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.
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