Journal Entry #12

Monday 11th.


Mr.Evans began the class by explaining to us that "action occurs when something happens that makes or permits something else to happen". He proved this by going towards Maria, which caused her to leave the room. Like Meisner, it is almost an impulse.


He then said that 2 events make an action. For example, letting go of a roll of tape is half an action. And the tape falling to the ground is another half of the action. A half action plus a half action make a one, full action.


Having this in mind, we proceeded to develop our skit. Using David Borns Idea of working backwards, we decided to decide on an ending for our skit and work our way backwards. Working as a group, we came to the conclusion that the man would jump off an empty pool and die. However, we then had to think about what would cause or permit this to happen and we began developing our skit in this way. Since we decided that he would die from jumping into an empty pool, we brainstormed on what would have caused this. We then came up with an idea that he had been deprived of swimming by his doctor for a while and had finally hit a climax in which he could not take it anymore, which caused him to quickly jump into a pool. However, we then had to ponder why he was so anxious to go to the pool or why he couldn't survive without performing his daily routine of swimming. I then came up with the idea that perhaps his pregnant wife had drowned to death and swimming was his way of relieving his pain and anger. Making him feel an invisible connection to his dead wife. An almost therapeutic action.


After developing the simple plot outline, we had to include where our 5 elements would go into. For example, stick work, repetition etc.














place picture of chart here.















After learning about the idea that "action occurs when something happens that makes or permits something else to happen", I found myself subconciously observing what was the root of certain events. For example, while in the art room, I heard a loud noise coming from the corner of the room, only to find my classmates red face giggling and looking at the ground where her text book had fallen. Since asking her why she had dropped it would sound bizarre--since it was obviously an accident--I proceeded to look around the area where it had been dropped, only to find that her table area was filled with art materials so that there was barely any room to place anything else. Therefore, I came to the conclusion, subconciously, that her table had been so filled with materials that when she placed the text book on the edge of her table, it simply slided off. Her occupied desk permited an action to occur which resulted in her dropping her text book.
So instead of asking her why she had dropped it, i told her to clean her table.




Tuesday's Lesson:


"While some people make theatre----we are all theatre!"


On Tuesday, to our dismay, we were told that Boal had passed away over the weekend. Boal was a Brazilian theatre director that believed in involving the audience. Sometimes in a way that was known and sometimes in a way that was unknown. He also came up with the idea of Theatre of the Opressed which involved issues such as politics, economy, industrial, and racial.


"Theatre is a form of knowledge, it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, rather than just waiting for it."

We learned that there are 3 different styles of theatre:

• Image Theatre
• Invisible Theatre
• Forum Theatre

We learned about these in detail and produced posters with bullet points full of notes.Boal based a lot of his work on the senses. Such as listen, see and feel. So we proceeded to do a few activities.

The first was and exercise where partner A would hold out her hand, and partner B would follow it with her body and eyes. As a result, partner A felt powerful, whereas partner B felt low, and was very concentrated.

The next exercize we did, was a balance exercize where were all in a group and had to balance ourselves all at the same time. Then we had to twist our body in a group. This exercize was not successful since none of us are very flexible or have very good balance.

Thursday's Lesson:

During this lesson we touched up more on Image Theatre which consists of tableaux or still pictures. We use still pictures to create another still picture.

To experiment with this type of theatre, we did an exercize where we were given a role, for example, a priest, cop, teacher, mum, or dad.

Taking mum as an example, Mei Kimura was asked to present a still picture of a mom. She presented us with an image of a mom cooking. She was then asked to develop that image which she did by crying--therefore, showing another side of being a mother. (not the happy housewife stereotype.) Then another image she presented us of scolding a child, and then a working mother. I found this a very interesting exercize that one could perform when they want to develop a character, avoiding stereotypes or being biast.

The Specactor is an active audience. Even if they are not doing anything, they are active since they have decided to do nothing---therefore, they are given the option.

Then, as a group, we had to find an issue and perform a skit. We decided to use invisible theatre since we found it the most appealing. The themes we have brainstormed so far were:

• bullying
• stealing
• drugs
• peer pressure

We then decided to go to peer pressure, that would eventually lead to stealing. We decided to use G.G. mini mart as a venue or the cantene and Stu, Chen, or other cantene guys would be informed that we were performing a form of theatre. We have yet to develop our idea's further.

Monday's lesson:

During this lesson, we developed the ending of our skit which was a man jumping into an empty pool which would then lead to his death. Last week, we had trouble potraying the death of the man to the audience. So we used this lesson to brainstorm more ideas we could use. Mr.Evans reminded us that less is more. He told us an example where at his old school, one of his students asked him "are you really leaving this school". And he had responded "yes I am". And the girl had looked at him, sighed, frowned a little, and turned around to walk away. Mr.Evans then explained to us, that if the girl had said something like "oh that's so sad..we're going to miss you! don't go!", he probably wouldn't have remembered her after all these years. But since she had responded the way she did, it impacted him much more. Like Meisner, silence is more sometimes.

With that in mind, we decided to not have the cliche image of a man jumping in and screaming after bumping his head, but rather have a man jump into the pool, and using stick work, and drumming to represent a heart beat, show that the man had died. We were also planning on using red fire crackers like they did in Shun-Kin to represent blood.

Journal Entry #11

During Monday's class, we went over our homework which was to define terms such as:
-Meisner-Repetition-Stick Work-Ionesco-Andrei Serban-Peking Opera-The Lesson-Romania-Meyerhold-Absurdism and find the links between them. We were then given the task of devising a synthesized play using five elements from the list above.
We decided to use the theme of mental disorders particularily Schizophrenia. We would use repetition with the voices in our characters head repeating the same thing over and over again until our character can't ignore the voices anymore.
Sara then told us an absurd japanese story about a man who over-exercised everyday and could not stand breaking his daily routine of swimming two hours a day.
We continued brainstorming idea's until Mr.Evans told us the story about a man who swam home.
"The Swimmer"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIegoQAayFs

In the end, the man finally reaches his house only to find it abandoned and full of weeds. Solitude and the decadence is reflected in the house.

We have decided to use stick work to symbolize the waves of the sea or water. In Shun-kin, they used sticks to represent trees blowing in the wind. Therefore, I think that using sticks to represent the waves moving will be effective. We can also use sticks to represent the pool, hallways, or rooms like in shun-kin.

AFRICAN THEATRE:
We have recently been learning a bit about african theatre and studied some playwrights such as Athol Fugard.
We learned that one playwright uses improvisation in his plays. He begins his plays with an image or object as a basis for the improvisation. He then gets his actors to improvise based on the image they have. After improvising once, the cast will sit down and discuss what they liked or didn't like. They will then react the play.
On Tuesday's class we practised this by splitting into pairs with A and B.
A had to tell B an improvised story with an image of a box as a basis.
B then had to tell the other groups A the same story but introducing a cheetah.
A then told their group member B, the same story.

After we did this exercise, we gathered and asked A from one group and B from the other to tell their stories. We chose the one we liked the best which talked about social problems and morals, which a lot of african plays feature.
Our play was about a boy named Anup who was given a box by his grandma and told not to open it for 20 years. The grandma warns him not to lose the box because if he does, he will become an embarassment to the family. Especially if he loses the necklace with a cheetah on it. One day Anup is having a house party at his house when two classmates who enjoy bullying people, find a box while Anup is in the bathroom.
They open the box and put on all the rings, planning to annoy Anup once he is out of the bathroom. One of the bullies puts on the cheetah necklace and it begins to choke him. The bully then suffocates to death and Anup is terrified. He then falls into depression.

We failed to show the social problems in our play as effectively as we had hoped. The social problems were: never take someone else's belongings, and bullying.
The moral was: If you do these things, karma will get you. (In this case, death.)

We then watched a short clip of an African Play and realized how different our play was to theirs. Their play was about AIDS and how it effects families.
Towards the end of the play however, it began to sound a bit commercial as the doctor outlines the dangers of AIDS and what one can do to prevent it.

We also learned about Theatre for Development which is an educational tool for the development of people. It usually outlines social problems such as AIDS or no sanitation.

Theatre for Development can use several styles of theatre such as:
storytelling, improvisation, music, dance, mime, scenes, participation of the audience, or comic.

The other day, I was watching a film called Religulous when I realized that the interviewer uses repetition to create humor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uL7zjRsO1w

We could perhaps include this type of humor, with our schizophrenic patient.

Journal Entry #10

On April, Monday, the 20th, in Mr.Evans class, we touched upon Meisner and his techniques once again and tried to incorporate his technique in new exercises.

We were introduced with the idea of a "synthesis". We were then presented with a task to make a short skit using the theme of a "synthesis". We did this by using all 4 members of our class and each saying one differnent word at the same time while tapping a wooden stick on the ground. Towards the end, we said each of our words in an order that read "I am so happy".

We then did an exercise where we had to balance a wooden stick on our hands while reciting "Do be or not to be, that is the question" by shakespeare or our ABC's.
The reason we did this is to see how hard it is to multi-task and concentrate on balancing the stick as well as reciting a quote.

The next activity we did was have someone sit down in a chair and ask a person standing up balancing a stick a series or questions. We wanted to see how the person who was holding the stick's tone change.
When Ann was sitting in the chair asking me a series of questions, the tone of my answers was very different then how I normaly talk. We noticed that since we were balancing our sticks, our focus was not in the conversation by rather on keeping the stick balanced. Therefore, we were answering using spontaneity, which Meisner believed should happen "under imaginary circumstances."

We then recieved a passage of a script called THE LESSON. Which is about a professor who teaches his pupil mathematics and then kills him. My partner was Ann and together we performed this showing elements of Meisner.
Below is the script we used:

PROFFESSOR: (wittily): But still sitting down, I see!
PUPIL: (appreciating the joke): Just like you, Sir!
PROFFESSOR: Good! Then shall we arithmetize a little?
PUPIL: I'll be pleased to, Sir.
PROFFESSOR: Then perhaps you wouldn't mind telling me...
PUPIL: Not in the slightest, Sir. Please go ahead.
PROFFESSOR: What do one and one make?
PUPIL: One and one make two.
PROFFESSOR: (astounded by his pupil's erudition): But that's very good indeed! You're extremely advanced in your studies. You'll have very little difficulty in passing all your Doctorate examinations.
PUPIL: I'm very pleased to hear it, Sir. Especially from you.
PROFFESSOR: Let us proceed a little further. What do two and one make?
PUPIL: Three.
PROFFESSOR: Three and one?
PUPIL: Four.
PROFFESSOR: Four and one?
PUPIL: Five.
PROFFESSOR: Five and one?
PUPIL: Six.
PROFFESSOR: Six and one?
PUPIL: Seven.
PROFFESSOR: Seven and one?
PUPIL: Eight.
PROFFESSOR: Seven and one?
PUPIL: Still eight.
PROFFESSOR: Very good answer. Seven and one?
PUPIL: Eight again.
PROFFESSOR: Excellent. Perfect. Seven and one?
PUPIL: Eight for the fourth time. And sometimes nine.
PROFFESSOR: Magnificent! You're magnificent! Sublime!

The way we showed elements of Meisner was by reading it quickly so that it sounds as if it is spontaneity. So for the proffessors questions, we got the pupil to answer as if it were all one line. Very quickly so that it seemed like the pupil did not need time to think about his answer but rather answered with spontaneity.
We also got the pupil, Ann, to be looking at her textbook so that her answers were more relaxed and realistic since she was focused on turning the pages of her book similar to the exercise with talking to someone balancing a stick.

The short skit was overall very amusing and it was very interesting to see the other groups

(we were split into groups of two), interpretation of Meisner. The other group used a lot of balancing of stick work to focus their minds on balancing the stick and not on saying the script.

Tuesday's lesson:

Unfortunetly, I was unable to attend class therefore I missed a athol fugard lecture where students were given a script and applied athol fugard's technique to it.

Thursday's Lesson:

Since I was away on Tuesday, I was unable to be as involved as I could have in a monologue that my classmates had been preparing. I was placed in a group with Mei and Maria and was in charge of lighting the script for Mei to read as well as participating in a little drumming.

The first picture is of Mei while she is reciting her monologue. The lighting was very effective. The second picture is of Maria drumming and the third is of myself with the script. These pictures were all taken by myself with my cellphone therefore, the quality of the pictures are not very good.

Monday's lesson:

We were given a hand-out last Monday that was to be completed for this class. In it, we were asked to research things such as Meisner, Repetition, Stick work, Ionesco, Andrei Serban, Peking Opera, The Lesson, Romania, Meyerhold, and Absurdism. We had to find the link between these elements. With all this research, we have now been asked to devise a piece of theatre that connects at least 5 of these findings/syntheses.

We brainstormed idea's and so far, came up with an idea of a mental illness such as Schizophrenia which links to absurdism. We also found a story that Sara told us about a man who swims everyday and cannot break his daily routine of swimming 2 hours a day. Then Mr.Evans told us a film that was an adaption from a short story on the New york newspaper, about a man who decides to go home by swimming home. By the time he reaches his house however, his house is abandoned with leaves all over it which makes us question whether he was sane or not.

Journal Entry #9

Sanford Meisner

This week in Mr.Evans class, we studied Sanford Meisner and his techniques.

Meisner believed that "the foundation of acting is the reality of doing".

He did a series of exercise's where he used repetition designed to eliminate all intellectuality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLXqlhmlRPU

Above is a link of one of Meisner's ex-students who talks a bit about her experience with Meisner's workshop.

Brief Background:

• Meisner was born in August, 31st, 1905.



• He pursued a career in acting despite his parents advice.



• He trained famous people such as Grace Kelly, John Voight and Diane Keaton.



• He invented the Meisner Technique.

In class, we did a few exercises where we practised some Meisner-inspired activities. It took us a few tries to perfect the activity because from instinct, we began to change the line's a bit.

For example, if you were working in a pair, and your partner said "you have nice hair", you have to repeat that EXACT line. We, however, had a tendency of changing this line to first person by responding "I have nice hair" instead of "you have nice hair".

I found Meisner's technique very interesting because he uses repetition to make the actor believe what he is hearing. I find that people, in their everyday lives, sometimes talk to themselves to support themselves.
For example, before a big race, I remember hearing someone whisper to themselves repetitively saying "I can do this, I can do this, I can do this."

Frank Wedekind (1864-1918)

We also learned a bit about Wedekind who wrote Spring Awakening.

• He worked in buisness and in the circus before he became an actor and singer.


• Spring Awakening was about the tragedy of childhood.


• He writes extremely contraversial plays that critizes society as a whole.


• He implies that parents and teachers are the most ignorant/mentally indolent class.
  

Theatrical Convention

We learned that a theatrical convention is a system or technique that is argued upon by the audience and the artist. The theatre production we saw a while ago called Shun-Kin used this idea with their wooden sticks which they used to create trees, and hallways.

This is because the audience understood that the actors were using the sticks to represent trees.

Another example, which generally relates to any theatre production, is when the curtain opens. Once the curtain opens, the audience understand that the show is about the begin, and the actors, know that they have to be in character when the curtain goes up.

Other ways to show theatrical convention is with the use of technique, costume, staging, props, use of space, and acting style.

Masquerade African Theatre

To begin this unit, we watched this video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cni-ytR2siI

From this video, we realized how essential every beat of the drums are to the movement of the dancers or actors.

• We also learned ""Adiro akwu ofu ebe enene nmanwu" which translates to "one does not stand on one spot to watch a masquerade."


• African Masquerades involve a team of dancers, vocalists, instruments etc.


• There are different types of masquerades for example,


• AGABA masquerade=warrior


• ODOGWU= youthful, and agressive


• OJIONU=water spirit and involves non-stop dancing by sea creatures such as crocodiles or sharks.


• Masquerades embodies spirit and human worlds.

These masquerades use their masks to make it easier for people to know right away what their characters are like. Where other theatre productions use make-up, or costumes to help build their characters, African theatre relies on their masks.

This reminded me of a course I took this summer in Argentina. I took a theatrical make-up course where I learned to apply make-up on someone to transform them into geisha's, mermaids, kabuki actors and more.

Where the africans depended on their masks, Kabuki actors rely on their make-up to show their characters emotions and character.

For example, to show that someone was dissapointed or evil, we would first erase their eyebrows with wax, then apply their white make-up and then draw their eyebrows arched and higher up their forhead.

Journal Entry #8 (part 2)

Artaud

Lately, we have been focusing on Antonin Artaud's vision of what theatre should be. We wrote an essay on his idea compared to Brecht and his relationship with Balinese Theatre.

To sum it all up, Antonin Artaud was a theatre director, playwright, and actor who believed that theatre should shock the audience as much as possible. He invented the idea of The Theatre of Cruelty and used his performances with loud and disturbing lighting and sounds to affect he audience as much as possible.
He admired Balinese Dance Theatre because of its ritualization.

Our class was given a task to incorporate a the myth of Narcissus and Echo with Artaud.






Plot points of Narcissus and Echo:

• The Goddess Juno is irritated by Echo and takes away her ability to talk. She allows Echo to only repeat the last word someone else has said.


• Echo, who is in love with Narcissus sees him hunting one day. When Narcissus asks "who's here", Echo is only able to say "here" faintly.
  
• Narcissus ignores this whisper and keeps on walking


• Echo, devastated, cries until there is nothing left of her but a faint echo.


• Narcissus meanwhile, approaches a lake and sees his reflection. He instantly falls in love with it.


• From starvation, or drowning (there are many different versions), Narcissus eventually dies and all that is left in the grass where he layed and starred at his reflection is a flower.


• The flower is now called a Narcissus.
  

To understand how we could incorporate this story with Artaud, we first had to see a bit of Artaud to visually understand his motives.

The link below is a short film in Spanish called El teatro de la crueldad (theatre of cruelty) from Germany, 2004

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPVvU7kCwsI

After seeing this performance, we were very shocked however, we then learned that this was Artaud in extreme and that there were different interpretations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKEaDiHPGnA&feature=related

The link above is a performance from a theatre class performing their interpretation of Artaud. It was done in 2007.

After watching these clips, we gained a better general knowledge on how to incorporate this with our Narcissus and Echo Story.

Performance:

Roles:

Echo-Sara

Narcissus-Ann

Narcissus' reflection-Maria

Juno-Sofia (me)

Bypasser picking up Narcissus flower-Mei

Scene 1-Our performance began with Mei and Maria doing a dance and screaming while I drummed. This had no relation to the story of Narcissus and Echo however, we wanted to commence our skit with loud noises to capture the audience's attention immedietly.

Scene 2-We had everyone pampering the goddess juno except for Sara (echo )who was circling me and talking non-stop. I then yelled "SILENCE" and with my hands pushed them away as well as Sara. I walked towards Sara and took out her voice as if i were pulling out a rope from her neck.
Everyone began to scream until i clasped my hands. This meant that I was now in posession of her voice so everyone proceeded to hopelessly attempt to scream with no success, and began to spasm trying to express themselves.

Scene 3- Ann (narcissus) goes hunting and hears a noise. He asks "who's there" and Sara replies "here". Sara grabs Ann's feet, almost tripping her which symbolized her longing for him. Narcissus kicks her away, thinking she is a twig which represents him ignoring Echo's love. "HERE!" is yelled with a more desperate tone and we all begin to cry loudly.

Scene 4- Ann approaches a lake which we showed by placing 3 black wooden blocks. She admires her reflection which is shown by Maria sticking her face out from behind the blocks. She then turns towards the audience, yells and begins to strangle Ann. We all begin to scream. (hopefully shocking the audience). Ann then falls behind the black wooden block representing her death.

Scene 5- A flower is placed where Ann once sat. Mei, a randomn bypasser, picks up the flower and whispers Narcissus. She walks off stage.

Scene 6- Hysteric laughing is heard and we all sit on the black wood. Maria sits with her arms around Ann, showing that Ann has been defeated by Maria. And I sit with my arms around Sara, representing my power over her. Mei sits by herself.

Scene 7 (end)- We all walk towards the camera with our arms out as if to strangle someone while whispering Narcissus. The reason why we did this in the end was because we wanted to show our moral of the play: If you are vain and love yourself too much like Narcissus, nothing good will come from it. (we will strangle you.)

Constructive Critisism:
Our theatre teacher was satisfied with our performance however, he felt that more dialogue was necessary.
Also, the message may not have come across which is why I explained it above.

Reflection:

Coincidently, while browsing through video's of theatre groups of drama students performing their interpretations of Artaud, I realized that the High School play I was involved with called TINA! directed by Mr.Evans had a scene that some people could see as Artaud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOztBCwUv-g

The video above has a scene in the beginning where people are putting bags over someone's head. This idea is very shocking as it generally represents killing someone. In Tina, we originally wanted to put a bag over someones head to symbolize them dying however, it was taken out and replaced with shocking someone with the bag. Either way, we managed to unintentionally use Artauds idea of shocking the audience.

In 8th grade, I was involved in a highschool play called Bang, Bang, You're Dead! in my old school, Meadowridge School. I realize now that most of the play could have been considered Artaud-like. For example, there was a scene where a boy, who had killed many of his classmates at a school shooting, was put into a box. And the deceased, who he had killed and were talking to him in his mind, began to pound the box and scream very loudly. The box was then turned over, and the boy fell out of it. The disturbing noises and pounding would have definetly shocked the audience.

Furthermore, I enjoyed performing Artaud as an experience however, if I were to direct a theatrical performance, personally, I would prefer to only apply Artaud's ideas to certain scenes. For example, in Bang, Bang, You're Dead, we applied Stanisvlaski's idea of taking getting into the role you are playing by a past experience or memory. However, certain scenes or events had Artaud elements in them.

Journal Entry #8

SHUN-KIN

On Monday, we revised the main plot of a play called Shun-Kin that we plan to watch later on this week at the Setagaya Public Theatre. Shun-kin is essentially about a blind girl named Sun-kin who is very beautiful and is taken care of by a boy who is assigned to her named Sasuke who happens to be 4 years older than her.
We also looked at similar plays by Simon McBurney such as The Elephant Vanishes and Complicite.

below is a link to an interview about complicite-a dissapearing number:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK3o05UEufA

Our theatre director made us watch these video's so that we can familiarize ourselves with this theatre style and notice similarities with Shun-Kin when we watch it later this week.



WAYANG KULIT:

Last week was a very busy week for us because we performed our Wayang Kulit performance.

Our wayang kulit performance was written, directed, acted, and completely devised by us (Mei, Andrea, Myself, Maria, and Sara).

Each of our roles in this performance were:

Puppets: Drawn by sara, cut and put together by everyone else.

Screen: Put together and painted by Mei and myself.

Script: Written by myself, Mei, Maria and Andrea

Lighting: Mei and Andrea aka the narrators
Music: Put together by Mei

My contribution was mainly making the screen which took a long time. With the help of Mei, we were able to get hold of wood, paint it black with the help of Maria, and then construct it with Mei using drills to drill in screws and put it together. I then went to a cloth store on Wednesday night to buy the fabric for the screen. It cost me around 1,000 yen. With help from Mei, we put the fabric on our wooden screen using nails. My other contribution was attending all rehearsals including morning rehearsal. I also helped to cut out the puppets and make the gaps in them as well as write scenes in the script.

ROLES:

Serena: myself

King Wrath: Maria
Lancelot: Sara

Troops: Andrea

Serena's father, the king: Maria

The reason we made another screen was because we wanted two screens surrounding the audience. For particular scenes, we wanted to show the puppets going from one screen to the next. We also wanted one screen to be used for close ups.

Our puppets looked very effective in the end.

The characters with a higher status were made bigger and taller than the characters with a lower status. Also, the ones with a higher status, such as Serena's father the king, and king wrath and the troops, had colored cellophane stuck on the gaps of the puppet to represent their position.

This was our script:

SCENE 1 (letter from King Wrath)
Dad: Serena, I just received a letter from King Wrath. He wishes to have your hand in marriage. Serena, I encourage you to take this offer. HeÕs a rich man, and if you reject his offer, he will invade our Kingdom of the Sun!
(Serena takes letter from Dad)
(close up)
(Dad leaves room)
(Serena reads the letter)
(Blackout)
Narrator 1: Serena pacesback and forth, not liking one bit about what just happened...
-pause-
Narrator 2:I dont get it why?
Do you have any ideas?
(kids answer)
Narrator 2: So what next?
-Narrators think intentively-
Serena: Father, I cannot marry King Wrath.
Dad: WHAAAAATTTT?!?!? (dad faints)
Narrator 1: Shocked! No Horrified!.. Nah..
WhatÕs another word for horrified? (kids answer.. if they don't, narrator 2 replies Outraged)
Narrator 1: Outraged! I like that! (writes)
Narrator 2: Outraged, Serenas father, the king, fainted.
Narrator 1: Wait I like that but why would Serena dare to defy her father?
arrator 2: hmm
------------------------------------------------------
SCENE 2 (journey and battle scene)
(Serena is on her journey to Lancelots house)
Serena: Brother, thank you for coming with me.
Brother: Its no problem, Serena. But Ive been wondering why do you want to go all the way to the countryside just to learn archery?
Serena: Brother, theres something I need to tell you Im going to learn archery from Lancelot, because I want to spend more time with him. Besides, I dont want to marry King Wrath, because I love Lancelot.
Brother: Love?
Serena: yes
(messenger and troops come in. they make noise)
Serena: Who is that?
Robin: Who goes there!
Serena: It is I, Serena
Robin: Serena from the Kingdom of the Sun?
Serena: That is right.
Robin: Do not come any closer, turn away now, and go back where you came from, And DISPERSE! Or meet your fate
Serena: Please (continues walking towards them) I just need to get to the countryside. Please let me pass.
Robin: (turns to his troops) She wants nothing to do with us, only to pass. King Wrath will sort out her fate when he meets her. It is not our duty to fight destiny.
Troops: No! She chose to defy our King! She must suffer the consequences of her actions! How can you let our only hate go without so much of a scratch for her consequences! She will meet her fate NOW if she chooses to pass us. We represent King Wrath; we must fight on his behalf! We WILL fight on his behalf!!! (To Serena) You have a choice, go back where you came from, where your fate will depend on King Wrath. Or choose to pass us, where we will fight for him.
Serena: (to her brother) It is decided then. Either way, King Wrath shall decide my fate. So I will pass, for I want nothing more than to face up to King Wrath. If I cannot face him in person, then I will face whoever speaks on his behalf. Whoever has taken up his role and spoken words through his mouth and meant it. (Serena runs towards the troops, screaming followed by her brother)
(War will consist of music representing strikes. After a while)
Brother: Go Serena! Go! Nows your chance! Go now, before its too late!!
Serena: I cannot leave you. I cannot
Brother: If not for me, go in the name of father! Go for our kingdom!!
(Serena turns away and runs as fast as she can)
Narrator 2: Trapped in this dilemma, Serena must make the hardest decision yet! Will she leave her brother to fight King Wraths troops alone? Or will she stay and take the risk of never seeing her beloved Lancelot again?
-pause-
I like that! (writes)
------------------------------------------------------
SCENE 3 (Serena learns archery from Lancelot)
(Serena staggers after a long time of escaping seems exhausted and faints...soon after Lancelot comes to the scene to discover Serena and goes to help her)
L: Serena!my goodness! Oh no! Are you ok? Here
Serena: (Serena sort of gets up as Lancelot helps herwhen they both get up there is a romantic pause) Oh, Lancelot! Ive missed you so much! (Hugs Lancelot)
Lancelot: I missed you too! Did you get my letters?
Serena: I did! And I wanted to write to you, but something terrible has happened!
Lancelot: Whats that?
Serena: WellÉmy father is trying to make me marry King Wrathand I dont even love that nasty old man! Thats why Ive decided that maybe you could teach me archery! Then I could be strong like you and I could fight against King Wraths armyÉthen I will win!
Lancelot: (Lancelot ponders this) Yes, but I dont want you to get hurt Serena! Maybe you could hide here until your Dads army defeats King Wrath. I dont want anything bad to happen to you!
Serena: LancelotÉI have to go fight! I cant bare the idea of other people fighting and risking their lives for my cause!
Lancelot: Ok.I will teach you but only under one condition you have to let me fight too.
(scene ends)
(archery learning begins)
(Lancelot & Serena shooting arrows)
Serena: Thank you Lancelot. Now it is time for us to go fight.
------------------------------------------------------
Scene 4 (Serena and Lancelot fights King Wrath)
(while Lancelot and Serena were walking, King Wrath comes and attacks Lancelot and he faints)
Serena: Lancelot! (then turns to King Wrath) Youll regret that as much as youll regret attempting to invade my fathers kingdom! Ill take you down!!
King Wrath: Alone? HAH! Arent you underestimating me? A woman can never defeat me! Even less ALONE!
Serena: Well see about that! (takes a stance) whenever youre ready.
King Wrath: HAAAAAHHH (attacks)
(Serena dodges slightly without effort)
(King Wrath stops and turns to attack again)
(King Wrath and Serena starts a more intense battle)
(they struggle and constantly leave and appear on screen)
(King Wrath and Serena freeze in midair, in the middle of their fight.
Narrator 1: Left to face the terrible, mischievous, evil, sly, hideous, horrible, disgusting, gro-
Narrator 2: OKAY enough adjectives! We get that hes the bad guy.
Narrator 1: Fine. Left to face the evil King Wrath alone, Serena gathers all her confidence and remembers her teachings.
Narrator 2: She closed her eyes and concentrated on her goal; winning.
Narrator 1: err.. no. Whats another word we could use instead of winning?
(Once Victory is shouted out)
PERFECT!
(eventually, King Wrath comes flying across screen and lands on the floor. Serena appears and in slow motion takes an arrow and shoots at King Wrath)
King Wrath: Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!! How can this be!!! (goes off screen)
Serena: (Serena goes to center and looks around) I.won??.... (looks over to Lancelot) Lancelot!! (she runs towards him) Lancelot please. Wake up. Wake up.
(pause)
Serena: you know Ive always loved you.
(Lancelot starts to moan)
Serena: Lancelot! Youre alright!
Lancelot: ughhh. (realizes what happened before) Where is he?!?! Ill take him down!! Ill fight him!!
Serena: Oh. I already defe-. I mean, youve already defeated him! You were really amazing Lancelot!
Lancelot: oh.. (tries to remember) I was amazing wasnt I?
Serena: Lancelot now that King Wrath is defeated, I dont need to marry him anymore.
Lancelot: Yes, you are now free to marry anyone you wish.
Serena: Thats what I wanted to talk to you about I love youÉ
I wish to marry you
Lancelot: You do? I love you too, and Ive always had. Then (walks closer to S) Will you marry me?
(Narrators comes from backstage speaking their lines)
Narrator 2: And they lived happily ever after!
Narrator 1: NO NO NO!!!! Thats way to clich! What about Serena looked into his eyes and saw all the happiness she could live. She smiled and whispered yes
Narrator 2: Thats it? No happily ever after?
Narrator 1: Well it is a happily ever after. They going to get married!
Narrator 2: Okay.. Fine.. but we should add to that.
Both: hmmm
Narrator 2: What about this?
The audience decides the ending!
BLACK OUT

THE END

While writing our script, we made sure to keep in mind that our intended audience would be elementary students. Therefore, the script had to have language that was easy to understand for children ages 8-9.

Thoughts on our final performance:

All members of our group regret to say that we were only able to perform our wayang kulit once due to schedualing conflicts.

Definetly the hardest task in this performance personally, was the manipulation of the puppets. Since my character Serena was in every scene, my arms got extremely tired after a while that it was very tempting to put them down for a while to let them rest. Watching our performance on tape, we noticed that it was very hard to make the puppets look like they were actually moving. Also, Serena's arm curled in a way that made it obvious to the audience that her arm was made out of paper. The manipulation of the puppet's arms is something that we should have taken more time to practise inorder to perfect.

Another conflict with the puppets was that since the sticks attatched to their arms were quite short, you could sometimes see our hands controlling the puppets. If we had gotten longer sticks to attatch to the puppets, we wouldn't have had the problem of our hands showing when we tried to put the puppet's hands over their heads.

Also, in traditional Wayang Kulit performances, there was a stand where the puppets were placed so that the puppeteer only needed to manipulate the arms however, our puppets did not have a stand to place them in so Sara, Maria and I had to hold the puppet up with a stick that was tapped onto the puppet as well as the arms. That was an extremely difficult task and if you were to go backstage and watch us working behind the screen on our performance, you could see us attempting to take the puppet onto the screen so that it was easy to manipulate only the arms. This however, only worked for a short period of time before the tape simply came off. Next time, making a stand for the puppets is strongly advised.

Another conflict that happened during our performance was that our puppets got damaged. This was mainly due to the thin paper that the puppets were made out of. Also, there was a scene on the second screen (close-up screen) in which an arrow had to go throw an apple to show Lancelot and Serena's archery lessons were completed. However, the puppeteer for the arrow did not put the arrow through the apple but accidently poked the apple...twice. We hope that the audience did not pick up that mistake.

There were also a few lighting mistakes that were very minimal therefore, not worthy of mentioning in detail.

Another aspect that could have been worked on was ensuring that the voice was how the character's would be. For example, Lancelot's voice was extremely high for a girls.

On a lighter note, we were extremely happy with the appearance of the puppets. We felt that they had a lot of similarities with the traditional wayang kulit puppets.

Below is a picture of a traditional wayang kulit performance. As you can see, they are very similar to our puppets. Also, keep in mind that the people who make these puppets are skilled craftsmen who do it as a job and have had years of practise. Our puppets were made with no previous experience.

Also, the music had a similar sound to traditional javanese music. Our inspiration was a group called Stomp Stomp Out Loud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu15Ou-jKM0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu15Ou-jKM0

In conclusion, if the person assigned the puppets had finished constructing them in time, that would have given us more rehearsal time therefore giving us more time to perfect our errors. However, due to our puppets not being done in time, this affected our rehearsals a lot since it is very hard to perform a wayang kulit without your puppets. On the other hand, the elementary students were very entertained with the performance and although they laughed at some parts that were unintended (Lancelot's arm falling off), they were, overall, very amused. The narrators had very good interaction with the audience and we got a positive response from the students which was vertified when they answered all of the narrator's questions with enthusiasm.

Journal Entry #7

This week, we studied Stanislavski who was an actor and theatre director from Russia.

We learnt that Stanislavski believed in bringing an actors experience into the roles they play and to expand an actors imagination.

This is interesting because last week, we studied Bertolt Brecht who's theory is in some ways, the exact opposite of Stanislavski's.

To practise Stanislavski's idea of placing yourself into the role emotionally through experience, we did an excersice whhere we were given an envelope with some unknown letter inside it.

Our task was to think about what's inside it, feel it, etc. but NOT open it. We also had to think about how we would open it, and whether we wanted to open it or not.

When I recieved my mystery letter, I looked confused as if I didn't want to open it. This was because I was trying to express a married woman recieving a letter from a secret lover.

When our classmate Maria did this excerise, she looked very confident before opening it, however after opening it, she had a shocked expression in her look, and quickly hid it away looking around to see if anyone was watching.

We guessed what her situation was and guessed right. She had just recieved her report card.

We also did an excersice where we were given a crumpled piece of paper by our theatre director, and had to imagine it was a Robin bird. While each individual student took turns to hold the bird in their hands, our theatre director would describe the bird to us and describe the emotion we were feeling towards the situation he was describing.

From this excersice, we learned that:

The more facts you are given, the more believable it is.

So in the end, our theatre director suddently smushed the bird and we felt many emotions as he supposedly "killed" the bird. This was because due to all the facts he was giving us about the Robin, we believed more and more that it was an actual Robin. Which is exactly what Stanislavski wanted his actors to do; become emotionally attached to their roles through experience.

This is ofcourse very unlike Brecht because Brecht believed that the audience should be fully aware of the fact that the actors playing the roles were simply actors playing the roles. He did not want his audience to become emotionally attatched to his characters. This is why he sometimes but akward bits of humour in not so humourous scenes.

Also last weekend, on Saturday, our drama class went to watch a performance of Romeo and Juliet by St.Maur International School.

Below, is the performance analysis I wrote based on their performance of Romeo and Juliet.

St.Maurs: Romeo and Juliet Performance Analysis
By: Sofia Fujiwara

Romeo and Juliet by St.Maur international school starred Nozomi de Lencquesaing as Romeo and Zsofia Szendrei as Juliet. It is the classic tale of the two star-crossed lovers but with a slightly different adaption. St.Maur brought in a mix of Bollywood, Buddhism, and J-pop into this classic. The play still had the basic plot, with Romeo being from the house of Montague and Juliet being from the house of Capulets. The two houses were rivals as they are in the original however in this adaption, the Montagues are Japanese and the Capulets are Indian. This unique adaption of Romeo and Juliet was directed by Nicolas Gregoriades.

The play began with a quarrel between Gregory, Sampson, Abraham is represented as a high-school scene. With four girls dressed in uniforms and the prince, representing by what seemed to be a head-mistress, breaking them apart. Instantly, the audience was aware that this is not the cliched Romeo and Juliet you would expect. The play goes specifically showing the ethnicity of the Capulets as well as the Montagues particularily during the ball dance scene where the girls in this production performed an impressive Indian dance, all dressed in Sari's.

Both Nozomi, playing Romeo, and Zsofia playing Juliet, worked very well together, and seemed to be very comfortable around eachother. However, a few other actors in minor roles seemed to stand out. Those being Juliet's nurse, played by Indu Ancha and Petra playing a servent played by Mary Gilstad and Mercutio played by Taihei Hara managed to keep the audience frequently laughing. Another actor, Alex Alexandre playing Friar Lawrence had a very strong performance playing a Buddhist monk.

The stage was split into two. The main stage, and a small set off the stage on the right side of the audience. This posed a few complications for the audience since the audience sitting on the left sides had to occasionally sit up on their seats to see over everyone's heads. The small set was only used for the Capulet's small scenes for example, breakfast scenes. The actors certaintly took advantage of the large stage they had, performing dances around the entire stage, and walking or running around in their monologues. Occasionally, the actors would come from the back doors of the theatre, and walk past the audience, to the stage while performing. This was quite effective since the audience wondered where the voices were coming from and could be seen straining their heads to find the source of the sound. A huge shrine was placed in the center of the stage for the Friar Lawrence's scenes and lights were placed on the walls to represent stars.

The costume design was amazing in this production with various actors sporting the beautiful intriquate Indian Sari's. However, the lighting was a bit off. In scenes were the lighting should have dimmed off, it simply turned off or switched to a different lamp very abruptly. The same applied to the music. Music was played whenever the lights went down to change the stage however, this sometimes lasted for only a few seconds and the music was turned off suddently as well instead of gradually getting softer. These technical aspects could have been improved slightly however due to the time limit that St.Maur had to put together this production, it is understandable that the technical aspect could not be perfected before the performance.

The first act, with the ball dance scene was definetly one of the strongest. The dances were carefully put together and synchronized. There were also some beautiful fabrics coming down from the ceiling, and while the two main characters were infront of the fabrics, you could see the shadows of the girls dancing indian-style behind the fabric which was a very pretty sight. The second art is mostly centered around the family disputes and Romeo and Juliet's unrequited love for eachother. The third act is then based around their attempt to stay together forever without Juliet having to be married of to Paris, which later leads to their suicides. I thought the suicide scene, which is a very crucial scene to the original script, could have been done more effectively. It seemed that this scene was some-what rushed.

The message in the original script of the play, and in this unique version of the classic is essentially that love is not based around lust. The two star-crossed lovers got married almost as soon as they set eyes on eachother without forming a deep intimate relationship. They thought that what they had was true love since they were too young and naiive to understand the true meaning of love and so they rushed into matrimony. Another possibly message could be that love has no boundaries. No matter what family feuds were going on between the Capulet's and the Montague's, Romeo and Juliet were still "in love", ignoring their family background.

This play had some very interesting and unique elements however the play overall could be improved. Due to the limited time that St.Maur had to put this performance together, many things had to be rushed into action. All the actors had a lot of potential and the whole cast worked very well together as an ensemble. It is certaintly one of the first times that the original Romeo and Juliet has been twisted to present a cultural experience for everyone. Even just to see the girls dressed up in their Sari's is enough of a reason to want to see this unique adaption. Not to mention the bonus that the play was free of charge!