The Recognition of Sakuntala

After having read the first ten pages of Kalidasa's The Recognition of Sakuntala, I was completely confused as to what was occurring in the plot. So I used the same method as when we were instructed to read Oedipus: I read a brief plot summary for The Recognition of Sakuntala in order to have an idea of the storyline before I continued reading. So I realized that the play is focused around a hermit girl named Sakuntala who is cursed by an old sage so that her lover King Dushyanta forgets that she exists. Sakuntala's only evidence for Dushyanta to remember her is this ring, but the ring slips off her finger as she is crossing the river. Dushyanta realizes that Sakuntala is his wife, but he is too late. He goes to heaven and returns to the earth years later to find both his wife Sakuntala and their son.

We discussed various elements which made this play last through the years. We thought that the use of the prose among the dialogue helped to set the scene in an artful way. So the dialogue was the language used for people to understand the play's events and the prose was to further the dialogue by providing more details. Even though Kalidasa preceded Shakespere, we felt that they both utilized the idea of universal themes in their plays. This is evident as both Kalidasa and Shakespere deal with characters who fall in love but are separated usually by fate. This idea is evident in Shakepere's Romeo and Juliet when Romeo and Juliet are separated from birth because of their families. In Kalidasa's The Recognition of Sakuntala, Sakuntala is cursed by a sage that causes her husband to forget her. It just so happens that she loses the ring, the only token that can bond them together. Although Kalidasa's works are from the 4th to 7th centuries, we can still read and understand the meanings today because of such universal themes that link the literature of the past and present.

Sanskrit Lit

Sanskrit literature started with the Vedas and continued to the Sanskrit epics of the Iron Age of India. More specifically, the Vedas date from 1500 to 600 BC and is the basis of Hinduism. The four different types of Vedas are rig, yajur, sama, and atharva. The main Vedic literature period is from the 9th to 7th centuries. The golden age of Sanskrit literature is in late Antinquity which dates from the 3rd to 8th centuries AD. Sanskrit literature is very important in Indian culture because it is used in both Hindu religious literature and philosophical literature. In addition to religious literature, many modern Indian languages have been influenced by Sanskrit.

The classical period of Sanskrit literature is from the Gupta period from the 3rd to 8th centuries CE. Drama in Sanskrit literature is influenced by Vedic mythology and by Hellenistic drama. Drama reached its peak between the 4th and 7th centuries before it declined with Sanskrit literature as a whole. Two well-known classical Sanskrit dramatists are Shudraka and Kalidasa. Kalidasa is the dramatist who wrote The Recognition of Sakuntala, the play that we've been reading. Kalidasa deals mostly with famous Hindu legends and themes. In Indian poetry poets show their skill with word games such as stanzas that read the same forwards and backwards, words that split in different ways to make different meanings, or sophisticated metaphors. Beyond the 11th century Sanskrit literature declined for general literature in India. This occurred because literature began to appear in the vernacular Indian languages.

Performing Our Objectives

After we performed the objectives and obstacles that we created, we were critiqued for not being able to completely portray our characters. Because we did not utilize any props or motions aside from the swings, it was difficult for the audience to discern what was occurring. Since we all had a set script and could not alter the dialogue, we had to portray our objectives through the tone of our voice or through the use of props. Our audience was able to determine our age and setting, but the objective and obstacles were a bit unclear.

The group that was successful with this activity was Kermeka and Shivani's performance. Their relationship was a taxi driver and client. The taxi driver (Kermeka) was talking to someone else through her Bluetooth but the client (Shivani) didn't realize that the taxi driver had a Bluetooth. Because Kermeka couldn't hear the other person on the line she was asking questions such as "What?" or "Huh?" but Shivani thought that Kermeka was talking to her and was completely confused about what was occurring. They really portrayed their setting of a taxi cab and the Bluetooth so the audience easily realized their objectives and obstacles.

Objective
Kermeka: Trying to understand the person on the other line.
Shivani: Trying to understand what Kermeka is saying.

Obstacle
Kermeka: Bad reception.
Shivani: She can't seem to get Kermeka's attention.

Character Bio

In order to further develop our characters for our objective and obstacle exercise, we were to create a brief biography for our characters. We were to treat this assignment as if we were creating a "Myspace" video for our characters to introduce ourselves. Since I was a 13 year old girl, I tried to use language that typical 13 year old girls would use. And as I was practicing my script, I used a high, pippy voice to embody a teenager who is enthused about life and is excited to run for class president. Since 13 year old girls have just entered middle school, they feel that they are older than most kids because they are no longer in elementary school. So I tried to speak as if I saw myself as being closer in age to an adult. A classmate was to portray the typical smart, studious student or the nerd. In order to portray this image, she consistently pantomimed that she was pushing up her glasses. This was an effective detail that really helped the audience identify her character.

So...Setting?

The second component in our objective and obstacle exercise was to create the setting for our performance. Because our characters were two 13 year old girls, we decided that the setting would be somewhere at school. We first thought of having the performance take place on the school benches but it seemed like an ordinary, uninteresting setting. As we were discussing various options, another classmate suggested that we could be on a swing set at the school playground. This ended up being our setting because with a swing set, we could incorporate motion into our performance rather than merely sitting throughout the entire performance. In order to pantomime swings we rocked our chairs to imitate the motions of swings.

Twelfth Night

William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is mainly a love story between two different couples: Cesario and Lady Olivia and Orsino and Viola. This play deals with mistaken identities which result in mistaken love. In Twelfth Night, Viola falls in love with Duke Orsino while he yearns for Lady Olivia. Duke Orsino tries to attain Olivia's love but since she is mourning over her dead brother she declines his love. Viola then disguises herself as Cesario in order to work for Olivia and Olivia falls for Cesario in the process. At the same time, Viola finds herself in love with Orsino who is still infatuated with Olivia. So Olivia has fallen for another woman disguised as a man which tends to become confusing.

In arriving at Wilson High School's theatre, I was surprised by the theatre's small size because I have been accustomed to our large theatre. The theatre was dim and evidently not as professional as the one at our school. It did not utilize a proscenium stage but rather it looked more like a box. The production's lack of microphones made it difficult to understand the actor's speech. At times it was unclear what they were saying because their dialogue was jumbled together and they did not have clear diction. Some actors also stuttered over their lines maybe due to nerves. The stuttering was not a major issue but it did take away from the actor's portrayal of the character.

The production also had a minimal use of props which focused the audience more on the actor's. This was a good idea on the director's part but wasn't necessarily executed well. Because the props were so minimal, it was difficult to discern the setting because the same props were used throughout the entire production which gave the pretense that the play focused around only one setting. In my opinion, I think that had they used a few more props that really defined the setting, it would have given the audience a better understanding of where they were.

The costumes didn't seem to quite fit the time period because one of the servants was wearing modern-looking jeans rather than the slacks or tights that would have been worn in those times. The costumes were also sloppily put together because some of the actor's had un-tucked shirts and pants that didn't fit (too long). This looked seemed to work for Sir Toby Belch because he portrayed a drunken character, but it appeared not well put together for the other characters. Aside from these details, the production was pretty good. The play at first was difficult to understand, but after the intermission it had greatly improved. I advise that people should read a brief synopsis of the play before attending the production so that they can better understand the production.

Not-So-Subtle Politics

Today I found out that I've been casted to be a pretty major character/role in one of the senior projects (Kermeka, Anna, Karina, and DJ). I was completely surprised when I had learned that I was casted to be Danielle (the donkey), the Democratic candidate. Throughout these months in theatre I have never demonstrated a brilliant performance nor have I impressed my classmates. And so it was a complete shock finding out that I was casted as a main character. At the same time I was extremely excited that our director had faith and promise in my potential to portray this character.

As I read through the script, it was evident that the play focused around political satire. So certain scenes represented specific events in the history of politics. I think that one scene with the hens running about in their contraption represents the events of 9/11. And when the hens run from the Republican to the Democratic candidate, it shows how uninformed modern citizens are in terms of politics and how we seem to take everything at face value. After one read-through of the script, I am excited to perform this play because I believe that its humor will bode well with the audience.

Making History

In order to better ourselves in our acting skills our teacher decided to give us a crash course in creating objectives and obstacles for our characters. By creating objectives and obstacles, we'll be able to have a better picture of how our character is supposed to act in order to better embody the character so that we're really acting. So an objective is something that can be accomplished within the scope of the performance. For example, if I were to set an objective for having something accomplished by 9 PM, it could be having already eaten dinner. Any obstacles for this objective could be having the time to prepare dinner because I have seventh period. The first step in this process is to create the history for the characters.

When we first got the script it was difficult to determine the situation for our characters. The dialogue seemed very interrogative and somewhat combative as if the two characters were unsure of what the other was saying. And so Noelia and I decided that the relationship between these two would be longtime best friends who hadn't spoken for about two years because of a misunderstanding. Noelia played the role of Piper and I played the role of Cindy. Piper and Cindy had been childhood friends because their mothers were best friends. They enjoyed the same activities and were inseparable until the sixth grade when they both decided to run for class president. They were both equally popular and so Piper had considered sabotaging Cindy's chances of winning by rigging the votes. Piper discussed this with her other friends Sarah and Tammy, but she never actually went through with it. However, Sarah told Cindy about Piper's intentions. At the same time, Tammy rigged the votes and when Piper had received a landslide victory, Cindy assumed that Piper had cheated. As a result, Piper and Cindy's relationship had turned to hatred. So now we come to the present when they finally confronted each other and Piper revealed that she had never followed through with her plans and now wants to be friends again with Cindy.

So here were our objectives and obstacles:
Objectives
Piper: To be friends with Cindy again.
Cindy: To question Piper's motives.

Obstacles
Piper: Piper has two years of pent-up hatred.
Cindy: Cindy doesn't believe Piper.

Kabuki

Kabuki is a high-stylized Japanese dance-drama that uses elaborate make-up worn by the performers. The word kabuki comes from the verb kabuku which means "out of the ordinary" to translate to kabuki as being "avant-garde" theatre. A kabuki stage consists of a hanamichi which is the walkway that extends into the audience for performers to make dramatic entrances and exits. The walkway is not only for entrances and exits, but important scenes are also performed on the hanamichi.

Our assignment was to create the sequel for The Zen Substitute. This play was about how Lord Ukyo lied to Lady Tamanoi (Ukyo's wife) about visiting Hanako (his girlfriend). He told Lady Tamanoi that he was meditating, but instead asked his servant, Taro, to stand in his place while he went to visit Hanako. We decided to set the sequel in a geisha house where Lady Tamanoi also secretly worked. Because Hanako had contracted the flu, Lord Ukyo was given a different geisha which happened to be Lady Tamanoi. Rather than have our main characters wear the make-up, all the actors/performers should have worn the make-up. One critique was that our chorus needed to stay in character because when one person broke character the rest of our cast broke character.

The Phantom Tollbooth

This year's fall theatre production was The Phantom Tollbooth. I have heard of this book and have read bits and pieces of it in elementary school. So I didn't have a clear idea of the play's plot, but realized that it focused around Mila's journey with Tock and Humbug through these different worlds: Mila's room, the Lands of Expectations, Dictionopolis, Digitopolis and Ignorance, and the Castle-in-the-Air. These make-believe worlds focused around their names because Dictionopolis consisted of words and Digitopolis was based on numbers. In order for Mila to travel to the different realms, she needed to find the tollbooth in order to transport herself.

After learning about all the different components to be a successful actor, I noticed that all the actors had good diction so that the audience could clearly understand the dialogue. I especially enjoyed the character of Kakaphonous A. Dischord because the actor had really embodied the characteristics. Throughout that particular scene he was completely frazzled and made much noise by bumping into the objects so that they would fall and clatter. In doing so, this clearly fit his role as the word "cacophony" is the basis for his name. My other favorite character was the Spelling Bee because she had also clearly embodied her character. Because when I thought of a bee I thought of this light, quirky insect that buzzes around which is what I saw as she spoke. I thought it was clever that her costume showed how she was both an actual bee and a spelling bee.

The props were also used really well to illustrate the setting. For example, the use of the large numbers in Digitopolis for me acted as trees or buildings in our world. I remember how our teacher had discussed the possible ideas for Mila's car and saw how these ideas had come down to using a scooter as her source of transportation. This was a fitting choice because since Mila is meant to be a teenager of about 13 years old, a scooter makes perfect sense because that is about the age that children ride scooters. Another interesting component of the production was during the scene in Dictionopolis when Mila was tasting the different letters which were represented by alphabet crackers. Overall, the production of The Phantom Tollbooth was both amusing and extremely clever. Although the book is written for children, the use of language and the various puns are what make it enjoyable to adults and high-school students as well.

Noh Components

Each of us were assigned a different component of Noh theatre and were asked to research on the specfic topic. And so I was responsible for researching the Noh stage. I discovered that the Noh stage consists of a pavilion or a shelter-like structure made completely of Japanese cypress wood. This structure comes from the traditional kagura stage of Shinto shrines. And so each pillar of the pavilion is named for each specific role of the play: the waki-bashira in the front, right; the shite-bashira in the rear, left; the fue-bashira in the rear, right; and the metsuke-bashira/"looking pillar" in the front, left. Because walking is a key component in Noh theatre, the floors are waxed so that the actors can glide across. Under the stage are giant pots or bowl structures so that the floor resonates as the actors stomp on the floor. And because of this the stage is elevated about three feet to allot space for all these pots. The only decoration on the stage is the painted pine tree in the back to represent either a famous pine tree in Shinto at the Kasuga Shrine or as a memory of Noh's artistic predecessors. Also, to the right of the stage is a narrow bridge where the main actors enter.

We were also taught how to walk according to the Noh style. Rather than walking as how we typically walk, we were taught the specific method of how Noh actors walk. They do this by putting their feet together but angled out at about 45 degrees. Then they place one foot in front, pivot the other foot, and place the pivoted foot next to the foot in front. And so they just repeat this method for the other foot and continue doing so. Even after practicing this a few times, it was still a difficult feat and we realized that Noh actors usually take a few years to master their walk.

In addition to walking, we learned about the various aspects of a Noh mask. We learned that the masks typically have small eye holes for the actors to see through which make performing even more difficult. Noh masks are also created to just fit the actor's face so that it's a smaller mask. The materials used to make these masks consist of clay, dry lacquer, cloth, paper, and wood. Because the roles are all played by men, the actors wear masks to portray women, young boys, or old men. Actors who don't wear masks play middle-aged male characters. Female masks are usually created to portray various emotions when the actor turns his head so that a different type of lighting can hit the mask and the different angle will give the mask a different emotion.

Noh...No?

After finishing our last few theorist reports, we're now moving on to Japanese theatre. We watched a video about one type of Japanese theatre: Noh. The plays typically performed are from a limited repertoire of plays. Noh theatre is also considered to be the classic Japanese opera because it's a chanted drama. Noh theatre is a classic form of Japanese musical drama that is performed by men in masks. Because of this, all the roles, male or female are performed by males. And so the most notable role is that of the kyogen who performs these interludes during the play. In Noh theatre, the best compliment that a performer can receive is for his walk which is a key component in Noh theatre. This is because each different role has a specific type of walk to distinguish a common person from a noble figure from a woman. In Noh theatre, the most commonly used prop is the fan carried by all the performers.

Miss Saigon

When we were given this assignment I was excited that we had all these different plays at our disposal. As I searched for local plays I came across Miss Saigon at Cal State Fullerton. I've always heard about this specific play but I've never actually watched it and had the misconception that it focused around the main character being involved in a beauty pageant. Instead, I quickly realized that the main character (Kim) is a poor farm girl whose parents have just passed and is found by an engineer who owns his own bar and sells these girls as prostitutes. When Kim arrives and is sold to Chris, an American soldier, they end up falling in love and it becomes this idea of "love at first sight." It takes place from 1973 - 1975 in Saigon, Vietnam, Bangkok, Thailand, and Atlanta, Georgia during the Vietnam War.

When I first arrived at the Little Theatre at Cal State Fullerton I noticed the projection of a harbor scene on the background of the stage. This helped to set the scene of the musical so that the audience could really absorb the setting and the character's situation. In addition to this projection there was this elevated ramp that was utilized very well throughout the performance to give the idea of varying levels. The stage resembles a picture frame that gradually gets smaller and more focused as the audience looks in which means that it is not like the proscenium stage that we have in our theatre. Before the characters enter, the lighting is of yellows, oranges, grays, and dark purples to give this grim, grave mood demonstrating the character's position and an idea of how everything is occurring the in midst of war.

During the actual performance a portion of the stage revolves first to showcase all the girls at the bar then to be used for setting changes. They also use a scrim to act as a separation between the inside and outside of a building. Rather than using a solid wall, the scrim allows the audience to see what is occurring outside such as soldiers standing guard as well as the action indoors. Jacqueline Nguyen who plays Kim and Jesse Abeel who plays Chris both have such a strong voices that captivate the audience. Their acting also parallels their characters in the sense that they clearly portray the emotions that the characters feel from urgency to happiness. The use of sound effects such as gunshots and landing helicoptors also help to further set the scene. At the end of the performance when Kim commits suicide, it evokes this emotion of pity and sadness because it does not end with a happy ending for Kim because she gives up her son (the only thing she lives for) to Chris and Ellen so that he can have a better future.

One last thought on the musical is in terms of costuming. As I was watching the performance, I noticed that the character portraying Kim wore traditional Vietnamese clothing (ao dai); however, the other actors in the ensemble wore traditional Chinese clothing (Cheong Sam in Cantonese and Qipao in Mandarin). Because it is set in Saigon, this means that the performance is centralized around Vietnamese and not Chinese culture. As a result, this shows that those in charge of costuming really need to thoroughly research the clothing of the time period so that the characters and audience can fully attain the essence of the plot and setting. Overall, I really enjoyed the plot and many of the songs because everything just fit really well together. One of my favorite songs was Kim and Chris' wedding song which was sung in both English and Vietnamese. And not only were the main characters' vocals strong, but those of the ensemble were strong as well.

Vsevolod Yemilyevich Meyerhold

Vsevolod Meyerhold was a Russian director, actor, and producer who experimented with the physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting. He lived from February 10, 1874 to February 2, 1940. His theatre training began in 1896 when he became a student under Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko who was the co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT). He played numerous roles while at MAT and continued acting and directing after he left MAT in 1902. Each performance that he was involved in meant that he could further experiment with different staging methods. He became an advocate of symbolism and pushed for reforming theatre back to the style of Commedia dell'arte from 1907 - 1917. In 1918 he joined the Bolshevik party and allied with Olga Kameneva to attempt to radicalize theatre and making theatre more national under Bolshevik control.

Meyerhold created his own theatre in 1922 known as The Meyerhold Theatre. He advocated scenic constructivism and circus-style effects in his method. Rather than having this connection between the actor and the character being portrayed Meyerhold thought that the two should be connected in terms of psychological and physiological processes and focus more on learning gestures and movements to express outward emotion. He also believed in Stanislavki's views of how the actor's physical and emotional states were linked and that the actor could elicit an emotion by practicing poses, gestures, and movements. And so Meyerhold developed various poses/positions that the actor could assume in order to create these emotions.

Halloween Horror

In celebration of Halloween, we were assigned to create a performance in a specific venue using Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven as a stimulus. The purpose of the assignment was not to perform on the stage and have the audience sit in the chairs but to choose a different venue for our performance within the bounds of the theatre. As a result, we were able to explore with the different locations of the theatre rather than our typical classroom setting.

As we had previously learned, the purpose of a stimulus was to be inspired by the stimulus and create a performance using the stimulus as a form of inspiration rather than creating a performance based off the stimulus. Here is a simplification of the purpose of a stimulus: to not act out the poem line by line but to use a section of the poem to and base the performance off of an idea created by the stimulus. And when we heard of "rapping at the chamber door" Kavita instantly thought of having someone actually rap (song rapping) at the door instead of rap (fast knocking). While we were brainstorming we realized that we were actually dramatizing each line of the poem rather than using the poem as a stimulus. Because of this we decided to use that one line of the poem and use the hallway in the theatre to create a performance of how Eric was playing a Halloween joke by constantly knocking on Noelia's door as she was having a party. He did this about three times before the rest of us came knocking on Noelia's door as trick-or-treaters. And so when she realized that we weren't the ones knocking on her door, we all looked out in fear at the audience. We figured that the venue that we used was fitting with all the doors so that we could have smooth, clear entrances and the doors helped to stage the performance.

The one memorable performance by another group was done by utilizing the seating area of the theatre to portray a haunted house. This group really used its space and its surroundings to enhance its performance. As characters were attacked by this mysterious person, they hid between the rows of seats so that they would remain out of sight. And so this really enhanced this idea of how all the characters disappeared because since the audience could no longer see them, it was evident that they had all disappeared. As a result, I personally think that this group had the best performance in terms of really utilizing their venue to its fullest potential.

Scenes and Strasberg

As each student has been presenting her theorist in order to expose the class to more theatrical aspects, our instructor gave us an exercise after half of the students had presented. In this exercise one person in each group of two was to perform a brief section of the monologue according to a specific theorist's ideas. Since I hadn't presented, I paired up with Kavita who had researched about Lee Strasberg and his theories. Strasberg believed that actors should perform more naturally on stage by taking their given scene/situation and applying their own personal experience to this scene. According to Strasberg, he believed that actors could portray more natural rather than artificial emotions if they could somehow relate to the scene at hand.

And so the scene that we were given was of a girl who was scolding her sister for having stolen something from her friend. The ironic thing is that the sister who is doing the scolding has stolen her friend's bracelet before to show that she is a hypocritical character. And the character that I play is the sister who feels that she is being scolded at unfairly. At first when Kavita was directing me she had me substitute the sister's name with my own sister's name and the bracelet with a cellphone. Kavita told me to imagine my sister scolding and accusing me for something that I hadn't done so that I could portray this feeling of betrayal in my performance. Even after telling me this I was still holding back my emotions and was unable to convey this anger. And instead she had me imagine someone that I dislike and had me explain why I disliked him. In doing this I somehow started to feel irritated and angry which fared well for my performance.

There were multiple interpretations for this particular scene, and each interpretation was different based on each drama theorist. I performed with a more angry, irritated emotion whereas another group used this tone of blackmail. And since there were different interpretations for the different theorists, each group prepared in a different way. For example, one group used Meyerhold's theories of how the director had full control over the performance. According to Meyerhold, the actor wasn't supposed to put too much of himself into the character and not to put too much of the character in the performance. Instead, the actor needed to find this middle ground. As a result, our instructor brought up a point about how there isn't just one correct interpretation.

Dinner Theatre

Since I have never been to dinner theatre, Kavita and I decided to go together as our first time since we are now both involved in theatre and to support our classmates for their hard work. This year the murder mystery was You Have the Right to Remain Dead. It was interesting when we first arrived because every theatre performance that I’ve attended has been staged in the classic theatre venue. And so this means that food and drink are not allowed. But when we arrived, we were first served dinner by the waiters and waitresses that were also part of the cast.

The show started once we had finished dinner and began with a narrator that captivated the audience with his humor. The cast embodied their characters in terms of action and accents to really fit these southern roles. Although there was only one setting for the entire performance, the cast utilized every inch of the MPR by including extensive audience participation. During the intermission, the cast interacted with the audience asking us who we thought was the murderer. I remember that when Hyacinth (played by Samantha Osaki) approached our table she had completely embodied her character and acted menacingly and threateningly. It was interesting that the audience could participate in solving this murder mystery because I have never attended a performance that allows the audience to question the cast members.

When one audience member had unintentionally referred to Sweet Mama as Big Mama, the actress playing Sweet Mama had stayed in character and played along with this name mishap. Because of this I realized that a good actor is able to perform in any situation and to improvise when necessary. Rather than breaking character because of what had just happened, she portrayed how Sweet Mama was offended by such an insinuation that she is overweight. This demonstrates how a good actor is able to maintain his or her character throughout the entire performance. Overall, dinner theatre was a great experience in exploring a different genre of theatre that I've never been exposed to.

Constantin Stanislavski

As the first theorist that was presented to the class, Constantin Stanislavski and his theories appealed to me and seemed quite interesting. He was a Russian actor and theatre director that was born on January 17, 1863 and died on August 7, 1938 at age 75. His teachings have remained at the core of western performance/theatre training. Many other theorists that we have studied such as: Sanford Meisner, Lee Strasberg, and Uta Hagen have developed their own theories through Stanislavki's ideas.

At age 25 he created his own Society of Art and Literature which taught dramatic art, the history of costume, make-up, drama, Russian literature, aesthetics, fencing, and dancing. He later then continued by creating the Moscow Art Theatre which brought this higher quality of theatre to surrounding towns. In order to avoid alarming authorities of its connection with the popular theatre movement, he called it "open" theatre.

Stanislavski wanted the actors to display this sense of artistic/theatrical truth onstage so that they could naturally portray the characters. His theory was to have actors "live the part" which could be applied to all types of theatre: melodrama or opera. This was clearly demonstrated in the exercise with the scenario of the dating game. Each candidate was given a character to embody such as an elf, Hermione from Harry Potter, and a farmer. Then when the dater came in, she was to determine what each candidate was supposed to have represented. And so each specific candidate responded to quesitons or acted as how these characters would be portrayed so that the farmer took on a southern accent and the elf a high-pitched voice.

Medieval Morals

As our instructor was out for the week, our class watched a video about Medieval theatre. The video discussed various aspects of medival theatre such as how it was composed of three types of plays: mystery, miracle, and morality plays. Because I had previously researched this topic for a different assignment at the start of the year the video's information wasn't completely different from what I had learned.

Because I have already discussed the content of each of the three different types of plays in a previous entry I will only add on what new information I had gained from the video. One example that I remembered was an example of what I thought to be a morality play. Morality plays are more allegorical and function to point the character in the right path and direction. The morality play performed in the video involved a man stealing his neighbor's sheep. When the neighbor came searching for the sheep, the man lied to the neighbor saying that he did not have the sheep. The man told the neighbor that his wife was sleeping with their child which in fact was the hidden sheep. After much dialogue, it was eventually revealed that the man had in fact stolen the sheep. This morality play portrays the idea of how lying or telling untruths will usually lead a person to endure trouble rather than helping them to gain anything in return. It seems that the ideas conveyed in morality plays differ based on the audience member, but that all the morals seem to share a similar basis.

Stating Subtext

After our first actual assignment involving dramatization, we were given another assignment in which we were required to create the subtext for a given script. I wasn't quite sure what subtext was, but understood that it was the motivation and reasons behind the actor's actions or tone of voice. Upon receiving our script, we were stumped as to what our plot would consist of. We started bouncing ideas off one another and started with the idea of the husband having infidelity with another woman but realized the triteness of this idea which was evident as a few groups did create subtext along those same lines. And so we finally decided on creating subtext between a teacher played by myself and the typical miscreant played by Shivani. As we read through the script, it got confusing at the part when I said that I would leave because most people would expect the student rather than the teacher to leave the classroom. We decided to change the plot so that the teacher would eventually leave the class because she is completely irritated by the student to the point when she wants nothing to do with the student.

When our performance was over, we received critique from both our peers and our instructor. Our peers had said that they had hoped to see more action besides our argument. At the end, our instructor had told us that the purpose of the assignment was not to focus on the text but more on creating action for the characters. She had hoped for us to fully develop our plot and characters so that she could easily and distinctly tell which character each actor was to portray. This was clearly demonstrated in one performance between Cindy and Jacqueline. Their plot was that they were partners-in-crime in a robbery scene at a jewelry store, but that they were unorganized. When they ran into each other and started shoving one another, it was evident that they both portrayed unintelligent robbers who had no idea what their plans were. In this case, the props (ie. jewelry) enhanced their performance because it helped to further the setting so the audience could get an even better idea of where they were. In seeing other performances, this helps me to understand the key components that make a performance not only memorable but successful.

Drama: Take One

Throughout the first couple months of school we have been given various assignments, but none of them have involved much dramatization...until today. For the most part, we have been learning about various methods of performances whether it may consist of storytelling or miming, but not so much of acting and dramatizing. And so our instructor started us off with a simple exercise that consisted of eight lines. Within these eight lines, we would need to convey a sense of setting, character, and situation. I decided to work with someone different, someone new, someone that I have yet to perform with and so Kavita was my partner.

We decided to portray the mother-daughter scenario. I portrayed the mother who was getting ready to leave for work while Kavita was the daughter who didn't want her mother to leave thinking that her mother was about to abandon her forever. During the actual performance, I had forgotten one of my lines and had instead jumped ahead to a different line. After doing so, Kavita quickly whispered that I had read the wrong line and we just continued as if nothing had happened. Despite this mix-up we tried our best to stay in character so as not to distract the audience and detract from our performance. Afterwards, our instructor commented on the fact that my suitcase had suddenly disappeared once my "daughter" had latched onto me. I had completely neglected our first lesson about pantomiming with the fact that we need to be aware of our "props". As a result, she said that in such a performance where pantomime isn't key, it's always best to use an actual prop rather than having to worry about correctly pantomiming the objects.

Striking Stimulus

As an IB requirement, all theatre students are required to create a pitch based on a provided stimulus. This stimulus can be in the form of images or music. And so we were all assigned to find a stimulus at home and think about how we could possibly create a performance inspired by this stimulus. It was difficult to find something that we could potentially manipulate into creating a pitch for a performance. And so I decided to bring in a piece of instrumental music from the soundtrack of The Holiday.

After we all presented our various stimuli to our group, we decided on using Kavita's stimulus which was a song titled "Compassion" performed by the Bombay Dub Orchestra. As we listened to the song we thought of creating this morality play consisting of a dream sequence which starts with a man who travels through his past in his dream. He would fall asleep at his desk at work. During this dream the audience witnesses all his lost opportunities such as the job he should have taken and the studying abroad that he should have experienced. Because he had failed to grasp these opportunities, he's now stuck at the typical nine to five desk job which he resents. As a result of this, he wakes up at the end of the dream, quits his job, and goes out to pursue these lost opportunities.

We discussed how we would use black box theatre for this minimalist approach. The settings would be fairly simple as we would use a bench to symbolize a courtyard and just a desk and chair for his office space. Lighting would also change with the mood as it would start out with dull colors of grays, purples, and dark blues but would progress with brighter colors as this man comes to his realization. One critique that we had was that our pitch focused too much in terms of lighting and not in illustrating an image of what the performance would consist of. Another critique was that we had tried to shape our performance around the stimulus rather than using the stimulus to inspire us. The difference is that the stimulus is meant to inspire us to create a performance that doesn't necessarily exactly follow the stimulus but that uses certain aspects of the stimulus.

Storytime

So we changed the characters of our folktale to fit with the members of our group. Our instructor emphasized the importance of the narrator and how he/she was the central of the performance, acting as the glue to hold everything together. And so I fulfilled the role of narrator whereas Michelle played the North Wind, Esther the main girl, and Eric the kleptomaniac landlord. The gist of the story is that the North Wind steals the girl's food one day as she is having lunch and so she goes to the North Wind's house to receive compensation for the food that was stolen from her. When she arrives there the North Wind gives her a magical cloth that serves all sorts of good dishes and this cloth is stolen from the girl by the landlord. And so she goes back to the North Wind's house for something in return and all the Wind has is a stick that will beat people up upon command. And so she returns back to the inn where the landlord stole her cloth to punish him with this magical stick. And so the tale ends when the girl leaves happily with her magical items.

Afterwards, our instructor critiqued about how our group focused more on dramatizing rather than on the aspect of storytelling. I suppose that because we were unsure about the task at hand, we didn't fully understand the purpose of this assignment. She told us of how she wanted the main focus to be on the narrator with minimal dramatization. She had hoped for the dramatization to add to the story narration rather than having the story narration add to the dramatization which is what winded up happening in our particular performance. This meant that she wanted there to be less dialogue between the characters and more speech from the narrator who was supposed to captivate the audience and hold their attention.

Starting Stories

After having completely exhausted the work of Oedipus through performances, masks, and discussions we decided to move on to explore another aspect of theatre. And so storytelling was next on the list. Each student was asked to bring in either a foreign fable, folktale, or fairytale so that we could delve into other cultures as IB is meant for students to attain this international aspect. As we were divided into various groups, I decided to work with different students than those that I had generally gravitated towards. When we got into our groups, we started sharing the different folktales that we had prepared and finally came to the decision to choose this folktale about a boy who had this magical blanket and magical stick. Once the decision was made, I began to ask the other members of the group for input on how to create our storytelling performance. These particular students didn't appear to be completely enthused by the assignment and thus displayed indifference towards the performance. Because of this, I ultimately planned the performance in regards to the number of scenes that we would perform as well as which scenes to actually perform.

In having to work with such students, it helped me realize that I won't always necessarily be paired with those who share the same views and work ethics as myself. This allowed me to realize that oftentimes, things don't work out as we plan or anticipate in our heads. And so I understood that in order to make this assignment and experience worthwhile, I needed to make the best out of this situation regardless of the challenges that I faced.

Masking the Effect

In addition to understanding Aristotle's theories about tragedies and performing sections of chorus from Oedipus, we were assigned with the task of creating a mask for a specific character and scene in the tragedy. I opted for the scene in which Oedipus discovers that he is in fact King Laius' murderer and must deal with the situation that he himself is the criminal that he has been searching for. As I began to design my mask, I didn't actually put much thought into each specific element and its relevance to Greek theatre. Rather, I tried to fit the design of my mask into the character and the scene that I was portraying. As a result, my mask didn't quite follow the guidelines of a mask utilized in Greek theatre but seemed to maybe have a more modern take on the idea of a Greek mask.

My mask contained an expression of being surprised and distraught. I illustrated this emotion with furrowed eyebrows as I imagine Oedipus to be surprised and confused upon hearing that he is in fact the criminal that he has been searching for. I also included wrinkles on the forehead of the mask to show this emotion of being distraught. In addition to this, I added a mustache for I imagine most kings and dignified figures of the past to have this thick, dark mustache. I noticed that numerous other masks of Oedipus included a crown for the audience to easily distinguish this character as being Oedipus, King of Thebes. My one criticism for the mask was the feasibility of the mask during the actual performance. Because Oedipus has this realization midway through the performance, there wouldn't be a logical way to change masks without the actor breaking character. As a result of this, I realized that my decisions need not be for aesthetic purposes but for feasible purposes so that it can be utilized during a performance if need be.

Creating Chorus

After three days of practicing and perfecting our chorus, we finally had the opportunity to showcase our performance to the class. The actual decision of which chorus section to perform in Oedipus was completely at random because there were so many different sections in the play itself. Despite this, we understood the meaning and context of this specific chorus in that it is when Oedipus realizes that he is in fact the murderer and is unsure of how to act because he has made an announcement to find and punish the murderer of King Laius. The purpose of this activity was to incorporate four elements: sound, masks, voice/speech, and movement.

In regards to sound and movement, our group decided to use these elements to highlight the more intense, suspenseful moments of the chorus. This was accomplished by having the sounds escalate to this one moment with faster drum beatings. Movements tended to be sharper and more sudden during these moments as those who maintained a constant movement in the background (those who walked back and forth) suddenly appeared between the speakers. The purpose of these actions was meant to capture the audience's attention and to help them understand when the climaxes of the chorus occurred.

When we watched the other group perform their chorus, they had fairly good elements throughout their performance. One critique was that a majority of the performers had their backs facing the audience for a good portion of the chorus. Although it did draw attention to the main/specific speaker, perhaps they shouldn't have remained turned around during the entire performance but rather for a short period. Both groups were critiqued on the speed in regards to the speakers. Our instructor thought that both groups needed to maintain a slower, more constant speed and that the other group had done a better job of this. What she did appreciate about our performance was that we included brief moments of silence which captivated the audience, but that we didn't pause for long enough periods in order to use this method effectively.

Through this specific exercise, I discovered a similar problem that I face with speaking in general. As I was practicing and reciting for an English presentation, I realized that I also tend to rush when I speak. I suppose this is because I have a natural tendency to read and speak at a fairly quick pace which accounts for my rushing in speaking for performances. As a result, I've come to understand that I must slow down in order for my audience to understand the message that I am conveying. Rather than rushing through the speech, chorus, or monologue I should take the time to enunciate the words so that my audience can follow what I am saying.

A Musical Mime

Our second acting performance consisted of a mime to music. This differed from our conventional idea of what a mime is supposed to be in that we think a mime is meant to be completely silent and without sound. I guess the idea of a silent mime is meant more for the actor to be silent and not necessarily for the entire performance to be composed in silence. As a result, the use of music brought a different element to the performance in enhancing the mood to give the audience a better sense of the actor's actions. I believe the purpose of this assignment was for us to find a stimulus, in this case our piece of music, and create a performance based solely on this piece of inspiration.

And so I began the search for my music and decided to opt for something with a more classical flair that displayed a variety of moods. This meant that the music went in a wave in terms of tempo and volume. After searching, I eventually came to the decision of choosing Hans Zimmer's composition of Maestro featured in the film: The Holiday. The song began as a mellow tune and worked its way up to this climactic moment of excitement. Because of this, I decided to mime the story of someone having a usual Sunday afternoon relaxing on her sofa with a magazine and a soda. She suddenly receives this call that her friend is coming over to visit, but must wait impatiently as this friend arrives. She continues to read until this friend arrives which is the end of the mime.

After performing this second mime, I received constructive criticism on how I needed to find a different activity to do while I waited for my friend because I winded up reading for a good portion of the mime. Another critique was that I needed to portray this sense of impatience as I waited either by shaking my leg or by checking my watch. In regards to finding a variety of activities to do while sitting down, my instructor pointed out a good example in another theatre student's pantomime. This particular mime consisted of a girl sitting down to eat this large, delicious-looking meal. As she was sitting at her "table" she was cutting up what seemed to be a steak, garnished her food, and was trying to force ketchup out of a ketchup bottle. Although she sat down for mime, she demonstrated how we can still show an array of emotions as well as actions.

Tragedy and Oedipus

Tragedy as defined by Aristotle should include an element of catharsis. Contrary to my original belief of the catharsis being for the actors, Aristotle intended this catharsis for the audience. To put this in modern-day language, these cathartic plays function on the same level as sad, "sob-fest" movies. These films are meant to elicit a certain reaction from the audience such as tears in which the audience leaves the performance/movie with a sense of having been freed of a burden with this "feel-good" emotion.

As a class, we discussed about the six essential elements of an Aristotelian tragedy. Our instructor's example of Oedipus was the ideal model of a tragedy in that the play included a complex plot, a character with a tragic flaw, a character's thought and diction, a melody (chorus), and a spectacle. We discussed the irony of the situation in that Oedipus believed that he was escaping his prophecy by leaving his suppossed family when in fact he murdered his biological father, Laius, upon arriving in Thebes. This irony illustrates Oedipus' hubris in his belief that he can control his fate and prevent his prophecy from becoming a reality.

Up until this point, our exposure to theatre has been mostly through textbook knowledge rather than actual theatre experiences. Besides the pantomime and family portrait exercise that we have done, most of our learning has been through texts. I suppose that our theatre instructor wants us to have a fairly good understanding of the textbook elements involved in various types of theatre because theatre consists of more than just acting. Because a good majority of our class consists of students new to theatre, she probably wants us to fully understand the textbook aspect that we are more comfortable with before we are taken out of our comfort zones to either act or direct.

Color Me Mime

Today I completed my first official theatre assignment: the pantomime. To be quite frank, I felt out of my element when I got up and performed in front of my theatre class. It was a new experience for I had never been in a theatre performance, let alone a pantomime where I was unable to express myself with words but with motions and facial expressions. As the lesser experienced theatrical students came together and brainstormed with the more experienced, we came up with the idea of miming someone who was painting a wall.

When I first practiced this, I had to become aware with my "props" and my "surroundings." I quickly realized the difficulty of miming as I had to remember where I had placed my objects to ensure that I was not trampling all over my painting supplies. Another issue that I encountered was the fact that my painting supplies had somehow vanished once I was done using them. As a result, I had to consciously think and plan out my actions throughout my pantomime to ensure that these problems would not occur during my actual performance. Once I had completed my mime, I received both positive and constructive feedback from my peers and instructor. The positive was that I was aware of my surroundings and therefore prevented my first concern listed above. My peers critiqued on the fact that I needed to become more aware of my "props" such as the paintbrush which I had held crookedly rather than in a straight line. Another critique was that I needed to give my supposed paint can more weight as I was pouring out the paint. My theatre instructor also noted the fact of how she wanted to see more of a storyline within the pantomime rather than having us merely perform the actions. Overall, I need to practice and work on giving objects a more realistic feel in terms of displaying depth and weight.

In watching other students' pantomimes, I realized some other important elements such as having sharp movements and including characteristic actions that further help the audience understand what the actor is doing. In one pantomime, a critique was that actor needed to show more force in her foot closing the refrigerator door. In terms of characteristic actions, this referred to another actor's pantomime in which he was making a peanut-butter sandwich. In order to show that the ingredient was in fact peanut butter, our instructor commented on how he could have shown the stickyness of his ingredients and that he could have taken smaller bites rather than if he were eating a larger sandwich. This demonstrates how because we cannot speak and narrate our actions, we must achieve a sense of communication of our actions to the audience through physical motions and facial expressions.

Expressions and Emotions

The task at hand was to create a still frame of our own take of a family portrait. As ideas were brainstormed and passed around, our original idea of the ideal family had changed into a strange family dynamic. Our "family" had started out as the typical suburban family with the quintessential perfect couple and their children. In seeing that we needed to convey a sense of differing and varying emotions, we decided to give this ideal family a number of flaws. Rather than having two siblings who were in agreement with one another, one remained the happy-go-lucky child whereas the other became the hostile and disagreeable child. In this way, we were able to convey two opposing emotions of liveliness and irritation. To further create another element of peculiarity within this family portrait, we added the character of the husband's mistress who was peering out of the corner of the portrait. And so my role in this "family" was to portray the oblivious wife who believed that they epitomized the ideal family as she closed her eyes and smiled in the shot. The one piece of criticism for our portrait was the reality of our situation because in a realistic portrait, the mistress character would not be included and so it showed us that in an attempt to portray humor, we must think about the realistic aspects of a scenario.

Strangely enough, I noticed that there was a common motif of the flawed family. One portrait contained the couple in the process of divorce while another contained quarreling siblings. I suppose that many of us were drawn to the image of this family with faults because it could be portrayed with great humor as the characters were put in extreme situations. The idea of flaws and mistakes seem to be humorous because it's different from the typical, perfect model and is most likely why each portrait had the element of the flawed family. This activity helped me understand the importance of expressions and emotions in theatre because it's one component that helps the audience understand the character's situation. As a result, I understood that our emotions must be sharp and emphasized so that we can convey our expressions to the audience.

Exploring Interests

As I flipped through the pages of our theatre textbook, the illustrations and descriptions of Medieval drama sparked my interest. And so I decided to begin my research on Medieval drama. This era of theatre originated in Europe from the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the beginning of the Renaissance.

Medival drama consisted of three genres of plays: mystery plays, miracle plays, and morality plays. Mystery plays were performed every summer through a joint community effort. This meant that each trade guild was responsible for the reenactment of one specific portion of the Bible in which the purpose was to share gospel stories. Because of the era of Medieval theatre, only men were permitted to act in these plays. Miracle plays differed from mystery plays in that they focused on the spirituality outside of the Bible. These plays emphasized Truth instead of facts which oftentimes meant that the stories tended to be unrealistic. The last genre consisted of morality plays which were allegorical and instructed man on how to lead his life. Morality plays could be extremely entertaining; however, death was a rampant topic because it was viewed as being the ultimate societal equilizer for this was part of post-plague Europe.

Medieval drama sets consisted of the locus/place which was the open field or amphitheatre where the general action occurred. Scaffolds also known as plateas, mansions, houses functioned as ways for actors to demonstrate scene changes. Rather than having actors remain stationary and having the scenes change around them, the actors moved through these scaffolds to show scene changes. At the start of Medieval drama, these make-shift sets were created out of wooden wagons. With the construction of permanent theatres, actors no longer needed to rely on church facilities for their performance stages and so medieval drama transformed from amateur traveling art to professional theatre.

Other students researched on a variety of other topics, but two other topics that sparked my interest were those of Commedia dell'arte and Greek theatre. Contrasting with the idea of solely male actors in medieval drama was that of Commedia dell'arte in which actors consisted of both males and females. On the other hand, Greek theatre originated in the 5th century B.C. which actually marked the birth of all theatre. This meant that theatre derived from Greek theatre rather than that of the popular belief of Shakespearean theatre. Because the Greeks had only outdoor stages, all performances were done during the day with masks rather than make-up.

It All Starts In the Beginning

As this is the first time that I have enrolled in a theatre course, theatre and performance is a fairly new genre to me. Though I have yet to perform a monologue or scene before an audience, I have had a different sort of experience in performing. As a violinist, I have performed on stage but rather than conveying my emotions through words, it was through music. Although I have never been involved as an actor in any sort of theatre production I have seen the effort that it takes to put on a successful show as I have helped with painting sets as well as preparing actors in hair and makeup. Because I have attended various productions I have a vague idea of the intricacies involved in all the different sets such as those that revolve or those that display different levels.

Some of the shows that I’ve attended include our school’s fall and spring productions of Hello Dolly!, Because Their Hearts Were Pure, Beauty and the Beast, Fiddler on the Roof and Scapin and outside productions of Mamma Mia and Anything Goes. What I really enjoy about these shows is the versatility of theatre and how it can portray various themes and emotions rather than being confined to a standard set of rules. This is evident as musicals like Mamma Mia and Fiddler on the Roof display themes of the family dynamic as the first focuses on the bonds between mother and daughter and the latter on maintaining the family unit despite encroaching outside influences. Contrasting these musicals is the humorous Scapin where Scapin deceives the characters for his own benefit and entertainment which demonstrates the flexibility of theatre. Another aspect of these shows that I enjoy is the uniqueness of the various costumes involved in the production and how the costumes tie into the plot and how they clearly portray each character. This is evident with how the free-flowing clothes represent Donna’s carefree character in Mamma Mia and how the minimalism of Belle’s costume in Beauty and the Beast reveals her appreciation for the simpler aspects of life and her lack of attraction for the vain Gaston.

Since I have never had any sort of theatre or performance training, I decided to broaden my perspective on the aspects of theatre so that I can enjoy a show/production with an enhanced knowledge and become an active audience member. I have come to realize that acting is only one part of theatre and that it involves many other components such as backstage work, hair and makeup, lighting, research, and more. As a result, I realized that joining IB theatre would be the best choice because I will be able to learn among lesser experienced students as myself as well as those whom theatre is second-nature. This way, I can learn the ropes of theatre at a decent and understanding pace with others who may be experiencing similar difficulties while interacting with students who have had years of theatre training and can be of great help and advice. Because of this reason, I realize that in order for me to decide whether theatre and performance is a potential passion or interest, IB theatre is a means for me to spark a hidden interest.