17.12.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 Today I presented my concept for the play Waiting For Godot.

Here was my presentation:

07.12.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 In this rehearsal, we split up into two groups of two and a group of three.  In each group, we had one director and the actor had to perform Lucky's monologue from Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett.  The three groups were, Hugo (director) & Tristan (actor), James (actor) & Louis (director), Amelie (director), Silvana (actor) & Emma (actor).

HUGO & TRISTAN

Hugo and Tristan placed their scene in a bar or pub.  Tristan played Lucky as a very intelligent but drunk man, telling Hugo all of the knowledge in his head.  In this performance, we interpreted it as if Godot was a drink or a bartender who they were waiting for.  This made it very contemporary and the themes of alcoholism and existentialism link, as a lot of people believe they find answers and happiness and the bottom of a bottle. 

JAMES & LOUIS

Louis directed James to play Lucky as an old professor.  This was very effective and the audience interpreted it as if he was giving a lecture.  Even the stuttering that is in Lucky's monologue was done so effortlessly in the way a lecturer would do it.  Half way through the play, Louis put on some church music with organs.  This immediately made James look like he's a preacher.  It brought the theme of religion in, which is very relevant as well as being a considerable amount of peoples interpretation of Waiting for Godot, with Godot being God.  

AMELIE, SILVANA & EMMA

Amelie directed Silvana and I.  Before we started, she showed us this video: (1h55)

After we watched that, she explained that she wanted us to be like two different parts of Lucky's brain.  A more intelligent side and a crazier, more obnoxious side.  In order to do this, we split up the lines to ones that were more intelligent and ones that were waffle.  I took the crazy side and Silvana took the intelligent side.  We had a hairband on our wrist which attached Silvana and I together.  Amelie directed us so we looked as if we had purpose to what we were saying even though it didn't originally make sense.

07.12.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 ESTRAGON - CHARACTER ANALYSIS 

Estragon and Vladimir talk about being together for about 60 years.  It doesn't state how old these two characters are but I would assume they're possibly 70.  

PERSONALITY

Estragon represents the impulsive, yet simplistic side of the two main characters.  It contrasts Vladimir's careful intellectualism and verbosity.  He doesn't care about appearances and is mainly concerned with eating and sleeping.  He has a pessimistic outlook on life and therefore has abandoned all hope of any alleviation of their suffering.  He thinks that Godot is suspicious.  Out of Estragon and Vladimir, Estragon suffers the most physically.  He has difficulties with his boots, he gets kicked by Lucky, he falls a numerous amount of times and he is beaten by thugs every night.  His boots don't fit and cause him pain in the first act so by the end of the first act, he leaves them on the side of the road.  In the second act, he finds them in the same place, but now they mysteriously fit him.  Estragon has a misanthropic view of humanity.  He considers people to be "ignorant apes" and seems to want them to leave him alone, despite being very attached to Vladimir.  He wants and needs protection and Vladimir provides it, even if that comes with the occasional bickering.  Estragon is often seen as the child to Vladimir's adult, and looks for parental security in him. 

APPEARANCE

Estragon doesn't get a lot of description in the play.  The only thing we get, is that he is described as wearing "rags", walking with a limp (which eventually wears off) and being lighter than Vladimir.  As he does have a rather gluttonous nature, he is often played as being short and fat, in contrast with tall and lanky Vladimir.  His clothes are dirtier than Vladimir's and seems to be in worse condition, due to his lack of inhibitions, like diving for food and sleeping in ditches.  

03.12.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

Today, we got into 3 groups, Amelie & Silvana, Tristan, Hugo & Louis, and James & I.  We each took turns to direct a piece of theatre from the Waiting for Godot script, using the practitioners we wanted.

AMELIE & SILVANA

Amelie & Silvana decided to direct the hat scene, using Frantic Assembly as their practitioner.  They picked Tristan and I to be the actors.  Tristan was Vladimir and I was Estragon.  They used round, by, through as their movements for the changing of hats.  

TRISTAN, HUGO & LOUIS

Tristan, Hugo and Louis decided to direct the scene where the boy comes to talk to Vladimir, using Berkoff as their practitioner.  They cast James as the Boy and Amelie as Vladimir.  They used exaggerated and literal movements according to the lines. 

JAMES & EMMA

James and I decided the direct the scene where Pozzo & Lucky first join the play, using Dario Fo as our practitioner.  We cast Tristan as Lucky, Louis as Pozzo, Hugo as Vladimir and Silvana as Estragon.  We tried to make the timing and the movements that Lucky did comedic.  

30.10.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 Today, two groups, Tristan and Hugo and Silvana and James, performed their interpretation of the first few pages of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.  Each group contextualised the play and made it relevant for contemporary youth.

Tristan and Hugo

Tristan and Hugo experimented with accents and stuck to the Russian accent at the end.  This portrayed a sense of comradeship and I interpreted it as two brothers in the army together.  There were specific lines that stuck out which anchored this, such as, "crawling around in the mud".  This is relevant to today as there are wars going on in the world.

Silvana and James

Silvana and James were initially looking at doing the play in the style of Steven Berkoff but eventually went to the style of Stanislavski but they kept the East London accent which they were using with Berkoff.  This made the piece appear to be set in the cobbled streets of London outside a bar or pub.  I interpreted that Godot was the bar owner who they were waiting for.  This also lead to the idea of poverty and homelessness which is more relevant than ever right now due to the high unemployment rate from the global pandemic.  

18.11.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 EXISTENTIALISM

Existentialism is a philosophical theory or approach which emphasises the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.  It is the theory behind the unconscious movement Theatre of the Absurd, which is perhaps more of a genre than a style.  Significant practitioners were not traditional theoreticians and directors, but instead were major playwrights.  The movement leapt onto the world stage in the form of unconventional plays, primarily by European (and later American) playwrights.  Absurdist theatre directly influenced much of European drama for more than ten years and within it lie some of the best plays of the 20th Century.

ALBERT CAMUS

Born: November 7, 1913

Died: January 4, 1960

Albert Camus was a French novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for such novels as L'Étranger (1942), La Peste (1947) and La Chute (1956) and for his work in leftist causes.  He received the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature.  Camus focused most of his philosophy around existential questions.  The absurdity of life, the inevitable ending is highlighted in his acts.  His belief was that the absurd - life being void of meaning, or man's inability to know that meaning if it were to exist - was something that man should embrace.  His anti-Christianity, his commitment to individual moral freedom and responsibility are only a few of the similarities with other existential writers.  More importantly, Camus addressed one of the fundamental questions of existentialism: the problem of suicide.  He wrote: "There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide." Camus viewed the question of suicide as arising naturally as the solution to the absurdity of life.

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE

Born: June 21, 1905

Died: April 15, 1980

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic.  He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism.  Some of Jean-Paul Sartre's plays include No Exit (1944), The Flies (1943), Prljave ruke (1948), The Respectful Prostitute (1946), The Devil and the Good Lord (1951), The Condemned of Altona (1959) and The Chips are Down (1947).

Bibliography

Existentialism and Theatre of the Absurd

Albert Camus

Albert Camus 

Albert Camus

Albert Camus

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

16.11.2020 - Historical Context of Performance - Mrs Williams

 SAMUEL BECKETT

Samuel Beckett was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, theatre director, poet and literary translator.  He was born in 1906 in Dublin and died in 1989 in Paris.  Beckett's notable works include, Murphy, Watt, Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable, Waiting for Godot and Endgame.  In 1969 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Beckett wrote in both English and French but his most well-known works were in French.  Waiting for Godot was successful in the Theatre de Babylone and ran for 400 performances.  This play focused on human despair and the will to survive in a hopeless world that offers no help in understanding.  This style of writing is known as the Theatre of the Absurd. 

THEATRE OF THE ABSURD

The Theatre of the Absurd movement consisted of different post-World War II plays which agreed with philosopher Camus's statement, that the human situation is essentially absurd and devoid of purpose.  Characterised by a fascination with absurdity in all its forms - philosophical, dramaturgical, existential, emotional - this is a drama form that pushes theatre to extremes, and which asks probing questions about what reality (and unreality) really looks like.  In Beckett's Waiting for Godot, plot is eliminated, and a timeless, circular quality emerges as two lost creatures, usually played as tramps, spend their days waiting without any certainty of whom they are waiting for or if he, or it, will ever come.  

WAITING FOR GODOT

Waiting for Godot's first performance was January 5, 1953.  Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot just after the end of the German occupation of France and during those years, Beckett and Suzanne, his future wife, were members of the French Resistance.  The French Resistance was an underground movemebt that rebelled against Nazi forces by passing secret information about the Nazis.  This information was passed using codes which were similar to the brief poetic language that the characters use in the play.  Beckett and Suzanne were forced to escape by fleeing to the French hamlet of Roussillon where they picked grapes such like the characters in Waiting for Godot, Vladimir and Estragon.  The blend of the coded speech and the waiting for, (Nazis to find them or the Allies to free them) has been linked to Godot of Beckett's own experience.  Some imagine that "Godot is a play about the Resistance; characters have code names, get beaten by the Gestapo, and carry on their assignments."  Waiting for Godot has links in the social context as waiting was the hardest part during the Cold War should the idea of a nuclear threat become real.  The relationship between the two characters could also link to the relationships within the French as in waiting for the expected showdown between the two superpowers. 

Beckett refused to elaborate on the characters beyond what he had written in the play.  He didn't have a visual image of Vladimir and Estragon when he wrote the play.  They are never referred to as 'tramps' in the text but they are often depicted as such on stage.  Normand Berlin wrote, "Because the play is so stripped down, so elemental, it invites all kinds of social and political and religious interpretations.".

ORIGINAL STAGING CONDITIONS

The first performance was in Paris, France, at the Theatre de Babylone on the 5th January 1953, and was performed in French.  The performance didn't receive any good reviews and the audience became quite rowdy.  The theatre only had 75 seats and the budget was very small so there was a fair bit of creativity.  For example, the director stepped in for Pozzo's character as the original actor dropped out, and had to strap pillows to him to get a more fitting physical appearance.  Another example was that the briefcase was found in the bin.  

The original cast was:

• Vladimir: Lucien Raimbourg
• Estragon: Pierre Latour
• Lucky: Jean Martin
• Pozzo: Roger Blin
• Boy: Serge Lecointe

There have been many different interpretations of the play since.