Project Proposal

The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui – Project Proposal

A review of your progress and achievement to date.

Doing a Brechtian play is very new and different compared to the other plays I’ve done before in the past. I’m really excited to do it, though, because I’m good at speaking out to the audience-(which is Brechtian). I think the thing that I’m going to struggle with most though is making all of my gests really big and over exaggerated, because I’m not used to being so big and over-the-top so it’s going to feel really unnatural for me to be like that. However, I think it’s a great opportunity for me to act in this style, because where it’s out of my comfort zone completely, it’s building my confidence to try new things.   Or, what could possibly happen as a threat is that I’ll make the movement my main priority on stage and forget about the audience and the story.

A proposal for your production and performance roles within the play.

For this show I'm really interested in playing the Woman in scene nine, even though you don’t know much about her at all, I just think that she’s a great representation of people in war-zones today. I feel that by playing this character it would push me to my limit and beyond- like Artaud’s technique “pushing yourself to the edge”.  I also really like Butcher. I like him because he's sneaky and clever, I like how he always has a plan. At the end of scene one he gathers all of the Cauliflower Trust people together and tells them his plan to convince Dogsborough to get involved in the Dockland Scheme.  In scene two he's also bit of a creep while he's convincing Dogsborough to take the offer.  Which I think would be quite a funny scene if it's done properly.

A rationale that explains why these roles are the most appropriate for you and support the production as a whole.

I think I'd play a good Woman, because I enjoy being "pushed over the edge" on an emotional level and just being able to have no limits. I get a kick out of the audience being shocked and not knowing how to react because that's how they should feel when watching a scene like scene nine because we all forget that things like that are still happening today and we just dismiss it from our brains, but when we're reminded about it, it leaves us feeling cold and shocked. The idea I had for this scene is to be laid on the floor, covered in blood, attempting to get up but not being able too, so crawling around, dragging her legs behind her crying and screaming for help. Butcher, I think would suit me because I can be charming and convincing when I want to be, and I feel like I could really get the side out in Butcher. I also know gests that would suit his personality. As we are doing a Brechtian play, we want to respect his idea of how theatre should be done, so here are some of our ideas of how we can do that; - We want there to be plenty of dancing and music-(we made sure that we only used 1930s music, so it was more real) play during in the show, - We all want to be on stage for the whole show, - We've all been given 2-3+ characters to play in the show, - We want the hall that we're performing in to be done up in a Cabaret style/ decorated like a Speackeasie, - We're thinking about using VIP tables for some members of the audience to sit at for the show, - We want some VIP tables to sit at ourselves so we'll be sat with the audience. -We using signs so the audience know where we are in the scene -Also we want to use some historic videos We can also use some of Le Coq's techniques like, Complicity, Mime for transitions possibly?

Your brief interpretation of the play and a proposed staging.

My interpretation for the show is that Ui is trying to come into power within the Cauliflower Trust to try and gain publicity in the papers so that people will start showing him "respect", but what ends up happening is that vegetable dealers are just too scared to fight against him because they don't want to die so they just do as he says. So Ui never gets actual "respect" he just gets people too scared to speak up. What we want to convey in the show is to not underestimate what people are capable of doing. This play is a great way to do this with because it's based off Hitler, who everyone has heard of, and we're using his story if how he came to power. This can also be a reminder to the audience that there are still dictators like him today, such as Vladimir Putin. For the staging I thought we could use the main stage and maybe use some of the rustre, so we have more room to move about. We could also use the floor too, so we can get closer to the audience and maybe make them feel quite uncomfortable as well?

How you will evaluate and review your progress in the project.

I'll evaluate my progress by taking notes in class, filming the work I do and also taking pictures to show how I'm improving and to show me how I can improve for the next lesson.