White Elephant

This exercise was so much fun but it was a lot harder than it seems. I mean, so many of the things are in boxes. There's only so much you could do with a box before running around with it and saying it's your dog and you're walking it. I'm going to sound totally conceited here, but my present was awesome. It even reached the maximum can only be stolen three times. Okay, bragging time over. None of the improvs were that great but it's not like I could do any better than them so I shouldn't be saying anything. I stole Kavita's gumball machine and pretended like the box was a tissue box. Not very original, I know. Sorry. I really wanted to steal a scarf just so I could pretend to be one of those Asian ladies at the park stretching with those towels. I don't know if that counts as an improv but my grandma does that and I think it's so cute. Old people are cute. White elephant was fun because of all the food though. Chinese food and Froot Loops are like the best post-breakfast snack of all time. And my new gumball machine is having quite a fun time guarding my locker.

Ushering

So today, I finally realized how everything in the theater works. Being in it for orchestra and dance for the past two years meant nothing. There are so many hidden little doors and stuff. We should make a theater map because I really believe that future drama kids will need one. Especially the stagecraft ones. Or maybe they spend so much time there that they're pretty much used to it but I think it's important. I finally found out where the ticket booth is and also where everything is stored. The lights are extremely heavy, just so you know. The orchestra is also pretty cool but extremely scary. It's really dark and there should be a haunted house down there. It would win at life. I had no idea everything in the theater was so connected or needed that many rooms. I always thought it was just the Performing Arts Center, a building on its own because of its magnificence. Apparently it's not, but it does sit a lot more people than I thought it did. There are a lost more seats than there looks like there should be. Ushering is pretty exciting though since I get to actually see the people that go to performances and half of them look so depressed to be there, it's funny. The best are the really supportive friends and family who scream and yell like crazy when their person shows up on stage. Everybody needs one of those. Too bad there aren't that many. And there was this one lady that was like,"If I can't bring my Starbucks in, why do I need to go inside?" Way to support your kid, lady. Anyways, I finally know where everything is in the theatre and that the poinsettias on the side for Christmas are fake. Great discoveries.

Seussical Auditions

These were even worse than the ones for the seniors' plays. My gosh, I can't believe I thought those were bad. And I had to be auditioning at the same time as Stephanie Lee. I should just go kill myself. Everyone was so much better than singing than I am. Curse my vocal cords. Although I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make it, I really hope I do. This was a really good experience though, especially since I got to watch Stephanie. She was so confident and everything she did was so different from everyone else. She even acted out her songs. I'll try to be more like her next year and stop being so self-conscious. Royal told me I started to make weird faces at some point. What a fail. I never realized how much talent you need to have in order to be in drama. Singing, dancing, AND acting. Triple threat. I know that little Filipino kid is auditioning for JoJo though, and I really hope he gets it since he'll be so perfect, he's even the right size and he has big ideas. He even looks like him. Anyways, I really need to work on my singing; I sing at like the same octave as the guys. I was also pretty surprised there were only two guys at the audition. Drama didn't seem like it was THAT dominated by girls, but I guess it is since some guys are just boring and only play sports. By the way, Ms. Karr, if you read this before you cast people, I really think I should be Fish since it rhymes with my name (Trish) and in the spirit of Dr. Seuss, it would fit WONDERFULLY. End advertisement.

Auditioning for Senior Plays

This was extremely nerve-wracking. I know it was just in front of a few people, but I realized that I can only play dumb-ish characters and both of these plays were so smart being about politics and Like Water for Chocolate. The only thing I had fun with was reading for the part of the chickens since that fit the type of thing I'm good at. Oh, I had fun pretending to be Juan and dying on the floor, too. It was a really good experience and I hope that it'll be able to help me for Seussical auditions next week. I do have stage fright but hopefully that'll be over soon. Watching the seniors talk over who they wanted as part of their play was kind of scary since I'm really afraid they're all going to choose people and I'm not going to be chosen. I'll be pretty depressed. Imagine if everyone else is cast, even some seniors, and I'm just sitting there by myself. Dang, drama can be depressing sometimes.

Noh Theatre

I don't really have much to say about Noh except that I love the masks and they creep me out a bit. Japanese people put too much detail into this so I completely gave up trying to remember everything. I just looked it up on Wikipedia and I can barely remember. I basically know that the characters are gods and demons and some other stuff. And there are kyogens (spelling?) performed between the actual plays and these are comedy. Playing a demon was fun though, I completely admit that. Learning how to talk like that little wrinkly thing in Lord of the Rings that was obsessed with the ring and called it his precious finally paid off. I had a use for my cool voice. This is basically all I remember with this pathetic little brain of mine.

The Phantom Tollbooth

I went to see this on Friday but I heard it was funnier on Saturday since the cast improved some of it. Not that it's that important, so anyways, the play was cute. I didn't really have a favorite character for this which depressed me a bit since I love choosing a favorite character for some reason. It gives me something to look forward to, I guess. The only thing that really creeped me out was when they walked off stage and would stare RIGHT AT SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE. Especially the Watch-Dog. I sat in the second row and it happened twice. I was pretty scared, like seriously. I had no idea what to do and when the Discord guy said,"Have YOU ever heard the sound of an ant tap-dancing?" or something like that, I had no idea what to say. So I just sat there really quietly and waited for him to go away. I guess I would be really bad at any of Boal's productions. Useless audience member. I loved how the Mathemagician and the person with the words (forgot her name) looked like each other. It doesn't really have anything to do with anything but that was pretty awesome. I kind of stopped understanding stuff at the end when they almost reached the two princesses. The ghoul things or whatever, I got them completely mixed together and all the running around didn't really help anything. Maybe I was just tired. After watching this though, I finally realize how much it takes to put on a production. It seems like everyone had to rehearse forever. Some people had like three or four characters and the amount of work and costuming and everything put into this is mind-blowing. I don't think I've ever worked that hard on anything before in my life. This is pretty motivating.

Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas

So for this six weeks, I went to see How the Grinch Stole Christmas at the Pantages Theatre because I was just really in the holiday mood. Also because that was my favorite Dr. Seuss book besides the one about green eggs and ham. That one is undefeatable. I always seem to go off-topic somehow but since I realize it, it shouldn't be that bad. Okay, so the Grinch was definitely the BEST character in the whole play. Well, obviously since he's completely necessary as the main character, but the way he was portrayed and everything made him even cooler than the book or movie ever could have. The make-up people must be crazy talented because they actually made him all green and hairy and I could not even tell that used to be a human if the program didn't have a picture next to him. The sets at Pantages are always awesome, and this time was no different. Except I didn't understand the big metal thing on stage during Rent but then I would be straying away from the topic again and we don't want that. The only problem I really had with this play was that everything was too pink. For some reason, the designers and costumers made everything some shade of red or pink. It was strange since it felt more like it was for Valentine's Day than Christmas. Ha, imagine how funny that would be: How the Grinch Stole Valentine's Day. Also, a bit of the dancing was off a little but some of the actors were only ten-years-old and they could dance better than me so I probably shouldn't say anything. I really enjoyed watching this anyways since there were so many little kids there in the audience and they let out the funniest reactions to everything. There was even a sing-a-long at the end for them. The performance was really cute and the lighting was amazing. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. They even timed songs with the little lights surrounding the stage and the beginning had this cool little sparkly thing that made it seem like it was a city, but it wasn't. If that made any sense.

Phantom Tollbooth Play Teaser

I have actually never read this book even though I know a lot of other people in our class have. I've never even heard of it until this year. So I'm not exactly where this Discord guy and his assistant fit in except for when we read the script that one time. It still amazes me that the actors could memorize that big, thick packet since it was like a textbook. They're pretty amazing. I don't know if watching this little teaser thing would motivate me to watch it, since I haven't gone to any school plays yet. The only thing I've been to are jazz band concerts since they were required for orchestra. That was a bit off-topic. Anyway, yea, I don't think I would go see it if it wasn't required but now that I know I'm going for sure, I'm pretty excited to go see where everything fits in. Especially the dodecahedron; Megan looks so funny in that head thing.

Bunraku

Japanese people are extremely careful about every single little detail, like those people scraping moss of the sidewalks to keep them clean. They even have amazingly clean toilets, even though this has nothing to do with my entry. Anyways, the video on bunraku was really cool except for the voices the narrators used. That got quite annoying within the first ten minutes. I guess I just have not been exposed to the culture enough to be able to love a voice like that. Maybe that will change soon. You never know. Watching the man make the puppet was amazing. There was so much detail put into everything and the mechanics behind each puppet is crazy. I cannot believe that everything down to the eyelids and each individual finger moves. The puppeteers are good, too. For three people to be able to move in perfect harmony like that takes some serious I don't even know what. They must all be like triplets or something. When the video first showed the performance, I couldn't even see the puppeteers. I actually thought the puppets were the real people until everyone else was like oh dang, are we supposed to be able to see the guys in the back? Maybe I need to get new contacts soon but it looked even cooler once I could see the guys wearing all the black. I didn't really pay attention to the movements of the puppets, but rather the people moving them. There was so much to control and it must have looked pretty real if I couldn't even tell there were people there at first. This art form takes so much patience and skill, I think it's incredible that it has not already died out because if the people of this generation are anything like me, they would not be able to slowly carve out a mask like that or cooperate well enough with two other people to create such a fluid motion with one single puppet. But I guess there are amazing people like that out there and I'm very happy that they are out there.

Halloween

Our class was split into three groups for a special Halloween activity. We were all assigned to make a scene based off the poem, "The Raven," by Edgar Allen Poe. Like the PPP, this was to act as out stimulus. We had to find an area to stage our little performance but it couldn't be in our classroom; it had to be a part of the performing arts center or the workrooms and hallways that come out of it. Our group chose the workshop because there was a creepy feeling there with the fence and all the paint and the hammers from creating the sets. Ours was about a person who had accidentally murdered someone a few years back and was now a grumpy old lady who didn't give out Halloween candy for the little kids because she was haunted by the soul she had killed and was afraid. I'm not sure how it came out because I never got to see it from the audience's point of view, but watching junior Anna drag senior Anna like she was dead was pretty awesome. It actually looked pretty real. The other two groups were awesome though. Noelia's group was pretty funny with it being a Halloween party and someone prank-knocking on the door. When the real trick-or-treaters came, she flipped out and was like I'M GOING TO CALL YOUR PARENTS, YOU EVIL CHILDREN. Both of our groups did not use our setting as well as the last group though. Selena's group used the whole seating area to create a kind of haunted house and I have no idea how to describe it but it was totally creative and really fun to watch. This activity was pretty fun but the poem was really hard to understand. That was my biggest issue with this. Edgar Allen Poe's English is way too advanced for me to be able to understand.

Grotowski

Grotowski believed that theater should not have so many elements hampering it. The focus should be on the actors, not the set, costumes, or lighting. He thought that those things should be left for cinema and movies rather than plays and theaters. He primarily focused on the actor and the interactions of said actor with the audience and introduced the concept of "poor theater." Although Boal had no specific preferences to whether or not the setting and costumes should be important, he also believed strongly in interaction with the audience. He had forum theater, which allowed audience members to improvise their own scene, and invisible theater, which was performed on the streets randomly.

For the second monologue, I was partnered with Kaitlyn who did the report on Grotowski. Since I had to apply Boal's theories to her monologue, we chose the one where the lady is confused about whether or not she is a lesbian and loves her best friend in that way rather than just as a friend. Kaitlyn started it out very emotional since the last time, almost all the theorists were similar to Stanislavski and his belief that actors should put themselves into the performance (except for Brecht). However, since Boal was also influence by Brecht, she had to reread some parts and change her tone to a more monotone and flat sound rather than the emotion-filled search inside herself. It was easier to work with this one because during some parts, the lady could be imagined as calming down, then flaring back up again.

Stanislavski

Boal was actually influenced by Stanislavski. Stanislavski believed that actors should be into what they are doing and have emotion in their performances. Boal believed that as well. However, he was also influenced by Boal which may seem like a direct contradiction but Boal thought that emotion needed to be applied sometimes (but not all the time) and detached acting was also needed sometimes.

For the monologue, I was partnered up with Shivani, who did her report on Stanislavski. I chose to do the monologue of Mary, the spoiled brat, where she begins to verbally attack Rosalie Wells. At first, I read it normally like it was a passage I needed to read for English class or something but Shivani made me go over it and try to pretend like I really was the spoiled twelve-year-old girl. I had a lot more fun with it the more I added because it made it seem more real and it gave the whole thing a point. Then, she told me to add some hand motions to emphasize the words further. I was actually quite happy the way it turned out because, even though I could not see it, I felt like I embodied the character way better than I did when we first started. Even the smallest gesture made it more believable that I actually was this evil little girl.

Shen Te/Shui Ta Mask

This was different from the mask for Oedipus. I think it was just because we got a lot more freedom for that. I mean, we got to choose the character and the scene but for this it had to be specifically for Shen Te's other personality, Shui Ta. This was difficult because it was hard to create a mask that seemed like an Asian man and was realistic enough for the audience to believe that all the other characters in the play would be fooled by a mere mask and change of clothing. I could not get it to seem realistic no matter what I did, but I think it could be achieved if the mask was made like how Robin William's face mask thing was made in Mrs. Doubtfire. It would need to be made of rubber and be molded from an actual face which I do not have the means or ability to do. However, I drew my mask with deep, long eyebrows to give it a more angry and manly aura. I also added a goatee and mustache to make it obvious that the man was Asian as well as a braid. I do not think that I got the right time period since the play did not seem to be set in like the time period that those Chinese dramas where they have funny accents are set in but there was no other way to make him seem Asian (or at least I can't quite seem to think of a way to).

August: Osage County

For this six weeks, I went to see August: Osage County at the Ahmanson Theatre. I personally loved this play because of the characters. I loved how dysfunctional the whole family is and there was a lot of comic relief which helped because the rest of the play was very intense. My favorite character was the mom because of how blunt and uncaring they made her. She was also in my favorite part when Ivy is about to find out that Little Charles is her brother so they cannot move to New York together but she has not found out yet so she's yelling at Barb because Barb keeps telling her to eat the catfish. Ivy throws something on the floor which shatters and Barb says, "What, are we throwing shit now?" and she throws something, too. Then, although she was completely not involved in the conversation, the mom throws her plate on the floor, too. I thought that was the funniest thing ever and I would randomly burst out laughing during the rest of the play which did not make me very popular with the people I was sitting around. There was a lot of crude humor in this play that was difficult for my mom to understand so I do not think it was the best choice for us but I really did love this play. The plot was interesting and quite different from anything I have ever seen. I do wonder whether the playwright was disturbed in the mind, but I may just be assuming things there. The actors were awesome but I did not see the point in having Barb's daughter. I do not think that she added anything to the play as a whole and instead, she just confused me with her talk about pot with Johanna in the attic room. I guess she was needed to show how the fiance was a terrible man but that one scene with Johanna really did seem unnecessary. I really liked how even when things were happening in the front room, there were still people moving in the other rooms like there would be if this was a real family. The lighting was nice how it lit up when something was happening in a specific room but it did make things seems a bit less realistic because of it. There would not be lights in a room just because you are talking to your mom or something. If it was dark, fine but these lights just randomly came on. It was also a bit confusing with the way the set was created. It was probably the best way to show it as possible, but I hated how the front door and the walkway outside was seen from the little room at the side. I could not discern that the room was actually part of the inside of the house until later. Sometimes, I got the characters mixed up, too when the lights went off because Barb and her husband were sleeping on the pull-out couch once and the next time was the younger sister and her fiance. Overall, I did really like this play and although I would not necessarily see it again, I would recommend it for other people. And I really liked the people on the side doing the sign language because they were acting along with it. Pretty cool.

Adding in Dialogue

**Disclaimer: I do not know what happened with my font. I don't like this either.

This gave us a lot more freedom with the situation and how to create our characters. I got to play a mob boss which would not have necessarily fit in with the original dialogue but after we added in a few of our own lines, it flowed well with the lines we were already given. I now fully appreciate screenwriters and the playwrights. They have intensely difficult jobs. We had already been given enough lines to start out but they have nothing and need to create a whole new something. Characters, plot, everything. Those people have such a huge amount of talent it's crazy. I worked with Cindy and Anna for this and besides out mob boss scene, our other one was about two girls fighting over a guy. These two situations are really far away from each other but it fit for both since we could change the dialogue ourselves. We had a bit of trouble deciding what to do and say though because little things can change what we want the audience to see and confuse them. Even movements and nervous twitching can give the audience the wrong idea. On a semi-related topic, I still can't get rid of that feeling that acting is magical. Even though it is essentially lying plus movement, it just has this little glow around it and I still freaking love it.

Theorist: Augusto Boal

In 1931, Augusto Boal was born in Rio de Janeiro to Portuguese immigrants on March 16. When he went to Columbia University to study chemical engineering, he also began to take a course at the School of Dramatic Arts under John Gassner where he observed the theories of Stanislavski being put into practice. In 1956, when he was back in Brazil, he joined the Arena Theatre in Sao Paulo where he worked on giving classics of world theatre a Brazilian feeling. By the end of the 1960s, Boal had developed a set of techniques that he called Theatre of the Oppressed, influenced by Brecht and Paulo Friere. Theatre of the Oppressed was based on the concept that theatre is a way of life that everybody could participate in rather than just a single event to attend. All human beings are actors and spectators because they act and observe all the time. Boal called these people “spect-actors.” The only difference between actors in a theatre and everyday people is that actors are conscious of what they are doing and what feelings they are conveying while the people on the street do not realize they are speaking theatre. He would often pause a performance to allow the audience to have an input on what they were watching and to break apart the wall that existed between actors and the audience. This was part of what was known as forum theatre. The development of it happened accidentally when an audience member could not get her idea through to the actor so went on stage to act it out for herself. Forum theatre involved actors performing a play with a scripted core once, then a second time to allow audience participation where spect-actors replace the actual actors. In 1986, Boal was invited by Darcy Ribeiro to create the Popular Theatre Factory with the goal to make theatre available to all people; in the same year, he created a Brazilian centre for the Theatre of the Oppressed in Rio which took his ideas of audience participation out on the streets. This was called invisible theatre where a play that has already been rehearsed will be acted out in the streets without the passersby knowing it is a play. The plays performed address a certain issue, such as racism or sexism, and some actors pretend to be passersby and comment on the issue to encourage real passersby to do the same. Boal’s goal was to get the community to discuss the issue and notice the violence present in society.

JULIET

Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins,
That almost freezes up the heat of life:
I'll call them back again to comfort me:
Nurse! What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.
Come, vial.
What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then to-morrow morning?
No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there.

Laying down her dagger

What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly hath minister'd to have me dead,
Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour'd,
Because he married me before to Romeo?
I fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not,
For he hath still been tried a holy man.
How if, when I am laid into the tomb,
I wake before the time that Romeo
Come to redeem me? there's a fearful point!
Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not very like,
The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place,--
As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,
Where, for these many hundred years, the bones
Of all my buried ancestors are packed:
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say,
At some hours in the night spirits resort;--
Alack, alack, is it not like that I,
So early waking, what with loathsome smells,
And shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad:--
O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these hideous fears?
And madly play with my forefather's joints?
And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And, in this rage, with some great kinsman's bone,
As with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O, look! methinks I see my cousin's ghost
Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body
Upon a rapier's point: stay, Tybalt, stay!
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.

Using Boal’s theory, this monologue by Juliette would be acted out by a participating audience member. After having seen the tragic repercussions, the audience member would be allowed to attempt to change the outcome by altering some lines or actions. However, they cannot completely change the play but instead try to throw off the oppression found in it, which, in this case, would be the argument between the parents that forces Romeo and Juliette to keep their love quiet.

Another one of Boal’s ideas was image theatre. Each person “sculpts” themselves or another person to represent a specific situation or emotion. Then, all of the people move into one group and use the images they have just created to form one picture. Since Boal believed the body to be the most important form of expression, participants are encouraged to immediately form an image rather than thinking about it. The images can be altered until all the people agree on the last picture to fully represent what they think of the idea.

Eight-Lined Dialogue

This was the first time I was exposed to acting, I believe (besides the pantomimes). It was actually a lot more fun than I had originally thought. You get to become someone else and even if I'm not very good at it, I cannot deny how awesome it was to see everyone say the same lines but make it seem different. It's almost like a magical power. My partner was Dhara and we chose to go with our characters being a twelve-year-old kid and a parent after a fight because I was dying to say it in a crying voice. My mind immediately connected the two because "Don't you like me?" seemed like something a kid would think after their parent yelled at them. I used to do that all the time. My mom would yell at me and I thought she didn't love me anymore so I would need to ask her to make sure. Anyways, a lot of people did a couple but they all had different context and it was centered around a different issue in each one. For example, Cindy and Anna were a married couple and it seemed like Cindy's character was having an affair or something and no longer loved Anna so she had to ask if she still liked her. Iris and Jackie made theirs really funny by making Jackie's character a slobbish jerk so that Iris's character had to ask if she liked her since Jackie hadn't been paying very much attention. I think this is going to motivate me to try out for the musical because it's just so dang interesting. I cannot seem to get over this. It's almost like an epiphany.

PPP Stimulus and Pitch

This is one of the four important parts of the curriculum for IB Theatre. From a few random pictures, music pieces, or random anythings, we need to create a pitch for a play or production that was inspired by those. I am incredibly lacking in the imagination department so this is desperately difficult for me. Our group chose this song about ghosts or something as our stimulus and I have no idea where they came up with creepy ghost story about a girl who seems like a freak to the rest of the world. The girl was to be shunned by society because of her clairvoyancy only to meet someone that finally understands her and dies. I personally, thought the song sounded rather happy and I was leaning towards Casper the Friendly Ghost or whatever that movie is called. But I guess not. Anyways, the way people interpreted their own stimuli was really interesting. Everyone had such different ideas. The one that Celestine and Anna's group had was really cool but I think letting the audience choose how the story will go is a bit confusing. What if the audience members don't agree? How are the authors going to keep all that straight? I guess it would be fun to see how it works out though. I have no idea how anyone expects me to do this on my own next year especially if there is the need to understand staging and lights, too. Those are not exactly my forte.

Peer-Counseling Activity

This activity was actually very fun even though it started out slightly awkward because no one had anything to say. Not only did it take up class time, we could sit there and talk about whatever it was that we wanted to (sort of). For building up friendships, the ideas started out all proper and expected like respect and trust but gradually evolved into suggestiong like Cue! and some ramen store. I don't think this activity really brought our group together though. I still don't really talk to any of the seniors and they sometimes seems a bit intimidating just because they're seniors and I'm a junior. Maybe it's just a mentality thing for me. This has happened every single year except fifth grade and eighth grade. For things that destroy friendships and prevent people from getting to know each other, I thought that our list seemed a bit cliche since our first words were dishonesty and gossip. Those are lessons we're taught since we learned how to speak. My mom always told me not to lie for as far as I can remember. The situation we were given was a bit hard to come up with a solution to though. I honestly cannot say that I would speak up and get an adult if a kid was being bullied, especially if the people bullying him had the power to make my life miserable. The scenario we were given was also hard because it could not be interpreted as whether the kid was making fists because he was angry or if he was upset. I wouldn't want to accidentally bring an adult in when he was just trying to prevent himself from crying because there had been something going on in his family or something. Life is full of really hard choices.

Folktale/Fable Storytelling

I am one of the performers in our story, "Dancing with the Devil." I play the main character's mom and do the music. I only have about two lines but that's not very important right now. I guess I lack the charismatic voice that is needed to tell the story because I add emotions to sentences that aren't supposed to have that emotion. I don't know. I can't really explain it that well. Anyways, storytelling is quite a lot harder than our school librarian in elementary school had made it seem. (I seem to be discovering that everything drama-related is a lot harder than it looks at first). The balance between dramatizing the story and just speaking it is hard to achieve. Storytelling is an art that takes skill and the ability to keep the audience focused on what you are saying while showing them a bit of what is actually happening. I never thought of it that way before. It used to be that storytelling, for me, was just reciting a story that you had heard from somewhere else before. Storytelling is very strongly connected to the culture of a country or region.

Oedipus: Mask

I didn't know how to scan my mask onto here so I guess I'll just turn it in at the end of the semester, but I needed to blog about something. For my mask, I did the scene where Oedipus stabbed his eyes out because it was the easiest one to interpret. I did my mask like the Phantom of the Opera's, partially because I love that movie and musical but mostly because I thought the Phantom and Oedipus were a bit similiar. The Phantom is tormented by the disfiguration on his face which causes people to judge and prejudice against him while Oedipus is tormented by the fact that he had murdered his father, married his mother, and caused a curse to be placed over his kingdom. My mask is completely black except for the blood dripping from his eyes because black is the color of evil and I guess I think it's evil that he killed his dad and had kids with his mom. I believe that that's a tad bit weird and strange and not right. But maybe that's just me.

Pantomime with Music

This was virtually the same as the first pantomime but it was a bit more complicated because of the music. I originally started by trying to find music that would inspire me into thinking of a storyline for my pantomime, but that didn't work out particularly well. Iris had hiccups during class one day and I thought it was pretty funny so I decided to make that my pantomime. Finding music was a little bit hard because I wanted something that sounded happy and fun but most movie music (which is like some of the only music that doesn't have any words at all) was slower and too tranquil for my pantomime. Eventually, one of my friends found an instrumental of some random song by some random band I've never heard of before that fit really well. However, the beats didn't really go with my movements but I was beyond caring at that point. I still have stagefright performing in front of people so my heartbeat still went into completely-gone-crazy mode when my turn came. This time was a bit better than the first pantomime that we did though, so I'm pretty happy about that. The mood fit my hiccups pantomime even if the beat was off by a lot so I'm very excited. I think this class is helping me overcome my public speaking and selfconsciousness issues bit by bit.

Oedipus: Greek Chorus

The Greeks never cease to amaze me at their level of advancement. They always seem to be a step ahead of everyone else, even many cultures that came a few hundred years after theirs. Even in theatre, they were great. Being in a Greek chorus is a lot harder than it seems like it would be. With the movements, the speeches, and the togetherness, these actors had one of the toughest jobs in the whole play. Although the individual actors had more lines and movements, they didn't need to work around acting as one with a whole mob of other people. I don't think that the Greek chorus was given as much credit as it should receive. Although the tradition began to die out, it was the beginning of Greek theatre. It may not be the most interesting subject in the world (which it's not), but the componenents in it are cool. First, there's music which needed to match with the movements the chorus did. During our performance, it was hard to come up with anything except a simple beat when people were speaking. Either the music (or basically drumming) didn't go along with what was being said or was too distracting. Attempting to find a balance between that was quite difficult. Also, the movements tended to be distracting as well and we would sometimes accidentally run into each other. Eventually, our group just settled for a bit of random posing that couldn't contradict what was being said or required much movement. The people in the original Greek chorus must have had to practice forever on that seeing as how they had almost fifty people sometimes and we only had four but we failed at it. Lastly, the lines were a bit hard to say as well. It was not just because of the langauge either. Talking at the same time as one being was CRAZY. Some words came out all jumbled because separate people said them all at different times or ended up mumbling because we couldn't tell where the other person was. Greek people were way too advanced for that time period and I'm sure that they would fit in great even now.

Oedipus: General

Changing my perspective from reading Oedipus as an English student to a drama student wasn't very hard. That's probably just because I've never been good at English anyways so I can't easily see the things that need to be analyzed and actually mean something else. But it was still pretty exciting. I really like the idea that I can interpret the play MY way and not by what the author had secretly hidden into his writing. The thing about Oedipus and his fate that he wasn't supposed to change and something else were way too like English for me to understand very well. It was a little bit interesting but I think that designing sets are much more fun. Greek theatre is a bit complicated though. And although Socrates's Oedipus was the basis for Aristotle's list about what an ideal play should contain, I didn't think that it was all that great. That might only be because the language was extremely difficult though. I had to reread everything almost three times just to understand SOME of it. Not even all of it. Reading the summary of it really helped though. I love these tragedies where really insanely bad things happen. It wouldn't be that great if it was in real life, but in plays, I think they're some of the best comedies ever (even if they're not meant to be comedies). It's very ironic how his father tries to change his son from killing him and Oedipus leaves his home to be far away from the man he thought was his father but they both still do what they are attempting to stop. Maybe it's just a slightly twisted sense of humor state of mind I'm in right now, but I really love how Oedipus gouges his eyes out. It makes me eyes hurt just thinking about it, but it's very extreme and I can't imagine anyone actually doing that to themselves which makes it almost funny to me.

Pantomime

Pantomime was a completely new experience for me. For some inexplicable reason, I was really nervous going up there. I had worse butterflies than for piano recitals or any other performances. Anyways, pantomime is really hard, the way you need to keep track of all the objects you used, where everything is, and not accidentally walking through something that was supposed to be solid. Mimes make it look so easy the way they can just walk imaginary dogs and trap themselves in a box like it was real. I also finally understood why they wear the clothes they do with the make-up. It just shows how extremely talented they are. They don't incorporate ANYTHING that may tell the audience what they are trying to show but instead they communicate so well through their actions that it seems so obvious. It was pretty cool watching everyone else do their pantomimes, too, because everyone had such different ideas and concepts. I found it extremely difficult to keep track of where my faucet was and I didn't even realize that I just forgot about the towel I was holding. It just disappeared into thin air like I was Luna Lovegood or someone cool like that (I noticed that I make a lot of references to Harry Potter). Not being able to talk when I thought my actions weren't clear enough was hard, too. I felt like no one would understand what I was trying to do. It was pretty awesome how people could tell though.

That Zooming Out Story

This was actually a very interesting exercise. Although it seemed rather simple when we first saw the pictures, I never realized how much the little details could change a whole story. It was extremely difficult to figure out WHY the story didn't zoom in, but rather, zoomed out. If I tried to do it on my own, there is no way that I would have been able to figure it out. Maybe I'm just naturally unobservant, but I think the environment the people in my generation have grown up in has just changed us. With internet and television, everything is just shoved in our faces without us having to do much work. For example, when I'm looking for a specific word on a page, all I need to do now is press Ctrl and F then type in the word. Before computers, I would have had to go to the library, look for the book, look it up in the index, then search for the word on the page. There's a huge possibility that I'm just making up excuses by now. The exercise did open my eyes to how intricate everything is and that if I only look at the surface, there are so many things that I could be missing. Creating a story to go along with the pictures was pretty hard, too. Right now, the only thing I can think of to go with the pictures, is that one of Voldemort's Horcruxes was the chicken. Somehow, it developed its own sense of feelings and realized what was going on. By traveling through the toy town, the advertisement of a cruise, the television, and the stamp, it finally discovered real people that it could take over. After transferring itself from the postman to the tribe's chief, it finally settled for the pilot so it could fly back to England and resurrect Voldemort. I just reread the whole Harry Potter spin-off I just wrote. It doesn't make much sense but it still doesn't change the fact that the story the pictures told and the specific direction it had to go in was pretty awesome.

Julie Taymor

On December 15, 1952, Julie Taymor was born. Her talent in theatre and performing arts was revealed at an early age when she began to put on shows with her sister in the backyard. She joined the Boston Children's Theatre Company at the age of 10 and went to Paris to study at a mime school. Although she knew she was headed for a career in theatre, she earned a degree in folklore and mythology rather than following a conventional theatre curriculum. However, she also studied with Joseph Chaikin's Open Theatre in New York City. In 1974, she traveled to Japan and Indonesia to study the forms of foreign theatre. She believes that an ancient ceremony performed by male elders of a village in Bali has informed and inspired all of her work. Fast forward past dazzling productions of The Tempest, The King Stag, Juan Darien, a Carnival Mass, Titus Andronicus, and The Green Bird to 1997 when her greatest success appeared in the form od Disney's Lion King. Since the Disney officials could not figure out a way to costume and act out their greatest animated triumph because the characters were all animals, they turned to Julie Taymor who, by then, was known for her out-of-the-box thinking. She directed the production, designed the costumes, co-designed the masks and puppets, and rewrote many of the film's scenes and songs. Elephants were played by four people, the actors playing giraffes were on stilts, and there were over 100 puppets representing over 25 different animal species. The Lion King is still running on Broadway now, while Julie Taymor has gone on to create films as well as more productions and musicals.