Scene 1 Take 1, Action!

During this past week, we finally began working on the first two scenes of the play, drafting and creating them. Also, during class time, we began to explore our characters and worked on characterization, as there is literally no time for us to actually work on them. By the end of the week, we managed to construct the first draft of the first two scenes, and define the characterization of each of our characters.

When researching for the workshops and demos, and teaching them, i was highly aware of how demanding kathakali was, and because i did body expressions, i had already practiced them at a basic level. Now that i explored them more in depth, i realize how hard it actually is (my legs hurt, a LOT). The low center of energy was the most difficult thing, because it required a lot of balance and strenght resistance, and i felt that it was a bit hard for most of us at the beginning, but once we got used to it, it became easier. I felt a bit useless at the beginning, because i was completly blank, and even though i had already begun to work on my character alone, i was still pretty lost when looking for different positions that my character would do. Once i began exploring more and more, and trying out new ideas, it flowed pretty well, and i think i did a great job. After two days of exploring, and presenting to the class, i got one major correction: "it looks too girly". Which made me feel completly ashamed of my work, but also motivated to try again and push myself. Once i did, i transformed the character completly trying out the same sequence, but giving it more strenght and power.
On the rehearsal on Tuesday, we got some bad news: one of the actresses, a very good and important one, was leaving the cast because of a personal decision. Not only that, but the day before, another very good actor left too. Personally, i felt a bit dissapointed, because i was expecting them to work hard and well on this play. Im obviously not mad at them, not at all, it is their personal choice, but i feel like we lost two very important pieces in our equation for the play, and it makes me sad to think that we will not be working together this year.
During the drafting of the first scene, i felt a bit dissapointed on some of the actors, who were not even trying with effort, they were talking and didn't even apply the conventions we taught them. On top of that, i am very mad at one of the actresses who is still beign stubborn about her character, feeling she is better and doesn't need practice, when she clearly does. This kind of behaviour is the one that sets things back, and delay us. Nonetheless, i'm liking how the scenes are shaping up, i do feel that they need a lot of improvement, specially in terms of energy and coordination, since it is a very crowded scene.

One of the things i have come to reflect about, is the irony of beign a master or teacher (sensei if you will), and teaching the conventions to the other actors and demanding a lot from them. Of course, i had to become an expert in the subject and know a lot about it and how it works, and i demanded a lot from the actors and their physical movements. But when it came down to me personally doing this work in depth, i realized that it was harder than it looked and made me reflect on how the actors felt when i pressured them to work harder. Still, as the IBer, i have to set the example, which obviously pushes me to work even harder. In real life, it works the same, the teacher has to be the expert and know everything from every perspective, and in theatre i guess the director has to be the same. In which case it becomes useful having the form VI directors learning in our workshops, so they know what they are doing.
Now that we lost two actors, i can see more clearly the importance of each one of them. I'm not saying that at first they weren't important, but the fact that we had to rearange everything so that thing work out well without them. I guess that because their departure was early on the process, then there was no greatly significant change or effect on the play, apart from the fact we had to cut off two characters. But i began to think about the influence a departure had on our vision of the play, and how things are laid out. In theatre in general, and even movies or television shows, some actors depart because of different reasons, and the project might be affected greatly. Of course, this is a school play, and a different situation, but the impact it may have in a larger project such as a Broadway production or else, what could happen? How do the producers work towards arranging things for the production to move on? What if the departure happened weeks before opening day? What if the impact affects the project so much it can't recover? Could this happen to us?