La cocina

We went to see “La cocina” in the peruano-britanico theatre. For this play I think the stimuli could be the fights in work, which further developed to the concept which would be the fights and conflicts different employers had in a restaurant kitchen. The theme for the play was the conflicts which arise from different ways of thinking.

The play was about the staff which worked in a kitchen and a new employer arriving, and all of them fighting and having different conflicts between employers and employers, the employers and the chef, the employers and the boss, etc. The plot in this play I think was much more clear than in the last play we saw “Vedova in Lumine”. This made the story more interesting as the audience could understand better the play.

The Game used in this play wasn’t quite obvious, but I think it was the movement of the scenery. I mean how they change of place the tables and the kitchen so the audience could have another look of the setting. How they moved around the kitchen was interesting and maintained the audience attention. “Vedova in Lumine” in the other hand lack from a game and this made the play less interesting.

The style I think was comedy, this made the big difference with “Vedova in Lumine” as in “La cocina” the effect created in the audience was laughter most of the time, and in “Pedro in Lumine” the effect created was more artistic, it was appreciating the dance and body movements used. Although both plays had different styles I think both and all the plays at the end using different styles and causing different effects in the audience aim to make the audience enjoy and reflect. In “La Cocina” the audience at the end thinks about all the conflicts in the work, racism, and the materialism of people.

The play used different convections. I really liked some of them, for example the choreography used to act the part when the employees where cooking and the waitress went to the kitchen to give or pick up the orders. For the choreography I think the actors had to use many different techniques such as coordination, acrobatics, dancing, etc. Other convection they used was that some actors acting in slow motion and the lights where focused on one part by the light where the characters will act normally. I think these convections would be interesting to apply them to the school play if possible, maybe something like the choreography when the queen is kidnapped or in the market.

I think “La Cocina” was a good play because they made us of the activation theory. Variation was used while the main story was happening we could also notice the love story between some characters. Also uncertainty as the story was knew and the audience couldn’t predict what would happen next. Novelty in different aspects, like when the tables and kitchen were moved around in the stage or when the actors used the second level of the stage and then the first one. Although it used all of these, it lacked of complexity as the plot was very simple and there wasn’t much to reflect about. In contrast I think in the school play the complexity will be given by the use of the game.

I wonder if the effect created in a play is the same for the whole audience or its unique for each person…

Vedova in lumine vs School play

Second Week started and we saw a play that imply dancing and acting “Vedova in Lumine“ was the name of the play which means widow illuminated. The name of the play helped to understand that the character was a widow.  The use of puppets in the play was essential as only wan actor performed. In comparison with the school play we are planning the idea both have the use of puppets and masks but the stimuli was different. For the school the use of masks and puppets developed in the vision from the stimuli and in “Vedova in Lumine” the stimuli was the burn puppet in the new year celebration so the stimuli already involved puppets but then the vision developed to the dancing and doing main actions with the puppets. The theme on “Vedova in Lumine” was difficult to understand because the main, and only, character that performed was crazy. This lead to confusion on why the character did what she did (for example having sex the whole play with the puppets, which was what made the play boring and bad for me), but then when you take a look to the name of the play you can get that the theme is a woman loneliness.

Although I didn’t like the play, the use of puppets and masks teach me important things that could be apply lately in the school play. For example the different levels of details in the puppets. There was one that was only black so it was more difficult to figure who was, but then we saw a soldier and it was clear that he was a soldier. Then the different materials; most of them looked as they were made of cloths but the soldier seem to be made of metal things and boxes. All the puppets where manipulated by the character but both doing the same type of action together (again… having sex), but there was one that the actor get inside the puppet and her legs represented the ones of the puppet where only the actions of the puppet where seen not the ones of the character. The sizes between puppets also vary… although the smaller was a little bit less than human size… In the school play the size will also vary but I think the difference between sizes must be bigger to be clearer as it will reflect the power the character has.

I think the play we saw was really boring although it had the puppets and the dancing because we couldn’t understand the intention of the character and almost all the play happened the same thing (sex with puppets … AGAIN).  Now I ask to my self, what does a crazy character need to clarify the intention of its actions?

Time has come...

First week in IB theatre! All the years I have done theatre seem to be nothing compared to what is coming, as I realize how much things there are still to be learned, and how many things there are still to be done. So the time has come, the time is NOW.

Getting introduced to what the course is going to be like, for what are we getting prepared, can be a little scary. First of all we start learning some key points for oral presentations that will be finally reflected on the ppp (one of the IB theatre exams) and in the future. Oral presentations are usually boring to listen. Many people now use Power Point to help themselves to organize better their ideas while doing an exposition… but for this aid to work you need to follow some key points. To begin with; Title and your name in the first slide, that would be a great start! Then do not forget the table of contents. A good idea is to continue your presentation with slides just with pictures, no text! These images should help you explain what are you trying to tell and make people get connected with what you are saying. At the end, the sources… respect authors’ intellectual property.

Then we revised some things about “Commedia dell´ Arte”. In this type of theatre body must be really expressive, acrobatic and there must be many hand movements. The voice must be expressive too and there must be a focus on the sounds variations. Space is characterized by being dynamic, adaptable and the use of different heights. Finally characterization is always fixed for each character and very physical and exaggerated.

The School Play is coming up and “Giants” was the title for the presentation of the vision of it. As I understand; the vision is the projection or image of how you want the play to look like without having a story or concept yet. For the play the idea is to use puppets and masks…. Puppets can be small or big, and WE, the IB students are going to put all of our creativity and effort for our vision to come true. Actors in stilts, movable structures, people manipulating puppets and acting as them, a lot of deformity on the big puppets, and many other things that will come up as this play develops. As we finish with the vision then we got into the concept and the game of the play. Ideas were brought up into our minds and the game that’s going to use seems to be that each scene has the point of view of a particular character that will not be on stage, but represented by the audience.


The last class of the week we compared kabuki theatre and theatre for children. I realized that each theatre style has its own way of using the different stage elements, rules on for example ways of talking, ways of acting, etc.

Finally after my first week doing IB theatre I ask to my self; does doing a game get boring in large plays, or does it work as same than in short plays?