TPPP Images

This shows how confused I was about the actual material within the Theatre class and also my misinterpretation of what I was going to learn when I first started IB Theatre. Disorganized thoughts.

Simile: Every person's contributions is like a different color in a knitted winter hat.

The various aspects of theatre to make a good production: costuming, directing, acting, set, lighting etc.

 Set in Love's Labor's Lost; Acting in The Conference of the Birds; Stage Management, Stage Crew and Assistant Directing in Pippin

Performance is the slide; each lens is a different way of looking at it.

Theatre is not a textbook class. It's more like a giant pile of papers. You need to dive in to the pile and find the right papers for you and work with them.

Theatre in the World (DIFFERENT CULTURE): Japanese Bunraku puppetry. 3 puppeteers: 1)right arm and head  2)left arm  3)legs

Viewing productions outside of school.

Animal Observation (LE COQ) for The Conference of the Birds

Hard work

Theatre in performance:

• Julius Caesar
• Sweeney Todd
• Le Songe d'Une Nuit d'Été
• Vietnamese water puppet performance
• Fake is Real (I was abused as a child)
• Three Penny Opera (read)
• Marat-Sade (read)
• The Children (read)
• Spring Awakening (read)

Theatre in the making:

• Elline Lipkin performance
• Green team performance 
• Pulp Fiction
• Disney Myths & Brecht
• Little Airplanes of the Heart
• Medieval Day: Pardoner's tale - space
• Love's Labor's Lost
• Conference of the Birds
• Pippin

Theatre in the world:

• Bunraku
• Commedia dell'Arte
• musée du quai Branly
• Sanford Meisner (Method Acting)
• Bertolt Brecht (Epic Theatre)
• Peter Brook
• Jacques LeCoq

TPPP notes

Analysis - what did you apply and what did you learn?

Was there an impact on the audience?

What did you explore?

• Acting?
• Directing?

Theatre in Practice

Theatre in Performance

Theatre in the World

Reflect critically as a practitioner and observer

Two years ago - quiet, unwilling to participate

Now -  immense growth 

Devising Exercise: Devising

Performance Space: stairwell

Themes we are keeping:
wedding gone wrong
time
there is light at the end of the tunnel

what makes the wedding special is the commitment people place in them
leave before marriage

It's not what's written on paper or what a huge ceremony show, but more what is put into practice and shown every day. 

Devising Exercise: Stimuli

Stimulus 1: umbrella, dress, purse
The dress has long sleeves of lace and is white. It reminds me of a simple wedding dress or even an afternoon dress that one would wear for tea. The umbrella is green, but has colorful paint and drawings which makes me think of child's crayon drawings. The purse is a light brown and snake-skin looking.
The combination of these objects as one stimulus makes me think of a single mother who is going on a date to meet a man she's been flirting with all summer, but only realizes that her young children have painted and drawn all over the umbrella by the time she opens it.

Stimulus 2: Robert Hass
This line from Robert Hass' poetry makes me think of a person who very carefully arranges and organizes events for another person, paying great detail to the amount of time they have and how precious it is. It almost makes me think of an obsessive planner, someone who needs to have a schedule for everything (Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory if you watch the show).

Stimulus 3: The rainbow
This makes me think of a funny song from Barney. However, it also makes me think of the weather that occurs before a rainbow forms which may also correspond to a person's feelings: first it rains (someone is sad or depressed or dreary) and then the sun shines brightly (something has happened to dramatically change the way a person is feeling)


EVERYONE
Stimulus 1

• Lady walking down the street in NYC in the 70's, it's raining, she is talking and meeting other people on the street.
• memory of a wedding; old woman walking in the rain and remembering her wedding
• purse - evil; woman dressed nicely, drops purse, meets man --> looks can be deceiving 
• imaginary world, no head - imagination and being able to accept eccentric things; child playing dress-up
• Mrs. Potter book
• little girl visiting grandma, loner, playing with her grandma's old things, creating own world
• open umbrellas inside is bad luck --> wedding going wrong

Stimulus 2

• going into world of books
• stripping away time from objects
• intelligent guy surrounded by idiots
• TIME - can't stop it, destroying something of great value, doing something hurtful
• someone who restores paintings, assistant to world renowned paint restorer
• beauty goes away over time, things are more appreciated

Stimulus 3

• leprechaun - story of his life
• beautiful
• alternate universe
• childhood, gay rights, freedom, joy, happiness, spring, light at the end of the tunnel, movement, good coming from bad
• ROYGBV
• segregation

P.P.P

DUE IN 4 WEEKS!


Choose 1 stimulus for a live theatrical performance

DIRECTORIAL VISION

• What are we going to see?
• Why are we watching?
• What am I, the director, saying?
• What do I want the audience to walk away with?
• What are the themes?
• What are the political, historical, social contexts?
• How am I going to do it?
• What are you trying to say to make it essential to be a live performance?

What I need to get together:

1. Idea - 250 wrds max
2. Visual/Audio supporting material (not written)
3. Political/Historical/Sociocultural contexts (RESEARCH) to support the idea

Language and Theatre

Can language be a barrier or can it give some sort of understanding?

In two instances this year, I went to performances that were not in my native language. The first was in French, which I have a good understanding of with limited vocabulary, but still acted as a barrier. Something I did notice while I watched the performance was that I could understand what was happening on stage, but I didn't quite understand all of the words. At first, I tried my very best to listen to the words and decipher the dialogue. I soon began focusing on the aesthetics of the performance such as lighting, set (and set changes) and costumes. After the performance, I found that I lost a lot of what was happening on stage which was a shame for me. The other performance I watched in a different language was  Vietnamese water puppetry at the quai Branly theatre. It this performance, I focused much less on the language and more on what was happening on stage, or rather in the pool of water, and found it quite fascinating. The performance made me feel incredibly calm and relaxed although I could not understand the poetry the narrator chanted. For me, it was very normal to hear this kind of language because I have lived in Asia all my life.
I feel that language really can be a barrier, but it depends on the kind of performance. 

Kery James - Lettre à la République

Inspiration: Wang Qingsong

Theatre Production Elements

Most essential people with their functions:
Director - working with the story, space, texture, light, rhythm
Actor - working with themselves, a story
Set designer - working with space (carve it up, layers, walls; how do I make it work with what I am given?)
Costume designer - working with texture, color and shape (appeals and makes you feel different things)
Choreographer - working with rhythm

Everything is going to be influenced


PHYSICAL THEATRE
Jacques LeCoq
            - observation: dynamics (what is the dynamic of a movement?)
            - theatrical tension and character tension
            - space, movement and rhythm

Sanford Meisner --> Living truthfully under imaginary circumstances
            - moment to moment actions
            - moving the story forward

Dramaturge --> Stage Manager

Research dramaturgy 

Vietnamese Water Puppet Performance

musée due quai Branly 
February 21, 2012

I went to watch this performance with 5 other classmates. I noticed the space, like the museum, had a very dark color-scheme involving an earthy deep red, black, and a deep purple. It was a proscenium arch and the stage was basically a pool of water with a few meters of surrounding stage material bordering it. There was a woman who did both narration (in the form of song) and music (sticks, drums). There were nine puppeteers in total who each controlled a puppet. The narrator sat stage right/house left and faced stage left/house right. There was lighting that came from under the water that made the pool appear as if it were glowing, which was beautiful. There was a video of the bustling city life in Hanoi on a screen that also showed videos of the Vietnamese countryside while the narrator sang. Audio clips of insects were playing while the puppeteers were manipulating the puppets. The puppets themselves were on the ends of very long sticks painted black. This made the stick disappear more and the puppets seemed more believable and life-like. The screen displayed poems in French, a translation of the narrator's words. The puppets mostly consisted of water animals such as fish, snakes and crabs. There were also lions and dragons. Human characters and statues also floated in the water. There were scenes of every day life such as fishing, washing and playing. The statues seemed spiritual.

I think I dozed off in the first ten minutes while the video of the city life was being performed, perhaps because I grew up in a city very similar to that. So, it was soothing in a way. In fact, most of our group dozed off at some point. It made me miss South East Asia a bit..  I found it very interesting was that they modernized something as ancient as water puppetry by using a projection of videos and audio recordings of insect noises. The narrator also wore a microphone so that she was very clearly heard. The use of lighting was also quite different than the traditional lighting as it came from the water instead of from above. Also, the puppeteers were dressed in all black so they were not as visible instead of being dressed traditionally in color. This made me think of Bunraku theatre in Japan. Some of the music used reminded me of Chinese dragon dances, as the drumming was heavy and the pace was fast. 

Contemporary Dramaturgists and Playwrights

1st generation
Edward Bond (UK)

2nd generation
Caryl Churchill
Howard Barker
Bertrand Knotes
Xavier Durringer
Nathalie Sarrault

3rd generation
Sarah Kane
Ravenhill

U.S.A.
Leroy Jones
Amir Barake
Langston Hughes
Lorraine Hansbury
Susie-Lori Parks

Le Coq: Physical Theatre

Tristan is reading an interview
Element to work with: rust (stops working well, gets slower and freezes at some point)
Suggestions from the class: stiffen up gradually, contrast (opposite of rust and then make a dramatic change)

We need to explore dynamics
Using elements to help you such as water, fire, rust, earth, wind

Exercise

Flash - Scene 1 - Flash - Scene 2 - Flash - Scene 3
Starting a story at the end and working forwards in time.
You can use projections, signs, a narrator

You need to give the audience the language they need to understand it
What is it about Brecht that you're using to 

Augusto Boal

South America - Brazil


continuation of Brecht


Forum Theatre
Theatre of the Oppressed (for the oppressed)

• He would choose one issue and you would have the actors, the joker and the audience
• The joker is the connection between the audience and the actors & play
• Present something and then remain neutral - he does not force an opinion on the audience
• Example: One protagonist who makes all the wrong choices and gets negative consequences
• Joker goes out to the audience and says "enjoy the show etc" and lets the audience watch the play
• Joker comes back and asks audience if the protagonist could have done something to change - audience makes suggestion - actors takes directions from audience member
• Audience member is engages with choice

Invisible Theatre

• Goes into a restaurant (they were not allowing people to walk in and ask for a glass of water)
• Two actors go in and order a meal --> Another actor goes in and asks for a glass of water, challenges restaurant owner
• Audience are the people in restaurant
• Impact is to raise awareness 

Apprentice: Andrienne Jackson http://www.cardboardcitizens.org.uk/

looking at stories and structures
     Go a little 

Brecht

Attacks bourgeois and opera of theatre
He wants to make theatre political
Singing shouldn't replace an excess of feeling (I cannot speak, so I'm going to sing).
Wants the actor to always be aware that he's being watched
Wants to bring the audience in emotionally, then kick them out (always watching, thinking, observing). Thus, the actor also always has to be in that position.

Stanislavsky - Piscator - Brecht
Removing oneself

Lecoq

Three Penny Opera

Title in German - Die Dreigroschenoper

Kurt Weil (music)
Bertolt Brecht

Actors in Three Penny Opera
Kurt Gerron

• Berlin trained actor; Jewish; sent to Terezin - concentration camp for propaganda purposes; directed many plays in the camp

Lotte Lenya

• Bertolt Brecht's wife; inspiration for many female characters

Adapted from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera

Bertolt Brecht: Epic Theatre

"The dramatic theater's spectator says: Yes, I have felt like that too-- Just like me -- It's only natura -- It'll never changer -- The suffering of this man appall me, because they are inescapable. That's great art; it all seems the most obvious thing in the world-I weep when they weep, I laugh when they laugh"

"The epic theater's spectator says: I'd never have thought it -- That's not the way -- That's extraordinary, hardly believable -- they are unnecessary -- that's great art; nothing obvious in it -- I laugh when they weep, I weep when they laugh."

• Breaking down of the fourth wall
• actor - audience
• connection
• conversation
• interaction
• Poster boards/panels/projections (announcing)/narrator/placards or signs "telling", "underlining", "framing" the scene:
• where 
• who 
• what

Today:

• video
• live streaming
• actor asking advice from the audience
• projection, angles, backdrop
• actors within the audience
• use of the "house" for stage effects
• mics
• bringing an audience member into the play
• minimalism - Dogville
• only using what you really need

New York Post Headlines - Brecht

"Drunken mom arrested for mistreating child"

"Corrupt politician released after years of prison"

Goals:

1. Remind audience that they are watching a play
2. Political statement ("arouses action") REASON
3. Montage/jump sequences
4. Point out the picture

Epic Theatre vs. Dramatic Theatre

Pre WWII

GERMANY
Bertolt Brecht: playwright, director, actor and practitioner (putting theories into practice)

Playwrights shifting dramatic writing into realistic writing:

• Frank Wendekind --> wrote Spring Awakening
• Ibsen
• Strindberg
• Pirandello (later)

Moscow Art Theatre

• Stanislavski --> Father of the method (new way of acting); living truthfully under imaginary circumstances
• Stanford Meisner --> Esper --> Uta Hagen (LIVING THEATRE U.S.A.)
• Constantin 

All looking for TRUTH, REALISM, BELIEVABILITY 

BACK TO BRECHT!

NEVER MIND!

Cabaret (short, political pieces) - Yiddish Theatre (Jewish humor)

Black humor: cutting, powerful, satyrical 

BACK TO BRECHT NOW!

DRAMATIC THEATRE: Brecht's vision of what it is

plot

spectator watch in stage situation

no capacity for action

"experience"

human being taken for granted (this is the way it is)

unalterable  

one scene makes another

growth linear

thought determines being

Feeling (appealing to our emotions)

EPIC THEATRE: What Brecht emphasizes

narrative

spectator is an observer (does not aim to pull you in/ you always remember that you are in a theatre)

arouses capacity for action (wants audience to stand up and react) 

"picture of the world"- looking at life, but really looking at the picture

human being is an object of inquiry 

alterable (life can change)

each scene for itself (in terms of the writing of it)

montage - jumps (time)

social being determines thought --> socially awareness of reality will change thinking

Reason (the mind, not the feelings)