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.