Drama/BertoltBrecht/Visual,AuralandSpatialElement

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Visual, Aural and Spatial Elements

Our practical task- was to stage a scene from the play in order to maximise its comic impact, with an awareness of its visual, aural and spatial elements and what these communicated to an audience. Our own group’s part of the play was from the bottom of page 8-half way down page 13. This scene involves The Maniac, The Constable, Bertozzo, Pissani and The Super.  We tried to use as many Fo-esque styles as we could when possible and take into consideration the visual, aural and spatial aspects and how these combine to create comedy.

Our own scene

Visual

When we first started to direct our part of the play as a group we were able to choose costumes to help with its visual impact. The constable had a Police uniform on and also a plastic police hat, it was a little child’s dressing up hat. It was blue plastic with a silver badge on the front of it, I think this worked really well as it came across as very stereotypical to Fo’s opinion on people in authority, so it fitted in quite well. It drew attention to the cowardly, childish nature of the Constable. We decided to have Bertozzo, Pissani and The Super wearing black coloured suits and golden coloured tie. We chose the colour of the tie to be gold because is it a bold colour and also can show wealth and status. This was quite fitting as they all like to think they are in command and of a high status.

The Maniac’s costume was flamboyant and very wacky and colourful. He had a pink feather boa, a crazy hat and a large multi-coloured coat on and bright yellow shopping bags, which are used to store his costumes. All the bright and bold colours were to symbolise his personality. The outfit was all jumbled together which worked really well and it gave a great visual impact. He became a sudden splash of exuberance in a drab, dark, bureaucratic office.

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As well as discussing costumes we also thought about what set we could have had. We wanted quite a minimalistic and realistic set. Dario Fo used to want his audience to know that his plays were in a sense realistic as they discussed real life issues (the ‘V’effect), so we thought we should use this style as it would be appropriate. We as a group chose to have a desk for Bertozzo, like an office desk and I think a coat stand could also have been used. The set would have been enclosed by three walls (box set), like the ...

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