I was looking for a different way of presenting a play that is
repeated every year on campus. I spent last semester in London
where I was very involved with workshop productions. This gave
me the idea for a performance that would involve the entire class.
Bertold Brecht was the German playwrite who was the first to use the
Lehrstuck approach. It focuses more on the importance of the actor
truly understanding and portraying a character as opposed to the
accuracy of the dialogue. It places more emphasis on “emotional
capacity” versus “saying lines.” This creates an unfinished product.
The actors alternate between being part of the cast and being part of
the audience, thus blurring the lines between the audience and the cast.
The repetition of scenes added depth to the characters. I chose to repeat
the scenes where there was a face off between characters, and when repeated,
we flipped the character that the two actors were playing. Every actor has
their own style and puts a little bit of themselves into each character.
Having two different people play the same character allows the audience to
consider the complexity of each character. It also makes it more difficult
for the audience to see the characters and their situation as black vs. white
or bad vs. good. Cutting scenes and rearranging them added to the ambiguity
of the play, forcing the audience to “think outside of the box.”
This class is about the complexity of human nature. This play touches on
many of the topics we discuss in class such as natural vs. civil law, selfishness
vs. revenge, pride vs. humility and who decides what is right and wrong. It is
an outstanding class that is impossible to capture in an interview. You will just
have to work hard so you can be in the class four years from now!