Improvisation for the Theatre.

Since we completely finished Stanislavski's work yesterday, we moved on to Viola Spolin's Improvisation for the Theatre. I don't exactly remember when, but we had previously discussed Spolin's work. I believe it was Jenny who had brought her up in one of our earlier discussions, and she even mentioned this particular work of hers. Before coming into today's class, I already knew that Spolin's book would consist of largely improvisation activities that would constitute as "warm-ups". For the reason, I didn't think that she would provide much theory of her own. After the discussion, however, I learned that much of what Spolin wrote about was rooted in the work of Stanislavski, and I guess that makes sense considering Stanislavski is the father of theatre theory. Spolin stressed as well the importance of hand gestures as she considered them to be the things that the audience paid the most attention to. Concentration was another major aspect of Spolin's direction. She believed that the best acting comes when it is natural to the actor. If all else fails, Spolin encourages you to follow your instinct because it will lead to the natural action that will make your character all the more believable. Upon finishing Spolin's work, we then began Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting. I'll save the rest of that discussion for tomorrow though, because we did not finish.

Creating a Role

After finishing some leftover exercises from yesterday's Stanislavski, we moved on to Stanislavski's Creating a Role, the third novel in his trilogy. This particular novel focused especially on the process involved in forming an acquaintance with a character, building a background, and experiencing the emotions connected with that character. In preparation for a role, Stanislavski provides five parts of analysis which include studying other works of the playwright, preparing an actor's soul for creative emotions, and finding stimuli that will aid in bringing the script to life. With this, Stanislavski reiterates as well his method of emotional memory. This novel especially emphasized the importance of first impressions, as they tend to leave a lasting perspective on whoever. This notion seems quite contradictory to me personally because the book I have been reading, Harold Clurman's On Directing, de-emphasizes the importance of first impressions as they are misleading. I believe Stanislavski and Clurman find common ground on the idea of first impressions in that they offer valuable information to the actor that are initially left untainted by other people's interpretations. The important thing is just to approach this use of first impressions with caution.

An Actor Prepares

Today, we began the first of our book presentations. As you may have remembered long before Spring Break, we all chose to read a particular theorist's work. Today we focused on Stanislavski's first novel, An Actor Prepares. He wrote a trilogy, I believe, the next one starts with a "B" and we will be discussing Creating a Role tomorrow. Written as if it were a true novel, An Actor Prepares tells the story of a drama teacher (symbolic of Stanislavski) teaching students about theatre and all the different aspects of it. The points stressed in today's lesson was the concept of emotional memory that we had previously touched on in class, the unbroken line of a character's history (meaning that there was a life before and after that of the scene, play, etc.), and freeing oneself to the subconscious that fuels our emotional memory. Stanislavski says that we should never attempt to portray feelings that we, personally, have never experienced ourselves. That is not to say, however, that we should not try new things, only that we must draw on other emotions that can build and share a certain similarity with the emotion you are trying to portray. As the start of it all, Stanislavski truly put into words the methods and insights that we now all consider quite typical and mundane when in actuality all this theory was quite revolutionary. In listening to today's discussion of Stanislavski's work, I have found everything to be quite logical and methodical as there is a process to this seemingly undefinable action of theatre.

Part I (continued)

When we reconvened today to reveal our respective scores, it was elucidated that all of us could gauge the reactions of IB graders rather accurately. Personally, I tended to allow for more room of error and gave the benefit of doubt to the student producing the document. From today's discussion, it was evident that the most vital things to keep in mind while completing our researching investigations is to: 1) answer the question (surprisingly yes!) and 2) attribute our sources to the best of your knowledge. Upon finishing the discussion, our teacher officially assigned the preparation task of formulating three research questions along with providing some sort of text that we would be able to employ in our research. We then broke off and went our own ways with the opportunity to look over our teacher's collections of theatre books. These covered a range of subjects with books on stage combat to theatre of the absurd to Kyogen. It was amazing, but I'm not sure if anything really interested me just yet. I just know that I probably won't be researching anything more in Japanese theatre anytime soon. I've taken a personal interest in Chinese Opera and stage combat, but I'll see what else I may be pulling up from theatre history websites. 

Part 1

Today's task of the day related to the individual research question that we will be formulating and answering later on in the next school year. It isn't so much that we have forgotten about the IB syllabus and the tasks it entails so much as we have been exploring different aspects of theatre. Considering that we are the first group of students that will be going through the process of completing these tasks, there isn't much for us to off save the technically fake examples that have been produced by IB itself. Today, we looked over one about Bulaxi puppetry to be used in a production of Judge Bao. We began reading over the research commission like document to compare it with the rubric provided in the syllabus. As with most assessments in IB, everything is tailored to be objective through the use of a rubric. To practice using the rubric and incorporating it within our own work when the time comes, our teacher assigned us to read through the rest of the document, all the while comparing it with the rubric. In the end we will give the assessment our own score and discuss our results in class tomorrow. At the time we will go over how the IB graders score and comment on our work. A long to take in at this time, but I'm going to go back and revisit past blogs where I had brainstormed possible research questions.

Catching Up

With our teacher back at school with us, we started class of today by discussing the number of shows she saw while in London. For me, the most interesting description by far belong to The Lord of the Rings. Coincidentally I had read about the movie turned stage performance perhaps more than a year ago. Now fully realized, it was amazing just to hear the various special effects described. With revolve elevators and pogo-stick shoes, who wouldn't be interested? After discussing the performing and attending aspect of theatre, we then revisited the IB tasks that we will be completing next years. Each discussion we had for our four tasks eventually resulted in a future assignment that will aid us in focusing our attention. The most immediate assignment has to do with choosing any stimulus from our theatre classroom. So far, I've been interested by this knight's helmet as well as some other odds and ends. What I'm really looking for is a bike helmet, from which I can build three monologues upon. With the bike helmet, I've imagined this character that has been forced to wear a helmet in her childhood because she is so reckless and active. This monologue would probably be most accessible as one spoken to the audience directly. The second monologue, which would take place in the present, would show this character suddenly turned germaphobic after her crazy childhood. This monologue could be done in a psychologist's office with dialogue. The last monologue set in the future would still present the character in some great fear of something, and it would in this monologue that she would finally overcome her fear. Though at this moment these monologues may not seem that amusing, I feel that there is a lot of opportunity for creative blocking and plot lines. We'll see where it goes and if I may even choose an entirely different stimulus.

"Setting" Restoration Theatre

Fresh back from Spring Break, my classmates and I started off our first day with a video on setting the stage for Restoration Theatre. The context of the video focused mainly on the staging aspect of this particular theatre. Without somewhat of a understanding of Restoration Theatre as it emerged from an 18-year ban enforced by the Puritan regime. This rebirth of English drama manifested itself in the form of Restoration comedy as well drama. We had also previously seen another video discussing essentially the same subject as a dramaturg led us through the process of recreating an authentic Restoration set from writings and paintings of the time. Today's video chronologically laid out the development of Restoration stages as they evolved from amphitheater seating to bell-shaped seating, until the horseshoe-shaped seating came into being. What was most emphasized about Restoration Theatre was that it was the first of its kind to be built in perspective, meaning that the backdrops and sets gave a sense of an actual background with some depth. The perspective painting of the scenery greatly added to the sense of depth. Though informative, the topic was quite seemed overdone as we had already dealt with it in great deal in another video.

As You Like It

For this six-week grading period, I chose to forego seeing a play to read Shakespeare's As You Like It. Considering that I was already performing a monologue from it, I thought it would only benefit me to learn the context of the monologue while reading the work. Just to quickly summarize the plot for future reference, the play begins with the death of Sir Rowland de Bois, leaving his older son, Oliver, with the royal estate and responsibility for his younger brother, Orlando. Oliver, however, refuses to care for Orlando and denies him education, training, and property. Eventually, Orlando challenges Charles, a wrestler from Duke Frederick's court. Charles, however, does not want to fight Orlando for it would bring about criticism if he beat the nobleman. Oliver convinces Charles of an assured victory, but is predictably wrong as Orlando comes out ahead. Duke Frederick has only gained control over his own court by overthrowing his brother, Duke Senior, who has now fled for safety in the Forest of Ardenne. Often compared to a "Robin Hood" type of character, Duke Senior is followed by a band of voluntary exiles. His daughter, Rosalind, was allowed to stay on in the court because she was such good friends with Duke Frederick's daughter, Celia. When the two see the wrestling match, Orlando and Rosalind immediately fall in love. The two eventually must seek refuge in the Forest of Ardenne when Rosalind is suddenly banished with the court and Orlando learns of his brother's plot to kill him. Rosalind takes along with her Celia and Touchstone, the court jester. The two women take on other personas as Rosalind becomes Ganymede, a young man, while Celia becomes Aliena, a common shepherdess. Rosalind and Celia purchase a cottage in the forest where they become acquainted with Silvius, a lovesick shepherd who pines away for the disdainful Phoebe. Eventually, Rosalind meets Orlando and promises to teach him the ways of love if he will come to her each day to woo her. Of course, at this point Rosalind is still a man. As Phoebe inadvertently begins to fall for Ganymede while Orlando becomes tireless of wooing a man, Rosalind arranges for all the rightful couples to meet for unknown marriages. Ensuring that the correct characters end up with their counterparts, Rosalind reveals herself for who she is and she and Orlando are married that day. Celia and Oliver, Silvius and Phoebe, and Touchstone and Audrey are all married. Duke Frederick randomly decides to leave a monastic life, leaving Duke Senior to resume his rightful place over the court.

Though the plot is relatively simple compared to those of Shakespeare's other works, I am have trouble in actually realizing it. Beyond the typical productions of Shakespeare in which authentic sets and contexts are utilized, I would like to somehow adapt the performance to make it more relatable to today's audiences without completely changing it for a high school audience. My target audience would fall somewhere in between there. In adapting the work, however, I would like to keep everything of the actual work save the background to the piece. The only thing I don't want this performance to become is something reminiscent of the modern adaptation of Romeo & Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.

For the performance I have envisioned, I channeled one of our recent theorists...Peter Brook. Well, I channeled Peter Brook in the sense that I wanted to employ the minimalist style demonstrated in A Midsummer Night's Dream. I didn't want to use the white box, per say, but I did want to create this sense of the environment without it being overburdening. Considering that a good portion of the play takes play in the forest, I had the idea for this suspended tree that consisted of essentially just the branches and the leaves. I'm unsure whether to include the actual trunk, so this gigantic tree would be the focus of the scene. I also wanted to make the collage of branches and leaves out of these metal cutouts that have been painted to resemble trees and so on. This way, as time passed while the characters were in the forest, the light shining through the leaves would give off this shadow that I felt would add another element to the performance. With Shakespeare, I feel that there can't be a lot of clutter because then everything becomes muddled with too many things to focus on. For that reason, sets and lighting will all be tailored to give the most natural effect, as if the stage is not really there at all. It's just the actors and the environment.

On the Spot

As we will be departing for break with the end of today, our teacher decided to just spend the shortened class period working through some acting activities. Improvisation, though, isn't really my forte as I tend to get brain farts quite easily. Surprisingly, though, I was able not only to perform but get a few laughs here and there. With 60 seconds to work out anything we wanted, most of us just spend the time sitting in our seats and working through some points that we wanted to mention in our skit. There wasn't really time to think of the entire scene, but for the most part you had time to develop a plot line. With the plot line of a door-to-door salesman, I decided to sell my younger sister so I could buy a new game. Our skits were really only to be a minute long, but I lost of my train of thought during the performance and ended up going over time. The next skit had to do with accepting an award for something. The last skit I thought was the best as we pretended to be first or second graders at show and tell. I first started with telling the class that I wanted to bring my little brother because he had something "down there" that was different from all us girls. Just as I was about to say what it was, I purposefully caught myself and went on to show my pet rock, Larry. Afterwards, we went on to improv a story where our teacher acted as the conductor, pointing to each student to finish where the last person had left off. The store was incredibly bizarre and a bit incoherent, but quite hilarious. If there can be anything to be learned from our day of improv, it is that all of us need to work on staying in character. When it got just too funny, we all broke out in laughter. We were literally rolling on the floor laughing.

Adapting

When we presented our sketches on Tuesday, our teacher realized that we were all kind of stuck in the idea that only theater that exists are ones that model after the one at our school, or a proscenium stage. To help us move pass this, our teacher had us adapt our sketches for either three-quarter staging or theater-in-the-round. I chose to go with theater-in-the-round as I wanted to truly give the audience the sense of being in the middle of this very real war. In order to do so, I had the audience seated on the circus looking platforms on each side of a square area for the actors. I had envisioned that once the audience had taken their seat, I would push the wooden barracks to connect the four seating areas into a circle. To continue adding to the environment, I wanted to erect this cloth backdrop that would encircle the barracks and everything within it. This backdrop would display the field and enemy bunker as well. Upon presenting the idea to my teacher, she questioned how I would adapt this type of staging for all the other acts. It was then that I realized it would be necessary to stop in between each act to change the environment accordingly. Something to always think about as it would break the continuity of the entire performance. 

We then continued another devising activity that we had started on Tuesday. With a minor character from Cyrano, we were prompted to create an entire play for this character. We chose Valvert, the puppet of De Guiche in the play. With Kim, we decided to take Valvert ten years back to when he was first openly rejected by women. In his dejection, Valvert writes this self-help novel which he is showing at this book store. As he recounts such encounters with women, the set and lighting will be changed to signify a flashback. Valvert will of course act as himself in these flashbacks while pulling characters from the audience. We had also imagined that the true audience would be seated with the book shop audience as well. This way we could create performer and audience interaction as everyone was sort of mixed-up together. Upon proposing our story, our teacher commented that it would be somewhat inappropriate to place a self-help book in the 1640s. She suggested that we instead place Valvert in a tavern where he could be telling the rest of the men, which would allow us to continue with our play in the same way. Overall though, our teacher felt that we were going with a safe idea. 

I Got a Laugh

While in our devising sort of mood, we were prompted to come to class with a sketch for a particular act in Cyrano as well as a partially prepared 1-minute performance. For the sketch, I was once again left with Act IV or "The Cadets of Gascony". Compared to the other acts, this war scene required a comparatively greater imagination. It seemed practically impossible to re-create the field strewn with carcasses and constant gunfire that I had imagined while reading the play. Luckily, I was able to find a drawing of the act, and I simply adapted that for the stage.  In creating the set, I was drawn to this idea of giving distance and depth to the stage by creating these progressive levels. The main stage area for the actors would be at the normal stage level, but behind all the action there would be stairs leading to these wooden barracks on a faux hill. Behind these barracks, I place a backdrop that gave the sense of the vast field with the opponent's fortress on the other side. If we had another opportunity to do this assignment I would have like to have gotten Act V where Cyrano and Roxanne are talking under this gigantic tree. There are a lot of possibilities in such a minimal set. 

After we had finished presenting our own sets and discussing any possible difficulties, we then had some time to finish preparing our short performances. The stimulus for this assignment was the infamous nose monologue from which we were to choose a certain style and then create a performance where we would say the line at some time. I chose the lyrical description: "Lyric: Is this the ocean shell, the wreathed horn that Triton blew when the old gods were young." I bounced ideas around for quite a while with my sister, until I happened on the idea of some journalism student that suddenly woke up to realize that she 10 minute to write an amazing article. As she frantically ran around the room trying to find a possible topic, the character pondered the idea of writing about her cat or Little Women. In the end, she happened upon a banana that she thought to be "thought provoking" and ended up creating a little poem. Disgusted by her own work, she realized that she needed something more like a lyric, and so goes the line. I'm so happy that my classmates were receptive to the multiple gags that I had place throughout the performance. All our performances were quite interesting as we all came up with completely different ideas from the same stimulus. As our teacher said, we have no problem with devising. We're geniuses!