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.
Music: Put together by Mei
Lancelot: Sara
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.
