HO'S

After working with the cast, I have found that there a lot of holes in character development that are affecting my cast’s performance. I know it has something to with the fact that they have not yet read the novel that the entire performance is based on, but there is only so much that we can do as directors to push them in the right direction. I have already printed out a number of plot summaries and character descriptions to supplement their understanding of their characters. Earlier in the week Kim had also shown them the film version of the novel. Without replaying the entire movie, Kim was able to show them crucial points in the plot line that led to the development of their character. Even with the drawback of our actors not having read the novel, I would think that they would be more capable of creating a character for themselves. Considering that we have been working on this project for about two weeks now, I just thought that as directors, Kim and I would not have to be telling them how to say each and every line. It gets to a certain point when I feel as though I am impeding on the creative process by directing our cast so specifically. What is a director to do?

DTASC to HO'S

We took fifth place at DTASC this weekend. I am still shocked by how well we were able to do considering the amount of last minute scrambling within the last week. Now that DTASC is done and over with, we have officially moved into our next project. We had already casted our show last week. I think one of our most interesting choices was Anna, who will be playing the role of Alba. She is the main character of our production as her monologues are the catalyst for much of the action. From what we have seen of Anna in class, her nature seems quite timid, reserved, and soft-spoken. Alba, on the other hand, is a character of great strength and fortitude as she endured a long imprisonment during which time she was raped by a military leader. There was an unquestionable spark, though, when Anna read for Alba. It almost seemed as though her quiet temperament had translated into wisdom and meaning beyond her years. I cannot wait to begin working closely with Anna to bring that sage and quiet fortitude of hers to the forefront so others will be able to see it.

Pride & Prejudice

I attended Whittier College’s production of Pride & Prejudice today. Before coming into the performance, I already had an expectation of what I would be seeing. Yes, I know, this is never how you should approach theatre, but how could you not with Austen’s masterpiece. I have read the novel and watched the Keira Knightley film multiple times. What can I say; I am in love with the piece. This, however, set me up for a great disappointment once the performance began. Overall, the production was just okay. There was nothing spectacularly amazing about it and yet it was not horribly terrible. Accents were the first thing that caught my attention. Considering that the entire plot is set in England, it would seem as though the British accent should be the furthest thing from your mind. Instead, the accents were inconsistent and all over the place. This greatly distracted from the rest of the production. I would say the actress that played Miss Bingley was by far the worst. She seemed incredibly unsuitable for even being on a stage. Another casting choice that I was confused over was the actress who played Elizabeth. As the main character, her strength and independent character should carry and catalyze the entire performance. When onstage though, Elizabeth was awkward and an odd choice overall. The better performances of the afternoon came from Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Bennet, and Jane. Mrs. and Mr. Bennet complimented each other quite well with Mrs. Bennet’s boisterous and overbearing nature portrayed to the tee. The actress who played Jane was just the soft-spoken and feminine character I had imagined. Though she and Mr. Bingley did not have the greatest chemistry onstage, I thought that her overall performance was one of the truest in the show. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy did have good chemistry, though it was somewhat blighted by Elizabeth’s poor performance. As I said earlier, there was nothing remarkable or too memorable about the performance. I find that stories always lose a certain quality when it is taken from the context of a novel and transformed into a film and eventually into a play. It is inevitable that some of what made it so amazing in the first place will be lost along the way.

DTASC

The festival is tomorrow so the various groups have taken today’s class to practice their speeches. In watching their speeches, I was reminded of the numerous mistakes of beginning drama students. Considering that making a speech is not much unlike a monologue, I was distracted by things like diction, shifting, projection, pacing, and nervousness overall. After making so many presentations in theatre last year, I have actually become quite comfortable in front of an audience. It was immediately apparent that they were unsure of what they were talking about. Once they were finished presenting their work, the class critiqued their presentations. There is definitely a stark difference between critiquing in our theatre class as opposed to in the advanced drama class. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that a number of the IB theatre students do not have previous theatre experience. Comments were a bit superficial and related with items like stuttering and projection. Eventually, Kim and I were able to speak with Karina privately to calm her before tomorrow’s speech. We simply emphasized that everything she was presenting was our own work, our own ideas, our own thoughts. There was nothing she needed to be afraid of because she would be essentially sharing her ideas with a panel of judges tomorrow. We will see how everything pans out by Monday.

DTASC

With the DTASC festival quickly approaching—it will take place this Saturday—the juniors have only begun to realize just how much they have to do. Looking at what the costume and publicity groups have produced, I have just been alerted to how far our group has fallen behind the others. Though they made plans to build the model this weekend, plans were not carried out once again. It seems as though nothing can be done without the approval of leader Karina. I have noticed that even minor decisions cannot be made without Karina’s seal of approval. It is unfortunate that the juniors in my group are only realizing this now with the festival closer than ever. I have had to take a firm hand in leading the group by setting delegating and setting deadlines for them. With less than four days to complete the rest of the project, Kim and I have already done all we can to guide their efforts.

HO'S (The House of the Spirits)

We have begun the transition from working on our DTASC project into our next one—inspired by Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits. I do not believe that I have had the chance to formally explain what this project entails. After reading the novel in our English 3 class, Kim and I have decided to use it as a stimulus for a production that would eventually be performed for the all the IB students. Since the end of our junior year, we have been in talks with the English teachers to find a suitable time for the performance. The date has now been set for November 26, which seems so far away. It is, however, never too early to start. Kim and I will be casting the show from our IB class. We have already begun the process of scouting out particular students that we thought would better fit the roles. I hope it will be everything that Kim and I had hoped it would be when we first began writing the script.

DTASC

Much of class time has been spent in preparation for DTASC. Though our group has a number of innovative ideas for staging and lighting Tennessee William’s The Glass Menagerie, it has been difficult getting the rest of the project into motion. I, myself, have attempted to lead the way in guiding the juniors on what they need to get done and when. It almost seems as though they have no sense of time for deadlines or when things need to get done. I fear that if they do not begin finalizing their choices soon, they will be working up until the very last minute.

Drawing from the inspiration of a carousel stage, we have decided to construct a triangular stage that will be able to rotate. Each side will be the setting for the various scenes of the play. There will be a living area, a kitchen/dining area, and a glass menagerie all its own. I have already drawn a rough ground plan for the group, but it is by no means the final thing. I have handed over the plans to the juniors, and though they continue to make plans to work on the model and other requirements, I have yet to see anything in class. Anyways, we though it would be more symbolic to allow the glass menagerie its own space because it sets the environment for one of the most climactic scenes of the show. Our ideas have not been exactly flushed out, but we will see where it goes from here.

DTASC

We discussed lighting for our production of The Glass Menagerie in our technical groups today. Considering that Williams wrote The Glass Menagerie as a memory play, we have decided upon largely soft lighting permeated by pastel colors. Besides the soft lighting, the rest of the show will essentially consist of basic lighting. There is one particular scene in the play that we went into deep discussion for. This scene of great interest is when Jim and Laura are in their deep and intimate conversation somewhere in the glass menagerie. My first impression from the script was always that the glass menagerie was a separate area from the rest of the apartment—a place all her own for Laura. While in this glass menagerie, Jim and Laura are supposed to be lighted by the glow of the dance hall in the vicinity of the Wingfield apartment. Karina once again brought in more pictures of past productions. This time we were inspired by the lighting choices of one particular production. To reiterate the fact that the couple were in an apartment, the directors of that particular production decided to light the actors as though the dance hall lights were passing through the slats of blinds. This created an interesting pattern on the actors that seemed to make the environment more intimate. Another option we have considered is a disco ball that could be used to recreate the glittering and reflecting qualities of glass. So many options are about that we just need to take the time to finalize what it is exactly we will be creating.

DTASC

Work for DTASC is now underway! We began earlier this week by dividing into our different technical categories. Along with Kimberly, I have been assigned to the stage and lighting group—which just so happens to be the one I was hoping for. Once in our groups, we began brainstorming about where we could take the production. We were definitely looking for something alternative, beyond the ordinary. Karina, a classmate, essentially took charge of the group as she was the one who would be presenting our portion at DTASC. She was the first to draw inspiration from previous productions of The Glass Menagerie done by other theatres. There was one in particular that drew our attention. The set was absolutely amazing because it was modeled after a carousel. It seemed as though the carousel would rotate as the action moved from set to set. We definitely want to produce something similar to this carousel set, but we have not yet figured out just how.

Bye-Bye Butoh

Thus far in my research I have been able to find no more than two to three books on the subject of Butoh. Even through the internet I have been unable to locate any new information beyond what I have already found. There seems to be so little known about this theatrical tradition, and even less on that infamous production of Yukio Mishima’s Forbidden Colors. At my wit’s end, I have decided to simply change my research investigation to a topic that is more accessible—K’unshan theatre, a prelude to Peking Opera. Though I will still be approaching the investigation from a director’s standpoint, I have decided to focus upon the aspects of music and movement that are so integral to any form of Chinese Opera. My new question will ask as follows: “How would a director use music and movement in a production of the K’unshan play Fifteen Strings of Cash? So far I have been able to find a knowledgeable literary resource. There is, however, a certain amount of confusion with the theatrical tradition of K’unshan. The entire culture of Chinese opera is somewhat of a mélange of operas differentiating from whatever region they originated from. For this reason, it is difficult to accurately pinpoint where exactly K’unshan falls into the greater scheme of Chinese Opera.

Thinking Beyond the Box

Following a report of Bertolt Brecht and his theories, we proceeded to discuss The Good Woman of Setzuan. In discussing how we would stage our own productions of the show, we all came back to the idea that Brecht encouraged sets and plots that were unconventional. He believed it was ideal for the audience to become removed from the situation of the play so they could better analyze and sympathize with what was going on. This eventually led us to compare Brecht's The Good Woman of Setzuan with Sophocles's Oedipus Rex. While Oedipus demonstrates all the qualtities of dramatic theatre, The Good Woman of Setzuan represents the fineries of epic theatre. We definitely took the syle of epic theatre into account when we were asked about how we would stage the show or whether we wanted to reveal to the audience that Shen Te and Shui Ta were the same characters. Everything that we decided upon was rooted in Brecht's theory of the unconventional and estranging the audience. For that we reason, we chose to stage our production in a white three-dimensional box, very similar to what Peter Brook did with his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We thought that the starkness and simplicity of the white box would minimize the audience's attention to the environment so that they could better focus on the message of the play. As a group, we also decided to make it known early on to the audience that Shen Te and Shui Ta were the same characters because Brecht emphasized the awareness of truth. Brecht enjoyed the jumps and swerves of an interesting plot line as opposed to the linear plot lines of dramatic theatre. Somewhat contradictory.