Post

      After watching Black Watch, I came to a personal opinion of what i believe what post modern plays are in an essential sense. Post modern plays are the mind. Not A mind but THE mind, as in the mind of many not just the mind of one. It is the mind because it is always an idea or an observation that the mind of the author wants to show the rest of the world through a medium that can emphathise with people. it is also the mind of many, for it is important to experiment in theatre especially post modernism, and so it is the collective planning of many minds to become that one, the mind. Yet even though it is an observation it may not always ring true because how we see the world is through our own eyes and is neigh impossible to see through the eyes of others, making a post modern play a play of opinions, opinions shared and differencing from people in the cast. it adds to the appeal that we can choose to ignore or accept the mind of a post modern production and even sometimes on slightly rarer occasions, contribute to the opinions playing out in the preformance. post modern plays are memories, experiences, thoughts, dreams, observations, and opinions put into a medium that the populous can experience and build their own off of.
     The three preformances I watched were, odyssey, Gulliver and Black Watch. Odyessy was a  very confusing play without the language difference. I came to the conclusion that a running theme of the play was about masculinity versus immasculinity. the fact that Telemachus, Odysseus' son was left alone as the sole protector of the family while he was out at war. the part when the naked man was posing and the son was going crazy trying to look more manly in the background furthered this for me. There was also this feeling of lack of a father figure expressed in the beginning where he started to say the letter a then angel and then the translated word was guardian, showing this loss. The suitors were also a reminder of that protective stance Telemachus had to take. Gullivers travels was a lot less hardcore than the Odyssey. Gullivers travels was a pantomime version of the traditional story of the explorer Gulliver. this was a lot easier to follow since they blatantly told the audience at the beginning what the themes of each story were. The themes were governmental corruption seen by the lack responsibility taken by the lilliputian officials and how cowardly they were in face of danger and oppressing the people (us, the audience), and reliance on power of others (Gulliver). the next was the corruption of the mind that money has on us, and how opportunistic wally- i mean, people are when faced with money, and was expressed by the Brobdingnag giants. the final part was humanity and what separates us from the "beasts" with the Houyhnhnms (yes i looked it up) the rationalistic equine society to the animalistic yahoo hominids, and how to the houyhnhnms Gulliver was just a intelligent yahoo and therefore is a taint to their superior society, to the point of the terrible term ethnic cleansing. the genre of pantomime is a personal favorite, it gives a sense of connection through breaking the infamous fourth wall and talking to the audience, albeit still regarding the audience as characters rather than theatre goers. this gives it more comedic value in my opinion, but what also made it funny was the style of almost poor mans theatre especially with the fish scene where only a sign saying fish and actions distinguished the animal. The last and most realistic of all the production i watched was Black Watch. the story was of the Black Watch regiment and their period of work in Iraq  the story was told between two periods of time giving it that non linear feel to it. the one was the war time and the other an interview by a researcher in the pub. the play was done in a realistic way in order to make the audience feel as close as they can to the problems and emotions felt by the soldiers of Black Watch. they told a lot about its history and nature of the regiment. this piece was the most emotional piece for me of many that i have seen in the past.
      The play i read was Eurydice, but unlike the original this is her side of the story. the two stories are the same in many ways, but disregards the romantic part and the ancient greek parts to make a mock romance set in a modern theme. The original story is of how the musician orpheus plays music to save Eurydice from the underworld but fails when he turns around to look at her fearing a trick from Hades. This variation plays more with grief and loss and getting back by adding the character of Eurydice's Father. the play is surrealistic and should not be done minimalisticly, but through use of lighting i would do such. i would have two washes and five ellipsoidal lights in order to utilise lighting. a simple black and white set with a small staircase in the middle separating it and a table to the white side and a black box mesh on the black side to put up string used in the play. this play plays with the two relationships that Eurydice makes her father after she dies and her husband. this play asks us to review and make sure why we choose what we choose.
      Last Days of Judas Iscariot.

Silence Without Purpose

    Yesterday on the ninth I was sitting on the black bench in the drama lab wondering about post-modernist art, when a poster on the back wall. This was not one of our class and asked "what is art?" or something similar and noticed in the thought bubble it said "no art", either that or I misread it. Because I was thinking of Po-mo at the time I was reminded of a piece of postmodernist artwork in a picture of a museum. One particular one was an empty frame; no art in it and no art out, the frame itself was a vacant black, stoic boring frame. So I questioned, is that art, if nothing is visualised and no art is used. Well to answer that for myself I made my own little phrase of what no art is, "silence without purpose"- my words.

    To explain, silence without purpose is the lowest form of no art, where there is nothing to gain from nothing. It is a blank piece of paper that has no purpose no reason and through it people have nothing to gain from it. It is a train with people silent no one talking or noticing each other and the train dead still. It is a barren planet with no life and no water, no atmosphere, no reason for existing. Not to say it shouldn't exist but it does not stir emotion, the basis of my idea, emotion. That is what I see no art as, an empty husk that does not stir emotion at all and helps not one person.

      Silence without purpose is not the only form of no art; the other is noise without purpose. The noise does not only refer to sound but noise of the eyes, nose, touch and taste, but mostly eyes, ears and mind. But if there is a picture, and there is sound, is that not art?, not really no. this is the part of art I would call, sell-out art. This is music, theatre, literature, and visual artwork that the painter slew together to make money. Art that does not stir emotion does not serve purpose and is commonly directly influenced by common media. I see as most modern music as ones that just sound pretty but the lyrics are as shallow as the money it earns the artist, not saying this for all modern artists, but quite a few. Movies are also mostly sell-out art, the cowboy and alien movie, the expendables, many Michael bay movies with their explosions, all to impress and entice the audience to watch artless art. I’m not saying they are not art at all, many are just for fun anyway, but it is not art we should care about.

     There is a last part to this rant and that is "silence and noise with purpose" both which really sums up what think of art, anything with purpose. we can listen to music and hear lyrics that make us consider facts, greet someone or even look and smile at someone on that silent train, draw a picture on that paper that make you think or even draw what you are thinking about, like I am doing with this post. But it doesn't have to be a stimulus; it can be silence too, the silence after a heated discussion that leaves both sides silent, calming down and cooling down from anger, purpose being to not over do the argument. The silence at a funeral to give everyone a chance to silently consider how much this person meant to them and maybe even pray for their soul. The silence after a storm that leaves people happy it's gone and worried about the future. To return back to that frame I saw that was boring black and at the time symbolised things that I did not like about post-modernist art, I now see that, that frame is art it is silence with a purpose.

Mcgregors speech and choice of words were not dissimilar to that of Mark Hill, even if they don't say the exact same thing, for example Mark Hill talked of kinesthetic response, the motive response to an outside stimulus and Mcgregor had kinesthetic intelligence, the trust and awareness of your body when given the stimulus, so Mcgregor has an element of self awareness with the body's response. these two also seem to enjoy quick thinking and exquisite pressure especially an improvisational use of stimulus- no rehearsal, just do.using the body as an object or making shape with the body has similar versions to each other, Mark Hill wants the body to express emotion or an entity to progress a story while mcgregor uses the body to be the story and show a shape, not be the shape, what these two have in common is the communication through the body.

A word McGregor used was Mental architecture, literally the action of making a the stage have elements with our minds, like the game "the floor is lava" kids sometimes played when they were younger, the floor clearly isn't lava but people who watch the kids avoid the floor can sense that for the kids it is dangerous to touch the floor. this ties into Mark Hills stage architecture and using the physical stage to tell the story. This is also seen in lava game as the children use the furniture or other pieces of "set" to avoid it. these two ideas can work well in a way the we can use a piece or actual set to emphasize to the audience a piece of imaginary architecture that cannot actually be on stage or even exist, something i believe could be be better exploited in ice skating theatre. one instance i can ting for our lyso center stage, is using the rotating stage to symbolise a sortm or tornado or whirl pool.

Mark Hill

I'll start off just by saying that the mark hill experience was by far the best thing for such a large class. The excersizes and the dynamic of the teaching done screamed with teamwork and bonding. with a large class or even cast it is important to support and work together, which is something emphasized in the workshop. furthermore i feel so alive and fulfilled, it was a highly emotional experience for me and I appreciated it very much. as a second time being in the workshop i feel more satisfied with this one due to the amount of time we had to actually work with mark hill.
As a lesson i hope to never forget the skills taught in class about energy, focus shape and architecture to say some. i truly feel that many of these traits will serve well for the autumn play and for the IB play. during the workshop even i could see how we were already applying some of Mark hills rules for physical theatre already, such as the use of Robb hall's backstage and making the stage longer and more subway like.
as a final part i will write the observations i made about all the individuals in the final proformance

sabrina: wonder and pensiveness - a deathly realisation
wally: blank and denial- acceptance of pain
reca: determination and anger - defeat and exhaustion
austin: fear and horror - tired and sore
christian: lust and wanting - rejection and loss
kevin: confusion and bewilderment - queasy disgust
sarah: pain and sorrow - death

i felt these words as i looked at each persons movement and facial expression

I know that this blog is late but now I have seen the Pina Baush movie and as such have a little more to talk about in regards to theatre.

In Mark Hill's session we mainly focused on growing as a group and developing our "VIOLENCE OF ARTICULATION" but the articulation, I felt, wasn't so much articulated. I believe this is due to the fact that something more important was happening, we were growing closer as a class. This is more important due to the fact we need to as a class work well together, and to achieve that we must learn more about each other, which is exactly what we did in the Friday session.

Now for Pina, I can't say much in fear of ruining some parts of the movie, but what I can say is that i have rarely seen dance, or even theatre so expressive without the use of words.

Theatre has purpose, be it entertainment, exploring different opinions like in feminist, or trying to see new avenues of story telling. Because of these different ideals of what theatre and the cultures in different nations, theatre has branched out to these different art-forms, even time periods make for differences. no one theatre is better than the other as they all have a purpose but some performances can fail if they do not live up to some of the expectations of their theatre type.

Here are some theatrical types I have noticed to have a central theme.
Butoh- the horrors of the bombs and the twisted nature.
Feminist- why are there stereotypes of gender roles and why should we continue to abide by them.
Performance art- the visual body as an art rather than a story as art.
Musicals- art of combining dance, song, and character acting.
Opera and Operetta- the narration of stories through singing or a mix of singing and acting
Regional theatre- plays and performances of any type, expressing the problems of the country they are in
Postmodernism- the recreation or re-written of previous stories as theatre

In light of today's storm

The Tempest, an excerpt of

Gonzalo:

Good, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

Boatswain:

None that I more love than myself. You are a

counselor; if you can command these elements to

silence, and work the peace of the present, we will

not hand a rope more; use your authority: if you

cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make

yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of

the hour, if it so hap. Cheerly, good hearts! Out

of our way, I say.

Today everyone must get into their cabins and wait out the storm. This may not be the full purpose of the blog but the storm just reminded me of the tempest and the first act.