Discovering Autaud

Discovering Autaud

Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, otherwise known to us as Antonin Artaud or plainly just "Autaud"  was born 4th September 1896 and then died 4th March 1948 , he was an established French playwrighter, actor, theatre director and a poet. "Antonin is a diminutive form of Antoine (little Anthony)," this was one of his list of names which Artaud used throughout his writing career.

Autaud actually suffered from meningitis which plagued him throughout his early career. This unfortunately gave him nervousness, a terrible temper which I believe he used for his work, in particular "The theatre of cruelty" which he probably challenged himself with. He also struggled with sleepwalking. 




This extract below gives in big detail very much of his work he did . "Artaud’s influence on theory and practice in the arts is substantial. As a playwright, director actor, film scenarist, poet, artist and critic he challenged existing modes of working and thinking in ways that are still generating considerable interest and debate. His iconoclastic work, which brings the affective body and its creative potential to the fore, has shaped artistic experiment and new modes of critical thinking and writing and substantial critical studies of Artaud have been written by Derrida, Deleuze and others. Diagnosed as clinically schizophrenic, Artaud’s writings and drawings are also of considerable interest to psychologists and art therapists. The event should bring together research students, theorists and practitioners from fields both within and outside the academy." 

This clearly showed Autaud suffered from a serious mental illness "Schizophrenia" Which probably caused alot of mental pain towards him and struggle.

A page I found on Schizophrenia http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/schizophrenia/Pages/Introduction.aspx

As a schizophrenic, he would have likely suffered from hallucinations and therefore muddled thoughts or those people may have found odd, especially as in this era, Victorians were unaware of Schizophrenia.

Lucy Westerman

"Lucy Westenra is a fictional character in the novel Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker. She is the 19-year-old daughter of a wealthy family. Her father is mentioned in the novel when Mina says he was a sleepwalker and her elderly mother is simply stated as being Mrs. Westenra. Lucy is introduced as Mina Murray's best friend. In the 1931 Universal production, she is called Lucy Weston. In the 1958 Hammer horror production, she is called Lucy Holmwood and is engaged to Jonathan Harker."

In this extract, it explains that Lucy is a 19 year old from a wealthy family, however what this doesn't tell you is that Mina raises Lucy and molly coddles her, hence why she acts so young, also in this extract (and this is very important to be pointed out), is that Mina is Lucy's sister not best friend, Liz Lochhead changed this to change the relationship and dynamics between the two characters, Mina and Lucy. 

There is a big transition within Lucy's character within this play as, she starts innocent with sexual desires and when her sexual desires are fulfilled she then almost becomes evil, this is symbolic of how evil victorians thought sexuality was and a huge representation of this can be seen within Dracula.

In this extract it does also say that Auther Seward is Lucy's fiancee, however his true feelings about her are questionable I feel, seeing as at the beginning of the play he says she is "Attention seeking" and refers to her as a "Little miss"- again referring to how young she acts, even though she is an adult legally.

I believe that the display of affection of just a show. Because he refers to his age at the beginning saying in his "20s" he wanted to settle down then "25", and "Now I'm in my thirties", this shows his desperation to get married rather than his care of who it is actually with.

In this extract also from Wikipedia it does say that Jonathan Harker is Lucy's fiancee however this is changed in this play to him being Mina's.

Transitions

Today in lessons we worked on more transitions, this time on moving from a semi circle into different motions on stage, the first transition is when we are in a semi circle and then Sav, Sophia and I, (Mena, Florrie and Lucy) move into a picture when given the cue by Jonathan to move into freeze frame, we then keep the same gestures and facial expressions just like we were in a picture that Dracula was looking at, Dracula then walks round, obviously taking a shine to my character, Lucy, you can see this by the amount of attention he gives her, touching, stroking and gently nibbling on her neck, this is showing sexual desire, something of which will become clearer later in the play.

Another Transition is when we are again back to our semi circle and then Dracula says "Listen, listen to the children of the night", in which were then surround her, making wolf noises and acting as wolves, again giving the scene more atmosphere. At this point Jonathan is clearly getting increasingly nervous, you can tell by the facial expressions in which he uses. We then are given numbers and put into groups and number 3s which is what I am are to repeat the third word spoken by Dracula loudly, obviously symbolising we are her followers.




Then to the last transition we created today, being when Dracula mentions "Books" In which we get up and build another character, in a busy atmosphere walking around the busy streets of "London Crowds" page 26

I am a woman, who is very privileged possibly from a very wealthy background who walks around very snobbish, but hurried.

Symbolism in the play

I thought it would be a great idea to use the colour red throughout the play to symbolise blood, as seen in the Shining,1980

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RigIpVXm2xA

Another idea is to play on sexuality, sexuality in the Victorian era was something of a taboo and something that is very interesting to play with in this play.

Sexuality Symbolisms:

Woman in this era were portrayed as classy, proper and sophisticated and exclude sexual tendancies or desires, but it is the underlying human nature and yet it is forbidden in this era? but this forbidden lust is what drives Lucy to continuously allow Dracula to feed off, which then brings on more symbolisms of sadism and masochism, someone of which derives pleasure from either inflicting or receiving pain off another individual.

First Ever Run Through

Today was our first ever run through, I believe it went well considering and we got through a fair amount of work, I was given the character of Lucy, an innocent young girl who lives with her elder sister Mena, Lucy has obviously been molycoddled her through the entirety of her life and it shows, she is 19 years old and still skipping about singing rhymes like "Who shall I marry, Tom, Dick or Harry?" Something you would see a 6 year old do, not an nineteen year old.

Andy had an idea that throughout the perfomances, that everybody was to stay on stage whether they were speaking or not, which actually worked out very well, he used the people who aren't saying anything to act as the people of Bedlam who are meant to act 1930's idea of insane, this gives off such a great atmosphere for each scene, and you can see the interaction between every character on stage as whenever Lucy or Mena, in the first scene, says something, the bedlam people will interact with an evil laughter especially if it were an innuendo. There is clearly a lot of symbolism  going on through the play.

Younis then came up with the idea of using mirror image, we used the future Lucy as someone in which I am to look at as if she were my mirror image. We went over which arms to use and in the beginning it was very difficult but we got there in the end. The scene on a whole was looking miles better, Lucy's imitation of me was great and made for a better performance.

Dracula 1931

Today we watched the original Dracula, I had high hopes for this film as it got such positive reviews, for a 7.7 on IMBD yet such a low budget of  $355,000, the running time for the film was a short 85 minutes, however it suceeded in everything I felt it was supposed to, it was ridden with suspense and horror and for a film made in 1931 I thought it was excellent.
While watching the film I noticed several things, it was very clear that the movie was filmed within the transition of silent movies to sound, as people still used exaggerated gestures, I understand the actors were still only beginning to understand stanislavski's methods, of which they were only learning at this time, you can see this as personal I believe their naturalistic acting was awful.

The portrayal of Dracula was dark and well thought through, Bela Lugosi plays the terrifying Count Dracula in this film and does a good one at that, he shows sexuality and slyness all too well. However, while I've said this will was excellent, I mean this only in 1930's standards, as a girl brought up in the 21st century, I must admit it was very difficult not to laugh at certain points, what with the acting and all, as what to me seemed terrible would otherwise have seemed impeccable in their standards, I understand this seems like such a contradictory statement, seeing how I have just praised the acting beforehand, but I only believe it was excellent acting for their time.

When Dracula is at a train station and attacks an innocent young woman who passes by, you would expect more fear... obviously she used facial expressions well (At this time they were used to exaggerate their facial features for silent pictures) but when it came to using her voice, it was the most laughable acting I have ever seen, she did a quick squeak and then it is assumed she was dead.

Again perhaps this is by being brought up in a different era that I think this, but I thought the ending was absolutely abysmal, Van Helsing impales Dracula and then Harker and then leaves off with Mena, leading to the most unrealistic film ending I have ever seen, which again most of the class I was watching the film with burst into laughter over aswell.

In conclusion I wouldn't say this film was terrible, as I said the acting was excellent for the 1930s especially when they were going through such a transition, however by 21st century standards and in personal opinion I definitely think there could be improvements, which disheartens me to say as this film is such a classic and it pains me to be so negative about it.