Experts, Almost

Since last week's performance, we have all become aware of the pitfalls of performing live. Of course, I can only speak to the dragon actors. The problem of making our cues was largely mitigated by the fact that we were performing indoors this time. Thank God. Once again, we ran into that problem of fourth and fifth graders somehow finding themselves above the humor of the performance. Throughout the performance, I found more kids interested in tripping the dragon as we weaved through the audience as opposed to paying attention to the plot of the performance. But then again, we are dealing with short attention spans. In a sense performance then cannot be wholly judged upon the audience's reaction. Actors are the only ones who ever know what went wrong and what went right. The audience will never pick up on this unless they have seen the performance numerous times, which is often not the case. As a cast, with insight into the rehearsal process and all the work it took to get to this moment, we knew that our performance was an achievement, despite the lack of audience response. The most important thing is that the cast knew what they were capable of and were satisfied with the product they put out today. That is all, I feel, we can ask for in the changing world of theatre. You are only as good as your last performance.

Cinderella, Inc. Brush-Up

Now with our first performance down, the Cinderella cast seems to have made an incredible amount of progress. The more reticent members of the cast have experienced the rush of performing in front of a live audience and are now finally warming up to their characters. Today's rehearsal was much more light-hearted than usual as the actors explored and stretched their characters to find the humor in them. The prop collection process that I have experienced throughout the entire rehearsal portion of this project has been relatively easy going. As long as you are organized, props can be easily dealt with in a timely fashion. I felt that doubling as property manager and stage manager really employed my troubleshooting skills. A lot of the time, theatre amounts to making due with what you have. Something that we can never forget is that theatre is live and that every performance is never the same. Things will go wrong beyond your control and all you can do is simply roll with the punches. As a property manager, one such problem I ran into was a chimney that Cinderella would have to emerge from in the beginning of the performance. I pondered the idea of constructing a chimney from cardboard while racking my brain for other options that would be more feasible. Eventually, I remembered a sandwich board with a brick facade that was used in one of our school productions. Considering the playful and magical tone of the performance, I realized that the sandwich board chimney would only add to the fantasy of the play. Rolling with the punches. It should be the new slogan for theatre.

The Hills Are Alive

Yesterday, I watched my high school's production of The Sound of Music. It was closing night, but I had also attended the opening night performance. So, I guess I have a more in-depth perspective to comment on the musical with. I thought that both performances were well done, but the closing night performance was a bit better than the other even with all the technical problems. During both performances there were many microphone issues. At times the audience couldn't even hear some of the main characters. Despite the technical problems, I felt that the cast dealt them with them very well and continued on with the performance as if it was purposely planned that way. I felt that the chemistry among the actors definitely picked up on closing night. Every note, every word was just sent out to the audience without any arrogance or pretension. The students playing the roles of the Mother Abbess and Maria had such charisma that when they came to sing together, it honestly felt as though we were watching a professional performance. The level of professionalism from everyone in the cast, I thought, gained the respect of the audience. The Sound of Music is just one of those type of plays that have persisted so widely in our culture that it has become a staple of one's cultural literacy. I'm sure many audience members came into the performance with an already preconceived idea of how everything would proceed an so on. I feel this is the wrong way to approach a play, even one that we may know very well, because in a sense you would be setting yourself up for a let-down. Our expectations are of course always very high. I felt that our cast did not disappoint at all, if anything, the audience's love for The Sound of Music only improved their response to the show.

According to Plan

The Fates seemed to be working against us all today. When we arrived at the elementary school to prepare for our performance, we learned that they had lost power to the multipurpose room where we were to perform. And so what do we do? Move to Plan B. Who knew that Plan B involved performing in the great outdoors? This performance truly embodied the entire idea of theatre, of just working with what you have. There was no way to change the situation we were in, so we simply had to adapt our performance to the outdoors. This resulted in some logistical issues as our dragon character had to enter from sometimes very distant locations. As one of these dragon actors, I realized very quickly how difficult it would be to hear the actors from such a great distant. As the performance went on, I also learned that fourth and fifth graders no longer have that suspension of disbelief you can usually count on from a younger audience. They were never phased by the abrupt entrances of our dragon, but we could not simply allow the lack of audience response to affect our level of performance. If anything, the rest of the actors and I continued to actively respond to the audience, attempting to involve the audience as much as possible. It was just a tough crowd.

In Shambles

The children's theatre piece that has been rehearsing for a while now is to take the stage this coming Wednesday. Unfortunately I am finding the cast to be in complete shambles. I do not know if it is the result of an apathetic cast or a student director that is simply too soft-spoken, but one way or the other, they are in no means performance ready. The blame cannot be placed on any one party because the rehearsal process is a dynamic experience that requires the enthusiasm of both the actors and the director. I find that the problem is coming from the lack of experience among the cast. Many of the students have come into the theatre program without any previous experience on stage. This has resulted in a misconception of what it means to be an actor. There is no realization of the dedication and contract an actor is signing by accepting his or her part. Many of the students feel as though rehearsal is limited to the class. There is no independent thought process as they move across the stage, each action seems to be something dictated by the director. This was something I could sympathize with as I ran into the same problem when I directed my own casts. I think it comes from the fact that as a student director, there is not that same level of respect from the actors. It is much easier to brush off tasks like preparing one's character or memorizing one's lines because the director is someone your age that you are a familiar basis with. It is therefore that much more difficult to harness something sincere from the actor, as they will ultimately approach their characters on the most superficial level.

Reminiscing

I have begun the long process of looking over all my past journals in preparation for the presentation assessment that will take place next week. The journey that I have made from that first day coming into a class of only six students to this day has been a long and trying process. I have seen much growth, not only in the practical knowledge associated with theatre, but also the personal and individual growth as my ideas and thoughts have been shaped. I no longer approach theatre from solely an actor's perspective as I am now equipped to see the stage through the eyes of a director, a costumer, a technical director, a writer, a theatrical practitioner. The experiences I have recorded over these past two years within this blog provide proof of this growth. Theatre, in many ways, has become more abstract for me. It is no longer something concrete that can be easily defined or communicated to others because the passion and respect I hold for it are embodied within performances or pieces of scripts that some will never understand. My journey through IB Theatre has been an introspective one that has made me examine my beliefs and perspective of theatre and also the world as a whole. This growth, I feel, is best reflected in my independent project. It is a culmination and testament to everything I have experienced over these two years. I have become and will always be a citizen of the theatre.

First Show

All the independent work up until this point for the children's theatre piece we have been rehearsing seemed a bit disappointing to all as we performed a portion of the piece for the first time for our teacher. As a dragon actor, there was not much in the way that my fellow dragon performers and I could have done as our piece was not integrated into the performance until much later in the game. I could see the frustration in the cast though as they stumbled through their lines, just waiting for the end to come. It was evident that the performance was not at all up to the level of readiness that our teacher had hoped for. There was obvious communication problem between the director and her cast. It appears as though the majority of the cast still has not taken "performance" seriously enough yet, but it is they that must keep in mind that they will be the ones on stage making fools of themselves. At this point, the cast just knows that there is a lot of work ahead of them as the performance dates are quickly approaching. There is no more time or room for error or horsing around as lines are not even completely memorized at this point. The great problem is that if their lines are not in perfect synchronization with the script, then we, the dragon actors, have no idea as to gauge our entrances and exits. We are so dependent on the cast and their lines that I fear that at least one point we will not be able to make our entrance.

The Deed Is Done

The Kabuki performance went relatively smoothly, save some mistakes here and there. As I predicted, our scene was not received as well as the other group's that I had mentioned in my last entry. Our music element was something that I as a theatre practitioner had found particularly interesting and innovative about our scene, but it did not translate as well as I hoped it would for the student audience. I feel that in order for one to appreciate Kabuki, one must have some sort of background or knowledge in the theatrical tradition. Otherwise the poses and the gestures are completely lost on the individual. And so, the audience responded much more vociferously to the humor and word play of the other group's performance. The humor was more blatant, something one could see happening on Saturday Night Live. Though the humor made the performance enjoyable and easy to relate to, I felt that it almost demeaned Kabuki in a sense. I am not saying in any means that my group's performance was completely true to the style of Kabuki, but we attempted to stay as close to the theatrical tradition as possible whereas the other group had thrown caution to the wind. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, but it was a learning experience nonetheless. I guess it's just part of the process.

Kabuki Brush-Up

Remember that Kabuki performance that seemed like ages ago? Well, it's back. We will be performing it later this week for a variety of classes. It should be interesting, exposing the student body to a type of theatre that is relatively unknown by the general public. I wonder how they will react. Even though we have modernized the scripts, Kabuki is still in many ways different from what people tend to perceive about theatre. And what with it being a high school audience, you can only keep their attention for so long. Considering all these factors, I feel like we will need to definitely emphasize the physicality of the performance in order to garner the interest of the audience. As long as we grab their attention with the stylized poses and exaggerated entrances and exits, I believe the audience will be more drawn to pay attention to the plot and so on. Today's class allotted time for us to rehearse our respective scenes. Though I originally thought my group's scene was one of the best as it stayed relatively true to the style of Kabuki, I found myself doubting how it would carry with the teenage audience. I knew that our scene would not be appreciated as much as another's group who had the language and comedy that would interest a student audience but was less consistent with the Kabuki style. I guess it's just a trade-off one has to make in the creative process.

Kill Me Now

About a month and a half ago, I attended a drama festival along with the rest of the cast of Scapin. While there we saw two productions, one of which I will be commenting on today. Seeing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was probably the most horrific and painful experience of my life. I could not believe that they had been selected by a panel of judges as the best in their area. Perhaps this is just me, a high school student without any knowledge of the back story, speaking in anger, but I had always thought that a sincerely good play should be able to stand up on its own. I did not even realize that the plot had anything to do with Shakespeare's Hamlet as the 15 Minute Hamlet sequence performed before RAGAD seemed so out of place and unconnected with the rest of the performance. The whole idea of a plot revolving around the coin flipping was incredibly dull and unstimulating.

Perhaps it wasn't so much the script that was bad as it was the acting. The two girls playing the roles of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had no charisma while on stage. Their boredom with their own coin flipping game made it difficult for the audience to even pretend to be excited. The situation was only compounded by the fact that I had never read Hamlet before. There was no sense of connection or coherence for me. I felt as though all the actors on stage were regurgitating words upon words with no meaning. It was one of those plays where I felt you had to concentrate hard every second otherwise you would miss out on what someone said.

The lack of projection was also another problem the play encountered. The theatre at Fontana High School is exceptionally large, and without the help of microphones, the cast was basically already at a disadvantage. The actors, however, should have been cognizant of this throughout their performance, and yet they continued to under project. By not enunciating or projection, much of the quick dialogue was lost on me and the other students. The lack of interest in the performance at one point became so great that the audience would begin to cheer whenever it seemed as though one of the characters onstage were about to die. There were many of these close calls, and each time we were disappointed that the performance was still not done.

Although this experience was a traumatic one, it was not a complete waste of time. This particular production of RAGAD taught me what not to do when approaching this kind of pastiche script, especially one having to do with Shakespeare's works.