Postmodernist Plays Take 2!

Well, well, well...
Long time no talk blogger. It's been a long time since I've written these types of blogs, so please excuse the perhaps awkward nature of this blog post. But I guess I'll just begin?
I'm just going to drive right in and talk about the new worlds I journeyed into the past couple of weeks amidst the fall play, college apps and other pieces of school work. Despite the few hours this trek consumed, I'm so happy I took the opportunity to watch these plays. I'm still regretting giving that one ticket away! It's alright I still have What the Body Does Not Remember left - extremely excited for this one.

Picture of the set and music played. Projections.

The first show I saw - the Tempest - was spectacular. From all the shows I've seen so far, it's definitely been my absolute favorite. Sure the Russian was a little hard to understand, and I'm not the On a side note, I do not remember the names of the characters because it was in Russian.
best at following Korean text, but I'm pretty sure I got the basic gist of the storyline. Where do I start with this production? Scorched moments:  

 

• Any moment when the doors open. There's always something completely different in the doors and the audience is kept on their toes clueless on what to anticipate. I especially loved it when the son of the king was dangling from his foot, the lighting was blue to simulate drowning. Also when the doors revealed a buffet of some sort. A really deranged play for sure.
• The use of music to transition different sequences of events. The motif of the same tune woven throughout the play. Its live nature.
  
• When the characters stood on the top of the stage overlooking the craziness transpiring below them - he was the one performing the magic.
• The animal like state of the daughter. She was such a great actress. I wonder how it must have felt for her to be in a play with only men? Her name was Ariel and her dad's name was Prospero I think. Woah, I remembered some names!
• The use of water at any point. So beautiful.
• The wedding. Ariel's transformation.
• The smell of the cigarettes they smoked on stage. So realistic. Granted, I hate that smell, but still loved that element.

In general, the play really revolved around images of marine life. We constantly see projections of the sea, of storms, of waves and of clouds on the minimalistic stage. It involved three sides of a wall with three doors attached to each one and a platform behind it to elevate the actors behind the walls.

The lighting was quite bare and in a few instances, the audience was lit as well. I would say the play was set in modern day because the costumes definitely show the bourgeois nature of the characters. There was, not to mention, a scene where the characters went on a shopping spree buying designer sunglasses and suits with a credit card.
What I absolutely loved about this performance was how I could understand the sequence of events and the emotions the characters experienced through their body language. I speak 0 Russian, but their body language really transcended the language barrier.
Here's a video clip of their wonderful performance:

 

The next play I saw was Victor Ou Les Enfants au Pouvoir. I think this translates into Victor or the

Babies that Can - loosely. This was one of the most absurd plays that I've ever seen in my life. I kind of got the storyline, but I think I would have been confused whether it was in English, French, German or Spanish. But despite the nonsensicality of it all, I was still awe-struck by the end of the performance. There were so many eerie, strange, interesting aspects of this production. I'm just going to share some scorched moments first:

• The roots - the shadows made by them, their growth.
• Shadows projected onto the side.
• Victor's death.
• Scenes utilizing the pool of water in the front of the stage.
• Farting woman.
• How the stage gets bigger and smaller depending on the emotional state of the scene. 

The stage was really cool. It had mobile walls that moved closer to the middle or expanded outwards depending on the emotional state of the scene. As the play progressed the roots grew and the characters got more and more insane and the storyline more and more jumbled. Loads of expressive dialogue and some really weird weapons and such. I'm still perplexed by this as a whole, but I think I'll come back to this play a little bit later - after more research into the play and the company.

 

King lear will not be discussed in this blog - everyone saw it so What the Body Does Not REmember will instead be discussed. AT that time more on Victor as well.



TPPP Classwork 10/2/2013

List of what you're SURE to include:

• The Last Days of Judas Iscariot
• Mother Courage
• The Good Soul of Szechuan
• Pina Bausch
• Anne Bogart (Include pictures from Mark Hill workshop)
• APAC Theatre - capture a picture that best captures the assembly of all mediums of movement theatre we ventured.
• Shakespeare - the art of language

Paragraph on symbol:

        Water has been a symbol for my thespian endeavors from perhaps the onset of my IBTA journey. Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman really centered on this image of water. The symbol of water has so many philosophical aspects attached to it. It is a very malleable element; it can be frozen or evaporated and when we can motion the water to go different directions. I think this is like our state with theatre. We are constantly changing, perhaps evolving from our states. Water also has reflective elements. In Disney movies such a Mulan, we see the protagonist gaze into the water seeing her own reflection. Through theatre, I think I get a better understanding of myself - my beliefs and my personhood.

What the Body Does Not Remember

The debut of Wim Vandekeybus and Ultima Vez in 1987 stunned the world of dance of the time. In New York Vandekeybus and composers Thierry de Mey and Peter Vermeersch received the prestigious Bessie Award for this ‘brutal confrontation of dance and music: the dangerous, combative landscape of What the Body Does Not Remember’. In 2013, 25 years later and with a new cast, the show once again goes on a world tour.
Vandekeybus’ first choreography balances on the razor edge of attraction and repulsion. Sometimes this results in a confrontation between two dancers, then between two groups, between dancers and music, and between dancers and a compelling set of lines. But throughout there is an explosion of aggression, fear and danger.
Wim Vandekeybus: “The intensity of moments when you don’t have a choice, when other things decide for you, like falling in love, or the second before the accident that has to happen; suddenly they appear, with no introduction, important for me because of their extremeness rather than for the significance to be given to them. The decision to use this as a basic material for a theatrical composition is at least a paradoxical challenge, considering a theatrical event as repeatable and controllable. Perhaps when all is said and done, the body doesn’t remember either and everything is a subtle illusion of lack which helps to define or exhaust the game.”

http://www.ultimavez.com/en/productions/what-body-does-not-remember

BTB: Bill Jones

I really love the concept of using ill patients for theatre. I think this is great for the audience and for the patient/actor. By using the arts as a means to purge and release their emotions, these patients are finding a conduit to express the inexpressible. A lot of patients need therapy to deal with the tribulations they go through and by releasing their sentiments through art, movement and speech. It's great for the audience to see and understand what these people must be going through.

Development In Pictures

Pictures

The Pajama Game

*Found in the depths of my TA folder. Added a few details*

The Pajama Game is the game we're in and we're proud to be in the Pajama Game, we love it! 

The past few weeks have been a mixture of things. We've had our ups and inevitably in the painstaking process of putting on a musical, we've had our downs. But through the hardships, we've found a way plow through the stress and BOOM, resulted with a colorful, spectacular musical (in my opinion at least).

The Pajama Game is set in the 1950s, in a time of 'economic upheaval' and 'governmental chaos.' The plot of the musical thickens with mawkish, cheesy love story between the foreman of the factory, Sid, and the president of the grievance committee, Babe. They experience a clash between their work positions; Babe desires a 7 and a half cent raise whilst Sid must keep the factory running smoothly.

I had the pleasure of playing Mr. Hines, the time keeper of the factory. This 'job' or role was quite an interesting one. I found many parallels between him and El Fayoumy - they're both loud. Well I guess that's pretty much it. They're both loud. They both exhibited zaniness in their character and were pretty entertaining to play. I guess I had to face a few obstacles in the characterization of Mr. Hines. He is stern yet fragile. I had trouble finding the correct equilibrium between serious and humorous at times and could not discern between what seemed funny and what seemed serious. It was probably one of the most fun roles I've played thus far in my acting career. 

Overall, the musical was a mammoth success. The stage, the lighting, the acting, the music in the end was an immense product! :D 

RI Japanese Theatre Notes

Tadashi Suzuki:

Movement and method of acting

• Fundamental Theories
• To act, one must have a point of view
• For acting to begin, one must have an audience
• To sustain acting, an awareness of the invisible body is required
• Goals for the actors
• Understand the different ways in which the feet contact the floor
• Breathe through the nose
• Send the energy through the floor onto the ground when stomping
• Keep the upper body free, but strong
• Be constantly focused an aware
• Lose yourself in fiction
• Keep the lower body constantly enraged and powerful underneath the center of gravity to support the breath and vocal instrument
• Ten ways of walking: Stamping Shakuhachi
• Standing Statues
• You move from a standing pose and you freestyle
• Sitting Statues
• Different relationship to the floor
• Activity
• Trying out the ten ways of walking
• The philosophy of Tadashi Suzuki
• The rise of modern Japan
• World War Two
• Effects of the Atom Bomb
• United States Influence
• Capitalism
• Globalization
• Movement into the 21st century
• Resistance to change
• Modern Japanese Theatre
• Globalization and Culture
• Decrease in communication, decrease in Theatrical Appreciation?
• Non-places
• Welcome to the West!
• Culture Extermination
• Rules of Society
• Theatrical Spaces
• The Village of Toga and Theatrical Space
• Form of Silent Protest
• Artistic enlightenment outside of the capital
• Dynamic Locations
• Outdoors vs. Indoors
• Audience and Actor Relationship
• Creating the feeling of "Home"

Japanese Underground Theatre (Angura): 

• Underground Theater
• 1959-1980
• Response to Shingeki Theater
• Anti-American Sentiments
• History
• Old Theater Kabuki
• New Theater Shingeki
• World War II
• Implications
• Conformity to Ideals
• Realism fo Stanislavski
• Humanism
• Proscenium Stage
• Adaptation of Western Plays
• New movement of the ARts
• Against the renewal of the Japanese American treaty in 1960
• Zengarukan student led organization
• Violence
• Rodosha Engeki Hyogikai
• Working People's Theate
• Major Angura Groups
• Kurotento or the Black Tent Company
• Jokyo Geikijo or the situational theater by Kara Juro
• the Tenjo Sajiki of Terayama Shuji
• The Tenkei Gekijo or the theater of transformation
• The Waseda Shogekijo or Waseda Little Theater by Tadashi Suzuki
• Later named as SCOT
• Rituals: Relations
• Kara Juro
• Karawa Kojiki
• Kabuki Theatre
• Rituals: Historical Impact
• The Fight for Independence
• Shingeki
• Selling out
• Western Ideals
• Against our people
• Philosophy
• Counter Cultural
• Search for Meaning, Search for beauty
• Oto Shogo
• Passivity
• Life is journey from Birth to Death
• Distance audience to give them perspective
• Silence, Stillness
• Kara Juro
• Rejected the traditional western stage
• Beauty of the Human  Spirit
• Flexibility in appreciating beauty
• Terayama Shuji
• Day to Day routine is meaningless
• More Intense and Meaningful reality
• Transcendent experience for audience
• Tadashi Suzuki
• Discipline of mind and body - centre
• Choice
• Battle on with the pride of the defeated
• in the battle, you will find meaning

Noh Theatre: 

• Brief history
• During the Nara Period (710-794) 14th century sangaku was imported to Japan from China
• Pantomime, actrobatics and magic, music and dance
• Over the course of 600 years, arts shaped and develeoped
• Nambokucho period
• Noh was created
• Hard to mark official starting date
• Kan'ami
• First to write and practice Noh
• Zeami
• Most well known practitioner of Noh
• Kan'ami's son
• When his father died, he was entrusted witht eh responsibilities and leadership of his father;s za
• Wrote new plays as well as dialogues on the creation, existence, and ideals behind Noh
• Characteristics
• Combines elements of dance, drama, music and poetry
• Written in the fifteenth or early sixteenth century
• Recreates famous scenes from well known works of Japanese literature. Not a dramatic reenactment of an event but its retelling
• Scenes are all actual spots in Japan, usually in the provinces
• Buddhist beliefs influence Noh theatre
• a person could not find spiritual release even after death if he is still possessed by some traumatic experiences of the past
• Zen Buddhism and Noh
• Japan bery much influneced by religion
• Prominent during Zeami's time
• Hana (flower)
• the relationship of the audience to the actors and stage where they perform
• feeling of perfect balance, mystic suspension in time
• "To know the meaning of hana is the most important element in understanding Noh, and its greatest secret"
• actors must train for years with the masters
• symbolizes Divine Presence
• Staging
• Heavens
• Bridge from heaven to earth
• The four pillars are the directions so the actors know where they're going
• Tree in the back
• Japanese Pine tree
• Common tree
• Simple tree
• Buddhist ideas of simplicity
• Movement
• Within each noh there are sections with names like kuse or kiri
• chorus and musicians play together in rhythm while the shite dances
• Basic Kata
• The basic movement patterns of noh
• Shiori
• To express sadness or grief
• Sashi
• Uses the fan
• Vocal Techniques
• Utai
• Vocal
• Performed by the Shita and students
• Keept the story moving
• Ji-utai (chorus) sing to movement/shita's thoughts
• Can sing in 1st person, not characters
• No set pitch
• Sings as one boice, no harmonies
• Based on a 7-5 syllable count sung over an 8 beat measure
• Three different types of matched rhythms
• 2 types of singing style
• Strong singing
• non-pitch oriented singing

Kabuki Theatre: 

• History
• 400 years ago
• Bright vibrant colors
• Origins of the Kabuki Stage
• Dry Riverbeds of Edo
• Izuno No Okuni
• Pre-Kanbun Era
• Crude backdrops
• Bare Noh stages
• Marketplace Culture
• "Scribble-Scrabble" art form
• Kanbun Era
• More complex performances
• Legitimacy of Kabuki develops
• Introduction of Hanamichi and the pull curtain
• Hanamichi = Flower path
• Crude backdrops
• The first Theatres
• Bofuku government's allowance
• Stone and wood materials
• Rapid development
• Different types of design
• Standardization of Hanamichi
• Development of Keren
• Seri
• Trapdoors
• Keren
• The revolving stage
• The first of its kind, invented in Japan
• Was man powered by workers called "Anaban"
• Wasn't electronically powered until 1911, when the Imperial theater was unveiled.
• It's first use was the 1758 during the finale of the play, Sanjuseki Motome Mesume
• It was used as a trick to cahnge scenes by the "divine power" of one of the characters.
• Lights up set change "Akaten"
• Seri (Trap door)
• Developed in the Kansei era
• Allowed actors to make dramatic introductions onto the stage
• It was originally man powered through the use of a rope and pulley system
• Was electrified in the 20th century
• Modified Seri for the Hanamichi was the Suppon
• Chunori (Wire Flying)
• Reserved for characters with magical abilities
• Adds on to the stage magic that a character can possess
• Traditionally, an actor doing chunori, starts out on the junction where the hanamichi meets the stage and then ascends to the audience seats that are on the third floor
• Used to be done with rope
• Makeup
• Simple white makeup
• Black makeup
• Wig, oil, and oshiroi (white paint)
• Used to highlight characters
• Earliest form of spotlight
• Commonly used in Wagoto or soft style Kabuki
• Destroys features
• Rough Style
• Telling action hero stories and for action comedies, folk tales
• Clothes and makeup were very ostentatious and loud
• mie
• Kumodori
• The makeup technique and symbolic meaning to the makeup in the Aragoto style of Kabuki theatre
• Belief in yin and tang, provide symbols to the face.
• Symbols
• The belief in yin versus yang
• Red is yang and is the color of youthful protective anger
• Blue is yin and the color of bottled and resentful anger
• Green = the ethereal and godlike
• Purple = the rich and the noble
• Each streak represents something specific to the character and so the actor may change but the makeup doesn't.
• Oshiguri
• Little ritual where they would put their face on a piece of fabric then they'd have a memento