Puppets

This week I’ve been doing a research about Mexican theatre that I’ve found very interesting as I liked the tradition of Day of the deaths. In this tradition, they have a lot of influence from “the Aztecs”, and they use masks and puppets. They use a really interesting type of puppet which I will be centering my investigation in, this will help for the school play, as we might use this.

Talking about the school play, this week made me think of all the characters that there might be, as in “Vedova in Lumine”, I really thought it was going to be a great idea to have actors dancing with puppets, but in a shorter time, so that it will not be boring and also as I am helping with the puppets, I thought It was going to be a great idea to use the one in “Vedova in Lumine” where the actress went inside the puppet and control it inside it. This also has to do with the “Day of the deaths” in my Mexican tradition as they have a similar type of puppets, they use it very similar and I think it will work a lot in the school play.

Also we now know all the scenes and all the acting in some of the scenes in the school play, this gives me a better vision of it, and as I am helping mainly in the scenery, I wanted to have a better idea of it, but as time was short I couldn’t, this left me really nervous and worried, as I don’t have a vision of it and I am wondering when we will have time to have a meeting just the IB students to discuss about it.

We went to see “La cocina” this week, the play was boring in some parts and interesting in some others. It was boring when the energy of the actors were very low and they didn’t had many actions and also they left a lot of gaps between dialogues (in some parts), which made the play boring. On the other hand they had parts where the energy of the actors were really high, which made me wake up and focus my attention in the play, also they had activities as a dance they did, which gave me an idea for the school play, we can use this types of dances for the pirates and with the puppets, this can be in the scene of the point of view of the main pirate and he can be using the pirates and making them dance. What I’ve been thinking through this week is “La cocina” has a game?, our play has a game: “each scene is by a different characters point of view”, but does “La cocina” has a game?

Connections.

“Connection” is a highly important word in IB theatre. First I am going to talk about the play we went to see on Tuesday 13^th of March, the plays name was: “Vedova In lumine”, this play was quiet interesting because of the use of puppets in it. When it started I was quiet scared as it started with a mysterious song and with mysterious actions of the main character. But then the play turned confusing and difficult to understand, I did not get the plot that clear, but I think it would have been better if they made the actions more continues and made the play shorter so that the audience doesn’t get bored. Also I would have added more dialogues in the play, and SPANISH dialogues but not Italian, as we are in a country which its first language is Spanish and obviously not, Italian.

Then we had our presentations of the different types of theatres, I got Greek Tragedy, I think my presentation could have been way much better, but besides I was scared as I’ve never presented in front of Roberto,  it was  kind of difficult as last year I didn’t study too much in the “Greek tragedy” part, so I kind of regret that.

The movie “Heroe” was a very helpful movie to see for the play that we are going to watch this year, it can be a really good stimuli for the scenery as it had interesting settings as the use of colours and the different props that it uses. I really think this movie has a really good work in the setting and in the action that it does, I think it could be a good idea to use the different colours that might represent something in the movie, the first scene all in red, and then white, green etc. We can also use the big cloths that they use in one of the last scenes, but it might not work the “cutting” part as it will leave us with a dirty stage and as the play is presented 3 days, we will need to buy a lot of cloths and place them in the theatre and cutting it and then cleaning for the next scene.

We were told to choose a tradition (different from the ones we already studied), that has to do with masks or puppets. I investigated about Mexican tradition, which I found really interesting and kind of familiar as I kind of know the subject. I enjoyed investigating about “Dia de los muertos”, and I eventhough I was scared because I thought I thought there will be not enough information, I Hope, that the information I have its useful.

Regarding the play: “Védova in Lumine”, I think it was a disaster because it was boring as there was not too much of a story and the movements were not that interesting, and as it was long and there was not too much dialogue it made it worst. I would put more dialogue, make it shorter and make it more dynamic. But now that I think about it, what was actually the worst part of the play?, what made it really boring?, and after all what is the main technique I would need to change or improve in order to make it better?

1ST ONE

"You are going to die" - was what a form 6 student once told me about doing IB theatre, but I didn't mind and now I am doing it. The first lesson was kind of stressing as Roberto told us all the different plays that we will have to go and see, and even though he didn't mention about the reflections, it is obvious that we will have to do them after every single play, so lots of them for now on!, which even though it may be boring it will be helpful as we will improve a lot our reflection skills. 

Another important task for the IB theatre is the ppp which they kind of explain us, but already we have a task and we have to do a little ppp proyect for next week!, first of all, this is made in power point, in the first slide of-course goes your name, the title and a subtitle (if there is one). Then comes the index to organize your ideas and to let the audience know what you are going to talk about. After this comes what was in your index (these slides are just images but no words in them), then we need to include a mental map which is like a summary with the main key points and finally the sources that we have used. We learn this last year but in our second class Roberto reminded us, and give us more work!

The teacher even showed us a ppp of "Comedia dell' Arte", in here apart from giving an example of how to do our homework he remind us more about this type of theatre which we learnt about last year. We look about the importance of the movements and body characterization, we looked at the masks and how this will force the actors to express more with their body than the face, and the importance of the use of the hands. Also it remind us, that they improvised almost everything and they acted in the streets in cars like the "paegon wagon" from Medieval theatre. We also learned that the voice needed to be loud but it was not that difficult as they used "half mask", this did not cover their mouth so there was no need to shout.

Also as the school play is going to be based on masks and puppets, we saw a presentation of different kind of puppets, from simple and small ones to huge and complex ones. We define what "a vision" is, we said a vision is a projection or image of how do you want the play to look like without having a story or a concept yet. Also we shared ideas and we will be making big puppets and small ones, also we may teach the other pupils how to use stilts, to make the play more interesting.

In the last class of the week we found the “game” for our play, it consists of, that each scene has the point of view of a character and that character is not on stage, but represented by the audience so the fourth wall is broken and the characters address the audience whenever they talk to that particular character. With this we will make the play and we will use this as our first game in a school play. Isn't it challenging, would it finally work, or it will be a disaster?