We were given a topic area of study of the Salt industry and its relation to Northwich.

Authors Avatar

Written Commentary

We were given a topic area of study of the Salt industry and its relation to Northwich.

A decision was made, based on separate performances presented to the group and the staff of different topic areas that could be used for the local community performance project; these included the legend of the white woman and legends surrounding Beeston Castle. The staff, who thought that the salt industry would be an interesting area of study, made the final decision.

We felt research was vital to the performance as our stimulus has a lot of history, we felt we needed to borrow and retrieve inspiration from other play writes and practitioners and depth of research allows us to communicate with the audience on a variety of levels. We had already studied Artaud, Beckett, Brecht and Berkoff and used ideas of theirs in our drama, such as Beckett’s idea of the exaggeration of character shown through Mr Falk’s character, we ridiculed all of his actions so he became humorous. Berkoff was very much influenced by Artaud so his ideas ran into the ones we already had. Our piece would thus be layered, a complex understanding shown through characterisation, scene and image, we were determined to make available to the audience what we interpreted from the period and stories found from the salt mines.

The industry was researched as well as general research into existing theatre companies and practitioners. The college’s library provided many interesting articles on different aspects of the salt industry and gave many groups an idea of what to base their performance on such as transport and the slave trade. Other research material was found at research archives on the Internet this included information about the time period when the salt industry was at its peak, around the 1800s, and this was where I found the bulk of my research into the theatre companies, DV8 and V-Tol.

We were to devise a piece an integrated performance not only stimulated by this industry but also incorporate clear styles and genres, motif development, characterisation and integration of the art forms. The purpose of the piece was to entertain and also educate the audience about their local heritage.

To begin our investigation into the area as a whole we made our own notes and did our own individual research of the salt industry as a whole and then focused on different areas to base our drama on, each group interpreted these issues in their own way; this meant no two pieces of theatre would be the same as we all have individual ideas and opinions. However when we came together in our groups we discussed our notes, points and ideas and came to a group decision about what we thought of the ideas being raised, we made sure there were no clashes and tried to devise some sort of structure, before beginning to develop thoughts, actions and finally a narrative.

My group and I wanted to devise a piece of drama in the style of many different practitioners along side physical, absurd theatre. This meant a very surrealistic piece with little dialogue that would be used just as a mode of communication. Instead we would use our bodies and physicality to communicate our message to the audience this places emphasis on a variety of language sorts - physical, verbal and visual, like the works of Artaud, Brecht and Berkoff and also the existing theatre companies researched, DV8 and V-Tol. Artaud’s work was very much based on ritual primitivism and releasing the dark forces of the soul and seeing the dark side of human nature. We needed to create a piece exploring all these points showing the class division in the mines, the dehumanisation of the miners and how it almost became a religion to them, like a ritual. We wanted the audience to question whether theatre needs to make moral sense just as Artaud did, we wanted to break the tension at various points to make the audience aware they are watching a piece of theatre like Brecht did. Most importantly we wanted to communicate to the audience their own heritage and past in a way they would find interesting and enjoyable, bringing the audience together to appreciate the history behind their community.

Join now!

My group began by creating a physical motif, influenced by the DV8 theatre company. We watched a performance called “Strange Fish” and saw how they used their bodies to create emotion and physical structures such as a bed, this had an unbelievable, powerful affect on the audience. We created a physical machine using our bodies, highly melodramatic movements and over exaggeration of motifs that was visually fantastic and gave the piece depth through its falsity, it was definitely reminiscent of the works by DV8 and V-Tol and I felt it was an excellent starting point as it captured how ...

This is a preview of the whole essay