Exploring the "V" effect

The "V" effect  is an alienation technique which reminds your actors and your audience that they are in a play that there is no sense that they are in reality and then is broken in weirdness and is used to highlight a political moment an action, you want the audience to question what they are watching.

Brecht wants us to make our audience feel shocked or alienated or surprised.

Class exercise

Firstly we walked around the space and got into groups to improvise a 2 second scene of a “sexy washing machine” and a “sicking toilet” then we went on a more imaginative task to create an angry motor bike and his/hers owner. After that we decided to create a 20 sec scene showing the unusual and how we can come out of reality and create something funny and surprising. This made us explore our imagination and test the art of coming out of our comfort zone. Then we did a quick exercise testing exaggeration and excitement.  We had to imagine that we were puppets controlled by string and then try different gestures baring in mind the difference between realistic theatre and unrealistic theatre.

Second part of the lesson

Different characters-

Characterisation     

Find neutral, create 6 different characters and we used our imagination to create  piece of string coming out the nose, bottom etc. The “old women and old man” we explored the character and what they would say and do exaggerated gestures.

Champagne drunk and working class drunk- slouch and head forward alcoholic beverage in a champagne glass and the other character alcoholic beverage in a paper bag.

Pregnant mother and greedy capitalist- hands behind the back belly out and the other one was belly out hands on Belly and cigar in hand and we also explored a political theme “war” and how it affects all 6 characters. 

"Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it"