Anticipation

The report of the day would have been Brecht if one of the students had not been absent. To prepare for the slew of information in the report, our teacher asked us to read Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan. I was unable to read the play during class time, so I have now done a bit of research on it. The story begins with a description of Setzuan by Wong, the water seller. At the time, he is waiting at the front gates of Setzuan to greet the gods. The gods, who are searching for kind people, are turned away from every household save that of a prostitute named Shen Te. Through her hospitality, the gods become convinced that she is a truly good person and reward her with a new start in life. With this generous gift, Shen Te purchases a tobacco shop that furthers her in her quest for goodness. Her kindness is a flaw in itself as it is taken advantage of by a carpenter, a family of eight, Mr. Shu Fu, and Yang Sun. In response, Shen Te creates an alter-ego named Shui Tai who sorts out all the complications of her life. Shui Tai is introduced as her business savvy cousin. By the end of the play, Shen Te falls in love with Yang Sun only to learn that he was planning on her. She disappears for a while, leaving Shui Tai in charge, as she is pregnant. During her absence, Yang Sun takes a job under Shui Tai and demonstrates his incredibly diligent work ethic. When Yang Sun discovers the purpose of Shen Te's absence, he demands Shui Tai to reveal her whereabouts. Unwilling to do so, Shui Tai is taken to court by Yang Sun. The judges at the trial are predictably the gods incognito. Shen Te reveals herself at the trial only after the court has been cleared. Though the gods are shocked, everyone is relieved to find Shen Te in good health. The play bluntly ends with the gods flying off on a cloud wishing Shen Te good fortune.

In creating this synopsis, I have realized that the names of Brecht's characters hold sort of a double meaning. For example, Shen Te, in Chinese, translates to health. This is relative to her character as she is given good fortune and health by the gods. Also, Mr. Shu Fu is supposedly a malicious character, or as I've surmised from the summaries I have read. This is quite ironic as Shu Fu translates into comfort. This double meaning of names definitely adds another erudite layer to the play. I wonder if anyone else noticed.

Well Read

Now that I have finished reading The Glass Menagerie, perhaps I can finally contribute something to the conversation in theatre. I thought that by finishing the play, some brilliant idea might pop into my head, but quite the contrary. In fact, nothing about the play has really struck me as fantastic or amazing. The rave reviews I have been hearing from my classmates has left me wondering, "Are we talking about the same play?" The only scene in the play that really seem to speak to me was the one in which Laura and Jim's character began building a relationship. I don't know if it is the literary merit of the piece or just the simple blooming of Laura's character before the audience's eyes. Prior to that scene I had been somewhat confused as to the purpose of the entire play. With the development of Laura's character occurring all in that one scene, I feel that it is most crucial to the play. I hope that I will be able to take lead in creating the set for that particular scene. I have not envisioned anything in particular for it yet, but now that I have finished reading the script, I feel that I have a better grasp for what the stage might look like. For the past year I have been throwing around the idea of a multi-level stage, something that was first talked about in the classroom that became something I was actually able to see in a production of Spring Awakening. So far I have envisioned the glass menagerie and the room adjoining in to form the ground level of the stage, while the dining room sits on a higher level. I don't believe I'm making any sense, but once I sketch something up I think there will be definite possibility.

Techies

As the juniors have decided to enter the Tech category of this year's DTASC festival, Kim and I have been persuaded to aid in the set and lights department. This is something new for the both of us as we did not take this opportunity last year. In part, I am quite glad that we did not considering the great amount of work and time that must go into preparing for this portion of the festival. With only five students to work on an entire production for this category would have been draining. Luckily, the larger number of students this year will make the process a bit easier. Tennessee Williams's works have been selected for production in the technical aspects. The students that will actually be presenting the final project to the judges have decided on Williams's The Glass Menagerie. I have read the first few pages, but I cannot seem to get beyond the stage directions. It seems quite complex which means it will be all the more difficult for the set people. This somewhat worries me as it seems as though it will only be Kim and I working on the set. As we do not really consider this tech assignment as one of our own projects, I hope that the other students will realize it is not our main concern. I don't know what it is but it seems as though everyone's looking for the easy way out.

Heritage

For the first time in a long while, I thought about what I would truly be interested in devising an entire production on. I thought back to my summer internship last year when I first encountered people who regarded refugees of the Vietnam War worthy of amazement. The entire situation just seemed laughable to me considering that I had always been surrounded by these refugees. Both my parents had escaped the war on boats that were to small only to reach refugee camps that forced them to work in the rice fields. Growing up with these stories forever repeated in my ears, I had grown used to the fact that my parents were refugees. Now that I am a bit older, I am able to fully comprehend the magnitude of what both my parents had to endure at a very young age. The tales of their journey are extremely personal and something I feel that could move an audience. Not only do I want to memoralize their experiences, but in a sense I want to pay tribute to the heritage of my entire family, an entire generation of people lost to the consequences of war. When I pitched this idea to my teacher, I was met with a good response as well as some recommendations. She gave me A Piece of My Heart and Shrapnel in the Heart to read and perhaps glean some ideas from. As I discussed my idea further with my classmate, we were able to develop beyond the idea of just my family's story so as to extend the plot to other people in our community who have experience monumental things. At this point, I am not sure whether I would like to create a collection of stories or simply address that of my family.

Their Turn

Theatre is definitely very different this year, considering the addition of fifteen IB juniors to our class of two. While they trudge through the syllabus as we had last year, Kim and I have been given time to finalize our script for The House of the Spirits. At this point, our script is currently being looked over by our teacher.

Theorists presentations have already began, but they are nothing like what I remembered from last year. Since there were only five of us in the class at any given time, we never learned beyond ten theorists within the whole year. Now, with the advantage of a much larger class, I have been able to be refreshed by reports on theorists I had previously heard as well as learn a lot of new information from others. Anton Chekhov was one of the more interesting theorists. What struck me about him were his plays and how they are often portrayed as humorous although he never intended them to be that way. Upon doing some more research about Chekhov, I learned that he was one of the firsts to employ the stream of consciousness technique in his writing. This a style that I have encountered in English class already through the writings of Naguib Mahfouz in his novel The Thief and the Dogs. Chekhov, supposedly the second most popular playwright in the English-speaking world, is often times associated with the Stanislavsky method. Stanislavsky wrote that "Chekhov often expressed his thought not in speeches but in pauses or between lines or in replies consisting of a single word." The style of Chekhov's works seem to underscore the entire idea of the subtext in a script.

Starting Over

Unfortunately, it seems as though I have encountered a problem with my research investigation question. After researching the movement of Butoh to create an outline for my report, I realized how difficult it was to discuss the theatrical tradition of Butoh as opposed to how I, as a director, would lead my own production of a Butoh piece. The problem stems from the fact that there is no script for Butoh. Considering that the entire performance revolves around movement, there is not much written on it. It just seems like a waste at this point, however, to completely change the question I have been working towards. This is made all the more difficult by the odd composite of things IB wants from the investigation. IB is continually encouraging us to research non-Western theatrical traditions, and yet, the further you stray, the less written material there is for us to base an investigation off of. My teacher has sent me off this weekend to work out the kinks to my question. I feel that I have no choice but to begin looking for alternatives. Possibly something in Chinese Opera, it was another subject that has always interested me through family roots. Let's just hope that there's some attainable script out there.

Let Go

Given some time to think over the way casting went, I have decided to leave the past in the past. I just want to make the best of this situation by proving my dedication to theatre. For that reason, I will continue to contribute my energies to making this production memorable. Besides Scapin, however, Kim and I have been continuing work on our The House of the Spirits script. With the monologues essentially complete, we are now spending class to work out our entire concept for the production. In doing so, we have added the character of Esteban to the production in order to recreate the journaling effect of the novel. He will provide the link between all the female characters as he essentially narrates the performance. I am comfortable, for the most part, with all the monologues save Clara's and Blanca's. Since these monologues were written by a classmate, I feel uncomfortable as to completely re-writing her work. She seems hesitant to make any changes to her writing, so I have simply left them as is for the moment. This is a problem I have discovered in working with a partner on a script. If this is any indication of how things might progress in the future, I think I will choose to complete my devising project alone.