In this lesson we began devising our group piece, focusing on the topic of nature vs nurture.
The idea was to begin the piece with scientist figures asking questions about the debate. To symbolise that we were scientists we all wore latex gloves and spoke in random sounds and noises to represent the scientific jargon which would the language often by used by them. The language was quite abstract and animalistic linking to Artaud's idea of making natural instinctive work that truly represents human behaviour. However it can also imply the language that he created thinking that it could be used between actors to communicate.
The questions we asked ranged from:
Can the traits you are born with be influenced by the environment we live in?
Is sexuality determined by genes?
These helped to enforce the message of our piece straight away, encouraging the audience to consider our topic as they watch the piece, seeing how what we show them changes, differs or supports their initial views.
Next we focused on creating a physicalised representation of the reproduction cycle, starting from the moment of conception to the birth. Having the heaving breathing to replicate the sounds of a climax, paired with "Lets get it on" by Marvin Gaye, I found for audience members that as well as it creating some light humour, it may make them uncomfortable which gives the impression of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, making it a tense environment for them in order to heighten their senses. It also appears to an unsuspecting audience as rather grotesque because sex is often seen as a taboo, these kind of topics being something that Artaud thought theatre should address as many other mediums didn't.
Within this small section the cast becomes sperm, with tights over our heads and we proceed to crawl across the room to "fertilise the eggs" on the other side whilst battle-like music plays overhead. This part is my favourite bit because I find the idea incredibly bizarre and hilarious with the over dramatised version of something I deem as a relatively simple act, as well as getting to call myself a sperm. Although I truly like it as it an inventive way of portraying the idea, suggesting that it is a battle between sperm which is something I'd never thought of before.
This whole idea of reproduction was to also to show the side of the debate which suggested that humans are born with the genes that encourage their behaviour. Then the piece progressed and we moved on to include the idea of us all pretending to be foetuses, exploring their first times doing something; maybe opening their eyes, moving their limbs or standing. This then developed in to a sped up version of a child growing up to again highlight the instinctive behaviour we are born with.
However next we chose to focus on the mother-son relationship and how mothers mollycoddle and have a reluctance to let their children go. This I thought was done to enforce the idea that a mother has strong influence over her child and this can change a child's future attitude. We explored this through an alternate objective task which saw the mothers wanting to hold on to their children and their sons wanting to leave. For this we focused on "cost of the actor", having to push our limits in order to fully achieve the objective. Although against Troy, I found this reasonably easy to maintain my objective because he underestimated my strength and by the time he realised, I was in a good position to maintain my grip. As he struggled in my grasp I found it did become harder because his adrenaline started to kick in as he saw he wouldn't easily get free and personally I think that if I was an audience member this true struggle would be interesting to watch as it is believable and natural.
To an audience, the piece we have so far, I think, to piece focuses heavily on the effect of the nature side of the debate, suggesting that we have a biased opinion that we're trying to enforce of them. Next lesson I feel as though we need to include more of the nurture debate.
I do however think it shows how people are born with certain instincts, like immediately crying after birth or learning to walk and talk, implying that some part of our behaviour does come from nature.
I believe our piece is experimental because, although it addresses a political subject, it follows more of Artaud and Grotowski's ideas than Brechtian, and it certainly doesn't include any naturalistic acting, using physical representations of objects through bodies and over exaggerated behaviour instead. Following Artaud and Grotowski it looks into "cost of the actor" as well as including a range of physical movement and unnatural speech, therefore suggesting it is experimental.
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