Concept

Description:

This week we started with Paucartambo’s PPP. We started with the analysis of the stimuli and arrive to a concept.

Analysis:

Looking for a stimulus was the first step; we started looking for something that could be analyzed. As we all had different ideas everybody looked his way, but finally we all decided that our concept could be discrimination.

In Paucartambo we saw how the “other” and the “Yo” struggle with each other to finally join. We saw how this problem applies to our world. We wanted that the idea our play was going to be about could relate with the audience. As Paucartambo showed their identity we wanted to show ours, we wanted to show how we are.

We started looking for a problem we could show, what was going to happen in our play. We thought in the struggle for property. In our society we always see problems between two groups because they want to be the owners. We thought that this problem was applied in CONGA for example. We wanted to represent this problem first but it would be trying to change the world, or making them reflect in a theme that for many isn’t important. We wanted to make something that take more part of the identity of the audience, the people from school.  So we started saying that for that the “property” should be the school.

Who is the “yo” who is the “other”. That was our next question. Students and teachers? We thought that the students could fight against the teachers so that they ruled in the school.  We also get to the idea of presenting three parts, as in Paucartambo 3 days and the last one would be  “la guerrilla” that would be when the problem would be resolved. After thinking on this we had our vision.

The students will be studying and the teachers will treat them as how education was before. All the injustices and the “dictatorship” there was. The students will then reveal and take the school. Finally the order would be reestablish but in a more just way.  From this we got to our concept: “Pachakuti: The world upside down.”

This was once again another case in which there wasn’t a fixed order. As the game sometimes comes first this time the vision came before the concept. After arriving to the concept I felt a relive. I think that arriving to the concept is the hardest part. What needs more analysis. Production can take a lot of effort but getting to the concept I think is the more challenging as it has to make since, everything in the play has to go around this. The story, structure, design, etc.  

Connections:

La falsa criada: We could find a concept for this play, and this was evident in the presentation. There wasn’t any coherence between the desing elements, the direction and the acting.

A matter of dissection: The concept for this play was “Live at the center, death at the top” This concept could be only understand by the ones in the group. The idea helped for our vision and later for the presentation, here the concept wasn’t applied much to the design because it was difficult to apply that idea for thing like music, costume or make-up, but we could apply it to the scenery.  How did this worked if the concept wasn’t followed?

Reflections:

A concept is what makes the play coherent, but if a concept isn’t follow then can there still be an order? What I think a matter of dissection followed although the concept wasn’t present in most of the design elements we still made an effort so that the design elements had coherence with each other, a connection between them. The costumes followed for example the color scheme, the music would be the same in the start and at the end of the play. A think that a concept makes easier the coherence inside a play, but if the concept cannot be followed or applied in an specific part of the play then we still have to put order into the play. The order is what gives coherence and so that when you watch the play you don’t feel that what you are seeing have nothing to do with what have you seen before in the play. 

play structure

Description:

This week we discuss about how doing a play review and went over La falsa Criada. When we talked about how to analyze the structure of the play and that this was important to see how the play works this really caught my attention.

Analysis:

In la falsa criada the scenes seem to be short, because of the entries but it also have some long scenes like the first one, or at least it feels long as the actions are slow and without a clear intention. In general La falsa criada short scenes help to give dynamism to the play and this works, because although it doesn’t follow a direction and design concept it at least have rhythm.

In A matter of dissection we divided the play in beats, this made the “scenes” even shorter. The beats were also marked by the exits and enter of a character as each character will change the situation in a way. This really helped to made the play fast and “digestible” because as the situation was always changing and the change of characters was fun we could catch the audience attention. Also it didn’t get boring as short scenes and fast changes help.

Another play would be shadow queendom. This play had longer scenes, this had another effect than the plays above. The long scenes gave the possibility to play with the audience perspective because they needed longer time to realize what character was the audience representing and how they are. Because just knowing the name of the character wasn’t enough but a longer time was needed to show how does this character relate with the other characters and how much information they know. This wouldn’t be able with short scenes as they would not found the “connection” with the character the audience was representing.

Connections:

How long and short scenes are relate to our daily life, we can see that sometimes and hour passes as minutes, or sometimes minutes passes as hours. When there are many changes it would feel as time has passed quickly but if we are doing the same thing without variations it would feel as it is very long. This is how audience sometimes perceives time in plays. A scene may be short, but if things don’t change may seem long. In the other hand a scene may be long, as in shadow queendom, but as new information is given, the space is used in different ways, characters enter and leave, etc., it may seem short.

Conclusion:
How a play is structure sometimes seems not relevant, and we don’t give much focus onto this so later is difficult to analyze as we need to play close attention to decide when a scene starts and ends. Although it seems no relevant how long or short a scene is and what makes it fast or slow may be one of the main reasons of why a play work as this influence if the audience will keep interested or not in the play. So until what extend does the play does the connection with the audience rather than the structure?

One act play!

Introduction:

This week we presented the one act play and then reflected about the process and the final performance.

Analysis:

The process is the background, the other side of the final product, the play. We worked for some weeks on this presentation so at the end everything would be ready. Is amazing to think that everything started from a cloth that look as the ones that “widows” use. Then we developed the idea of a widow and a morgue, it all started from this stimuli. Then we developed the game, this  I think is where most creativity is needed, innovation. We started with the game of being In a row and each side of the actor would be a different character and when the actor would turn, facing the other side then the other character would be presented. We left this idea as the lack of interaction between the characters made it difficult to follow and be interesting for the audience.  The game that is supposed to make the “connection” with the audience was working all the other way around so we changed the game. The game was now to two characters per actor and that the costumes would change for each character. This game has been use in other plays but in another way. The advantage of having used this game before is that we knew it would work.

In the making we realized that the script was too long but without adding nothing to the scene, there were just words without any purpose. The script must be done again. Writing the script again I think it was one of the biggest challenge someone could have as we have never done this before, it was new, and not easy.

Then the characterization I think was what we most worked in more. We had to do two characters so we expore a lot the way of walking, the voice, physical characterization and this for one character needed to be contrasting from the other. The characters needed to be very different so presenting two characters by one actor would work.

The voice is always one of my greater challenges, in this play and in shadow Queendom I had difficulties founding the voice. Although I loved the voice of the grandmother and think that was a great voice I think that the one from the administrator was not good enough. It was new and I found the voice of my character exploring my stimuli for the character but as it wasn’t my voice sometimes I lost it. As voice changes depending in the mood and the administrator had to be mad and then more calmed when I had to perform as I was desperate or mad and shout I think I lost the voice, the type of intonation of my character and when this moments passed and I had to talk calm again it was difficult to return to the voice of the character.

Then in the making what we worked a lot was on the actions, in the rhythm. A play without rhythm and slow gets boring and hard to watch. What I liked to hear after the play was that the audience didn’t want it to be over. This mean that the audience liked to watch it, they enjoy it. One of the main reasons what that things happen fast, the other was the laughter. The rhythm must be always fast, but there needs to be variation between slow ways of talking as the doctor, nurso and fast ways of talking as the grandmother, boy.

The final performance had something that weren’t planned as we could prevent every accident. The funniest accident was that the boob of “nurse” felt. This accident had a very good response from the audience. It was hard not to lose concentration in this moment as it was VERY funny but when you are In character and you know your character wont laugh and get into the mood then is more easily controlled. Stefano at the end said “get me knew implants” this line was clapped by the audience as it was very funny and showed a great management on the character as the response was fast and get within the character personality and the mood of the play.

Connections:

The final performing and the process remind me to the process of making shadow Queendom. We focused in different things and give priority to the use on puppets rather than characterization in this play and this was the main difference of the process of the play and this was showed in the final project.

Although it was different the process followed the same scheme. Stimuli, concept, game, vision, etc. This scheme is what helps to have an order in the process and every previous stage links to the next one and this makes it fluid. When everything was ready to be put on stage was where both processes differ as the priorities changed.

Reflection:

Some time ago I posted “a hole that is never full” this was an entry that talked about how a play had always room for improvement; how we never could say that the play was finished. In this play it was different because although we needed to improve the rhythm I felt that it was finished because of how we managed and knew the play very well, and we also had all the props.

So now I think, can a play be declare finished? Maybe when a play can´t be improved much a play can be said to be finished, when the actors know and manage the play so that they even can do it backwards, when all the props and scenery are ready.  But this doesn’t mean that it cannot be improved.

Play Review - La falsa criada

La Falsa Criada was presented last Tuesday in the theatre of Larcomar. The play consisted of two acts. The plot of the play is about a woman that dresses as a man to see if the man she is going to marry is good enough.

My hypothesis is that characterization helped more than stage elements to perform the women dressed as a man.

To start with I’m going to focus in the physical characterization. This character who dressed as a man had the same costume, until she reveals is a woman, but even before she acts as a woman. In terms of costume it was a feminine but still was from men. This enhanced help with the performance of the woman dressed as a man because the costume was for a man, but it was still feminine. All though this element presents ambiguity it still help because a change of cloth wasn’t needed.

The hair and make-up of the main character was untied and short, and she didn’t used make-up. The physicality wasn’t much developed in this aspect, but still gave the “uni-sex” style so that the character could be seen as woman and man.

Moving more into internal characterization we could start with the way of walking. The walking of the two characters, how they stand up for example was one of the elements that more distinguish the man and the woman character. Anyway, what makes more the difference between them was the voice. The voice for the male character had a lower peach and was lest sweet than the woman voice. This two elements, voice and way of walking was what most distinguish the man and the woman.

Going into stage elements I’m going to start with props. The most important prom for the main character would be the sword. The man was always, as part of the costume even, carrying a sword. This sword although was well used by the character, and show that the woman had a dominance after all with this weapon, give masculinity to the character as the man fights and this is very stereotypic of men, they fight. The fighting with the sword helps trick the other characters in the play to make them believe he is really a man.

Another stage element would be the lights. The most important moment for the lights will be the change, the revelation of the character to a woman. The lights enhance this moment making the difference between the woman and man characters greater. It 3mphasizes the idea the man is just fake.

The music helps to enhance the same moment that the lights, but as the style of the music is not coherent it makes this transformation to loose importance. The music is also used in the play for the beginning and end of the different acts, or played and singed by the “servers”, but this doesn’t help for the performance of the woman dressed as man.

 The scenery situated us in different parts of the town; in the house, in the outsides, etc. This didn’t linked really with the idea of of the woman representing a man, but help more to situate the play.

In conclusion the voice and way of walking is what most construct the character of the woman representing the man. The other stage elements don’t really mark this difference and are either there for other theatrical purposes, as for example entertain or make it fun.