Push forward to enemy lines! We are running out of time!

We are in charge of producing the school play next year, and it will be premiered on July, so that gives us less than a year to produce everything. It is a short time, we need to prepare very fast, that is why we are already preparing some things and getting our ideas on track.

Getting our ideas on track and synchronized for me seems to be the most important part of this project, since we need to start with the right foot, we need to get ready, and use all the artillery we have to start it out. The Heavier that starting artillery the better, because it would be a capital mistake to turn back once we start, because with such short time to get to the objective, we need to push forward with any ideas we have. Once we get all the equipment prepared and on our belts, we need to keep shooting bullets until we kill the target, because if we decide to change weaponry, we will get ambushed and the mission would have failed... so there is no turning back when you are running short on time.

If you are taking heavy fire by the enemy, you need to use whatever you have, even if it is a pistol, and shoot the driver, we can't afford big armament, so we need to tackle our problems with anything we have at hand. There is no resting in war, not at least until you win. Our wars ends in July, and we are going to win it.
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” - Douglas MacArthur

The war is to be commenced before the enemy strikes. Get the plot as soon as possible, and make the structure of your military to the best fit. Get the concept of your strategy to strike like they have never seen. If we need to win, we need to get prepared soon, and gain as much terrain as we can before the enemy does, so we do not struggle later on.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery" - Napoleon Bonaparte

It is not going to be easy, but when we are done it is going to be a great achievement and our country will give us a medal for it. It is about making history, making the next step, making the best school play we can. But it won't be over by then, because will still have to do our independent projects, and that time, we won't have a whole army to assist us, but we will have something more valuable: experience. And experience is the best thing you can earn from a war, because there will be more battles in the future, and you need to be prepared for those too.
"Only the dead have seen the end of war" - Plato

Life is short, people never have enough time to accomplish everything they want. But if a man puts all of his efforts into one project, he will use his time wisely to make it as good as he can. Nevertheless, when the hands of the clock rust, he will look back at his work, and change some ideas. And so he will continue doing as time passes by, as his old ideas vanish with his memories and new idea come along with his age and his time. He will always change something, to find the new perfection. He will never find it, because perfection varies with time, and time kills men. Where does change and evolution stops, and a fixed trend of theatre is stablished? Or is there no end, and the changes will continue until time stops? Or does it end when time kills us, and we no longer vague through the arbitrary direction of time?

Super Popper

Saturday, december the third.
play: Super Popper

I arrived there and after waiting for about 20 minutes we proceeded upstairs to get into the theatre, but to my surprise, before entering the theatre, on of the actors (Brunella) appears, with a knife in her hand, blood on her clothes and arms, and with a fast, direct and strong opening of the door. my first impression was strong, and I quickly realized the intention of this preface scene, as soon as I entered the auditorium and saw the actors doing loop movements, the same as we were doing in split, and the impression of what the actors were or what the setting is was very different because of the previous event.

The stage had platforms, which allowed different levels on the stage to be used, and through the play, the use of space i though was excellent, as they used all the space, even the doctor sitting on a chair with the audience, the tower being in between the audience, the door at the back of the platform, the 2 platforms at the sides, and the big space at the centre allowed a very good and varied used of the space, which i have no complains in any way about it.

What i understood from the play is i think related to the concept, im not sure, but i can give a sense to everything i will say in the next sentence so i suppose it is right... though it is never explicit in the play. There were this kids, the "leader" was called Aguja, there was Joe, the orphan "aaa-a los huerfanos que tra-trabajan los dejan salir a los 13 veveverdad doctor veveverdad que si?" i really loved his voice work, it was extremely good (maybe im biased as i always find the voice work the hardest thing). ¿Veveverdad Roberto? ¿Veveverdad que si?

Moving on... there was a mute guy, who did speak in some moments, but to the audience, and showed some drawings. The others on stage all thought he was mute... or maybe he was mute, because we are not part of their same reality. There were man different realities taking place in this play, which i will explain in a moment... first the characters. There was also a girl that didn't take too much part in a play (i don't even remember her name) but she was tall and with a green shirt with holes, and another girl with a light blue dress.

At the start you don't notice, because it is not supposed to be said, but understood, because they have no idea of what is really happening, (the kids) but they are being held in a asylum and being tested with some drugs, or maybe being cured by them. They are kids who have grown up with no contact with the outside world, their only source of knowledge comes from comic strips and drugs and driven by the human sexual needs, which they don't fully understand. It shows how humans are not how they really show themselves on society. A individual in society shows a fake image to fit in, to seem moderate, and we have been taught since little what is good and is wrong despite our animals instincts, but in this asylum, they have grown learning from what they have and getting to a state in which they live a different reality, we just reject it because we think that is not alright according to what we know. That is what i think of the background, of the plot, but the structure is much more complicated, because it is really difficult to show this reality to us and making us understand what is going on.

The space was not very big, and the voice was really loud and clear. That is a sign of non-mediocre work. The scene changes were not wasted either, projections of very stereotipical comic strips were shot at the ceiling, and the balloons used that space too. That was the biggest hint of the comic strips, that and when Brunella starts naming people as in the comic book, and also at at the start when she said "el super popper me lo dijo" with the "comic strip" on her hand.

Naked bodies on stage do not just work by themselves... its not like a "sex sells" kind of things. If it had not worked according to the concept, i would just thought Cesar de Maria said "I will put a naked girl on stage... everyone likes seeing naked girls on stage..." But it was not like that. It did fit the concept, as a young girl in that kind of reality did not care about others and criticism, it gave the impression of the crazy person, out of her mind, which she was. She was not taking her "medicine" (drug). Joe did... and when Joe took the medicine I like how the reality on stage changes without any big change of light, scenery or anything, you just... notice it changes. That is one of the arts of the theatre, symbols that make you imagine things are there without them actually being there. He became Super popper. the english names, such as Joe, Super popper, Dr dreamer gave the impression of super heroes (Joe reminded me of viewtiful Joe) and such.

Another transformation with symbols was the right hand platform, that was part of the asylum, but when the curtains were there it looked like a bedroom, when the shemale was there, it looked like the backstage of a show, when the mother was there, the stage looked like a alley, when the librarian was there, the stage was a library. These tranformations were very fast and the activation theory takes place. It is really fascinating how a little change could completely transform the stage.

The doctor was in another reality, he was not in the mind of the kids, he did not understand them. It is a parallel to nowadays when parents hear their kids talk on and on but don't listen to them because they think their thoughts are worthless and think they are not saying anything. This frustrates kids, like Joe. Aguja also refers to this, as they say adults manipulate kids, they don't care about them. Aguja refers to how everyone wants perfect children, good behaving children, but when they turn into adults, no one cares. "they should make better parents".
This is another thing that makes me beleive they are living in a children reality. The lack of emotion from the doctor was, i think, not made for the audience, not for HIS character, but rather for Joe, so that Joe gets frustrated, so he could talk to someone that wont listen. "Pero si no me has dicho nada Joe. El cree que todos escuchan sus pensamientos, pero en verdad no dice nada". Joe's stuttering also helps for this concept.

JOE:Dededeje de conectarla doctor! Us-Usted le hizo esto! Ususted era mi amigo, peppepero ya no, ahora yo quiquiquiero a brunella Doctor!
DOCTOR: Para que me hablas si no me vas a decir nada Joe?

Joe was the outcast, and super popper was his demise.

Therefore we can see there are 3 planes of reality in the play:
1) The asylum
2) The comic strips
3) The Adult reality (which does not take part, but just contrasts, as you can't differentiate something if there is nothing different to it)

And for this 3 planes of reality, the stage was very good fit, as I stated before, because the stage was nothing real, it was in our minds, it was made so the audience can picture is as they want, and therefore the transformations happen instantly in our heads. This allowed for 3 planes to be presented in 1, but no on stage, but on our minds. The play was presented on our minds. This is because of the lack of concrete scenery on the stage. But to what point does theatre work with a stage and when does it transfer to the audiences mind? What has to be shown in order to let the audiences imagination create the scene? Or does the scenery does not matter, but the actions and plot? How do you perform on your audience's imagination and reality to let the transformations flow as smoothly?





¿Algunas palabras que desee enviar a los jóvenes que recien inician su carrera como dramaturgos o directores?

"Que hagan lo que les dé la gana. Que seàn que esto hay que hacerlo libremente. Que no se guien por ninguna norma, que imiten a lo más alto que puedan imitar, que aspiren a ser mejores que los mejores; porque sólo así van a evitar ser empleaditos de alguna telenovela o esclavo de las convenciones que les impone otra persona...eso, nada más." - Cesar de Maria





"Que indica el genero sino los sastres?" lol... in todays society.. to what extent is this true?


P.S. when i wrote split i remembered... when do we get our copy of the one act play? :D

Hebras y la desindividuacion!!!!!!!!1!eleven!!!1!

Hebras.... lalallaalala

hmmmm no se, eeeh no se de que hablaaaaaaar y no se why i was writing in spanish

sfol;kass oon wednesday... we stayed after school to watch roberto's play: Hebras. We entered the stage and we smelled the *insert english name of the smell here* which sets the mood very quickly. Lights... at the centre shining from above, and the lights turned off... actors in... lights on. play starts

Actors use a blank mask to get rid of all traits, audience identification and facial expression, this is because the characters are just individuals... could be anyone since they are no one and the spectator gives the meaning to their actions... the spectator in his brains builds the character which could be anyone, as the actions and sequences done by the actos could be anything and it is up to the actor and his memory, understanding and emotions to see what he/she wants to see.

I will now talk more about the desindividualization (word that seems not to be in the dictionary so... yeah... you will understand right?) ok... sooo this idea, as far as i understand, ( i will summarize it for when i read this again next year i can remember) is that 1 man can represent different personalities and at the same can represent no personality at all by abstracting him to the point that he/she has no traits, and therefore can change into anything, or be representing anything at the same time as it is representing nothing. That is my definition of it. In a shor phrase: Being nothing can lead you to be representing anything and everything at the same time. - desindividualization, ta daaah

the play (its not 3am, but its 12:30 so it is still a good time to blog :D) made differet spectators, as they mentioned after the play, that they undrstood different things and could relate it to different situations. I would say it funny if it wasn't that they were bliss to the background information that they were asking trying to find out what was the REAL situation that was happening, while it was supposed to be that way.

You long ago told me that is was impossible to make a play that could mean completely different things to different audiences (in one of my blogs) but now you make a play that does that... OOH THE IRONY

okay so yes.. indeed... a mask will let a actor get rids of all traits and let him perform as something else. If the "mask" does not help the actor to transform his performance, then it is not a mask... but a prop or make up. When an actor puts a mask on, he has to rely more on the body, as the body will change the emotion on the mask, so the body changes the mask in a certain way, but does the mask changes the body? If it does... to what extent does a mask will change the body of an actor? Does the body rely on the mask also?

ASDIJOF;LASDKFSADL se me borro todo... pero justo lo copie, OH SI

Words without actions serve only to lie.

ITS TIEM

uuhh, i liked the play :) yay.

3:06 am... play review time!

The first impression of the play was given by the 3 girls in the chairs. Throughout the play i noticed that these 3 women where not characters, but rather feelings. I forgot the name of the type os theatre this was... but it was a kind of greek theatre in which actors do not represent characters, but feelings, or virtues/characteristics, whatever you wanna call them. They also served as narrators, additional characters, and abstract thinking (... at least that is how i like to name it). They are flat characters though, as they do not change parallel to the development of the play, but rather do different roles which do not change. Adding to this, they were also the backstage, in the way that they moved the props and scenery. But not only that... they were ALSO part of the scenery. In my opinion... the best part and most important of the play. For example, when Filoctetes was standing on the middle of the stage and the 3 women were doing some loop movements like dancing around him which game a very cool and impressive look visually, you would not get the same impression if they wouldn't be there. The bow. oooh the freaking bow... i bet half of the audience questioned themselves "WHY IS SHE CARRYING THE BOW? THAT MAKES NO SENSE" because... it was not really explicit that the women were not characters, it was not explicit that they did not exist. well... they did exist, they were just... not there. But anyhow... the vision by the director seemed to me very concrete. And he definitely saw these three women as much more use than a simple chorus... which i reckon was their original purpose on stage.

Odysseus...he sucks. I did not like how he acts... he... is... boring. I noticed him using the Awkward hands WAY TOO MUCH. it was pathetic. Shame on him, he sucks. He walked like a normal person. his face expression was stupid, and his movements had no purpose and were meaningless.


There was a lot of subtext involved in the script parts for Filoctetes and Neoptolemo. I personally liked how they performed their characters and was well worth it going to see this play. Uhhh they were well into character. the walking, the reactions, the voice, the subtext... blah blah etc pim puf paf. You could see how Filoctetes (no se que Isola i think was the actor) had worked on how his wound affected his character; physically and internally. although yes, he sometimes seemed to have forgotten COMPLETELY about his feet. like once he sat on the floor and placed his body weight on top of his wounded foot... uuhmm WTF YOUR FUCKING FOOT IS BLEEDING. ARE YOU A BLOODY RETARD OF SOME SHIT LIKE THAT? but still... apart from that little stupid flaw... it went well and flowed with ease, he did not seem very concerned, he seemed to have gotten into character very... deeply. stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp i summon you fire god or whatever, i think he could had found a better action for "summoning" the god.... instead of stomping the floor. But well...moving on

Neoptolemo had the ONE prop which was completely useless... the HELMET. yeah... it was useless and stupid. He wore it at the beginning for no real good reason... just to take it off and leave it there. They should had bought some arrows instead... where were the arrows? low on budget? THEN DON'T BUY A USELESS HELMET BLOODY HELL. But ok... i can handle it. that was ok, at least it looked decent. He was the most dynamic character in the play, and hell he was dynamic, his subtext work was hardcore...he could had mastered it more though, but it was pretty harsh so i will give it to him this time... (so strict... too many theatre classes) AAANYWAYS i liked how when his characters was confused or changing he had some slow motion seizure of some sort in which the upper part of his body moved freakishly around the chorus women. But it was understandable... and freed them from having no actions as Filoctetes spoke.

Costumes were fine... they were really cool, and i saw the concept behind, which the dry colors of the costumes contrasted with the dresses of the chorus to differentiate reality from abstract ideas in the play. Odysseus had white... white was not part of the concept in costumes to the extent that i could perceive... and anyhow, he sucks... so who cares. he can wear whatever he wants for all i care...

The projecting wasn't really necessary... but did help with the atmosphere a little bit. It was ok, could had worked without it, but it worked with it, so what the hell, why not. I really liked the play. The ideas in the chorus verses were really good philosophical questioning that made me start thinking a lot about greek minds...

OH YEAH... the music was PERFECT, it went INCREDIBLY well with the concept and the atmosphere. specially with the rhythm of the play and actions. ALTHOUUGH there was a sound effect went the smoke appeared that was really annoying and stupid... and did not fit the concept. but was magical and godly and shit so why not... i have noticed i use too many bad words in blogs... I SHALL USE LESS... and apologize for the ones i said before. FUCK YEAH... i mean... INDEED.

Well i really don't remember much more so i have nothing else to say.
okthxbye

By the way... this is a play review more than a blog entry so no final question right?

Scripts... You are doing it wrong.

Writing a script is not as easy as it seems.
Well yeah, everyone can write a script, anyone can take 2 or more names and give lines to each characters. But thats not the point. You need your script to be DESTROYED AND RE WRITTEN by Roberto to learn :D right? >.>

What i have learned:

The 5 commandments for writing scripts according to Roberto:

1) You shall not write too much description about the actions.

2) You Shall always work on the subtext before than the line.

3) If there shall be a chorus, thou shall make them say lines, not sounds.

4) Thou shall make stage directions short and clear.

5) It Shall not matter how great your script it. Roberto will always change it.


Charles: I BEG TO DIFFER.
Judge: How dare you speak like that? You should always agree with the commandments. They have been set upon us from the Theatre God: Roberto.
Charles: I DON'T BELEIVE SUCH NONSENSE. GOD DOES NOT EXIST!
Judge: Such disrespectful words can get you into big trouble.

JURY: GOD IS LOVE. GOD IS INMORTAL. GOD IS REAL.

(Charles stomps the floor)

Charles: I have heard enough of all this nonsense. I have had enough of living with this false traditions.
Judge: The excommunication will do you well. The suffering that awaits for you in hell shall be your punishment.
Charles: (Laughs) You really beleive that shit... how sorry I feel for you.

JURY: YOU WILL BURN IN HELL. YOU WILL SUFFER IN HELL. YOUR SOUL WILL BURN IN HELL.

Judge: I'M SICK OF YOU! (hammers the table) tell us, why do you say we, who follow our father in tue skies, are wrong. And you... the only one who thinks differently is right?
Charles: because The 5 commandments are wrong. A playwright is supposed to make the script according to his vision of the play. Making the script more detailed will limit the actor with the character he is exploring, because a certain stage direction will make the actor follow it, giving him what could be called a rule.

Judge: Stop! What is your point?

Charles: (moving) if you give a very detailed stage direction then you limit the actors interpretation of the character. This can be used by a playwright that wants his play to be performed in a certain way. But you can also write stage direction which are more free to interpretation. such as "moving" or you can try to make the. reader. read. a. certain. part. slower. to give him a different first impression as you can also make reader faster more dynamic text first impression text.

And the same way as the playwright can make his script free to interpretation as limit the interpretation, if there are rules for the playwright to write upon, then it is limiting the imagination of the playwright. If someone wants to write in a certain way it may have a purpose for being that way. if u wantz it to saund ztupid u wrait in bad grammars, while in the other hand, you could very well write in a very classy, or if i may, sophisticated way to change the image the reader will create of the character. For example, this last paragraph is contradicting as it says that the playwright should not limit the actors interpretation of the character by saying that the playwright can make the reader see the character different. it causes confusion and that is another technique, that goes against the rules, and can be used if the author was free to write whatever he wants.

JURY: EXILE HIM NOW. MAKE HIM LEAVE NOW.
Judge: No! let him finish.

Charles: The point is that there should be no rules on how to write a script, because if there are rules, you are limiting the playwright as the playwright will then limit the actor reading the script. These rules should be abolished and so give much more freedom to write a script. Because otherwise, you are limiting the vast techniques a playwright could use to write a script.

Judge: You are an anarchist. You shall me exiled right away. This case is closed. I'm tired of listening to your nonsense.

JURY: DO RULES LIMIT IMAGINATION OR DO RULES MAKE IT INTERPRETED IN A RANGE OF IDEAS? SHOULD WE LIMIT THE READER OR LET HIM MAKE HIS OWN CHARACTER? TO WHAT EXTENT IS MAKING THE SCRIPT LIMITING GOOD AND WHERE DOES IT START TO BE CLOSED AND IMPOSSIBLE FOR DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS?

Lights out. applauses. Charles screams.

Charles and Markus cuchi cuchi

To make the play from the paucartambo conventions, we have gone very far away from it, actually, apart from using the masks, i don't see paucartambo anywhere in the play we are going to make, nevertheless, it seems to be interesting enough to be put onto stage and analize it.

It won't be easy since we have 6 different heads thinking about it, and we don't always agree, but we have to learn to combine ideas without fighting to get the maximum possible out of every thought. But then, maybe it won't match, because if you try to combine different ideas from different people into 1 single project, then it make be wrecked from the abstractness of its combined concept.

How can different ideas combine to make a greater idea? Wouldn't it be better to have 1 person (capable person) do the whole work from his own idea, so he can have full control over his work and ideas and not having to trouble himself joining ideas and maybe ruining a good idea... great minds work alone, weak ones needs the help, amirite or not? It's not the best idea to put a great idea to be faced with having to join and combine with other ideas.

Le Uanaktplhei for Le llongherodienz

After presenting the one act play at the festival, in hiram, we presented it in school for the Form II and form I students, but they didn't react as planned or as well (to the jokes) as the audience in the one act play. Maybe because they didn't understand very well, or maybe because we weren't with as much energy as before, or maybe they just didn't wanted to laugh, i don't know.

The target audience of our play was Form III students and older (and parents) and so we did have a wide range of possibilities to play with on stage, but for some strange reason, younger kids did not find it amusing, although they were not very far form our target audience. I wonder why.

Maybe they were forced to go and therefore didn't enjoy it, because theatre supposedly an art (i say supposedly because i don't know if what WE DO is actually art but anyways...what is art then? lets leave that for another blog) but art is enjoyable as long as its voluntary, as its a passion and not a duty. When you see it as a duty it stops being art, and the same for the audience. People that are still in form I and II may not yet have developed a like for theatre arts, mostly because over 90% of them just chose theatre cause its the easiest course (...before the IB...) and not because they actually enjoy it.

So your target audience has to be, known before hand, people that enjoy theatre, and so will get entertained, but you can't show a play to a audience that are not willing and expecting to be enjoyed by a play of this type. It's just a theory though, which may break down is people from sixth grade enjoy it more, and then i would have to re-do and re-think about it, but my predictions are a silent audience, with actually no questions at the end because they won't be paying attention. But i guess this is how to awake the passion for theatre in the youth, because if they grow up without any theatre, then there will be no way of making theatre enjoyable for them, if it isn't voluntary, as they will not be pre disposed to enjoy a play and therefore wont find it entertaining. But how can you make plays entertaining to this kind of audience that don't like theatre, to start that spark? because maybe it is just voluntary, there is no actual way to make someone like theatre by forcing him to.

Director's concept: Quarks, Charges and Forces

(My blog for the WHOLE thing of the one act play will be next week... after we finish presenting it... and it will be a LONG ONE)

I had this idea in mind. I thought for a moment of something random (a stimulus) and then tried to develop into a concept for a play.

The concept consists of relating the daily life of people with the quantum world, or said in other words, to represent it. How does quantum mechanics is similar to our everyday life, and our social interactions. The quantum world works with probability, you can't be sure of anything happening, and so in the social environment. Could this mean that we are just a quantum world of another... bigger universe?

For this play, to get a better representation, i will choose a simple proscedium arch, or a thrust stage, and then make it represent a quantum environment. People will be dressed with different colors, according to what "quark" they are, and be in groups, forming particles. Then, the virtual particles, also known as bosons, will be represented by characters that interact between groups, and send the forces between the particles, or quarks, such as the 8 gluons (strong force), the W+ W- and Z (weak force), the photons (electromagnetic force) and higgs (the mighty particle, which will be represented by people that won't be part of the play but will be walking across the stage).

Quarks have different charges, for example, the up quark has a charge of 1/3 and the down quark a charge of -2/3. This will be represented by good and evil characters. and neutral particles will be the ones part of every group... this will just be to represent the quantum world, but then, i have to show how the relationships connect to social relations.

As in the stage from above from the paper, there will be actors like particles, sparsed around the stage, and the strong force acting in the circles (particles) because of the same "social group" but this social group, has an effect on other social groups, as in real life, and this would be the weak force, thus, the groups are separated but have a tiny effect (weak force) upon them. This force, by the W+, W- and Z particles (characters) can be represented by some characters which go from group to group, or than have an influence on both, such as a guy who has a friend in 1 group and a friend on the other group.

And so on and so forth for the forced and characters. That can be deduced so i won't go into more detail, but change into a new topic for the concept. Costumes have been talked about so let's skip to lighting. The lighting would be on the quarks and the forced will move in the shadows, since the forces are not real, they are just theoretical and not actually true, and since they are an abstract thinking, letting them in the dark to let the audience's mind and imagination help more there than the visual, since the visual i want it to be on the people being affected by this "abstract forces" that also exist in social environment. The plot i have yet to figure out.

But how can the audience understand this? I think it will be very difficult, if not impossible (unless a physicist) to understand the concept, but as long as i understand it, and i input the practice into the play, people will be able to give it their own sense... wont they? So the background planning of a play does not need to be understood by the audience, but rather have a base to build upon on, so it makes correlation and is not just random or too "abstract" and people can make sense of it. But, therefore, if the audience does not know the concept behind it, can the director let any flaws on the play and the audience won't notice? or will it ruin the sense the audience will give it? Or maybe that will change the sense completely... and that leads me to something i want to research more about: How can the director, deviating from the concept, can change things to make people find a sense in the play, without losing the concept, since the audience don't know what the concept behind the play actually is.

Morgan Freeman

Morgan freeman when making my character for the one act play i had a lot of trouble, i couldn't get it right. Never. always got it wrong and a couldn't find another way to do it. I suck. But ok... after looking at the script and seeing the intentions of the character, it was a little bit better. Knowing the intention of the character led me to know how to say the lines, which before i was just repeating with no tone at all... or movement.

Morgan freeman the voice i had to do is veeery different to the previous one i did in kabuki, but still, i (...after using a useless character voice for like 2 weeks) found. I guess. At least its better than the one before. But i wonder why even when i knew what voice i wanted to do, i just couldn't do it. I knew my voice shouldn't be like that, but i still did it, because with the combinations or morgan freeman, + old, + angry my brain was just fucked up and didn't know what voice was that. When working with stereotypes though, its much easier to ge the voice wanted. but when not, and maybe even trying to find a voice for someone that you can't relate or imagine, a voice of someone imaginary, then you would have to work the voice directly from the text, from the purpose and actions of the characters, and then find a new voice, for that character. But shouldn't it be like that all the time? Shouldn't actors find the voice of their characters by analyzing their characters instead of finding stereotypes that will fit? Or maybe thats how it's supposed to be, finding a stereotype and then modifying it to fit. But why can't you just create from sketch the voice?

Morgan freeman after thinking about it for a bit, i think that i have the answer. I suppose that this is so people can relate to the character, i mean, understand what the character is supposed to be, or what kind of character it is and so being able to understand his actions and purpose. If you make the voice something people won't understand then it will become a mindfuck.

Morgan freeman so this leads me to my reflexion that the voice of the character is not the important thing when actions, it just is to help build the character and to say the dialogue, which isn't that big of a deal either, the important thing is the actions, the voice just helps to audience understand what kind of character its supposed to be, and then understand the actions. I guess this is why we are told not to be redundant with voice and actions, since voice shouldn't show our purpose, but actions should. But then, does it matter what you say? Or only how you say it and what you do?

Los Tronquitos pone, y la virgen del carmen hace tanto sentido como que eso esta bien decido

The paucartambo festival, a cultural ritual in which the past of the andean theatre and history is seen, although many of the villagers from the town may not know this, and rather think it is a party to celebrate the who-knows-what of the virgen del carmen, when it is just an excuse from long ago so that they could continue doing the festival.

In the trip we saw personally the 3 main days of the festival. I will not explain what we saw, but rather reflect on it.

The festival is generally a happy atmosphere in which people are happy and celebrating, tourists go to get drunk and have fun... some to smoke weed, or some simply to visit. Nevertheless, it is mostly a vivid environment in which everyone is looking the dance groups dance and get entertained.

The theatrical side of the festival relies on what villagers don't actually see. But it is there anyways, and can be studied. the costumes, the dances, they relationship with the audience, the stages, the music, the props, everything you need to make a play is there, although it is not done intentionally with that purpose, but the practice comes before the theory.

the amount of history of the andean theatre and peru is seen in the costumes and dance groups, and it is easily observed how they have adapted to the modern times, civilization, tourism, technology. For example the dance groups entering in a truck, or the fireworks in the Qonoy. Also how members from dance groups take pictures with tourists.

But, people are not necesarily acting, they are doing what they have seen from little, they just seen dance gorups all their lifes and then they become a member and they know what to do, but that doesn't mean they are actors, but does it imply their are acting? When someone is doing a role of someone else in a stage, without the purpose necesarily is it still called acting? Or there are other facts involved for it to be considered acting?

reflecting on comments

Task: how to create theatrical realities that works.

"Anónimo dijo...
Should a play be enjoyable for everyone? Can it?

If you want to know what your audience will like, then you have to study your audience and their preferences. What do they expect? What are they familiar with?

Do you want to make plays for your audience or would you rather make an audience for your plays? How can you get to this?

Roberto"

"Anónimo dijo...
The brain understands new information according to previous experiences. If you get too abstract then the brain has nothing to relate the new knowledge to, and so it just refuses to understand.

Keep it up.

Roberto"


First of all, it is nearly impossible to make a play in which someone can absolutely not relate with anything, since the brain can't actually create new things, but can only rearrange things that it already knows, from what is called memory. A human cannot imagine, even abstractly, a 4th dimension. It can be understood, but it can't be seen, imagined or drawn. It is impossible, since the brain has no information of it. What you put on a stage should work similarly then, you should put, depending on the audience, what they will be able to relate to.

Abstract thinking is then, just something that only you and yourself can relate to, and for others to relate to it you would have to put it on words that are socially interpretable, i mean, in a way that everyone can understand it. But how can you make your abstract thinking into a play that everyone can understand? it has to go beyond explaining it, it has to show it.

I will take as example the one act play we are doing. We are using many things people will relate to easily: the delivery guy, the lawyer, the handyman, etc, but we are adding a game to it, which people don't know, but as it is going to be developed and easy to catch, then they will be able to understand it. So that it is enjoyable, you can't say everything, because if you know what is going to happen next, it won't be interesting (quoting jorge wagensberg again). You have to add the unexpected.

But is making a play like this, following certains rules to entertain the public the correct way of making a play? I know we are still students and we can't really experiment, but isn't the theatre somewhere you have to experiment different things to find YOUR best way to do it? I bet every big playwrights experimented with their own way of doing theatre. Why do we give people what they expect?

A play can't be enjoyable by everyone. You can't make a play for everyone. When you do a play you have to know who the play is for, but then, why do we have to do the play for them? Why can't we do theatre for ourselves? When you put it like that, actors sound like they are just to entertain the audience... is that it? Entertaining the audience? What about making plays to entertain yourself, make plays for yourself, not for other people. can that be done?

When you are making a play, and you know the audience you are gonna have, then you make a play FOR that audience. But those are some cases, like ours, that students will be watching, most of them because they HAVE to since they have to do a play review afterwards >.>... but the point is that the play is meant for them, we can't do whatever we want. But in other cases, You can play a play for yourself, and people that want to see the play will go to see it. Therefore, my opinion of making a play is that is depends GREATLY on who is the play for, where it is gonna be staged and other circumstances.

Making a play with many limitations can be hard, unless you get really creative and implement something... like a game... and then the task makes it more fun to make, and it won't be as common for the audience, making the audience interested to find out what the game is, therefore, you should not spoil it from the beginning.

What matters most? Who the play is for? Or what the play is about? Because i guess you have to adapt the things for the audience that is going to see it, but then the play would, i repeat, be for the audience and not for you... When you make plays for yourself, would you still have an audience?

Theatre as a window to culture

before starting to talk about the play, i want to say something that came into my mind while thinking about the thursday we stayed to plan the one-act play. When we were told to say 1 thing that highlighted our "characters", like the 1 thing we had to do to act as the other one or something like that, we all said something bad about everyone else... and i didn't stoped to think about it until recently. We just laughed and went on talking, and didn't realised how that told us how we actually thought of the others. Is that how we really think of each other? Or we just weren't taking it seriously?

We are a team, and our final projects reside on how well we work as a team, if we think like this of each other, i don't think our one-act play is gonna come out well. We have to change this, but not fake it, "fake it till we make it" is not the answer.


Well then... going on to the play.
In my last blog i said that going to see a play could be like going too see yourself on the everyday life from another perspective. And that is one of the reasons why people feel sympathy and identified with the protagonist, which is mostly a human for this reason i suppose, and therefore 1 of the reasons the feudal lord was the protagonist and not the demons on the school play.

But moving on... now i realised that the festival in Paucartambo is not a play, but a performance. And therefore it works differently than a normal play, therefore i discard my hypothesis of feeling identified, and will have to work on a new one.

The school play (the one of the merchants... :D) is, we could say, a window to see another culture, because we are seeing japan through theatre. As i said in one of my previous blogs:
"Theatre seems a really interesting and useful way to find out more about the human mind. I found that fascinating."
And the mind varies a lot with each culture and society. So we could see much more than just a theatre tradition, we were looking at a whole culture on stage, which most people don't realize. And we are going to see the same in paucartambo, since its not just a festival, but its a whole culture performing. It is very interesting to analyse a culture through its theatre, although it's not gonna be precise, you have to gather other information to compare, and then see how much the performance resembles the culture. How is the culture of Paucartambo shown in the festival? and to what extent is it stretched and modified?

P.S. that will be my research question for Paucartambo

Miyuki y los 2 mercaderes

Giving your own sense to things. Wouldn't that stop applying if you already know from the beginning that the concept is?

We knew the concept of plate tectonics and equivocation all along, and that makes it quite difficult to make our ideas (the ones who were in the making process) differ from each other.
What is the difference between giving a sense to something, and making the something? How can make sense? Or you can't?

I wasn't thinking about this until roberto told us in one of our classes that things don't have sense, but you give sense to things. From the start, i thought that the sense/concept of the play was ONLY the ones we were making in on (plate tectonics and equivocation) but then i started to give the play a different sense, although it was difficult because the 2 thoughts got confused.

The music in kabuki was really interesting, because when i first starting with my research, i found out it was mainly percussion... a hell lot of it, apart from the shamisen (a 3 stringed guitar) and the nohkan (a bamboo flute), and so i thought it was gonna be a tough job getting the music done with the musicians, but when they came and had to play, it actually came out easily and fast, and although yeah... we could only use mostly percussion, we did some pretty neat music for the play, especially the entrances.

Learning kabuki was actually entertaining and interesting. The theatre tradition at the start seemed really annoying, but it was just really different to what we were used to, and after knowing more about it, it came out to be really cool, and i actually liked acting kabuki. The music wasn't the best approach to understanding it though, i did more by the handouts and my friends presentations, and the exam.

Kabuki, with its extravagant costumes, weird noises and really different type of acting will be something difficult to forget, because it was really amazing stuff we worked with, but i wonder, why do we find it so amazing? Is it REALLY as big as we see it? or is it just different? Because what we normally see in theatre is not so exagerated and does not contain makeup like this, or costumes, like this. So is our "normal" type of theatre, for someone used to kabuki all his life, as big and amazing as kabuki is for us? Or is it just different?

There doesn't seem to be a small kind of theatre, even peruvian theatre, which i thought years ago to be really boring and with no interesting history at all, found out about yuyachkani and now abou the paucartambo festival that can be treated as theatre... i actually never thought of it as theatre, but now that i do, i can compare it to kabuki... but that would be too difficult, as kabuki and paucartambo are really different. But the point is that theatre is never "worse" than others, just different. And studying different kind of theatre traditions help you to find more about the culture and and making those connections make it a lot more interesting, but how far does this connection between what you see on stage and the everyday life of people that live within that culture... i mean, you don't see people in peru running around with bull testicles or you don't see japanese people walking like they had a strange infection in their ass all over the place... >.>

But some parts of it can actually be related to the everyday life... then it is a really fascinating way of making connections, between what you see on the theatre of a culture, and the culture itself. Therefore, if you can connect the society and their culture to the theatre, then when people go to the theatre (of their own society) they feel identified? Are we gonna feel identified with the performers in Paucartambo? Is that one of the main aspects of theatre, to see yourself on stage and feel like you could be one of them? After all, the stage is (according to me) just another reality of the world we all live everyday, so why not? It is like a mirror that gives you a different perspective of yourself? Or a portrait of every surrounding you, as you feel identified with a actor and found connections between your reality and the stages reality? Could that be one of the main purposes of making theatre?

Abstract pantomime

Wednesday... sounds really far away, with all the play going on, each day is an eternity. Let's try to remember. We went to i forgot where to see this dance of these people from israel doing some stuff and well..yeah. I thought it was great, in the sense that they got talent, but nevertheless i didn't like it that much. The lights were boring... the only interesting fact about them was the blue and red effect they gave on the floor. music was... play back...uhmm yeah... hmm. the dance was good. the set design was not. maybe it was. i didn't like it

I didn't quite understand the idea of their dance, maybe the second one, that they were gay and wanted the world to accept them or something like that? *cough cough* sounds to me like their were bullied alot *cough cough* well anyways, i almost fell asleep.. actually i did for about 10 minutes :) when there was no music. uuh 3 follow spots would had made it more interesting... or at least change the lights. but bleh... it was only dance, music and ... laughing strangely.

But well... moving on

the philosopher Nietzsche once talked about how the opposition of 2 things cause tragedy. And almost all plays i watch seem to have this factor of opposition in them. I think i am bored of this fact, it is too predictable. You see the same patters of events happen. There is a beginning, a plot, most of the time good and evil, and they clash... one wins. It gets boring.

Abstract stuff. no objective, no opposition. no final point. just and idea. A thought that can make the brain get shocked, realize something. A play doesn't have to have a beginning and a ending. Can it avoid the plot? i don't know. maybe. How can you show and idea on a stage? Well.. you make the actors act as ideas, not as characters. You give them personalities from the idea of the abstract thought you want to represent. Just like Pantomime. Pantomime in greek means "We can act anything" and so they did. they acted as feelings, they why can't we act as an abstract thought? You can give it the characteristic you want, but obviously you would have to give it certain things for people to understand what it is.

I wanted to do something like this for the one act play, act as abstract thoughts, and not as characters in a predictable plot. But i don't know if we 5 will want to do something like that... or even understand the idea i want to try to transmit. Maybe the audience won't be prepared for something like that, but who cares? You told me to make an audience for my plays, not a play for my audience right? :)

The idea could still have opposition, which is i think the most important element on a play, it causes the suspense, the interesting factor in the play, so the audience want to keep watching, it will shock them... it will be something their minds could had never predicted.

As Jorge Wagensberg said in his book "Si la naturaleza es la respuesta, ¿Cual era la pregunta?" an explanation of what causes the entertainment on a human mind in a couple of phrases sequenced like this:
"La mente se nutre de cambio. El aburrimiento es por desnutricion de cambio. Se puede nutrir la mente de cambio de dos modos: el modo tipo cine (inmovil en un entorno movil) o el modo tipo viaje (movil por un entorno inmovil"

What i get from this is that the entertainment of the mind comes from change, therefore, to make the audience entertained, we have to provide change, and one of the ways is to have opposition, which clash together. But when it's the same old story and you can predict it, then the change becomes less and less entertaining. But if you make something completely unpredictable, with a meaning but no beginning and end, then people won't be able to tell what comes next, and will have their minds filled with changes all the time. Abstract thoughts it what drives the human mind to progress, you have to imagine the future in order to make predictions or hypothesis of what will happen. If they don't turn out to be this way, the human brain will be forced to change its thought completely, and will have to work again everything, because it wasn't as he thought it would be. That, for me, is entertaining. Good examples could be El interruptor or Sin titulo. That's why i liked those plays. But i know it is not as easy as it sounds, it is a lot more complex that this, but i would love to try, because its something new, its a change. Extremes are never good, so i wonder, How much change can a human brain take in a short period of time? Is there a point where it just breaks down and turns into a complete nonsense? How can you know how much change is enough? How abstract can something be and still be understandable by the human mind?

Theatre seems a really interesting and useful way to find out more about the human mind. I found that fascinating.

Demons and reality

Daimon is the Greek derivative for the term demon. In this sense the term "demon" means "replete with knowledge."
the definition comes from http://www.pantheon.org/articles/d/daimon.html

"it wasn’t until the Roman period that the term came to be used exclusively for evil spirits."

"If there are evil spirits capable of inflicting physical and mental ailments on human beings, there arises a theological problem of how to explain them. If their actions occur with the permission or support of God, then it becomes difficult to square this with the idea of God as perfectly loving. If the actions of demons occur without the permission or support of God, this becomes difficult to reconcile with the idea that God is all-powerful."

Religion doesn't like the idea of demons from the greeks, they say, since around the XIII - XV centuries that demons are evil creatures, with the excuse that knowledge can only come from God, and therefore, demons' knowledge is not pure/good/right or whatever they said.

The idea of this blog is not to talk about demons, religion, god, or anything related to that, it is just a mere example of how the definition of something can change according to the people it is told to, and i wondered if this happened in theatre,

As roberto said, the human brain interprets signs and understands texts, where a text is a group of signs put together in what may be a sentence. So, this means that the word demon will be interpreted different by a religious person and by someone that knows it's real meaning, and therefore, understand something different. But that is how the human brain works, it does 5 main things, as carl sagan said:
1) recollect
2) inter-compare
3)synthesizes
4)analyzes
5)generates abstraction
And thus, each person will construct his own reality, by his perceptions and brain. Reality is nothing, and we make our own, as we give sense to the words as we interpret them.

In theatre, we interpret breathing much differently as we do in science, which makes it difficult to understand as well as i should... maybe if i weren't so addicted to physics and biased on how to breath it would be simpler, as it is said "Where ignorance is a bliss 'tis folly to be wise". But who to blame who is wise and who is not? Who dares to say that his reality is the truth? Wise, for me, is to build a reality in which you can understand many different realities, and therefore have a wider knowledge. But that is my reality, what is yours? why is mine right and not yours?

Same in theatre, you cannot say what kind of theatre is correct and which is the best. that is why we study different traditions, to have a wider knowledge of theatre (amirite?) and be able to build a more complex reality and meaning for plays. no tradition is right, no tradition is wrong. they just interpret differently. that is something i will have to keep in mind for paucartambo.


On stage, a director can construct his own reality, and share it with the audience, that is what i think, the most interesting part of theatre, the fact that you can give any opinion and idea of the reality you have built in your brain and make a play from it, there is no society that won't think as you, and won't let you enjoy of a world in which your reality is the one true reality, and it doesn't have to be face the fact there other people will see everything different. In your stage, everyone is living the same reality you built.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO TERMINE EL BLOG Y ESTABA INCREIBLEEEE Y SE BORRO SDIJFLKDSF MALDITO INTERNET.. AHORA ESPERO RECORDAR, PORQUE TENIA IDEAS INCREIBLES AFLKS;FMDJKLFDSNKGBFHJKSDFLKHADSMF DHJKSGFLK;

resumire lo que habia puesto..


The people who go to see the play are living a different reality that what is on stage, and therefore they can interpret things different, and it is amazing when the barrier between stage and audience is broken, because for the moment in which the play is happening, the audience is living the same reality as the stage, the directors reality, but connected to their reality, and causes their brains, the factory of their reality to make changed and fix some things, making people think, and interpret, and try to understand, because this reality is different from their own. But this is why theatre gives knowledge, because as i said before, knowledge for me how wide you can differentiate different realities, and have a better view of your own.

But when making the play, is the director's reality the same as the actor's? they will both see the play different, but therefore everyone has a lot of general knowledge in common, so people won't be so disorganized.

As demons are something to greeks and something different to religion, the same works for theatre, what is something in everyday life, is not the same in theatre. Not even the reality, but how do people connect their reality to the play? neither reality is better, right, wrong, or bigger, there are just different, many people think that what is not their reality is not right. and that is the awsomeness in theatre, there is no right reality, just different perspectives, and i wide range of opinions of reality. Theatre is closely connected to knowledge, and i had a lot more cool stuff to say but it got deleted :(...

That is something i have to keep in mind when i go to see a play from now on: How did this play affected my reality? what was different from the stage reality and mine? how did it make me reflect about things?

"Where ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be wise"
When i started writing this blog, i liked a lot this quote, but now i am in disagreement, because as i said before, the more you know, the better the reality you make, the better the connections, the better your understanding, the wider your knowledge. anyways reality is nothing more that what you perceive in your brain. How does it work? theatre seems to a good gateway for this understanding. Although i like a million times more the theory than the practice :)

Our realities can only get as closely as possible, and by understanding a wider range of them we can become more accurate on our perspective of reality, but never precise, because reality doesn't actually exists, it is created. How can reality be analyzes through a play? Is reality on stage supposed to be separated from every day life or to be connected? what is reality on stage apart from just a attempt to construct a reality within the reality of someone? How does the reality on theatre works?

I have a quote of myself, which goes like this: "There is 2 kinds of people in this world, the ones who make the lies, and the ones who live them". I personally like a lot my quote cause i know what it means, but it is not as clear as it could be, because the real meaning likes in this concept of reality. The ones who lie are the ones who make the reality for others, they tell them how reality should work, and make them think reality is 1, and the ones who live the lie are those who are living the built reality of this powerful men (governments, religions, social groups, etc... from here comes my hate to these, because i hate when people make the reality for others). But theatre, in the contrary, does not lie, but presents a reality to think about, to realise about these lies, to see that reality is different to what people think. At least this is how i think about it. This is my reality. What's yours? Do you make your own reality or do you live someone else's? Reality is nothing, we make it. How accurate and closely are connected different realities in different people's heads? How much can a play stretch or synthesize reality?

1 play that tells 2 stories

My brain is having an explosion of ideas.
there, i did a metaphore.
Sinecdoches and metonymy are confusing, but i will give it a try:
Sinecdoche: He didn't answer when i called his house (when i really mean the phone of the house)
Metonym: Turn of the light (actually.. you turn of the lamp/lightbulb)

I have been having a hard type differentiating both, but now that i got a better picture of how they work (...thanks to the examples of wikipedia...) i will try to see how they are used in plays.

Let's say you have an abstract play, in where all you see is not what you are supposed to see. everything has a different meaning. The director will use the metaphore, the sinecdoche and metonym to express everything. Now let's set a theme to the play....hmmm.. lets say ignorance. human and social ignorance. now the director will show things on stage that people reckon are true, but are really not true. I don't know if i make myself clear, but the point is that this play is filled with false images, which represent the truth.

Ok... so getting to the set design of the play, we could have things for example we could have a house representing a country. saying that the country is home. or maybe a bottle a carton of cigarretes can represent cancer. The point is that things are not what they actually are, they are things that represent, through this 3 literary images, something else.

In this play, we should have a plot. Let's say the plot is the conflict between 2 countries, for instance USA and Russia during the cold war. The SR-71 blackbirds (spy planes which could reach a speed of mach 5) could be represented by a pilot, and this would be a metonym, or a turbine can be on stage, representing the SR-71 by a sinecdoche. or maybe a blackbird, literally, to represent it. The point is to represent the SR-71 or the SR-91 (Aurora... which came after the SR-71 and could reach speeds of up to mach 8, but it's existent is not confirmed) using something else, connecting by these literary images.

Many UFOs were "spotted" during this time. Not really UFOs but spy balloons of the USAF which were actually being used to spy on USSR technology, but civilians claimed to be aliens which the government knew of and were hiding from them. So in the play, this balloons could be actually be UFO. to say that these WERE UFOs, there you got a metaphore on stage, but from a weird perspective.

By this method, you can recreate a new perspective of the cold war on stage using this set design tricks, and you get an abstract play representing all of these things. But as you see, things have to be familiar to all audiences, so people can, after a little thinking, figure out what the director really meant. But what if the director wanted to put something on stage that was only in his mind? for example what if the director sees these technology biased, and represents them in an unusual way to people, is it still right? If you want to represent something completely different out of something, is it right? this sounds like freedom of speech, so i guess it is, but there may be different way to interpret something if you play with these images and make it confusing.

i.e. representing the SR-71 as a demon, a flying demon.
Some people in the USSR may be in agreement, but north americans won't.
These brings me to the question: if you are representing things as they are not, and people will interpret them different... can you make a play which will be seen completely different from 2 different perspectives?
What do i mean by this? I mean that the north americans will see a different story and different meaning to the play that the russians will, giving 2 different stories, with different endings. Maybe pleasing for both? but everything should be perfectly made to represent 2 things that make sense at the same time. Is it possible? Is it possible to make 2 plays in 1, using metaphors, sinecdoches and metonyms? 1 play that tells 2 stories.

SR-71 (Blackbird)

SR-91 (Aurora)

IN SOVIET RUSSIA, SONIC BOOM CAUSES DOPPLER EFFECT

Moods a la craig is an interesting idea. His innovation consists on changing the mood of the stage by only changing the lights and the position of the actor. We tried this for ourselves, we had to get ourselves a model, a space and the lights we needed. 

After doing the project and presenting it to the class, we discussed some points about the idea of craig, and then i wondered to myself, what if the director tries to transmit a feeling with the lights, but the audience receives a totally different feeling, and makes a wrong interpretation? So i began to search for an answer to my new question.

It didn't took me so long to get to the conclusion of keeping it simple. If you make the changes to complicated, then you may, and most probably, confuse the audience, therefore, you should keep it simple for the audience to catch up quick and continue to enjoy the play. If there get a mistaken interpretation, then  they wont understand as well as they would.

But then, some people, the usual intelligent stereotype person who wants to appreciate the work of the director, won't be very amazed by mediocre changes. This contrast of audiences will result on a problem, o the director has to make sure that his play is adaptable and enjoyable for everyone. But, how do you make an amazing mood change with lights while keeping it simple to understand? It is not easy to make mood changes like this, so great and complex but easy to catch up to, and i wonder: Is there a way to know exactly what the people will think? Is the point of this changes to cause different feelings on different people? Maybe it is a way to let each person have their own interpretation, and thus having a more adaptable mood, but in that case, how do you know what to do in the play for it to match to the audience's interpretation? 

Theatre and Football

Saturday afternoon, at Franca's house with my fellow theatre companion nicolas and matias, watching the football match of Barcelona and Manchester United, we started joking about relations between football and theatre, such as the referee being the backstage, and the players are actually 2 different acting groups "improvising" a play to see who is the best and such. But i took this idea beyond laughter and started asking myself: Is this relation really possible?
It actually is possible. Let me explain how.

Football players have a special talent, they are good at what they do, and so are actors. People pay money to go see this talent these people have, and these people do their best on the "stage" or "field".
There are also certain rules to the "game", but inside these rules, the actors and players are free to do whatever they please to entertain their audience, and/or to win the game.

There are certain people in stage called the backstage and certain people in the field called the referee. Although they both play different roles, they are both there to help the actors and players, but do not directly interfere with the game.

Scenery is easy to compare, it would simple be the field, and props... well the football, the shoes, the goalkeeper's gloves, etc. And each "group" has a manager/director who trains the group to be better and is there to see the play/game.

But after all these comparisons, i started thinking of the people that go to see, and the money that this means. Governments actually make football stadiums because people pay money to go see the games. The football players are just "puppets" for the government in some way, and it all narrows down to the ambition for money, or is the purpose really because of the passion of the game? Or is that passion only for people who enjoy the game, but just means money for governments?

After asking myself these questions, I then moved to theatre, and thought the same:
Although actors do have a great passion for their profession, are they ultimately mere government puppets? But after all, theatre is different. The money does not go to the government, it actually do go to the director and actors. There i found the difference between football and acting. While football is greatly connected to the government, theatre is not. But what if it was? would freedom of speech and critique still be permitted in plays? Would there be many rules and laws enforced into theatre? How would theatre be if it was connected to the ambition of the government for money, like football?

Personal freedom

On friday, Pilar came to share some of her knowledge and teaching with us, to try to improve our technique in voice. Maybe this work for many people and most probably a really good way to see the voice, but it  doesn't work that way for me.  I really didn't find it of much help, as i dislike treating my voice like she told me to. I'm not saying that she doesn't know what she is doing and what to teach, oh no, she is a very professional actress and i bet a whole lot she knows much more than us. I simply don't like to work my voice as she does, i don't like being told how to talk, i don't like being told how to treat my voice, and specially i hate feeling like i am talking wrong. That she is right and i'm wrong.

I see it differently, voice is something you grow up with, each person develops a completely different ways of talking, some more unusual than others, but this ways of taling that we have been practicing for more than 1 decade and a half and i am pretty sure we know how it works.

Each one of us has got different talents with out voices, if we all had been doing the same, then our voices would be more similar, and there wouldn't be much uniqueness from each voice. Everyone has a different and special voice, or talent. Everyone has a different talent. And it is up to each of us to use it. I am really against the idea of being told how to use my unique talent, it just takes away the whole point of unique doesn't it?

I don't mean to be rude, but i just can't stand being told how to do things that are unique to me. Society has already enforced too many rules upon us. Where we work, where we live, where we learn, where we drive, where we buy, everywhere has it's rules. I can live with those, i know rules are a necessary measurement by governments to produce an organized and predictable environment.

As for my mind, my thoughts and other things that i can keep unique and different from everyone else, i can keep to myself, with my own rules. It gives a small portion of freedom in me to think that human's are special and we are a UNIQUE kind of intelligent form, or at least for an atheist like me, that is my way of going against life, knowing that i still have control, and my own rules to certain things.

When i was told in the class how i should move, how i should see, how i should breathe, talk, what i was meant to feel, it felt like i was being dragged away from this little piece of freedom i had left. I was being taught to be the same as my friends, i was being forced to learn and set the rules as she wanted them to be. I had to stand for it, as i couldn't say nothing in class, but i wasn't very motivated to working.

If we are all meant to learn the same things, to think the same, learn the same way, then what is the point? Where is the interesting part of being a human left when you are forced to be like everyone else?
Why are we told about our false freedom? Freedom which works as a barrier, leaving everyone behind it, and being the same? What kind of freedom is that where we are all the same? We got personal freedom, which we can't be taken away from, and that is our mind. Our thoughts and opinions make us different and give us some freedom. If i am taught how to think, how to feel, how to talk, how to use my voice, that little freedom i got left, all i got left, i being equalized with others, making it no longer freedom, but sameness, such as a rule, which applies the same for everyone.

Today while helping in scenery for miyuki y los tres demonios, y found that there is almost as much space behind the cyclorama as in front, and an idea went through my head: What if we could get a large amount of kokens and put them behind the cyclorama, and then when a big scene change happens they could all move the items at the same time, kokens in front to the back and kokens in the back to the front, and this could act as a mawari butai, without the actual revolving, but looks like revolving, but then i realised we dont't have enough kokens to do it, but still i kept wondering to myself about this idea, and i still can't figure something out. What if instead of doing exactly what kabuki tells us, we do something completely different but it still looks exactly like kabuki... does it count as kabuki? or is it a failed attempt? after all you have you use your resources.

Pedro de valdivia

This play can be considered a musical and a comedy and cultural. It acts the history and life of Pedro de Valdivia, one of the men who came to America at the time when it was recently discovered and being attacked and governed by the spanish.

Actors were only 3, but characters were many. One of them, did the role of Pedro while the other 2 the secondary characters. And with musical transitions that were played by themselves on stage, they got to change setting, characters and scenes dynamically. That is another aspect of the play that is good to notice: The actors played all the music and SFX in the play, no background music.

Although some props were there, such as the mini pedro puppet, the map on the table and some other things, mostly props were invisible and exaggerated  to make it funny, for example, the horse.

Accent was used well, they did the chilean accent really convincible and using some parts of the accent that were most known, to make it easy to identify it and to make it funny.

I think actions and were fixed. They were done exact. I mean that there was no room for improvisation, because it was all marked and it couldn't be rearrenged imrovisingly. For example when they were palying music you couldn't leave one behind, or when Pedro was taling and the other 2 actors were using the puppet the actions must be at the same time, and that requires coordination, and practice i guess.

I dont know if actors playing the music is better than music in the background, yes, it is more entertaining the see them play, but shouldn't actors concentrate on acting instead of playing instruments? Or does that count as acting too?

Reflecting "El interruptor"

The stimulus of this play was how the media, and technology is driving people away from each other instead of getting them closer. There was a scene, in the play, where 2 "ladies" were talking about the idea of only 1 transmission tower that said only 1 version of everything.... this made me reflect about some things i already had wondering around my mind.

People each day are getting lazier and more easily convinced by media. People are starting to stop critical thinking and have ideas for themselves. Superior powers are trying to get eternal control and stop young generations from critical thinking. I am glad to be one of the few to be able to reason and oppose to the social pressure this ideas summon on our minds.

There is a quote, from the movie Zeitgeist, i like very much, and i am willing to share it with you:
"The last thing the men behind the curtain want is a conscious informed public capable of critical thinking. Which is why a continually fraudulent zeitgeist is output via religion, the mass media, and the educational system. They seek to keep you in a distracted, naive bubble. And they are doing a damn good job of it."


Lets reflect about this quote for a minute. This paragraph is telling us we are being controlled, by superior powers. Our supposed free will, is not as free as i thought it was, our freedom, is being made what they want it to be, and we still believe it is our choice. They know how to play with human minds, and they are doing it well, most people have fallen in the trap, but there a few left, a few people who have uncovered the truth, sadly, this minority is not enough to make a change. 


People with power don't want you to realise what they are really doing, they keep you in a distracted world, full of publicity, malls, videogames, new shops, fast food, work, religion, trips, beaches, clubs, love etc. People think that is the real world, people think they got their own choice and they are leaving life as they feel like it. SNAP OUT OF IT. You are just being lied, lied all your life, and you still don't know. 


Another quote from the same movie i quoted before is very direct:
"The more you educate yourself the more you understand where things come from the more obvious things become and you begin to see lies everywhere. You have to know the truth and seek the truth and the truth will set you free."


Sadly, people are too busy with other things in their lives they don't know this, they dont search for it, they think they know what is true and what is not and they won't see the real truth. They think the media is telling the truth, they think that television, radios, newspapers are telling the truth. How blind can they be to not notice this are being controlled by superior powers to, changed, rearrenged and modified to fit what they want you to know


"Terrorist attack against the twin towers, 2 airplanes hit the buildings which fall and kill thousands of people"
And people believe it, people just accept it and they don't do any more research about it. "IT IS TRUE" WHY? "BECAUSE THE MEDIA SAYS SO" 


Why don't they write in the newspaper:
"USA government plans attack against it's own twin towers killing thousands of innocent civilians to have an excuse to declare war." There have been studies. It is known as a fact that those buildings could have stay standing after a hit from an airplane. Videos show how the towers fall directly in freefall towards the ground, they don't fall to a side, this is impossible. People inside towers who survived claim to have first heard an explosion from beneath and 2 seconds after the plane crash on top. This between many other facts support this theory. But people don't know, they just believe what the media told them. FOOLS!


This is only 1 example of the thousands of lies that appear in the media, not as big as that one, but they do.


People reckon they know. People believe they are being reliably informed. People THINK everything is true and they are free. People don't know they are just puppets from superior powers, simple toys which fullfil the will of the ambisciousness of people in control. 


After making my point, and going back to the play, it represents more or less the same things. Public figure: how men in power want us to see them, but we have no idea of what happens behind the curtain. How media just spams us with mostly insignificant news about the world to keep us distracted. Media is not helping Society come together as a whole and make people informed. Media is polluting our minds, making us naive, ignorant, lazy, stupid, mediocre, and worst of all, FOOLS. We are fools that don't know how we are lied to, we are fools in a false world in where we are supposed to be free. we are fools in the way that we don't know what is really happening, and we think we do.


It is US, the people, the commoners, the fools, who have to see the truth, who have to know what is really happening. We are not free, and we are doomed to be not for a long time, maybe forever. This period of control have been here for thousands of years, since religion, which is one of the biggest factors of mindless control. But that is something to talk about other day, since it's too off topic. 


Will there ever be a time where lies wont go as truths around the world, were facts will be unvailed and the men behind the curtains will come out? Is the curtain, dividing fools and powers every going to disappear? or is it just a fact of life? 


I am just happy to know that i am being lied to, although it is frustrating, i know i can't rely on the media, i know its mostly a lie, and i am happy for that. I just wish most of the people also knew.

This week we did not have many classes, in fact only 1, because of Holy week, but we do have a big homework for when we come back, our first whole draft of the Kabuki essay, Power points and mind-map. I am still working on finishing my essay, although i don't have much more to deal with, i hope i can finish it tomorrow morning, and then with all the research i have for my topic (relationship between music and acting) i dont think making the powerpoint and mind-map will be too difficult, as i already have all the information i need and i have analysed it well on the making of my essay.

For the master class of Kabuki we are still really late, and i hope that for when we are finished with the essays, we can concentrate much more on the mater class of Kabuki.

We know kabuki and we are researching it for what it is today, but Kabuki has more than 400 years of history, and i wonder how different it was when it started. Was it a similar idea that what is it today? Or has it changed completely? Has it changed for the better or for the worse?

EL interruptor

We watched this play today ( monday) and i really like the stimulus in which the play was done, and i felt like doing a review about it.

The play was vey dynamic and delivered a very concrete message in various ways. I found this play funny, but serious at the same time, cause it did have some slow and more direct parts, but sometimes it just changed radically to a funny segment. Never the less, there was a huge balance between this 2 aspects in the play.

Lights had a different function in this play, they were not done mainly to light the stage, but as a prop, which was used as to represent the audience. When the lights came on, the actors reacted to us and changed their actions. This was a really interesting technique.

Voices in the play changed instantaneously, which i have to admit looks really hard, because every voice have to be on it's own and can't be mixed with voices from other characters, and that is not as easy as it may sound.

Movements were never ceased, that is one think i liked about this play. Speed varied all the time, and volume, and levels and everything, but movements never ceased.

This type of stage could be a Open type. Since actors were firstly sitting next to us, and there was not much separation between audience and actors, and it was really good designed for 2 actors to take all space.

After the play finished, we were allowed to ask questions. I did one that i think the director did not understand so he just answered "exactly", or maybe he did, i dont know... He told us the Stimulus for this play was how technology wasn't actually making everyone closer, but separating everyone from a social community. And i thought this idea was a really good one to develop and to think about.

Still i wonder, What is better? Doing many characters or just 1? If you do many characters, can you reach the same level for each one that you would if you were only doing one? Is it best to do just 1 and really well or is it best to do many characters? But all at the same level of mastery as if you would be doing 1?

Is this weeks physical work class, we did something different, we followed an exercise which made us imagine we are made up of many little plugs, and we could unplug ourselfs, and then we could replug, but randomly like popcorn bursting.  I think that this was done so that we could feel each part of our body separately and also so that we could give energy to different parts of our body.  I really could no imagine the feeling of the popcorn bursting but i did try to resemble it.

The second part of the exercise consisted of us, walking with our eyes closed, imagining we were standing in the wall of a skycrapper and we were falling due to gravity. With our eyes closed this was much easier than when we had to open our eyes, since i could not imagine the situation any longer, but i could stay with the feeling more or less.

I wonder to what extreme an actor should take this feeling. Should he get to the point that he/she is in the real situation? Or should he/she be also aware that it is a stage and there is an audience? What would be the equilibrium between reality and imagination?

Last class of physical work we worked on our own stimulus from the video.  These let us try different and new things with an easier idea of what to do. we even tried combining our personal projects in the exercise of passing the energy, and i reckon that was useful and fun, but then we divided to work alone. At first i did not know what to do, and was completely lost in terms of imagination, but then i decided to try to start slow, and I ideas could flow a little bit easier, but I still need to improve a lot my physical work.

My research in kabuki is NOT GOING WELL. I need to speed up my process because im really behind. My research is not as deep as i had to go by now, and i have no much time left, since the deadline for everything is due this friday. From what i learned until now, i know that instrument were really, really simple but continously used during whole plays, so it is an essential part of Kabuki theatre.
If you add modern music to a kabuki play, would it lose its essence, or will it sound good?

The last week i been working on my kabuki research. And i still haven't finished. Not like i thought i would so soon, but it is a bigger task that what i thought it would be and i found out i have to work harder, as i'm not so advanced in my research as i expected to be by this time. I'm finding new things about kabuki as i do my research and each time i find kabuki theatre more entertaining and interesting.

Concerning the school play, we have finished what is the body training and we will be mving on the the voice. The voice in Kabuki doesnt look really easy but i will give it my best. I am in charge of the music, and researching a little about it, although it seems that the music cnsists of purely percussion, string insturmnets and air instruments, i know there must be more to know about it  and im trying to figure that out.

On friday, we worked on physical work, and i tried to do my plan of counter impulses, and equilibrium of energy. I found out i need more imagination since i ran out of ideas really fast. Maybe thinking of ideas before would be better to be prepared. I wonder is you can have more equilibrium while having a lot of air in your lungs or would it be better if you breath out? i will try that next class

Physical Work

This friday we had a class of physical work, but this time it was different, or should i say harder, as we started working with a more advanced kind of physical work and trust exercises. We tried some more difficult lifting, which i didn't see so hard, but still... we had to do it perfect ( which we couldn't ).
To do this exercises we need coordination, control of our body, especially our centre of energy, and, of course trust, as we could hurt each other.

One of the exercises consisted of someone standing on his hands and being puled by someone else standing on his feet, to reach the other side standing, or to stay on top of the other one. That one i found easy, but the next one, in which we had to balance someone on top of us with out feet, i couldn't achieve.

The day before doing this exercises we saw a video about an actress that told her experience in physical training and revealed some her "her professional secrets", which we were supposed to take and put in practice, and i actually did found it useful for our physical training.

Is there a BEST way of doing physicall work or it depends on the actor and his body?

Drama IB year 1 blog summary

I entered drama a little bit late, but luckily i got accepted back in, and i wont regret the big mistake of changing. I have seen nicole's and matias' blogs to see more or less what we have done and now im going to do my own blog, sumarising what i hae done in the year.

ELIZABETHAN PRESENTATION:

I think that my presentation wasn't bad, but i do think i could had done it better, i reckon i didn't go deep enough with my research, and my pictures weren't as carefully selected as they should had been, but it wasn't easy to get really good pictures to go with my explanations, and i, will admit, was tired of looking for better pictures as i spent 20 to 30 minutes looking for them.

I could had used more sources, although 5 websites and 1 book was enough for me. I actually do think i could teach my subject and make other people learn what i researched about, im pretty confident about my information. But i AM DEFINITELY NOT the most brilliant in this subject.

PHYSICAL WORK:

Las friday i had my best physical work in class, at first i had many doubts about what is was for, but then i started to realise that it was acually useful to prepare for an actor. They act of Breathing and concentrating on a center of energy is something i will have to work a lot in, as i have noticed i find it more difficult as my friends in class. But i think that with enough effort i will be able to achieve this.

When we worked on our bodies and trust exercises, we changed groups to work with everyone. I found it really easy to work with my friends bodies as my strength allows me to avoid trouble in that part, but i can't say that about all my friends. 

Trust exercises are really important as they are a key factor when performing on stage. Because you are supposed to trust your body to the other actors, so there must be trust for it to work well. 

SCHOOL PLAY:

The rehearsals for the school play have started. I'm really looking forward to it, and being in the first year of IB i will have an important roll on stage. I will really have to work hard this year to do my best.
 

Although the last week we didn't work much on the play, we are going from this week, as until last week we were still waiting for new people that wanted to come to the play. 

I hope we manage to make a better play than next year, because there is no point in getting worse, we have got to get better each year.