This thesis is an endeavor to accurately document and define my creative process as an actor through the title role in Bertolt Brecht's Baal. My aim is to meet and overcome the challenges that are inherent in creating any role, let alone one with the magnitude and complexity that Baal provides an actor. The following chapters contain a record of the development of my acting process in this production, including research, character analysis, a rehearsal log that provides a daily track of my progress, and an evaluation of my performance and the project.

This thesis studies Peter Shaffer&rsquo / s use of time as a technique for creating alienation effect. In order to provide the audience with a questioning role, Shaffer primarily employs historical and mythical past as elements of pastness in the Brechtian sense. Shaffer also innovatively contributes to the formation of alienation effect with spatial time achieved through the coexistence of past and present. Distancing the audience in time, the playwright leads them to adopt a critical viewpoint so that they can question and reflect upon the psychological and metaphysical themes such as search for worship, existential disintegration and the eternal conflict between reason and instinct in his plays The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Yonadab, and The Gift of the Gorgon.

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar a proposição do hipertexto didático sobre poéticas cênicas contemporâneas como ponto de partida em processos de aprendizagem e de criação do teatro, utilizando como principal aporte metodológico a abordagem da pesquisaação fundamentada por Michel Thiollent. A revisão bibliográfica resultou na elaboração de um hipertexto didático (MARTINS, 2006), a ser publicado na internet, sobre o Teatro da Vertigem (São Paulo), produzindo um material hipertextual e multimodal para uso pedagógico, que articula textos teóricos, análises críticas, registros de espetáculos e processos, depoimentos dos artistas, descrição e análise de procedimentos de criação e fragmentos de dramaturgia. A realização e a análise de dois experimentos de aprendizagem e encenação realizados na cidade de Campo Limpo Paulista (SP), com um grupo de iniciantes em teatro e outro formado por atores amadores na faixa etária de 18 a 42 anos, permitiu a sistematização de princípios e procedimentos metodológicos de ensino e aprendizagem do teatro contemporâneo. O jogo teatral a partir de modelos estéticos (KOUDELA, RYNGAERT, PUPO, MARTINS) e procedimentos da abordagem colaborativa desenvolvida por ARAÚJO, são os eixos norteadores das práticas de criação propostas nos experimentos realizados a partir do hipertexto didático criado pelo coordenador e ampliado pelos participantes. A seleção das referências teóricas se deu a partir da perspectiva de teóricos do teatro contemporâneo como LEHMANN, FERRAL, FERNANDES, ARAÚJO, PAVIS e SARRAZAC. Os resultados obtidos poderão contribuir para o debate acerca de abordagens metodológicas que integrem estudos teóricos e históricos com práticas colaborativas de criação da cena e que possam interessar para professores, coordenadores de oficinas e encenadores envolvidos na reflexão a cerca dos processos de aprendizagem e criação da cena contemporânea. / This work investigates the proposition of hypertext courseware on contemporary scenic poetic elements as a starting point for theater creation and learning processes, having primarily relied, as a methodological input, on Michel Thiollent\'s action-research approach. The bibliographical review has resulted in hypertext courseware (MARTINS, 2006), to be published on the internet, about Teatro da Vertigem (São Paulo), having thus generated a multimode, hypertext material for educational use, which puts together theoretical texts, critical reviews, records of spectacles and processes, testimonials of artists, a description and analysis of creation processes and procedures, and figments of theater practice. The conduction and analysis of two learning and staging experiments held in the city of Campo Limpo Paulista (São Paulo, Brazil), comprising a group of theater novices and another group made up of amateur actors aged 18 to 42, allowed me to systematize some learning principles and methodologies of the contemporary theater. The theater game based on esthetic frameworks (KOUDELA, RYNGAERT, PUPO, MARTINS) as well as on collaborative approach procedures devised by ARAÚJO are the guiding pillars for the creation practices proposed during the experiments based on the educational hypertext as devised by the coordinator and further expanded by the players. Selection of theoretical references has drawn on such contemporary theater theorists as LEHMANN, FERRAL, FERNANDES, ARAÚJO, PAVIS, and SARRAZAC. The results may contribute to debates over the methodological approaches that bring together theoretical and historical studies, on one part, and collaborative staging practices, which might be useful for teachers, workshop coordinators and stage directors involving in a reflection over the contemporary theater creation and learning processes.

My dissertation explores postcolonial implications of performances in Brian Friel's plays. While showing Friel's theatre is performative with its alienation effect and artistic activities of music, songs, dances, and recitations, I demonstrate that Irish self, culture, and history in Friel's plays are performative as well, because they are shown to be socially constructed rather than inherently possessed, constantly contested rather than comfortably settled, in dynamic process of remaking rather than fixed as finished products. Examining performances in Friel's theatre, characters' daily lives, historical narratives, and cultural ceremonies, I argue that those performances also shed light on the (post)colonial situation in Ireland¡ªa split island with mongrel arts, interstitial characters, disparate histories, and mythologized or relegated cultures. Showing that Irish self, history, and culture are not homogenous, linear, or monolithic entities but hybrid, contested constructs, Friel's plays subvert the binaries embedded in British colonialism, Irish nationalism, and developmental historicism. However, as Friel's characters fail to negotiate the symbiotic yet opposing forces such as the north and the south, English and Irish, official history and personal story, national myth and folk culture, tradition and modernity, my dissertation concludes that in Friel's plays to be Irish is to suffer a hybrid yet split and liminal existence, to be framed by official discourses and cultural myths, and to contend for alternative expressions of history and culture. Friel's concern with performance thus culminates in his performative conception of Irish identity¡ªas a heterogeneous composite with ongoing contestation between different selves, historical narratives, and cultural practices, it cannot but remain open to different expressions and constant (re)definitions.

My first exposure to Brecht and his theories was as a high school drama student. One of our year twelve assessment tasks was to write and perform our own Brechtian drama using three or more alienation techniques. I wrote a piece about Religion and Fundamentalism, an issue that I felt strongly about at the time. By carefully following my teacher’s instructions and adhering to the assessment criteria I received a VHA. I concluded from this experience that political theatre could be made by following a simple recipe and combining key ingredients. As my knowledge of theatre and my own creative practice developed I came to understand the great complexity of Brechtian theory and the extreme difficulty of creating effective political theatre, that is, theatre that changes the world. Brecht’s theories have been so thoroughly absorbed into contemporary theatre practice that we no longer identify the techniques of Epic Theatre as necessarily political, nor do we acknowledge its radical origins. I have not yet seen a professional production of a Brechtian play but I’ve absorbed on countless occasions the brilliant reinterpretations of Brecht’s theories within the work of contemporary dramatists. My approach to creating political drama is eclectic and irreverent and I’m prepared to beg borrow and steal from the cannon of political theatre and popular media to create a drama that works, a drama that is both entertaining and provocative. Hoods is an adaptation for young audiences of my original play Kingswood Kids (2001). The process of re-purposing Kingwood Kids to Hoods has been a long and complex one. The process has triggered an analysis of my own creative practice and theory, and demanded an in-depth engagement with the theories and practice of key political theatre makers, most notably Brecht and Boal and more contemporary theatre makers such as Churchill, Kane, and Zeal Theatre. The focus of my exegesis is an inquiry into how the dramatist can create a theatre of currency that challenges the dominant culture and provokes critical thinking and political engagement in young audiences. It will particularly examine Brecht’s theory of alienation and argue its continued relevance, exploring how Brechtian techniques can be applied and re-interpreted through an in-depth analysis of my two works for young people, Hoods and Children of the Black Skirt. For the purposes of this short exegesis I have narrowed the inquiry by focusing on four key areas: Transformation, Structure, Pretext, Metatext.

Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar a proposição do hipertexto didático sobre poéticas cênicas contemporâneas como ponto de partida em processos de aprendizagem e de criação do teatro, utilizando como principal aporte metodológico a abordagem da pesquisaação fundamentada por Michel Thiollent. A revisão bibliográfica resultou na elaboração de um hipertexto didático (MARTINS, 2006), a ser publicado na internet, sobre o Teatro da Vertigem (São Paulo), produzindo um material hipertextual e multimodal para uso pedagógico, que articula textos teóricos, análises críticas, registros de espetáculos e processos, depoimentos dos artistas, descrição e análise de procedimentos de criação e fragmentos de dramaturgia. A realização e a análise de dois experimentos de aprendizagem e encenação realizados na cidade de Campo Limpo Paulista (SP), com um grupo de iniciantes em teatro e outro formado por atores amadores na faixa etária de 18 a 42 anos, permitiu a sistematização de princípios e procedimentos metodológicos de ensino e aprendizagem do teatro contemporâneo. O jogo teatral a partir de modelos estéticos (KOUDELA, RYNGAERT, PUPO, MARTINS) e procedimentos da abordagem colaborativa desenvolvida por ARAÚJO, são os eixos norteadores das práticas de criação propostas nos experimentos realizados a partir do hipertexto didático criado pelo coordenador e ampliado pelos participantes. A seleção das referências teóricas se deu a partir da perspectiva de teóricos do teatro contemporâneo como LEHMANN, FERRAL, FERNANDES, ARAÚJO, PAVIS e SARRAZAC. Os resultados obtidos poderão contribuir para o debate acerca de abordagens metodológicas que integrem estudos teóricos e históricos com práticas colaborativas de criação da cena e que possam interessar para professores, coordenadores de oficinas e encenadores envolvidos na reflexão a cerca dos processos de aprendizagem e criação da cena contemporânea. / This work investigates the proposition of hypertext courseware on contemporary scenic poetic elements as a starting point for theater creation and learning processes, having primarily relied, as a methodological input, on Michel Thiollent\'s action-research approach. The bibliographical review has resulted in hypertext courseware (MARTINS, 2006), to be published on the internet, about Teatro da Vertigem (São Paulo), having thus generated a multimode, hypertext material for educational use, which puts together theoretical texts, critical reviews, records of spectacles and processes, testimonials of artists, a description and analysis of creation processes and procedures, and figments of theater practice. The conduction and analysis of two learning and staging experiments held in the city of Campo Limpo Paulista (São Paulo, Brazil), comprising a group of theater novices and another group made up of amateur actors aged 18 to 42, allowed me to systematize some learning principles and methodologies of the contemporary theater. The theater game based on esthetic frameworks (KOUDELA, RYNGAERT, PUPO, MARTINS) as well as on collaborative approach procedures devised by ARAÚJO are the guiding pillars for the creation practices proposed during the experiments based on the educational hypertext as devised by the coordinator and further expanded by the players. Selection of theoretical references has drawn on such contemporary theater theorists as LEHMANN, FERRAL, FERNANDES, ARAÚJO, PAVIS, and SARRAZAC. The results may contribute to debates over the methodological approaches that bring together theoretical and historical studies, on one part, and collaborative staging practices, which might be useful for teachers, workshop coordinators and stage directors involving in a reflection over the contemporary theater creation and learning processes.