VCE Drama

With Term 1 nearly over, Miss Townsend's VCE Drama class has already gotten off to a terrific start. Already having looked at Epic Theatre and Theatre of Cruelty, we’ve now found ourselves caught up in Grotowski’s historically rooted Poor Theatre, as we learn about its history, conventions and Grotowski’s means for creating the technique. 

A few weeks ago, Miss Townsend led us into the theatre, where, of our own accord, we were blindfolded, and taken outside for a walk, before finding our way back into A1, our weekly classroom. Completely blind and unaware of our exact surroundings, we were each handed a balloon to ‘look after’ and told to ‘survive’. If the balloon was popped by one of the two teachers circling the room, then we were out. This 20-minute activity helped us to gain a better understanding of Antonin Artaud’s concept of Theatre of Cruelty, which contains conventions such as assaulting the audiences’ senses and visual poetry to create a play which forced the audience to think about what they saw around them. And what better way to start off a class already in 25-degree heat than to run around for three minutes, then laying in silence for another three minutes? This is exactly what the class did just this past Monday, a shortened and much less intense version of what exactly Jerzy Grotowski expected actors to do before they rehearsed each day, in order to help them reach their true emotional potential. So far, VCE Drama has proven to be a class where you could walk in and either be writing notes for an hour, or biking up Mt Macedon and you’ll never know until you sit, and I think I speak for the entire class when I say I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Jayde Kane Year 11.