Article Summary: The Back And Forth By Jon Jory

The play that we read for this unit is Too Much Punch For Judy, by Mark Wheeller. It is a form of Verbatim Theatre, which means the play is based on the spoken words of real people. This play is about the story of a young woman who kills her sister in an alcohol related accident. When I first read the play I couldn’t empathize with the story as I have never encountered such a shocking event in my life. In this essay I will describe, analyse and evaluate both my work and the work of other actors in my group, focusing on the mediums, elements and explorative strategies of Drama.

“It’s very gratifying to get the immediate reaction from the audience,” he says. “Many young playwrights tend to want to move toward making movies, mainly because of the potential to reach a world-wide audience. However, you can’t see your viewers’ reactions.”

As well as the quality of spoken language that children hear on a day to day basis will have a vast impact on the grammar and language they use. Therefore teachers and all teaching staff should ensure they continue to develop children’s confidence when it comes to communication by developing the skills needed to explain their understanding this is also vital when it comes to understanding and explaining of books or other recourses. All children should have access to and be encouraged to develop their role in drama. Pupils should be able to adopt, create and sustain a range of roles, responding appropriately to others in role. They should have opportunities to improvise, devise and script drama for one another and a range of audiences, as well as to rehearse, refine, share and respond thoughtfully to drama and theatre

As an actor, it is therefore very useful to differentiate between different kinds of stress that can interfere with your performance. Tension is a normal thing to all human beings but we should develop a way of overcoming it. As per Larry Moss, physical tension in our body often begins in childhood. When we try to hold back our joy, anger, tears and humor, we interfere with our different body muscles that tend to stop our natural body impulse. Emotions also have an impact on the actor’s performance in a way that; when actors are emotionally stressed they may tend to swallow these emotions which may affect their throat or other body parts. This context portrays how emotional feelings can lead to physical consequences that will affect the actors’ performance. Some of the physical consequences that are brought by emotions can be headache, stomach and some which cannot be ignored. As an actor, you should also be aware of your physical image you are representing to the audience since your physical embodiment plays a big role on stage. The audiences are always carried by the actors’ facial expression and physical energy they portray on stage. Therefore as an actor, you have to consider these factors while on stage. As per this context, an actor should keep breathing while on stage so that to release the tension.

This relevance is seen with the increasing amount of today’s actors that credit the system with helping them get into character. In addition to this, many theatre schools currently teach a Stanislavski curriculum. This topic was chosen due to the belief that Stanislavski is one of the most prominent figures in theatre and acting, and that his legacy and influence are still seen today. Also, for theatre students, many techniques used in the classroom are those derived from Stanislavski, so it is important to study this man and how this revolutionary system came to be. The system he produced is crucial to any actor of the past, present, or future who desires to perform a character they are proud of

It brings fear into the head and all reasoning dissipates. Fighting for control is a lost cause. Everyone has felt this way in one way or another, not wanting to disappoint, trying to do one's best. It is hard to control but it is possible. Everyone strives to be that ¨relaxed¨ performer on stage, to look as if little effort was put in because it just comes naturally.

For many years, the principle ideas for acting were established by Konstantin Stanislavski, who was a Russian actor and director. Stanislavski’s practical ideas and theories which were called his “system”, were eventually altered by those who succeeded him. When Stanislavski’s former students brought Stanislavski’s system to America, it still hadn’t been fully completed, thus it it suffered alterations in Russia. The alterations made to Stanislavski’s system were contorted by Lee Strasburg into what came to be known as “ the Method”. This altered version of Stanislavski’s system became the standard for acting around the world. Stanislavski’s methods concluded that emotion couldn’t be the foundation of a performance, but rather it was to be the outcome. “The actor must understand

"Nowadays the plays' meaning is usually blurred by the fact that the actor plays to the audiences hearts. The figures portrayed are foisted on the audience and are falsified in the process. Contrary to present custom they ought to be presented quite coldly, classically and objectively. For they are not matter for empathy; they are there to be understood and politely added

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” William Shakespeare may have written these words in As You Like It in 1600, but Erving Goffman truly defined the phrase with his dramaturgical theory. Dramaturgical analysis is the study of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance. Unlike actors though, who use a script telling them how to behave in every scene, real life human interactions change depending upon the social situation they are in. We may have an idea of how we want to be perceived, and may have the foundation to make that happen. But we cannot be sure of every interaction we will have throughout the day, having to ebb and flow with the conversations and situations as they happen.

What is acting, who are people which we can name actors? In fact we are all actors. Every single human being is an actor in his everyday life. Yet acting can be subdivided into two parts depending on a professional basis or daily one.

Method acting is often misinterpreted as an acting exercise where the actor “becomes” the character, and keeps the persona of that character until they have completed their work. This misguided thinking has been promoted by pop culture and even sometimes by actors themselves. The Lee Strasberg Film & Theatre Institute defines the Method as when “actors use their imagination, sense and emotion to conceive characters with unique and original behavior, creating performances grounded in the human truth of the moment.” This definition focuses more on the relationship between the actor and their character, rather than both being one and the same. Method acting is not a new idea. It is thought to have been considered an acting exercise for

While in the front stage the performer is aware that they are acting in front of people and acts appropriately to the given situation. But

The essay investigates how a director should communicate and work with actors during rehearsal and on set to produce engaging performances. The essay investigates different acting styles, the rehearsal process, directing on set and communication between actors and director. The essay assumes the actor has formal training and basic experience. The essay then proves effective communication achievable through the “actor’s vocabulary” is key not to over-direct and building trust with the actor.

Martin Esslin, an established drama director, scholar, and critic, approaches his analysis of drama by drawing on his practical experience as a director of plays. Esslin implicitly assumes that drama is the most elite of the artistic genres when he directly declares the purpose of his book, which is to answer the question "why should those concerned with art resort to drama rather than any other form of communication?" Esslin then immediately poses another question that he seems to take as a prerequisite for the first question: "What is the underlying, basic nature of dramatic form and what is it that drama can express better than any other form of communication?"

Ever since I took drama classes in high school I felt that we always put on an act. A show almost, that we put out for the people we interact with daily. Erving Goffman, “Canadian-American Sociologist” (Encyclopedia In., 2017) also believed this, he compared social interactions to the theater, where individuals take a particular role. According to Goffman this “theatrical metaphor consists of a stage, actors, and an audience” (Crossman, 2014). It also consists of the onstage, backstage and offstage. These three stages show different behavior on a person.