Raoul

• Parisian circus performer/dancer/comedian/physical performer
• Beautiful set, huge, dusty and full of sheets and metal bars. Old furniture.
• Minimalistic - used lights and didn't use tools, climbed on whatever
• Animals - fish, shrimp, jellyfish, woolly mammoth, these were very endearing (the fact that they were silent and remained expressionless helped, as if they were wearing masks. Exaggerated their physicality. The actors operating them had the job of moving something inanimate to give it a personality and character)
• Raoul was very funny, in a magical circus way, extremely comfortable with his body, moved quickly
• Shifted between slow and fast - like the slow motion fighting with himself, seemed to make him more than a body, as if he was placing special effects on himself
• Used some of the furniture and bric-a-brac - like the metal bin, the metal spoons, pan etc, the gramophone, the curtains
• The general idea was that he was a lovable fool, and his actions were motivated by trying to achieve some goal he generally would not achieve. 

Treacle-cutting

Interesting phrase - desentimentalising a scene or an issue through comedy
e.g. making fun of tragedy, crime, poverty, painful issues, 'stiff upper lip'
Very present in Beautiful Thing and English humour in general, such as Music Hall

Dido and Aeneas notes

small things don't matter as long as you tell the story
repetitive gestures and spatial awareness
noticed how audience could notice small problems
became more aware of good facial expressions in chorus
dancers could have used hands more to be synchronised
gestures help audience understand what singers are saying
singing opera songs for the first time in a show made me breathless from nerves which made it more difficult but acting came easily and i wasn't nervous about that
generally much less nervous than for a non-musical play
umbrellas and flags were very visually attractive
details are important in a minimalistic stage
consider every part of your body
take a show day by day, do not worry about the final product

The Price - Arthur Miller

I recently was lucky enough to be taken to see Miller's The Price or O Preço, as it was in Portuguese. It was perhaps the best play I've ever seen. The most striking thing for me was the set. The stage is unorthodox in that it is very large and shows great depth, but away from the audience instead of being wide and frontally shallow. The set was filled with beautiful pieces of old furniture and knick-knacks, some enormous, some little. It was such an attractive set that I was immediately intrigued. The actors were very good, taking on their characters splendidly. The best was the policeman who acted in such a policeman-like way. Can't really explain how but he was so much his character. The actors spoke very clearly and projected beautifully while managing to remain naturalistic so even when they were angry I could understand everything. I was impressed as Portuguese is a second language to me and I don't usually understand fast-paced conversations. My acid test would probably be the old man at the back of the room, measuring and labelling things during the arguments and drama downstage. He moved so slowly you barely noticed him moving at all.

Dramaturgy

Interviews with dramaturgs:

What is the biggest misconception you've encountered surrounding your profession?

NE:  I suppose one of the biggest misconceptions (and one that I have a particular dislike for) is that dramaturgs are glorified assistant directors. We are not. We have our own distinction, our own training, our own field; we focus on plays as literature and have expertise in the following:

1. placing plays into their historical context (by compiling and distributing succinct background research to actors and creative teams),

2. aiding in the development process of new plays (by working with writers to reshape their work and with directors to honorably interpret that work),

3. communicating about plays to audiences and other theatre patrons (through writing newsletter articles, hosting talkbacks, interviewing playwrights for donor events; etc), 

4. serving as a sounding board for directors and writers and as a representative of the writer (by offering feedback to directors on the production before the audience arrives). 

I like to think of myself as a midwife in the birthing process of a play, a right-hand woman to a playwright, a third eye in rehearsal.

What was your role, specifically, as a Dramaturg?

J.A: In the beginning I think one of my integral roles was to help choose the three Phaedras that we were going to perform. One Year Lease is dedicated to performing classic texts. Classic for us is defined as a play that is necessary, durable, and urgent. One of the beauties of this project was to actually perform our mission statement. To chose three texts that spoke to each other and to the fact that they have been interpreted and performed by playwrights from different eras, cultures and values. These three plays in particular spoke to the breadth of the Phaedra myth and to our definition of classic.

In terms of my role during the actual rehearsals and production, I felt that for this project what was of the utmost importance was for me to go back to the myth and provide a solid background of who these characters are (where they come from, how they are related to each other) to our actors. As well I believed it was integral to give them a background of the cultural climate that the myth and the adaptations of the myth sprang from.

The same actors played the roles of Phaedra, Hippolytus, and Theseus in a nightly succession. While the roles of the myth slightly deviated for our other three actors (Oenone/Nonny/Strophe) (Aricia/Strophe) (Theremene/Angus/Priest) all of our actors had three plays in their heads at once. Whatever I could do to provide them with any information that would help make each of their characters clear and distinct was the integral job that I had as dramaturg. 

First dramaturg

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing is widely considered to be the world's first ever dramaturg. Born on 22 January 1979, in Saxony, Germany. he worked for 3 years as a dramaturg in the Hamburg National Theatre. 

Some more research

The job requirements of dramaturg, according to the Dramaturg's UK Network, can consist of:

Reading plays, Translating or Re-translating plays, Encouraging new writing, Devising new work, Adapting, Analysing, Editing and Cutting, Research, Advice, Assisting, Compiling the Programme.

Brechtian styles of performance - Research

Brecht's acting theories:

Epic theatre

Brecht's view is that actor should not impersonate, but narrate actions of another person, as if quoting facial gesture and movement. The actor is free to comment on what he shows, either obviously or by implied comment. He can show how he forsees where the character's actions will lead.

The actor must be relaxed and not tense, Brecht was opposed to frenetic and uncontrollable intensity on stage, the actor is always in control of his emotions.

He is aware of the presence of the audience, and all this means he is communicating his thoughts on the character with the audience, and they develop their own thoughts on the character's actions, allows for self-reflection and critical view of the stage. An actor becoming a character in the style of Stanislavsky will make the audience believe he is the character, and they will enter into the world of the play. Brecht opposes this, and forces the audience to regard the play as the actor is, from an objective point of view.

Verfremdungseffekt - the defamiliarisation effect

It is “stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them” - Brecht

"Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it." Supports the defamiliarisation effect, Brecht believed in shaping and twisting reality for the audience with his plays.

French playwright Jean Genet in a letter to director Roger Blin advises an epic theatre approach: "Each scene, and each section within a scene, must be perfected and played as rigorously and with as much discipline as if it were a short play, complete in itself. Without any smudges. And without there being the slightest suggestion that another scene, or section within a scene, is to follow those that have gone before."

Gestus

The uncovering or revealing of the motivations and transactions that underpin a dramatic exchange between the characters; and second, the "epic" narration of that character by the actor (whether explicitly or implicitly).
A Gestus makes visible a character's social relations and the causality of his behaviour
"For it is what happens between people," Brecht insists, "that provides them with all the material that they can discuss, criticize, alter."
"The choice of viewpoint is also a major element of the actor's art, and it has to be decided outside the theatre" Brecht explains in his "A Short Organum."

http://www.actorhub.co.uk/266/bertolt-brecht
http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/drama/brecht.htm#13
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestus

Performance Studies - R. Schechner. Chapter 6 - Performance.

Notes, quotes and ideas:

• 'Performance', according to Schechner, and lots of other people, means a lot more as a word than what most people think.
• Acting is a sub-category of performance. Other categories are roles, ways of being (which in turn poses the question, are moods and even personalities types of performance?)
• "some people work hard at performing oneself" - it takes work even to develop your own character, let alone a new character on stage. Being 'yourself' is described as a performance.
• Surveillance cameras everywhere have made us evolve into being more self-conscious, and natural performers. We seek attention more than our predecessors, and feel the need to be impressive and "on" all the time. 
• Schechner: "The more self-conscious a person is, the more one constructs behaviour for those watching and/or listening, the more such behaviour is 'performing'." - Because we are more self-conscious our 'natural' behaviours are not in fact natural, but performances. 
• Surveillance Camera Players make fun of this, putting on silent plays in front of cameras as a protest.
• Performance is a spectrum, like colours, the different categories blend into each other, and there are no fixed boundaries separating them. Roles mix into rituals, the sacred into the secular.
• Rock concerts are a performance than involve the audience to a massive extent. The audience has the opportunity to become something else, to perform themselves. They scream and shout and jump and if the performer is good he will interact with the audience and excite them more. The audience can feel free and uninhibited in such a large crowd, and be able to assume a new character - free and loud. They can put on their own performance.
• Schechner: "The minimalist actor simply performs certain actions that are received as acting by spectators because of context. By contrast, in total acting, the "other" is so powerful it takes over or possesses the performer."
• The scale: Non-acting to acting. 5 steps there.

1. nonmatrixed performing - being onstage but not acting (stagehands, eg kabuki)
2. symbolised matrix - the performer perfoms actions belonging to a character while still being themself
3. received acting - onstage behaviour where no character is developed (eg extras, non-speaking roles)
4. simple acting - a performer simulating speech and behaviour of a character
5. complex acting - performer's physical, mental and emotional capability involved in portraying the character

• Michael Kirby: "Acting may be said to exist in the smallest and simplest action that involves pretense."
• Again, emphasised that it is a spectrum, the scale does not suggest values, all types of performance have "good" aspects, and depending on personal taste and culture, and a number of other factors, some may be preferred.
• Realistic acting assumes that the emotions of the characters are like those of "real people". These are easily recognisable to the audience, very common, used widely in films and television.
• This type of acting came from Western culture, and was regarded as progressive, while the traditional forms represented outmoded social systems and beliefs.
• The daily behaviours upon which realistic acting is based change over time. The acting in old movies may look unnatural and stilted, but it was simply stylized from the time.
• Mao Tse-Tung: Lenin said that art should serve the tens of millions of working people. "Works of literature and art, as ideological forms, are products of the reflection in the human brain of the life of a given society." "The life of the people" gives us "materials in their natural form...crude...but vital, rich and fundamental; they make all literature and art seem pallid by comparison" Life is an "inexhaustible source, their only source". Tse-Tung said "we must take over all the fine things in our literary and artistic heritage, critically assimilate whatever is beneficial, and use them as examples when we create works out of the literary and artistic raw materials in the life of the people of our own time and place." - Pretty good.
• Realistic acting - Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-1938), find situations in the actor's life that are analogues to what happens to the character. 
• Because revealing real feelings only happens among intimates, Lee Strasberg invented "Private Moment" exercise to make an actor feel less inhibited by an audience.

will finish notes on this another time