Scene Design- Equus

Describe a performance that you have seen in which you were moved by a vivid scenic image. What elements of the image make it memorable for you? How did they enhance the meaning of the play (or film) for you? Do you think the image fit the director's interpretation of the play (or film)? How did it help convey the mood? When describing the image, incorporate terminology from the text and ideas discussed in lab.

I saw Equus two years ago and the most striking image I remember was the sparse stage- only a raised circular platform. The horses heads were metal and were more like frames that had not yet been wrapped in horse skin (a kind of gross image) but the point was they were representational and allowed the audience to see the actor's faces. The horses also wore horse shoe platforms that made them about 6 inches off the ground. The horses galloped on the stage at one point and the noise I could hear as the metal horse shoes struck the wooden platform was one of the main sounds on the stage besides the Alan Strang, the main character's, yelling. I think that the horses heads, horse shoes, and sparse stage complemented the story in which Alan's thoughts, relationships, and religious ideas are stripped down to their core and origins by his psychiatrist. The beauty of the design concept was that although the story of a boy stabbing the eyes of horses is horrific and weird story- the design of the set was so sparse that it could have been set almost anywhere which helps the story- which doesn't directly apply to many people (I hope) relate to Alan, his psychiatrist, and his family by letting the audience concentrate on the relationships not on the time and place. The costumes for the people were realistic and the horse's costumes were the bare minimum to indicate to the audience that they were horse, which all followed with the entire design of the play.

I can do whatever the hell I want to!!!!!!

So....had a meeting with the professor and he said essentially..why are you asking for limits? You can do whatever you want to, only limit: one actor. BUT it can be billions of characters. And as far as linking it to the items we felt, I'm sure my subject will be inspired by what I remembered from feeling the letter, stuffed animal, cup, and shoe, but not directly correlated- that's just too limiting

Monodrama research: Camryn Manheim, Betty Shamieh- Chocolate in Heat, Spalding Gray, Danny Hoch....

Camryn Manheim's one woman show is about her life, being overweight, being an actress, always waiting for life to start happening instead of getting life started herself.
Her writing about her own particular burden that pervaded her life made me think of doing an ADD play- but with various characters- each affected differently and with a different attitude towards their "disability." I don't know if there have been many ADD plays, but it seems so interesting to portray. For me, the stereotypical AD/HD person has been hyperactive and crazy. While I do know thats one manifetation of ADD, I want to do the distracted kind, the can't organize thoughts kinds- all of them. Heck, I could even explore it across time- like Albert Einstein

Or just another thought- I could do two characters: a mom and her teenage son. The dynamic that I've seen between mother and son in high school can be so different from each other- some are really dependent, some don't even talk to their mom's. Also, the moms are so different- they can be doting, overbearing, distractedly caring, oblivious, accepting of every behavior...

Or the process of looking for a job- over a period of 5 years- the person who applies for the job is also the interviewer, the manager, the human resources personnel, and the person who calls with the rejection/acceptance.

There's also another way to go with a monodrama- one that I've seen Joseph Bamudi- he's amazing! He recites his own poetry, almost like rap, but acts out what happening- they're scenes from his own life or political commentary- hilarious at times, but also makes the audience seriously think

playwriting & acting

The chapter that we had to read for this last Wednesday made me wonder. It described many things an actor could do to be "good." The first half of being an actor is having the tools that project a character to the audience can "see" it. These tools are your body, your voice, centering- which orchestrates the previous two tools so utilizing them become natural and don't "look" as if they actor is only trying to perform a part of themselves. The second half of acting is being a character, pretending to be someone else. Stanislavski formalized the processes used in his time to achieve being another person. He wanted an actor to have to outward features & movements of their character, as well as having the wants, motivations, feelings, objectives, and relationships of their character. Tangentally he wanted all this to be performed continuously whether or not something important was happening or the character was in the middle of the drama on stage, or off in the corner watching the other characters- the character had to be watching- not the actor. Stanislavski does give techniques by which to achieve the goals he set for actors, which overall result in the actor creating every single detail about their character from personal history to color preferences in order to make their character become alive to themselves & give the actors answers to specifically HOW they should act and WHY. Later acting theorists wrote in further detail how to be able to act like someone who is not yourself, like Uta Hagen in Respect for Acting.

HOWEVER, the book does not really tell what is that quality that separates some actors from the rest- some actors get parts and some don't- but the book only skims the topic by saying that if an actor is unconvincing- they aren't being truthful- but what if they ARE being truthful- what if their "terrified, yet excited by the letter" doesn't translate to the audience? Is it the actor's fault for not being truthful to the audience's idea of "terrified yet excited" or has the audience just not understood what the actor is trying to emote.

Another interesting thought that comes from instructions on how to act is how these instructions could be used to write a play. If a playwright could first think of characters, then their super objectives, their objectives, and even split the objectives into beats, especially when characters conflict their different objectives, wouldn't that greatly facilitate the dialogue because then the playwright would only have to voice the emotions that he/she knows their characters are feeling and they don't have to make up a plot/conflict by themselves- clashing objectives of different characters will do that by themselves.

Roar response

I really liked Roar, it was a much easier read than Purple (not a dig at Purple- just definitely a different kind of play). What especially hooked me was not the different culture, although the new cultural references about instruments and whistling tea kettles added depth and uniqueness to the story. Also they added familiarity in another way- every family has its own rituals and quirks and those particular items reminded me of the unique routines that my family does. But what really interested me was the family dynamics and how quickly the conflict of Irene trying to get a break in the music world- pitting her and her family vs. the cruel producers- escalated into a conflict that ultimately tore her family wide open. The escalated conflict opened up all the secrets that had been covered up and ignored and shared them with everyone- eventually disintegrating the family- at least the particular bond between husband and wife.

The dialog was very accessible and what was more amazing to me (with the billion page play that I'm supposed to write this semester), all the lines seemed very writable to me. I'm not saying that "I could have written this play," but it seems like she could have experienced these moments herself- coming home as a teenage girl and bragging that her voice was better than the angels. It was so relatable and so real to me (partially because when I read that opening line, I cringed with the embarrassing memories of how I used to brag about myself when I was younger), that I could write a similar line- taking cringe-worthy, or wonderfully memorable moments of my life and others and stringing them into a story. Of course the story has to have more than amusing dialog, but I could see how thinking of specific moments could give the playwright something to build off.

Theater lab-Breakthrough

This last friday, everyone was finally open with everyone else, which for me officially starts the beginning of the semester because I have never worked with people closely- on a scene or just in general without having a close-ish relationship outside of class. I was a little apprehensive about the exercise. First we were supposed to close our eyes, reach out, and find a partner. The first I did after closing my eyes was giggle because without sight, I was going to be touching somewhere on a person that I couldn't control, a person's whose name I had forgotten after the first class. Touching a virtual stranger was somewhat awkward because we were breaking the boundaries of social decorum that has ruled me for the past weeks in learning how to closely live with people I recently met. I reached out and felt someone's hand. We both grasped eachother's fingers as I felt someone tentatively hold my shoulder. Unfortunately Professor T-A then said we could only have one partner and that we would have to hold each other's ears. Since I was already holding one person's hand and was clearly their partner, I brushed the other person's hand off and tried to direct them towards the noicse of other peole movign around and trying to find partners. I then awkwardly felt up to my partner's shoulder, and probed for her head (I found out the gender of my partner by feeling the braids in her hair), and closed my fingers around my new partner's ear. Although the situation felt hilarious, both my partner and I felt safe to "violate" eachother, breakign the boundaries by toughing each other's ears because it was the only way that we could be marked as partners and as part of the group that had found a matching pair. When we opened our eyes, we found that two people had not found each other and we sitting along. When they explained their reasons for not finding a partner- not toughing someone quickly enough and not wanting to touch people at all- I wondered why they were not willing to be awkward in order to complete the exercise. When we discussed it as a metaphor for acting and in life, one point jumped out for me as a difference between the exercise and life- In the exercise we were all doing it together AND our eyes were closed, so no one was judging us- unlike on stage when the audience is constantly looking at you or in life when you're held up to evaluation. I realized that those two points that were not relavent in the exercise are inhibiting factors in my life, I get really nervous when people judge me. According to the "moral" of the exercise- to be able to be part of a group, to accomplish certain goals in life, I will have to reach out to people- however awkward I may be and however much other people will be able to judge me- I have to take the uncomfortableness in order to reap the rewards of completing an exercise, being in a play, getting a job, pretty much anything out of my comfort zone.

Gold Rush field trip monodrama- more developed

It was on a Gold Rush field trip in fourth grade. My grade packed our sleeping bags and extra pairs of clothes and loaded up on two school buses for the unbearably long ride of three hours up to this old-time gold rush era reenactment camp. We panned for gold, received our Gold rush names, and on the last day visited a saloon, where we were given chips and the option of playing black jack with cards to increase our drink-buying money.

Black-Jack was the beginning of the end for me.

I had never played before, and of course couldn't ask for advice because that would show how ignorant I was, so I tried to watch and pick it up.

Ok.....the dealer gives each person a card. They put a chip down in the middle of the card table, look at it and either say "hit me" or "stay." Then if they say "hit me" the dealer gives them another card. The everyone shows their cards and one person gets all the chips.

It seems pretty easy and I definitely want to be able to buy a soda at the "bar." (walk to the array of cards and put down a chip) I'm in. Um, another card.......hit me? Shoot! I lost a chip. I'll try another round because I can't even buy a soda with the one chip I have left. I'm in again. Yup, hit me. Oh, I lost another chip, so now I have none.

The black jack game ended and all the players lined up at the bar to get their old fashioned sodas. I looked around and everyone else had a drink in their hand. I was the only one who didn't know how to play a simple card game. I rushed to a teacher and asked where the bathroom was, so I could hide. As my eyes welled up with tears, I pushed open the door marked "Ladies." I ran into a stall and put my head against the inside of the stall door, trying to take deep breaths. Don't cry. Don't you dare cry. Breathe. Wipe the tears.

When I came out of the bathroom, everyone was holding a letter. The teacher explained that our parents had written us letters and they had been delivered by the Pony Express. The teacher gave me mine and I walked to a corner to read it alone as everyone else laughed at their letters in groups.

Look at it! Look how distinct this is! Marbled pink with a vine design around the edges marks this as MY mom's envelope and stationary. She was trying to be a special mom, but she just doesn't realize that all I want her to be is specially just like everyone else's mom. Why couldn't she just be boring with a white envelope and white printer paper? Why did she have to hand write it, so anyone standing across the room can tell that she cared so much as to physically write out the letters? How over-loving!
I don't want to read it. If this is how she packages her words, I can't really bear to read what she wrote. But I can't not read it, then everyone will know how awful my mom's letter is.

(unfold letter gingerly, while looking at everyone else read their letters. Glance down and quickly skims the letter, cringing as she reads the most tender and heartfelt sentences)

I'm so proud of you....for what?! I hope you managed to find some gold to make us rich....thanks mom, you really think that I am such a kid as to actually believe in this "panning for gold thing?" Dad's gone hunting.....ugh, no he's just gone to teach computer classes. Technology in the real world. It's not 1849 mom! I don't know why you're pretending. For me or for your own fantasies- I don't care its too awful for words!

the reading in Theater: the lively art was realy interesting this week because it essentially told the reader how to start writing a script or at least the basic steps. I soaked it in because one, we have to write a 40 page play by the end of the semester, which scares me half to death, but I want to try anyway; and two, it also helps a bit with the monodramas we're working on for the theater lab, which again, I don't fully understand how to do. I've never written a script before, and have barely even written creatively (not essays with points to make), so writing dialogue is a new concept to me. Professor Tanglao-Aguas starts his play with an introduction by the stage manager and the characters. Although it works for his Brechtian-style play, I don't see my self doing that for either my monodrama or my big play. A note on When the Purple Settles: I really didn't like it for about the first half of the play. It had too many stage directions, too many confusing character changes, who the characters were addressing- audience or eachother. I finally had to accept it for what it was- a play trying to make a point-and then I started to like it and care about what the characters were doing. It was unlike Brechtian in the fact that it didn't start out like a normal play, with a plot and characters and then suddenly shock the verfremsdungeffeckt on the audience. I think that the more Brechtian style allows the audience to really care about the characters, find out the point and then remember the point because they internalize the characters, so therefore the point relates directly to their life through substitution. Tanglao-Aguas' play let the audience know going into the play, that it would be making some points- the audience can be riveted when they try and find out how and through what character is the playwright trying to make his numerous points. I looked in Fences to find a more traditional start to a play. Fences started out first with a description of the stage and the relationship between the characters, and finally what they're doing when they enter. When August Wilson starts the dialogue, Bono starts off with, "Troy, you ought to stop that lying!" I could copy Wilson's model, but starting out with just the dialogue part for my monodrama wouldn't give the audience any context and I don't think it will end up long enough for me to allow them not to understnad what's going on for any small amount of time. However, I could read the stage directions aloud. That would give it a distictly Brechtian feel, since that was one of the ways he said directors could alienate the audience. And however much I'm not really trying to do the Brechtian feel, I might just have to do it for the practical reason of educating the audience.