Research portfolio: Berkoff

In this blog I will be researching the aspects of the practitioner Berkoff. Having going to Jacques le coq theatre school, Berkoff picked up some techniques and made him his own. As Jacques le coq influenced Berkoff, he was inspired by historical physical theatre.

Berkoff is a great practioners who has developed physical theatre and made the style his own. Berkoff used the style of clockwork and mime mostly but he has used other techniques as well.

Berkoff's play metamorphosis his physicality is a lot different to other people the way the he is placed the physical aspect is interesting with his arms crossed over each other and he is down low with he head up. This stance is a lot for interesting to watch instead of him being upright with his posture. The way he moves throughout the whole piece is robotic the way he keeps that postiton the whole time makes it more interesting to watch. His physical style is exaggerated to make the style more interesting. For example if you were eating at the dinner table you would have certain movements that are over the top so the audience can see what they are doing without having props in their hands such a knife and fork and a table. Theses movements are mimed are repeated to make the piece more creepy and grotesque.
Berkoff says it is important to
' to see how I could bring mime together with the spoken word as its opposite partner creating the form and structure of the piece'

Techniques Berkoff uses:

Clockwork: Clockwork is a series of movement which involve miming certain objects. For example a knife and fork. Clockwork looks like robotic movements coming together. When different movement are done at the same time it looks creepy and scary. In Metamorphosis the clockwork routine is in time with the music. Clockwork is a lot of fun to use as you don't normally do it in everyday situations.

Looking at the camera/audience: Berkoff uses the audience a lot of show different meaning and to make it more spooky or for comedy. For example thinking about something else that you don't want to say to the person is said to the audience. Many actor and actress do this now. For example in his play East a female character says a monologue with other actors in the scene but she says the monologue and looks at the audience at times to add humour.

This is a brilliant example of looking at the camera because of the character looks at the audience for humour because it is a monologue aswell but it works in a berkoff style.

Pitch: Berkoff uses a sound in his performance. It is a similar thing to a sound scape but different. For example everyone with a one vowel sound but in different pitch. This makes it usual but effective. Also using vowels sound you can experiment and make it a into a conversation. In the workshop we played around with the feelings of saying the vowel. For example fear,sadness, happiness. Also we did another exercise when we closed our eyes and picked a note to hum. This exercise felt uncomfortable doing this as everyone was doing different pitch were clashes. On the other hand it would work in a performance and a structured way as it matches Berkoff's style.

Mime: I think that mime comes into Berkoff because they use mime to enhance the style more grotesque feel. For example the in metophosis they didn't use chairs they bent their knees to look like they were sat on chairs.

The language that he uses is explores Shakespearian to create a complexity but pairing it with a low cockney slang and swearing. Complex language that an audience has to focus means that they rely on the action to understand the plot. This explains Berkoff physical style as Shakespeare language benefits physical movement as it provides image to work from.

According to Berkoff, to him
'The only purpose for a script is to help  minimalise and physicalise the story'

Commedia de'll arte: Research portfolio

In this blog I will be talking about Commedia de'll arte.

Commedia was created in Italy. It became known in Europe in 15th, 16th and 17th century. Commedia De'll Arte stands for comedy of professional actors of professional artists and actors. which means it needs to stand out and be melodramatic to make the audience laugh. Also commedia doesn't have to speak English. Commedia is often created by improvised storylines and stock characters. All stock character wear half masks to symbolize there character. Using the masks brings more exaggeration to certain body language and delicate facial expressions. Also masks help to be more of the character that you are playing instead of playing yourself more. Commedia mainly relys on the physciality of the characters and less on the words because most of the time the actors speak gibbish to add to the humour.

In this physical style there are stock that all actor become one of the many character that you can choose from. However professional theatre company who take the physical theatre aspect usually stick to one character for there whole career.
Stock characters 

Zanni- Zanni is a servant that always does what the he is told by the master. He always wants to obey the master so he doesn't get into trouble. From his character and personality Zanni has a low status as he is the servant of the master. From this picture you can see that he is light on his feet and not travels quickly. With his status being low Zanni's character is mostly done by bending the knees which backs up the character. I personally love this character as you can play with the Zanni character and making it funny. Zanni is very quick on the feet. Zanni cant keep static for a long time. The picture shows Zanni light on his feet as he shows this in his personality.

Pantalone-.Pantalone is a greedy mechant.  He uses certain phrases like 'I want you' to create his power. Zanni does want he is told. He is friends with the doctor. His body language is mostly with a hunched back. Pantalone is ranked at the top in the status with the other characters. Pantalone means money in Commedia world which means that he is more wealthy and that's why he has servants which he asks people for things. He is usually the father to the one of the lovers which means that he grumpy because most of the time the parents don't agree with the relationship. He is a driven character to keep the lovers apart as he disapproves the relationship.

The image on the left is pantalone. You can see that his stance is slightly hunched as pantalone is protecting his money. He walks with his hips forward allowing to make larger strides. He often falls backwards generally to bad news related some way or another to his financials. When this happens he has a 'turtle like' characterisation.

This is the mask that pantalone wears. In commedia the physicality is all in the body and the stance rather the facial expressions. The masks show the older of the character and how he has wrinkles. The mask can show him when he is tired or grumpy and it will fit with the storyline.





In the workshop we experimented we different characters and how each character would react. For example the young lovers when they met each other they wouldn't touch because they are too much in love and they are scared that it will break the love. Another example would the doctor and pantalone treating a symptom but the doctor doesn't know exactly how to treat it which makes the humour connect to the audience.

Then we moved on to scenarios with different characters meeting. For example the lovers having an argument and zanni is the messager and getting the messages wrong. This scenario was a great scene to play however it was hard so make it funny plus we didn't have enough time to think it though. Another example was that Zanni needed to the wife of the master a message. Zanni got confused and couldn't remember the message because he bumped into fransiquina. This was a great scene to work with as it gave us more inspiration.

Commedia has a style which is very slapstick feel for the audience. From the slapstick humour is then created. For example Zanni is comical as he tries to obey his or her master but Zanni can get confused or side tracked very easily.

The structure of Commedia is improved around the stock characters. The storyline was then rehearsed to add more structure to the performance. In addition the working methods were improvisation to have story to the audience.

The themes that Commedia covers love such as with the lovers will be in love but will never touch each other as they are more interested in themselves rather than each other. For example we did an exercise in class when we were paired up and we had to love our partner without touching the physically. However it was effective to be apart of because it was good way to show love commedia style.