PUPPETS & GAME

Third week, and I’m still asking myself HOW TO WRITE A BLOG.
When Roberto explains that we need to go further, analyze, reflect and connect it seems so easy… but the moment I start thinking what I’m I going to write.. grrr… my brain just “abandons” me.

So, what can “La cocina”, The Black Light Theatre of Prague  and the school play have in common? A game, and in two of them, puppets.

On Monday 19^th we went to see “La Cocina”. The play is about a group of workers from a restaurant, (cooks, waitresses, chef, etc) and the different actions that take place in the kitchen, which included love stories, flirting, disagreements and lessons.
Although we saw that the play tried to make the audience reflect about racism, it didn’t work as we think they expected, and this teaches us that if you have aims or want to teach something to the audience, you must make sure you are clear and will achieve it.

One of the things I’ve learned this week is that if you want to create a play that outstands, connects with the audience, and catches their attention you must think of a GAME.

What was the game in “La Cocina”?
I think that one of the (possible) games in “La Cocina” was changing the positions of the scenery during the play, and this worked as it made the scenes more dynamic and by changing how the stage looked the audience was interested.
Connecting this game with the school play from last year (Miyuki y los tres demoios), we could say that changing the scenery made the play more dynamic, and as this worked, it was a good decision to use it for this year’s school play.

If the game for this year’s school play is that each scene is seen with the point of view of different characters and the characters on stage talk to the audience as if they were that character, is changing the positions of the scenery really a game? Or would it be other thing, such as a technique?
It isn’t easy at all to recognize a game, convention or technique from a play… and as I’ve been researching about The Black Light theatre of Prague, I ask myself, is the illusion created using the lights and puppets only an effect, or a game, or maybe a convention from that type of theatre?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU0tsgwiuC0 

A connection between the school play and the Black Light Theatre are puppets, which have been a main topic this week.

I know the play's concept is not really connected with the concept from most of the plays from this type of theatre, but I think that we could use my research for some ideas, and some ideas that we already have connect with some that I've seen.
For example, in the play "Aspects of Alice" there are two creatures that look like ghosts (see picture on the right side) which are similar to the puppet from "Vedova in Lumine" (the teacher) but MUCH taller.
We could create this effect of immensity and power by using stilts, or very tall people next to short people, and creating this kinds of puppets may not be as hard as creating puppets which have to be filled with "panties" or other materials.

Playing with levels and heights is another connection that I've found between this play (Aspects of Alice) and the school play, and as we have the examples, we can see that this creates different effects for the audience, such as the illusion of power and dynamism in the play and scenes.

So, why are puppets used in different kinds of theatre? are they used to catch (more) the audience's attention? or maybe to give the play a little "unrealism"?, are they used for actions that humans may not be able to do? (for example as Roberto said, cutting their heads off)...maybe it is a tradition that has been developed over the years and we as an audience are used to it.
I don't certainly know yet the answer to this question, but in my opinion, and as I said before, puppets can make a play more dynamic, more entertaining, different from real life (and people usually go to theatre to see DIFFERENT things from what they normally see), in some cases funnier, and making & using them will be a great challenge for the school play this year, but I think they will have all the effects I just mentioned.


(I know it’s too soon to talk about this, but I've asked myself, which could be the game for our ‘One act play’?)

-How can we differ a game from a convention? (for example, last week in Hero)
-Are the illusions and visual effects of Black Light Theatre a convention, game or technique?
-What is the main reason of the use of puppets in different types of theatre?Would every 'kind' of audience enjoy watching plays with puppets?

connect connect connect?

Just the second week and it feels it has been ages, having so much to talk about...


What makes a play work? Is it the stimulus? Concept? Game? Theme? Plot? Or Structure? Probably, all of them connected together.


A play wouldn’t be the same without all these concepts.. 
Imagine ‘SPLIT’ without a game, or ‘Miyuki y los tres demonios’ without a concept:
As most of the times, the game gave the rules that related the audience to the play, and although it was a simple story, the audience was interested (Rechicken effect) thanks to the dynamic game. 
A similar thing happened in ‘Miyuki y los tres demonios’; if “normal” (for Newton’s audience/ our culture) theatre conventions had been used, the audience (probably) wouldn’t have find the play as good, interesting and original as they found it, having a concept from Kabuki theatre.

On the other hand, a stimulus is needed as a starting point, and a good inspiration may end up in an excellent play. The stimulus isn’t always included in the play, and as we saw in “Vedova in Lumine” (where the stimulus was burning puppets on New Year’s Eve), the stimulus may only be an idea to start developing a play, but in this case, the play had a totally different plot and structure than the ones we expected.

Most of us considered it more a choreography/ dance than a play, but before taking this 'decision' or opinion, we should have asked ourselves the following questions:
What is theatre?, What is dance? And how can we be sure of this?  what is the difference between an actor and a dancer? 
Theatre is considered as the art of ACTIONS, while dance is considered the art of MOVEMENTS.
I think this play was definitely a mixture (or connection) of both arts. It had a plot or story (a little hard to understand) that talked about the loneliness of a widow and her memories coming back in new year's eve, and different characteristics that could be used as inspiration for this year’s school play, specially the different uses of puppets.
The actress/ dancer (Mirella Carbone)  used the puppets for different actions, such as dancing, talking to them, being "carried" by them, and many other different ways of interacting (I will not mention some that will definitely NOT be used for the play jajaja).
Personally, I think that one of the best parts (and idea) of the play was when she "entered" inside one of the puppets, and created the effect of a veeery tall person talking to the audience. It was not only original and funny because of her voice and "disproportional" body, but totally captured the audience's attention.
This play gave us different ideas, such as how the interactions between actors and puppets could be, the actions we could make using them, the types of puppets and materials that we could use (such as metal cans, bottles, cloth, etc), and effects (such as funny disproportional bodies) that we could create. 

Puppet with disproportional body

EFFECTS... we should always think about this when creating or analysing a play..
Why did Roberto send us as a homework to watch the movie "Hero"? I think it contains GREAT effects, such as the use of one different color for each scene, and the scenery for the palace, which may create a very interesting effect in the play and reaction in the audience.
How do we know what effects work better for "our" audience (according to our culture and identity)?
In order to answer this question we need to ask ourselves who are we, what kinds of theatre work today?  and would them work in the exact same way in different areas or places? 
This are all questions that require research, which was another very important part of our week. It needs different steps, and has a great importance to create a play and analyse all kinds of topics in Theatre.

What is the theatre our society enjoys to see, and that connects to our ways of living and culture? What effects and ideas could work and entertain the audience in this year's school play?

Theatre IB, here I go!

So here I am, writing for the first time in my blog… after only my first week at Theatre IB… this is only the beginning of around 18 months of suffering (according to all ex IB-ers!), but I know they will bring MANY good thinks and experiences, that I look forward to have.

Our first class was on Tuesday March 6^th. We were excited and kind of nervous, but in my case, it made me see that this is what I really want, and we will have to put LOTS OF EFFORT in order to achieve what we expect to.
Roberto explained us what the “structure” of the subject is, and the four main tasks that we will complete for the IB:

1. Research investigation

2. Practical performance proposal (ppp)

3. Theatre performance and production presentation

4. Independent project portfolio.

I should confess that I’m still a little nervous about all this work, but this class also made me think that I really want to do my best especially in this course, and in the whole IB.

On Wednesday March 7^th (our second class) we entered the class and immediately had to write everything Roberto said as fast as we could. He talked about acting in Commedia dell’arte, which was a topic that we already knew form last year, but was good to revise about.
At the end of his presentation, he surprised us saying “and this is what you have to do for next class!”, and we will present our topics on Thursday 15^th.
I have to talk about acting in the Spanish Golden Age, and this weekend I’ve researched in some books about it… Again, I’m kind of excited and nervous about this presentation, as I want to “start the course with the right foot”…

In our third class (Thursday 8^th) we talked about this year’s school play, especially about the vision (a proyection or image of how we want the play to look like) and stimuli. We had different ideas for the play’s vision, and we are all really excited about it.

Last class of the week (Friday March 9^th):   Once again, we discussed about the school play. We talked about the different conventions for different kinds of theatre (e.g Kabuki and theatre for children), and came up with ideas for the play.
I like the fact that we will be working with masks and different kinds of puppets (a completely different idea from last years’ plays), which we have to research about for Tuesday.

So as I said before, this is only the beginning of our course, and I’m really looking forward to see different plays, start working with the school play, going to Paucartambo (wuu), creating the one act play, etc.

I have lots of questions in my head in this moment…
Is it true that Theatre is the most “time-consuming” course of the IB? Will it be very hard to be part of the school play’s “production and creating” team for the first time? Will everyone like the (new and kind of creepy) concept of this year’s school play? And, (we’ll see on Thursday…) will it be hard and stressful to be in charge of the play rehearsals for the first time?