Max Stafford-Clarke Essays

Max Stafford-Clarke Essays Max Stafford-Clarke Paper Max Stafford-Clarke Paper Stafford-Clark researches every play he does and expects his company to do the same, the company are expected to read around the subject of the play not Just through books, but wrought interviewing relevant people. Stafford-Clacks style of work is verbatim theatre, a type of documentary theatre. People are interviewed and their stories told in a verbatim way. Multimode is also used so that actors can play multiple characters. The Permanent Way* is an example of his work, based around the prevarication of Britains railways. He investigated people related to the situation so that the play could be true to the actual cause. Much of Stafford-Clacks work centers on political issues and events from which he can study. A workshop isnt exactly rehearsal, nor Is t Journalistic investigation, nor is it academic research and yet It contains elements of all three of these. - Max Stafford-Clark There are many rehearsal techniques that Stafford-Clark uses In his work, his most famous Is the use of playing cards to work out the dynamics of a scene and to develop a character. They are most commonly used to work out status and Intensity, for scenes that were not quite working in rehearsals Stafford-Clacks card technique was used to allow the actor to consider other angles of performance. Improvisation Is also used In Stafford-Clacks rehearsal take, for example actors would have to Improvise around an Important theme In the play to Improve the understanding of the actors to the situation they are trying to act and therefore help them get Into their roles. With Max Stafford-Clark as practitioner in mind we picked to perform Time Pieces as we believed that we could apply Stafford-Clacks method of research and rehearsal techniques to this play. Time Pieces has a mall theme of womens rights, as with Stafford-Clacks work this Is a political problem that can be research and delivered In a documentary style with use of multimode. We can also research real women of the time to understand how society was for them and therefore develop our performances around our research. As there are many characters In Time Pieces we can use Stafford-Clacks rehearsal techniques of using playing cards and Improvisation to understand our roles and apply status and Intensity to certain scenes that could be played with some Interpretation from the actor. As the play Is based solely on women status Is not always clear we can therefore use playing cards to experiment with status and trial different ways of performing certain scenes.