Artaud - Total Theatre piece

Friday 27th November

In order to round of our work with Artaud, his Teatre of Cruelty and Total Theatre, our task was to produce a piece of theatre in groups of 4, with an aim to take the audience on some kind of sensory journey.

After much discussion, we came up with the idea of taking the audience through the experience of a plane flight and crash, involving different sounds and use of levels.

Below is a rough script which we created for the aeroplane voice-over.

I was then set with the task of hunting for various sounds which could be used within our journey, after grasping an understanding of how important sound can be within not just total theatre, but any performance.

Artaud - Importance of Sound

Thursday 26th November

Continuing our work with Artaud's ideas around Total Theatre, we begain to explore the use of sound within Theatre and Artaud's "assult of the senses", alongside use of foreign languages, with our own interpretations.

We began to explore the idea of taking the audience on an imaginary journey in order to create audience participation within theatre. For this, we got into pairs and took turns to guide our partner (who was blindfolded) through a journey which we created, explaining to them all the thoughts and feelings that they would be experiencing. The journey which I created was one involving a beach walk and I included the sound of the sea, feel of the sand and green rocks etc. My partner Kitty took me on an imaginary journey through history, as a soldier and general, fighting in legendary battles and crawling through trenches. This for me was an incredible experience, how the loss of sight, can lead you into believing that you are somewhere completely different, and also proved a good way to control and manipulate your audience.

In order to investigate the importance of sound within Total Theatre, we then grouped into 4's and were given a choice of different props that could be used to create a sound-scape. Our group chose to create a sound scape for a battle scene, using various objects, such as blowing into bottles as horns, using stilts to bang against the floor as a march etc etc. The audience were placed into a circle, blindfolded and back to back, we then stood around them in a circle while performing to add to the atmosphere. We were then able to take part in the other groups Total Theatre experience, in which a stormy, raining soundscape was created.

Through producing and being an audience member within these sound scapes, I began to understand that senses do work in the way people say; that if you loose one, others become stronger. In other words, as we had lost our sight, from descriptions and soundscapes, we were able to create our own visual picture with our imaginations of the scenes being created.