BTEC Drama

Today we were introduced to trestle masks. We began first by exploring physicality in character and also movement on stage. We looked at this idea of a balancing act, imagining that the stage was held steady by a single point in the centre. This then forced us to be aware of other people’s movements on stage, making sure that our movements were equal and opposite of our partners. So for example, if one person stood at the front left corner of the stage, the other would have to be stood at the back right. We then began to explore different scenarios whilst creating this balancing act. We looked at an instance where two people were trying to reach an object in the centre of the stage whilst simultaneously preventing the other person from reaching it, using the rule of balance that we had created. When watching this scenario we were able to observe some of the interesting moments that were created, most of which came from the distance of the characters on stage. This showed the ...

Commedia dell’Arte was performed first during the 16 th century, and would often be staged in open air theatres or public meeting halls. Entrances- The commedia stage would be simple and have three entrances. Most characters would entire by the two entrances either side of the stage. The central entrance would be covered by the folds of a curtain or painted set and would only be used by important characters such as el Capitano. Each character would make a show of appearing in the entrance in order to give the audience a chance to view the mask before the movement and story continued. The curtain- In commedia, the actors often used the curtain to suggest another world behind the stage. This would be used to allow characters to travel distances or use sound to suggest things occurring behind the scenes in order to link up events. It was also a practical place for characters to put on their masks away from the view of the audience in order not to break the illusion of...

Commedia is a form of mask theatre which uses “stock characters” in order to create improvised work. There are eight or so basic characters that all theatre troops would use, and these characters have set names, personalities and tricks which make them accessible for improvisation. There are three tiers in the commedia world hierarchy, to which all of the characters belong and derive their status from. Each character also possess “gimmies” which act as the characters basic desires and can be goals for them within a piece. These are some of the character profiles for commedia. Zanni- Class- Zanni belongs to the servant class which is also known as the “Zanni” class. Mask- long hooked nose, half mask to allow speech. In the commedia world, the length of a characters nose relates to their mental capabilities. Zanni’s nose is the longest, and he is often considered the least intelligent of the commedia characters. Personality- he is amiable, subservient and slow-witted. ...