Archetypes, Naturalism, Realism

2nd September 2014

Today we discussed the previous idea of archetypes that occurred in the 1800's, the idea that there is a predetermined set of characters that all appear in theatre. These characters, have specific traits and most actors would perform as the same roles due to their own genetic characteristics and physiques. The hero would always prevail, the damsel would be frail and feeble, the villain possibly deformed to represent the evil of the unknown, the henchman possibly slightly less intelligent than the rest. Overall theatre became the main source of predictable entertainment as the audience would come recognising the characters and their apparent endings. 

Walking around in the space and being asked to physically embody an archetype caused us to ramp up our acting, making us multiply how extreme our characters were. The "Hero" archetype may clench his fists, representing his fighting ability, his chest would puff out exposing his sturdiness and strength, his eyes gazed upward displaying his almost glorious and gracious mindset and actions. Damsels may have their hands on their heart presenting their almost obvious vulnerability for a love interest or affair, or possibly an undecided quality to whom they shall "give their heart to", their legs would be soft and bent highlighting their weakness or need to be swept off of their feet, their mouth may slightly depart to cause them to be ditsy and seductive as lips parted oozes stereotypical femininity. 

We also deliberated the genre of melodrama, and reached a conclusion that melodrama is a form of acting that is exaggerated and over performed, usually resulting in extreme circumstances such as life or death, leaving very little to the imagination and offering up no room for the audience to question, ponder or interpret. We also developed our own short melodramatic stories involving every archetype character mentioned. We discovered that melodramatic performances left nothing for the audience decide, the fourth wall was constantly broken, not allowing the reality of the dramatic piece to remain on stage. Melodramatic performances spoon fed the audience, only providing entertainment rather than the educational or thought provoking performances you can witness today. You are almost able to understand why audiences enjoyed this form of theatre as becoming the character or exploring the thoughts and feelings was previously unheard of, they enjoyed it because they believed that was as good as performances could possibly get, as it just appeared to be light-hearted and easy to follow entertainment. 

Stanislavsky grew aggravated with this form of acting and wanted to get down to an authentic form of acting that incorporated honesty, rather than playing a character you would become the character, you would realise motives and explore characters mindset and objectives, recalling similar feelings that the character had through emotional memory as well as cutting ninety per cent. Our teachers then incorporated the polar opposite of melodrama which is Naturalism into our lesson, which we became to understand as pure and truthful acting, we had to devise a basic and short scene that involved this style of acting. We decided to use the natural situation of boarding a lift, we all decided an order but your physical decisions were open to your own personal thoughts and feelings. I decided that I would fix my hair at some point and started to grow an idea of what others may do in a lift. Our simplistic acting style and scene led to us feeling the need to over compensate as we started to complicate what could happen in the search for a dramatic climate, that in retrospect wasn't needed. We decided to stick to our own initial interpretation of the brief. Additionally we had to perform as if it was in real time, so I would stand in the lift for as long as a usual lift would usually last for, with the expectation of appearing as naturalistic as possible. 

Our teacher then asked us to meet in the middle and cut out some of the unnecessary aspects of your scene to make it as succinct as possible, this style of acting became known as Realism, which kept the natural elements whilst still producing a stimulating form of theatre. We kept the main plot, cutting out the excess, such as too much time spent waiting in the lift, for example. We left it poignant and succinct and whilst we shortened it, I lost the previous mentality of  "what others would do in a lift" and instead explored my own experience of riding in a lift, how I usually act, I created a mindset and as a group we fully envisaged the lift in full Stanislavskian style in order to believe and become the character, creating a realistic experience for not only the audience but for myself personally as well.