This past week we've been working on practicing the entire play in one run, specially the final battle scene, as well as working on the last stages of each design area of production. The problem is... we've been cursed.
I am desperate, we all are. We are two weeks away from the opening night, and we have five actresses with a broken foot! And worst of all, its the same foot for all of them! I am starting to get nervous about it, and even scared that another actress will suffer from the same curse. Of course, this is over exaggerating the matters, there is no curse whatsoever, but the entire problem is very concerning.
It calms me a lot that all of these actresses are giving their best, regardless of their broken foot. They are coming to the rehearsals and trying their very best, in order to avoid messing with the other actors' work. And i think this is very valuable and important, since a missing actor or an unmotivated actor messes with the entire scene, in which case the cursed girls give their best to pretend as if nothing had happened. I'm also happy to see them updating us and trying to calm the other actors, as well as remaining calm themselves, to avoid stress and the desperation and feeling of failure that comes when you hit a bump.
What worries me the most is the fact that Siu is one of the cursed actresses, and her being the antagonist, it is a hard blow. Im very concerned about her well beign, and the fact that kalaripayattu demands a lot of physical strenght, that she might not be able to achieve having this problem.
I'm trying to keep myself concentrated on the matter, but it becomes very hard and frustrating. In previous years, as just another member of the cast, i worried about the person and the play itself, but never gave to much importance to the matter, as the producer's would fix everything. Well now i'm the producer, and it is I who has to fix everything. Still, there is nothing to fix, im not a doctor or Mr. Miyagi with healing powers or something, i'm just another student. But i guess that's were my work as a producer comes in, i have to work with the injured people for them to feel as comfortable as possible, and keep an eye on them to avoid further injures and to make sure they are healing, as well as mantaining the cast members calmed and confident that things will turn out the way we intend them to, just like previous producers did with me.
I think that, one of the main things that i learned this week was that there are always bumps in the road, specially towards the end of the entire process. I've always known that, and something happens in every play the closer we get to the opening night, so it's pretty natural. But i've never really encountered it directly, because it wasn't me who had to deal with the problem. So i have been reflecting on what my role is as a producer, and i got to the conclusion that i have to be the calmest one, and the one to transmit that energy so that nobody freaks out. As i said before, if i were to freak out, the other actors would too, and same goes for the other producers. Thus, if i remain calm and transmit that confidence that things will be ok, then the actors will remain the same. Still, i have to push the actors even further to work harder, so that the issue can be avoided. And i think this applies directly to real professional production, and even projects unrelated to theatre, the one in charge has to be the calmest, and help things be fixed as soon as possible.
I've been wondering a lot about what other types of bumps we could encounter. I mean, i would love it if there were none, but we have to be realistic. And it is not because of a curse or anything, but because that's how things are. Now i do think about, could we avoid them? And how? I'm pretty sure most bumps are unavoidable, so how do we deal with them directly? And how do we precautions to avoid bigger damage? And what type of precautions?
Last week i reflected about the trust requirements of Kalaripayattu, and the concequences it brought. Well, now that my fighting partner got hurt, i can see the concequences in more depth. I think that, because we managed to control the hesitating moments, and master our mutual trust, we started to neglect some of the outer factors that could affect us. Thus, when she fell, we both knew it was because we were to confident that our work was perfect, and we forgot about external factors. Thus i wonder once again, how can we recover this mutual trust? Once someone goes through this type of trauma, hesitating appears, so how can we erase it again? More importantly, will we have to adapt the fight? Will she even be able to fight? I think that in professional theatre, this happens sometimes, but how do they deal with it?
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Kalaripayattu with Master Valentina
This week we worked on the final battle scene, which puts us one step closer to the end of this process. Moreover, given that kathakali theatre, and indian theatre as such, uses kalaripayattu to stage the battles, we had Valentina come help us by teaching us the basics of kalaripayattu, and kerala acrobatics.
Ok, forget i ever complaint about my body aching due to kathakali, THIS, is the real deal. Kalaripayattu, demands a lot of physical energy and proposes difficult body movements and positions, that make your body numb. My arms are full of bruises, i almost twisted my ankle, and the skin on my feet has been torn apart.
Now, one very important thing i felt, is the confidence of wanting to do things right. This is the last school play i act in (not counting the One Act Play), and the final battle is the most epic moment, so we want to do it right. Hence, even if the positions hurt like hell, i think i was persistent and kept on trying to improve. I'm obviously not perfect at it, but i think I'm improving massively at my acrobatic and stage combat skills, which is extremely important to achieve an epic final battle. I can also see that same behaviour on behalf of most of the actors, specially Siu, who is also motivated by the fact this is her last appearance in the play. We are fighting partners, and we encourage ourselves together to try again and again, faster and faster each time, and we tend to not hold back (ergo the bruises).
I've also been feeling more relaxed about how things will turn out, because battles tend to be really dumb in plays, and they look awful. But this time, given the style, i can see a more realistic battle, with less faking and more actual acrobatics, which makes me confident and relax that it will turn out as i wanted it to.
One thing that bothers me a lot, is that some actors are not giving their best (once again), to learn and try these positions. They complaint about it being difficult, and hurting, and do not bother to try and improve. This kind of behaviour is what makes the process slower, because them taking longer to actually do things right, due to their stubbornness, slows us all down. I am not happy with these people, and i try to be more supportive to them and teach them, but they keep on being stubborn about it.
Kalaripayattu has some very important moral and theatrical bases, that i think are worth knowing and following. For starters, stage combat, and thus Kalaripayattu, is based on mutual trust; the attacker has to give his full strenght and actually punch trusting that the defender will defend himself, and viceversa; the defender has to trust that the attacker is fully punching and he has to block it. That way, no one gets hurt, and the battle can be performed correctly. I think that this knowledge can be applied in real life and in theatre in many aspects. For example, all of us as producers have to trust each other in knowing that everyone is doing their work, for us to move on accordingly to schedule. We also have to trust, as actors, that all of the other cast members are practicing their parts and lines, for the scene to actually work and play smoothly. Similarly, i believe that in a bigger theatre production, producers, directors, and actors have to trust each other to put together the entire play, as everyone has a different but necessary role to contribute in the process of creation. What bothers me is that, we don't always have a good realtion with another actor, or producer, or whatever, so how can this mutual trust be established? I mean, i believe one must suck it up and work, but it's never the same. A single hesitating moment of trust can end up in a huge mess, specially when we are dealing with acrobatics. So how do we build this trust? In Kalaripayattu, the actors work together their whole lives, and thus this trust is built. But we have only worked with our cast members for a couple of months, so how can this full trust comitment be estavlished in such a short time? In my case, Siu and i have worked together since our first play and in class, apart from knowing each other for many years, so we trust each other. However, i sometimes feel how she flinches, and hesitates because she gets scared. I mean, i aslo get scared that the acrobatic will fail and we might hurt each other, but i try to maintain and transmit this trust so everything moves along correctly. Still, we've fallen a few times, or hurt each other because of that small millisecond of hesitation. So, even if we trust each other, how can we avoid hesitation?
One of the things that caught my attention the most, is the fact that in Kalaripayattu, everyone works together as a team, and not alone. As Valentina said, everyone is as good as the worst one. And i think this concept is applicable to every type of team work. For example, if we have a scene with three great actors, and a couple of terrible ones (not trying to sound mean, ok?) then the entire scene will not work as well, because the energy might be lost, or there might be a few problems. And i think this is important because in works such as this, that involve working in an ensamble, it is important to trust and work together, to improve together and move forward, not leaving behind the worst one of us. However, i do believe that sometimes one might be better than the other one at something. For example, i was better at the back turning jump acrobatic, and Siu was better as the balancer, so we worked upon that and made the acrobatic work, even though our skills on both excercises were different.
But, the concept that was simply the most interesting one to me, was the ideal of balancing forces to work together. When working on fighting, one must balance the forces and strenght between each other, to fake the punching and make it look realistic without hurting each other. The concept of how there is a point where opposing forces meet and balance each other was striking to me. I think that has to be applied in real life a lot, in everything that concerns the balance of forces. The strenghts of one reinforce the weaknesses of the other. When acting, support is needed, and if one's energy is greater and opposes the others, then the scene fails. Thus, the energy of every actor must meet and balance the entire scene, for it to be succesful. But how can we achieve this? Some people (like me), have very strong and repelling energy, and others have very weak ones? How can we work to improve it? Siu and i balanced our body forces by trying over and over again the acrobatic, so should this apply to scenes in general?
Ok, forget i ever complaint about my body aching due to kathakali, THIS, is the real deal. Kalaripayattu, demands a lot of physical energy and proposes difficult body movements and positions, that make your body numb. My arms are full of bruises, i almost twisted my ankle, and the skin on my feet has been torn apart.
Now, one very important thing i felt, is the confidence of wanting to do things right. This is the last school play i act in (not counting the One Act Play), and the final battle is the most epic moment, so we want to do it right. Hence, even if the positions hurt like hell, i think i was persistent and kept on trying to improve. I'm obviously not perfect at it, but i think I'm improving massively at my acrobatic and stage combat skills, which is extremely important to achieve an epic final battle. I can also see that same behaviour on behalf of most of the actors, specially Siu, who is also motivated by the fact this is her last appearance in the play. We are fighting partners, and we encourage ourselves together to try again and again, faster and faster each time, and we tend to not hold back (ergo the bruises).
I've also been feeling more relaxed about how things will turn out, because battles tend to be really dumb in plays, and they look awful. But this time, given the style, i can see a more realistic battle, with less faking and more actual acrobatics, which makes me confident and relax that it will turn out as i wanted it to.
One thing that bothers me a lot, is that some actors are not giving their best (once again), to learn and try these positions. They complaint about it being difficult, and hurting, and do not bother to try and improve. This kind of behaviour is what makes the process slower, because them taking longer to actually do things right, due to their stubbornness, slows us all down. I am not happy with these people, and i try to be more supportive to them and teach them, but they keep on being stubborn about it.
Kalaripayattu has some very important moral and theatrical bases, that i think are worth knowing and following. For starters, stage combat, and thus Kalaripayattu, is based on mutual trust; the attacker has to give his full strenght and actually punch trusting that the defender will defend himself, and viceversa; the defender has to trust that the attacker is fully punching and he has to block it. That way, no one gets hurt, and the battle can be performed correctly. I think that this knowledge can be applied in real life and in theatre in many aspects. For example, all of us as producers have to trust each other in knowing that everyone is doing their work, for us to move on accordingly to schedule. We also have to trust, as actors, that all of the other cast members are practicing their parts and lines, for the scene to actually work and play smoothly. Similarly, i believe that in a bigger theatre production, producers, directors, and actors have to trust each other to put together the entire play, as everyone has a different but necessary role to contribute in the process of creation. What bothers me is that, we don't always have a good realtion with another actor, or producer, or whatever, so how can this mutual trust be established? I mean, i believe one must suck it up and work, but it's never the same. A single hesitating moment of trust can end up in a huge mess, specially when we are dealing with acrobatics. So how do we build this trust? In Kalaripayattu, the actors work together their whole lives, and thus this trust is built. But we have only worked with our cast members for a couple of months, so how can this full trust comitment be estavlished in such a short time? In my case, Siu and i have worked together since our first play and in class, apart from knowing each other for many years, so we trust each other. However, i sometimes feel how she flinches, and hesitates because she gets scared. I mean, i aslo get scared that the acrobatic will fail and we might hurt each other, but i try to maintain and transmit this trust so everything moves along correctly. Still, we've fallen a few times, or hurt each other because of that small millisecond of hesitation. So, even if we trust each other, how can we avoid hesitation?
One of the things that caught my attention the most, is the fact that in Kalaripayattu, everyone works together as a team, and not alone. As Valentina said, everyone is as good as the worst one. And i think this concept is applicable to every type of team work. For example, if we have a scene with three great actors, and a couple of terrible ones (not trying to sound mean, ok?) then the entire scene will not work as well, because the energy might be lost, or there might be a few problems. And i think this is important because in works such as this, that involve working in an ensamble, it is important to trust and work together, to improve together and move forward, not leaving behind the worst one of us. However, i do believe that sometimes one might be better than the other one at something. For example, i was better at the back turning jump acrobatic, and Siu was better as the balancer, so we worked upon that and made the acrobatic work, even though our skills on both excercises were different.
But, the concept that was simply the most interesting one to me, was the ideal of balancing forces to work together. When working on fighting, one must balance the forces and strenght between each other, to fake the punching and make it look realistic without hurting each other. The concept of how there is a point where opposing forces meet and balance each other was striking to me. I think that has to be applied in real life a lot, in everything that concerns the balance of forces. The strenghts of one reinforce the weaknesses of the other. When acting, support is needed, and if one's energy is greater and opposes the others, then the scene fails. Thus, the energy of every actor must meet and balance the entire scene, for it to be succesful. But how can we achieve this? Some people (like me), have very strong and repelling energy, and others have very weak ones? How can we work to improve it? Siu and i balanced our body forces by trying over and over again the acrobatic, so should this apply to scenes in general?
Monday, June 1, 2015
8 down, one more to go
This past week, we worked on building the last scene of the play, which presents the coronation of Rama and the plot twist of our open ending. Even though we are still missing the Final battle scene, we have succesfully built the entire play.
Working with almost the entire cast in one scene is very very hard. The final scene has four main moments, the narration, the king's entrance, the toast, and the open ending. Therefore, not all of the actors were present in one of the parts we were working on, having to do nothing until we begin setting up their part. I felt a bit useless the first time we were rehearsing, as we were building the narration, which was the longest and hardest part, because it involved a dance. So i really didn't have anything to do, because even if i was directing, there were already other 4 people doing that job. So i figured, maybe we should practice stage combant and Purulia Cchau with the monkeys.
The group of the monkeys dissapointed me a lot, supposedly they had already worked these animal positions with Giselle, but none of them truly knew them correctly, which is their fault for not revising what we taught. On top of that, they couldn't hold the positions for the time we wanted them to. I understand that they are not professionals and don't have super built bodies and Hulk strenght, but we've been working for two months now on balance, holdign legs-based positions, and so on and so forth, and they still can't hold them! I'm not mad, but either they are not trying hard enough, or we are terrible teachers (NO.).
One of the key aspects we taught the monkeys about stage combat, is the idea that confidence and trust is key for it to work. Some of the kids were more excited about doing a kick and a punch, that they were probably just end up hurting others and themselves. I felt that the monkeys understood what it meant, specially as we tried a couple of slaps, and they trusted each other into what the movement meant and what was going to happen. Still, some of them kept being childish and kept on and on about them wanting to punch "awesomely".
Personally i think that the scene was built pretty quickly, and that everything went very smoothly. Now that i think about it, the entire play was built relatively smoothly, the real thing came when we corrected and improved scene by scene. I thought that the most diffult thing was to impose the disipline the actors needed, and to bring everything together.
I think that, doing this scene, the most difficult thing for me was the love dovey part, because i really don't have a heart whatsoever and my soul is as dark as the night, so i guess it was a real challenge. And because Sita, which is supposed to be my wife, is my friend, it becomes a little ackward, but i guess we've come to terms with it.
Being a director is a lot of work, specially when trying to built uo a scene with a lot of actors. It is key for each scene to know the main actions, the structure and the characters to be able to produce it correctly. In this case, we had to concentrate on each of the four moments separately, as they involved the same characters, and build up bit by bit. I discovered that when directing, and specially sketching, a scene it is important to divide it in parts and work on them one by one until they are of a good standard, before moving on into the next one, so that it becomes easier to correct later. Likewise, a director must know to balance his time to sketch all of the scenes.
Given our problem of the excess in actors, who were basically sitting down doing nothing, and us trying to teach them the bases of stage combat, i learned that sometimes it is best if they just sit and watch. This is because, some of the actors caused noise and interfered with the scene, because they were screaming during the training. I also realized that, because they were watching, they were learning and getting to know the play and the scene better, for them to analyze and work upon what they saw. Moreover, if they know how the first part plays out, it becomes easier to get the mood and tone of the scene, and to be aware of the cue to enter.
I've been wondering a lot about how to convey feelings, specially those which we don't know. Personally, i've never been in love like Rama was with Sita (i don't even have a heart so...), which makes it difficult to me to relate it with a past experience, as there is none! I can have a certain approach, but i think is up to the actor to explore in different ways to make it more convinving, given that there is no past experience to relate and use as reference. So i wonder, how does the actor look for stimulus, if there is no personal reference? Will an external reference be enough? Or will the actor lack that special something that makes it more believable?
Working with almost the entire cast in one scene is very very hard. The final scene has four main moments, the narration, the king's entrance, the toast, and the open ending. Therefore, not all of the actors were present in one of the parts we were working on, having to do nothing until we begin setting up their part. I felt a bit useless the first time we were rehearsing, as we were building the narration, which was the longest and hardest part, because it involved a dance. So i really didn't have anything to do, because even if i was directing, there were already other 4 people doing that job. So i figured, maybe we should practice stage combant and Purulia Cchau with the monkeys.
The group of the monkeys dissapointed me a lot, supposedly they had already worked these animal positions with Giselle, but none of them truly knew them correctly, which is their fault for not revising what we taught. On top of that, they couldn't hold the positions for the time we wanted them to. I understand that they are not professionals and don't have super built bodies and Hulk strenght, but we've been working for two months now on balance, holdign legs-based positions, and so on and so forth, and they still can't hold them! I'm not mad, but either they are not trying hard enough, or we are terrible teachers (NO.).
One of the key aspects we taught the monkeys about stage combat, is the idea that confidence and trust is key for it to work. Some of the kids were more excited about doing a kick and a punch, that they were probably just end up hurting others and themselves. I felt that the monkeys understood what it meant, specially as we tried a couple of slaps, and they trusted each other into what the movement meant and what was going to happen. Still, some of them kept being childish and kept on and on about them wanting to punch "awesomely".
Personally i think that the scene was built pretty quickly, and that everything went very smoothly. Now that i think about it, the entire play was built relatively smoothly, the real thing came when we corrected and improved scene by scene. I thought that the most diffult thing was to impose the disipline the actors needed, and to bring everything together.
I think that, doing this scene, the most difficult thing for me was the love dovey part, because i really don't have a heart whatsoever and my soul is as dark as the night, so i guess it was a real challenge. And because Sita, which is supposed to be my wife, is my friend, it becomes a little ackward, but i guess we've come to terms with it.
Being a director is a lot of work, specially when trying to built uo a scene with a lot of actors. It is key for each scene to know the main actions, the structure and the characters to be able to produce it correctly. In this case, we had to concentrate on each of the four moments separately, as they involved the same characters, and build up bit by bit. I discovered that when directing, and specially sketching, a scene it is important to divide it in parts and work on them one by one until they are of a good standard, before moving on into the next one, so that it becomes easier to correct later. Likewise, a director must know to balance his time to sketch all of the scenes.
Given our problem of the excess in actors, who were basically sitting down doing nothing, and us trying to teach them the bases of stage combat, i learned that sometimes it is best if they just sit and watch. This is because, some of the actors caused noise and interfered with the scene, because they were screaming during the training. I also realized that, because they were watching, they were learning and getting to know the play and the scene better, for them to analyze and work upon what they saw. Moreover, if they know how the first part plays out, it becomes easier to get the mood and tone of the scene, and to be aware of the cue to enter.
I've been wondering a lot about how to convey feelings, specially those which we don't know. Personally, i've never been in love like Rama was with Sita (i don't even have a heart so...), which makes it difficult to me to relate it with a past experience, as there is none! I can have a certain approach, but i think is up to the actor to explore in different ways to make it more convinving, given that there is no past experience to relate and use as reference. So i wonder, how does the actor look for stimulus, if there is no personal reference? Will an external reference be enough? Or will the actor lack that special something that makes it more believable?
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