Concept, concept, concept

This past week was incredibly productive for our team. On Monday we began discussing about or design areas, and finally settled for a color palette. Then we began working on the concept, and came up with a lot of ideas that came down to "destiny", though it took us longer to actually phrase it. On Tuesday we had our play rehearsal, and separated the actors into groups, gave them a scene title, time to prepare, and then they presented to us. On Thursday we did the same, but with different titles and groups. During class we presented our demo versions of product 1 for the IB. By the end of the week we managed to phrase our concept to "destiny is blind, anyone can guide it".

So far, writing the concept for the play, or at least phrasing it, has been the most difficult thing we've done so far for the play. We couldn't agree on our ideas and it became extremely frustrating for every single one of us. Hence, we began by selecting the main themes from the play, and using them and comparing them to try and come up with a main idea. After a lot of exhausting thinking, we agreed that "destiny" was our main topic, and the entire story revolved around it. Now that was the easy part, the hard thing was to put into words, an actual phrase. We came up with a million sayings and we liked none of them. Sometimes they would be extremely vague, and others too complicated. I personally was frustrated with our ideas, and i felt like none of them were good enough. We asked for help from an ex-IBer who give us guidelines on how to come up with a concept, and then it hit me. I literally felt like a light bulb lit above my head, and after i said my idea, we gave it a little teaks and came up with our concept. Honestly, i felt relieved, and like a huge weight was taken off my back.
Our first demo was really interesting to be quite honest. I found a lot of interesting information about the face expressions in kathakali, and i realized that this is a very complicated theatre tradition. As for body movements, there was hardly any information, as kathakali is purely dance, which is a problem for us since our play will mostly be movements and dance in some point. I did find several videos that taught me how to move, and it looked pretty simple. It was not. When we presented in class, i was quite confident with my presentation, and the other IBers were too. I found all of the presentations very interesting, and i feel like i judged kathakali way too fast, as i now believe it is an awesome tradition. The only issue is that we didn't get to finish all of the presentations, because Aileen was teaching another class at the same time. We all think is quite hard to work sort of on our own until our teacher comes back.
As for the rehearsal, i feel more confident about our cast, as I've been seeing a lot of talent among new people. The fact that we started incorporating some poses from kathakali into the balancing the space, has proved to be really use full, and i feel that it is essential to begin with this so the actors get used to the physical requirements of kathakali. And it makes me happy to see a lot of enthusiasm among the cast members who hardly complained, and tried hard to accomplish the positions correctly. We've also been having fun with them, which i think is very important for them not to quit feeling the play is boring. Also, now that the Form VI students finally got to direct the scenes, i feel like some weight was taken off me, and i could concentrate on acting, now that they were doing the job of directing.
In the design areas, we have been advancing a lot, and i think our proposals are pretty good, although i do not agree at all with some of the ideas in the other areas. I think our main flaw with design is the fact we all had a different color palette, so we had to settle for one, which was hard since we all had different ideas that fitted our proposals. After deciding on one, we had to adjust our proposals which was easy since the colors were pretty similar to the ones i used at first.

Two weeks ago i realized that power points were essential for the course, and that their format would be useful for us to present our ideas. This week i did two power points; the demo and the design proposal. I guess now that i learned how to propose ideas through a presentation it became easier for me to do it, and my ideas were presented quite clearly. For theatre makers, it is difficult to actually explain their ideas to someone else, until they are shaped in the scenes, and the problem with that is that proposals are essential to actually have something in the scene. Thus I've concluded that power points actually help me with presenting my ideas, and even though it is not everything I'm imagining, the others in the team actually get what i want to do with the body movements and the costumes of the play.
When it comes to casting characters, I've learnt it is essential to test out the actors first, and see if they fit the role. When we did the scenes, we placed some of the actors in the scene their potential character would be in, for example the scene with the deer. We saw how they worked and acted the characters, even though they had a vague idea open for interpretation. Which also gave us an insight on how this actors created and crafted characters from a simple idea. We did see some interesting ideas, and we did cast a lot of people, but there were some disappointing ones, from actors who were still holding on to previous characters. Which made me realize that letting go of this characters is more important than it looks, otherwise you will get stuck playing them forever, and it becomes more difficult to move froward as an actor.
I've come to realize that theatre involves a lot of factors i never truly acknowledged. Exploring this new tradition from a culture that is entirely different to ours is quite a rich experience. Which made me wonder about the how different cultures, in different times have created theatre with so many different and unique conventions. As for kathakali, the conventions are in fact new to us; the fact that every movement has a meaning becomes challenging for us to learn how to use them, and when to use them. I now realize that i have to become somewhat of an expert on the subject, now that I'm producing and being the master/sensei/workshop leader for the rest of the cast, for them to learn about these conventions too. I'm pretty sure they will judge kathakali as i did, for it is a very weird tradition. But i think they will come around, they always do.
Concepts are supposed to be the main bases of the play, and they are supposed to guide the story, the characters, and the design. So pretty important indeed. To actually come up with it, there is an entire process; requiring a lot of reflection about the play. We had to ask ourselves questions such as: "what are we trying to say with the play?", "why is our play like this?", "what is the main theme?", and many other questions that rose from the answers to the previous ones. But there is something i am really doubting, how important is the concept truly? Because, we have crafted the story, the characters, and the design without a concept whatsoever, and now we are supposed to create one that matches with out play. So if it is the bases, how come we have worked without one? Was it because we are adapting and not creating a play from scratch?