Katie Mitchell Masterclass - Handout On Naturalism and Multi-Media in Theatre Katie’s Career and features of Katie’s work • Work in three areas: mainstream text-based theatre (combining new plays and classics), live cinema and opera. • Work is defined by psychological detail, a focus on female experience, a naturalistic aesthetic and radical experimentation with the forms of theatre making. • Worked for 31 years and directed over 100 productions, including 5 music theatre pieces, 17 live cinema shows 29 operas and 68 plays. Katie’s career as a theatre director divides into two phases. PHASE ONE: Naturalism and Stanislavsky in the UK • Studied how Theatre Directors are trained in Europe and learnt techniques of Stanislavsky • During first 18 years of Katie’s career, she explored Stanislavsky’s techniques and naturalism in the UK working at all of the main theatres, like Royal Court, NT, Donmar and RSC • Specialised in staging classic plays by writers like Strindberg, Chekhov and Euripides • Worked on new plays by writers like Martin Crimp and Simon Stephens • Mainly focussing in on the experience of the female characters. PHASE TWO: Live Cinema and experimental work in mainland Europe • In 2006 Katie staged Virginia Woolf’s novel THE WAVES and created a new form of making theatre which was later called ‘live cinema’. • The novel comprises of 6 monologues and consists entirely of spoken thoughts and little dialogue. The challenge was how to communicate those thoughts and show how the characters were inside their own heads • ‘Live Cinema’ is a technique where there is a large screen above the stage and the action on stage is filmed and edited live and projected simultaneously on the screen. It is like looking at a film shoot at the same time as watching the finished film in a cinema • Katie tries to shift the emphasis from the interiority of the male characters to that of the female characters as the habit of audience is to look for meaning in the male characters. Live cinema is a technique to help audience focus in on female interiority. 1 • In 2008, Katie took this live cinema technique to Germany and then started working regularly in Europe where she developed the live cinema technique • Moved away from working on texts by male writers to texts written by female writers like Sarah Kane, Caryl Churchill and Alice Birch. • Directed more Novels, as well as playtexts. Novels were written mainly by women like the German writer, Elriede Yelinek, the Austrian poet, Frederike Mayrocke, and the American feminist, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Katie directed more Novels than playtexts in this time as it was harder to find the female stories she wanted to tell in the existing canon of classical plays PHASE ONE: Naturalism and Stanislavsky in the UK The main features of PHASE ONE, the Naturalistic work: • The texts selected focus on female characters and experience and the action of the plays take place in one indoor location (1). • The shows are staged in a proscenium configuration (2) and there is always a black guillotine curtain rising or closing on the action at the beginning and end of the scenes. • The set design (3) is very detailed and life like – often decayed industrial building or 19th Century domestic rooms with large windows and electric ceiling lights • The costumes (4) are very life-like and lived in, giving the impression they are real clothes and not theatrical costumes. Very little make-up is used • The lighting (5) is very naturalistic, representing a balance of natural light via windows or doors plus lighting from practical lights (for example, pendant ceiling lights, standard lamps or desk lights). The lighting designer will hide the use of the overhead theatre lights as much as possible. The light levels are very low and life like and not bright and theatrical. • The sound (6) is used in a naturalistic way to describe location and time (e.g. sound of dog barking). It is also very influenced by film, especially the use of abstract subliminal sound to underscore the scenes. Sometimes there is already an abstract sound effect running as the audience enter the room. This effectively subverts audience emotion when watching the performance. Music is used for scene changes, dance sequences and also works alongside the abstract sound design to underscore the scenes. More recently, Actors will wear radio mics to balance the sound of spoken word and music / underscoring. • The Actors (7) move and talk in a life-like way with no added theatrical gestures. Similarly, they speak in a life-like normal way with minimal vocal projection. • The Movement (8) is very life-like and life-sized and detailed. Sometimes, slo-motion is used to emphasise a specific moment in the action. At other times dance sequences are used, mainly using the sort of ballroom dancing you’d see on STRICTLY. Looking at Extracts of Productions Let’s take a look at some clips of shows to see what I mean when I talk about the elements of: 1 • one indoor location, • proscenium configuration • detailed interiors • naturalistic lighting The Seagull THE SEAGULL (day) Notice how the sunlight pours across the stage from stage left to stage right, how the practical electrical lights are suspended in the ceiling and how decayed the walls are. THE SEAGULL (night) Notice how the practical lights are providing most of the lighting for the scene and how you cannot see any theatrical down lights from the lighting rig above the stage Let’s turn our attention to sound and music. You will have noticed the use of the record player and dancing to music in THE SEAGULL, but let’s look at a bit of CLEANSED to understand how the idea of using sound design to underscore the scenes works: CLEANSED Notice how the sound doesn’t fall away as the text begins but continues to underscore the scene. Notice also how all the actors are wearing radio microphones so that we can balance the spoken word volume with the soundscape. WOMEN OF TROY Here is a clip from WOMEN OF TROY set in an industrial building. Notice how dark it is and how the lighting comes through doors and the glazed second floor, and how detailed the architecture, glazing and doors are. Notice also, the use of sound, dance and fire. How to achieve this in a school setting Now, we have a clearer picture of main features of a Katie Mitchell production, let’s turn our attention to how to achieve a scene in the same style in a classroom setting. • Pick a scene from a play that focuses on a female character. The play can be modern or classical. It can be written by a male or female writer. For female writers, have a look at plays by Alice Birch, Caryl Churchill, Lucy Prebble or Lucy Kirkwood. Here are some examples of plays containing some excellent short scenes: o Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again by Alice Birch o Love and Information by Caryl Churchill o Kill by Caryl Churchill • Make sure the scene takes place inside a room or building. • Present the scene in an end-on, proscenium arch configuration. The seating should be at one end of the room and the performance space at the other. • Any set design elements should be detailed and life-like. If students decide to paint their set, they should paint in a way that makes the space look lived in with evidence 1 of daily wear and tear. If students are only using furniture and props in their scene, encourage them to find real objects that look worn and used. • If using Costume, guide the students to use clothing that looks life-like and lived in and does not look like a theatrical costume. Looking for costumes in a charity shop is an ideal place to start if there is money available. Avoid theatrical make-up like strong eye-liner and heavy foundation. • For Lighting, try and use practical lights such as desk lamps or bedside lights to provide the main lighting source. Challenge students to create a full blackout in the room they are working in, and use the practical lights to create the atmosphere for the scene. • Sound and Music could be generated through a phone and a Bluetooth speaker. Students should try and source naturalistic sounds and abstract sounds and music to underscore the action of the scene. Encourage them to explore sound ideas from films that they enjoy. There should be a clear relationship between the sound/music they are using and the action on stage. • When using Movement, ask students to pick one key moment to use slo-motion to emphasise the action. They could also try and include a moment of couple dancing. • Acting should be naturalistic. They should play their characters as if there is not an audience looking at them. Use the following six-step process to get life-like and life- sized acting. Lifelike and Life-sized acting The process is based on answering six simple questions. These 6 questions are a distillation of Stanislavsky’s work, honed by Katie Mitchell: • Who am I? BIOGRAPHY • Where am I? PLACE • What time is it? TIME • What’s just happened? 24 HOURS BEFORE – IMMEDIATE CIRCUMSTANCES • What are the changes in the scene? EVENTS • What am I playing between the changes? INTENTIONS Suggested Exercises to introduce students to these tools BIOGRAPHY Why do we build biographies for characters we play? Everyone’s behaviour is shaped by events that have happened in our past. For example, if we have been bullied at an old school we can behave in a cautious way with friendships in a new school.