Shakespeare, Oh Shakespeare, Wherefore Art Thou?

We have begun our section on Shakespeare and his works in class. In the meantime we have been assigned to read Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Discussion began with the basics--what we had already gleaned about Shakespeare from our English classes and so on. Born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare had a relatively comprehensive education that would have put him in contact with literature that influenced his own skill in writing. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. Much of Shakespeare's background is general knowledge so I will focus this entry on my research into The Taming of the Shrew. The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a drunken tinker named Sly is tricked into thinking he is a nobleman by a mischievous lord. Apparently, this Induction seems to have no correlation with the rest of the play and is often cut by directors. It is another one of those instances in which Shakespeare's work simply lacks consistency (ex. suspicion surrounding monologues by Hecate in Shakespeare's Macbeth). Anyways, the Lord has a play performed for Sly's entertainment with a primary and sub-plot. The main plot depicts the courting of Petruchio, a gentleman of Verona, and Katherina, the headstrong, obdurate, and eponymous shrew. Katherina is at first an unwilling participant in the relationship but Petruchio tempers or "tames" her with various psychological torments until she becomes his obedient bride. The sub-plot features a competition between the suitors of Katherina's less intractable sister, Bianca. Stay posted for new insights and revelations into the story as I begin to read the work.

Shakespeare Video Marathon

As Spring Break quickly approaches, the remaining snippets of class have been spent watching videos on Shakespeare. We actually just completed an interesting activity involving the comparison of various interpretations of a single scene from Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. In completing this activity, I was able to recognize the differences between a stage production versus a cinematic interpretation of any given scene. There was also a difference in interpretation simply based on the time period or context the director had decided to set the play in. Some performances tended to be more physical than others, drawing various emotions from the audience. By the end of the process, we as an audience concluded that it was more effective to have the excessive physicality as the more subtle interpretations began to bore us. Some interpretations we also found to be way off the mark. The director's choices did not always make sense to us, but we realized that it was simply all part of the creative process. Another difference we found was in the level of awareness in respect to sexual connotations Shakespeare had incorporated into his text. Personally, I tended to prefer mild allusions to these connotations as the blatant ones always tended to come out so vulgar.

Experts, Almost

Since last week's performance, we have all become aware of the pitfalls of performing live. Of course, I can only speak to the dragon actors. The problem of making our cues was largely mitigated by the fact that we were performing indoors this time. Thank God. Once again, we ran into that problem of fourth and fifth graders somehow finding themselves above the humor of the performance. Throughout the performance, I found more kids interested in tripping the dragon as we weaved through the audience as opposed to paying attention to the plot of the performance. But then again, we are dealing with short attention spans. In a sense performance then cannot be wholly judged upon the audience's reaction. Actors are the only ones who ever know what went wrong and what went right. The audience will never pick up on this unless they have seen the performance numerous times, which is often not the case. As a cast, with insight into the rehearsal process and all the work it took to get to this moment, we knew that our performance was an achievement, despite the lack of audience response. The most important thing is that the cast knew what they were capable of and were satisfied with the product they put out today. That is all, I feel, we can ask for in the changing world of theatre. You are only as good as your last performance.

Cinderella, Inc. Brush-Up

Now with our first performance down, the Cinderella cast seems to have made an incredible amount of progress. The more reticent members of the cast have experienced the rush of performing in front of a live audience and are now finally warming up to their characters. Today's rehearsal was much more light-hearted than usual as the actors explored and stretched their characters to find the humor in them. The prop collection process that I have experienced throughout the entire rehearsal portion of this project has been relatively easy going. As long as you are organized, props can be easily dealt with in a timely fashion. I felt that doubling as property manager and stage manager really employed my troubleshooting skills. A lot of the time, theatre amounts to making due with what you have. Something that we can never forget is that theatre is live and that every performance is never the same. Things will go wrong beyond your control and all you can do is simply roll with the punches. As a property manager, one such problem I ran into was a chimney that Cinderella would have to emerge from in the beginning of the performance. I pondered the idea of constructing a chimney from cardboard while racking my brain for other options that would be more feasible. Eventually, I remembered a sandwich board with a brick facade that was used in one of our school productions. Considering the playful and magical tone of the performance, I realized that the sandwich board chimney would only add to the fantasy of the play. Rolling with the punches. It should be the new slogan for theatre.

The Hills Are Alive

Yesterday, I watched my high school's production of The Sound of Music. It was closing night, but I had also attended the opening night performance. So, I guess I have a more in-depth perspective to comment on the musical with. I thought that both performances were well done, but the closing night performance was a bit better than the other even with all the technical problems. During both performances there were many microphone issues. At times the audience couldn't even hear some of the main characters. Despite the technical problems, I felt that the cast dealt them with them very well and continued on with the performance as if it was purposely planned that way. I felt that the chemistry among the actors definitely picked up on closing night. Every note, every word was just sent out to the audience without any arrogance or pretension. The students playing the roles of the Mother Abbess and Maria had such charisma that when they came to sing together, it honestly felt as though we were watching a professional performance. The level of professionalism from everyone in the cast, I thought, gained the respect of the audience. The Sound of Music is just one of those type of plays that have persisted so widely in our culture that it has become a staple of one's cultural literacy. I'm sure many audience members came into the performance with an already preconceived idea of how everything would proceed an so on. I feel this is the wrong way to approach a play, even one that we may know very well, because in a sense you would be setting yourself up for a let-down. Our expectations are of course always very high. I felt that our cast did not disappoint at all, if anything, the audience's love for The Sound of Music only improved their response to the show.

According to Plan

The Fates seemed to be working against us all today. When we arrived at the elementary school to prepare for our performance, we learned that they had lost power to the multipurpose room where we were to perform. And so what do we do? Move to Plan B. Who knew that Plan B involved performing in the great outdoors? This performance truly embodied the entire idea of theatre, of just working with what you have. There was no way to change the situation we were in, so we simply had to adapt our performance to the outdoors. This resulted in some logistical issues as our dragon character had to enter from sometimes very distant locations. As one of these dragon actors, I realized very quickly how difficult it would be to hear the actors from such a great distant. As the performance went on, I also learned that fourth and fifth graders no longer have that suspension of disbelief you can usually count on from a younger audience. They were never phased by the abrupt entrances of our dragon, but we could not simply allow the lack of audience response to affect our level of performance. If anything, the rest of the actors and I continued to actively respond to the audience, attempting to involve the audience as much as possible. It was just a tough crowd.

In Shambles

The children's theatre piece that has been rehearsing for a while now is to take the stage this coming Wednesday. Unfortunately I am finding the cast to be in complete shambles. I do not know if it is the result of an apathetic cast or a student director that is simply too soft-spoken, but one way or the other, they are in no means performance ready. The blame cannot be placed on any one party because the rehearsal process is a dynamic experience that requires the enthusiasm of both the actors and the director. I find that the problem is coming from the lack of experience among the cast. Many of the students have come into the theatre program without any previous experience on stage. This has resulted in a misconception of what it means to be an actor. There is no realization of the dedication and contract an actor is signing by accepting his or her part. Many of the students feel as though rehearsal is limited to the class. There is no independent thought process as they move across the stage, each action seems to be something dictated by the director. This was something I could sympathize with as I ran into the same problem when I directed my own casts. I think it comes from the fact that as a student director, there is not that same level of respect from the actors. It is much easier to brush off tasks like preparing one's character or memorizing one's lines because the director is someone your age that you are a familiar basis with. It is therefore that much more difficult to harness something sincere from the actor, as they will ultimately approach their characters on the most superficial level.