the first manifesto

THE PROGRAM: We shall stage, without regard for text:


1. An adaptation of a work from the time of Shakespeare, a work entirely consistent with our present troubled state of mind, whether one of the apocryphal plays of Shakespeare, such as Arden of Feversham, or an entirely different play from the same period.


2. A play of extreme poetic freedom by Leon-Paul Fargue.


3. An extract from the Zohar: The Story of Rabbi Simeon, which has the ever present violence and force of a confla-gration. [Editor's note: The Zohar is a pseudo-epigraphic work, supposedly a mystiecal text written by Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai, but scholars have identified the author as thirteenth century Kabbalist, Moses de Leon.


4. The story of Bluebeard reconstructed according to the historical records and with a new idea of eroticism and cruelty.


5. The Fall of Jerusalem, according to the Bible and history; with the blood-red color that trickles from it and the people's feeling of abandon and panic visible even in the light; and on the other hand the metaphysical disputes of the prophets, the frightful intellectual agitation they create and the repercussions of which physically affect the King, the Temple, the People, and Events themselves.


6. A Tale by the Marquis de Sade, in which the eroticism will be transposed, allegorically mounted and figured, to create a violent exteriorization of cruelty, and a dissimulation of the remainder.


7. One or more romantic melodramas in which the im-probability will become an active and concrete element of poetry.


8. Büchner's Wozzek, in a spirit of reaction against our principles and as an example of what can be drawn from a formal text in terms of the stage.


9. Works from the Elizabethan theater stripped of their text and retaining only the accouterments of period, situa-tions, characters, and action.

Who am I?

Who was Antonin Artaud?

Some facts, stories, titles, names, thoughts, opinions, musings and other please.

listen and learn

Listen to one of these BBC radio dramas.
While listening complete some research about the show.
Leave a comment.
Include some research results...
and obviously some thoughts and opinions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01cw7kn/HR_Series_3_Gambled/


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01cw5nl/Count_Arthur_Strongs_Radio_Show!_Series_7_Arthurish/


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01cw5nn/The_Archers_06_03_2012/


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007jpdn/Old_Harrys_Game_Series_2_Episode_5/


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007k23t/Cadfael_Dead_Mans_Ransom_Hostage/


Happy Listening

Edward Gordon Craig

How do the theories of Edward Gordon Craig differ from those of Stanislavski and Brecht?

How does Craig view the theatre experience differently from other practitioners?

How does Craig see the relationship between the actor and the director?

How does Craig view the design elements of the theatre: set, space, light. sound?

Explore...

Wish You Were There

Go to…

http://www.olyimprov.org/blog.html

Read through the blog and try to imagine what it must have been like to attend these workshops.  From the writer’s tone he clearly felt it was a very important and moving experience; a privilege.

Pick a part you find interesting, copy and paste a short extract into a post and write a few lines about your reasons for selecting it.

Free Choice

Go to…

http://unexpectedproductions.org/living_playbook.htm

Search through the list of improv games and post a game you would like to try out.

Don’t just copy and paste the description, write your own description of how you want the game to be played.  You can adapt the game, include ideas for scenes or characters or include new rules.

Shared Writing Project

Visit Libboo at…

http://www.libboo.com/

Set up an account and post your username on the blog so that I can invite you to the shared writing project.