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?
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