Improv Say What?

To take a break from all the script writing and dramaturgical work for our fall adaptation of Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits, we chose for this Friday to be dedicated to improving our improv skills. Did we improve? Not so much, but we sure had a lot of fun. Our teacher started off by parceling out various improv books filled with exercises. We then flipped through them for about ten minutes until we were able to find two or so exercises. Afterwards, we just went around the room telling each other about the exercises and then putting them into action. The only hindrance I found was that some of my classmates chose to read out entire blurbs for the different situations that the player had to be put into. With all these long descriptions, I felt as though the entire scene was already directed out, leaving no room for actual improvisation. This completely limited my stream of thinking when I had to go up and improv this monologue about a girl who was madly in love with her neighbor. This might have just been a simple mistake on their part considering that they really haven't had theater experience. When it was my turn, I chose to go with the "Foreign Film" and "Hitchhiker With an Attitude" exercise. I felt both of them created interesting and exciting results because I was able to pose very general scenes that could really go anywhere.

Pencil Me In

Since we had already begun discussing next year's project last Friday, we continued on by creating an actual timeline for the progression of our work. The project will be closely related and even inspired by Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits. Next year's IB juniors will be reading this novel around wintertime, meaning that our production would need to be up and running by the time they finish the book. The most pressing deadline would be individual monologues that will be due the day of the theatre final. More than anything else, these monologues will provide beginning ideas and at least some sort of starting place for the production. As a whole, we've been wavering on the plot line of the production, unsure as to really what direction we want to take it. Personally, I've been inclined to starting from a few sentences at the novel which we will repeat verbatim at the beginning of the production. From that point, Alba will be seen on stage and perform her own monologue. I then envisioned that Alba would fitfully fall asleep, and from her dreams the ghosts of her ancestors past would come out of these hanging picture frames. Each grandmother and so on would pass on some sort of gift to Alba's unborn daughter, almost as if they were the three shepherds. We'll see how the script evolves throughout the summer.

Profundity

For the next couple of days we've planned to practice the presentation IB will require us to make in about another year or so. Besides that, we've been just picking up on odds and ends that we have yet to finish. One such thing relates back to the rituals we had discussed last week and now we were posed with the question of what kind of production we could devise from the ritual. Since I didn't particularly like my own about Indians dropping their children from roofs, I chose Kim's ritual from East Timor for funerary rites. From this ritual, I told the class about a plot line that would revolve around a foreigner who had recently passed away in a nation very different from his own. It would either be someone from East Timor who had passed away in London or someone from London who had passed away in East Timor. Essentially the deceased's friends would attempt to arrange a funeral in the style of the deceased's culture, "attempt" being the operative word. The main problem that my teacher pointed out was that if the plot line went the way of someone from East Timor passing away in London, how would an English audience be able to distinguish between what was being done right and wrong in the funeral since the East Timor culture is foreign. Considering that I planned to make my production a comedy, the knowledge part was essential. From this practice, I've learned that IB would probably be more accepting of a dramatic piece. What really got me was that despite its pitfalls, our teacher genuinely liked our ideas and thought they would be interesting to carry out. I don't know why, but that just amazes me. Theatre amazes me everyday.

Mi Casa es Su Casa

With our own series of monologues finished and performed, we moved on today to perform each other's monologues. Earlier last week I had received Lucy's monologue. From the choice of her past and future monologue I chose the past considering that that future one was a bit too short. The character presented was a young girl about the age of eight who was just talking about her life. That was the main problem with the monologue...it was just talking. I didn't want to be disrespectful by changing her intention and writing of the monologue, so I did my best. I believe I only altered the language in two instances because the way she originally had it was confusing. Eventually when I did perform the piece, I was surprised by how many people did not comprehend that I was poor from the way I had blocked the piece. I intentionally set up cardboard boxes to show that I was living on the street. At one point I even knocked over a neighbor's cardboard box, but apparently everyone thought that since I was so young I was just pretending or something. Once again, I felt this to be a problem that originated in the writing since my actions could have only done so much to convey that I was poor not through my imagination but out of condition. Oh the frustration.

Spring's Awakening

With AP testing over on Monday, I have been absent the rest of week unfortunately due to a fever I have seemed to have contracted from my mother. Oh, but I still made it out tonight to catch Cal Poly's production of Spring's Awakening. Written by Frank Wedekind, this play tells the story of German teenagers continually pressured to grow up in ignorance of their sexuality. So of course the characters turn the other way to satisfy their curiosities. Considering that I have heard shocking reviews by friends who have seen the musical version of this production, I thought I was prepared for the worst. With such a delicate subject matter, the play quickly set itself apart from any other production that I have ever attended. Characters were often seen masturbating throughout the performance in order to attain knowledge as to what the big whoop was about. There are points when gay and lesbian couples are seen kissing and groping each other while one girl is even raped onstage. The latter was cleverly blocked as the girl was sporting a longer dress, which the rapist used to cover the supposed act. This was all done with the girls back to us as she was balanced on the back of a park bench. Almost as if the boy was carrying her, the rape was carried out relatively realistically. 

I particularly enjoyed the entire blocking of the production, though the acting wasn't exactly as on par as the writing demanded. The stage was split up into five or so different staging areas, and each surface consisted of a different textile. A park scene had faux grass while the reformatory/meeting room was made out of this cold metal. On one average-sized stage, the director was able to convey a variety of locations. It was quite similar to what the class had imagined when we were coming up with alternative staging for Heads & Tales with the treehouse idea. As focus changed from one of these stages to the other, however, I felt that blocking became problematic because it wasn't as smooth as one would imagine. The lights were simply lowered and music was sometimes played if the actors needed a longer time getting off stage with all their props. This choppy style was prevalent throughout the performance and eventually drew away from the audience's attentions to what the actors were saying. Considering that this play was quite long-winded, I found many of the actor's diction and projection an abomination. Was this really a college-level production? With no mikes on stage or even on the actors, the audience had to depend on the strength of the actors' voices, which were at times incomprehensibly weak. I felt that there was so much to say that the words just flew by the audience most of the time. Even at this moment, I don't really understand what the entire play was about. The actor that played Moritz Stiefel was the worst, which is quite ironic considering how he is the focus of much of the play. It was not until the end of the second act that he suddenly became animated when he rose from his grave to settle his beef with Melchior. Another ingenuity of the director was covering Moritz's face with a white cloth that covered somewhat tightly just the front of his face. This way, his voice was still audible and the shape of his face could be seen, but it was exactly as though he had risen from the dead. On top of that, Moritz was left shirtless so that his emaciation could be emphasized with make-up, upon which a load of white powder was dusted. This way his erratic motions were all the more dramatic with the cloud of dust that fell from his hair with each movement and contributed to his ghostly demeanor.

The backdrop to the stage consisted of a simple cyclorama that would change colors with the mood or time of day. It was most useful for projections that came to be connected with particular locations. Like rows of crosses for the graveyard and so on. A small inserted projection screen was located on top of the stage left portion of the cyclorama which pictures were projected in correlation to the speaking of the immediate characters. At times the pictures seemed completely distracting and unrelated. The only point I found this projection helpful was when Hanschen Rilow was talking about the many women he has fantasized about in famous paintings. With each description, each painting was projected onto the screen so the audience could get a sense of what he was talking about. Hanschen's character does this entire scene in a pre-recorded monologue as well, which is played from different parts of the theater ever few phrases. It is in this way that it seems as though Hanschen's mind is surrounding the audience, as if we were a part of it. Though immediately effective, I felt that the repeated echoing of his voice from all corners of the theatre to be monotonous and ultimately useless.

This production was definitely innovative, with its integration of modern day music and special effects that blended seamlessly with the writing. Ultimately, I felt this performance fell flat with poor choices in casting. It could have been really amazing otherwise.

All Over the Place

As you may have already realized, AP and IB testing has left many of us in and out of class all over the place. I haven't had the opportunity to come back to my theatre class until today since Monday. While I've been gone, the class had traded the rest of the unperformed monologues and I received Lucy's work. Her character, as I remember from her monologue, came from a Spanish origin and was a businesswoman of a sort. Considering that this was her character's present, I anticipated that her character, Espera, came from quite a privileged past. Just the opposite when I read over her monologue. Espera, it turns out, tells a rags to riches story as she extols her love for her father despite their impoverished lives (just the opposite of Martha). The future monologue that Lucy had written didn't contain much substance or length so I  have opted to perform her past monologue. During today's class we went over rituals that we were instructed to research. After each ritual we were each asked of what ideas came into our minds if these were to be veritable stimuli. Personally, I didn't find many of the rituals to be inspiring save one about funerary rites. Ironically, I could only think of movie references. Afterwards, we continued revising our research investigation questions. Mine were all considered viable by our teacher, and now we have set a date to once again narrow our search.

Being Martha

With Uta Haggen's principles for creating a character in context, we began performing our self-written monologues in class today. We were only able to get through three of them, mines included. This character that I had created through the three separate monologues of the past, present, and future was quite hard to portray. Initially, I had imagined all of the monologues as a comedy considering that my stimulus what a knight's helmet. So the first monologue I wrote, the past, was consequently understood as comedic. As I thought about how this character would progress in time, I began to draw from personal experiences to create an emotional and dramatic setting in which the character had suddenly transformed into a neglected and ignored child. Much of my character's, Martha's, hate stemmed from the ongoing divorce of her parents for which she ultimately blamed her father. I chose to present this monologue to the class in introduction of my character. Though based in personal experiences, I felt I didn't do the monologue justice at all. Focused on the lines rather than what I was saying, I slowed down the pace and found myself repeating things over and over again. Eventually I even had to improv a bit when I began losing my place. My teacher commented that considering my environment was my bedroom, a place of security and closeness for all people, I failed in exuding such sentiments. So blocking was an issue in that area as well. If anything, I felt this exercise to be a catharsis. One of my classmates was heralded as the best example of building a character as her motives and obstacles were clearest. I guess for this particular exercise, simple was the best way to go.

Old & New

These past few days have been filled with assignment after assignment, or though it seems. On Monday and Wednesday, I finished introducing my class to the work of Harold Clurman. He brought something a little different to the table, at least with regards to our past expert, Uta Hagen. With his directorial background, Clurman grounds much of his work in what Stanislavski had set forth. Referring to Stanislavski's teachings as "The Method", Clurman adds his own experience with directing new plays. For this reason, Clurman's work is limited as much of his protocol only applies when one has the opportunity to direct an entirely new play. Most often, productions are simply done with plays that have been around for quite a while. Upon completing all our reports, we then moved back focusing upon the various IB tasks. We've now read and critiqued two examples of the Research Investigation. Simultaneously we have been assigned to write three monologues based on some stimulus from the room. The first will be performed the following Monday. As you may remember, I chose a knight's mask and would use that to create the story of an all too adventurous girl who got too many scrapes and scratches. And so, her mother has now armed her with this knight's mask from her younger brother's Halloween costume to at least protect her daughter's head. From then on, I wanted to take the character to the opposite spectrum by developing her sense of mysophobia, or more vernacularly known as a "germaphobe". Well that's what I've developed so far, better get to work. FYI, just began work on the practical performance proposal. Re-writing my research investigation questions as well, as we all failed miserably.