Independent Project

Stimulus

Carol Ann Duffy 'The Worlds Wife' poem anthology 

Key Ideas

• Female Perspective
• The character's point of view of a famous story.
• Example: Maleficent

1+1 = 1

Description

This weekend we went to the play 'Incendios'. This has a very intresting plot that revolves in the fact that a mother had recently died, and she left a strange testament. In which her childen have to look for a father and another son. This eventually creates an intresting trama that gives a shocking ending.

Moreover we worked in the school play as we already divided people in different scenes and started working with some themes that were similar to ours. I was in charge of the scene about the Donahue family.

Analysis

The first play we saw was 'Antigona' that really helped me have an idea of poor theatre. As it didnt have that much design element the actress managed to use her body in order to peform the play. I think it was quite intresting the fact that she acted all the characters and she could change characters very easily. She could completely change her whole characterization in order to help the scene work. Moreover, I saw my design element, which were costumes in poor theatre. In this play they had this intresting proposal that was the fact that she wore the same costume but she changed it as she changed character. It was this monotonus dress, which had a cape, and she would put it on the head or tied it to portray the king or the princess, etc.

Furthermore, we saw this play 'Incendios' which gave us a very intresting proposal for the reading of a letter. Because the actual chacter appeared when they were reading the letter of the mother. Since we can use it in our play when Mrs. Redwood is reading Leon Redwoods letter about becoming the next leader of the country. I also enjoyed the fact that they not only portrayed a single character but some actors represented differents ones. Also the special effects gave me a new perspective of how to do certain stuff. For example, with the bullet, they actualy had fake blood and created a great effect. The thing I liked the most was the imaged of this person covered in blood that gave crude sensation and this effect worked better than actually having the people killed in the stage. As everything is in your imagination and it creates more tension and curiosity. This is something we want to apply to the play in the scenes were the high governer is killed.

Morever, In the school play we started working with scenes and trying to get more ideas of how we would develop each one and which actors go with which characters. In order to achieve this, we divided our selfs in groups from different forms, sixth grade, form I, form II, etc. So in order, to train people into poor theatre, they were divided in forms. I was incharged of form I and II. We followed Grotowsky's training, as we did the warm up and explain the  'via negativa' that means that you have to break your barriers and dont limit yourself is you feel tired or thirsty. We also introduced the theory of 'face as a mask' and making sound effects themselves.

Connections

The Grotowsky theory of 'face as a mask' gives me a connection to German Expressionism that you needed to have a their face sort of a mask as it tried to be distorted as to break the conventional way to be, to act and behave.

The play 'Antigona' made me think about ' Confesiones' because there was one actress that had to change completely their phsicallity and characterization as a whole in order to portray by herself the different characters that were demanded.

The use of lighting to create a different level of reality in 'Incendios' created a conection to 'Proyeccion Privada' because in incendios the mother's ghosts appeared and talked to the children. The same happens in Proyeccion Privada, which had as a game, the play of the different colour lighting in order to alter reality-dream-reality. This also happened in Romper La Piel as they had different color lighting in order to show a change with reality and dreams, to portray different levels of reality.

Reflections

In conclusion, i think we need to see more plays to have more ideas to apply in ours. I think is also better to have some more knowledge in poor theatre, not only practical but also actually seen more poor theatre to have an idea. This is because we are not doing the exact poor theatre but is our stimuli and we are having some conventions from them as the 'actor as prop' but I think we should explore it more to have more positive results. Moreover, I think we should work more with discipline as the final scene were there is a final fight, needs to be organized because if not it will look like a complete mess. This is why coordination is needed, as well as timing. Also I think we should work more in the special effects and help the actors have ore training in poor theatre in order to use as much as they can their body. 

How can we portray intresting deaths? How can sound effects made by actors be applied? To what extent our actors can work without getting tired? How can lighting help create different levels of reality?

So it begins...

Description

These two weeks we worked in the structure of the play, as we discussed which scenes were going to use or take from our stimuli. We also did a further study in Grotowski and poor theatre. Moreover, we had the first rehearsal of the school play.

Analysis

To begin with, the structure of the play for me was quite hard to separate or select scenes because I was in charge of the act I and in that act all the scenes have key events as they introduce the characters and explain the play as a whole and the purpose of the actions of the characters, as well as given us background information of their origins. This would be such as the witches, the main character reaction and his thoughts for the future. I just managed to take one scene from the act as it was irrelevant but we also merged scenes into bigger ones instead of having to make more scenes. I think that perhaps this process is long but it makes it easier just to extract scenes from our stimuli rather than creating our play, which is a longer process and it is hard to get all the production team agree on it.

Furthermore, we study Grotowski and the idea of poor theatre that involves the fact of having less elements or over produced, such as makeup, scenery, costumes, props and just having the essential. This is because Grotowski believes that the theatre was trying to be more like films rather than theatre which in this case have to focus more in the acting and the actor as a whole. He describes how the audience has to empathize with the actor in some point of the play. It was quite interesting to see the relationship with the audience and how he tries to destroy conventional theatre and the proscenium arch and states that is better to have the actors amongst the audience.

Moreover, we did the first rehearsal of the play! For me it was at first demanding to be in charge of younger actors and have to direct the rehearsal. But as a team we made the usual games and introduction of the play and the commitments for each participant. We also saw the kids acting which led us to think of the kind of character they could act in.

Connections

The first connection of the year I made was having a stimulus of the play although we always use this for each of our play it made for me a strong connection to the one act play because we have to look for a game, type of theatre, etc.

The second connection was the fact that poor theatre has some similarities with german expressionism because they have the theory of having your face as a mask.

The third connection is with paucartambo because of their relationship with the audience was they don’t have a fix stage but they act next to the audience. This gives another connection to ‘sin titulo’ because the actors didn’t have a fix stage but the audience moved and saw from different perspectives.

Reflections:

Although I was absent for two explorations of poor theatre I think this type of theatre is quite interesting and im very excited because I like to explore in depth the conventions as they are reasons behind why the do things the way they do. Also because I share the idea of having the actor as the main element because overall we are losing focus and rather prefer more visual stuff than what the play is actually trying to transmit. I also really like the fact breaking tradition and having the characters be next to the audience rather than doing something conventional  and separate the actors with the audience. It would be a wonderful and unique experience if we manage to do this with discipline and train our actor to get fully into character the whole time.

Moreover, I think we are doing well in the production of the play because we had a great start and ideas are flowing and everything is exciting right now. The first rehearsal for me was a success because we manage to control the situation and the children have great potential and are very excited about the play and they want to contribute and I think this would make it a wonderful experience and we are going to have a great play!

Questions:

To what extent can we interact with the audience without losing concentration?  How can we last more time doing acrobatics?