The Bold and the Beautiful

Every now and then a skit happens in a Drama class that is just so unbelievably funny, other students are literally falling off their chairs in laughter.

Today a group of Year 9 students performed a simple exercise demonstrating an early understanding of satire as a legitimate form of comedy. Their task was to create a five-minute skit that 'sends up' something. So what did we get? Five minutes of Bold and the Beautiful in an outrageous soapie style!

We had characters with very, very thick American accents, soapie actors (or was it their characters?) who were behaving like 'blondes' without brain cells, deliberately repeated dialogue in the space of only a few minutes, the customary intro theme with frozen stances and caricatured faces, over-exaggerated physicalisation including uncontrolled head and body swaying, not to mention the ridiculous plot line! A more in-depth study of daytime TV soaps may have been just as accurate in performance, but in this case, the soap was a choice made by the students in order to understand satire properly. And boy, did they get the satire spot on, the very first time they had been formally taught the genre/style.

You could of course argue that sending up soaps isn't that difficult. Granted. But successfully demonstrating an understanding of satire in a Drama class the first time, is a fair effort for a group of 14 year olds. If they can produce work like this at the start of Year 9 in a skit that was only meant to be a demonstration exercise, then what sort of quality material will these girls produce in a few years time when they hit senior Drama? I can hardly wait...

My lesson for today....nurture the younger Drama students and care for them every bit as much as you care for the well being and skills of your Year 12 students. Get them loving Drama early. The younger students are your stars of tomorrow. As most of us well know, senior Drama students don't just acquire their skills and passion overnight. These are carefully nurtured during the junior and middle years.

On that note, I recall the biggest casting risk I have ever taken in a school play. One year I cast a very talented (but also very young) Year 7 boy in a principal role in (of all things) Bertolt Brecht's 'The Good Woman of Setzuan'! Tough assignment for a 12 year-old. But as far as play casting goes, it was the best thing I've done in all my years of school plays. The following year, gone was the usual thought of 'oh my God, all my talented students have now left school, so who am I going to cast this year?' to be replaced by 'now I've seen what a Year 7 student can do in a lead role, it's one down and five more years to go'!

Good Night. And, Good Luck.

I recently saw the wonderful film 'Good Night. And, Good Luck' which received rave reviews when it opened in America late last year. It is now nominated for several Oscars including George Clooney (Supporting Actor, Direction) and David Strathairn (Actor in a Leading Role), among others.

For those not familiar with the plot, the film is a docudrama of 1950s events that saw Senator Joseph McCarthy chair the House Un-American Activities Committee, widely regarded as a Crucible-like witch-hunt isolating individuals the government believed had Communist sympathies while living in America. The film follows the battle of CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow and his public stance against McCarthy.

People in the arts were not left unnoticed at this time. Two of the most famous people in 20th century theatre were also called before the House Un-American Activities Committee to explain themsleves. Ironically, these included The Crucible's Arthur Miller and famous German playwright, director and theorist Bertolt Brecht.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, Brecht decided writing plays about an all-powerful Nazi world was not the way his artisitc direction was heading. So he fled Germany and resided in Scandinavia for a few years until settling in Santa Monica, California during the 1940s. It was here that he once again found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Brecht appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in September 1947 with ten other people who worked in the Hollywood film industry as actors, screenwriters and directors. Brecht was the only member of the group who testified (the others chose silence), stating he had no Communist sympathies and certainly was not a Communist living in America. The others became known as the Hollywood Ten and all received brief jail terms, while Brecht left America the very next day.

In 1957 Arthur Miller, who is almost as famous for marrying movie star Marylin Monroe as he is for writing two of the greatest plays of the 20th century in Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, was convicted of Contempt of Congress for not mentioning the names of alleged Communist party writers at the Senate hearing, of whom he had meetings with ten years prior. It took Miller two years of legal wrangling in the courts to clear his name and overturn the conviction.

I find it intriguing that not many people involved in the performing arts seem to know that Brecht and Miller were subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Committee, much less know what the House Un-American Activities Committee actually was! So, there's more to the history of theatre than the Greeks and Shakespeare!

Useful Links:
Brecht's FBI file (care of the Freedom of Information Act) is a fascinating read.
Good Night and Good Luck The film includes original footage of McCarthy and Senate Committee hearings.