Berty Boy

 Monday 8^th of April:

This week was completely different from what we were used too, for about 3 months we got used to getting up and doing commedia work but since we have now finished our piece ‘Love Wins All’ we have moved to other things. Mr.Fearnehough talked to us about us running the ‘IST’s Got Talent’ which was ran last year by the year 12 students. This is really exciting, I heard so much of how good and fun-filled last years was and I excited to get all the school involved in something.  The main reason why the talent show is being ran is to help raise money to give directly to a refugee camp in Africa which Mr.Fearnehough had the chance to go to so he could really see what the money was used for there. It was really interesting to be told what has been done and how exactly it is there by someone who has actually been, and that it just isn’t someone on the tv telling you to raise money. Mr.Fearnehough shared some stories and told us different ways theatre was used in the refugee camp to help the people who have had terrible lives and are in need of help. After hearing and seeing stories, experiences and photos of Mr.Fearnehough’s trip I think that it is an excellent reason to raise money and I will be really excited to join in and run the talent show with the rest of my ensemble.

Wednesday 10^th of April:

Wednesday Mr.Fearnehough introduced us to Bertolt Brecht or ‘Berty’. I’ve never properly learnt about him and I’ve only heard him mentioned a few times during discussions and presentations. We were told to write down everything we knew about him and because I hadn’t properly studied him I was a bit stuck at first with what to write. We then talked about it together and I found out that he was German and very much a ‘lady’s man’. Brecht aimed to have very direct messages in his work and wanted people to do something about what they had seen and start a revolution. Something else Brecht wanted to do was make the audience aware that the performances they watched were not real and it was shown very clearly that it was actors on stage. He wanted the audience to think and react to what they were watching and have opinions about it. Brecht also created the ‘A –effect’ which was meant to stop the audience from getting ‘too comfy and settled’ with the story, this was done by narrators frequently interrupting the performance, constant breaking of the 4^th wall and even communication with audience. Mr.Fearnehough showed us a documentary made on Brecht and at which point mentioned Mother Courage, me and Lydia have already seen this piece, now thinking back on it I do realise a bit more of Brecht’s concepts involved in the piece and so I hope learning about him this will help me understand more about his concepts and ideas.

Thursday 11^th od April:

Thursday we did more work on Brecht but in a physical way. Mr.Fearnehough told us we had to act out a dramatic moment of a poor but beautiful servant who finds a young  baby and decided to save it from the soldiers but by doing this puts her life in danger. We all had a very quick rehearsal and presented our little short piece to the rest of the ensemble, we then praised each other’s work and said the positives about what we had all done. I think we all managed to portray what Mr. Fearnehough asked us to do in different but effective ways. After this Mr. Fearnehough told us to act out another bit and this was the poor servant girl talking about her worry and disgust about marrying the old farmer so that she could pass the baby off as his own so that she will be safe from the soldiers.  I thought I showed it pretty well when I did it for the other but I didn’t describe how horrible and disgusting the old farmer was.

We then had to do this again but in pairs and with a narrator which was the way Brecht would have done it. We weren’t able to watch them all and discus it in detail because the bell rang therefor interrupting our lesson.