theatri et scanae

An IB Theatre blog by the GJS Theatre Class of 2017.

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Abandoned Towers of Books Appear in New York City

Caught up in a strange whim, Shaheryar Malik disposes his collection of books in teetering piles in public spaces. Scattered across Manhattan, his book collection has been abandoned and left to fend for itself at the hands of city dwellers to decide their fates. He doesn’t wish to know what will become of his books, or what may likely happen to them in this unconventional experiment.

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billy the kid

1.  Lighting system

a.  Nature,connectionstothefiction,performance,theactor.

The lighting in billy the kid changes everytime he has a flashback which perfectly to what he did the lighting turned red(6/10) when his love at first sight was killed and it was blue(5/10)when he scored his first goal for chelsea

b.  Effects on the reception of the performance

It effects the audience by feeling the emotion he feels with the colors that symbolize’s his feeling at the time of the flashback.

  c.   Nature,function,material,relationship to the space and the body, system of their usage

The props originally was just a small hill a brick wall with a goal outline in it and a bench with some hills or grass in the background.

Props:  beach,ball,wall,background

 Relationship to the space: less props means more room to move around

 Intention: because he told the story when he was a kid he liked it in the park

 2.  Costumes,makeup,masks

a.  Function ,system, relationshipto the body

They didn’t wear mask but I think their makeup is just the simple one but for the costume is a very cool thing they did, they reused they same actor to play every role as sam play his dad and his friend at war by changing costume while billy was doing his monologue (costume hidden behind prop) all the costumes looks like they were at the right time.

  3.  Actors'performances

a.  Physical description of the actors(bodily movements, facial expression,makeup);changesi n their appearance

They move their body’s perfectly even if one of them 70 years old, the expressions on their face matches the scene they are doing, they only change appereance but only in costume and its for flash backs.

 b.  Assumed kines the siao factors, induced kinest hes i am of observers

 c.  Construction of character:actor/rolerelationship

The construction of character was built

   d.  Relationship between the actor and the group:movements,ensemblerelations,trajectories

 e.  Relationship between text and body

The relation between text and body is interesting because they have to act differently per scene for example is sam for first scene he is sam but for the next he is his dad so that’s pretty interesting

 f.  Voice:qualities,effects produced,relations to diction and song

The voice is all mostly the same for billy because hes talking about himself in the flash back but for sam he talks differently per character as sam he is much more bratty but for his war friend he is much more comforting also sam did a lot of chants for the football team chelsea

 g.  Status of the performer:past, professional situation,etc.

    4.  Functionofmusic,noise,silence

a.  Natureandcharacteristics:relationshiptoplot,diction

There weren’t a lot of music only in a couple of scenes one of them is when he was in Italy and was dancing with the lovely Italian woman but for sound effects there a lot one of them is when billy retold the story of his first goal they put up BILLY THE KID chants and when he was at war there tank noises.

b.  At what moments does it intervene? Repercussions for the rest of the performance

It happened when in the flash back he was captured by the Italians and they played the Italian national anthem in which billy and his friend were both arrested.

 5.  Rhythm of the performance

a.Rhythm of various signifying systems(exchangesofdialogue,lighting,costumes,systemsofgesture).Connection between real duration and lived.

  Duration The overall lrhythm of the performance : continuous or discontinuous rhythm ,changes of system ,connection with the mise-en-scene

  6.  Reading the plot through th emise-en-scene

a.  What story is being told?Summarizeit .Does themise-en-scene recount the same story as the text?

The real text is about the kid that dreamt about being a footballer for Chelsea FC but in the play he is a 70 year old ex-fotballer and hes telling the story about his child hood up until now to his  mate sam and in the end sam made a tribute in Stamford bridge for billy the kid.

  b.  What dramaturgical choices? Coherence or incoherence of reading?

The choices that the playwriter made is they decided to make was instead of him telling a story about a boy who grew up and became a famous footballer he told the story but in a different perspective he told the story when he was 70 years old and to his mate sam.

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into the woods - theme

Although at a glance it seems like Into the Woods is just another fairytale musical, it holds a lot of hidden meanings and messages through the symbolism and underlying theme.

Themes and Symbolism

At a glance, most people seem to think that the moral of the story is “Be careful what you wish for”. In fact, Into the Woods couldn’t be further away from that theme, instead choosing to explore themes relating to real life and its oddities.

Stray from the path - A much more important theme than “be careful what you wish for”, this one resonates throughout the entire play. Red Riding Hood strays from the path and encounters the Wolf. The Baker’s Wife strays from the path and dies. After happily ever after, a giantess comes down to crush the characters’ lives. Sondheim uses these turning points to show how life is never about following one straight path: there are always changes, and things happen even though we don’t expect them to.

Identity - In fairytales, and in real life, often we think of good and bad as black and white, an either/or. Sondheim blurs the two and presents characters of varying moralities, twisting our view of them. For example, the princes (Rapunzel’s and Cinderella’s) are often viewed by the audience as ideal happy endings for the princesses. As the story goes on, we learn that these royals are self-aggrandizing and, in the case of Cinderella’s prince, possibly adulterous -- In his own words, “I was raised to be charming, not sincere”. Another example would be the witch, whom the audience would be quick to label as the antagonist. But as the story goes on, more questions are raised: Is she really the bad one if the Baker’s father was the one who stole from her in the first place? Is she wrong for wanting to keep Rapunzel safe? In her own words: “I’m not bad, I’m not good, I’m just right!” Through these characters and others, Sondheim blurs the lines between the sterotypical label of “good” and “bad”, suggesting that a person’s identity is more than just a label.

Promiscuity - In accordance to the context of Sondheim’s time, where AIDS was an epidemic, it’s clearly unavoidable for Sondheim to put in something about sex and promiscuity. In the story, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf’s meeting is a euphemism for the exploration of sex, and the consequences of her actions are explored through the Wolf’s eating her up. However, Sondheim was progressive and openly gay, and therefore this insertion as promiscuity was not necessarily that of condemnation and discouragement of sexual activity - more like an honest reflection of real life. This is seen when Red is finally rescued and all is good again.

You are not alone - Probably the single overarching theme of the play, if there ever was one. All the characters deal with their individual problems throughout the story, but they never deal with it alone, which is something they realise towards the end. They have all been interacting on each other, relying on codependence to survive and fulfill their goals, but they only realise it at the end of the story, when they sing “No One is Alone”. This theme is also a prominent one and probably one close to Sondheim, relating to his sexuality and the fact that society at the time was probably not that accepting. This theme may have acted as a reminder that Sondheim is not alone, and he doesn’t have to face life on his own.

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into the woods

Into the Woods is a musical about several fairy tales set in the same universe, all trying to reach their storybook happy ending. The baker and his wife cannot have a child, but want one. Cinderella wants to go to the ball. Rapunzel wants to escape from her tower. The witch wants her beauty back. Jack needs to sell his cow so he and his mother can eat. Red Riding Hood is on her way to her grandmother’s. Their lives intertwine as they go into the woods, but their story isn’t over after their happy ending: the giantess in the sky is angry that Jack killed her husband, and comes down the beanstalk to wreck everyone’s lives. Cinderella is unhappy in the palace. Rapunzel has run away from her mother, the witch. 

Lighting

Since the play is set outdoors at night, the lighting is mostly of high intensity (8-10) and a basic colour. Spotlights are rarely used, but to show emphasis on a certain character/scene they use localised floodlights. The lighting is usually from the front, but there are lights placed upstage, behind the set. This angle gives the audience an overview of the stage and lets them see the stage clearly, because the outdoor setting eliminates other sources of light.

The stage lighting looks naturalistic, kind of like sunlight, because of the outdoor setting. This makes shadows look natural and gives the atmosphere a real “woods” feel.

Sound

Because it’s a musical, most of the sound is background music for the actors to sing. Contrary to typical stage musicals, the orchestra is not visible by the audience, which implies that the music is either pre-recorded or the orchestra is behind the stage. All singing and acting is delivered live by the actors.

Set Design

The play itself is performed in a proscenium arch stage. It is outdoors, so the trees behind the set give off a natural, real “into the woods” feel. The stage location and distance from the audience really sets the invisible fourth wall, so the actor-audience relationship is purely an actor-observer one. 

The entire play occurs on one set, so the scene changes are signified by lighting on different sections of the set. The entire set is made of wood with only rustic colours in order to give off a naturalistic forest feeling.

There are only minor props and furniture; they are placed by the chorus who are in costume to make it seem like they belong. The animals are portrayed by humans who hold them; for example the cow is held by a human, and the birds are twigs held by the chorus.

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THE RACE

Amit Lahav plays the happy guy who discovers he'll be a dad when he receives a symbolic phone call: opening a mysterious ringing box, he sticks his hand inside. Across the stage, a spotlight shows what's happening inside the box, as a hand crawls across a woman's stomach, groping at the new life inside, presumably. Its a symbolisation

Mom, Dad and siblings express their pride and excitement in a funny scene of family joy. they all jumpy of excitement. but it all end with the line “So how are you going to cope?” Which means how is he going to survive?

That is when the question struct Amits head. How is he going to manage? in the play he realised that he cannot cope with having a baby, which he expressed in movements. He starts to move violently as a symbol to harm his body, and realise that he cannot manage yet to have another child. He also epressed his feeling by shouting to a laptop and breaking glasses

The actors are trained in dance or physical theater, and move, together and individually,

The show begins and ends with the actors running, which symbolizes race against time.

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he has no idea

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yeezy yeezy yeezy just jumped over jumpman

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TADEUZ KANTOR - THE DEAD CLASS 

The Dead Class is a play that tells the impossibility of returning to a persons past or childhood. It usually represents a bad past.

The Dead Class is a closed theatre, which means that it forced the viewers to focus on the message of the play. The artist coordinates the closeness of the play by dividing areas of the stage. They separated the stage from the audience with a rope and set up wooden “corners”. The actor himself stood on the same side as the actors. 

Cantor used mannequins frequently throughout the play. The wax mannequins resembled “the trade of offence” and “the message of death”.

The main characters of the play were older men who returned to their school desks after many years, carrying backpacks and mannequins. The mannequins resembled the dark men’s childhood. The men entered the stage with annoying voices and sounds repeatedly. A lesson then takes place, and the senior pupils make faces, crying, and shoving each other; which represents bad past. Usually the story is about men that returned from World War.

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 TADEUZ KANTOR - THEATRE OF DEATH

Tadeusz Kantor was a Polish painter, scene designer and theatre director. He was born 1915 in Wielopole and died in December 1990 in Krakow

The Dead Class (1975) is one of Kantor’s famous  theatre pieces. After its performance at the Documenta Kassel, it was shown worldwide, winning many awards including OBIE in New York. Within the piece, Kantor himself took the role of a master of ceremonies, conducting his actors - seemly dead characters who are confronted by mannequins which represented their younger selves.

With the Dead Class, Kantor proposed a Theatre of Death in a theatrical tour de force, which explored the determination of memory and its connection with time and the construction of history. This interpenetration of life and death created powerful and disturbing images and comic, joyous, and terrifying at the same time

Kantor's Love and Death Machine, staged with Italian actors in Milan in 1987, was to become another mile stone in theatre history. Further, his works were I Shall Never Return (1988) and Today is My Birthday (1990).

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Kafka’s Monkey

Red Peter is a former ape who makes a report to an academy, about his time being an ape. Red Peter doesn’t remember much about his ape life but tried to recall as much memory as he can.

Red Peter was an ape who was captured from an African jungle and caged on a ship to Europe. He was kept in a really small cage that he could neither stand nor sit. The Europeans from the ship would sometimes mock him as an ape. The only way Red Peter could escape captivity was to learn the human behavior, and eventually become one. He learned to shake people’s hands and learned to talk like a European. The only thing he could not master was to drink alcohol. Once they arrived in Europe, he had a choice to live in a zoo or the music hall. He chose the continue the human life even though he had no desire to become a human.

The play ended with Red Peter exiting with an alcohol problem.

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verbatim theatre

Verbatim Theatre is constructed by bits of interviews of people, recordings of scenes, and other documentary-like features.

The stories usually convey some sort of strong message, usually something political. The docudrama feeling gives a more serious and ‘real’ tone to it so that the audience can feel more in touch with the production and the message conveyed.

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Avant Garde theatre is a type of theatre that evolves as theatre evolves. Avant Garde theatre is always trying to break the common norms within theatre with its absurdity. Avant Garde theatre has had so many practitioners introducing new methods, that it has become so hard to define it, as it is always in a flowing process. Some Avant Garde practitioners are Alfred Jarry, Peter Brook, Luigi Pirandello and Richard Maxwell, Mac Wellman, and Young Jean Lee are the most recent ones. From my observation, it seems that the goal of Avant Garde theatre is to revolutionise it.

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invisible theatre methods

Invisible Theatre is a theatre company focusing on puppetry and physical properties. They host several theatre workshops which show their techniques when putting on a show.

1) They never show the puppeteer unless something has gone wrong with the way the play is going. 

2) Size is a huge role in their plays. Their artistic director says that she likes “...less important characters being smaller; microscopic worlds being projected large; dreams, asides and otherworldliness being smaller or larger to invoke the sense of a different reality”

3) The stories have a lot of “..symbols, meanings, rituals, movements, objects and characters that might be used to develop a visual story."

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GECKO THEATRE

Gecko is an award-winning international theatre, led by Artistic Director Amit Lahav.

A gecko is visual, visceral, and physical theatre. it is a theatre that is created to inspire, move, and entertain. Gecko looks for interpretation and involves their audience in the play.

Amit Lahav created a theatre that involved intense experimentation, learning and failing choreography, writing, storyboarding and reflection. Every play includes technical developments with the choreography.

Gecko Theatre involves various actors from different age, nationality, and forms. Gecko held theatre tours nationally and internationally and continue to build relationships around the world. 

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IMMERSIVE THEATRE

In Immersive Theatre, the audience are part of the story, it can be a small role in the play or also in the middle of the action.

In an immersive Theatre, the audience in some way plays a role, whether a role as a witness or an actual character. They are even allowed to walk around and explore the performance stage as the performance happens around them, allowing the audience to take control of the situation. The audience can be invited on stage by the actor anytime during the play. The audience is played on a certain timeline during the play, thus they should adapt to it really well

However, the relationship between the audience and the play can be crucial. if the actors and the audience don’t have a good bond, it could create anxiety. if the chosen audience shows lack of interest or does not want to be involved, it could make the play really awkward. 

There must be a good bond between the audience and the actor.

Immersive Theatre is originated from the 19th Century. The term “Call and Response” is when the leader in the play calls out the audience and the audience reply back. it is the element of participating. Genres such as murder and mystery theatre used this method to know the view of the audience towards the story.

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Brecht Theatre

“Epic Theatre” -plays are episodic: time gap between each act/scene can be up to weeks, months, or even years. Brecht wants his scene to be a mini play. One of Brecht’s method is “Verkremdngs effect” which means strange effect. Brecht wanted the audience to understand that the play isn’t real, at the same time bringing up real life situations. The strange He wants the audience to question and critique the play, and that isn’t possible when the audience is emotionally attached. The strange effects helps the audience grasp that understanding. When problems occur, Brecht wants the audience to think about what situations would make the characters situation better, for example.

Brecht uses alienation technique to make the audience question their morals. He also uses songs and music in the alienation technique.

Brecht Theatre reminds the audience that the play is only a play. This allows the audience think critically through the characters, and that isn’t possible when the audience is emotionally attached. Brecht was born in the Nazi time period and World War Two. He bases and is influenced by war in his plays and projects. The audience thinks critically to gain new knowledge.