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.