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?