Research sheet

Dracula  - Research

Bram Stoker’s Dracula – What was he trying to say with this book? Any information about his life or the novel may help here.

The novel of Dracula by Bram Stoker has many themes in such as, - Sexual conventions, - Victorian culture, - Immigration, - Post-colonialism, - Gothic When Stoker wrote the novel, I believe he was putting all of these themes, but not making them too obvious as these are all things people in the society disapproved of. In Stoker's life, he spent 7 years researching into vampires until he was influenced by a woman called Emily Gerard, who wrote a biased essay on Transylvania. Maybe, as Stoker was inspired by a woman, that's the reason why he gave the woman in his novel a larger part? Also, back then vampires were believed to be true in Europe and he probably wanted to give them more of a scare by writing Dracula.

Vampire Myths: Researched information on any aspects of the historical mythological origins and related data.

"Vampire stories can go back as far as Biblical times, Lilith the first vampire" "The term 'Vampire' was not a everyday superstition or fear until 17th and 18th century" "Many countries have their own blood suckers like Russian Vurdalak to the Romanian Strigoi" "From the start it was believed vampire's were stabbed in the heart with wood, to kill them and that's the only way you can kill a vampire" "Dracula means Dragon" "Back in the day vampire's were shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markly different from today's view" "After all the superstition around the globe, Europe began to increase superstition which lead to what was called 'Mass Hysteria', which means threats to the whole society" "Random people on streets were accused of being vampire's" "Folkloric belief in Vampire's is the ignorance of the body process of decomposition" Greek mythology also comes in to Vampires, because people see that the first Vampire was in Greek mythology and he was blessed and the cursed which created a vampire different to the version that is today"

Antonin Artaud – What is the Theatre of Cruelty? Any ideas about how this could help us?

The Theatre of Cruelty is something that Antonin Artaud created, he believed that this would release the actor's and audience's biggest fears. A thing that he'd say is "Lancing the abscess" this is where he used theatre to push out any instincts that he believed was hidden beneath the civilised society. Artaud believed that if the actors pushed themselves to the absolute extremes it would release "The Double", another thing the Theatre Of Cruelty was known as was "Total Theatre". Well, in Dracula there's a lot of lust, so we could release "the double", because you can't say lust, so you need to think of other ways to show it, for example; breathe. We could also use the grid method, so we can push ourselves to the absolute maximum.

Your character(s) in the play: Describe your character using information given in the script/ storyline. How would you describe your character? Provide a personal view about what you feel and think about your character.

Renfield, my character is a fictional character from Bram Stoker's "Dracula". Renfield is Dracula's "puppet" through most of the play. In the play, he is known for eating living creatures, starting with flies, then spiders, then birds. He starts getting a taste for living creatures after his encounter with Count Dracula. The resultant belief that he can extend his life by draining the life of others-(like a vampire)- (this can link back to the research we did a few weeks ago about vampire myths. Lockhead could have got this idea of "external life" from Elizabeth Bathory's belief of killing virgins to keep herself young and beautiful forever). In the script, Dr. Seward describes him as "a paranoid schizophrenic with alternating homicidal and suicidal phases. And zoophagous to boot" and Dr. Van Helsing describes him as a "poor brave man.." I personally think Renfield is absolutely mad, but sometimes, for a short while he can be sane because in scene 7 act 2 he says "I pray thee, Lord.... portrayed it as a winged thing as butter or even the common fly?". So I believe that he madness can be switched off for a short amount of time and then it turns back on. It's almost like he remembers who he once used to be before Dracula turned him mad.

Style of Production Watch the 2 films  - Dracula (1931) – Nosferatu (1922) What can we learn and use in terms of: ·         Lighting ·         Costume ·         Staging, Set and Props ·         Costume and Make-Up ·         Acting Style

Dracula and Nosferatu are very similar with all the technical support for both films, but there are a few difference and some of them work better than others to our benefits. For instance in Nosferatu and Dracula the lighting is very different, in Nosferatu the lighting they use is natural daylight where as Dracula uses lighting of candle light and dark to create shadows and i feel as a company we can use Dracula's lighting for our show because the dark and light shows good and evil also the lighting they use on Dracula's eyes gives a good effect that we can use both films have costumes which are set in the victorian times so we can think about getting Victorian costumes also the make up is very similar, having dark make up around the eye's to show the evil characters and also a pale face to show illness. The style of acting is very different in Dracula and Nosferatu. In Nosferatu they use mime for acting and also make their actions very big and over the top where as Dracula's style of acting is Absurdism. I think we can use both of their styles of acting, we can use Nosferatu's style of acting for miming the props and then we can use Dracula's style of acting to help us make it scary and bring out the double. Also in Nosferatu instead of wolves they have hyenas and I think we could use this for movement for more animals instead of just wolfs.

Artaud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74QsimqC2Nw  <------ That is the link to my Artaud Ritual.


Antonin Artaud

Antonin Artaud - Theories.

Today we started looking at Antonin Artaud and his techniques of acting.
Antonin Artaud didn't have any real success in his life, he lived quite a bad life, he had to go through both of the two world wars.
He also had a drug addiction and had a nervous disorder. After all this he began to write essays and there is now a book of every single essay he as ever wrote called 'The theatre and it's double' and this is where his theories come in.

- What have you understood of the theories? - in your own words.

One of Artaud's theories was called the "The Plague Analogy", this theory is about "Lancing The Abscess". That means pushing yourself to the absolute limits which means being cruel to yourself as an actor so that it would help the theatre expose the audience's sub-concious and release their "abscess" to release their inner evil... Their taboos.
"Lancing The Abscess" basically means everything evil in a society is hidden in ever person's sub-concious-(which is the "abscess" that we speak of), so everyone has this abscess but they hide it because of the morals created by the society around them. Things like paedophilia, murdering, raping, etc.

The other one of Artaud's theories is "Waking The Double". He believes that everyone has another side of their personality that they don't want to let loose.
However, Artaud believed that by "waking the double" as an actor can help them make their emotions louder than the words they speak and brings out the audience's "double".


Theories - Exercises.

We then began to look at these theroies and try some of these out and see how it would feel to be cruel to oneself and if we really could do them.

- Starter exercise - Instruments in a circle - Basic ritual.

The first exercise we did was a ritual in complete and utter silence apart from the sounds of the instuments-(we didn't even know what we were doing, but Andy told us before we walked into the room not to make a single sound), we started copying Andy, in silence. We then all stood up at the same time making a tune with the little instruments we were given-(some people we using their hands and clapping) all at the same time. We then started going round in a circle, keeping the same rhythm as before. We did this for approximately 10-15 MINUTES. Afterwards we all sat down-(still not talking or making any noises) with our eyes closed and we had to think of a word that described how we felt about the exercise we just did. I said "Relaxed" and some of the others were "Energised", "Calm", "Focused".
I found it very relaxing because we were all in-sink with each other and even though no one was talking, I felt like it was still very controlled and secure. It got us all really focussed and relaxed for the rest of the lesson.

- Grid exercise - Cruel to yourself - Feel? - Why?

The second exercise we did was the Grid Exercise. We all stood in a giant square, four actors for each side of the square. In this square there were loads of pathways and we had to walk down, up, left, right and centre trying to get loved by someone, anyone. It didn't have to be boyfriend/girlfriend love, it could have been love from a parent, friend, pet, whatever would have made you push yourself to the limit. I thought of my dad, because I knew that would make me push myself to the limit. It was awful having to think about it for so long and then having Andy shouting telling us to "work harder", but it worked. I think I did push myself, a lot. I'm not sure what everyone else thought of, obviously, but it affected a lot of them too.
When we first started the exercise we were all walking slow, but then Andy was telling us to work harder, making us work harder to get the love we think we deserve, so in the end we all started running around the pathways.
When Andy wouldn't stop pushing us and he said to me individually "Chloe! Work harder! C'mon" I wanted to turn around and hit him. But obviously I didn't I just push myself further, eventually I just started crying and running around the space and I couldn't stop, I then began to shake and didn't know what to do when we stopped.
During this exercise I had a million different emotions rushing through my body all at once. Some of them I've never felt and can't describe. But the main emotions I felt was lonely, pure anger, upset, lost and many, many more.
The reason why I think we did this is to see just how much we can push ourselves until we break completely.

- Slow motion - Size of performance.

The next exercise we did was the slow motion exercise, we did two one was Wrestling and the other was Boxing, we were in pairs and we had to do extreme slow motion moves for a couple of moves. I found it quite difficult to do this, as I'm quite a fast moving person, so it was very different to what I'm used too.

- Ritual - Communicates directly - Not throughout.

The final exercise we did was Ritual, this is where we got into groups  and we had to come up with sounds and musical instuments, we looked at the hacker which is a set of rugby players who do  a ritual before their match to scare their component and give them luck. My group came up with a piece and this piece had to be the sound of rain or how the rain makes you feel, so this is putting your emotions through by sounds and music. I think the reason we did this to communicate directly and also being able to get our emotions through different ways intead of just words. This exercise made me feel happy and enjoy showing different ways of emotion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74QsimqC2Nw

Act 1 Scene 9

In most of the scenes, we had a lot of trouble and found things hard, however, scene 9 we had loads of trouble working on because we didn't know how to do the lifts and what we could all be doing.

After working on the lifts with Su, we kept on practising them so we knew they were safe and everyone was okay doing them.
We tried two different lifts with Izzy-(who was playing Lucy). The first lift we tried out was one where she was laying down and she had five people holding her, two on her legs, two on her upper body and one on her head. This didn't work so well as Izzy didn't feel comfortable doing it, also it's stopped the audience from seeing her face. The next lift we tried with Izzy was her stood up and two people holding her feet together and two behind her supporting her back, she also sat comfortably on their shoulders. This lift worked a lot better because the audience could see her face, she felt a lot more comfortable with it and also it gave Izzy a lot more freedom to make herself as irresistible to Jonathon as possible. In the end Izzy started moving her arms, pulling Jonathon towards her with a force by moving her arms. Also, Izzy had all of the vampire brides carrying her and if they weren't carrying her, they were following.

 With Heta's-(Jonathon) lift, it was just like Izzy's lift.

We didn't know how we'd all come onto stage either, for scene nine. But someone came up with the great idea of all of the boys-(including the two Renfields) on stage left, just behind the curtains and the girls-(vampire brides) on stage right behind the curtains. Then, one boy and one vampire bride would walk out at the same time, meet in the centre, link arms and walk down the steps and be stood opposite each other on the opposite sides of the step stage. Then when everyone was down, Sophia-(Mina) would lay on the bottom step on the stage, as if she was sleeping. Then, using complicity, we'd all raise our hand, which is closest to the audience and the stroke it down our necks, then after a beat the boys heads would drop to the side and then they all collapse at the same time.
 Jonathon would be on the bottom step of the stage.

Also, in this scene we managed to get some Artaud in. When the vampire brides and the men are walking to centre stage, we made it so the men were in a trance, by the vampires unnerving beauty.

act 1 scene 1 and 2

So today we showed Andy all the scene's we've done so far and he gave us back a lot of feedback and things we could do just to make the show even better.

Scene 1:

The first scene is where Mina and Lucy are talking about Jonathon and other things. Overall Andy said that this scene is pretty good, however, it just needs some polishing up. Like for instance, to two actresses who play Mina and Lucy need to think about their blocking on the stage and they also need to get more confident with their lines so the can act without their scripts.
Some of the blocking they should focus on is Mina's entrance, because at the moment Mina is standing in front of Lucy, when Lucy is looking in the mirror, thinking about who she should marry. I think Mina should just say her first line- "Catch her death!" when she first walks onto stage, because that makes Lucy turn around to face her then they are not blocking one another, also by doing this, it will show who's in charge, because the audience should know that Mina is like a mother to Lucy because it helps explain why Lucy is the way she is.

The chorus also need to stop taking away the focus from the actual scene, too. Because even though it's good what we're doing, it's like we're creating a scene of our own, when we're meant to be complimenting what's actually going on, on the stage between Mina and Lucy. So what we need to do is tone it right down and stay looking at Mina and Lucy so then the audience's focus will be on them, too. It is hard though, because we're meant to be crazy, and we want to show the audience that we're crazy without stealing all of the limelight. However, what we did to solve this, is instead of all of the crazy coming out of our mouths, we put it into our body and face so the audience can see we're crazy without us having to be really loud.



Scene 2:

This next scene was so much fun to do, because all of the chorus could be as loud and as crazy as they wanted to be. It was the first Renfield scene, it starts off with him saying/singing "I once knew a woman who swallowed a fly.." the actress who did this first tried saying it normally-(still crazy) but then she added a little tune, which sounded a lot better because this line is a like a nursery rhyme. The line after that "Perhaps she'll die, perhaps she won't die" was said in a very fast, in a questioning type of way. I thought it worked really well with the first line being sung, almost and then the next line questioning what's going to happen to this woman next.
Andy said the line "To die or not to die, that is the question" is a quote from Hamlet, so the actress had to bring out her Shakespearian in a crazy manner.

Part of the chorus work for this scene is to shout out or just say crazy words at random, there were some words that we had to say together, too. such as "Bed-lam", we had to shout this out all together and we also had to repeat the words "screw Lucy's".

When Renfield says "time to get yourself into something warm and double-breasted in a whorehouse, my son", it is aimed at Seward because he's making a joke about sex and Seward not getting any-(we find that in the next scene).

When Renfield starts getting agitated by Seward not listening and calls him a "bastard", the chorus have to repeat that and shout it.

Words that describe Dracula

We've just finished reading the script and have been asked to do a mindmap or write down of all the words that pop into our heads when we hear the word "Dracula"

Dracula;
. Blood
. Death
. Lust
. Gothic
. Fear
. Anger
. Wolves
. Lucy
. Danger
. Shapeshifter

These are some of the things that come to my head when I hear the name "Dracula".

1st Read Through - Interpretation

 

So far we have read from scene 1-8 of Liz Lochhead's version of Dracula. Comparing it to the film we have just watched, I feel that the two main woman-(Lucy and Mina) have stronger personalities in the script compared to the characters in the film. I think it may have something to do with the film was made in the early 1900's and woman were not seen as equals, so they made them a lot more meak, whilst in Lochhead's adaptation she made them a lot more powerful, this could have something to do with it being written in 1989. Another thing I noticed when reading the script, Lochhead has sexualised the woman a lot more, by using innuendos "leg or breast, Mr Jonathon" and "I said, meine Wilhel-Mina.... come and gawp at me in my drawers".
I believe that the film is old fashioned and that in the script, although it is set in the Victorian era, it has been written from a modern point of view, because the woman are a lot more strong minded.


 

Tuesday's lesson;

Today we were at Pelham and we set the stage out exactly how we're going to have it on show night.
This was so helpful because it gave us an idea of how/where we're all going to be and where we need to stand for certain bits etc.
It also got us used to having so much space and to get more comfortable with the stage and how we're going to move round it and on it.