Peter Brook Online Teaching Resource
Lesson 1: Ensemble and Ritual
Lesson summary
Building an ensemble is central to Peter Brook’s work, as it is to devising any piece of theatre. Central to his ensemble is the idea of intuition
between players as they share the ‘telling of the story.’ The ‘group’ and its story is also an essential part of everyday and unusual rituals. This
lesson will introduce techniques to build your class into an acting ensemble and explore the creation of rituals, giving students an
understanding of how they can be part of performances as well as everyday life.
Objectives
Through this lesson students will:
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Understand the idea of the ensemble.
Acquire tools to work together on practical exercises.
Identify the use of ritual in creating ensembles and communities.
Share the task of generating and telling a story.
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Introduction to the object/objects
We will use and respond to two objects in this lesson:
Object 1: Iron Age Pot
This was discovered in Salisbury and is from the 4th – 3rd Century BC. It is made by hand,
without a pottery wheel. Possibly used for cooking or drinking.
There is little information on this object so it will be used in large part for its material and
visual inspiration.
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Object 2: Bellarmine Jar
This object is from the 16th-17th century, and was found in Brentford. Wines and beers
were drawn from barrels and put into bottles such as these. This type of bottle
incorporated a stamped image of a bearded face mask, which in the seventeenth
century was given the popular name “bellarmine”, after the Catholic Inquisitor and one
of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine
(1542-1621). Bellarmine served as one of the judges at the trial of Giordano Bruno (an
Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet and astrologer), and agreed in
the decision which condemned Bruno to be burned at the stake as a heretic. Bruno’s
case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thought and the emerging
sciences.
The reason for his association with this type of jug is not entirely clear, but was possibly
introduced by Dutch and English Protestants to ridicule the Cardinal and his anti-alcohol
stance. As a result, it was common for Protestants who disliked him to smash the jugs.
These bottles were also frequently used as "witch bottles." This entailed filling the jug
with certain articles, sealing it and burying it in order to deflect a witch's curse. Many of
these witch bottles have been discovered buried under ground.
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Description of activities
Activity
Finding a definition: 5 minutes
Context
Ask students to give the definition of an ‘ensemble’ if they know it.
Then ask them to describe what they think being part of an ensemble
is like.
Students should strive for an internal understanding of being part of
an ensemble, sensing what it feels like rather than merely what it
looks like or means. A quick discussion on this may create a greater
receptiveness to what being part of an ensemble actually is.
Building a peripheral vision: 10 minutes
Students should choose one person in the group who they can see
the whole time, but shouldn’t let it be known. The whole group walk
around the space each maintaining an awareness of where their
chosen person is. To this, add a second person. Again walk around
the space aware of where your two people are the whole time. Add
a third, repeat. Repeat with a fourth and then a fifth. To test they
have kept peripheral focus of where their selected class mates are,
ask the group to freeze and shut their eyes. Choose someone to point
to their five classmates.
Seeking complicity: 10 minutes
Having soft focus and peripheral vision will help students know
where the rest of the ensemble is, alerting them to how aware they
should be when rehearsing and performing. Having a sense of
where everyone is means students can react to one another more
intuitively.
Have the students walk around the space. They should come to a
stop together and then start walking again together. This should be
done without speaking and without signal. Add a ‘jump’- they need
to jump at the same time, again without external signal. Then add a
‘crouch’. Once there is a certain level of complicity with when they
move and stop, tell the group they can alter the tempos.
From complicity to ritual: 15 minutes
This allows students to both take a lead- if they choose to stop for
example- in the knowledge that the ensemble will share it; and vice
versa it requires the ensemble to actively listen with their bodies,
and respond to what another person does. This encourages an
ensemble to communicate through what they do rather than what
they say.
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Introduce object 1, the iron age pot – don’t give any details- and have
the students all look at it. Place it, or a representation of it, in the
centre of the room with the students surrounding it, and tell them
they are to create a ritual surrounding this object. This requires one
student to start by making an action in response to the object- this
could be kneeling to it or making some kind of action/gesture around
it, anything that the texture, shape or quality of the pot inspires. As
in the previous exercise the rest of the ensemble will immediately
repeat as soon as they pick up what the gesture is. Then another
gesture is added by another student, again all repeat. After a few
gestures have been made repeat each one as if they make up a group
ritual.
Add rhythm to it- either the teacher or a student can drum or clap a
rhythm that dictates the tempo of the ritual. Experiment with
different tempos. Once the ritual is embodied sound can be added- in
the same way as the gestures- one student can contribute a sound to
one of the movements and everyone else will repeat.
Responding to and sharing the story: 15 minutes
Not only does this expand on and nurture complicity amongst the
group but the creation of a ritual offers an insight into the ‘sense’ or
experience of an ensemble/community. Brook looked to ritual to
understand the idea of the ‘invisible made visible’, and for the story
it tells about a group or event or object. This ‘ritual making’ exercise
should also have the effect of endowing objects with meaning- the
idea that an object has a meaning beyond its literal appearance is
central to much theatre and to museums. Finally the students
should strive to get to a place of instinct where they make an action
or sound if they have an instinct to do so.
Show the whole group object 2, the Bellarmine Jar. Have them study
it- what it looks like, its texture and details. Divide the group into
three smaller groups. One group is told no information about the jar.
One group is given the story of the bearded man on the jar. The final
group is told about its use as a witch bottle. Each group is then
instructed to create a ritual around/in response to the object, made
up of gestures and sound. The rituals should be shared with the
whole group, the observers work out what stories are beneath the
ritual they have seen. After this the groups can share the
‘information’ they had.
Telling a story as a group: 10 minutes
This builds on the idea that there’s a ‘story’ underneath the ritual. It
also continues to encourage instincts that are physical and verbal
and that will find meaning in their execution and performance
rather than in contextualising them psychologically.
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Either every ritual can be used or just one selected from the three
above. As the ‘story’ of the ritual is now known by everyone all can
participate in the telling of it. The students should stand in a semicircle or circle and one person starts telling the story of the ritual
with the first sentence. As the sentence is spoken people jump into
the middle and perform, in silence but with movement, the part of
the story being told. Once the sentence is finished, and the actions
performed, those who jumped into the middle return to the circle;
the next part of the story is told and again students spontaneously
jump into the middle of the circle and act the moment out. The story
should conclude with the whole group playing out the ritual.
Extension activities:
This combines both the work on responding to instincts with the
need to hear and sense the rest of the ensemble. Brook’s idea that
actors are vehicles for the story rather than individually playing a set
character is also introduced through this exercise.
One of Peter Brook’s actors Yoshi Oida explains “…Brook used the
image of the football to help us understand what he wanted. As if
the play were a game of football, there were twenty-two team
members and one ball, the ball being the story. Since we were all one
the same team, it didn’t matter who played which part, or if you
changed character in the middle”
Ritual could be a starting point for devising a piece of theatre. What rituals are part of the students’ lives? Both in their social groups and in
their families? How might an everyday object be ‘ritualised’? Students could choose such an object and create a gestural and vocal ritual
around the object. What might a ritual around an iPhone look like?
If students have connected to any or all of the rituals you have created this could be the starting point in itself. In later lesson plans we look
at some of Peter Brook’s improvisation techniques- these could be carried out straight after or as a lead up to the ritual, thereby placing it in
a context.
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