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.