Lesson Numero Uno

For our first theatre workshop lesson, we did exercises that introduced us to Brecht's most important rule of theatre: the actor portrays the character instead of becoming the character.

Nursery Rhyme: For this exercise, we chose a partner, labelled ourselves as 'A' or 'B' and stood and either end of the room. I was A and Laura was B. All the B's stood at one side and were told to think of a nursery rhyme then all at once, they recited (quite loudly) the nursery rhyme. All of us A's didn't understand a word our partners had said because all of them were talking and the room was all echoey and we told them this. So the second time around, they had to do gestures, spoke more clearly and enunciated their words more, I understood better. 

Mimicking: We were in pairs once again for this exercise. The way this worked is we gave ourselves the 'A' or 'B' letter and B would listen to A telling an interesting anecdote on something that recently happened to them and B would have to observe the way that A spoke and their body language as they spoke, their habits (fidgeting, shifting weight, etc) and the way that they spoke. Afterwards, we went around to each pair and watched B imitating how their A was talking and their body language but they had to choose one feature to exaggerate as well. For me, this exercise didn't push me or make me feel odd because my partner and I are quite alike in the way that we speak so the only change was voice, and her voice was slightly broader than mine. I think that in general it sounded easy to do, but for me it was hard because  playing a character is one thing, but trying to imitate someone isn't half as easy because you aren't inventing this person as you would a character, the person already exists. 

I can't talk for everyone though as some people were really good at imitating their partner. They took to adopting the same body language, habits, voice and speech patterns quite well. For example: Paris was imitating Crystal and they are two very different people. Paris is male and when he speaks, he doesn't do many gestures and Crystal is female and when she gets really into a story, she goes all out on her gestures and when Paris exaggerated everything, we were all in pieces because it was so funny but so true. I think it worked better for them because they're both different so there