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.