Sunday, 28 September 2014
this is the 100 words on stanislavski's emotional memory exercise.
Affective memory was an element of Stanislavski's techniques and a part of Method Acting. Affective memory requires actors to recall on the memory of details from a similar situation they themselves were in to those of their characters. Stanislavski believed actors needed to take emotion and personality on the stage and use it when playing their character. He also explored the use of objectives like actioning, and empathizing with the character. Emotional recall is the basis for Lee Strasberg's Method acting. Sense memory is used to refer to the recall of sensations to do with emotional events. It is otherwise known as emotional memory, it is often used by making the actors completely relaxed so that they can remember the memory better.
reviews on Gotcha production at the riverside theatre
here I found three reviews on the Gotcha production at the riverside theatre. The majority is positive comments on how well the scene was put together and how well everything was put together so smootly and so well.
Comment by Dominic Cavendish:
Like the best comedy, intense, tightly focused plays thrive in intense, tightly focused rooms. Take, for starters, Poppy Burton-Morgan’s superb revival of Gotcha by Barrie Keeffe, which seems almost to have found its natural home at Riverside Studio 3.
This powerful showdown involving an alienated comprehensive school pupil and three of the teaching staff looks, sadly, as relevant today as it must have done when it premiered in 1976.
One of the chief gripes of the unnamed “Kid” is that the damning school-leaver reports that will likely consign him to joblessness are based on the most cursory knowledge of who is he. Now at last, thanks to a hostage situation engineered by means of chain-smoked cigarettes held above a motorbike petrol tank, he can force his elders to face him – and face up to their failings.
Keeffe may rely on soap-ish ingredients to bring matters to a head, but the all-or-nothing recklessness of the boy’s actions underline how, for him, the stakes are incredibly high.
With the audience as good as locked in too, you feel his predicament and miss none of the subtle, tense detail in newcomer Jake Roche’s performance. Eyes narrowing with contempt, sly smiles twitching on his face, as he tilts between assumed arrogance and ill-disguised vulnerability, your sympathies shift, minutely, too.
Comment by Tobias Chapple:
Usually hostage situations involve helicopters flying overhead, a barely controlled and heavily armed maniac and something ticking, possibly linked to some C4 or at least a nuclear warhead. Here we have a scared school kid holding a couple of threadbare comprehensive teachers hostage by threatening to drop a cigarette into a motorbike's tiny petrol tank. Oh Hollywood, how far you've come!
To an extent, it's unfair to take Gotcha to task because the hostage situation is implausible. The practicalities of the situation (it's actually quite difficult to set gasoline on fire with a lit cigarette and even if does burn, it's only a surface fire) are distracting but should be put to one side.
It's fine that this is not an attempt at realism, more about making a more symbolic point and allowing for a situation within which certain tensions can develop.
Nor is it too much of an issue that the somewhat ridiculous hostage situation is played straight. This is not a humourless play but one that is not self-aware enough to see the overarching humour in the situation. A missed opportunity, but not grounds for failure.
What is problematic is that Gotcha is deeply indecisive, veering between shallow character study and underexploited socio-political theatre.
The core drama is around the 16 year-old turned criminal but there is never enough detail or engagement - the character is continually anonymous - for this to be successfully character driven.
The other side is the compelling issue that a 16 year-old can feel that he has no future and might be right. Yet this is skirted around throughout the performance, with some mercilessly padded scenes. It only really comes to a head at the end in a brilliant moment that comes too late, where the headmaster promises the kid that he can be both a brain surgeon and a striker if he just sets his mind to it.
Partly because of this hesitance, there is very little real tension. The hostage situation is not only tired but, despite some textbook attempts to force tension, a bit dull. At several points the hostages' only input is to bleat "why are you doing this?" and there is barely any sense of actual danger.
That the characters are not fully fleshed out does not help. One small point shows this well: in the opening scene two teachers are breaking up and the younger woman, distraught, asks if he knows what it's like "when you love so one so badly you could tear out your innards for them." Then towards the end of the play the schoolboy asks why she went out with the other male teacher, since shown to be an immature bully. She replies that it gets lonely sometimes, directly contradicting her previous emotional outburst.
It's a small slip up, irrelevant to the central action, but it's also sloppy and shows that the relationship dynamics have not been properly thought out.
Despite all this there is a rugged charm through the seams. The boyish atmosphere of a typical comprehensive is well captured, nicknames, bullying and all, giving a certain authenticity to the night. The main character and force of the play, Jake Roche, is particularly good, humane and warm while clearly vulnerable. There are also some good lines and jokes, nothing too stunning, but enough to keep the ball rolling.
There's a wasted opportunity here for looking at the contradictions underlining meritocracy. It's not just that none of the characters are compelling, or that the performance could easily be cut by a third, it's that Gotcha is ultimately vague while trying to be sharp.
Comment by Dominic Cavendish:
Like the best comedy, intense, tightly focused plays thrive in intense, tightly focused rooms. Take, for starters, Poppy Burton-Morgan’s superb revival of Gotcha by Barrie Keeffe, which seems almost to have found its natural home at Riverside Studio 3.
This powerful showdown involving an alienated comprehensive school pupil and three of the teaching staff looks, sadly, as relevant today as it must have done when it premiered in 1976.
One of the chief gripes of the unnamed “Kid” is that the damning school-leaver reports that will likely consign him to joblessness are based on the most cursory knowledge of who is he. Now at last, thanks to a hostage situation engineered by means of chain-smoked cigarettes held above a motorbike petrol tank, he can force his elders to face him – and face up to their failings.
Keeffe may rely on soap-ish ingredients to bring matters to a head, but the all-or-nothing recklessness of the boy’s actions underline how, for him, the stakes are incredibly high.
With the audience as good as locked in too, you feel his predicament and miss none of the subtle, tense detail in newcomer Jake Roche’s performance. Eyes narrowing with contempt, sly smiles twitching on his face, as he tilts between assumed arrogance and ill-disguised vulnerability, your sympathies shift, minutely, too.
Comment by Tobias Chapple:
Usually hostage situations involve helicopters flying overhead, a barely controlled and heavily armed maniac and something ticking, possibly linked to some C4 or at least a nuclear warhead. Here we have a scared school kid holding a couple of threadbare comprehensive teachers hostage by threatening to drop a cigarette into a motorbike's tiny petrol tank. Oh Hollywood, how far you've come!
To an extent, it's unfair to take Gotcha to task because the hostage situation is implausible. The practicalities of the situation (it's actually quite difficult to set gasoline on fire with a lit cigarette and even if does burn, it's only a surface fire) are distracting but should be put to one side.
It's fine that this is not an attempt at realism, more about making a more symbolic point and allowing for a situation within which certain tensions can develop.
Nor is it too much of an issue that the somewhat ridiculous hostage situation is played straight. This is not a humourless play but one that is not self-aware enough to see the overarching humour in the situation. A missed opportunity, but not grounds for failure.
What is problematic is that Gotcha is deeply indecisive, veering between shallow character study and underexploited socio-political theatre.
The core drama is around the 16 year-old turned criminal but there is never enough detail or engagement - the character is continually anonymous - for this to be successfully character driven.
The other side is the compelling issue that a 16 year-old can feel that he has no future and might be right. Yet this is skirted around throughout the performance, with some mercilessly padded scenes. It only really comes to a head at the end in a brilliant moment that comes too late, where the headmaster promises the kid that he can be both a brain surgeon and a striker if he just sets his mind to it.
Partly because of this hesitance, there is very little real tension. The hostage situation is not only tired but, despite some textbook attempts to force tension, a bit dull. At several points the hostages' only input is to bleat "why are you doing this?" and there is barely any sense of actual danger.
That the characters are not fully fleshed out does not help. One small point shows this well: in the opening scene two teachers are breaking up and the younger woman, distraught, asks if he knows what it's like "when you love so one so badly you could tear out your innards for them." Then towards the end of the play the schoolboy asks why she went out with the other male teacher, since shown to be an immature bully. She replies that it gets lonely sometimes, directly contradicting her previous emotional outburst.
It's a small slip up, irrelevant to the central action, but it's also sloppy and shows that the relationship dynamics have not been properly thought out.
Despite all this there is a rugged charm through the seams. The boyish atmosphere of a typical comprehensive is well captured, nicknames, bullying and all, giving a certain authenticity to the night. The main character and force of the play, Jake Roche, is particularly good, humane and warm while clearly vulnerable. There are also some good lines and jokes, nothing too stunning, but enough to keep the ball rolling.
There's a wasted opportunity here for looking at the contradictions underlining meritocracy. It's not just that none of the characters are compelling, or that the performance could easily be cut by a third, it's that Gotcha is ultimately vague while trying to be sharp.
Comment by Stuart Pringle;
As London
has recently experienced its most vociferous teenage riots in living memory,
with students from all backgrounds occupying banks, offices and educational
establishments, it is thrilling to watch Barrie Keeffe’s
fierce drama of an earlier occupation.
Gotcha depicts a protest movement of
one, of a solitary figure exhausted by his own anonymity within a system which
denies him the opportunity of advancement or development. Though the specifics
of the anonymous protagonist’s plight may have changed, the impotent rage which
Keeffe's protagonist transforms into violent rebellion continues to smoulder.
When Jake Roche’s
disenfranchised Kid catches two of his teachers in a compromising position, he
uses a combination of cunning and cruel violence to force them into an
understanding of his plight. Poppy Burton-Morgan directs a taut production, which refuses
to shirk from the multiple moral dilemmas raised by the Kid’s actions. Already
holding an established reputation for excellent work on more impressionistic
productions of Lorca, Pirandello and earlier European drama, it is exciting to
see Burton-Morgan tackle a modern naturalistic play with such detail and skill.
Similar acclaim goes to Olivia
Altaras for her effective set design, appropriately claustrophobic
and impressively redolent of sickly school stockrooms. Finally, and most
significantly, Roche’s stage debut reveals him as a considerable talent. Enthralling, occasionally
hilarious and always moving: his performance alone would be reason to book
enough to book a ticket.
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