Inspiration from another medium

From Rachel:

At Lorraine's suggestion (via a class at VCU she observed) I rented Dogville, a film by Lars von Trier staring Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, and an amazing supporting cast (Chloe Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgard, Lauren Bacal, among others).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogville

http://www.iconmovies.co.uk/dogville/

Hard to describe its aesthetic but looks like a starkly produced play on a giant black box stage... and I do mean stage and not theatre. There was no perception of being in a structure. In fact, there were no structures at all. The perimeters of the buildings were line-drawn in white on the floor and in the middle of the "rooms" were written "Edison House" or somesuch definer. There was a small collection of furniture pieces as well (i.e. a desk covered with notes and books with a chair, a rocking chair, and a cabinet with medicines was all that was in one home).

It all suggested and represented a small town without showing outright an imagined/conjured small town.

The "production design" combined with titles preceding the nine different scenes and the almost constant narration of the action and the inner lives of characters heightened that the film was a fabrication, devised to be watched for some purpose. Ultimately that purpose was, I believe, to serve as an illustration of a moral lesson about charity, tolerance, and understanding -- which also happens to be the same thing one of the townspeople is doing when he invites Nicole Kidman's character into the town.

VERY BRECHTIAN! VERY A-effect (alientation-effect)!

And very inspirational as I near the finishing line of preparation for this workshop.

A quote from Brecht on Theatre I just read which relates:

"The object of of the A-effect is to alienate the social gest underlying every incident. By social gest is meant the mimetic and gestural expression of the social relationships prevailing between people of a given period.

It helps to formulate the incident for society, and to put it across in such a way that society is given the key, if titles are thought up for the scenes. These tiles must have a historical quality.

This brings us to a crucial technical device: historicalization.

The actor must play the incidents as historical ones. Historical incidents are unique, transitory incidents associated the particular periods. The conduct of the persons involve in them is not fixed and 'universally human'; ... [it] is subject to criticism from the immediately following period's point of view."