The Curse of the Broken Left Foot

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?

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?

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?

"Non, je ne regrette rien" Piaf and her music

"Chanter est un moyen de sortir. C'est un autre monde", said Edith Piaf, the celebrated French singer, who inspired the world with her voice. Piaf, an adaptation of Pam Gems' play, was presented in Teatro de La Alianza Francesa de Lima, staging the story of the famous singer, and her life full of addictions, love affairs, and most importantly, music. Singing was always present during the entire play, to portray and support the story and what the characters felt, and further evoke the memory of Piaf and her songs.

To begin with, the characterization of Piaf brought to life the singer, and through the use of the voice, the character presented the most important aspect of Piaf's life. The actress majorly focused on the use of the voice, imitating a french accent yet maintaining the street like tone, to set the audience in France but also present the fact that Piaf began as a street beggar. However, there was a major contrast in her rough accent, with her voice in the songs; she maintained very high notes and used a more clean yet distinctive french accent. This idea evoked the memory of Piaf herself, who was recognized for her distinctive voice and accent, which the actress tried to copy. Also, the cleaner side of the voice in the song also gave the effect of Piaf being her real self, instead of the street beggar she was. As the play continues, her accent stays the same, but the street like tone begins to slowly disappear, into a more classier and sick one, to portray her addiction and her sickness. It is also noticeable that Piaf was a very rude character, in the sense that she was always swearing and had a very grotesque vocabulary, which created the effect of her street life, of her not being civilized or educated enough to behave and have a proper vocabulary. Similarly to her voice, she progressively fixes her language and has a different register, to emphasize her progression as an artist and woman, but still keeping her use of swearing, to create the effect of a connection with her past, of being true to oneself and not changing. In contrast, the lyrics of her songs are quite poetical, in fact beautiful, when singing about love, youth, loss, among other themes, which evokes the effect of how music liberates her from everything that ties her, just as she said in her quote; it is another world on its own. Regarding other characters, they all maintained a standard french accent to evoke the setting of the story, and was cleaner and more sophisticated depending on the character's social status, to mark the difference. The other characters had a more standard french accent, which differed from Piaf's, creating the effect of Piaf's different voice, and emphasizing her distinction from other Frenchmen and even singers.
One of the most important acting elements in the play was the energy and the stage presence the characters maintained. The play itself was pretty dynamic, with a lot of different actions filling the scene, however the focus was always on Piaf, and thus she had a very driving and powerful energy. The audience obviously recognized her as the main character, however mostly in the first part of the play, she does not have a lot of stage presence, and maintains a very dull energy, to explore the side of the street and homeless Piaf.  However, when she sings, the actress achieves a major stage presence, and projects an amazing amount of energy, to evoke the effect of her expressing her feelings through the art of singing, and taking all the focus towards her, mirroring what was said of Piaf herself and her abilities as a singer. On the other hand, other characters maintained more stage presence, but lost it all completely, as if they weren't even on stage when Piaf sang, to evoke the power of her songs and reflect Piaf's idea of singing being another world, isolated. Still, some of the characters, such as Lepleé, who sang on their own, took focus from the scene and achieved full presence in the scene, similarly to Piaf, to give importance to what they were trying to say, which even though was in french, it was later supported by the dialogues explaining.
As for characterization itself, one of the most notable ideas regarding the songs was the contrast of Piaf's character and her persona when singing. Piaf was portrayed as a very grotesque character, being very vulgar and rude, as she did a lot of cruel jokes, swearing, and sexual implications. This characterization gave a new insight into the life of Piaf, and how her life was full of addictions. However this is image is built parallel to Piaf's persona when singing, which was kind-hearted, lovely, and beautiful, in contrast to the grotesque characterization. This creates the effect of Piaf's insecurities as a person, trying to be accepted in the world, a theme she explores at the first part of the play. Moreover, the audience is set to feel disgusted by her character, yet moved by her singing, creating the effect of how music breaks you out from reality.

The play was divided into two acts, presenting the audience with the story of Piaf's rise to fame in the first one, and her decay in the second one. During the first part, the audience gets to meet Piaf as a homeless survivor in France, and watches her go through the different steps and obstacles in the road to fame. In this act, the songs Piaf sings are a lot more joyful and about love and desire, specially when she sings about Marcel, and their relationship. It is interesting to notice that there are a lot of conflicts around her, such as Leplee's death, the world war, and the abandonment in her life, but still she continues to sing about the joys of life and love, creating the effect of her being persistent about her dreams and enduring the harships of life, and supporting the story of her fame. Most of the songs for this act are done for the sake of a presentation, to Leplee, to the club or even a stadium, with the exception of the songs to Marcel. The last song of the first act marks the definite change in Piaf's life, her turning point into decay, which was the death of Marcel. Piaf sings about his death and her grieve, and expresses her powerful emotions, breaking the goofy Piaf into a broken one, for which this is the turning point of the story, and the first climax. The second act, explores mostly her life as a stablished singer, and her attitude as a diva persuing to do as she pleased, and trying to find new talents, as well as someone to love given Marcel's death. In this act, her songs become more emotional, and more concentrated on her loss and her addictions, supporting the story of her decay and eventual death. It is interesting that during the first act, only Piaf sang, with the exception of Leplee's demonstration, whereas in the second act, three other characters have solos, for which they are the new talents Piaf discovered. This idea of more characters singing invokes a sense of weakness and decay of Piaf, due to her health and mental conditions, which did not let her sing as much as she did before, thus the use of other characters provides the audience with the idea that Piaf is looking for someone like her as she will not be able to continue for long.
One of the most interesting aspects of the structure, is the repetition of the first scene, in which Piaf is supposedly about to perform "Non, je ne regrette rien". The first time this scene is presented is at the begining of the play, when the presentor enters the stage and announces her, thus she comes in and begins to sing, but she fails, and is interrupted by the presentor, who she insults and the scene ends. Towards the end of the play, when Piaf is extremely sick and unable to work, she decides to sing to recover her fame. The scene is repeated just like the first time, but with the presence of his follower and mentee. When it finishes, it is repeated again, but now she interrupts herself due to pain, and the scene is repeated again two more times, until she falls unconcious to the floor due to the pain. The repetition of the scenes creates the effect of Piaf's failure, specially the first time when she fails but then the story tells how she conquers and stands up again. On the other hand, the other repetitions, the continuous ones, give a sense of defeat, as Piaf is trying to sing and pushing herself to do it, but failing at it, repeating as if the crowd would understand her condition. Therefore, the repetitions are progressive and further explore her defeat, and makes the audience feel worried and sorry for her. This moments are the only ones in which Piaf is unable to sing, regardless of any other factor, which emphasizes her struggle to keep fighting.
The play begins with her attempt to sing her most famous song "Non, je ne regrette rien", which contrasts with the ending of the play, in which, even though she had died, she sings the entire song and pours her heart out, even crying. This idea of ending with the succesful attempt to the song brings together the effect that Piaf's life was indeed an inspiration, and even though the path was rough, she achieved the fame and greatness she was destined to. The audience is set to be inspired by the song, and the final successful attempt. It is notable that the song itself says "i don't regret a thing, not a single one", which in retrospects the life of Piaf full of suffering and hard choices, in which she expresses " i don't regret it", creating the effect of the message of being proud of oneself. Also, the fact that the song, the attempt for Piaf to sing it, is successful after she dies evokes the sense that her music is still alive nowadays, and hence brings her memory to life.

In terms of design, the use of the lights was of major importance to the story, the portrayal of the characters and the delivering of the songs. Lighting was pretty simple on its own, and there weren't many changed patterns, by maintaining the standard amber lights with a medium intensity. It was interesting to notice that the entire scene was lit, however there was a main focus on only one element of the scenery, in which most actions happened. For example, when Piaf and Toinne chatted in their apartment, only the bed and the bedside table were focused. This design helped to give focus to the most important aspects of the scene, yet keeping the other parts lit to be seen. During the songs, especially the major solo's in which Piaf expressed her feelings, the light of the entire scene was shut, and only the singer was focused, in order to bring the character to major importance, and to concentrate on their singing. The focusing helped not only to illuminate, but also to help express the effect as if the character was thinking and feeling through singing, and the isolation from the world into another one.
Music was present live in the play, with the help of several musicians who where on the back of the stage. The main instruments used were an accordion, a piano, and a cello, which are traditional french instruments, further evoking the setting of the play and helping to create the atmosphere of it. The presence of live music helped to evoke the effect of a more pure music, instead of using pre-existing recordings that would not sound as good, and would take away the power of Piaf's singing. Being live gave more power to Piaf's songs as they sounded more personal, as if her emotions were creating the melody and she was singing on top of it, supporting her ideal of music being another world. It was interesting that in several songs that Piaf sang, there was no music played whatsoever, which seeks to emphasize more on the words and what she was trying to express, creating the effect as if she was talking and expressing her discomfort as a monologue, but singing it to escape from the tragedies.

There are several connections between our play and Piaf. For starters, the use of the live music and the traditional melodies is quite similar in both plays, as they imitate the French style, and we imitate the India one. Also, the use of the lighting to focus the main parts of the scenes, specially when singing, is similar to our focus on the royal dancers during the prologue and the ending to emphasize their narration, and take focus off the other elements on stage. Likewise, the idea of repeating part of the beginning in the end is also present in both plays, as we intend to repeat the first part of the prologue to bring together the timing of the play.

In conclusion, we can see that the play used singing and songs to portray the story and evoke the character's feelings and ideals, supported by the acting, design and structure of the play. Edith Piaf was greatly celebrated by her talent and amazing music, but she is also recognized by her tragic life full of suffering. Thus, the play intends to tell the story of her life, giving all aspects of it, and uses her most notable characteristic, her singing, to support their message, and thus bring her to life, bring her memory along with the play. The use of the singing succesfully brings the entire play to achieve its goal of bringing the memory of Piaf to live, because she is a singer, and what best way to do it by singing. Piaf used to say "death is the beginning of something", and in her case was her legacy as the French legend, which the actors intend to homage in the play.

"Je tiens à faire pleurer les gens, même quand ils ne comprennent pas mes mots"- Edith Piaf

Monologues 101

This past week, we worked mostly on correcting and improving all of the scenes from act 1, plus the first scene from act 2. We've also been working on production, as the we've purchased make-up, props and light filters. On the other hand, i've also worked mainly on Rama's monologue in scene 6, which was my main task for the past days.

When i first began working on the monologue, by writting it, i had the main idea and the purpose of it, but i had no idea what to say! I felt completely blocked, and it was hard to put my ideas into words, and most importantly, it was hard to let translate the characters feelings. I wrote several lines a few times, but none of them seemed to fit what we were trying to express, which was the idea of Rama being lost and weak, and asking for the gods to help him. Sometimes the monologue seemed a bit too disrespectful to the gods, which is completely out of place. Other times, some of the lines didn't really make sense, or weren't connected to our story. But the worst was when some lines simply sounded too cheesy, or too weird (spanish is weird, english is better...). I felt really frustrated, and it took me a while to construct the monologue and the scene itself.
Now writting the monologue was the simple part, acting it was the worst. At first, we staged the monologue as pretty straight forward; Rama speaking and then kneeling before the gods. The problem is, i didn't like it, there really was no movement whatsoever, and it didn't feel Kathakali enough. I felt like were weren't exploring the psicology of the monologue enough, and i was dissapointed. That's were the hardwork came in... We remade the entire monolgue (keeping the lines), and added a lot of mudras and acrobatics. In total i was using at least 30 mudras!
It really took me a lot of time to remember the sequence plus the words plus the mudras, and it was really hard. The first time i did it, i finnished exhausted, i could barely breathe or walk (my legs ache...). I guess now i can truly acknowledge how incredibly difficult and exhausting Kathakali is. Previously, i had done a lot of acrobatics, but not in a long sequence.
Learning lines is one thing, learing a sequence of actions is another, and learning a mudras sequence is another. But learning them altogether, that is an entirely different story. I feel very frustrated when i forget a line, or a movement, or even a mudra, because i'm trying to concentrate on doing it right, and bringing the three elements together, that i sometimes forget what comes next. I really need to work on it, and i think this challenge is good to push me even further.

I now know how screenwriters feel. I think that now that i've written from scratch a scene, with the monologue, i can certainly say i know how much work screenwritting is. In theatre, these guys have to write entire plays, whereas i only wrote one scene. Still i guess it was a great thing to experience what is like from the other side, instead of just learing the lines and acting. I think it gave me a new insight into the theatre making process. When we adapted the play, we never wrote any script, we worked within a structure and improvisations, so it was completely new for me to write. I think this is the moment were english literature class comes in handy, because i employed all of the knowledge i had on poetry and plays to construct a rich dialogue (or as rich as a Form V kid can), and give actual meaning and power to the words.
One key thing i've come to realize is that, the collective creation process is present always. I never really thought about it, but even the writters of play go through this process, because for example, the production team helped to correct some of the lines that sounded odd, and the base ideas to construct the script where brainstormed by the entire team. Now, concerning the staging of the monologue part, even though as an actor i proposed the first part of the sequence, it was Siu the one who helped implement the mudras, and the rest of the team to implement the acrobatics and other movement sequences. By the end, it was all of us the ones who shaped the entire monologue, not only me as the writer and the actor. Which has led me to wonder about how this works in real life with actual plays (like Broadway and stuff), because there are many scenes or even entire plays composed of monologues or single actor stagings, and more than one person helps to develop everything. It also happens when creating characters, for example; Gonzalo told me that it was the entire cast and a few extra helpers the one who helped Patricia Barreto with her Piaf accent and to enact her monologues and songs.
There is one thing that i have definitely improved in, and that is the intonation. I always follow the same rythm when delivering long lines, and thus monologues. But i think that the use of acrobatics and mudras have helped me to give different intonations to the lines so they fit the movements and mudras. I think that all elements on their own are very difficult to improve, because they never work alone. So when we put every element together, it all becomes magnificent.
I've also been wondering a lot about our own approach to kathakali, and i think this is as close as we have actually come to the tradition. We always use mudras in the scenes, but it's always a few, in this case we are using more than 30, and we're using them to tell the story and Rama's feelings. In Kathakali, the mudras supposedly tell the entire stories, and this is what we are doing. Also, the fact that we are implementing a lot of acrobatics and kalaripayattu movements puts us even closer to the tradition. But this is only one scene, so how can we improve the other scenes of the play to make them closer to the tradition? Should we implement more mudras, or even acrobatics? Should we dance more? If so, how will we be able to learn the choreagraphies in such a short time? Should we sing, and who would sing?

Cartas a Chimbote; Arguedas and music.

"Accompanying quietly the melody of the song, i remembered the fields and stones, squares and temples, small rivers where is was happy", said Jose María Arguedas, the famous peruvian poet, who inspired the play "Cartas de Chimbote", by Yuyachkani. In this play, the actors remembered the poet, and used several songs in both Spanish and Quechua, to evoke a sense of patriotism and memorial to the late Jose María Arguedas.

In the play, after reading some passages of Arguedas' letters, the actors began singing in Quechua, several songs that were related to the passage and thus Arguedas' life. The unison of the actors signing together created a sense of belonging and unity, as they were together signing for the late poet, and collaborating as one to remember and tribute him. Arguedas' was very patriotic, and believed in a working a united country, thus the characters evoke his ideal on stage by singing together to honor him. The main effect they were trying to explore was to evoke the memory of Arguedas; as he was recognize for spreading the Quechua literature and culture in his work. Moreover, when signing together in Quechua, they were trying to bring his memory to life through his work, for the audience to hear his songs and remember him, know his life work.

Several times, it was one actor the one who began singing, and slowly, the other actors joined in one by one, until all of them where singing. This approach to the convention of music creates the effect of inspiration, furthering the idea of Arguedas' memory. The poet's literary works brought a lot of inspiration to the peruvian community, as well as leaving a mark in peruvian literary history. Therefore, when the characters read the passages of Arguedas' letters, one of them would tend to feel inspired and moved by what he wrote, thus he or she began to sing. As a backlash, the other character's became inspired by the singing, and join altogether.
After the first half of the play, the characters began singing in Spanish, having a total of about four songs in this language, yet still alternating with Quechua. This changes into a different language create the sense of cultural knowledge, which fits into Arguedas' background as a poet in both languages. In a way, the alternating languages evoke the cultural diversity in Peru that Arguedas explores and imposes in his literary works. Additionally, the actors further bring his image to live as a Quechua and Spanish author.
It is interesting to notice that, probably none of the viewers know Quechua, and thus they are unaware of what the characters are singing. Moreover, it creates a sense of the unknown, of mystery in what Arguedas and the characters are trying to say, which reflects on Arguedas' very complicated and secretive life, ending in suicide.
The audience is aimed to be moved and touched by the songs, which the actors express their feelings to honor the late poet with, The songs mainly support what the read letters said, and make the audience understand more about his cultural greatness.
In the play, most of the music was live, and using only the voices of the actors. Such decision creates a sense of personal approach, of privacy, as it makes the memory of Arguedas more personal and alive. The singing characters, without the use of music connect with the audience more, and emphasises the idea of the group of people who are tributing the late poet.
However, some melodies are used to evoke an atmosphere in very specific moments of the play. For example, when the actors where only moving, and there was no specific talking or reading, the music created the atmosphere of memorial, honor, and even grief, through the soft tunes.
Also, it is noticeable that there where two main moments in which the actors played live music with instruments. The first one happened, when reading a letter from Arguedas about the industrial revolution in Chimbote, when a masked woman appeared on stage. She wore plastic bags as a cape, and a mask forming a skull, for which she represented the death of the sea. She was playing a white violin, playing sad and rythmic tunes, very peruvian like. The tunes emphazised the death of the sea, and the grief Arguedas explained in his letters. Additionally, the characters began tapping their feet with the floor, and set a strong repetitive rhythm. Such melody seeked to evoke the effect of the factories that where on Chimbote, reinforcing the Death of the Sea character and her grieving music.
The second moment,happened towards the end of the play, where the characters of the Upper fox and the Lower fox present themselves and talk about their lives and role in Arguedas' life and novel. The female characters used several traditional Peruvian instruments, such as the flute and the conch, among others. They played strong yet short melodies, with a very cutting rhythm, which emphasized the fight, or rather discussion, between the foxes. However, being traditional and cultural instruments, they created reinforced the cultural views of the representations of the foxes, and served as a cultural call to hear what the foxes had to say.

In Kathakali, music is feautured by the singing actors, instead of dialogue, and the drums that are played and carried by characters. In "Cartas de Chimbote", music was a major factor to evoke the memory and honor of Arguedas, and similarly, in Kathakali, music is one of the two most important factors to tell the stories and guide the dances and choreographs that make up the play. In both cases, music is presented live, and the actors are the ones to sing, even though in Kathakali there is no dialogue whatsoever. One major difference, is that there is a major, if not entirely, use of percussion in Kathakali to reinforce the strong actions and sequences, whereas in Yuyachkani's play, there was almost no percussion used, to create the opposite effect of calmness and memory. One great similarity between the two, is the use of traditional instruments from the local culture, which create a sense of patriotism and belonging, to bring to life the memory and honor either a late poet or a religion, both for the sake of cultural tradition.

On the other hand, our play has a different approach to the use of music. Given we are following Kathalali as a starting point, all of the songs will feature percussion, to emphasize the strenght of the characters, the situations and the action sequences. However, we are not using the traditional instrument, unlike Kathakali and "Cartas de Chimbote", as we cannot afford to buy them nor find them in time. Still, just like Yuyachkani's play, we will feature live music, but no pre recorded music whatsoever. Our school bad and orchestra will be playing the instruments and the melodies, instead of the actors, as we are not trained to play major instruments, as well as taking focus from the main action of the play. The live music seeks to create a much more vivid effect of the play, for it to feel more real to the audience, by creating different atmospheres that collaborate with the other design elements. Our music will remain Indian to create the atmosphere of the setting of the play, and thus reinforce the cultural value we are trying to present.
Another great difference is that of the number of songs played during the play. In our case, we will only feauture around 5 or 6 main songs, which will be repeated for their own purposes, for example there will be a song for every demon appearance, and a song for the palaces. This idea serves for the audience to relate the song to the characters, for them to undestand better which character is which, as well as being familiar with the atmosphere of the plot, according to the scene. Additionally, none of this songs will have singing in them, contrary to the tradition and to "Cartas de Chimbote", as our actors are not trained to sing, much less in Sanskrit. However, the lack of singing will draw more attention on the physicallity of the characters, and the dialogue. which is of major importance for the audience to understand the plot.

After the play ended, i realized that the music they played, was very similar to what we were looking for in ours. The ideal of keeping tradition alive, as Arguedas wanted, and making the audience feel the rhythm, and be moved by it. To be proud and to spread the word about the culture. We are following, to a certain extent, a theatre tradition that has hundreds of years, to keep this tradition alive and show it to the peruvian society, to our school's society. Now, in terms of music, we don't have the main instruments, the traditional drums, to achieve the esscence of Kathakali music. Thus i wonder, how can we keep the esscence of the music, without the main instruments? Yuyachkani managed to do it by singing in Quechua and then playing traditional instruments. And even though Kathakali is just our starting point and we are drifting a bit from the tradition to adapt to our availability, how will we manage to keep it "indian enough"? Will a couple of drums and violins do? Should we use pre recorded music at some moments, to mantain a more traditional atmosphere? Or should we copy original Kathakali music and adapt it to our instruments? Wouldn't that take out from the creative process of the musicians?

Lights workshop- "With great lighting comes great responsibility"

This past week we had a workshop with Mr Pancho Tuesta, Gonzalo's brother, on lights and lighting in general for us to use this learning, to apply to the school play. We got to learn about the different types of lights, and how to apply them according to what we are trying to do. Also, we learned about the different properties of lights, which we can control in order to create atmospheres and feelings. In retrospective, this workshop helped us to understand more about how lighting is an important design factor for a our play to be successful.

Personally, in the past i though that lights were pretty much useless. I used to think that when preparing the play, we used lights to literally light the scene, and use different colors to make it spooky or pretty. Looking back i was a bit ignorant, because now i've learnt about the greater importance of lights, and the whole lot of knowledge it takes to build a lights plan for a play.
I found the five properties of lights to be quite interesting, although some of them seemed pretty obvious to me. Still, i thought that the temperature property caught my attention the most, because even though i knew about colors and their properties when applied, i never thought that when placing a contrast of colors to paint the scene the temperature was a great influence to support the main action of the scene, and thus the atmosphere.
To be honest, i think it was a bit hard for me to follow some of Pancho's ideas, because it took me a while to understand which light was which, so when he explain using a name to describe the property and use, i got a bit lost.
There is one thing in particular that i came to terms with, which i already knew, and which infuriates me a lot, is the fact that we have the crappiest of lights. Well, not entirely, but they are pretty simple and basic, so it is hard to actually accomplish great effects and atmosphere. I think it became a bit difficult for Pancho when explaining us how to use the lights for our play, because the ideas he had were limited by our disposal of lights. But because we are the most important course in the school, we receive the best!

I believe that this workshop was very important for us, so we could have a better insight on the lighting design of a play, to understand better theatre itself. Although Olenka is the one in charge of this design area for the play, it will come in very handy for us when we are doing Product 3 of the IB, which involves directing a scene.
One of the most useful things we learnt, in my opinion, were the different positions of the lights, which according to the property we wanted to apply changed. In our play, this becomes quite useful, because of the hierarchy of our characters, which we want to maintain. For example, for the gods, which are the highest figures, we can apply frontal lights at 45° in an axis, so that they are completely illuminated and no shadows are casted, in which case we could also use back lights so there is only illumination for them, representing their heavenly power. On the other hand, for demons, specially Ravenna, we could use a skylight from the top, which will consequently cast a shadow in her face, emphasizing her evilness and darkness.
Speaking of which, as i said before, one of the most interesting topics was the temperature property, which i believe is very important for our play since creating the atmospheres is essential to distinguish the themes of love, heroism, good vs evil, etc. In which case, we can use lighter colors to represent good and love but keeping a warm temperature, whereas for evil and such, we could use colder and darker colors. In Kathakali, colors have different meanings and have to be carefully used, thus we can use our knowledge of the tradition and the colors, to apply it to our use of different color lights. For example, red represents violence in Kathakali, ergo, we can apply red lights in the final battle to emphasize the violent atmosphere without breaking the tradition.
I think that one of the most useful skills, and concrete one, we learnt was how to draw a plan of our light set up for a play. We know very well our stage, and we know how many lights, and which types, are in each bar. Thus he showed us how to plan ahead which light to direct where and how, which colors to place, and have everything ready so the play goes smoothly. One thing i found interesting and useful is that he told Olenka to divide the stage into zones of light, and made us learn them, so that in case of trouble she can say something like "zone 3 is not working" and us as producers, can help her to fix it, and the actors to adapt to it.
However, one of the biggest challenges, is that as i mentioned before, we don't have the best of lights, and they cannot be changed once they are set for the beginning of the play. This is hard because then we have to be careful not to imagine using any light in any way we want, because we have a limited supply, and we have to use it wisely, with limit lights comes great responsibility.
But there is one thing i've been wondering about a lot; how are we going to work with such a limited supply of lights? I am aware that it has been done for decades (?), but this time, as we are trying to stay close to the tradition, meaning following the colors and hierarchical stages, then how are we going to manage to keep everything cool and working, with such a limited supply? Could this mean that we will have to break a bit from the tradition? Or should we just keep ourselves closer to it and use less lights in some cases? In many theatre companies, they use even less amounts of lights, but if they need more they can buy more, or even adapt some with the more trained staff they have, But we don't have any of those! So how are we going to balance the use of the lights? We also don't have many color filters to work at our best, so how will we manage to adapt? Should we combine colors? But wouldn't that mean to change the direction of the light? How have we managed in past years?