This week I've worked on my past experiences with live theatre as well as setting the stage for what I want in a production. Mostly, the impact I want on my audience is to get the message across in an effective way. The best way to do this would be to have a simple set so that the attention would be on the words and not the set. So then, the usage of the set would be limited to the basics - place and conveying the message to the audience. The best way to do this would be to have two quartz pillars at the edge of the set as well as a staircase with eleven stairs leading to a platform. The eleven stairs would be used to make the message of the script clear based on what is said. For example, with each point made, the character could climb the steps, the prime example being Lysistrata when making the oath with the women. The platform could also symbolize having moral superiority.
In the terms of live theatre experience, I would use aspects of costuming to convey someone's personality, social class, etc. This mainly comes from watching the Village Theatre's production of Hairspray. I would also use the effect of using lighting to convey the play's message, perspective, emotion, etc. I mainly was inspired to do this by James Ortiz's The Woodsman.
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This post will also continue to build on the subject of The Woodsman by James Ortiz.
This scene occurs immediately after the Woodsman was revived in his robotic body by the Young Lady. As a result of working as hard as he did, the Woodsman became increasingly distant from the Young Lady, while the Young Lady didn't want that. This culminated in the now Tin Man ignoring the Young Lady altogether, despite the Young Lady clinging to him sobbing, not wanting to be forgotten or left behind. The Tin Man continues to ignore her as he sings about his new life and devotion to his work. Throughout this scene, the lighting remains a sad blue, representing the atmosphere of the scene - sadness and heartbreak. The Tin Man costume is a collection of props and uses the ensemble to move it, and in some cases, the Woodsman would stand near the Tin Man, acting separately, but still remains the Tin Man. So then, Movement, ensemble, and props are the most important aspects of this scene, along with voice. This scene is meant to cause sympathy for the Young Lady, but there is no resolution for her because the Tin Man chooses his work and not her. This lack of resolution results in tension within the audience, as they feel sympathetic to the Young Lady's cause. This scene is meant to show the affects of choosing to only focus on a job, and not the social aspects of life. This entry will continue on the topic of The Woodsman by James Ortiz.
In the scene following the one discussed previously, the Woodsman sets out to work, chopping down trees. Along the way, he is terrorized by the Witch's forces and each of his limbs are cut off by his own axe one by one. These scenes are bathed in blue light, making each bit very dark, adding to the hopelessness of the atmosphere. The ensemble acts as a collective screeching voice as well as being the forces terrorizing the Woodsman. After each time his limbs are cut off, a team of engineers come by to give him mechanical prosthetics. Said actors move the prosthetics, eventually taking over the role of the Woodsman, as the Woodsman becomes completely mechanical. After each time, as well, the Young Lady is terrified for his wellness, but the Woodsman continues to work, essentially working himself to death. She brings him back to life with a part of her soul, which allows him to completely become a robot. The most important aspects, as mentioned before, are movement and ensemble. But one other key aspect is voice. The Woodsman's scream cause tension throughout the audience, as it makes the audience feel fear for the Woodsman. There was also tension when the Woodsman would not listen to the Young Lady, as the audience could see how his work affected him. Throughout this process, fear and sympathy are integrated. The main takeaway of this performance is that working too much can result in disastrous consequences, and in the Woodsman's case, the consequence was death. This past week, we've been watching The Woodsman, produced by James Ortiz. The play uses a mix of puppetry and ensemble with limited dialogue. Throughout the play, the Wicked Witch of the West terrorizes the Woodsman (later the Tin Man) and his lover, who I will call the Young Lady (I don't think she has a name). These events lead to the Woodsman becoming the Tin Man.
One scene from the play that stuck out to me was when the Woodsman and the Young Lady reunited after the Witch had attempted to steal the Young Lady's soul. The two both display their love for each other, the Woodsman giving the Young Lady a birdhouse. The most important aspects of this scene is lighting, movement, and voice (because they sing about their love for each other). Because this play does not have much dialogue, the actors must use movement in order to convey emotions. The emotion and atmosphere in this scene is conveyed through lighting, as it took on warm tones so as to convey love and affection. It is also conveyed through the movement of the actors and the way affection is in their voices when they sing to each other. The meaning of this scene is to show just how much the Woodsman and Young Lady love each other before the scenes following. So this anticipation of the scenes following act as a sort of tension, like the calm before the storm. This week, we watched Told By an Idiot's production of Comedy of Errors by Shakespeare and analyzed their way of devising. The play itself is about two sets of identical twins, one set being servants of the other set. It itself is a farcical play. Told By an Idiot produced the play in a way to draw attention as well as keep attention on the performance.
One way this production does this is by choosing chaotic and seemingly random costumes, which I really enjoyed. While being random, the costumes effectively represent the characters. One example is Solinus, the Duke of Ephesus. He wears a purple velvet or suede jacket on top a purple fishnet vest. He also wears a black fedora, and red shorts on top of blue pants. The purple (and velvet) aspects mean that he is a rich man who is available to afford such clothing. The black fedora suggests this as well, but also meaning that he would be formal, and potentially a sort of businessman. To back this up, this character is a Duke of a kingdom, so it would make sense that he would be wearing rich people clothing. The set itself is very simple. It is a thrust stage with a platform in the middle as well as space for actors and instrumentalists in the background. The simplicity of the set and costumes was intentional - as a way of attracting attention to the performance and meaning of the play. So instead of having complex costumes, which Shakespearean plays are known for, or sets, the audience would better be able to understand what was happening and what they were meant to take away from the play. The slapstick comedy and physical humor of the play was also very enjoyable. It really captured my attention and made me invested in what was happening in the play. My favorite comedy bit was when a nun came out to tap dance, resulting in the entire cast tap dancing. She did this to capture the characters' attention, as they were all bickering. Music is also an important aspect. The music played (by all actors of the play at some point) is ska-esque and has a European tinge to it. Because al the actors at some point had to play an instrument or sing, it brought them all closer together. The director noted that singing revealed who the actor truly was; and by doing this, each actor revealed who they are to each other. This allowed them to better bond and trust each other. This also allowed the actors to better understand the meaning behind the play. Overall, the most notable growth I've made throughout this month is that I've been acting more than I have in my past theatre experience. I'm very used to either working backstage or working with character design or background research, so acting is a relatively new experience for me. I'm very proud of myself for breaking out of my shell in that regard.
Starting with my monologue work, I'm proud of how it turned out, as I think I did well in expressing emotion through my voice. Some things I wish to work on in the future is being less rigid and using my body language and facial expressions to convey emotion better. With my group project work in Commedia dell'Arte, I stayed engaged in the process and was ready to adapt to any new script. The most difficult aspect of that project, though, was being able to ask questions and staying in character on stage by using my body language, which is key in Commedia dell'Arte. As stated previously, I need to work on body language while acting. I also need to get better at asking questions, as well as thinking of questions, both of which are very difficult for me. This week, my small group presented our Commedia dell'Arte piece to a small audience.
Our final story that we settled on was that one of the two lovers wanted to send the other a love letter through Zanni. Zanni gets the letter mixed up between the other lover and Il Capitano, my role. After receiving the letter, Il Capitano shows their father, Pantalone, the letter. Through the letter, the two discover that the lover is very rich, and Pantalone yells at Il Capitano to woo the lover. Il Capitano walks up to the rich lover and shows off their muscles while complimenting the lover so the lover walks away confused and confronts Zanni about it. Zanni discovers that they mixed up the message and both them and the rich lover have a meltdown. The poor lover stumbles upon this sight, and the rich lover regains their composer and kicks Zanni off the stage, and they walk happily off the stage. In the next scene, the two lovers propose, and Il Capitano attempts to disrupt it, but the two lovers ignore them. In the scene after that, the two lovers have their wedding. Il Capitano objects and walks up to the pair and the priest, but the poor lover yells at Il Capitano, who runs off the stage crying. In a final attempt, Pantalone tries to swing at the rich lover, misses, and falls onto the floor and can't get back up. I really liked how the piece turned out, as it was very fun to perform and create, as it was all very loose. I also think it's interesting just how much that version differed from the original script. I also enjoyed playing the role of Il Capitano very much, as it is very different from my own personality. Speaking in Grommelot and staying in character is really difficult for me. I tried to look up random Italian words to warp, and so far that has worked better than trying to wing it. With my monologue, I could easily apply emotion to my words and actions, but in this piece, it's more difficult because I don't have a set script with dialogue.
That being said, the main difference between this Commedia dell'Arte piece and my previous monologue is that the piece is half in person and half online. Because this is a group project that is spoken through Grommelot, attempting to act out scenes in Zoom is very difficult, as you can't convey your emotions as easily as it would be in person. The days we have in-person learning, it is much easier to act out the piece, as everyone builds off of each other. I think the main point I learned from acting this piece out online is that everyone has to communicate scenes with emotions and limited gestures (as it is on Zoom) so that the actors in the Zoom can both signal what was happening as well as effectively portray what was going on. This week, we learned about theatre during the Medieval period. Medieval theatre mainly focused on Biblical stories and the morality surrounding Biblical values. The most popular types of plays during this time were mystery plays (which were short dramas based off of parts of the Bible), miracle plays (which were about the lives of saints), and morality plays (which taught a lesson through metaphors where characters represented virtues and faults).
Going off of that, we started learning about Commedia dell'Arte. This type of theatre is where personifications of a character type are the characters in a play. They all act and move about in a different ways that go along with their personality. The eight main types of characters are;
I tried practicing Grommelot, but it is surprisingly difficult. I find myself repeating the same sound, which is hard to avoid. To practice, I looked up Icelandic words, tried pronouncing them, picked one word, and stuck with it. I mash random sections of the word up to make it sound like Grommelot. Then, we were told to make a short scene with a small group. My group decided to have Pantalone (a mean-spirited old man), Il Dottore (a man who thinks he knows everything), and Zanni (a subsection of Arleccino; a servant and trickster). Our scene ended up being about Pantalone running a lemonade stand, where Il Dottore buys some lemonade. After Pantalone leaves the stage to grab his wallet to put the money in, Zanni comes by, takes the money, and runs when Pantalone comes back. Pantalone chases Zanni while Il Dottore laughs. After this, we had to combine with another small group to make a piece. We decided that Pantalone wanted his daughter to marry one of the rich Young Lovers (another key piece of Commedia dell'Arte) that Zanni had set up. The daughter keeps trying to marry one for their money, as Pantalone was greedy and wanted money, but continuously failed. In the end, the daughter decides she doesn't want someone for their wealth, and bails. This week, I worked on a monologue for class. After we picked one we liked, we were told to fill out a character sheet. The character sheet had questions about the character from the monologue, such as what their main goal was in the monologue and in the play. I chose to work on Allegra's monologue from "Pretty Theft," by Adam Szymkowicz.
Allegra has a dying father and a emotionally distant mother who watches T.V. all day. She then decides to go on a road-trip to Dartmouth, MA with her friend, Suzy. After reading over the monologue a few times, I realized that her goal is to get attention from her mother, as she was never given attention. Another interpretation is that she wants to convince herself that it's okay to go in the trip, to leave her dying father and her friend Joe, an autistic savant. We were then tasked to memorize and perform this monologue in our house, and either record ourselves or perform on Zoom in the classroom. I chose to record myself. I put down two chairs, and acted as if the mother was in the other. During this process, I learned that I need to get better at vocally expressing my emotions, as I tend to talk more monotone. I got past this issue by placing myself in Allegra's shoes by using Stanislavski's Method. I also learned that it isn't too difficult to memorize my lines anymore, but I do continue to mess up if it's in front of others or for a school project, such as this. So then, I need to work on calming down while performing and remember to place myself in the situation, using Stanislavski's Method. |
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