Berkoff - East

The first scripted piece that we attempted for Berkoff was East performed for the first time in 1975. It deals with growing up and the rites of passage in London's East End, meaning that it is full of cockney colloquialisms which made the first read-through of the section of the piece we were looking at (the very beginning of the play) very hard to understand. Berkoff grew up in the East End which means that he would have seen men act with bravado and confidence, traits which Mike and Les (two of the characters in East) present in the section that we looked at.

As we progressed through the creation process we added cockney accents which made the language easier to understand, but I think that this play is better suited to those who live in London or have the same background experience as Berkoff so that they have some understanding of the piece. The language appears to be Shakespeare mixed with cockney, allowing for great images to come through from the words that are done in a modern interpretation. This language alongside the premise of the play may be trying to show to the upper-class people - those who stereotypically come to the theatre - that those in the lower-classes are intelligent despite what many upper-class people may think. Even if people can't understand the colloquialisms, the movements that are done help tell the story which is what myself and Maya tried to achieve in the section we took from this first section.

In the section that we chose to perform in the Berkoff style, the characters Mike and Les describe how they met whereby Les tried to take Mike's fiance (Sylv) which resulted in them getting into a fight - Mike ends up with a smashed in head and Les has knife wounds all on his face inflicted by one another. This results in the two becoming best friends. We did the main fight sequence in the middle of the section where Les gets stabbed in the face, allowing for bigger facial masks and more moments of definition. It was difficult to remember lines when mixed with a cockney accent but this was made easier when we added actions.

The video below is our first attempt at East. 

The first section from "Use your iron" to "Shithead" demonstrates the violence that the people around the fight (the "five and fifty chinas") expect from Mike and Les. As the violence is outwards, it links to the first Berkoff lesson where we stood quite far apart. This allows for greater exaggeration and also breaks the fourth wall, making the audience feel more involved in the piece. During this section, we also attempted to define the moves more by having a break between them. I think that we could have done this for a bit longer to make the violence a bit more defined but the fast-paced movement still contrasted with the slower movement in the following section. The change of pace keeps the audience interested - the change of pace would be easier to do in the whole scene, not just in this section.

I stand on the chair at the line "Anoint the cunt with death" which sticks with Total Theatre by using everything on stage and also gives more focus to this line. Moreover, it allows for level variation. This next section has a slower pace compared with the previous section and the following section which gives the piece more definition. When Maya begins to talk about Sylv, I move my hands at the same time as she does. This is because both characters are attracted to Sylv so both would potentially react to what she said. At the line "raziory" we make a noise to signify Mike drawing the knife from his pocket. This draws more attention to the 'knife' - we didn't use a prop for the knife as Mike and Les are acting out how they met to the audience so most likely wouldn't have a knife on them - and uses total theatre due to the sound effect which makes Mike's motivation very clear to the audience.

We then move onto the next fast-paced section at "danced about his face like fireflies". In rehearsal, I initially jumped off the chair to the same side that I had been on previously. This meant that we weren't using total theatre as we weren't using the whole of the stage. By jumping to the opposite side, I used more of the stage, showing more total theatre. The quick movement here, although defined in pace, was not defined in movement which we would have to solve for the next performance of the piece. Moreover, the small part where we walk back towards the chair could have been improved upon as it seems boring by simply walking when we could explain the words more.

We utilised the chair more in the following section which was again more fast-paced than the walking in the previous section and showing total theatre by using all the props. We used it to stop the 'blood' from splattering against us, however, we could have used more sound effects to demonstrate this even more instead of just using the chair. The lifting of the chair also serves a pragmatic purpose as it allows for the soft thud in the next line.

I used a large facial mask in the piece when Maya 'stabs' me with a knife. Again, we did the violence not close together which allowed for greater exaggeration of my face. The exaggeration of this section is also evident when Maya became the flap of skin on my cheek - this again used total theatre as we used all the actors and props on stage.

In my section of the speech, I felt that we only did limited movement compared with what we did in Maya's section of the speech. Although defining between non-movement and movement parts, I felt that I could have done greater exaggeration at this point in the piece. Moreover, at "kissed death flush on the lips" I felt the movement that I did was too fluid and seemed less Berkovian than the other movements we had been doing previously.

Although the cockney accents were good, we needed more definition on certain words. Sometimes the words were mumbled as cockney accents (certainly for myself) made it hard to speak leading o incorrect pronunciation. Despite this, we still embodied the stereotype of 'hard' cockney men.

We performed the piece in class with some improvements made:

The first section that we changed was "danced about his face like fireflies". Instead of Maya saying this by herself, we changed it so that both of us said it, drawing attention to the fast-paced movements both of us were doing. This is directly juxtaposed by the slow movement of the word "fireflies" - we did this because fireflies are meant to be pretty so it felt wrong to be doing something violent in that section. We also tried to define our movements more in this section by having three quick moves however, they weren't as defined as I would have liked them to be so in the future we would have to make it abundantly clear where one moves ends and another begins. We could have potentially done this by leaving a small gap between each of the words, however, this could have slowed the pace down making the juxtaposition less so.

We also changed the part where Maya says "Little yellow gaslight" where previously we walked backwards, we now put in movement. There was no reason for the movement that we did but it did put us in a good position to move the chair in the following sequence. We took inspiration from Joel's group at the "soft and hard at once" as it gives Maya something to do in her speech juxtaposing my stillness and then her movement.

Overall, we could have added more sound effects and have bigger movements but we did manage to differentiate between movement and stillness as well as the pacing.