Stage

Description: this week we talked about the set designs and the different types of stages.

Analysis: we learned about the set designs, specially the types of stages and its different uses, we looked for 7 types of stages, but the one I liked the most was the Promenade performance stage as it has the benefit of intimacy between performers and the audience. I like this kind of stage as you create a stronger connection between the audience and the performers. The audience may view the stage from different sizes and therefore different perspectives, as the audience and the actors are placed in the same space. In this performances the actor has to bring all the attention on him in order to start, it can be helped with lights or talking to the audience. Been in the same space as the actors, makes the 4th wall to break, in my opinion this is a good thing as you bond more with the audience, making them interact with the play,making them part of the play, which I think people enjoy a lot. These plays are performed on non-theatrical structures, which is good for adapting the play, as it doesn't need a specific space but any place can be used for adapting the play, or you can easily adapt the space for the play, as it is an open space you can change it quickly, just bringing the props. If I was a director I would love to use this kind of stage, maybe because I'm in a moder area in which plays can be acted like this, but also because of the link between the audience and the performer, which I think it's very important in order to be able to make the audience enjoy the play. But as all the stages. this stage has its negative parts, first of all that if you want to change a scene then you need to do it in front of all the audience, second that you can't bring new things  as there is no backstage to hide it.

Connections: Even though changing the scenery in front of the audience doesn't sound interesting, for me it is as for example in Sin titulo, tecnica mixta, a play by Yuyachkani, they had blocks, in which the actors acted more like the pageant wagons, which they moved in order to change the setting, this was not boring neither usual which made you engaged even more with the actors, and the actions they were doing. Also in here even though they couldnt use new props, they hide the props and when the audience could see it then it was innovating and interesting (as it iwassomething new to the performance)

Reflexion: promenade performance was very interesting for me, specially for the bond it created with the audience, but what other bonds can be created appart from this type of theatre?

KIOSKOTAMBO

Description: This week we did our Kioskotambo presentation, which lasted 3 days long. I found out that the difference from our presentation and the Paucartambo one were really different, not because we are not as Paucartambo (and we don't have all the comparsas and all that), but because of the relationship/connection between the audience and the actors.

Analysis & Connections: First of all, the presentation started on wednesday, which was kind of our entrada, like in Paucartambo the first day, we would protest against the kiosk and then leave. The second day we stole the candies from the kiosk and then leave eating them. And the third day we started on the theatre 'eating the candies' and then giving out the candies to our audience like in the Bosque of Paucartambo.
When you go to the Paucartambo celebration of 'La virgen del Carmen' the majority of people know the story, and the tradition, either because it is theirs culture or because (like us) have study the tradition. In this case nobody knows about Paucartambo (or very little people know), therefore they do not understand, the comparsas or the characters we were. And so many people didn't understand about the play we performance those three days, many people kept on asking me what was it about, and I had to explain it all. In Paucartambo you follow the comparsas, because you want to know what they are going to do, the audience follows the play. But in Kioskotambo we had to attract the audience, we chose our 'stage' in the kiosk because we know lots of people go there and therefore we would catch their attention.We go to our audience, and we try to capture them with our actions. We try to built a relationship, but to what extend did this work for our kioskotambo presentation? 

Reflexion: Trying to make a play with Andean Theatre convenctions is very difficult. So my question is what could make it better? what would make the audience engage? and understand the play? do we need to tell the basics of paucartambo and give a little summary before the presentation? what do we need to do in order to create the relationship that in the festival is created?

PPP - TPPP

Description: This week we talked about the P.P.P for the Paucartambo performance and the T.P.P.P for the final exam.

Analysis: regarding the PPP, we talked about the Paucartambo celebration performance that we are going to do in school, we did the report, the last part of the PPP. We did this about cultural and traditional influences, and I did the part of the social problem, the relationship between the society and their problems and how this is going to be used in our performance, as the audience which will be the society relates to the problem we will be protesting against: the high prices of the kiosk, in this way the audience connects with the play and finds it more interesting to see.

We  also talked about the TPPP, (theatre performance and production presentation), this test will be an oral test with a power point, in here first we need to choose what we want to say, develop our we’ve learned this year and we will be taking notes from our blogs which is scary.  This will contain 10 slides with 10 images in each. We NEED to have a picture about: shadow queendom, the puppet workshop, A matter of dissection, and the Paucartambo celebration. We need to take into account the three important areas for the oral exam: STRUCTURE, ACTING & DESIGN.  We need to put what we’ve learned , the roles we’ve played, the production tasks we’ve done and so on. We need to focus in 4 important thing: ANALYSIS, SYNTHESIS, REFLECTION AND APPLIED RESEARCH, as we will be marked with this criteria.

ANALYSIS -> we need flair imagination and clarity. A complete understanding of the structure, acting and design and how do they apply. We need to evaluate; refer to the other plays we’ve seen, linking the knowledge with the plays.

SYNTHESIS -> how do the elements (acting, structure and design) work together? How does this element help to create something?

REFLECTION -> perception, objective and considered critical response to our work and the work of others. CONNECTIONS!

APPLIED RESEARCH -> shows that you know, a theorical exploration of the different areas of performance and production.

Connections: talking about the TPPP, our final test made me think about the real one that we will be doing next year, and how important is it to analyse and thing everything . we need to be able to make a lot of research and to think critically to analyse.

Reflection: I know there are steps to analyse, but somehow I can analyse, I don’t reflect well enough, and it may be because I normally don’t go that deep, but how can I really reflect? And analyse?

German Expresionism

Description: this week we’ve been looking about the Paucartambo performance, and German expressionism which will be next year stimuli for the school play.

Analysis: first of all we talked about the Paucartambo performance, we did a PPP to present our ideas, we correct the pitch, and we define some terms such as:

                ->Concept: what gives limit to an art, what organizes it?

                ->Motivation: why am I doing my performance in the way I am presenting it?

Apart from this we talked about next year stimuli which will be: “German Expressionism”, I personally like this kind of theatre, first of all because it started after the first world war so this is why the actors wanted to show an inner emotional reality rather than what is on the surface, they went deeper into themes such as: madness, insanity betrayal and other intellectual topics, which where the opposite to the standard action-adventure and romantic performances they were used to. They had anti-heroic characters, as they wanted to show that the ‘heroes’ where actually de villains in the story, they wanted to show the corrupt world they were in and how no one could be trusted in the world they were living in.  The directors felt disillusioned with reality and the world around then therefore they made films and acts that looked warped and distorted and were very surreal, they even had heavy and stark shadows, depressed stories and corruptible and untrustable characters as I have mention before. We can see a picture of a play called 'Nosferatu', which shows the dark and supersaturated shadows that they used.

But what most took my attention in German Expresionism is the setting, in this kind of theatre, the setting is very different, they are chaotic, urban and crowded settings. Which had strong elements of modernism, we can see this on Metropolis which is the picture bellow, this evidences the enormous power plant and a little bit of the massive city.

Also they often used large shapes of bright, unrealistic colours with dark, and they were often cartoon-like. The buildings might lean, showing the ground sloping up steeply as a symbol of defiance of tradition. As we can see in the picture bellow that is from a play called The cabinet of Dr Caligari.

Connections: When I looked this kind of theatre, it reminded me of many modern films that we have nowadays, like Tim burton films, I’ve found that actually Tim Burton does influence in this kind of theatre, and he tries to create expressionist world in some of his films such as ‘Sweeney Todd’, but we can actually clearly see this in ‘Edward Scissor hands’  who is actually inspired on Dr. Cabinets character. We can see a picture comparing Dr. Caligari and Edward.

Also this Kind of theatre left two horror genders: horror film and film noir, which is especially influenced by expressionism.

Reflection: I really liked searching about this kind of theatre, because I personally like horror movies, and Tim Burton kind, it is really impressive how he influenced in one of previous character for his movie: Edward Scissor hands, still he adapt a lot of characteristics in order to work in the modern world, he didn’t use the setting as it was in this film, I think this is because we need to adapt in order to make it interesting to nowadays viewers. We want to influence in German expressionism for next year’s play, so how can we adapt it?, do we have to adapt it?, because it is for a certain amount of audience, and it is not an international movie, so in what extend can we adapt this kind of theatre in order to work for our audience, in our theatre?, do we need to adapt it?, can we just do it exactly the same? Like in ‘Miyuki y los tres demonios’?, because as far as I remember we adapt some things in last year’s play, and this years was not influenced in a specific type of theatre like last year. So in order to work do we have to change some things like in Tim Burton’s films?, how can we adapt it to our needs for the play?

From Order to chaos and from chaos to order

Description:

This week we improved a lot our concept for our Paucartambo performance that will be taking place soon. We had a story and now that has changed along with our acting concept.

Analysis:

Our story, was that the students were going to steal the school and create ‘order’, therefore our concept was from order to chaos. But this week, we changed this; instead of the students stealing the school, he thought of a more well-known problem that we have, and that students complain a lot about: the kiosk. We always complain of how the prices always risde, the ‘milanesa’ started from 3 soles I think and now it’s 5, everything is expensive in the kiosk, and we always complain about it, therefore we thought of making the Paucartambo performance according to this social problem. We tried to stick to the previous idea, of a three-day performance, and so we did. We decided that in the first day: we will see the kiosk selling stuff and us (maybe as qollas), complaining about the rising prices, just like the guerrilla that they had billboards saying: ‘conga si va’ we could have some of that saying ‘Salim baja los precios!’, then in the second day we could have the qollas stealing the kiosk and the third day the qollas with the kiosk throwing all the food to everyone.  We decided that that is going to be our plot, but what took us most of the was the place that our performance was going to take place.

We thought of Churchill, we thought of the advantages and the disadvantages, the advantages we thought were: It has a big space, It is in the middle of the field, so everyone can see it, we could do the ‘bosque’ on top of the theatre. But the biggest disadvantage this place has is that maybe it is too big, as we are only 7 actors we were wondering if it would be a good idea to do it there, because what if not many people comes to see? Then it will look empty and so therefore boring and not attractive. We tried to solve this problem by thinking of the many possibilities there could be to attract the audience, we thought of just before the break maybe the maqtas (if we use those) can go with their waracas and attract the audience, or maybe just run through the field with the boards attracting people. But still we thought of another place.

The kiosk, where the kiosk is placed on top of the infirmary, everyone said it was too small, and personally I also thought that, but after the class finished, I went there, and it turned out that it wasn’t THAT small, and it even has places where we can do the bosque, and we don’t have to make a kiosk as there is one already there. The space is big and we even have sticks to place our big sign that is going to say: ‘WELCOME TO PAUCARTAMBO’S FESTIVAL’. I think that the best place to make the performance is there.

Also we thought about using the real Salim in our performance as we are going to kidnap him, it would be more interesting to the audience, but Salim didn’t want to, we are still going to try to persuade him to act. I personally think that having salim acting will be of a great help to attract the audience, as the audience is always attracted by a character that is already known, in this case Salim.

At the end our acting concept is going to be from chaos to order, and from order to chaos. This means that at the beginning there is ‘order’ for the kiosk as everything is on its place, but it is a chaos for us as the prices keep going up, but by the third day this changes as it turns for the kiosk into a chaos as everything is disorganized, but it turns into an order for us, as now there is ‘balance’ in the prices of the products, as we are all getting free food, on consequences of the high prices we were paying.

Connections:

So how do we came to do this ‘play’ that It’s not even finished?, we had to think of many different things to try to do it as well as possible so that it can work, but one of our main issues was on how to attract the audience. Because let’s be realistic, if I have a play, in front of me but I also need to go and eat my lunch, I will definitely prefer to eat rather than to see a performance. In the normal plays, such as La falsa criada, La mancha, La cocina, and all the other plays we have seen, we go to the theatre to see the play, they do not attract us, they just do the normal advertising but then you PAY for the performance and you NEED to see it as you have already pay for it, but in this case it’s different as it has no cost and the audience choose whether to see it or not, it is not even similar to the real festival, as you go to Paucartambo in July JUST TO SEE the festival, and you actually pay for it, in your trip: the plane, the car that take you to the town, you are actually paying to see it, but in our case, the students will not pay to enter the school, they don’t even know what Paucartambo is or what the festival is.

Reflexion:

So how to attract the audience?  By our acting? And what if they just don’t care?, then they will just leave, I think that in this case, only the people that really want to see it, will stay and enjoy our performance and the ones that are not interested, then they will just leave. But then what effect do we want to create for the people that want to see us? Do we want to let them be aware of the existence of a festival call la Virgen del Carmen and that’s what we want to transmit? Because if we would want that, then we can just do a power point presentation and a little video we took from there and done. So no, what do we want to transmit? Is it just to show that we can do a play? Is it just for the Ib subject? Because as far as I know, this doesn’t count as part of the subject, because Roberto won’t help us, it is up to us to do it or not. Maybe this is just to prove ourselves that we can make a performance on our own and we can work as a team, but still we have to have something to transmit, maybe it is just the idea of the kiosk and that we want to do a ‘revolution’ talking about the high prices, but no-one would do anything about it. The kiosk won’t lower their prices, so for what are we doing this? Would we discover this on our process? What do we want to create on our audience? What do we want to truly transmit and that will teach our audience something in someway?

Paucartambo

Description: this week we talked about Paucartambo performance and the PPP that we will be doing at the end of the year.

Analysis: We started the Paucartambo structure in order to make the performance, we started with a stimuli, as always, we did a mental map and tried to figure out a social problem as Felipe told us to start there, so we ended up with our problems and problems of the rest, we focused on the conflicts of the society, of our problems and of the problems of the rest. We needed to focus on something that the school will link to, so we decided of a conflict, that the students would take the school as their own, we were planning on play with this idea of "Yo" and "the others", so we visualize, 3 acts, for three days, the first day, the"yo" could be the teachers and the headmasters, that could be played by the Maqtas, these are supposed to create order, but they are the one that messes everything, so similar to this, the teachers and headmastes, that are supposed to create the order, create the chaos, they could shout, and make a lot of chaos. In the second day, the students could take the school, we didn't thought much of the characters, but i think that the students could be the Qollas, as they are funny, and entertaining. And on the third day, could be all organized by the students. This took us to the concept: from chaos to order, which made us thought of "Pachakuti", which is when everything is upside down, like the play we want to do, that the teachers that are supposed to make the order, make the chaos and the students make the order.

Connectors: We tried to choose everything thinking on the audience, we want to make a clear performance in order for them to understand, and to get entertained at the same time. Like our One act play, we wanted to entertained the audience, and for me that was our main achievement, "where we wanted to get", and we did as everyone enjoyed the one act play, so we want to do the same for the Paucartambo performance, but in this case we have lots of limits, as we already have the "characters" settle, we cannot add characters as that would be breaking one of the most important conventions. This also made me think about La Falsa criada, which we never understood which was its purpose? and where did it wanted to get?, we definitely don't want that to happen to any of our plays, therefore we need to have a clear concept and a target, in this case, to get very similar to Paucartambo, but to entertained everyone, and to make sure everyone understands.

Reflections: we need to make sure that we all have a same target, in order to focus and to get where we want to get, not like our one act play, that for us our target was to entertained where for Roberto was to develop a lot more our characters, which, we agreed on a beginning but then we forgot, and we develop to a certain extend, but still the play was well done, and everyone liked it, so do we really need to follow a target in order to make the play interesting? or we can do just like our one act play, which, we put effort, a lot of energy in the final performance, but out target was like all the plays target: to entertain, so do we really need to have another target? or is this just because the IB tell us to? Because we have prooven that we do not need to get where we wanted to get in order to make a good play, so then what is the point of triyng to get somewhere? if we already want just to entertain?

Play analysis

Description: This week we talked about "La falsa criada" we were looking for the things that worked and didn't worked. We talked about the acting and what they wanted to achieve. We were learning about analyzing a play, and we analyse La falsa criada.

Analysis: First of all there are steps in order to analyse a play, every analysis should have:
1. Acting:

• body, voice and face expression, the use of space and design elements, styles and techniques, energy and stage presence, response to every action, intentions and characterization, timing and rhythm.

2. Design: 

• scenery and scene changes, make-up, props. music and SFX, lighting, costumes and masks and puppets.

3. Structure:

• Plot or story, settings, order and duration of scenes, characters and their objectives, conflict and climax, beginnings and endings and perspectives.

Starting with acting in La falsa criada; I personally think there was a lack of body and voice characterization/expression, "El varon" wasn't that different from the girl, the voice could have change a lot more, and the body expressions, the varon more as a men: the way of walking, expressing, etc and the girl with a more feminine way of walking, sitting, talk, etc. The condesa for example, was a wrong character, as it didn't fixed with the play and with the type of condesa that the play was asking for, the play needed a more voluminous women, taller, with a refine but strong voice, the voice she used was 'fake', and it didn't fit the play, the script was for a much 'big' condesa, also for a much younger, and we had, an 'old', fake and little condesa. I think these two where the two characters that more needed characterization, they needed to work a lot more on their characters, and how do they interact. In my opinion everything in this play was forced, the use of the space and the levels they tried to use on stage, where to fake, the actions they did, and the response between the character. They needed to say the lines in one way or another and so they put the actions, just so the public does not get bored. The rhythm, was ok, meaning that it was enough in order so the public doesn't get bored. In the design part, the scenery was poor and there was  no colour scheme, they mixed old stuff with modern stuff, which made no sense and gave the play less coherence. There was not much make-up, they could have use way more for the condesa, to make her younger, but they didn't. The costume was too 'cheap' even though it looked good, this didn't had a colour scheme neither. So on stage it did not look good, didn't made sense. The music was the worst thing in the play, the music didn't match the story or the actions that the actors where doing, specially at the end, when the Varon turned into a girl, the background music did not have any coherence at all. The structure of the play, was ok, they knew their lines and the script was a very nice scrip, even though, maybe it was not for our times, the duration was of 40 min each act, there were 2 acts. The conflict and climax, were not well developed, as the actions and the actors did not helped to develop this. Every play has a perspective, this means that through one character's eyes is that we are watching the play, but in this play, through which character was the play from? Because all the story is from the point of the Varon but it ends with the tragic bad luck of The condesa, this makes no sense, as through all the story we've been looking of the importance of el varon to finally end with a secondary character been the center of attention and the principal, as secondary.

Connections: We try to think a lot from who was the perspective in this play, and we ended up with 'there was no perspective', and therefore the play did not had coherence at all. For example, in our one at play, the perception was through the dead's eyes, and there is where our concept comes from, dead is at the centre and life is at the top, meaning that dead is the centre of attention, and therefore all the play flows around him. Not like La falsa criada that did not had neither a perspective or a concept. Even Vedova in Lumine which was the worst play ever, had a perspective, and a very strong one, so strong and clear, that there was just ONE actress and the rest were puppets, and these puppets were controlled by these actress. 

Refletion: Most of the plays have a perspective, but La falsa criada didn't which made the play even worst that already was, this means that the perspective is very important for the plays, but to what extend is it important? is it because La falsa criada did not had a perspective that didn't worked?, what if we fix, all the acting mistakes, and the design mistakes and everything but we do not have a perspective, will it be a good play? what if in our one act play our perspective was from the good wife, or the bad wife, or the priest, or the doctor, I think it will change the whole story, it will go around many other stories and be VERY long, so long that it will bored the audience as it will not focus on the purpose of the play, but what was La falsa criada's purpose? did it had a purpose? maybe the important thing is the purpuse of the play? So in order to be a good play it has to have a purpose and achieve the purpose? what was our purpose? did we had a purpose? and if we did, did we achieved it? and if we didn't then our one act play was a non-useful play?

A Matter of Dissection

Description: this week we presented the one act play, and after this we analysed the good and bad things about it, and how we could improve it.

Analysis: We practices before the one act play, we went to Hiram Bingam, and practice on stage, we tried improving some things such as; the rhythm of the play, as it had to be more quickly because it had to be dynamic, and also some actions we had, we add at the beginning a choreography,  with a background sound. The day of the play, we also practiced, but we didn't expect much, as we didn't practice a lot and we didnt put all of our effort into the performances. We never had everything ready to perform and we only had ONE performance with all the play but with many errors, we didnt had all the props, not even the day of the performance, the mustache of Mateo arrived that same day, and because of this we had problems with the mustache as it fall various times, because we did not rehearse with the mustache before, so we didn't know if it would work or not. Luckily for us we had time to prepare the stage, before performing, as the Markham school was not available to perform that day, we prepare our stage, and we acted. I did not expected much of the play, but we all put a lot of effort, to keep the "newton school" name clear. We stay in silence and concentrate, and it went good, and better than expected, I think this happened because we finally worked as a group, we had a talk backstage and we united our selves and concentrate, we even helped each other with the changes (thing we didnt did before), and we keep quite on the back, we tried to do everything Roberto told us, all the feedback and all the practices, the work, the staying lots of days; we tried to make it worth it, and we put all of our selves, we believed our characters, and we got into the characters. Everyone liked the play, they screamed, they clap hard,. they laugh at out jokes and even at our mistakes. 

Connection and Reflexion: The opinion of everyone were very enthusiastic and they liked a lot our play, they congratulate us, and they compared our plays with the other ones, and the common comments were: the other ones, were horrible because we could not understand, we could not hear them, and they didn't had movements, the story was boring, the scenery didn't match the story, there was no colour scheme, they had many props, but they did not use none of them, and the acting was slow and therefore boring. They didn't follow what a play must have, as always, compared to other one act plays that other schools made years before, newton's plays is always better, but why? Because we try to make the play interest, and we prepare, we speak clear and loud (at least try to), we try to have as many movements and actions as possible (as theatre is about action), we try to make it dynamic and as quick as possible to make it more interest. The audience like so much our plays that they even laugh at our mistakes, as the stefano one, that the boob fall and he improvise so good that many people asked me if that was a mistake, or if it was plann, how can someone be so good in improvising that they even belief that?, why does the audience like SO much our plays, because it is really good made or is it because they are used to it?, that the newton theatre group is really good?, or not even that, why is the audience so open to us and so close to the other ones?, is it really because they are horrible made? and ours is very good?, or is it that they are too used to the idea of us been the good ones and them been the bad ones?

Play review: La Falsa Criada

The play: “La falsa criada”, was written by Pierre Carlet Chamblain de Marivaux, and it was directed by Alberto Isola. This play was a about a girl “El Baron”, by Alejandra Guerra, “Lelio” by Leonardo Torres Vilar, “Trivelino” by Miguel Iza, “Frontino” by Akberick Garcia, “Arquelino” by Christia Ysla and “La condesa” by Norma Martinez.

This play was about a girl, that is about to get married, with someone she doesn’t know, and she founds this guy in a party and she was dressed as a boy, he saw his future husband with another women, and in order to safe his heritance and the money she was going to give him, she decides to stay as a men and be his friend and discover his secrets.

In my opinion the main important purpose for this play was to introduce a new way of making the play, as this play is very popular, I think the director wanted to propose a new way of making and acting this play. I think that the game in this play was the change of character within one actor which is “ El baron”, as he is a girl dressed as a boy, and how she changes her character so spontaneously.

The voice and intonation used in this play was really well-used as the voices changed in order to distinguish the different characters, specially “El Baron”, that as it was at sometimes a girl and at some others a boy, the voice had to change a lot.

Regarding the scenery, It was very simple, it had 3 walls, they were fixed. The one in the back had a door, and the only thing that changed in the scenery were the little things, such as the chairs, the fountain, and those little things that the stage had. The scenery was very simple, as it didn’t had many changes, I think that they just changed in the change of acts.

The costume, in this play, was very important, because at the end  El Baron changes costume in front of the audience. Showing her really identity. The costume was old costume, with big long dresses and fancy suits. I think that the costume in this particularly play, was a very important element, as it changed the characters, because of the plot of this play. Also the music, it gave the play a m0ore interest way of watching it, but in my opinion,  some of the music in this play didn’t match the actions the characters were doing, for example, when “El Baron” finally takes of the ‘men costume’ there is this song, and I like the effect that this makes but the music in this part was ‘out of place’.

They used ‘still pictures’, specially in the end, when the girl changes and takes out the costume to reveal the truth, every other character stays in still picture, which gives the scene a very interesting and original action. As it just lights the action that is the most important.

In a conclusion, this play makes a new and interesting way of making the play, by the use of still pictures, the costumes, the actions, the characters, and the scenery.

Acting, costumes and making new scenes….

Description: This week we’ve been working on the procedure of our one act play, we also looked at some of the costumes with Sr. Cajas and I went to gamarra to buy some things for our play, we tried to do as much as possible as the play is in 10 days.

Analysis: This week we’ve been working on continuing with the play, and trying to do as much as possible, we worked in all the scenes and we did more scenes. Actually we now know our ending, but  we still need to do more. We’ve been working in the “slapstick” that the doctor and the nurse will be doing with the body, and in my opinion that’s one of the most interesting parts of the play, doing quick movements, along with the background song gives the scene a very interesting atmosphere, of course it’s funny but it is not boring, on the other hand, it is entertaining, as they are fixed and clear movements, which makes the scene “cleaner”. This week, we finally finished with the costume PPP, and we showed Mr, Cajas the costumes that he needed to make. Also We went to Gamarra to buy things such as the doctor, the boy, the grandma and some other props and costumes that we needed. We bought the cloth to cover the table, and the cloth that will cover the body.  We still need to practice

Connection: Regarding the slapstick, which is very entertaining, and well prepared, I thought of “La cocina” that in one part they had this dancing, with very strong and fixed movements, this worked in a certain level, as it was very catchy, but as it was too long, at some times it turned boring, but this little dancing scene in La cocina gave the play, a funnier and different way to see it. Also in “Yerma” they had little dancing with the trolleys, and this gave the play the same effect, or even in this play that we went to see which was just dancing, they had a certain rhythm and it was long so it turned boring but at some parts the speed increased making fixed and quick movements turning the play interesting.

Reflexion: There are lots of plays, with this change of speed, and I know that if you keep the same rhythm through all the play, with the same tone, it turns boring, but in order to be entertaining does it have to have“slapstick” or a quick dance? 

Developing characters

Description: this week we've been focusing a lot on the one act play, but mostly we've been focusing on developing our characters, as this play is for us to develop characters and to improve our acting skills.

Analysis: This week, we've been working on our characters, we've done some exercises that really helped to build our characters, as we basically had nothing. We follow some steps:

1. We started in A position for while, to concentrate in our respiration.
2. After some time we would stand up and find our center, were everything would go from there, every step had to go from the center.
3. then we had to imagine as we were walking but the world was upside down and we were in a building walking towards the floor, so we had to walk really slow, because otherwise you could fall

we spent a whole lesson doing this, just find our center of power, and how to work towards there, but afterwards, we would start walking like our characters, and we had to find a center for our own characters, the part of your body where the energy comes from. So after finding our center, we could move like our characters, and this helped a lot, as we find how our characters would move, and the actions it would do.

Also apart from finding our characters, we spent the week doing our scenes, we did a lot, (in my opinion) as we had a lots of things we improved. Also we find new actions to do while acting and that made the play more interesting to see and more dynamic. I think we are improving a lot our one act play, even though there is still a lot to do

Connections: regarding the dynamic part of the one act play, it reminded me of a play we once read in class, just before we began the one act play, that it is call: "Us and them" that was very dynamic, that had very short dialogues, and just the reading was very interesting, our play is turning like that, with no long boring silence pauses, but still there is a lot to work on, in order to be a good play. On the other hand talking about the characters, and developing it, the exercises we did in class, helped me A LOT, to find my character, I didn't even knew how my character was, I didn't had a vision for my character, which now I do, I know how she moves, talks, and her little movements that makes my character unique.

Reflexion: Even though we cant take too much time in preparing our characters before rehearsing, I think that this is essential in order for us to be mentally and physically prepared to act good, so how can it be another way to prepare but in a short time?, is it just practice?, do I just need to get used to my character so I can act like her more easily?

One act play....

Description: This week we've been working in the one act play, in finding our characters, and focusing in our game and our plot. 

Analysis: The one act play is each time nearest, and this week we've been focusing on this. We already had our game, and the first day after the holidays we focus on the script, this was very complicated, as it was quite boring because it was very repetitive, it was like 4 scenes just delaying the autopsy. Reading the script, it was very challenging for me, as I didn’t looked for a character, I didn’t explore my character and so I didn’t know how to speak, and I am still not sure of  how my characters will be like. Regarding our game, we tried it, we actually acted scene 1 to see how it would look like, and we come up with a problem we were aware of, that because of our game, our character could not speak directly to the ones behind them, as we could not turn around. We thought that we could fix this, but the truth was that it didn’t work, as we couldn’t look at them when the other characters spoke, it seemed like if we didn’t care of what they were speaking of, and “if we do not care, neither will the audience”. So because of this, we change our game completely, and we are starting all over again, Actually I’m glad we did this, because even though it means starting all over again and changing all the script, I think this game and our scrip until now is way better, it is more interesting, more funny, more entertaining, and faster. The production task I am in charge of is Make up, this changed a lot with the switch of games, because first I had plans for a half make up, but now, I was asked to do a more ‘lighter’ make up, so that our game can work, and the change of character can be easier and quicker, but for those character who do not change, such as the lawyer and the doctor, the make-up will remain the same.

Connections:  Regarding to my two characters, which are the good wife and the little boy, I’ve been trying to look for some stimuli. The most difficult one to find was the good wife, she is supposed to be all religious and good, but she is also creepy, the only thing I’ve found is “Dolores Humbridge” from Harry Potter, she is mean, but she is kind of creepy, she laughs of bad things and she smiles in weird situations, still I need to find a better stimuli, as this character is in the one I need to work the most, as I am completely lost. My second character is my favourite one, the little boy, I used as a stimuli is “Brick” from ‘the middle’, he is a really special boy, different from the others and he is always obsessed with something, I found my character very interesting to explore, and is my favourite one. here is a little video to show brick: brick discovers the internet

Reflection: In order to explore, deeper my character, specially the good wife one, I will need to search for a better stimuli, what’s more, I will try to find different stimulus for different aspects of my character,  of course I will also do some physical work, and see how she walks, how she sits, stands, laughs, smiles and all the little things that a character might have, but how can I make this character even more interesting and entertaining to see?, somehow, I feel more comfortable with the-little-boy character, than this one, why is this? How can I make it even more comfortable?

Beginnings of One Act Play

Description: this week we've been reading a lot about Paucartambo, and talking about Paucartambo and basically everything was about Paucartambo, and of course our one act play. And for the weekend we went to see "Yerma".

Analysis,connections and reflection: First of all, we had our tests for this week, so we had to read a lot, the first writings that I read were about how they talk and how do they communicated in rural areas such as Paucartambo, it also taught us of the oral literature, but then came the actual festival, in which they wrote about how the festival is, the different myths and mysterious and very catchy things. Also this was very easy to read, as it was very well explained and so I enjoyed this ones the most, even though i read it too late for the test...

For the one act play, I was very confused of what was best to do, what could work, but just in the first day we argue about this, we came out with our plot, I know that for creating a story we need a lot of imagination, creativity and been dynamic, and hopefully, we did this in the time we had to plan the one act play, even though we just have the main idea and we still need to write the scenes and the scrip and those things. We were not sure of our game until the second day we stayed in school to decide this, but we came out with: each character will have two characters, and  2 will have just one, we will be able to change characters, but we will only be able to move in one direction, we will be split into two, half of our body will be of one character and the other one of the other character, so this will not allow us to look at the audience directly, we will always face to the other person we are talking to. Also we are coming already with our characters, which Roberto want us to develop a lot in this one act play, as we did not developed much in the school play, even though I think this is a very great challenge, I am not sure how to play two characters almost at the same time and how to change so quickly.
 This makes me think about "Yerma", as Maria Laura, played various characters, but still, it is not the same as we will be half a character and half another, she changed her clothes to change characters, but on one side we will still be the other character, so what can we do, to not get confused, is it just practice?, how can I develop the two character the same way? with body characterization? physical work? what can I do in order to transmit, what I want to transmit with my characters? how would I focus that much in order  not to loose one character, and not to get confused? 

Paucartambo, critique of sources and feedback

Description: This week we've been working in our critique of sources and how we should actually write it, also the feedback from the school play, and of course searching more about Paucartambo.

Analysis: First of all we’ve been talking about the school play and it seems it was very pleasant to the headmasters and to everyone, we did put a lot of effort and it was difficult to work with the puppets, so it was a great challenge and we actually did it. Regarding the critique of sources we learned some steps to do this:

1.       Identify the source

2.       Summarise the content briefly

3.       Describe how it was use

4.       Why it was useful

Also we have to have a valid argument and we have to say how reliable was the source for the investigation. We all did very good in this, some little mistakes but it was good and easy to do (now that we actually know how to do it).

Regarding Paucartambo we looked about the conditions of theatre, there are 4:

1.       Involvement of the body to represent another person in certain time and place through a performance.

2.       Order, composition and game

3.       A content, something to say

4.       A social and ritual function.

This 4 has to be included in order to be theatre, so looking about Paucartambo in the involvement of the body we have the time, space, mask and actions. In this case, everything happens in Paucartambo, which is a small town, which is 109 kms north east Cuzco city.  There are more things ahead to learn about Paucartambo, including the texts we have to read now, I bet these texts will help a lot to our understanding. Also this tradition uses masks, which makes it even more interesting.

Connections: As in Paucartambo they use masks, which is very interesting as we used masks for the school play, we are going to be able to actually learn about these, as we didn’t actually learnt in the school play. The only things we learnt were that there are kind of masks, and that we should always look to the front when wearing a mask.

Reflection: Even though we used masks for our school play we never actually get into deep and we never learnt the conventions of wearing a mask, so I was wondering which were the conventions when wearing a mask?, especially in this tradition?, why do they actually wear it?, just to represent other characters or because of something deeper?

SHADOW QUEENDOM

Description: this week has been the week we performed the school play, call "Shadow Queendom", all the week we've been  rehearsing and it has been very tough we had a lot of work to do. We have been acting and improving the scenery, costumes, actions, props and also making sure that everything is ready and perfect.

Analysis: First of all we started the week by finishing all the play (as it was not actually all finished). This was easy to do, because we had all the story planned and we just had to modify some things. On tuesday we did all the play, but still there were some things that were not right and somethings that didn't work so we had to change those, in my opinion there was a lack of acting skills (including me) not everybody of course because some did a very good job on their acting, but i think we needed to explore more our characters, and as we didn't have time to do this, they were not completely developed, I am not saying they were horrible, but they were alright. Apart from the acting on wednesday we rehearse for the last time as on thursday we were going to perform, we had some problems, such as that Stefano fall from the stilts and the head of a puppet was broken but in the end we solve this problems, first we fixed the puppet and about Stefano, he was alright, also that day we had public which were Maria Laura and Martin, and they gave us some feedback regarding the way we were using the puppets and that helped a lot to improve the play. The first day of the performance, I think it went very good, I had very low expectations, so in my opinion the first day everyone got really concentrated and they put all of their effort and the play was very good until the last part were Mateo didn't know his lines, apart from this everyone put a lot of effort and as always there were little things to improve for the next day, which we did. The second day everyone was more relaxed but somehow we did good, and the third day too, we added and improve some things during these days and in conclusion I think the play was good. This play showed me how to solve problems and how important is to always have a second plan, I was freaked when stefano fall but everyone came with different ideas of how could we replace him and we had a "plan b". Regarding my acting in the play I think it was poor, I really think I could have explore more my characters through the different exercises we once did in class, I was focus on my character but I guess that wasn't enough, and as I played different characters I needed to differentiate them. But we didn't have time to explore characters on the Theatre, we were too busy doing the puppets, the masks, and the scenery and the homework and works for other classes as well, because of course, Theatre arts is not the only subject, so I clearly didn't have too much time to explore my characters. I found really difficult to work with the big royals as I had problems with my bag and it hurt a lot to use those puppets,  also my puppet moved a lot and so it looked really bad, so I had to work more on my body in order to make the puppet look better. Regarding the before-acting things I did, was mostly putting make up on the girls and brushing them, which is easy to do and I think they looked very good. There were lots of problems, in this play, and it was very challenging because we had to make all the puppets but also we had to teach the kids how to use them, and as they are kids, they would usually play with them, or not use them correctly, so for the next time I would say to first think clear of what we are about to do and all the complication that this may imply and then see if it would work, in this case it did work but as we focus a lot on the puppets, we missed some things such as the lack of the scenery and maybe some of the acting. One of the scenes I loved was the shadow puppet scene, this was because it was something new and also it was very interesting to see, and you could do things that normal actors cant in front of an audience, for example when ramon's arms fall or when they took out manuela's guts, this little episodes, made the scene very interesting and innovative. In conclusion I would say that the play was very good, as we all put a lot of effort. 

Connections: In order to improve the acting, as I said in previously, I would have done more physical characterization, and this would have helped me on finding my character more, also when i said my lines i didn't know what actions to do, so in order to improve this too, I would have patiently sit and read my script and then find actions for each sentence I said, so the scene doesn't turn boring. Also, to improve the way the little kids were using the puppets, maybe we could have took a whole lesson just to teach them how to use them, and so maybe this would make the play look better. Also, if we would have more time we could have find a way of making the "big royal puppet" look better, as it moved a lot, I could have used a strip to hold it.

Reflection: what most worried me in the whole play was the way the actors were acting with a puppeteer, they all thought that they were the ones who were acting when the truth was that they were just a tool for the puppet to come alive, what I mean is that when using a puppet, the important thing, is the puppet and how you find different ways of making the puppet come to live, which we did in a way, but we needed to explore and rehearse a little bit more, so, which could have been other ways of making the puppet come alive, and how could we have teach the actors to be puppeteers, in order to improve the play and to make it even more interesting?

School play is near!

Description:  this week we’ve been focusing on the school play, as it is due next week!, we’ve been working on the scenery, the acting, and the change of scenes.

Analysis: The scenery is ready and it was easy to do, we just had to fold the big screen that is on the back and that was quite it. On the other hand, the acting was the difficult part to do. Even though we are IB theatre students, we need to focus and spend time on searching for our characters. And this is what we didn’t do as our priority was finishing the puppets, which by the way are finished.  So because of the no exploration time on stage, the characters are not fully developed. And this is a problem because the play is next week!. Acting for me it’s even more difficult with the big royal puppets, as I have to focus on the movements, keep checking if the puppet is looking at the right direction on remembering the text that I have learn 4 days ago, and to put an intention on the lines. The change of scenes are one of the most “challenging” thing to do, as the little kids sometimes confuses or take really long time to change the scenes, even though we are improving there is one scene that takes longer than the rest one (and we haven’t made act 2 yet).

Connections:  What I can do to improve the characterization and the way my character say things, could be working on the text and writing the intention of each line, and the important word in a sentence. As we used to do in form IV.

Reflection: even though there are techniques we’ve learnt what other ways are useful to improve the acting?

Acting, shadow theatre and Paucartambo

Description: As the real performance day of the play is coming soon, we’ve been working a lot in our scenes. We kind of finished our shadow scene even though there is a lot to improve as always. I have also been working in scene 10, in which I am Mathilda. We have also introduced our new theatre tradition topic: “Paucartambo”, as we are going there on July. We’ve been looking at the different characters and we’ve been discussing a lot about some of the basic concepts.

Analysis: This week we spent a whole day doing just the shadow scene; we were organizing the entire scene and changing some bits so that it makes sense. I’ve been working more on the shapes that I do with my hands and I’ve try to explore a little bit more to see if it makes the character: Deborah, more interesting. Finishing this scene was very difficult and I highly doubt that it is ready, so we will have to find our own time to make it better, starting of course with me learning my lines, because I just keep forgetting them, and of course I do!, as I was not THAT focus!. I have also been working in my character in scene 10, which is Mathilda. I’ve been told to “enjoy” my character and I’ve been trying different ways of saying my lines. But this character needs more development, and we cannot loose time doing this during rehearsals so I will have to find a way of doing it on my own, and as this is one of my favourite scenes I am sure I will improve.  

Finally this week we’ve been looking at “Paucartambo”, starting of course with some basic concepts: the form, culture, ritual, and author. Starting with the form of theatre we finally come into a conclusion that the form of theatre is: action BUT if we understand ‘action’ in a more broad way.  Culture, has to do with life and it is the connection between people to show who we are and how do we do things, no how we want to do things or how we want people to think but how we actually do it. (this definition I didn’t have it clear up to this lesson). A ritual is just a representation of a myth and has a symbolic meaning. This involves the participation of people and MUST create a change. Finally the author, which is the authority, the one who decides, and the one who knows more, “the owner”.  This has been the definition we came up to this week. Apart from this we’ve been looking at the different characters in Paucartambo which are: “Maqt’a”, “Qhapac Qolla”, Qhapac Ch’uncho” and“Saqra”, and one thing they have in common is that they are really ironic, for example the Maqt’a are the ones who create order but they actually create the disorder. Or the Qhapac Ch’uncho that are from the jungle and people from the jungle tend to be happy but they have very sad masks.

Connections: Regarding shadow theatre  I have been searching more about the Chinese shadow theatre as I really liked this kind of theatre, and apart from the shadows done with the body; they also have their “shadow puppet one” which is as interest as the other one. An example of this is in the video above.  Also as I really need to explore more my character in scene 10: Mathilda, I’ve been thinking in body characterisation which I will probably do during the week. I have also between searching for videos and i found a very connective one with our play that i can maybe use as a guide, which is the previous link (because for some reason i couldnt put the video) . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMpigAUQt_4&feature=related. .
Also Paucartambo remind me of Mexican theatre as that is also a traditional theatre which doesn’t have a play, but has a festival, in Mexico: Day of the deaths and in here Paucartambo. I just hope it is not as difficult to research as Mexican tradition.

Reflexion: Regarding Paucartambo, lots of question appeared during the discussion in class. All of them regarding the author, because we do know the author of a play or the author of a book, but who wrote the tradition?, the festival?, who is the owner  of this?. Because this was created by different people so who is the author?, the people that lives there? Maybe Peruvian people?. And anyways, does it have to have a author?, does it have to belong to someone? And if it does have to belong to someone why? Because of credits?

Shadow and big puppets

Description: This week we’ve been focusing on acting with the puppets and making our “shadow puppets” scene. I’ve been doing scene 5, with the big royal puppets, with the big head and all the body we made for Deborah, Damian and the archbishop. Also we’ve been doing the shadow puppets starting with exploring the different source of lights and making the puppets for this scene, as well as making very nice shadows, with Debora’s character.

Analysis: This week, I might say it’s been the most challenging week for me, as I had to explore lots of different things. First of all this week was the first week I’ve ever worked with the entire big royal puppet structure. We never had the body so we never worked with it, but this time I had to make it work somehow and explore it at its maximum. I must say that working with this puppets isn’t easy as it looks like or as I thought it would be like. First of all the head of my puppet moves a lot and I have to stay at a specific position, for it to work. Also I have to move the “hands and arms” of the puppet as it is what gives it life and what makes it interesting to see, but it is not any movement, it has to be big, precise and of course it has to link with the words that I am saying. I had to try different ways of moving for different lines, and to see which one looks better. What I do not like in this it’s that I can ONLY move the arms and nothing else, so it has to be big in order to drag the audience attention. On the other hand we have the shadow puppets scene, which we had to explore a lot this week. We spent like 3 hours just to see which source of light would work. Also we spent a lot of time doing the shapes of the citizens that are going to appear in this scene. In this scene I am doing Deborah with Nicole, and we are both her, and the shadow of this creates a great illusion. We had to work a lot on the movements of the hands, as it is the only thing that moves a lot. We create a movement for a sentence and even for some words that for us seemed important. This last was very challenging as it is not easy to create movements as each movement has to be perfect and precise, in order to look organized.

Connections: Working with the big puppets, reminded me of some big puppets I saw once near the beach, they seemed very easy to manage and very easy to make the movements, but what I saw wasn’t people talking and making movements, but just people making random movements, which in the play, I can’t do. Also just making the movements aren’t easy as you have to maintain the arm high and try not to get exhausted. Working with the shadow puppets was completely different for what I thought it would be like, I imagined something like, shadows with the hands, but this goes beyond that. Making Deborah reminded me of black light theatre as I thought that shadow puppets were with hand shapes and drawing images and not with people. The shadow puppets scene made me more interest in this kind of theatre which linked me to my video bellow: “Chinese shadow theatre”, which I found very impressive, as they did different shapes and different figures with their body. I just found it very spectacular and awe-inspiring.

Reflexion: I wonder how much it takes for someone to be able to do this kind of shadows. What skills do we need apart from been flexible, how much would it take to do that? – As I found this very interesting I think I will be searching about this kind of theatre in order to answer my questions. Also regarding the school play, how can I make the big royal puppet scene more interesting?, what other movements can I find apart from moving the arms?, are there other movements I can make to make it more interesting? How can I explore deeply?

finally acting!

Description: This week we’ve been doing a lot of the acting of the play, we’ve been talking about the titles that can suite the play we are making, and we’ve come up with the title “Shadow Queendom” , which is the perfect title as it is short and sounds like a fairy late, and this play is like a fairy tale. This week particularly I’ve been working on acting, I haven’t act since a long time ago so I enjoyed this “acting week”.

Analysis:  I’ve been rehearsing two scenes, scene 8 and scene 10. I forgot how acting was, in scene 10 I am Mathilda, and I thought this was going to be an easy work to do, but I’ve come up with the problem that I don’t know how a queen walks, talks, and moves. So instead of being an easy work to do, this scene was very challenging. Now I’ve search more about queens and I think I have an idea of a queen now.  This scene is when Deborah is destroyed and Mathilda wins. The rehearsals were very tense and in a way a stress one, especially because in this scene there are little kids, that sometimes it can be very hard to work with them. Also because there is a fight in this scene, and fights are always difficult as everyone has to be doing something and it has to be “in order”.  Apart from this scene we were working on scene 8, in which there are 2 guards (one of them me), and this guards have big puppets, which ive been working on those too, we have already the head of this guard puppets, but we have no idea how the body will be and we only have a month! This is an easier scene as we use puppets and I did know how guards moves and talks.  

Connections: I really want to make a good queen in scene 10, so I was thinking on trying a physical warm up and work in movements that this queen will do. Also for the big puppets, to remember the classes we had about puppets and to practice with the puppets as soon as I have them.

Reflexion, question: what I was wondering, was about the puppets, how are we going to make their bodies?, and would it be easy to do? Because we only have a month…

Stimuli to get a play

Description: We’ve been working on our stimuli for our PPP, this week i had to search about: symphony 25 of Mozart, and all week through we’ve been talking about this and how can we get the plot and the vision of a play with just this song.

Analysis:  For this symphony, we first had to look what the symphony was made of, and what does it had. We realized that the instrument played were repetitive, like a mirror. So we came up with the idea of the mirror, after 2 classes of looking at the song, we came up with this idea. And now that we had the idea of “mirror” we had to look for a story, you can either invent the plot or use a book (a story), that connected to the idea of mirrors. I decided to invent a story, and as a game we split the two sides of the stage, and then playing with still pictures, both sides tells a story in a different way, I was thinking of the theme “abortion” and the plot will be arguing about this. The plot would be with a family and a girl that is pregnant, (this appears on both sides), then the girl starts telling her parents that she has been raped (both girls in the stage talks at the same time) and then when they start deciding whether to abort or not, one part of the stage freezes allowing the other one to talk and then this one freezes and allows the other opinion. This will teach the audience a different perspective and different opinions about this controversy theme, and this will also allow them accept new ways of thinking.

Connections: I really want this play to TEACH the audience something, to leave the theatre with something more in their heads and to keep them thinking and to keep them analyzing about this theme, like in “Sin titulo, tecnica mixta”, that taught me things that I didn’t know about Peru even though I am Peruvian and that made me think about this problem. I want the same effect on the audience that will see this play.

Reflection, question: What I don’t know is how , for example, Sin titulo, tecnica mixta, did this, how did he made the audience go very deep and then keep them thinking about the theme they acted, how did they get to teach the audience something and how did they get to really get them into the play?

Masks

This last week, we’ve been working in the school play as always, but we have also went to see “Los musicos ambulantes” from Yuyachkani.

For our luck this played used masks, (half masks), which by the way gave the play a really “catchy” effect. I think that as Roberto said, working with masks includes lots of characterization, and movement  as they cannot see your gestures and you have to transmit your feelings by your body.

We were talking in class that in order to use a mask you must always look at the public and in this play we saw the effect, that this gave on the audience, yes, we have to look at the public and avoid looking to the back or next to you.

This play was very interesting as they used lots of instruments, and very  nice Peruvian songs, which I liked, because they used different types of instruments, but all Peruvian. I really enjoy the characterization of each of the characters in this play, but if I had to talk about one, it would be the dog which was called “chusco”. I enjoed more this character as, in my opinion it was well developed and had a very good use pf the body and transmited us (the audience) all the feelings  without showing the gestures in her face.

This also made me think about the physical work, that we did in class, as we have to explore every part from our body, would this help in this kind of acting? As they use masks?, I think that yes, it would help a lot, as you have to move every part from your body and show what you can and cant do.

I have never watched a play with masks, and I truly believed  that masks was a bad idea, and that it would be very boring, but after watching this play, I changed my mind and now, I think that masks will be very interesting to see I our play, and something “different” to work with, but just as every new technique it is difficult to developed and we must face the truth, and we have very little time. So apart from physical work, what does it take in order to make the school play as interesting as “Los musicos ambulantes”?

Dancing

This week I will be focusing on directing, as I directed a lot. The scene I direct was scene 1, the ones of the dancers for the school play. They already had a part made of the dance, but it was very short, incomplete and it lacked of energy. As it is the first scene, I truly believe that it should start very catchy and with a lot of energy.

This scene was very hard to direct, as the girls that dance are from form 4 and even though they are supposedly to be more responsible and mature, they do not pay attention and many times don’t follow instructions. They did not put the effort that they should have put it when acting, but as they are convinced that they are not important and that they won’t talk, they feel as they do not need to put that much effort. But the truth is that every scene in the play is unique and special, and even thought they might not talk the dance implies lots of effort and energy. They should be very focus and I clearly don’t know how to make them want to do this dance, because it seriously looks like if they didn’t even want to be in the play.

Apart from the lack of behavior and interest from the actresses, I should take account the movements for the dance. The dance in this scene, will be the first one, so in order to make the audience interested it must start with a lot of energy and entertaining movements. I came out with some ideas for the dance, which I think work very well. On the other hand, I must say that the dancing is sometimes boring. But what does it take to make it as interested as the “Mas pequeños que el Guggenheim”? , the dancing here was very funny, but we can’t make it funny in the one for the school play, so we cant make “silly” movements, otherwise it would look as if we are making fun of it. So what can I do to make it interesting but not as a joke?. I have already used a very interesting part, but what else?, and what can I do to make this girls more interested?, and what to tell them in order for they to know that their scene is as important as the rest one?

ENERGY

 This week has been “Puppets” week, we use all the skills and energy we learned just to do puppets in every single moment we could. We finish joining the pieces of the body, of the big puppets, which Manu took lots of time to do them and then we were filling them with cotton, until one of them broke, we had to paste them with the “Africano” which we are all addicted to now, and we mostly did a lot of puppets. But what I want to center my entry about is the two plays we went to see this weekend: “Mades Medus” and “Mas pequeños que el Guggenheim”.

First of all “Mades Medus” had a really  “thinker” storyline, as it was not easy to understand and it was very complex. In order to transmit the message they wanted to transmit to the audience, which I think it might be the “paradoxes”, they would have had to use the setting and acting in a different way.

First of all, we all agree that at some point the play was boring to see, this was because the actions in the play were not continuous and did not attract the audience’s attention. Even though their entrance was really interesting as they were one on top of the other one and it catch our attention, not only because they were in an acrobatic way, but because of their actions and movements. It started with a really nice energy and very catchy until they starting talking and until the plot started developing. The energy never reduced as the actors were always motivated and never loosing energy (in my opinion) but in this case the actions and the acting did not work well with the script, as they used the typical prototype of “funny and silly characters” with “difficult and complex script”, this they usually use to “make the scrip interesting” but instead of doing this, they opaque the script.

I personally think that the script was really difficult to understand, and even though  the script was made to transmit controversies and knowledge, it did not made sense at all. If we might talk about the setting I might say that it was really “cheap”, as they didn’t use the colors well and the setting was very poor, as the costumes and make-up, we could even see the make up going out and leaving pieces of the actors skin uncover, which gave the impression of unimportance. Also even though on a stage you do not need too much props to make the play interesting, in this play the props were used in such a poor way, that it was not catchy, and so instead of helping the actor it disturb him.

We also have “Más pequeños que el Guggenheim”, which was the second play we went to see. This play was a comedy and it was just amazing, somehow it made Robbie stand up, so we can agree that it was outstanding. This play made me laugh through all of it, and on the contrary as the previous one I did not get bored.

This play started and ended with the same energy, but what made it different?, first of all the plot and the storyline, as it was simple but not “cheap”. It was easy to understand and follow, which made the audience even more interested. Also they used a really “informal language”, (bad words, I would say), but instead of making the play vulgar, it made it funny, and enjoyable. We couldn’t take our eyes off the play. The acting was just great, every single actor had its different type of walking, speaking and expressing, which showed how much work in characterization they did. Which I may say, that it showed that they worked a lot in that, and was with this that they gain the audience attention. They even danced, and even though the dancing in plays tend to be a little be childish and boring, in this one, it end up being a master piece, with more laughter and attention from the audience.

I haven’t enjoy a play this much since a long time ago, as we are cursed from the “analysis” point of view every time we go and watch a play. But this one made my mind flew away and unconsciously I was analyzing but at the same time enjoying the play.

We can say that in both of them the energy of the actors was very high and well developed, but what made it different? Why was one play more interesting that the other one?, and I think that it is because of the script. So in a conclusion I can say that if it is difficult to understand and the acting is “funny” so that it “makes it interesting” then it won’t grab the audience attention. If the script is easy to understand and the actions are well developed as well as the characterization, then here we will gain full attention of the audience. But would this work for every script? Or just special ones as the last play we saw? How can we get into such a deep and well developed characters? What does it take? How can we know which jokes can work and which ones won’t? Is it a risk to take? Any steps to get there?

Directing

This week, we’ve look at several things, first about how to do an analysis and the steps for it, this is important as we are doing out research and it needs to have lots of analysis in order to get top grades. In the workshop we continue doing masks, but other kids were helping too and it didn’t work as bad as I thought it was going to be like.

Also for the first time this year, we did warm up in class, it was very difficult as we needed a lot of concentration, which is the same as you need for acting, so it is very important for an actor to do the warm up, not only to concentrate but to get full of energy and get ready to act. I found this really difficult the first day we did it but the second one was quiet easier as we already know what was going to happen and therefore we got ready for it.

What I enjoy the most this week was directing scene 9 for the school play, even though they gave me very little information to start building the scene, I managed to do quite a lot, and at least from my point of view it wasn’t that bad. The scene was about ghost, so we needed to explore the character; we walked like ghost for 5 min to get an idea of it and to see what looks good and what doesn’t work. Then we come up with a special type of ghost which I think it worked as it is not as the normal prototype ghost but a new one. It was very difficult to keep order as they were kids from form 1 and even though they are from upper school, they were often distracted. Somehow I manage to do the scene with some dialogues and some techniques like: still picture and chorus. I think we need to work a lot in the scene but up to know it is moving on. What worries me, is that, if I took 2 hours to do a little scene, and we still need to work on it, would it take that much with the other scenes? And what about the younger kids ones?, would they be distracted?, Would we have time?