Drama Lesson Five

Drama Lesson Five
In this lesson we looked at Physical Theatre.

Physical Theatre - People playing objects or animals, over-dramatic acting, elaborate movements.

Features of Physical Theatre: Highly stylised, pedestrian, devices movement, multimedia, contact work, risk taking, music and sound effects, masks, puppets, live musicians.

Some Physical Theatre Companies: Frantic Assembly (Drama and Dance elements), Knee-high Theatre (Drama and Dance elements), DV8 (More Dance elements), Complicite (More Drama elements, however, does include some elements of Dance), Gecko (Drama and Dance elements).

Question:
What ideas worked best when adapting our short piece and our long piece?

Short Piece - 'My hat is old. My teeth are gold. I have a bird, I like to hold. My shoe is off. My foot is cold. My shoe is off. My foot is cold. I have a bird, I like to hold. My hat is old. My teeth are gold. And now my story is all told.' by Dr Seuss
   We approached this task in pairs. In our pair, we decided to repeated the short rhyme twice, the second time slower than the first as a change of pace. We also blocked out our movements so we knew at what point we would be when we said a certain line. Once we received our prop (a bowler hat each), we found it easier to choreograph the piece as a whole.

Long Piece - 'The Sneetches' by Dr Seuss.
   We approached this task in groups of six. In our group, we decided to give out parts to each person according to their character/part they had chosen. I felt that we used good blocking in our piece because it helped us to organise our piece structurally and helped the dialogue to flow more smoothly. This also helped us to create the characters/groups segregation t clearly identify the different sides and personalities of the different characters.