud ( French: [aʁto]; 4 September 1896 - 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director, widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theatre and the European avant-garde, and known for his raw, surreal and transgressive themes.[1][2][3][4] He conceptualized the Theatre of Cruelty movement with essays and plays,[5] and wrote experimental texts with themes of introspection, mysticism, drug use, unorthodox politics and his experiences with schizophrenia.[6]

Antonin Artaud was born in Marseille, France, to Euphrasie Nalpas and Antoine-Roi Artaud.[7] Both his parents were natives of Smyrna (modern-day İzmir),[8]:15 and he was greatly affected by his Greek ancestry.[7][8] Antoine-Roi Artaud was a shipowner.[4] Euphrasie gave birth to nine children, but four were stillborn and two others died in childhood. Artaud was diagnosed with meningitis at age five, a disease which had no cure at the time. Biographer David Shafer points out, "given the frequency of such misdiagnoses, coupled with the absence of a treatment (and consequent near-minimal survival rate) and the symptoms he had, it's unlikely that Artaud actually contracted it."[8] After a long struggle including a comatose period, a severely weakened Antonin survived.[9] Artaud's parents arranged a series of sanatorium stays for their temperamental son, which were both prolonged and expensive.[10]:163 This lasted five years, with a break of two months in June and July 1916, when Artaud was conscripted into the French Army. He was discharged due to addiction to laudanum and mental instability. During Artaud's "rest cures" at the sanatorium, he read Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, and Edgar Allan Poe. In May 1919, the director of the sanatorium prescribed laudanum for Artaud, precipitating a lifelong addiction to that and other opiates.[11] He suffered a nervous breakdown at age 19; this was not the end of his mental illness.[4]

In March 1921, Artaud moved to Paris to pursue a career as a writer (against his father's wishes).[4] While training and performing with directors including Charles Dullin and Georges Pitoëff, he continued to write both poetry and essays. At the age of 27, he mailed some of his poems to the journal La Nouvelle Revue Française; they were rejected, but the editor, Jacques Rivière, wrote back seeking to understand him, and a relationship via letters developed. Their compilation into an epistolary work, Correspondance avec Jacques Rivière, was Artaud's first major publication.

His first work in the theatre was with French theatre director Lugné Poe who described Artaud as "a painter lost in the midst of actors".[12]:350

Dullin is one of the celebrated French "teacher-directors" with whom Artaud worked, along with Jacques Copeau, André Antoine, and Firmin Gémier. Artaud was taken on as an apprentice by Dullin in 1921, at his Théâtre de l'Atelier.[12]:345 He worked as a member of with Dullin's troupe for eighteen months, training ten to twelve hours a day.[13]:119 Artaud was quoted as saying of Dullin, "Hearing Dullin teach I feel that I'm rediscovering ancient secrets and a whole forgotten mystique of production".[12]:351 Artaud came to disagree with many of Dullin's teachings.[12]:352 He left the troupe after a disagreement over his performance of the Emperor Charlemagne in Alexandre Arnoux's Huon de Bordeaux.[3]:22

Work in the cinema (1923-1935) Edit

Artaud cultivated a great interest in cinema as well, working as a critic, actor, and writing film scenarios. Artaud's performance as Jean-Paul Marat in Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927) used exaggerated movements to convey the fire of Marat's personality. He also played the monk Massieu in Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). He wrote a number of film scenarios, and ten are listed in his Complete Works. As Ros Murray points out, 'one is a fragment, four were written under a pseudonym, and one was lost altogether.'[14]

The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928) Edit

Only one of Artaud's scenarios was produced, The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928). Directed by Germaine Dulac, it is often considered the first surrealist film.[15] This film influenced Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel, two key Spanish surrealists, when they made Un Chien Andalou (1929).

Artaud was briefly associated with the Surrealists, before being expelled by André Breton in 1927, shortly after the Surrealists aligned themselves with the Communist Party in France.:[16] 274 Scholar Ros Murray asserts, 'Artaud was not into politics at all, writing things like: " I shit on Marxism."' Additionally, 'Breton was becoming very anti-theatre because he saw theatre as being bourgeois and anti-revolutionary.'[17] Artaud ends his manifesto for the Theatre Alfred Jarry, 'The Manifesto for an Abortive Theatre' (1926/27), with a direct attack on the Surrealists, who he calls 'bog-paper revolutionaries' that would 'make us believe that to produce theatre today is a counter-revolutionary endeavour'.[18]:24 He declares they are 'bowing down to Communism',[18]:25 which is 'a lazy man's revolution',[18]:24 and calls for a more 'essential metamorphosis' of society.[18]:25

Theatre Alfred Jarry (1926-1929) Edit

In 1926, Artaud founded the Theatre Alfred Jarry with Robert Aron and expelled Surrealist Roger Vitrac.[19] They staged four productions between June 1927 and January 1929. The Theatre was extremely short-lived, but was attended by an enormous range of European artists, including Arthur Adamov, André Gide, and Paul Valéry.[19]:249

The theatre's inaugural production was 1 June 1927, and featured Artaud's Ventre brûlé; ou La Mère folle (Burnt Belly, or the Mad Mother), Vitrac's Les Mystères de l'amour (The Mysteries of Love), and Aron's Gigogne.[19]

The second production was 14 January 1928 and 'consisted of a screening of Vsevolod Pudovkin's 1926 film Mat' (as La Mère), and a performance of the last act of Paul Claudel's Le Partage de midi.'[19]

The third production, on 2 and 9 June 1928, was August Strindberg's A Dream Play.

The final production was Vitrac's Victor; ou, Le pouvoir aux les enfants, which ran 24 and 29 December 1928 and 5 January 1929.[19]

The theatre advertised that they would produce Artaud's play Jet de sang in their 1926-1927 season, but it was never mounted and was not premiered until 40 years later.

Artaud at the Paris Colonial Exposition (1931) Edit

In 1931, Artaud saw Balinese dance performed at the Paris Colonial Exposition. Although he did not fully understand the intentions and ideas behind traditional Balinese performance, it influenced many of his ideas for theatre. Scholar Adrian Curtin has noted the significance of the soundscape that accompanied the event, stating that Artaud was struck by 'the 'hypnotic' rhythms of the gamelan ensemble, its range of percussive effects, the variety of timbres that the musicians produced, and - most importantly, perhaps - the way in which the dancers' movements interacted dynamically with the musical elements instead of simply functioning as a type of background accompaniment.'[20]:253

Also during this year, Artaud's 'First Manifesto for a Theatre of Cruelty' was published in La Nouvelle Revue Française; it would later appear as a chapter in The Theatre and Its Double.[citation needed ]

The Cenci (1935) Edit

In 1935 Artaud staged a production of Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci at the Théâtre des Folies-Wagram in Paris.[20]:250 The drama contains themes of abuse, incest, violence, murder and betrayal. In Artaud's stage directions, he described the opening scene as "suggestive of extreme atmospheric turbulence, with wind-blown drapes, waves of suddenly amplified sound, and crowds of figures engaged in 'furious orgy'", accompanied by "a chorus of church bells", as well as the presence of numerous large mannequins.[13]:120 In this scene, which is often referred to as "the banquet scene", Dullin's influence on Artaud is very clear, as both the sounds of bells and the sounds of amplified footsteps were present, along with the strongly emphasized theme of elemental forces. Scholar Adrian Curtin has argued for the importance of the 'sonic aspects of the production, which did not merely support the action but motivated it obliquely.'[20]:251 While Shelley's version of The Cenci conveyed the motivations and anguish of the Cenci's daughter Beatrice with her father through monologues, Artaud was much more concerned with conveying the menacing nature of the Cenci's presence and the reverberations of their incest relationship though physical discordance, as if an invisible "force-field" surrounded them.[13]:123

Artaud's strong interest in oriental theater, specifically Balinese and Chinese, was in part shared by his mentor Dullin, but Dullin, unlike Artaud, did not think Western theater should be adopting oriental language and style. He was quoted as saying of Artaud's influences from oriental theater, "To want to impose on our Western theater rules of a theatre of a long tradition which has its own symbolic language would be a great mistake."[12]:351 Artaud's implementation of Dullin's sensory awareness exercises into the stage production were clearly observable in The Cenci, Jane Goodall writes of the performance,

The predominance of action over reflection accelerates the development of events...the monologues...are cut in favor of sudden, jarring transitions...so that a spasmodic effect is created. Extreme fluctuations in pace, pitch, and tone heighten sensory awareness intensify ... the here and now of performance.[13]:119

The Cenci was a commercial failure, although it employed innovative sound effects-including the first theatrical use of the electronic instrument the Ondes Martenot-and had a set designed by Balthus.

In 1935 Artaud decided to go to Mexico, where he was convinced there was 'a sort of deep movement in favour of a return to civilisation before Cortez'.[21]:11 He received a grant to travel to Mexico, where in 1936 he met his first Mexican-Parisian friend, the painter Federico Cantú, when Cantú gave lectures on the decadence of Western civilization. Artaud also studied and lived with the Tarahumaran people and participated in peyote rites, his writings about which were later released in a volume called Voyage to the Land of the Tarahumara,[21]:¹⁴ published in English under the title The Peyote Dance (1976). The content of this work closely resembles the poems of his later days, concerned primarily with the supernatural. Artaud also recorded his horrific withdrawal from heroin upon entering the land of the Tarahumaras. Having deserted his last supply of the drug at a mountainside, he literally had to be hoisted onto his horse and soon resembled, in his words, "a giant, inflamed gum". Artaud would return to opiates later in life.

In 1937, Artaud returned to France, where he obtained a walking stick of knotted wood that he believed belonged not only to St. Patrick, but also Lucifer and Jesus Christ. Artaud traveled to Ireland, landing at Cobh and travelling to Galway in an effort to return the staff. However, speaking very little English and no Irish whatsoever, he was unable to make himself understood. He would not have been admitted at Cobh, according to Irish government documents, except that he carried a letter of introduction from the Paris embassy. Most of his trip was spent in a hotel room he was unable to pay for. He was forcibly removed from the grounds of Milltown House, a Jesuit community, when he refused to leave. Before deportation he was briefly confined in the notorious Mountjoy Prison. According to Irish Government papers he was deported as "a destitute and undesirable alien".[22] On his return trip by ship, Artaud believed he was being attacked by two crew members, and he retaliated. He was arrested and put in a straitjacket.

His return from Ireland brought about the beginning of the final phase of Artaud's life, which was spent in different asylums. It was at this time that his best known work The Theatre and Its Double (1938) was published. This book contained the two manifestos of the Theatre of Cruelty. There, "he proposed a theatre that was in effect a return to magic and ritual and he sought to create a new theatrical language of totem and gesture - a language of space devoid of dialogue that would appeal to all the senses."[23]:6 "Words say little to the mind," Artaud wrote, "compared to space thundering with images and crammed with sounds." He proposed "a theatre in which violent physical images crush and hypnotize the sensibility of the spectator seized by the theatre as by a whirlwind of higher forces." He considered formal theatres with their proscenium arches and playwrights with their scripts "a hindrance to the magic of genuine ritual."[23]:6

In 1943, when France was occupied by the Germans and Italians, Robert Desnos arranged to have Artaud transferred to the psychiatric hospital in Rodez, well inside Vichy territory, where he was put under the charge of Dr. Gaston Ferdière.[24] At Rodez Artaud underwent therapy including electroshock treatments and art therapy.[25]:194 The doctor believed that Artaud's habits of crafting magic spells, creating astrology charts, and drawing disturbing images were symptoms of mental illness. Artaud, at his peak began lashing out at others. Artaud denounced the electroshock treatments and consistently pleaded to have them suspended, while also ascribing to them 'the benefit of having returned him to his name and to his self mastery'.[25]:196 Scholar Alexandra Lukes points out that 'the "recovery" of his name' might have been 'a gesture to appease his doctors' conception of what constitutes health.'[25]:196 It was during this time that Artaud began writing and drawing again, after a long dormant period. In 1946, Ferdière released Artaud to his friends, who placed him in the psychiatric clinic at Ivry-sur-Seine.[11]

Artaud was encouraged to write by his friends, and interest in his work was rekindled. He visited an exhibition of works by Vincent van Gogh which resulted in a study Van Gogh le suicidé de la société [ Van Gogh, The Man Suicided by Society], published by K éditeur, Paris, 1947 which won a critics' prize.[26] He recorded Pour en Finir avec le Jugement de dieu (To Have Done With the Judgment of God) on 22-29 November 1947. This work was shelved by Wladimir Porché, the Director of French Radio, the day before its scheduled airing on 2 February 1948, partly for its scatological, anti-American, and anti-religious references and pronouncements, but also because of its general randomness, with a cacophony of xylophonic sounds mixed with various percussion elements. While remaining true to his Theatre of Cruelty and reducing powerful emotions and expressions into audible sounds, Artaud had utilized various, somewhat alarming cries, screams, grunts, onomatopoeia and glossolalia.

As a result, Fernand Pouey, the director of dramatic and literary broadcasts for French radio, assembled a panel to consider the broadcast of Pour en Finir avec le Jugement de dieu. Among approximately 50 artists, writers, musicians, and journalists present for a private listening on 5 February 1948 were Jean Cocteau, Paul Éluard, Raymond Queneau, Jean-Louis Barrault, René Clair, Jean Paulhan, Maurice Nadeau, Georges Auric, Claude Mauriac, and René Char. Porché refused to broadcast it even though the panel were almost unanimously in favor of Artaud's work. Pouey left his job and the show was not heard again until 23 February 1948, at a private performance at Théâtre Washington.

In January 1948, Artaud was diagnosed with colorectal cancer.[27] He died shortly afterwards on 4 March 1948 in a psychiatric clinic in Ivry-sur-Seine, a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris.[28] He was found by the gardener of the estate seated alone at the foot of his bed, and it was suspected that he died from a lethal dose of the drug chloral hydrate, although it is unknown whether he was aware of its lethality.[28]

Twenty years after its recording and production in November 1947, French radio finally broadcast the performance of Pour en Finir avec le Jugement de dieu.[29]

Artaud has been cited as a profoundly influential figure in the history of theatre, avant-garde art, literature, and other disciplines.[30] His work proved to be a significant influence on the Theatre of the Absurd, particularly the works of Jean Genet and Samuel Beckett, and helped inspire a movement away from the dominant role of language and rationalism in contemporary theatre.[30] Artaud also had a significant influence on the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, who borrowed Artaud's phrase "the body without organs" to describe their conception of the virtual dimension of the body and, ultimately, the basic substratum of reality in their Capitalism and Schizophrenia.[31] Poet Allen Ginsberg claimed that his introduction to Artaud, specifically "To Have Done with the Judgement of God", by Carl Solomon had a tremendous influence on his most famous poem " Howl".[32] Artaud's ideas were adopted and vividly seen in Barrault's adaptation of Kafka's The Trial (1947).[33]

An extremely important study on the Artaud work comes from Jacques Derrida. According to the philosopher, as theatrical writer and actor, Artaud is the embodiment of both an aggressive and repairing gesture, which strikes, sounds out, is harsh in a dramatic way and with critical determination as well. Identifying life as art, he was critically focused on the western cultural social drama, to point out and deny the double-dealing on which the western theatrical tradition is based; he worked with the whirlpool of feelings and lunatic expressions, being subjugated to a counter-force which came from the act of gesture.[34][35]

Theatrical practitioner Peter Brook took inspiration from Artaud's "Theatre of Cruelty" in a series of workshops that led up to his Royal Shakespeare Company production of Marat/Sade in 1964, which was performed in New York and Paris as well as London. The Living Theatre was also heavily influenced by Artaud, as was much English-language experimental theatre and performance art; Karen Finley, Spalding Gray, Liz LeCompte, Richard Foreman, Charles Marowitz, Sam Shepard, Joseph Chaikin, and more all named Artaud as one of their influences.[23]:6-25 In the winter of 1968, Williams College offered a dedicated intersession class in Artaudian theatre, resulting in a week-long "Festival of Cruelty," under the direction of Keith Fowler. The Festival included productions of The Jet of Blood, All Writing is Pig Shit, and several original ritualized performances, one based on the Texas Tower killings and another created as an ensemble catharsis called The Resurrection of Pig Man.[36]

Charles Marowitz's play Artaud at Rodez is about the relationship between Artaud and Dr. Ferdière during Artaud's confinement at the psychiatric hospital in Rodez; the play was first performed in 1976 at the Teatro a Trastavere in Rome.[37] The writer and actor Tim Dalgleish wrote and produced the play 'The Life and Theatre of Antonin Artaud' (originally called 'Pigshit') for the English physical theatre company Bare Bones in 1999. The play told Artaud's story from his early years of aspiration when he wished to be part of the establishment, through to his final years as a suffering, iconoclastic outsider. In Canada, playwright Gary Botting created a series of Artaudian "happenings" from The Aeolian Stringer to Zen Rock Festival, and produced a dozen plays with an Artaudian theme, including Prometheus Re-Bound.[38] The Latin American dramatic novel Yo-Yo Boing! by Giannina Braschi includes a debate between artists and poets concerning the merits of Artaud's "multiple talents" in comparison to the singular talents of other French writers.[39] The band Bauhaus included a song about the playwright, called "Antonin Artaud", on their album Burning from the Inside.[40] Influential Argentine hard rock band Pescado Rabioso recorded an album titled Artaud. Their leader Luis Alberto Spinetta wrote the lyrics partly basing them on Artaud's writings.[41] Composer John Zorn has written many works inspired by and dedicated to Artaud, including seven CDs: " Astronome", " Moonchild: Songs Without Words", " Six Litanies for Heliogabalus", " The Crucible", " Ipsissimus", " Templars: In Sacred Blood" and "The Last Judgment", a monodrama for voice and orchestra inspired by Artaud's late drawings "La Machine de l'être" (2000), "Le Momo" (1999) for violin and piano, and "Suppots et Suppliciations" (2012) for full orchestra. Filmmaker E. Elias Merhige, during an interview by writer Scott Nicolay, cited the writings of Artaud as a key influence for the experimental film Begotten.[42]

Year

Title

Original Publication/Publisher

Notes

1938

Le Theatre et son double

Gallimard, Collection Métamorphoses

seminal collection of texts on theatre

Bataille, George. "Surrealism Day to Day". In The Absence of Myth: Writings on Surrealism. Trans. Michael Richardson. London: Verso, 1994. 34-47.

Bersani, Leo. "Artaud, Defecation, and Birth". In A Future for Astyanax: Character and Desire in Literature. Boston: Little, Brown, 1976.

Blanchot, Maurice. "Cruel Poetic Reason (the rapacious need for flight)". In The Infinite Conversation. Trans. Susan Hanson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. 293-297.

Deleuze, Gilles. "Thirteenth Series of the Schizophrenic and the Little Girl". In The Logic of Sense. Trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale. Ed. Constantin V. Boundas. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. 82-93.

Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Helen Seem, and Mark Lane. New York: Viking Penguin, 1977.

Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. "28 November 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?". In A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. 149-166.

Derrida, Jacques. "The Theatre of Cruelty" and "La Parole Souffle". In Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. ISBN 0-226-14329-5

Esslin, Martin. Antonin Artaud. London: John Calder, 1976.

Innes, Christopher Avant-Garde Theatre 1892-1992 (London: Routledge, 1993).

Jannarone, Kimberly, Artaud and His Doubles (Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Press, 2010).

Jannarone, Kimberly, "The Theater Before Its Double: Artaud Directs in the Alfred Jarry Theater," Theatre Survey 46.2 (November 2005), 247-273.

Pireddu, Nicoletta. "The mark and the mask: psychosis in Artaud's alphabet of cruelty," _Arachnē: An International Journal of Language and Literature_ 3 (1), 1996: 43-65.

Koch, Stephen. "On Artaud." Tri-Quarterly, no. 6 (Spring 1966): 29-37.

Plunka, Gene A. (Ed). Antonin Artaud and the Modern Theater. Cranbury: Associated University Presses. 1994.

Rainer, Friedrich. "The Deconstructed Self in Artaud and Brecht: Negation of Subject and Antitotalitarianism", Forum for Modern Language Studies, 26:3 (July 1990): 282-297.

Sontag, Susan. "Approaching Artaud". In Under the Sign of Saturn. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980. 13-72. [Also printed as Introduction to Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings, ed. Sontag.]

Shattuck, Roger. "Artaud Possessed". In The Innocent Eye. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1984. 169-186.

Ward, Nigel "Fifty-one Shocks of Artaud", New Theatre Quarterly Vol.XV Part2 (NTQ58 May 1999): 123-128

Blanchot, Maurice. "Artaud" La Nouvelle Revue Française 4 (November 1956, no. 47): 873-881.

Brau, Jean-Louis. Antonin Artaud. Paris: La Table Ronde, 1971.

Héliogabale ou l'Anarchiste couronné, 1969

Florence de Mèredieu, BACON, ARTAUD, VINCI. Une blessure magnifique, Paris, Blusson, 2019. ISBN 978-2-907784-29-0

Virmaux, Alain. Antonin Artaud et le théâtre. Paris: Seghers, 1970.

Virmaux, Alain and Odette. Artaud: un bilan critique. Paris: Belfond, 1979.

Virmaux, Alain and Odette. Antonin Artaud: qui êtes-vous? Lyon: La Manufacture, 1986.

In German Edit

Seegers, U. Alchemie des Sehens. Hermetische Kunst im 20. Jahrhundert. Antonin Artaud, Yves Klein, Sigmar Polke (Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2003).

1. ^

2. ^

3. ^

4. ^

5. ^ Artaud, Antonin (1995). Watchfiends and Rack Screams: works from the final period. Exact Change. ISBN 1-878972-18-9.

6. Wakeman, John (1975). World Authors, 1950-1970: A Companion Volume to Twentieth Century Authors. Wilson. ISBN 9780824204198.

7. ^ Deák, František (October 1977). "Antonin Artaud and Charles Dullin: Artaud's Apprenticeship in Theatre". Educational Theatre Journal. 29 (3): 345-353. doi:10.2307/3206180. JSTOR 3206180.

8. ^ Goodall, Jane (Summer 1987). "Artaud's Revision of Shelley's The Cenci: The Text and its Double". Comparative Drama. 21 (2): 115-126. doi:10.1353/cdr.1987.0047. JSTOR 41153273.

9. ^ Murray, Ros (2017). "Cruel time in Artaud's film scenarios". Image & Narrative. 17 (5).

10. ^

11. ^

12. ^ Jannarone, Kimberly (2005). "The Theatre before Its Double: Artaud Directs in the Alfred Jarry Theatre". Theatre Survey. 46 (2): 247-273. doi:10.1017/S0040557405000153. ISSN 1475-4533.

13. Hertz, Uri (2003). "Artaud in Mexico". Fragmentos. 25: 11-17.

14. ^ Artaud, Antonin. "'An absent-minded person of the student type': Extracts from the Artaud file". The Dublin Review. Archived from the original on 13 April 2014.

15. ^ "Antonin Artaud, from "Van Gogh: the Man Suicided by Society"". ARTseenSOHO.

16. ^ de Gramont, Sanche (Winter 1971). "Review: Antonin Artaud". Diacritics. 1 (2): 25. JSTOR 465078.

17. Thévenin, Paule; Knapp, Bettina (1965). "A Letter on Artaud". The Tulane Drama Review. 9 (3): 99-117. doi:10.2307/1125050. ISSN 0886-800X. JSTOR 1125050.

18. ^

19. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari (1980) "28 November 1947: How Do You Make Yourself a Body Without Organs?" In ^ A Thousand Plateaus. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 149-166. ISBN 978-0816614028

20. ^ Ginsberg, Allen (1995). Miles, Barry (ed.). "Howl" Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions, Fully Annotated by Author, with Contemporaneous Correspondence, Account of First Public Reading, Legal Skirmishes, Precursor Texts & Bibliography. Harper Perennial. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-06-092611-3.

21. ^

22. ^ Derrida, Jacques (1986). Forcener le subjectile (in French). Schirmer/Mosel Publishers.

23. ^ Artaud, Antonin (1956-94). Oeuvres completes (in French). Gallimard.

24. ^ "Dark Days". Williams Record. Williamstown, Massachusetts. January 1968.

25. "Marowitz, Charles (1977). ^ Artaud at Rodez. London: Marion Boyars. ISBN 0-7145-2632-0.

26. ^ Edmonton: Harden House, 1972.

27. ^ Sommer, Doris (1998). "Introduction". Yo-Yo Boing! by Giannina Braschi. Pittsburgh: Latin American Literary Review Press. ISBN 9780935480979.

28. ^ "bauhaus:lyrics:antonin artaud". Waste.org.

29. ^ Unterberger, Richie. "Artaud - Pescado Rabioso". AllMusic. All Media Network.

30. ^ "E. Elias Merhige: The Greatest Apple You'll Ever Eat". The Outer Dark: Episode 29. 28 January 2016. Archived from the original on 31 January 2016.

31. Artaud, Antonin (10 October 1988). Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520064430. actor.

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Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud ( French: [aʁto]; 4 September 1896 - 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director, widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theatre and the European avant-garde, and known

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Konstantin Stanislavski (Formally Known as Stanislavski) was born in 1863 and was a Russian theatre practitioner, he went on to be recognized as a talented character actor who with his various productions created a reputation as one of the best directors of his generation. His level of fame and influence is due to his system of actor training and rehearsal.

At the age of 33, Stanislavski had an 18 hour long conversation with Playwright Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko which lead them to the co-founding of the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre (MAT), There were landmark performances of The Seagull (1898) and Hamlet (1911-12) that established his reputation and opened up new possibilities for the art of theatre.

I previously mentioned Stanislavski's system for training actors, Stanislavski used the early 1900s to develop this method which equates to the art of experiencing, This practice teaches the actor to ignore their conscious action and thought to active their subconscious and uncontrollable psychological processes indirectly, this allowed the actor to not only learn the lines but understand why they're saying them by getting into the head of the character and thinking like the character.

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Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski[b] (né Alekseyev; Russian: Константин Сергеевич Станиславский; 17 January [O.S. 5 January] 1863 – 7 August 1938) was a seminal Soviet Russian theatre practitioner. He was widely recognized as an outstanding character actor and the many productions that he directe…

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Guilt is the feeling of deserving blame especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy. Sigmund Freud suggests that humans experience guilt initially from parental punishment. Others might theorize that it comes from an empathetic sense of love and compassion toward your fellow man. It's due to feeling responsible for harming something you find worth in.

There are various types of guilt:
- Deontological: Guilt that results from breaking personal values or morals.
- Altruistic: Empathetic guilt from causing harm to someone else.
- Existential guilt: Experiencing guilt for not living up to your personal expectations and life purpose.
- Non-related guilt: Guilt that arises without a clear relationship between your actions and an outcome (e.g., survivor guilt)
- Inequality guilt: A sense of guilt based on circumstances of imbalance (e.g., gender bias or racial discrimination).

Sometimes, you may feel guilty for something you didn't do directly. Guilt is a natural response which can motivate some internal growth, However, a persistent feeling of guilt may indicate a mental health condition, these could include; anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, dysphoria (body or gender) or an eating disorder.

Signs of guilt can include:
- low self-esteem
- excessive attempts at reparation
- being unable to meet someone’s gaze
- facial flushing
- anxiety
- trouble sleeping
- nausea
- headaches
- depressed mood
- avoidance of people, places, or events linked to the cause of guilt
- shifts in energy levels
- emotional outbursts
- appetite changes

While it might be difficult, it may be necessary to make amends with enemies and face these challenges head-on.
Amends can be verbal, written, or done through action. Asking what you can do to “make things right” may also provide some insight.

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How an individual embraces change is the essence of their existence and the key to ones happiness.

"Life is a flux" Heraclitus - 500 BC. The Greek philosopher highlighted that life flows ever onwards, the very nature of life is change, to resist this natural flow was to resist the very essence of our existence. “There is nothing permanent except change,” he said.

Change and the acceptance of change is heavily linked to the idea of Stoicism, John Sellers wrote in his book: Lessons in Stoicism that “Stoics believe that nothing is stable, and we need to come to terms with that. The natural world is made up of a series of processes that are changing, but if we want to live happily with nature we have to live in harmony with it.” And in fact, he says, Stoicism is not so much about resisting change as facing up to it. Everything changes, the question is, do we change with it?” says Sellars. “Stoics say we don’t have any choice, we can’t fight it.”

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"Life is flux," said the philosopher Heraclitus. The Greek philosopher pointed out in 500 BC that everything is constantly shifting, and becoming something other to what it was before. Like a river, life flows ever onwards, and while we may step from the riverbank into the river, the waters flowing over our feet will never be the same waters that flowed even one moment before. Heraclitus concluded that since the very nature of life is change, to resist this natural flow was to resist the very essence of our existence. "There is nothing permanent except change," he said.

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Or, as the novelist Elena Ferrante said recently: "We don't have to fear change, what is other shouldn't frighten us." If we can learn to handle this constant flux, we can handle life itself - which, several millennia on from Heraclitus, in our currently uncertain and fast-changing times, feels particularly resonant. Since humankind has existed, many great artists, writers and philosophers have grappled with the notion of change, and our impulse to resist it. "Something in us wishes to remain a child... to reject everything strange," wrote the 20th-Century psychologist and author Carl Jung in The Stages of Life, echoing Heraclitus. For these thinkers, a refusal to embrace change as a necessary and normal part of life will lead to problems, pain and disappointment. If we accept that everything is constantly changing and fleeting, they say, things run altogether more smoothly.

So does the 'life is flux' theory mean we must be resigned in a fatalistic way to all the challenges, changes and crises life throws at us? Not necessarily, says John Sellars, author of new book Lessons in Stoicism and philosophy lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London. According to Sellars, Heraclitus's theory is less about resignation and more about "acceptance".

Change is a favourite subject of Stoicism, a school of Hellenistic philosophy (partly inspired by Heraclitus) that is informed by a system of logic and its view of the natural world. To be 'stoical' in the popular imagination is to endure hardship without complaint, to 'grin and bear it'. But the philosophy is more nuanced than that. In his book, Sellars weaves together the thoughts of three Stoics - Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius - showing how their ideas can help us today.

"Stoics believe that nothing is stable, and we need to come to terms with that. The natural world is made up of a series of processes that are changing, but if we want to live happily with nature we have to live in harmony with it." And in fact, he says, Stoicism is not so much about resisting change as facing up to it. Everything changes, the question is, do we change with it?" says Sellars. "Stoics say we don't have any choice, we can't fight it."

This idea is echoed throughout art and literature. British author Virginia Woolf, who famously wrote in an interior-monologue style that itself captured the mutability of thought, wrote: "A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living." In one of her most unconventional works, the prose poem The Waves (1931), Woolf follows the consciousnesses of six friends, starting from their childhoods. The characters enter new phases of life that are filled with novelty and lack of certainty. A fluid narrative voice shifts subtly between their different points of view, as all of them struggle in some way to define themselves. Woolf presents them all as in a perpetual process of change and metamorphosis throughout the story, as all of us are in life.

Change was one of Woolf's obsessions. In her earlier, playful novel Orlando (1928), she tells the story of a nobleman in Elizabethan times who, halfway through the novel, awakes to find that he has become a woman. "Change was incessant," writes Woolf in the novel, "and change perhaps would never cease. High battlements of thought, habits that had seemed as durable as stone, went down like shadows at the touch of another mind and left a naked sky and fresh stars twinkling in it."

Woolf - although she was in the end unable to conquer her demons - was an avid keeper of a journal, and wrote down her innermost thoughts aiming to work through her feelings. She shared this habit with many significant writers and thinkers, among them Susan Sontag, Joan Didion, Oscar Wilde - and Stoic Marcus Aurelius. In fact, practising Stoics today still recommend the keeping of a journal, in order to steel themselves for whatever the day ahead may throw at them, and later in the day, to review their actions. The idea is to train yourself to be as prepared as possible, given the changeability of life.

Maybe this is why Stoics have gained a reputation for a no-nonsense 'stiff upper lip'. "There's some basis in reality, yes," concedes John Sellars. "It's partly about toughening up and training, since learning how to deal with adversity means it doesn't feel so hard. But it's not about controlling or repressing - the idea that Stoicism is just about remaining resolute misses something important."
The only lasting truth
Is cool rationality the key to negotiate change, then? "The goal is to lead a good, happy life," says Sellars, "and to get into the right place to experience genuine joy, not a flat emotion." The Stoics advise appreciating things now but also understanding that they are not forever. "Don't be afraid of uncertainty." In this sense, says Sellars, Stoicism has broad parallels with Buddhism. "Things are changing, live in the present moment, don't have strong attachments to external things." This may sound a little unfeeling, cold even - but it's not, insists Sellars. "Because like Buddhism, Stoicism also advises to feel compassion for all sentient creatures, and to have natural affinities, and not to be unfeeling or emotionless."

In her speculative, sci-fi novel Parable of the Sower (1993), Octavia E Butler presents a protagonist, Lauren, who founds a religion she calls Earthseed, and who has visions of change as the animating force of the cosmos. Lauren notes down her visions as epigrammatic statements: "All that you touch you Change. All that you Change changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change." She also makes the same connection between life, change and nature as Heraclitus did in his 'life is flux' theory. Butler writes: "Seed to tree, tree to forest; Rain to river, river to sea; Grubs to bees, bees to swarm. From one, many; from many, one; Forever uniting, growing, dissolving- forever Changing. The universe is God's self-portrait."

And Lauren's vision for the world is one where good conquers evil, and where kindness conquers cruelty. As US author and academic Rebecca Raphael notes in an essay on Butler's work: "Lauren joins these Heraclitus-like ideas with ethical injunctions to attend well and to shape consciously the change in which one is implicated. There is nothing supernatural about Earthseed's Change: neither a providence nor an otherworldly eschatology, it is a call to responsibility for the shifting patterns of one's world."

Lauren's religion, Earthseed, contains aspects of both Stoicism and Buddhism. As Raphael puts it: "The component ideas of Earthseed are not new. It has elements of Buddhist metaphysics, of Judaic world-shaping through ethical action, and of Stoic focus on what, however small, one can actually do in the moment. It has no contempt for a social or religious out-group, but instead fosters kindness in a violent world, in order to prepare humans for life on other planets."

So in our current crisis, how would the Stoics advise us to approach change - not only now but also in the future, whatever that may hold? "We must distinguish between things that are in our control, and things that are not," says Sellars. "You can self-isolate and social distance, and do those things as an act of calm rational caution, not motivated by panic, fear or anxiety."

The Modern Stoicism movement holds an annual Stoic Week, in which those involved are challenged to focus on the process not the outcome, and to face up to the reality that adversity is part of the normal course of life; that we can learn from adversity, and learn through failure. Adversity, in other words, is a learning experience.
This too shall pass
A medieval prophet asked a wise man for a message to keep him safe. His answer? "This too shall pass". It was a phrase used in recent months by the actor Tom Hanks in connection with the Coronavirus pandemic, and it's the name of a book out recently by psychotherapist Julia Samuel. In This Too Shall Pass: Stories of Change, Crisis and Hopeful Beginnings, Samuel relates (anonymously) some of her clients' stories. "Every person who has walked through my door has had a problematic relationship with change," she tells BBC Culture. "Change is the one certainty of life, and pain is the agent of change, it forces you to wake up and see the world differently, and the discomfort of it forces you to see the reality of it. It's through pain that we learn, personally and also universally."

Samuel says that when the current pandemic first struck, a lot of us were "numb, shocked and anxious. It was like the scary Jaws music coming, you can block it but in the end you have to pay attention, you have to shift and change". She chose the phrase 'This too shall pass' for her book's title because "you have to go with change and crises to come out the other side. You may not believe that it will ever end. In winter you may not believe that summer will come, but it does."

Accepting change also makes you better at it, she says. "It's the paradox that the more you allow yourself to accept that change is inevitable, the more likely you are to change intentionally and adapt." Change can be an engine of progress.

Samuel is all for accepting the flux of life and nature, and for facing up to the biggest change any of us ever experiences, our own mortality. "I think what we don't look at grows inside us, so it's good to have conversations with each other about the end of life. The things you don't talk about could haunt you and make everything more complicated. Life is precious but it's good to accept that it's limited."

It's been more than half a century since Sam Cooke's powerful and optimistic civil-rights anthem A Change is Gonna Come. Yet it's a song that remains as timely as ever. And it's been nearly 40 years since the US conceptual artist Jenny Holzer's iconic lithograph Inflammatory Essays, with its rousing message: "Change is the basis of all history, the proof of vigour". The provocative artwork, created in the early 1980s, is full of the US artist's trademark dogmatic, pithy truisms. Recently exhibited at London's Tate Modern, it still feels resoundingly relevant today. "Upheaval is desirable because fresh, untainted groups seize opportunity," is another phrase from the artwork, along with "The decadent and powerful champion continuity"; "Slow modification can be effective; men change before they notice and resist"; and "The worst is a harbinger of the best".

The current crisis - and the fight for racial and social equality - make Holzer's words feel all the more resonant. And with many communities showing solidarity and support, it seems that qualities such as courage, resilience, compassion, empathy - and a sense of fairness and justice - still can be found. How will we look back on this time of turmoil, change and upheaval? Will we come out of this situation with a deeper understanding and an enhanced perspective on humankind, our priorities and our values? With our 'vigour' proved?
Illustration by María Medem If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. Facebook page or message us on Twitter.

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Why embracing change is the key to a good life

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"Life is flux," said the philosopher Heraclitus. The Greek philosopher pointed out in 500 BC that everything is constantly shifting, and becoming something other to what it was before. Like a river, life flows ever onwards, and while we may step from the riverbank into the river, the waters flowing over our feet will never be the same waters that flowed even one moment before.

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Andre is distraught but he hides it with humour, he reacts to his partners suicide like he's having a conversation with a friend, this is seen with his casual structure through out his Monologue. He tries to distract himself by discussing unrelated issues (such as the Hermes scarf) instead of facing his emotions about his boyfriend's suicide, this could represent the first stage of grief (denial).

Andre describes his partner like he's long lost love or like a distant memory instead of as the man he loves hanging from a makeshift rope.

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- Long Shot: Contains the person’s entire body in the frame.

- Medium Shot: Framed from the knees or waist up from the subject.

- Close Up: The subject’s face occupies most of the frame.

- Extreme Close Up: Used to pick up a subtle detail in one’s facial expression.

- High Angle: The camera is raised above the subject and is tilted down at the subject.

- Low Angle: The camera closer to the ground and points up towards the subject.

- Over the Shoulder: The camera is behind the subject as he/she is facing another person.

- Point of View: The perspective of the person in the scene.

- Pan: The camera is locked on a fixed point but follows the subject horizontally.

- Tilt:  The camera follows the subject while being locked onto a fixed point.

- Aerial Shot: The camera is high above the subject.

- Tracking Shot: The camera is able to move to follow the subject.

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We started the session by combining our sections of the piece and forming the structure. The Majority of the lines are divided into groups of 2 - 3 per character, we dissected the characters stories in order to form our final script.

We darted from character to character, forming a good flow that doesn't feel conjoined but feels natural to read. The goal isn't to have an amalgam of lines but it's to create a unique performance out of the material already written. The class collectively solved problems.

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- Andre's piece explores the life of his partner and how they contrasted between each other before his suicide, The Ying-Yang analogy he used can be interpreted as the Queer Paradigm and how its subverted. There's a rigid "one-size fits all" mentality non Queers have when looking at Queer People and Queer Culture. The seemingly Non challan nature of Andre finding his partner dead can symbolize the rapid nature of Queer Love. ("Here today, Gone Tomorrow") While he obviously misses his partner, the Writing Style carries a comedic and Informal tone contrasting this life altering even almost like this has happened before. This could imply that this was more one-sided or casual. On the Other Hand, The way Andre's quick to distract himself from the issue could be his way of processing the situation instead of facing it head on.

- Andre's partner kept him grounded, this is evident with the Ying Yang analogy. This utter refusal to play into the stereotypes that society has set for LGBTQ People, could be seen as a sign of contrarianism or internalised homophobia. (he might want to distance himself from his identity because he feels sexual shame possibly due to some early childhood trauma / bullying causing him to cocoon himself due to some potential anxiety (his fear is a possible factor to his suicide)) On the other hand, André's partner might feel a sense of exclusion from his other peers, his inability to fit in with queer norms that sent him on a path away from what he might consider "immature." (which could be related to his contrarianism).

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Me and Emi had our workshop which went well overall, Emi taught the class about Brecht while I oversaw the whole process. I feel like it was a success, The class engaged well with the tasks.

After that, we looked through each different monologue and dissected each character in detail giving synopsis of their character and their motivations.

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Today, My group which consisted of Me, Daniel and Holly, analyzed the themes of Andre's Monologue in the play Eight.

After English, Me and Emi continued planning our workshop while studying Danny, Holly and Chloe's workshop (picking up on how they're able to retain the focus of the class, present themselves.)

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When you get stressed, it reflects in your body when your muscles tense up. Muscle tension is an inborn reflex when the body goes through chronic stress, it's purpose is to protect your body from injury and danger. When your muscles are tense for a long periods, this may cause other reactions of the body, including stress-related disorders such as heart disease, asthma, obesity, anxiety, depression, eczema, PTSD, stomach ulcers, and in addition, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer and esophageal cancer.

Stress and intense emotional triggers can affect the respiratory system in a variety of ways; like a sense of breathlessness, or hyperventilation. People without any respiratory issues don't face this problem, as the body can manage the additional work to breathe efficiently. but psychological stressors such as Anxiety, Depression or Burnout could intensify pre-existing breathing problems such as asthma, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

The cardiovascular system is comprised of two elements, the heart vessels and blood vessels, they provide nourishment and oxygen through out the entire body. These elements are also linked to the body's response to stress. Acute stress (Immediate , Short term stress) can cause an increase in heart rate and strong contractions of the myocardium (heart muscle), while stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol act as messengers for these effects. The blood vessels that direct blood to the large muscles and heart start to dilate, causing an increase in blood pressure, This also known as a fight or flight response.

The Male and Female reproductive system is heavily affected by stress. Excessive levels of cortisol can have an affect on the biochemical functioning of the male reproductive system where as it mainly affects menstruation in adolescent women, high stress levels can affect menstrual cycles. Prolonged stress over a period of time, can decrease levels of testosterone production in males and decrease estrogen in females, this will result in the decline of sexual libido, even causing impotence amongst males. The decrease in estrogen may cause symptoms of depression which is shown to also halt sexual desire. Procreation is also heavily affected by chronic stress, Researchers have found that men who experienced two or more traumatic events in the past year had a lower sperm volume, lower percentage of sperm mobility, and smaller penises compared with men who haven't experienced any stressful life events. In females, stress can have an impact on a woman's ability to conceive and the overall health of her pregnancy, Excessive levels of stress can cause depression during and after her pregnancy, a woman with high maternal stress can negatively impact childhood development in her offspring, causing disruption in the bonding between a woman and her child in the weeks, months maybe years following delivery.

Stress can be managed in a variety of ways such as having a healthy social circle, engaging in routine physical exercise, getting a good sleep every night or deep breathing.

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Stress affects all systems of the body including the musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, gastrointestinal, nervous, and reproductive systems.

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- Marxist, Capitalism is broken, Equality.
- A Product of his environment
- Germany paid reparations to the allies after WW1, this combined with the wall-street crash crippled Germany's economy. Brecht faced poverty first hand which influenced his work.
- Brecht remained contrary against the national socialism and genocides of Germany's Nazi party. This subtext caused his work to be banned from Germany causing him to migrate to France.
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What each character in Eight by Ella Hickson share in common.

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What each character in Eight by Ella Hickson share in common.

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Section 1 - Rationale (Approx. 150 Words)

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Section 1 - Rationale (Approx. 150 Words)

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Over the years, I've grown infatuated with the art of Screenwriting/Scriptwriting and the nuances, subtext of each story told. Our analysis and adaptation of 4:48 Psychosis is an example of how a controversial/subversive topic is handled with maturity, accuracy and sensitivity. I learned how to get comfortable with being uncomfortable; pulling from previous traumas can allow you to understand your character better in any given piece of performance arts.

I've explored elements such as physical theatre and mask work, helping me understand the importance of body language, different techniques such as Pinter's power of long pauses. Working with companies like 4th Monkey, Haste Theatre and Justice in Motion juxtaposing the traditional stage directions and dialogue approach which audiences are used to when viewing performances. We had to learn how to tell stories using our bodies, allowing audiences to be as captivated as if they were watching a spoken word piece helping me to understand that each small gesture simulates a paragraph, audiences are given the privilege to interpret each action in any context making these physical pieces feel like experiences instead of mere performances. Exploring different practitioners have helped me to create characters intentions and allowed me to push my characters to extremes and personally pushes my boundaries. These new found skills and many more explored throughout the course will be implemented into my new project.

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Section 2 - Project Concept (Approx. 200 words)

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Section 2 - Project Concept (Approx. 200 words)

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Eight is the debut play of Ella Hickson, which focuses on eight different monologues from a variety perspectives of a lost generation with characters ranging from their late-teens to mid-thirties. The lack of shame, authority, purpose and most importantly self awareness/accountability all amalgamates to create a culture of nihilism and distraction. Hickson aimed to encapsulate this with a perspective of optimism which juxtaposes each individual characters sense of cynicism in their crushing realities

I aim to propose myself as a director, having an in-depth view into the psyche of each individual character while also trying to emulate these characteristics in my performers. Eight's monologues' are layered and introspective with each one lasting around 15 minutes, meaning that for their performance to feel realistic and powerful each actor will be required to study and method act these personas amongst peers with external direction.

For my directing skills to get better, I need to improve my collaboration skills. Learning to communicate efficiently in a respectful and simplified way is imperative in forming a peaceful work environment, allowing for an easier production and a better reception from actors. It's also important that I have a clear production plan including information such as set design, mood boards, roles assigned to team members. Observational skills are also imperative, noticing any potential quality of changes will bring you closer to perfection during the production stage.

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Section 3 - Evaluation (Approx. 150 words)

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Section 3 - Evaluation (Approx. 150 words)

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Throughout my rehearsal process, I shall take time to reflect on my tonality during the monologue, my own self-critique, my pauses and my emotional depth. I'll make use of the padlet when it pertains to documenting each and every small detail in my progress as my character, using the limited resources in front of me. My goal is to give an impactful and unique take to the character of André while also retaining some of his defined characteristics in a way that reflects on the current culture of timidity and disrupted cognitive and emotional development when it comes to tackling difficult scenarios. For the Majority of my rehearsal and performance I worked in isolation, looking at unrelated content to pull ideas from. This has allowed me to create my own version of the character without the use of a mood board, with some planned and defined actions and some improved. I hope I'm able to convey my multi-layed message to whoever may view this piece.

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Ella Hickson wrote her Debut play "Eight" which focuses on Eight different monologues from the perspective of young adults ranging from late teens to early thirties. It Symbolically focuses on the nihilistic, yet care free persona that Generation Y have collectively latched onto, while offering some introspection into how their traumatic situations have effected and altered their lives.

"Eight" was unique in fact that before each performance the audience would vote for the four monologues they wanted to hear out of the Eight available performances. The remaining performers would remain on-stage throughout, symbolizing to the audience that with every choice we make, we're choosing to leave something behind.

In May 2008, Each member of "Eight" attended Edinburgh University, Therefore allowing the group a free application for a fringe award (bestowed by Edinburgh University Theatre Company at the Bedlam Theatre). In August 2008, The show was performed and went on to win awards such as the Fringe First, the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, and the NSDF Emerging Artists Award; which went on to host "Eight" for 3 Nights at the Pleasence Theatre, Islington which took place in October 2008.

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Eight is the first play written by Ella Hickson. Hickson created eight monologues ready to air at Edinburgh's Fringe Festival in August 2008. These monologues (of 15 minutes each) offer a state-of-the-nation group portrait. The official website for the performance describes it as "looking at what has happened to a generation that have grown up in a world where everything has become acceptable."

Eight was formed around the results of a survey that asked twenty-somethings what defined their generation, Hickson tried to answer their almost unanimous response of 'apathy' with a show that works to find the glimmers of faith amidst wholesale cynicism. Eight looks at the singular, personal effect of an otherwise social phenomenon.

Performances

For each performance, the audience was asked to vote for which four of the eight monologues they would like to see. As the audience entered the auditorium, all eight characters were lined up across the front of the stage-but only the four characters with the highest votes would perform. The other four characters would remain onstage, reminding the audience that in each choice we make, we are also choosing to leave something behind.

Such a procedure is not essential for a performance of Eight and directors should remain in control of the line-up and order of play if they should so wish.

In May 2008, the director, writer, cast and crew of Eight were all students/alumni of Edinburgh University. The group applied for the free Fringe slot offered, each year, to a student production by Edinburgh University Theatre Company at the Bedlam Theatre. Three months later, the show was performed and went on to win a Fringe First, the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, and the NSDF Emerging Artists Award.

The NSDF Emerging Artists Award facilitated a three-night run of 'Eight' at The Pleasance Theatre, Islington which took place in October 2008.

The Carol Tambor 'Best of Edinburgh' Award, is an award given to only one of the thousands of shows across the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This award offered an all expenses paid two-week run at New York's PS122.

The New York debut of Eight coincided with New York's two largest off-Broadway festivals-the Under The Radar Festival which is a showcase of new international work held at The Public Theatre and The COIL Festival held at Eight's own venue PS122. Eight was hugely successful in its run, performing sold out shows near enough every performance.

"Ms. Hickson, 23, has already found her voice-and it's a powerful one; a potent show indeed" - The New York Times

After the success of Eight at Edinburgh and New York, Eight was performed at the Trafalgar Studios, London from 6 to 25 July 2009. The run included after-show talks of the "new writing, Fringe preparation and how to make it as a new‐kid in the theatre world".

The script was published 2 July 2009 through Nick Hern Books and featured a ninth monologue only performed once before.

This ninth monologue was the first of these to be written. It was performed by Henry Peters at a scratch night called Candlewasters at Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh, early 2008. Hickson Explains "Buttons was left out of the final line-up of Eight because his syndrome was too niche to appeal to the wide demographic at the Fringe-he was a little too weird. I am, however, incredibly fond and proud of this monologue; this ninth man, is, after all, where it all began."

Characters

Below are descriptions of each character as they appeared in the published book:

Danny, twenty-two

Jude, eighteen

André, twenty-eight

Bobby, twenty-two

Mona, eighteen

Miles, twenty-seven

Millie, thirty

Astrid, twenty-four

Buttons, mid-thirties

Danny is a well-built man in his early twenties. He sits on a black box in the centre of the stage with a corpse's head lain across his knee. He is feeding water to the corpse. He is wearing jeans, a black wife-beater, and black boots. Danny is twenty-two years old, but he appears much younger; his learnt manner is one of faux aggression, however, he fails to disguise an underlying vulnerability. Danny is a little slow but essentially sweet.

Jude is eighteen years old, dressed in school trousers, shirt and tie. A large black block, centre stage, acts as a bed and a dinner table-navigated around in the opening sections.

André, originally Andrew, is a twenty-eight-year-old gallery owner. He enters his gallery clearly stricken, takes a moment to catch his breath and positions himself on a high stool.

Bobby is a twenty-two-year-old mother of two wearing a red Adidas tracksuit. She is seated on a table. We imagine her kids, Kyle and Chloë, four and six, at her feet in front of the television. She's reading down to them in enthusiasm. Bobby has a strong, working-class Edinburgh accent, she mimics an upper-middle-class English accent when impersonating Mrs. Beeton.

Mona is a small, dark-haired girl in her late teens, with a mild pregnancy bump that is not seen immediately. Her hair is loose around her face; she has the innocence of youth and yet acts with disquieting intensity. The stage is set with a centre block and one chair placed at its side.

Miles is an American man in his mid-twenties. He is dressed in a sharp suit and is attractive due to a corporate aesthetic. He should carry himself with ultimate bodily and vocal composure. The cracks in this composure should be perfectly synchronised with the glimpses of weakness in his performative façade.

Millie is an apparently well-to-do lady, in her early thirties, dressed in tennis whites and wielding a tennis racket. She is mid-mime, straddling an imaginary middle-aged man, flailing wildly.

Astrid is in her early twenties. She is slim and attractive, the kind of girl that seems comfortable in her own skin. Tonight, however, she is a little drunk. She is returning from a night out and is dressed accordingly. There is a bed in the centre of the stage-the audience can see a man sleeping in it. She slowly climbs into bed next to the man-desperately trying not to wake him. She lies there, restless for several seconds, then sits up.

'Buttons' is a well-built, tensile-looking man in his mid-thirties, grunting his way through press-ups on the floor of a prison cell. The room contains a grubby campbed, a dilapidated toilet, a desk and a chair. He will reach the end of a ten-year jail sentence tomorrow morning. He knows the small space well, it fits him and he owns it. There is a sense of latent sexual and physical power about the man.

References

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Eight is the first play written by Ella Hickson. Hickson created eight monologues ready to air at Edinburgh's Fringe Festival in August 2008. These monologues (of 15 minutes each) offer a state-of-the-nation group portrait. The official website for the performance describes it as "looking at what has happened to a generation that have grown up in a world where everything has become acceptable."