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Social Issue: Teenage Development – Puberty
Directors: Lauren Jamieson, Kaushal Puran
Group Members: Arin, Manife, Anshu
Theatre for development was a very interesting phase of our course. It was absolute fun to work in and the way that everyone contributed to the final show product was truly inspirational. That’s not without saying that we didn’t have our difficult times, like people not turning up for rehearsals on time, or not turning up at all, even for the final performance. But let me begin from the beginning…
We started our rehearsals with an in class session of brainstorming various ideas on what social/environmental issue that we could work with. We came up with several different ideas like:
Suicide Prevention
Peer Pressure
HIV/AIDS
And the one that we picked was: Puberty. We had come up with a lot of different ideas that we could use to tie in our issue. I had several stories from personal experience. The one that Lauren and Kaushal found really funny was one where a friend of mine had her first period in class and she thought that she was going to die from all that blood loss; she kept screaming over and over again, “I’m dying!” at the top of her lungs. Our form teacher had to take her out of the class and explain to her that what she had was her first period and that she wasn’t dying. Lauren thought that we could use that story very well. N.B. we all decided to tryout a comedic approach to the play. It wasn’t going to be funny all through out; it would all come to a point where the audience could see the point to all our stories. But I’m rushing ahead of myself.
When we sat down as a team after all the brainstorming, Lauren and Kaushal came up with the idea of pre-arranging our rehearsals to work around our collective timetables. I was fine; I had no classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so I didn’t have much to worry about. Our timetable was like this:
Mondays – 4 to 6pm
Tuesdays – In class
Wednesday s – 4 to 6pm
Thursdays – In class
Fridays – 11am to 1pm
There were no weekend rehearsals because we decided to have the weekends as a break from work. After we had planned our timetable for rehearsals, several things happened that we couldn’t have prepared for. Like for one, the Performance Space was booked from Monday to Wednesday in our first week of rehearsals during the hours we had wanted to use it. It was hard, especially since we only had three weeks to work through our concepts, get our blocking down and sell the issue to Ian for approval. He did approve only that we needed to focus on what it was we were presenting. One good point he emphasized was that in doing developmental theatre, one must always be precise; in movement, blocking and speech. If we aren’t precise about what it is we’re doing then the audience will only be left confused and we would’ve lost the whole plot.
If there was one thing that made it a little tough for me, it was me having to be the one to carry the performance through. Of course there were others in the group but Ian had reminded Kaushal and Lauren that I could be the X-factor they needed in the team. Well, I did get a major ego boost from that statement but it also made it a little difficult for me to focus on my characterization. I had to play several characters in the play:
1. The closet homosexual
2. An Indian father of two
3. An English teacher
4. An over enthused P.E. teacher
The others in the team played the following:
Anshu – A skinny girl who thinks she’s fat
Manife – A geeky loner in need of friends
Arin – A wannabe who wants a girlfriend badly
One of the hardest things about working with my team mates was trying to get them to stay in character and visualize what their characters could look like or should act in real life. Arin was the worst. Not only was he late for a lot of practices, he also has this irritating habit for disappearing in the middle of rehearsals to check his email or bebo somewhere and then return like nothing happened. Then there’s Anshu. I don’t know where to begin with this girl. She’s got great potential to do well in acting, she just isn’t using her full potential and she can’t raise her voice louder than normal conversation level. The one thing I found irritating with her performance in the rehearsal level was the fact that she never wanted to change or add to her lines once she had memorized them. I tried to help her clean up her lines so she’s not so repetitive but she didn’t want to change her lines because to her it would be too difficult to remember the new lines. Here’s an example of a change to her lines:
Old line: You think I’m fat don’t you? I know you all think that I’m fat!
New: You think I’m fat don’t you? Look at me! I’m fat!
Now is that so difficult to remember? Anyway, back to the case at hand, it didn’t matter how bad she was, she didn’t make it for the final performance assessment. She fell sick with the flu in the final week of rehearsals and so missed the final changes to our script and then there was a death in her family so she couldn’t perform, which left Lauren no choice but to step into her place. I couldn’t have asked for anything better! She helped me get back into focus with my characterization. This only left one irritation left to me: Arin.
Arin had added a new chapter to his acting, constantly laughing; at nothing. Lauren and Kaushal would often be left exasperated at him. It didn’t matter how many times I threatened to do bodily harm to him, he just wouldn’t stop laughing. Then there’s the case of him not being able to speak out loud because it wasn’t normal for him. Lauren and I tried several techniques we knew of but none of them worked. One of the ideas was to talk out loud to him and get him to respond at the same level as you were. Here’s an example:
Me: ARIN! WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR LUNCH TODAY?
Arin: I had roti
Me: WHAT?
Arin: Roti
Lauren: I CAN’T HEAR YOU?
(Arin laughs yet again)
But despite it all, the one thing I was grateful for was being able to watch Manife grow and develop her character. She pulled off an amazing rendition of the dorky loner. Out of all of us, I think she did the best considering that we only had three weeks to work and she’s always on time for rehearsals and sends her apologies to either Lauren or Kaushal if she’s not able to be there on time. Manife did real good on this performance, better than all her other performances I think.
Speaking of performances, this play has to be the most improvised play I have ever done. Of course there were lines that we had rehearsed along with the blocking but they were only cues that we needed to use so that we can move along with the story. Our first public performance gig was a dress rehearsal on Tuesday (3/06). It was an absolute blast and real fun too, the only downside to it was me fumbling and laughing at my own jokes in the middle of performance (a big no! no!). The best part of it was getting the audience feedback for our work. I had several friends come to watch our performance and give me some pointers on what I could clear up. It really helped. I was definitely prepared me for our Thursday performance.
The final performance assessment was an absolute sell out! We were five minutes to show time and the space was filled only with theatre students and 3 extra people. So Fabiana ran out and pulled people in to watch our performance. We had a full house that day. The space was packed out! There were even people standing at the doorway watching our performance. It was awesome!
Pretty soon, our group performance came up. It was fun, crazy at some points and scary even! We got so caught up with how big the crowd was that we had forgotten most of our cues and everything had to happen by improv. It was especially hard for me; I was trying so hard not to laugh at my own jokes that I lost concentration and missed out some important lines and cues. The whole experience was exhilarating and totally mind-blowing! I felt such an adrenaline rush performing; it was a performance like no other.
Overall, the final performance assignment was a real learning experience for me and for my team mates. I learned that sometimes it’s not easy working with others in a play, sometimes I had to learn to accept the fact that I can’t do everything for everyone else and that I had to focus on what character I was playing. Precision is everything in developmental theatre and that’s one thing I will always remember. It was a true privilege to work with Lauren and Kaushal and alongside Anshu, Arin and most of all Manife.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Time to go to work
TUESDAY 22 APRIL 2008
We're in class today, all the groups, and of all the groups here, ours is the only one with a working script. YAY! Pritina was so excited by the idea that we were way ahead of the other groups by way of preparation... i don't understand why they didn't utilize the mid-semester break to do some work like we did. I'm just glad that we can use the coming weeks to work on our blocking and memorising our lines.
We started work on our first scene, trying to work out some of the blocking issues, like how we enter on stage and how we introduce our characters. Pritina explained every step to us and she encouraged us to work out for ourselves how our characters should act in space.
We couldn't do much because the other groups had to do some work in space too so we lef it off to continue tomorrow.
We're in class today, all the groups, and of all the groups here, ours is the only one with a working script. YAY! Pritina was so excited by the idea that we were way ahead of the other groups by way of preparation... i don't understand why they didn't utilize the mid-semester break to do some work like we did. I'm just glad that we can use the coming weeks to work on our blocking and memorising our lines.
We started work on our first scene, trying to work out some of the blocking issues, like how we enter on stage and how we introduce our characters. Pritina explained every step to us and she encouraged us to work out for ourselves how our characters should act in space.
We couldn't do much because the other groups had to do some work in space too so we lef it off to continue tomorrow.
Humpty Dumpty
Thursday 10 April 2008
Well, what I had forgotten to mention in my previous entry was the two exercises that Apete took us through in order to prepare us for our work on Story Theatre. The first exercise was on how to work as a group. The monologue was a solitary piece, where we worked on our own with our respective directors; story theatre on the other hand was group work and it required us to work together as a group. No matter how easy that sounds its one of the most difficult things for us to do as peers of roughly the same age.
The first exercise was a machine game. We were broken up into groups and then each group had to work out how to better represent a machine. My group was given the task of acting out a “Drive-Through Car Wash”. It was fairly simple; we only had to work out who was going to act out the different cycles of the machine, i.e. Wash, Soap, Rinse, Dry and Wax. Me? I was the car.
When each group was ready, we acted out our individual machines and the other groups had to guess what the machine was. You could say that ours was fairly obvious. But that was just the first round, the next round we got back into our groups and had to work out another machine that requires everyone working together as one. So we came up with a train. Each of us made up a segment of the train and then we had to move together as one. Siteri and I made up the end bit of the train while the others made up the rest of the train body and we all moved together with a chug and a toot!
We had a pretty good train going but Apete said that we had stuff working against us, like why was Ellen in the front of the train when the train controller sits in the middle, not hanging out front of the machine. That was a fairly good point and even though Pritina fought the issue, I decided to concede the point. I understood what Apete was saying; if you’re gonna act out a machine, you have to do it right and make sure that its understandable, especially when you’re working in Story theatre where an actor may be asked to become a prop like a chair, or an inanimate object like a tree, and in the most extreme cases if the play demands it, a complex machine.
The second exercise was one where we had to act out a nursery rhyme. Arin, Koushal, Lauren, Judy and I were grouped together to do Humpty Dumpty. First we had to recite the rhyme as a chorus, and then from there, act it out while reciting it. It was pretty good. The next part of the exercise was for us to work out a story to the rhyme. Why did Humpty want to get on the wall? How did Humpty get on the wall? What made him fall off? What were the Kings Soldiers and Horses doing there?
This is a general idea of our story:
In a Kingdom far, far away, a special day was arriving; it was the Spring Festival! It was the biggest festival in the entire land with a circus and even a parade of all the Kings Horses and Men.
Humpty Dumpty was a jolly egg man who loved festivals; the spring festival he loved most of all. He was truly excited by all the preparations happening all over the land. The only problem was that he always missed the parade because he was too short to see above the people’s heads; he desperately wanted to watch the parade.
He saw a tall wall, newly built and strong. He tried to climb up the wall but still he was too short to reach up and grab a handhold. Just then a bunch of knights on their horses came by and saw Humpty’s plight. They offered to give him a lift up to the wall so he could watch the parade and afterwards bring him down again. Humpty agreed and they hoisted him up onto the wall. Humpty Dumpty was so happy and excited by what he could see from on top the wall; he could see the whole Kingdom! The parade began and Humpty watched the whole thing from his perch on the wall. Once things started getting exciting, Humpty started to stand on the wall and move about so he could get a better look of the parade, but he craned out too far and fell off the wall with a sickening crack! He was an egg after all.
The Kings men saw what had happened and immediately tried to piece Humpty back together again but it didn’t work; he was too broken up to be fixed. So they buried him and on his tombstone were written the words of the rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the Kings horses
And all the Kings men
Couldn’t put Humpty back together again
R.I.P
Yeah, so that’s how our story turned out and I have to say I was pretty proud of our feat, because Ian and Apete agreed that it was a good story with all the elements of a good story.
All in all the two exercises put me in the right frame of mind on what we could do for our story theatre. It has to be a group initiative with good chorus work and most of all, we have to tell a story.
Well, what I had forgotten to mention in my previous entry was the two exercises that Apete took us through in order to prepare us for our work on Story Theatre. The first exercise was on how to work as a group. The monologue was a solitary piece, where we worked on our own with our respective directors; story theatre on the other hand was group work and it required us to work together as a group. No matter how easy that sounds its one of the most difficult things for us to do as peers of roughly the same age.
The first exercise was a machine game. We were broken up into groups and then each group had to work out how to better represent a machine. My group was given the task of acting out a “Drive-Through Car Wash”. It was fairly simple; we only had to work out who was going to act out the different cycles of the machine, i.e. Wash, Soap, Rinse, Dry and Wax. Me? I was the car.
When each group was ready, we acted out our individual machines and the other groups had to guess what the machine was. You could say that ours was fairly obvious. But that was just the first round, the next round we got back into our groups and had to work out another machine that requires everyone working together as one. So we came up with a train. Each of us made up a segment of the train and then we had to move together as one. Siteri and I made up the end bit of the train while the others made up the rest of the train body and we all moved together with a chug and a toot!
We had a pretty good train going but Apete said that we had stuff working against us, like why was Ellen in the front of the train when the train controller sits in the middle, not hanging out front of the machine. That was a fairly good point and even though Pritina fought the issue, I decided to concede the point. I understood what Apete was saying; if you’re gonna act out a machine, you have to do it right and make sure that its understandable, especially when you’re working in Story theatre where an actor may be asked to become a prop like a chair, or an inanimate object like a tree, and in the most extreme cases if the play demands it, a complex machine.
The second exercise was one where we had to act out a nursery rhyme. Arin, Koushal, Lauren, Judy and I were grouped together to do Humpty Dumpty. First we had to recite the rhyme as a chorus, and then from there, act it out while reciting it. It was pretty good. The next part of the exercise was for us to work out a story to the rhyme. Why did Humpty want to get on the wall? How did Humpty get on the wall? What made him fall off? What were the Kings Soldiers and Horses doing there?
This is a general idea of our story:
In a Kingdom far, far away, a special day was arriving; it was the Spring Festival! It was the biggest festival in the entire land with a circus and even a parade of all the Kings Horses and Men.
Humpty Dumpty was a jolly egg man who loved festivals; the spring festival he loved most of all. He was truly excited by all the preparations happening all over the land. The only problem was that he always missed the parade because he was too short to see above the people’s heads; he desperately wanted to watch the parade.
He saw a tall wall, newly built and strong. He tried to climb up the wall but still he was too short to reach up and grab a handhold. Just then a bunch of knights on their horses came by and saw Humpty’s plight. They offered to give him a lift up to the wall so he could watch the parade and afterwards bring him down again. Humpty agreed and they hoisted him up onto the wall. Humpty Dumpty was so happy and excited by what he could see from on top the wall; he could see the whole Kingdom! The parade began and Humpty watched the whole thing from his perch on the wall. Once things started getting exciting, Humpty started to stand on the wall and move about so he could get a better look of the parade, but he craned out too far and fell off the wall with a sickening crack! He was an egg after all.
The Kings men saw what had happened and immediately tried to piece Humpty back together again but it didn’t work; he was too broken up to be fixed. So they buried him and on his tombstone were written the words of the rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the Kings horses
And all the Kings men
Couldn’t put Humpty back together again
R.I.P
Yeah, so that’s how our story turned out and I have to say I was pretty proud of our feat, because Ian and Apete agreed that it was a good story with all the elements of a good story.
All in all the two exercises put me in the right frame of mind on what we could do for our story theatre. It has to be a group initiative with good chorus work and most of all, we have to tell a story.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Script Draft #1
It's done, it's finally done. the first draft of our script it done and we're all pretty excited about it. Today, we worked out the kinks in the blocking and Pritina and Farrah walked us through some of the basics like:
1. Talk to the audience and not to each other.
2. Speak loud, don't shout, just be audible
3. Visualise the character you're playing (esp for Judy and Lauren)
4. Listen to your DIRECTORS! (very important)
Now, i just realised that i haven't told you who the characters are, so here we go, in order of appearence:
JUDY - HAZEL
LAUREN - GRETEL
NATASHA - WOODCUTTER FATHER, TREE, COTTAGE, CAGE, OVEN
SAILOSI (ME!) - STEPMOM, BIRD, TOAD, TREE, COTTAGE, WITCH
Yes ladies and gentlemen, i am the witch of the play. Pritina and Farrah are a little skeptical about me playing the witch, but i'll show them. They don't know that i've played the role of a witch several times.
If you have to know, when i was growing up in Malaysia, my school did a production on "The Wizard of Oz" and I was an understudy for the Wicked Witch of the East. You should hear my cackle! God i'm evil...lol
Yeah so, that's about it for today's rehearsal, we're meeting again next week Tuesday in class for some more work on our blocking with maybe Ian or Apete's help.
1. Talk to the audience and not to each other.
2. Speak loud, don't shout, just be audible
3. Visualise the character you're playing (esp for Judy and Lauren)
4. Listen to your DIRECTORS! (very important)
Now, i just realised that i haven't told you who the characters are, so here we go, in order of appearence:
JUDY - HAZEL
LAUREN - GRETEL
NATASHA - WOODCUTTER FATHER, TREE, COTTAGE, CAGE, OVEN
SAILOSI (ME!) - STEPMOM, BIRD, TOAD, TREE, COTTAGE, WITCH
Yes ladies and gentlemen, i am the witch of the play. Pritina and Farrah are a little skeptical about me playing the witch, but i'll show them. They don't know that i've played the role of a witch several times.
If you have to know, when i was growing up in Malaysia, my school did a production on "The Wizard of Oz" and I was an understudy for the Wicked Witch of the East. You should hear my cackle! God i'm evil...lol
Yeah so, that's about it for today's rehearsal, we're meeting again next week Tuesday in class for some more work on our blocking with maybe Ian or Apete's help.
Working in space
THURSDAY 17 MARCH 2008
Today, I was a little late; it took my bus ages to get out of the city traffic and even longer to get to school... some bus drivers just don't understand the meaning of a person in a rush! GOSH!
So, we did some work in space today on our script. It was pretty fun for me, I mean like it's a totally new experience for me to work out the script in space, as opposed to sitting in front of the computer and actually thinking out the lines. Definately something new for me. But it was a really good experience.
Standing in space, my thoughts were flowing and soon we were done with one scene and moving on to another. We constantly had to work out how to establish certain issues with characters and then from there, try and figure out a blocking for them. Judy and Natasha were an absolute wonder to work with. We couldn't do much for Lauren because she was out of Suva ~ HELLO! it's called the MID SEMESTER BREAK... i only came here because i had nothing to do at home except for watching a few dvd's and trying to look after my niece.
Back to the work at hand, we did a lot of work, soon we had completed 3/4 of the script. Tomorrow we're meeting up to finish off the final scene and we can start working on our blocking and getting the timing right.
YAY! I"m so excited about this performance assessment.
Today, I was a little late; it took my bus ages to get out of the city traffic and even longer to get to school... some bus drivers just don't understand the meaning of a person in a rush! GOSH!
So, we did some work in space today on our script. It was pretty fun for me, I mean like it's a totally new experience for me to work out the script in space, as opposed to sitting in front of the computer and actually thinking out the lines. Definately something new for me. But it was a really good experience.
Standing in space, my thoughts were flowing and soon we were done with one scene and moving on to another. We constantly had to work out how to establish certain issues with characters and then from there, try and figure out a blocking for them. Judy and Natasha were an absolute wonder to work with. We couldn't do much for Lauren because she was out of Suva ~ HELLO! it's called the MID SEMESTER BREAK... i only came here because i had nothing to do at home except for watching a few dvd's and trying to look after my niece.
Back to the work at hand, we did a lot of work, soon we had completed 3/4 of the script. Tomorrow we're meeting up to finish off the final scene and we can start working on our blocking and getting the timing right.
YAY! I"m so excited about this performance assessment.
Brainstorming... i feel a headache coming on
TUESDAY 15 MARCH 2008
It's actually mid-semester break and we've been called in by our Directors - Pritina and Farrah to do some brainstorming on what story we'll do. They came with the idea of us working on Hansel and Gretel, since no other group in the past years has ever done that story. We all agreed to try it out and well it's stuck.
we had to do some brainstorming in space to work out what could happen in each scene; it's stuff like: how do we introduce each character? do the characters have to be "as they are" or can we change them around? what's the moral that we want to present to the kids?
we came up with the following ideas:
1. The true story of Hansel and Gretel ~ it's not hansel and gretel, it's HAZEL AND GRETEL.
2. Since we didn't have a male actor to be Hansel, we switched it to Hazel just for fun
3. The morals of the story have to do with healthy eating... e.g. TOO MUCH CANDY IS BAD FOR YOU!
We worked out a few lines to the script but time had caught up with us, so we planned to meet again on Thursday at the TA space at 4pm for another round of script work.
It's actually mid-semester break and we've been called in by our Directors - Pritina and Farrah to do some brainstorming on what story we'll do. They came with the idea of us working on Hansel and Gretel, since no other group in the past years has ever done that story. We all agreed to try it out and well it's stuck.
we had to do some brainstorming in space to work out what could happen in each scene; it's stuff like: how do we introduce each character? do the characters have to be "as they are" or can we change them around? what's the moral that we want to present to the kids?
we came up with the following ideas:
1. The true story of Hansel and Gretel ~ it's not hansel and gretel, it's HAZEL AND GRETEL.
2. Since we didn't have a male actor to be Hansel, we switched it to Hazel just for fun
3. The morals of the story have to do with healthy eating... e.g. TOO MUCH CANDY IS BAD FOR YOU!
We worked out a few lines to the script but time had caught up with us, so we planned to meet again on Thursday at the TA space at 4pm for another round of script work.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Introducing... STORY THEATER
THURSDAY 10 APRIL 2008
Today's class we were separated into groups yet again for the next assignment, Story Theater. Once, again to my great relief, Pritina is my director along with Farrah, and my team mates are Natasha, Judy and Lauren. We're a team of four compared to the other groups who are teams of five.
We had to discuss what story we were going to act out as a group. Our directors had to decide upon what style of performance to use. Ian told everyone that the story theatre had to incorporate a bit of chorus work (which includes singing and sound effects). We didn't have a very long meeting, Pritina and Farrah want us to go home and think about what it was we wanted to do.
As for me, i was thinking about something like hansel and gretel or jack and the beanstalk... those are some of my favourite fairy tales. Too often when people say fairy tales they think, cinderella, snow white, sleeping beauty, they forget the good ones like those two or even something like Puss in boots... i like that story, it's short and sweet with a nice ending.
I'll write out a list of stories that i think we should do and then take it up to the next team meeting which has yet to be decided because we have mid-semester break next week and Pritina will let us know by text when we'll meet up.
That's about it for now. Keep in touch for more stuff about our story theatre work.
Today's class we were separated into groups yet again for the next assignment, Story Theater. Once, again to my great relief, Pritina is my director along with Farrah, and my team mates are Natasha, Judy and Lauren. We're a team of four compared to the other groups who are teams of five.
We had to discuss what story we were going to act out as a group. Our directors had to decide upon what style of performance to use. Ian told everyone that the story theatre had to incorporate a bit of chorus work (which includes singing and sound effects). We didn't have a very long meeting, Pritina and Farrah want us to go home and think about what it was we wanted to do.
As for me, i was thinking about something like hansel and gretel or jack and the beanstalk... those are some of my favourite fairy tales. Too often when people say fairy tales they think, cinderella, snow white, sleeping beauty, they forget the good ones like those two or even something like Puss in boots... i like that story, it's short and sweet with a nice ending.
I'll write out a list of stories that i think we should do and then take it up to the next team meeting which has yet to be decided because we have mid-semester break next week and Pritina will let us know by text when we'll meet up.
That's about it for now. Keep in touch for more stuff about our story theatre work.
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